I’ve ordered literally thousands of dollars of copies of my books and have given them all away. All of them. I always start off by intending to sell them, but I hate the idea of asking someone to buy a book directly from me. I find it somewhat sordid, the money changing hands for something I’ve created. Drives my wife crazy. She calls my writing the most expensive hobby I have ever had. The truth is that it is a calculated marketing expense. Bread on the water. One more person walking around with one of my books in their hand or on their bookshelf for their friends and family to see and enquire about, and hopefully I’ve created enough of an interesting backstory to the receipt of that particular book, that it spurs on other purchases by the enquiring third party. Each book I give away carries with it a marketing ripple effect.
I have tried to sell the books directly, I really enjoy luring in the potential reader through friendly banter. I just hate closing the deal with the direct exchange of money.
I don’t do normal bookstore readings. Most of my readings have been in bars. Go figure. And the people who come to see me read either already have purchased the books or are Kindle readers who order it right there on Amazon.
I do have the books with me at each reading, but they are there more as visual props, to let the guests at those readings see that the books actually exist and they can listen to the snippets I read while imagining the big parade of the story behind them.
I’ve done a couple of library readings, but as I have donated multiple copies of The Claire Saga series to the local libraries, and some not so local, everybody coming to those readings has free access. As it should be.
Money exchanged in the moment I do a reading takes away from the purity of the emotional reader/writer relationship. It’s like sex. I don’t want to feel like like Fred Garvin when I screw with your mind and imagination. But, like Fred (Dan Aykroyd is a genius) I always try to make it memorable.
[For the record, I met Margo Kidder for a New York moment while working at Gold Farrell & Marks in the early nineties. We exchanged pleasantries by the front receptionist desk.]
Don’t get me wrong. I love it when Amazon or my publisher or the occasional indie bookstore sells my books. It takes me out of the equation. I write it, they buy it from the third party and then read it. Ultimately, I make a few pennies on the dollar at the end of the royalty stream. Literally. There is no real money in publishing. All the writers I know have their day jobs. The real money is in the film rights and the books create a pre-existing fan base for those films. I own my film rights. Hollywood, are you paying attention?! [And if any of you have a Hollywood connection, spread the word.]
Harry Potter, Game of Thrones, Lord of the Rings. Books to films. The Claire Saga is that good.
So, in the mean time, the most important thing to me is that someone is reading something I wrote. Since I write visually, I want those readers imagining what I’m seeing in my head. For now, I get my jollies reading the reviews. Emotional return on investment. (So, if you have read any of The Claire Saga, go onto Amazon and post a rating or review. Do it for each book – I remain forever in your debt.)
But that doesn’t mean I don’t hawk my books like a carnival barker. No stranger, whether in person, or even on the phone, gets away from any conversation without me asking, “do you like to read?”
I am shameless in this old school method of direct word-of-mouth marketing. I always try to make someone chuckle during our conversations so that I create an emotional connection. I figure if they like me as a person in the moment just a little bit, they’ll remember me as a writer after we part ways and be more receptive to my pitch. If I get one out of every ten people I pitch to actually buy my book – always The Wise Ass – Good Fellas Meets Wizard Of Oz – because it opens the door to the other four books – then I’m okay with it.
It helps that I write the way I speak. My books are like sitting with me in the bar on a Friday night, just getting lit while listening to my Bronx Irish Accent – the voice in your head as you read TCS – regale you with the most outrageous tales told so convincingly – four decades as a lawyer has taught me how to make the impossible sound quite believable – that you come away totally engaged and wondering, “what if it’s true?”
I try to mimic that process when I write these blogs. (Is it working?)
And that leads me to the Cult following concept.
I base it on my own experience as a teenager, in the early 1970s, seeing a friend of mine, Jimmy Betz – who appears as an industrious character in Finding Jimmy Moran under a pseudonym – carrying around a copy of the LOTR trilogy. That triggered me into reading it. Suddenly, everyone was reading it with cult-like devotion. My generation is the one that created the critical mass of readership that ultimately led LOTR into its conversion into the block buster series of films and spin offs you witness today.
So, I too focus on the young folks to try and get them interested in reading TCS. Much harder now as most suffer some ADHD from a life of social media’s moment to moment mental nurturing. Women read more than men – thank God 90% of my readership are women.
For example, a reader, Ann, most recently posted “Funny, highly creative, lessons about life and humanity, all presented in an apocryphal story that is made totally believable, making for a delightful read of ever unreeling imagination. It just gets better and better, and, it’s not very everyone. Ya gotta appreciate the quirky, unusual.”
You can find lots more here: https://www.amazon.com/stores/author/B08T9SKMDB?ingress=0&visitId=474f5d30-2c89-4479-8608-3a3f5f5688ee&ccs_id=b167d8af-9f29-4684-8971-85fae9b9de88
But I’m trying to change that to a more balanced ratio – TCS is chock-filled with bad ass heroes, action and adventure and righteous battles that would captivate anyone with testosterone.
One of my latest sites for developing a cult following is the Berthoud Rec Center.
I try to get there three times a week, 5 am, for my swims. After my swims I soak in the huge hot tub and if there are any others – mostly my generation – there I ultimately work the conversation around to “do you like to read?” Voila.
But there is a cadre of youngsters who man the lifeguard chairs and front desk, etc.
One of these young lifeguards, a High School Senior named Gage, whose birthday just passed, just returned from a successful trip to Mexico with his travelling baseball team, and he mentioned that he told one of his teachers about the books, and that teacher has been enjoying the audible version.
Well, that effort on his part deserved a belated birthday present, so I gave him an inscribed copy of TWA – I keep one handy in my car for just these occasions.
I had earlier this year given a copy to a wonderful young lifeguard named Autumn. So if these two youngsters are seen with this book in tow by their friends and classmates – all going off to college in a year or so – their inscribed copy gives them instant cache among the literary set of their peers and the back story of their connection with the writer will get them free drinks at the Ramskellers of their colleges.
And that is how you build a cult following as a writer. One young person at a time.
Selective accessibility as a writer is key. Berthoud’s own Hemingway (they say I share his beard and cap), without the depression.
Well, given cult building remains a slow and steady process, I have to move on to my day job as a lawyer.
Gage, enjoy the book and tell all of your friends they can read TWA for free this summer as an Amazon Prime member. Then, properly addicted, they can consume the remaining four books – An Alien Appeal, Kissing My Ass Goodbye, Finding Jimmy Moran and Where The Ley Lines Meet – over the remainder of the summer.
You fine, five readers hopefully will enjoy my blogs enough to get out there and read or reread The Claire Saga as your Summer Reading Adventure – and it is an adventure.
But most of all, I want you all to make today a great one.
