Be accessible…
That’s my rule #3 for writers (see last Thursday’s blog post “Rogue waves in calm seas…”), and a rule readers should hold writers to. Because traditional publishing’s top authors rarely follow that rule, indie writers and midlist authors might think it’s beneath them. At their peril! The stereotypical writing recluse like Jack Nicholson’s character in As Good as It Gets is who you do NOT want to be as a writer (actually his character had a few other undesirable traits as well—see the film). The movie was a romantic comedy with serious themes (part of the comedy was that Nicholson portrayed a scurrilous writer of romance novels). Molly’s becoming a writer of erotica in CBS’ Mike and Molly has similar comic overtones. (McCarthy’s portrayal is funnier than Nicholson’s, but only because the movie didn’t focus on the vagaries of traditional publishing.)
So, how do you become accessible? Here’s a few ideas that might work:
Answer emails; ignore tweets. The difference is easy: tweets are often superficial (how deep can you go with 140 characters?) and your responses will be too (how deep can you go with 140 characters?). You’re a writer, after all, and while a reader might not expect you to say something earthshakingly profound, s/he’ll expect you to show your writing ability a bit. Always think about your answer, though.
Let’s suppose you have some hate email laced with profanity. It happens. People often have strong opinions, and they often think they can get away with crap on the internet because you’re not there to punch them in the face. In real life, you should just say, “I’m sorry you feel that way” (unless you live in Florida, claim you felt threatened, and shoot the SOB—okay, the person could be a DOB, to make it unisex). Your response to that odious email should amount to the same thing: “I’m sorry you feel that way.”
The other extreme can be equally annoying. If someone says, “I love the way you handled that scene” and little more, send back a “thanks for the compliment” at least. If they add, “Can you meet me at Motel Quickie on First Street?” any additional response might compromise you—your choice. (I had a proposal from a Russian woman via my contact page once. And no, my ebooks haven’t been translated to Russian—she was probably one of those hackers Putin employs to steal personal data from U.S. citizens, but she was bored.)
In general, though, if a reader queries you about something, you should respond. Building trust and friendship can create a snowball effect, I’m told. I’ve never had it happen, but I still try to build trust and friendship. In fact, some of my best friends are online friends I’ve never met in person. That’s the way of the modern world, and it’s an advantage for authors, especially if you’re introverted and shy (as I matured, I grew out of some of that, but writing is a solitary activity just like science, so you can understand my choices).
Create a website with a contact page. The contact page serves to satisfy the last point (it puts an email out there for people, but I recommend an alias or separate email account), but the website in general should let readers know who you are. You don’t need a formal list of FAQs, but your website is your online persona (many famous and traditionally published authors are less than open about that). You should also have an “About” or “Bio” webpage with a bio. You don’t need to get really personal, but readers will have questions about you, so you might as well answer some of the generic ones up front. For example, it should be clear that I prefer Irish whiskey over Scotch, although I don’t knock the latter (I’ll happily accept a $500 bottle of single-malt Scotch as a gift any day).
Your website should feature your books, of course. Many marketing gurus advise that you should have a different website for each book. That’s crazy! You’ll want to feature your whole catalog and inform the reader about which ones are in a series (although all my ebooks can be read as a stand-alone, readers often want to read books in a series in order).
But the website should reach out to readers, not just say, “Here are my books…buy them.” (On the next update of my website I’m thinking about eliminating those “Buy Now” buttons—clicking on the cover icon is more polite.) My “Home” page says “Welcome! Bienvenidos! Readers wanted…” and I mean it. Authors might visit the website and are welcome too (I have a newsletter, for example, and posts about the writing business like this one), but my website is focused on readers. Yours should be too.
Newsletters. This “News and Notices from the Writing Trenches” is a regular feature on my blog most Fridays. It’s not something I email out. I don’t maintain email lists. If I get a good email thread going with a reader or writer, an interesting discussion, say, I’ll keep your email handy for a time, but I won’t keep it forever or add it to an email list. Such newsletters and email lists are passé. People are already spammed too much. If a reader is following me, s/he should visit my website and at least glance at the blog post titles. I might actively participate in a few online discussion groups (see below), but I’m too often a lurker.
Q&A. Emails often contain them, so that’s easily covered: receive a Q, return an A (and see above). But there are ways to formalize this. Goodreads initiated a site-wide Q&A for authors, for example, and several groups have them too. I’ve discussed Q&A’s with a few readers and writers. Here’s the problem: Readers are more likely to have Q’s in mind AFTER READING your book. For example, early on, one reader asked, “Why did you kill off so-and-so?” He couldn’t have come up with that Q without reading the book. (My response was a bit oblique in the form of a short story.) But another reader, seeing the Q to that A, might decide s/he wants to read the book. You now have entered the Twilight Zone and are participating in the infamous vicious circle, or catch-22 (part of modern lingo but probably originating in the Joseph Heller novel…or the movie based on it). Once a Q&A gets started, it usually can continue almost by intertia; the problem is the start. (This is Newton’s First Law applied to Q&A discussions.)
A more formal way to do a Q&A is to participate in an online interview. That often works for interviewer and interviewee (as far as improving name recognition goes), but it might not be satisfying to readers. It’s also a wee bit much to expect that a reader will look at all your interviews to see if you’ve answered her/his Q. It’s also disrespectful to answer her/his email with “If you read my interview with X, you’ll see the answer to your question.” You should always at least provide some A and then say something about your interview with X as a complement if you feel the need (I realize interviewers often ask similar questions—I have a standard list).
Online discussion groups. They’re fun. If you’re a Facebook groupie, there are many to choose from. Because FB in its infinite wisdom made it impossible to share posts like this one, I only post comments to my FB author page now. (Hopefully my old FB friends follow me here on this website or other social media sites.) Google+ and Goodreads is in; FB is out. I’m starting to get the hang of Goodreads (it has a terrible user interface that no author should copy for her/his website) and have many friends and acquaintances there. Goodreads is where the readers are…and writers who are readers (you should be if you aren’t). Goodreads participants don’t seem to stand so much on a soapbox as tweeters and facebookers either. Moreover, there are many groups on Goodreads, at least one for every genre, and many local book clubs and reading groups.
That’s about it. You might ask, “What about book signings and book fairs?” I’d say, “OK, do them.” You’ll have the chance of meeting readers at both and other authors for the second. But they can cost money and aren’t very friendly to authors like me who are (1) indie and (2) only have ebooks. To counter the latter, I guess you can go to a book fair and hand out pamphlets, bookmarkers, biz cards, and post cards—expect to see them in the trash can on the way out. You can participate in a book signing if you have a few hard bounds or trade paperbacks to sell and sign. I’d rather participate in a panel discussion at a coffee bar or book fair, though (especially if the coffee bar has other goodies!). Those might be free, discounting the time you spend, of course. Like contests, book signings and book fairs can cost you money that’s probably better spent on online marketing.
So, go forth and be accessible. With the internet, it’s easy. And you’ll have a tremendous advantage over those traditionally published top dogs who hide from the public eye. I don’t know if any of it will provide more readers for your books, but you can have a lot of fun doing it.
In elibris libertas….
