So get out and meet them. Especially authors in your own genre. Other writers aren't your rivals; they're your colleagues.
I see a lot of pre-published writers talking trash about the stars of their genre, giving them rotten reviews or making disparaging remarks on forums. Oddly, this seems especially true of literary writers, as
Stephen Almond wrote recently in Poets and Writers , but I see it in all genres. This is old-school thinking that can backfire, big time.
When you trash superstars, you're also trashing all their fans. That's a whole lot of your potential readers you've just alienated.
Some authors even try to knock another writer off the spot ahead of them on the bestseller list, as if selling books were a contest or a "reality" TV show.
There was a huge scandal a few years ago when a bestselling trad-pubbed author was caught
leaving sock-puppet one-star reviews on "rival" authors' books. He seemed to think that by bringing down other authors' books, he would get more readers of his own.
That either/or thinking is ridiculous. If somebody liked one military thriller, they're likely to buy another. They're not going to read one and say, "Okay, I'm done with thrillers. Now I'll go buy me some chick lit."
In response to a recent nasty bit of bullying of an established author by a vicious plagiarist using sock puppets,
David Farland wrote a list of "Standards of Excellence for Writers" that's worth a read.
In the era of social media, other writers can contribute a lot to your own marketing, so play nice.
One caveat: There are ways authors should NOT team up for marketing purposes. Beware "author rings" that trade reviews! It's against Amazon's TOS and can get you kicked off the site for life. It is also unethical. As David Farland says, "many people are getting positive reviews by giving positive reviews. I’ve seen them swapping openly on Facebook. This is just as illegal as buying reviews any other way, and it’s just as bad."
But there are lots of ethical ways to team up for book promotion. Here are some:
1) Guest Blogging
I first met Ruth Harris when she made a comment on this blog and I recognized her as a favorite author. I immediately asked her to guest. When I saw she didn't have her own blog yet, I asked her to make her contribution permanent.
I know this blog wouldn't have the success it's enjoying now if I'd tried to do this all on my own. Partnering with a seasoned, bestselling author who also worked behind the scenes at several Big Five houses has made this blog what it is.
When I needed guest posters this summer, I looked for other bloggers who appeal to our readers. Those bloggers almost all have "how to write" and "how to blog" books: books that could be seen as competition for my book
HOW TO BE A WRITER IN THE E-AGE.
So do I treat them as rivals? Nope. I invited the authors of
HOW TO WRITE A NOVEL, BLOG IT, and
PLANNING YOUR NOVEL, to guest for us.
That meant that fans of Janice Hardy, Nathan Bransford, and Molly Greene came over here and discovered this blog. And Janice, Nathan and Molly got introduced to this blog's audience.
We all grew our subscriber lists and increased our book sales.
2) Spotlights and Interviews
I will always be grateful to the many, many author-bloggers who have interviewed me and spotlighted my books. Not all of them are published yet, but they all have valuable blogs that are read by people I want to tell about my books.
And when they are published, you can be sure I'll remember them and do what I can to help their careers.
One interview came up in a Google search a year later and got my book
NO PLACE LIKE HOME noticed by the features editor of
More magazine, which led to an interview that has done a huge amount to raise my profile with my target readers who may NOT be on social media.
3) Tweeting and sharing book news and blogposts.
If I love another author's books and see they're on sale, I will spread the word on social media. I also always tweet a link to a good blogpost.
And smart authors do the same, no matter how high up they are on the food chain.
Superstar Anne Rice shared a link to this blog on her FB page last week. I haven't read one of her books since
Interview with the Vampire. But now, I just may pick up her new LeStat book…
So many of you are wonderful about tweeting and sharing this blog. I know who you are. I stop by your blogs when I have time, and tweet and share them too. And when you get book deals or publish a book, I'll spread the word.
4) Forming a multi-author joint blog, collective or even your own publishing house.
Some of the highest profile writing blogs, like
Writer Unboxed, began as joint-author blogs of just two or three aspiring authors. As their careers grow, so do their blogs. Sometimes authors in the same genre who blog together will also join up for an anthology or boxed set, like the
Embracing Romance group, who plan a Valentine's historical anthology.
We ran a piece about the
international publishing collective Triskele last year. Banding together for cover design, formatting and marketing has worked very well for this group of hardworking, successful authors.
Two veteran trad-pubbed authors who have gone indie made news last week by forming their own crime fiction
publishing house, Brash Books
5) Joint Promotions
This is a biggie.
In his bestselling book on marketing,
LET'S GET VISIBLE, David Gaughran says the best forms of ebook promotion are:
1. A sale promoted through a bargain newsletter like BookBub, ENT, KNT, EBUK, Fussy Librarian etc.
2. A guest post on a major blog
3. A joint promotion.
#1 can be a gamble—sometimes an expensive one—but #2 and #3 simply involve getting together with your friends you've met on social media. You can put together a joint promotion with dozens of other authors, or just two or three.
It can be an anthology, a multi-author sale, or a boxed set.
Boxed Sets
The joint promo that's having the most spectacular success right now is the limited edition multi-author boxed set.
A nice benefit of ebooks is they can be easily bundled so a set of multiple novels that is as easy to deliver to your ereader as one book. That means boxed sets of complete novels can be sold a give-away prices (they're usually only offered for a limited time.)
Some of the biggest names in indie publishing have collaborated in boxed sets that have made the
NYT and
USA Today bestseller lists, like
the Deadly Dozen that featured some of the biggest names in indie publishing and made the
NYT bestseller list. Now every one of those authors can put "
NYT Bestseller' on their Web pages and they've all gained thousands of new readers.
For more on
boxed sets, there's a great post by Jason Kong at The Book Designer blog, and another by
James Moushon at the E-Book Author's Corner.
And I'm very honored to announce that I was invited to join five bestselling comic mystery authors in the SIX PACK OF SLEUTHS boxed set that debuted this month. I'm in awe of all these fantastic authors. Dani Amore/Dan Ames, who's a veteran of this kind of promo, is a big fan of the boxed set. He says they're great because "an author can receive a lot of exposure for little invested money."
More on our boxed set below.
So play nice with your fellow authors. Don't spam or trash-talk. Make friends. It's amazing how being helpful and friendly can have a great influence on your bottom line.
