Why I need a street team
(and you probably do too)In a few weeks I am going to announce a new street team for my Robin Hood WIP (and invite you all to join). This, I admit, for me is one of the most incredible and enjoyable parts of the writing and publication process, although it used to be pretty scary and intimidating back before I knew how to do it.
But let me retrace my steps a bit.
This week, on youtube (alone) I saw not one or two or three but four different youtubers announce the publication or prepublication for their books (all fiction - two indie, one self and one traditionally published). (Last week there were two more, and so on). During this same week, I’ve seen a lot others do the same on much less public platforms like this one, instagram and even (the horror) twitter.
Now, let me ask you, what is the first thing you’d do, if by an extremely unlikely amount of chance you were to stumble upon such an announcement?
You’d check out the link for the book (if it managed to grab your attention, that is, and chances of that happening are slim). Now you are on the book’s page on amazon, on the preorder site, on the author’s website. Without mentioning the problems of poor cover design, poor description, poor (or nonexistent) reviewing team -the list goes on- the first thing you’d think would be that this author is talking their own work up.
Why?
Well, because it’s absolutely true.
What else would they do but say good things about their own book in order to get you to buy it? Convinced to do just that yet? I know I’m not.
Here is where the answer to all the problems I posed above comes in:
I’d rather the author stay silent.
Not entirely, of course, but at least for the first 3 days afer the announcement, maybe more. Why? BECAUSE WORD WILL ALREADY BE OUT. Their voice will be in the book, it won’t have to be in the marketing platforms, at least not urgently.
There’s something weirdly isolated in saying “hey, I wrote a book.” I want to ask, “hey, who has read it? What did they think?”
In other words, I’d rather the author be backed up by readers. Who are they? Some of them might be your friends or followers. Most of them you won’t know. But you will stumble upon their blog posts revealing the author’s book cover, you’ll read their reviews, you’ll see their opinions, good and bad, plastered all over social media. (That’s what a street team does, for those of you who don’t know.) You won’t have to take the author’s word for the book. You will learn all about how awesome it is by other people, people who aren’t the author, and have nothing to gain by promoting it. Which means they think it’s worthy of promotion.
You’ll believe these people.
Or at least you’ll doubt them less. One of the youtubers who announced their book is a friend of mine, a very sweet person, and I’ve no doubt a very talented one (they already have a substantial following on all social platforms.) Maybe this writer thought that substantial following was enough. Maybe it is. But in my eyes, that moment of the announcement, this writer was alone, trying to get me interested (not to mention sold) on their book.
And, speaking as a reader, not a writer, I needed the opinions of other readers to help convince me that this is a safe buy I will enjoy, because they did.
Now, as an author, there are no words to describe the difference between self publishing something by yourself, and self publishing it with other people. Because essentially, that’s what a street team is. You are self publishing with. With someone. A lot of someones. You are no longer self releasing, self revealing, self marketing. They’re doing it with you, for you.So, in this case, I think it rings true what our moms used to say to us when we had to walk through a lonely park at night (trust me, it doesn’t get darker or lonelier than trying to set up your art as a profitable business venture on the internet):
Don’t isolate yourself. Stay in a crowd. Stay safe.
In the end, this is why I need my street team: (by now, of course, most of them are my dear friends, so I can’t imagine releasing a book without them). It’s my safe place.
And you deserve one too.
