21 min
Whisper and the World Whispers Back Novel Marketing
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- Books
On Christmas Eve, I caught the flu.
I spent Christmas Day wrapped in a blanket, wracked with chills, and coughing intensely. Clutching a negative COVID test didn’t make me feel any better. Influenza didn’t care. It wants its championship belt back.
I’m slowly getting better.
I spent a week whispering like the Godfather before progressing to growling like Darth Vader.
As a podcaster, I talk a lot. So this time of silence has revealed some interesting insights about communication and book marketing.
#1 A Great Book Is Not Enough
When I can only whisper, my children can’t hear me tell them to be careful, even if they really need to hear my warning. It doesn’t matter how much they need to hear me. The only thing that matters is my ability to make myself heard.
The publishing world is like a house full of chattering toddlers. When readers don’t hear about your book, they don’t know about it and can’t read it, even if it’s really good.
But if the book is good enough, it will market itself, right?
You tell me.
Yesterday, roughly 1,000 new books were released. Which one was the best? A book listed on Amazon is like a phone number listed in the phone book. The phone will ring only if people search the phone book for that number.
And if you think that was an old-fashioned metaphor, just wait.
The word “platform” comes from a tool used in the 18th century by Great Awakening preachers to speak to audiences of tens of thousands without electronic amplification.
Platforms were elevated stages with slanted walls behind them. Acoustically, they directed the speaker’s voice toward the audience.
Here is an illustration from 1819 of what a wood platform looked like:
In these days of microphones and blogs, authors don’t build their platforms out of wood, but if they want to reach readers, they need to build their platforms out of something.
A wooden platform didn’t make the person speak louder. It simply directed his voice toward the audience in front of him. Behind the platform, it was harder to hear the speaker because of the platform. More sound waves moving forward meant fewer sound waves behind the platform.
Pick a Target Reader
New authors often make the mistake of targeting an audience that is too broad. It’s as if they want to remove the wooden platform so people behind the platform can hear better.
But the people behind the platform don’t want to listen. By removing the platform and trying to reach folks behind it, the crowd in front can’t hear as well. The folks who came specifically to hear your message can only hear it if you focus on them.
You know your book isn’t for everyone, but you may not realize how focused your audience needs to be.
If you were about to speak from an old-school wooden platform, I would coach you to pick one person in the back of the crowd and speak just to him. If the tall guy in the back can hear you, everyone else can too.
In the same way, I advise writers to write to a single specific human rathe...
On Christmas Eve, I caught the flu.
I spent Christmas Day wrapped in a blanket, wracked with chills, and coughing intensely. Clutching a negative COVID test didn’t make me feel any better. Influenza didn’t care. It wants its championship belt back.
I’m slowly getting better.
I spent a week whispering like the Godfather before progressing to growling like Darth Vader.
As a podcaster, I talk a lot. So this time of silence has revealed some interesting insights about communication and book marketing.
#1 A Great Book Is Not Enough
When I can only whisper, my children can’t hear me tell them to be careful, even if they really need to hear my warning. It doesn’t matter how much they need to hear me. The only thing that matters is my ability to make myself heard.
The publishing world is like a house full of chattering toddlers. When readers don’t hear about your book, they don’t know about it and can’t read it, even if it’s really good.
But if the book is good enough, it will market itself, right?
You tell me.
Yesterday, roughly 1,000 new books were released. Which one was the best? A book listed on Amazon is like a phone number listed in the phone book. The phone will ring only if people search the phone book for that number.
And if you think that was an old-fashioned metaphor, just wait.
The word “platform” comes from a tool used in the 18th century by Great Awakening preachers to speak to audiences of tens of thousands without electronic amplification.
Platforms were elevated stages with slanted walls behind them. Acoustically, they directed the speaker’s voice toward the audience.
Here is an illustration from 1819 of what a wood platform looked like:
In these days of microphones and blogs, authors don’t build their platforms out of wood, but if they want to reach readers, they need to build their platforms out of something.
A wooden platform didn’t make the person speak louder. It simply directed his voice toward the audience in front of him. Behind the platform, it was harder to hear the speaker because of the platform. More sound waves moving forward meant fewer sound waves behind the platform.
Pick a Target Reader
New authors often make the mistake of targeting an audience that is too broad. It’s as if they want to remove the wooden platform so people behind the platform can hear better.
But the people behind the platform don’t want to listen. By removing the platform and trying to reach folks behind it, the crowd in front can’t hear as well. The folks who came specifically to hear your message can only hear it if you focus on them.
You know your book isn’t for everyone, but you may not realize how focused your audience needs to be.
If you were about to speak from an old-school wooden platform, I would coach you to pick one person in the back of the crowd and speak just to him. If the tall guy in the back can hear you, everyone else can too.
In the same way, I advise writers to write to a single specific human rathe...
21 min