By Elizabeth S. Craig, @elizabethscraig
I read an interesting post on Sunday. It was from author Pedro Barrento for Indies Unlimited and titled, “Word of Mouth—An Urban Myth?” The post engendered lively comments from other writers. Barrento states: “…word of mouth in literature is a fantasy. It simply doesn’t exist.” He clarifies that he’s not including influencers, Amazon’s recommendation algorithm, etc. as word of mouth. He’s defining it as an actual verbal recommendation. Which, considering it’s called word of mouth, makes sense. He believes that while consumers may be influenced by others’ recommendations for music, they don’t buy long-form products like books based on recommendations. Or, they’re so slow to act on recommendations (slow to purchase, slow to read, slow to pass on a recommendation to others) that word of mouth isn’t a contributing factor to the meteoric success of some of today’s most popular books.
There isn’t (naturally! This is publishing we’re talking about) hard data on how readers discovered the last book they read. So instead, I thought I’d explore what word of mouth is today. I’m thinking that, as times have changed, the way we recommend products to others and influence purchasing has changed.
Word of mouth gets bandied around a lot as being key to sales. But it tends to frustrate writers because how can you spark word of mouth? How do we get people talking about our book? And is word of mouth only verbal in today’s world?
I think word of mouth is changing. I think now that it can mean recommendations from people we trust who share similar tastes. They may not even be people we know personally. To me, word of mouth has become “influence”. And the people who have influence over our buying decisions vary from reader to reader.
I’ve bought books based on recommendations while lurking on Facebook, book blogging sites, and Goodreads. These fellow readers don’t know me, but I know them… at least, I know our taste in books is similar.
What’s a 21st century word-of-mouth? I think that sometimes it is someone telling someone verbally or emailing a friend or family member about a book. I know I buy some of my books for that reason.
I think sometimes it means responding to a friend’s status update on Facebook: Anybody read a good book lately? I know I’ve recommended books in response to those types of updates (usually more than one book). And I know friends of friends have told me they purchased books based on my recommendations.
I think sometimes it means word of mouth from a friend on Goodreads or a book blogger. Maybe someone who is only a virtual friend. Maybe it’s someone who doesn’t even know you exist…but you agree with every one of their reviews and have never been let down when you’ve gotten a book recommendation from them.
I think sometimes it’s almost a viral thing, word-of-mouth. Like the 50 Shades phenom. I heard about that thing at book club, on the news, in the paper, and saw people reading it in doctors’ offices. You really couldn’t escape it. That’s the kind of thing that’s rare. Harry Potter also comes to mind, when it hit it big suddenly (or it seemed sudden to me at the time).
So how can we generate word of mouth? Obviously, the more people who get their hands on our books, the more chances we have that they will tell someone, post it on Facebook, mention it at their book club, or review it on Goodreads.
How do we get our book into the hands of more people? Same approach as always—write many (good) books. Keep prices reasonable and in line with other books in our genre. Maintain a social media presence so readers can find us.
And it’s true—it might take months for a reader’s recommendation of our book to spur another reader to actually purchase it. It might never happen. But, to me, what’s most striking about word of mouth these days is the reach of the recommendation. It has so much more power to influence purchasing than the word of mouth decades ago.
How about you? When you hear about the importance of word of mouth, what goes through your mind? Is word of mouth strictly verbal? Does it include social media? Does it include influencers we don’t have in-person friendships with? Could it even include recommendations from people we don’t know?
And…I had a book release Tuesday. :) Death Pays a Visit is now available.
Image: MorgueFile: TypeXNick
I actually rely on word of mouth a lot when deciding what to read next. It’s usually a friend who says, “You MUST read this book!” That’s what happened with Hunger Games. I normally don’t read that type of book, but after so many friends raved about it, I tried it. And love it. I also think word of mouth definitely includes social media, because that’s how a lot of us communicate with each other these days.
Julie–I’m the same way…I have some friends with really interesting TBR lists and when they make recommendations (it’s usually on Facebook), I pay attention.
