What is “Word of Mouth” in Today’s World?

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

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