How accessible should you be to your readers?
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How much access should readers expect from their favourite authors?
Amazon’s been trialling for what seems like forever its @author_posts feature, which allows readers to tweet authors straight from their Kindles. Reading 50 Shades of Grey? Drop E L James a tweet from Chapter Two to ask exactly how to tie that knot.
Having a look on Twitter at the result is disheartening but unsurprising.
Is it really reasonable for readers to expect an author to answer questions they could ask Google? Tim Ferris wrote a book on diet and exercise. He sells it for $14. Does that make him your dietician?
@tferriss Hi Tim, Excellent book (4hb)ending first week and boy do my clothes fit better. Can i have plain greek yo… amzn.to/PpANeQ
— Amazon @author_posts (@author_posts) August 16, 2012
I know for most of us the fight is against obscurity but I’m interested in knowing what other people think is a reasonable expectation on an author. If you asked an author a question in, say, Twitter, would you be disappointed they didn’t answer? Would it affect your decision to buy their next book?
I don’t fight obscurity any less than you do, but I do write how-to books, so I hear a bit from readers. Recently a potential reader asked me if one of my books answered a particular question. When I said it did, he went off to buy it. Literally a few minutes later he was back in Twitter asking me a question about something to which a whole section of the book is dedicated. He hadn’t bothered to read the book but now he’d spent a couple of bucks he felt it was reasonable to ask for one-on-one tuition.
Partly because I wanted to experiment with Storify, I’ve taken just the most recent example of an exchange, to illustrate my point.
If you can’t see it below, the exchange is on Storify here.
View the story “Access all readers?” on Storify
I know many of you have very different views from me and I’m genuinely interested in your thoughts on what’s reasonable. Does an author having a website or a Twitter account create a reasonable expectation that she or he will respond to questions from readers or potential readers?
I’m not talking about whether you might choose to respond. Of course any author can choose to engage with any reader. My question is what is it reasonable for the reader to expect?
And, by the way, if you are interested in how to write a press release or to get media coverage for your business, you should check out my Do Your Own PR & Media course, where you can have a very reasonable expectation that all your questions will be answered!
[<a href="http://storify.com/rule17/access-all-..." target="_blank">View the story "Access all readers?" on Storify</a>]
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