Word-of-mouth marketing

Darcy Pattison had such a great post on word-of-mouth marketing that I'm reprinting a good chunk of it below. Do check out her blog, FictionNotes, for the whole thing (and a lot more excellent stuff about writing and revising).

But first, a bit of my own soapbox. Word-of-mouth marketing is something we can--and should--do for each other. Go to our colleagues' signings. Read their books. Talk about them with other people. This is not only a great way to further your education in the craft and current market, it will also introduce you to people who will do the same for you when your day comes.

The brilliant editor-turned-agent Michael Stearns mentioned at the SCBWI-LA conference in '08 that a picture book could hit the bottom of NYT bestseller list by selling a few hundred copies in a week. In other words, our chapter could put members on the bestseller list if we all bought copies in the same week from reporting stores. (Secret Garden Books in Ballard is working on becoming one; Elliott Bay is--do people know others?)

Think about this for a moment. We are a large and powerful chapter--one of the largest in the world. We can make each other bestsellers. That's sort of exciting to think about, and even more exciting to bring about. It's not the only measure of success, but I don't think there's anyone who'd sneeze at it, either.

Without further ado, Darcy's post:

A great source of information about kids and reading is the Consider this Scholastic study, the 2008 Kids and Family Reading Study (Download the entire pdf or watch a video clip. )

Word of Mouth: Talk to kids!
The Scholastic study on Kids and Reading says:

• Kids overwhelmingly (89%) say “My favorite books are the ones I picked out myself.”
  
• Sixty-eight percent of kids say they love or like reading books for fun a lot (72% of girls/ 63% of boys).
  
• Half of all kids say there aren’t enough really good books for boys/girls their age.

What? Not enough really good books? Surely that’s partly because no one has told them about a special book – and you’re just the one to do that.

Word of Mouth: Talk to parents!
The Scholastic study also says that, “Parents are a key source of book suggestions for their children, but nearly half of all parents say they have a hard time finding information about books their child would enjoy reading, and especially parents of teens age 15-17 (62%).”
Wow! What an opportunity!

Word of Mouth: Talk to booksellers, librarians, teachers, or other professionals!
It’s called industry buzz. The more professionals talk about a book, the more it gets talked about and has a chance to break out into the general public.