We bloggers, writers and storytellers, already know the cold, hard fact. If we are to gain the much-desired audience for our work, we have to market our work ourselves. The steps I’d taken so far to announce StoryDame.com – a soft launch to family, friends and acquaintances, the creation of a Facebook fan page and Tweets, and cozying up to other writers, storytellers and bloggers – were more to ensure nothing was hugely off in some major way. Response had been better than anticipated; it was time to attempt to determine and reach my target audience. Though I have an MA in media psychology and social change, marketing seemed as foreign as a trek into Middle earth. When Mom asking if I would be interested in a marketing book she had spotted in an email from Amazon on Saturday, I said, “Yes.”
I’d like to think Mom’s call sprang from high interest in supporting my new StoryDame. But knowing her, it could have been that it was already January and the extravagant Barnes & Noble gift card she gave me for Christmas was already burning a hole in her pocket.
Now, I have absolutely no problem picking out books for myself. If I had that problem I wouldn’t currently be sorting through thirty boxes of books in storage to determine what can be passed on to others. And I had already used the $10.00 card that B&N threw in as a bonus when she bought my gift cards on How to Blog a Book. But the main gift card was so extravagant that I was saving it for something uniquely special and valuable to me on my StoryDame path. Maybe that something special had just presented itself. This book deserved a close look.
Snow was in the forecast for Sunday. Having been iced in before Christmas, the potential of inclement weather called for a special treat. I was going out anyway to get provisions in case the snow predicted actually fell. (It didn’t; cold weather descended instead). Why not make a stop at the bookstore.
A staff member located the fourth edition. The attractive cover revealed it’s an international bookseller with more than 3000,000 copies in print. On the back, the four recommendations, including the one by the CEO of HubSpot, were brief and impressive. But it was the seven pages of detailed Table of Contents that sold the book to me. My local library had a copy, but this looked like a book I wanted to mark up. So, I waited in line for a turn at the register where the saleslady said, “Wow!” when she swiped my gift card.
I’m only on page 34, but already realize it’s worth the price. How did author David Meerman Scott’s book reach astronomical success? “I offered advance copies of the first addition to approximately 130 important bloggers. I sent out nearly twenty news releases…, and my publisher alerted contacts in the media.” Already a plan is emerging…
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