Rule 7: Pins in the orange

The marketing savvy author learns and follows the golden rule of publicity – i.e. critical mass. To break through to create a buzz you need to reach a 'critical mass' with your publicity. Approach it like sticking pins in an orange. Each piece of publicity is a pin – it might sell some books, it might not but the goal is the sum of the publicity, not the individual parts. So try to approach your publicity from every which way, because: Enough pins = 'critical mass' to juice the orange = a buzz The idea behind creating publicity buzz for a book is to kick-start that crucial word-of-mouth so that people give a personal recommendation about your book to others. The book market is a sophisticated and emotive market. The book buyer has a wide choice of books all the time and he / she is looking for books which fulfil his or her personal tastes and needs. He / she may be seduced into a purchase outside his / her usual reading habits by special offers in the bookstore, or by chance discovery of a book with an appealing subject matter. However, in general books are more like other forms of entertainment such as films and music in that word-of-mouth (recommendation) is very powerful influencer. These recommendations may come from friends, family or colleagues, or they may come directly from the media. It's clear what every author dreams of - being the writer of the book which everyone is talking about. There are only so many books which will penetrate the national consciousness and become bestsellers each year but your book can penetrate the collective consciousness of smaller groups. Anywhere were people gather and talk is a place where you could buzz your book. What are the chances of everyone in your neighbourhood or workplace talking about your book? Do you belong to any clubs or societies? Do you have friends or contacts who can introduce you to a club or community they are involved with? Don't forget to consider online (Internet) communities. Identify your communities (the oranges) and then identify for each one all the little things you can do to penetrate their collective consciousnesses (the pins).