The Power of Direct Connection: How Authors Can Build Their Own Audience Without a Publisher's Help
Like many of us “old guys,” we have lived through multiple changes in how books are published, delivered, and, most importantly of all, how we connect with potential buyers of our products.
It used to be that publishers and their publicity departments were the gatekeepers of publicity.
I remember one instance where I, a guy who had his own marketing and publicity company with clients of the caliber of Stephen King and Thomas Nelson, was told by my publisher’s in-house publicity assistant regarding my own books that I couldn’t do a certain sort of publicity because the in-house publicity department handled all the publicity, and I should leave the marketing to them. Stephen King trusted me; why wouldn’t my own publisher? That was the kind of control publicity and marketing departments used to have either for the benefit or harm of their writers.
The problem, as most of you already know, is that they weren’t doing much marketing for me. As you already suspected, even then, they had more interest in marketing their huge A-listers.
Fast-forward to today, and not much has changed EXCEPT that authors can now connect directly with readers, bookstores, and media connections and then connect right back to you.
So rather than lament your lack of publicity budget today, look on the even brighter side. You can bypass the publisher and the marketing department and hit a larger audience yourself now, which you couldn’t do then.
How do you reach a larger audience?
First of all, the author is more concerned with the author’s career than the publisher is (in my opinion – publishers have tons of authors and too few marketing staff left), the author can now build his own base without having to answer to anyone. It’s a new age. It’s leveled the playing field. It’s fantastic. (Note: you still need your marketing team, however. They can, without question, get into areas that you cannot, absolutely cannot. If you have a marketing team, don’t dump them. Just supplement the areas where they are not reaching. Work together for the common goal: you. And if you happen to have a publisher who does everything for you, let them and stay with them forever. Not all of us are that lucky.)
Now that we’ve essentially eliminated the middleman and can take control of our careers, we can communicate, sell, promote, and build relationships directly. We couldn’t do that in the past. This makes it better for the people we connect with because they get to know us personally. For those with charming personalities, this sort of direct connection can’t be beaten.
So, how do we connect?
The best way to connect is via online internet marketing. If you are not using internet marketing, I advise you to do so. I’ve posted before about internet marketing. I’ve gotten so many opportunities from meeting people and from interacting with people on the internet, not in the capacity of selling things, but rather in letting them get to know me and I get to know them. That’s the key. Let them get to know you, and you get to know them. In future posts, I will talk about individual internet marketing, but for now, I simply want you to connect.
Here's what you’re going to need for the lessons to come: your own website using your own name (like https://claystafford.com/), a list of people for your mailing list whom you can reach out to see if they would like to be on your list (don’t spam), and public social media accounts on Facebook (author page), X, Instagram, Snapchat, LinkedIn, YouTube, Pinterest, and TikTok (all of these in your name, like @ClayStafford). You may not use all of these, but you’ll want to reserve them, so you have your name there (sort of like owning real estate) if you want to try out those various platforms in the future. After someone else gets your name, you’ll no longer have that opportunity.
From my experience, you may not have all the items above reserved or checked off your list, most writers don’t, but these are the tools we will use for our marketing classes in future posts. So, for today’s marketing task, go ahead and prepare the above, open accounts with your own name, and get ready to interact with some wonderful people around the world.
Nothing is going to make your day better than learning their stories.
And they will reward you by asking for yours.
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