Magic vs. marketing

Touch the heart and the head will follow.

Hi again,

Tomorrow is the anniversary of my Dad’s death and it usually finds me wandering memory lane a little. He used to ask if I like what I do for a living. That’s important, he’d say, and I’d smile and say I do, Dad. Good, he’s say. Good.

I really enjoy the emails I get from new readers even though sometimes they gang up on me and I get outnumbered for a while. I do (and will) catch up eventually but I’ve noticed that a lot of emails recently talk about struggling finding an audience.

I kind of blame marketing as we know it.

Writers, I think, are about as close to magical beings as humans get. Amazing creatures that look and sound like the rest of us, but unlike average human beings, writers pluck words from thin air and weave them into stories that make us laugh and cry and come back for more.

And then, what do you do when you’re done with it, when you’re holding that finished book in your hands? Why, you put on your marketing hat to find your fans, of course. Because that’s what the book marketers tell you.

The problem, of course, is that you know what we think of marketers, right?

We don’t like them, and we trust them, at least if decades of Gallup speak the truth. On the scale of trust by profession, marketers are at the bottom of the list, scuttling around with politicians and used car salesmen.

So, what do you do, then, if not traditional marketing?
What do you do if you hate marketing?

I think of Lisa Genova writing, writing, about what it’s like to live with a loved one that has Alzheimer’s, just like the character in the book she wrote that became the movie and won the Oscar. Connecting over a shared experience.

I think of Patrick Rothfuss writing, writing about dragons and lore and board games and Dragon-Con, topics dear to the hearts of the fans that bought enough books to put him on the New York Times Bestseller list. Connecting over a shared interest.

You’ll notice that they didn’t use the internet like a diary, to spill their guts, but used it for connection instead. To find people who shared an interest or experience.

Strangely, they succeeded without the hawking, pitching and nonsense marketers tell writers to do. Selling a how-to program to people who need sales or income is not the same as selling books or coffee or tangible, non-essential items.

If you want the reader to be there for the first book and the third and the seventh, I don’t think you can do that with doors that close, but with real, human connection.

After I gave Dad’s eulogy, people came to clasp my hand and give their condolences. They told me how he touched their lives. They fished together, played cards together or farmed together. So many stories and every one of them a shared interest.

Real human connection is about all that stands the test of time.
Touch the heart and the head will follow.

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“One of the most important things you can do on this earth is to let people know they are not alone.” ― Shannon L. Alder

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In case you missed these…

• How to Write A Book. Actual Help, Not Tired Old Nonsense.

• 8 Simple Ways to Improve Your Writing

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  Thanks for reading!

  :)
  Linda