Hi Elizabeth … it is word of mouth, or seeing things from reputable sources that influence me … often I try and not be tempted away, just so that I don’t get deviated onto another route … but I still buy recommended books and books I see …
However it’s providing good service that’s the key, together with the content we are interested in .. and not hammering away inanely … buy, buy, buy – which I vere away from completely and forever.
Cheers Hilary
Hilary–Exactly–providing good customer service, having a good product, and having people “talk” about liking our product is all so key to success! Thanks for coming by.
Word of mouth can’t be only speaking – that would mean (in this day of people using cell phones to text only) that it doesn’t even exist anymore.
I think it is all those things you mentioned. People recommending your book by any means possible.
Alex–For sure! I text much more than I speak on the phone.
Elizabeth – This is an absolutely fascinating topic. I think one of the most powerful word-of-mouth sources these days is blogs. In my experience anyway, people do hear about books and authors through reading blog posts. I’ve also found that book reviews (I mean professional ones as in the New York Times or Kirkus) play their roles. And I think that understanding how the word is spread about books will definitely help the author get books into more hands.
Margot–I know I’ve gotten many books based on your mentioning them on your blog. And heard about new authors that way.
Limiting word of mouth to only spoken recommendations is irrational. At what point in human history has it literally meant only speech? People can be so very goofy sometimes.
Let’s not confuse prompting word of mouth with aiming for a breakout enormous giant hit.
The former is entirely in our hands. The latter can not, ever, be created on demand. Sheesh; we live in a world where Dylan has had albums bomb and Spielberg has tanked at the box office. Anyone who thinks they can engineer a hit on demand should give those two guys classes. And then never work again.
Word of mouth takes a lot of prep work.
We need to get people to talk.
Which means they have to have something to say. We should give them the words. Have a strong identifiable brief phrase people can repeat. Don’t make them come up with it themselves.
That means you have to know what to say. What makes your book(s) special and unique?
It doesn’t hurt to ask people to spread the word. “Hey, if you know someone who loves Chandler, reviewers have said they might like my books.”
Repetition. Start using that one-sentence teaser for your books every time you write. Well, almost every time. And then keep using it, forever, or until you come up with something better.
Being seen is the first thing everyone comes up with. Let’s amend that to being seen in the right places. Remember, free is not a price, it is a strategy. Giving your book away in a manner which doesn’t earn you meaningful data and a clear opportunity to develop rapport with potential fans (vital to WoM) is a waste of your time and your books’ potential.
And let’s not forget genuine literal word of mouth. Unless you’re famous, an extensive book-signing tour is a waste. But why not become locally famous? Book signings are no place to sell books. But they’re visibility among people who just might see you again. (See “repetition” above.) When your book comes out, be everywhere, for a little while. Every place you can possibly put in a personal appearance. Part of my plan is to become the most famous author in Barron County. There are more people in a suburb of LA than in our entire county, but locally famous is still a source of word of mouth.
The brilliant social scientist, internet guru, and author Kevin Kelly taught us that we only need 1,000 true fans to make a living as artists.
There’s the crux of word of mouth: not earning millions of fans; that’s not possible to arrange intentionally; but earning 10 fans, then with the help of those earning 10 more through each of them, then doing it one more time, and you have 1,000 fans.
If you had 1,000 people waiting to drop their cash for your next book before it was even done, how would that affect your dreams of a writing career?
That’s what word of mouth is: the only way to make that dream happen.
Joel–Great tip about creating a sort of marketing logline/phrase for our books…easy to recognize, appealing, easy to share. And repetition is certainly key there, both with ad-type copy and book covers. How many times is a potential buyer supposed to see these things before something clicks in them to remember and purchase (effective frequency)? I’ve seen it as few as three and as many as twenty.
Also, good point about being known locally–having a presence in local bookstores, art fairs, etc.
The nice thing is that once we’ve sold readers on us, once we have our True Fans, once we’ve got engaged readers it makes life so much easier. We just need to keep them engaged.
All those stats about “how many times must they see it?” (or most of them, anyway) relate to 2 things:
1. That aspect of marketing is only about “top of mind” selling, which relates primarily to . . .
2. . . . selling commodities; things where every variant is identical, and the real difference is price, or whatever’s, um, top of mind.
