Can Anyone See Me?
Almost certainly—even if you’re an independent author. Whether we know it or not (and often we don’t) visibility happens. Despite how we feel, and it is all too easy to feel lost and invisible in the seas we swim in, visibility is not so much our problem, nor can we do a lot about it if it was. Our problem is that what visibility we get doesn’t do much for us, at least in terms of selling books, which is what I’m going to start with here.
Now, before I get going I want state that some may justly claim that I’m using “visibility” in a literal and narrow sense, and what they mean by “visibility” encompasses all of what I’m about to say. Quite true. I’m insisting on the distinction because I believe the literal and narrow meaning often tends to overshadow the penumbras we attach to it, with concomitant effects on behavior. History—here the history of independent publishing—can be seen as supporting this view. (Of course, people may disagree on this point. That’s all right with me. We can take up that discussion later.)
To be explicit (and state the obvious—something I’m known for), allow me to breakdown the decision chain for buying a book. First, the buyer needs to be aware of the book. This is visibility pure and simple. Next, the book must be of some potential interest to the buyer. This conditional visibility (what a corporate type might call applicability—I won’t though) . Finally, the buyer must be convinced to invest in the book, both money and time, though it is the money that we see. This is called a sale.
The first link is where most of us feel rather helpless and where we are, in general, weakest. Amazon, to cite one example (but an important one for indie authors) has a much greater reach than almost any of us can expect, especially when we are new. So do other well-known outlets and agencies, such as BookBub. One argument for traditional publishing is that they have much greater reach than we do, and we can benefit from it. This is debatable (the benefit part) and another discussion best left to another day.
The second link is where we can exert more influence by appropriate use of keywords and categories to help prospective readers find our book, and also learning where said readers are and who they are, so we don’t waste resources gaining visibility with people uninterested in what we write.
The final link is what concerns me most, and that part of the chain is all on us. To sell a book requires one thing above all: credibility. There is no workaround or short cut to gaining credibility. (Okay, people can be conned—not going there.) This makes things tough, because we authors, especially new authors and fiction authors in particular, start out with essentially no credibility. If I were to write nonfiction on certain subjects, my professional resume would confer a degree of credibility to my work. But it says nothing about my ability to craft a story anyone would want to read. I have to “prove” that. Until I do, all the visibility in the world won’t do me much good.
To put this in perspective, my previous post is about reviews. If you believe (as I do) that if every indie author saw that post, it would not make much of a dent in the entrenched belief that reviews are necessary to sell books, then you see my point. I don’t have the credibility to shift opinion on this topic, no matter how visible that post is. (If you disagree, tell your friends!)
But all is not lost. We can go about gaining credibility in a number of ways. First, there is the way we present our work. I’m not going to venture into discussing blurbs and covers and editing and grammar. Those debates are generally more about ego than books, they are frequently nasty, and they are almost always counterproductive.
What matters is not what is “good” or “bad”, “professional” or “amateurish”, but what our audience considers credible. And that is something we need to learn. This is why asking the opinion of the vox populi on these matters typically results in a discordant and not terribly helpful chorus. Everyone brings their own notions of what is credible to the discussion, most of which will not apply, and it’s not always easy to sift out which do and which don’t.
However, I particularly want to address credibility as it relates to visibility (in the narrow sense) and thus to “marketing”—that thing we are told is essential (like getting reviews). This topic appears vex indie authors on a par with the whole review thing, maybe more so.
To speculate for a moment, I suspect this is because we feel helpless on the one hand, but on the other, we live in a hyper-connected society which displays to our bedazzled eyes the chimera of limitless visibility. Perhaps it would be better if I likened it to a mirage in a vast desert.
The problem, I believe, is made more acute by the reality this mirage both reflects and obscures. We do live in a hyper-connected society, where in principle, just about anyone is a click, a tweet, a Facebook like (or whatever) away. If only we could harness it, riches untold would pour forth at our feet. And it doesn’t help that we are told this, over and over and over—an incessant drumbeat by persons who present social media as a panacea for everything, but more than anything, as a way to separate us from our hard-earned money. In all too many cases, belief in the mirage—or the panacea (I’ve called it 3 things now)—results in broken hearts, crushed dreams, and lighter wallets.
Why?
You probably can guess the answer by now: credibility (the lack of it).
It is worth noting at this point that credibility comes in different forms, especially with respect to marketing. The first and most obvious type is the credibility that gets people to listen to us. The second and (I think) less obvious type, is the credibility that gives us the “right to talk” in the first place. That may deserve some elucidation.
We live in a society marinating in advertising. A large chunk of the information we are exposed to in the media we use every day consists of ads. Yet “no one” likes ads. No demographic (it appears) enjoys being marketed to. Yet we all are marketed to, relentlessly, and the resources expended to do this thing which “nobody” likes is a substantial part of the overall economy.
Something seems wrong here. Companies would not spend enormous sums on ads if they saw no benefit, or if doing so actually harmed their business. Yet public opinion can’t be wholly dismissed.
Answering this kōan is the concern of what I think they call “market research” and the subject of an extensive literature. It is not of interest here, except in one particular: whatever our feeling about ads, we tolerate them. We may object to a the content of an ad, and make our ire known in such a way that the company takes heed, but we don’t object in the same way to the fact that companies advertise at all.
Yet, it appears this tolerance has limits. While the public is prepared to accept that McDonalds can advertise pretty as it likes, they do not appear to feel the same way about us. As a group, we have not yet “earned” the same “right” to advertise. So our attempts to gain visibility for our work carry a cost, and we all bear that cost, to the extent that it reinforces the rather unenviable reputation indie authors have in many circles.
Therefore, we do have “visibility” and all too often, that visibility does us no favors. The inept and inappropriate use of social media by indie authors appears to have played a significant role in this. That is what happens when we seek visibility without first building up the necessary credibility.
I’m harping on this because it is a new problem. Back in the day when McDonalds was small, visibility and credibility went hand in hand. Society was not hyper-connected, and to get visibility required going through gatekeepers. If one had not built up some credibility, one did not get access. (Having made a enough money to pay said gatekeepers was a form of credibility. It still is.)
These days, we can publish as we please—a very good thing—and “market” as we please. But that puts the onus on us as individuals to build credibility, and market intelligently once we have, to thus gain visibility that is helpful, not damaging.
In short, building credibility is its own reward. Once we have it as individual authors (and someday as a group), our lives become much easier and we find we probably don’t have to do much marketing on our own. All the various hidden (and powerful) factors tend to come to our aid, and the word spreads without much effort on our part.
That is, people visit our websites, sign up for our mailing lists, get interested in our giveaways, follow us if we are on whatever social media they frequent, and promote us via word of mouth. Our books sell as a result, and success breeds success.
Do things the wrong way round, and we usually get the opposite reaction. In that case, if we want to make money off our writing, we’d probably do better by printing something catchy in bold black letters on a large piece of cardboard and standing on a busy street corner.
We are writers, after all.
