Promotion: Where does your audience get their news?
March 23, 2009
I've decided to start posting on promotion for authors. There are two basic questions to start with: 1) Who is your audience? (I'm not going to talk about this one -- yet.) And 2) Where does your audience get their news? I think sometimes we expect our audience to come to us. Our website is like this -- we expect them to think of our name, type in a search on google and get to us. This works fine if a person has just read your book and is looking for more information about you or your book. But how are you going to TELL people that a book exists? In this case, you've got to go to them.
So let's start by listing the places people get their news these days:
- snail mail: Yes, some of these folks still exist. Though let's face it -- this is dying out. (At the same time, because people don't use the US Postal Service, it may be an opportunity to stand out if you use it in targeted, specific ways.)
- email: absolutely
- Facebook: More and more people on Facebook these days (and MySpace too). Status Updates is the big thing here. Also a good place to FIND people.
- Cell phones (texting, twittering, and plain voice mail)
- internet -- absolutely -- this is why newspapers are dying out. (I hate this, by the way.)
- landline phones: Also dying out. People would rather use cell phones. And too many phone numbers is is too confusing for everyone.
- blogs: Blogs as a news source is going up I think. Here in Chicago we've got Chicagoist, and I don't know where I'd be without it.
- Online newspapers: I love www.nytimes.com. I check it once a day.
- Radio/podcasts: I love the NPR podcasts
- TV/Cable
The interesting thing to me here is simply how much of this involves technology -- computers and cell phones. Wireless is a big thing. Instant access to information is a big thing. A friend of mine even says that the younger generation puts off making decisions until the last minute, simply because they can text their friends and find out where they are, right NOW. (But that's probably for another discussion.)
Where else do you think people are getting their news these days? Seriously, tell me. Then we'll work one by one and try to figure out how to use these things to their best advantage. I'd love a good list!
[Photo: From the Lincoln Shrine in Redlands, CA.]
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