This time I can’t give you a how-to. I’m going to instead talk about how important this is, and — sorry, introverts! — how I have seen it work in the past. Word of mouth is the gold standard for marketing because of what it is. It’s trust, and you can’t buy that with all the marketing money in the world. Right now, there’s a ‘leaked’ ad making the rounds of the internet from a planned Superbowl ad for Budweiser. It’s a great ad, it has all the storytelling elements: the tearjerker heartstrings plucked, the maturation of plucky younglings we can cheer on, an amazing visual of a pegasus, and finally a soaring patriotic moment. The reactions I’ve seen have mostly been ‘nice try, but we know what you are,’ referring to a terrible ad a couple of years ago which shattered the trust of Bud’s usual clientele. They will likely never regain that trust in their brand. Doesn’t matter how much they spend on the ads, how far they spread them (likely knowing their base clientele is not going to watch the Super Bowl this year, either) they had broken trust.

When it comes to word of mouth, the readers (because we are writers) largely don’t know us, and don’t have a reason to trust us. However, they have readers they know and like, people who may be their friends, people who have said ‘hey, you might like this book…’ in the past and they did enjoy it. Shared tastes build a bond. So, when that person says ‘you should read this new book by a writer I enjoy’ the new reader is far more likely to trust the recommendation than they are to trust your ads, and that’s the power of word of mouth. This is also where it can go wrong. Word of mouth has to be spontaneous and authentic. You, the author, can ask your fans to share your promo materials, and tell people about your books, and should ask for this (sorry, introverts!) when you are interacting with readers. Some of them will. However, if you are publishing, say, a cozy fantasy, and your fan who mostly read military science fiction push your book, that’s going to come across to their friends and fellow readers as off-putting.

When you ask your readers to tell their friends about your books, don’t make it a blanket statement. Something like ‘if you think you know someone who will like this, tell them about it!’ is better than just ‘share everywhere!’ although that can work, too. I have quite a few reviews from readers who comment they never thought they could read X genre and enjoy it, but they found themselves liking this book out of their comfort zone. You can’t count on those, though! What I’m saying is that you can’t force word of mouth.

The other thing about word of mouth in that trust chain is that your readers, your first points of connection, have to trust you. With a brand-new release, you have the sales that go to readers who would buy your grocery list if you published it. I’m always humbled and amazed by these people, myself. However, if you put out a bad book, then you break that trust, and suddenly you’ll see your sales tanking – not on the initial spike, but after, when the second ground-swell of word of mouth sales would normally come. Because your core fanbase isn’t talking about the book. How to fix this? Make sure you’re putting out a product worth talking about (and not in a bad way, not all publicity is good publicity). You need to have a solid cover that promises a great story inside it – if you ever see a reader talking about your work and starting off with ‘ignore the cover, the book is actually good…’ then you have failed and need a new cover ASAP. You need a blurb that hooks the interest of that new reader who isn’t sure how much they trust their buddy who said ‘you should read this!’ and that blurb should not give away the whole plot, nor wander into four lengthy paragraphs. And your book should be a good solid read. It doesn’t need to be brilliant, but it does need to be well-paced, interesting, and have appealing characters the reader will enjoy getting to know. These are the things that will also set you aside from the AI churn, by the way. Your unique voice, and a well-constructed story.

To follow on from last week, this is what the A+ content looks like on Amazon once it’s approved. Very much like it did in the preview while I was working on it, which is great to know. I’ve seen a small sales bump from the promo graphics I’ve been sharing on social media, so that’s good.

I’d taken a break from big marketing projects to work on polishing and publishing a novella, because the best way to keep your readers happy is the next book. Tomato Wyrm started as a serial on my blog, then I pulled it down, added more complexity in the point-of-view characters, and published it as my January book. Will I get 12 publications this year? Only time will tell. I made it to nine out of twelve last year.