The right reader may see your marketing once and go buy your entire serieseses (all 3 of them.)
Another reader might see them a million times and never buy a thing.
The primary value of repetition in this case is to give our fans something to say.
You’re right to say “sold on us” because should be selling our personalities, not our books.
Joel–Ah…makes sense.
And…yep, and it makes me wince whenever I see someone who’s avatar is a book cover. And their Twitter handle is their book title/series instead of the author’s name. This is one instance when it is all about us. We’re the brand.
I am very cautious about my curation sources for reading recommendations: professionally and personally. My curators must earn my trust.
Now, trust is a pretty discriminating bar for me but an almost impossible bar for an author to observe in action. How to move from “overlooked” to “recommended” is our key.
Have you asked Brad Listi? He has mentioned this issue several times without – as I recall – a formulaic answer.
Hi Jack!
I’m pretty cautious, too. After all–we only have so many hours to read and most of us already have a huge number of books on our TBR lists.
I haven’t run this question by Listi…I’ll have to pop by the blog and see what he’s said about it.
Elizabeth–
Back in the day, I relied heavily on (literal) word of mouth. But now, books and authors catch my eye in numerous, online ways. When they do, I go to Amazon and use the “look inside” feature. And of course Amazon knows what I’ve already bought, and nudges me with recommendations. This has become the principal means by which I buy books, both print and ebook. The behavioral psychology types claim that seven sightings or contacts with a book/author are needed to bring a reader to act. Whether that’s true, I don’t know, but I am sure the more often we’re exposed to a name or title, the more it starts to mean something.
Barry–I’m with you–I’ve used that Amazon algorithm numerous times to find books similar to other books I’ve enjoyed. And you’re right–familiarity with an author’s covers, titles, and even the author’s image can help spur eventual purchases.
You know, I think an awful lot of indies have a very unrealistic idea of how long real market penetration takes. They think word of mouth doesn’t work because it takes years — but that’s the nature of word of mouth. It is slow, steady penetration of the attention.
Right now, we’ve been in a cycle where hype can create some extra-ordinary sales numbers. But that’s coming to an end. You can only do that when something is new. Word of mouth is so much slower, but so much steadier, and it takes so much less effort…. but you can’t “goose” your sales with it. It’s a natural process.
How do you get it started? You don’t. You just write books worth talking about, and you make sure they are as well-packaged and available as possible. And you keep writing them. And you write other things (short stories, jokes, whatever), and you interact naturally and in an interesting way online, and ever so slowly you build a Google Footprint — a pattern that makes you and your books more and more findable.
But it’s SLOW.
Amen.
Camille–Good analysis. It’s the fact it’s so *slow* that makes it seem as if it’s not so vital. The indie culture is such a fast one…fast to write, fast to publish…that an impatience seems to permeate everything.
You know, I first heard about The Hunger Games because a bunch of my mom friends on Facebook were talking about how much their kids loved it. So I checked it out, saw the reviews and bought it. My kids loved it.
Raquel–I’ve made and spurred a few purchases on Facebook for books (not ever my own). It’s the only part about Facebook that I like! The book discussions. :)
Elizabeth, thanks for a very lively and fascinating post and debate on “word of mouth.” I’m not quite sure how to answer your question. Too many things are spinning around in my head. While I follow the various “word of mouth” avenues you mentioned, verbal, virtual and print media, I seldom buy or read books based on those recommendations. I do keep them in mind, though, and have, in fact, read a few books suggested by family, friends, and my fellow-bloggers. However, I’ll first and foremost read a book that “I” feel like reading and not because someone recommended it to me. For instance, I read your wonderful novel “A Body in the Backyard” because I got to know you as a writer and blogger and because that book seemed like the best place to introduce myself to your work. It was a personal choice. More recently, I read and reviewed “Defending Jacob,” a legal thriller by William Landay, without realising that some of my blogger-friends had reviewed it as well. I just happened to read it of my own choice. I suppose, you could call it “free will.”
Prashant–I like it! :) So a self-directed discovery of books. The best thing about that approach is the process of exploration, I think.
It can be a bit more time-consuming, but ultimately more rewarding.