Saturday, July 09, 2005

Connecting with the reader

I know it. I am a marketing geek. I'm hoping I can come up with a YA novel featuring a young marketing genius as the main character. My recent reads have helped that process. (I'll be back later with some thoughts about Dancing in Red Shoes Will Kill You and Storky). Ideas are swirling. I'll get there. Eventually.

I'm considering writing an article for my ad sales friends using publishing as an example of an industry that has had to learn to connect with the customer. Alloy entertainment does a good job of getting in the target's face, in a good way, that is. This morning, I read an article in Pages Online that explains how libraries are connecting with teens. Teen centers, teen-only sections of the library. Librarians who get what it's like to be a teen. What a great way to get teens involved with books!

Not that you care about ad sales and retail marketing, but so many businesses just don't get it. You have to connect with the customer, get them one step closer to making a purchase, get them involved with the product. I think Alloy and progressive teen librarians are doing just that.


1 Comments:

At 9:15 AM, Blogger Susan Taylor Brown said...

But we should care about ad sales and retail marketing. It all goes into the publicity hat that every writer has to wear. I am already trying to brainstorm ideas on how to promote Hugging the Rock. Trying to come up with a way to perhaps use LJ to do so.

Authors need to have reasonable expectations about what a publisher can and will do to promote their book. The answer is, not a lot. More books are being published than ever before but space to showcase them is being reduced. Authors need to educate themselves about this and find was to augment their publisher's efforts.

Write on right now.
Susan

 

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