By Erin Mitchell
Hi…(taps mic)…this is on, right?...(clears throat)…(takes a breath)…
I’m honored to be here. No, really. I am genuinely honored to have been asked by Dana Kaye, for whom I have utterly unbridled respect, to join this group whom I have been reading for quite some time now. So first: thank you to the Dead Guys for letting me join in the living room.
One of the things I’ve always enjoyed about Hey Dead Guy is that it is, in a word, interesting. So I wasn’t surprised when Jeff’s only instruction to me was to pick a topic and be interesting about it.
Then the panic set in.
Then I remembered the best marketing advice I’ve ever heard, the advice that I return to with clients and colleagues daily. Advice from a musical, no less. About strippers. The advice that with one word, makes people sit up and pay attention:
You gotta have a gimmick.
Why is this great advice? Because it’s been true throughout these interesting times in which we live. From the olden days when we pecked on IBM Selectrics and toted hefty Rolodexes from one desk to another to today, when having a theme for your content is the single most important way to build your brand—and to drive sales. We might not be bumping and grinding (not that there’s anything wrong with that), but we are all creating content. We each have audiences. So we need to have a gimmick…a theme…or, in journalism terms: a beat.
Why does this matter so much? Because content today is LOUD. Every person, brand, cause, candidate and pet is vying for attention every minute of every day. It can be exhausting. But if you give your audience something to focus on, you gain attention and trust.
And it doesn’t even necessarily have to be tied to your product. In some ways, it’s better if it’s not, because you avoid the dreaded BSP (blatant self promotion) sinkhole.
For me, this means that I talk about crime fiction more than I talk about marketing. Sometimes, when I’m very lucky, the two overlap, but no matter what I’m doing to pay the bills, I am always a reader. And I’ve found thousands of other readers around the world who share my passion.
Author Jael McHenry is an amateur cook and author of THE KITCHEN DAUGHTER, which met with much acclaim when it was released a few months ago. But when Jael jumped on the Twitter bandwagon, she didn’t just yammer on about her book—or, for that matter, cooking. She started contributing to each clever cultural or literary hashtag that popped up, and by doing so, has shared with readers her wit and humor via an entirely non-BSP gimmick.
Lawrence Block really gets this, too. First on Facebook and more recently on Twitter, Mr. Block (I can’t bring myself to call him Larry) shares news about his books, yes, but in a way that draws on his long history as a writer and in dealing with publishers. He offers a daily affirmation for writers and also discusses the ever-nascent ebook landscape. He is, in the best ways, a visage gris.
Alafair Burke understands the value of online community as well as any author I know. From her Facebook “Kitchen Cabinet” (whom she thanks in the acknowledgements of LONG GONE) to a Twitter feed that connects with readers daily, she understands that word of mouth isn’t spontaneous; it must be carefully cultivated.
Ultimately, each of these authors has a gimmick that works. And I'm so glad they do.
Ok…I’ve gone on too long. How’d I do?
