How I Bought a Book

And why it's important when thinking about marketing

Hey friends,

I just bought a book! Fun, right? I’ve been buying a lot of books lately, actually a lot of things online, because shopping makes me feel better and idgaf if that’s good or bad. I am trying to make good choices about where I shop, c.f. bookshop.org, and not buying a shit ton of fast fashion, etc etc etc. I bought cutting boards yesterday. They make me very happy. ANYWAY. I just bought a new book that was totally unknown to me, that came out in June, because someone I trust wrote about it and it sounded good. I have the disposable income to do so, and theoretically the time to read it, so I know I’m already working with a certain level of privilege here. I want to show, however, how word of mouth marketing works and why talking about other books is good for your book.

I bought The Margo Affair by Sanaë Lemoine, published by Hogarth Press (part of Penguin Random House), which came out June 16th of this year. You know what I was doing on June 16th? Well, actually that day I was doing five hours of Zoom pitch meetings because the conference I was supposed to attend in Denver was cancelled because of the pandemic, obvs. All while trying to strategically mute myself when my toddler was screaming in the other room. I had NO bandwidth to hear about a “beguiling debut novel of intrigue and betrayal,” according to the New York Times. Today, though, I read about it in Sara Zarr’s excellent, heartfelt, honest, vulnerable, informative, and occasional, newsletter. I don’t subscribe to that many hey I’m an author, do you want me to email you randomly about my books and stuff? newsletters because I already get a lot of newsletters and sometimes following an author I love on Twitter etc is enough to get the heads up that their book is available for pre-order. But I looooooove Sara Zarr’s books and I like her newsletter a lot so it gets access to my inbox.

She described the book like this:

“Another young narrator in an adult novel, another complicated story about pivotal relationships for teen girls. With this one, the Paris setting and utter lack of anything having to do with America was a welcome break from reality as I know it, while staying in realism. Also, the style was interesting as it broke a lot of what I call "workshop rules." A lot of telling, a lot of "this happened and then this and then this." Very linear (other than some characters telling stories within the story), very straightforward, no gimmicks. I liked it.”

And she had me at pivotal relationship for teen girls, very straightforward, no gimmicks. I was curious about how it broke a lot of “workshop rules.” That it’s set in Paris is another bonus. But when I went to the book’s sale page, the description there was very different. Much more about intrigue and scandal and secrets. Still interesting! So I bought it. I might not read it for a loooooong while, but what the heck. Buying books is how I take care of myself and my industry.

What YOU, the writer trying to market your own book, can learn from this is the following:

• Your on-sale week is not the ONLY time people are going to buy your book. There’s a lot of focus around on-sale, but mostly because that’s a point of newsworthiness. Your book is NEW! That’s something to talk about. And there will be other points readers find out about it, after it’s NEW. Heck, this book was in the New York Times and I don’t remember hearing anything about it when it came out.

• Find different ways to talk about your book, and put them out in the world, however you can. You can tweet about your book, or ask your publisher to make little instagram picture thingies, or get in conversation with other writers, or write about it yourself on your platform however you do that normally. Sara talked about this book one way and the author’s marketing team talked about it another way and they are both correct and good and true. Put those threads out in the world and see who picks them up. You can’t plan for someone like Sara Zarr to talk about your book in a specific way, but that doesn’t mean you can’t plant some seeds yourself for whoever to find.

• Talk about other books on your platforms. Be a point of access for other readers to find other books, so that karma will come back to you. How many of you clicked the link above about Sara Zarr’s books (which I find to be true and lovely, and about hard relationships and self-truth and honesty)? Maybe one of you will buy one. Maybe one of you will buy one the next time you’re shopping for books and you remember oh yeah I meant to get Sara Zarr’s latest book Goodbye From Nowhere, and you add it to your cart in a week or a month or three months. Or you remember hey, that’s that author that Kate really likes when it comes out in paperback and you buy it then. Or get it from the library. That’s the trouble with tracking booksales is that there’s no way to draw a line from you reading this newsletter and you picking up a book off a table in six months. That’s ok, becasuse tbh we’re all tracked enough already, online and off. But that just shows you how important word of mouth marketing is. I goes on, even when the tweets disappear from the timeline.

• Marketing is a little bit all the time. I know marketing is exhausting. I know you want a point where you can stop (and if you’re not there yet, you will, I’m sure). And there is a point where the major marketing push stops. But not completely. Retweet praise and re-gram pretty pictures of your book on insta. You never know who is going to see it for the first time that day, or when it will jog someones memory to buy your book. But even if you aren’t flogging your own book, do so for others. Be an active member of the literary community, within your genre and outside it. Read books, talk about them, share them. You don’t have to read The Thing Everyone Is Reading. Read whatever the fuck you want. If you liked it, tell someone! If you hated it, for the love of god do not tag the author on twitter or instagram. You can still tell people you didn’t like a book if you want! It’s not against the rules (just be kind to an author’s mentions). But feed into the larger body of word of mouth marketing, and it will come back to you. I promise.

---

Speaking of marketing! Did you see @dog_feelings has a new calendar out???? Spread hope into the universe that 2021 will actually get here and buy a calendar guaranteed to make you smile every. single. day. You can buy it here or wherever books are sold!

Take care, friends. In any way you can take care of yourself.

OXOOX,

Kate