An Author’s View on … Friends

In Scott Berkun’s blog 28 (Better) Things No One Tells You about Publishing, he makes the point that friends and family are an author’s best asset as they are the people most likely to form an author’s early reading audience. The point is re-iterated in a blog by David Carnoy, Self-publishing a book: 25 things you need to know, in which he highlights the fact that the odds are against self-published authors making large numbers of sales. He concludes that, on average, print versions of self-published books sell between 100-150 copies and of these between two-thirds and three-quarters will be bought by friends and family.

Berkun and Joe Bunting (How to Publish Your Book and Sell Your First 1,000 Copies) both emphasise the particular importance of word-of-mouth publicity to self-published authors and in this regard an author’s early readers (friends and family) will play a critical role in finding new readers. The recommendation, therefore, is not to be shy about asking them to tell their friends about your book. These early readers are an important part of an author’s fan base, and so, Berkin says, authors should treat them (and every new fan) as if they were the only fan. This is especially true for new authors, because initially they will be. Berkin also suggests that authors should make it easy for their early fans to publicise their book by, for example, providing links to websites where the books can be bought.

Bunting suggests that authors should go further. In his blog his strapline is “Generosity Sells Books”. He suggests the way to encourage word-of-mouth publicity is through generosity and that core readers (friends, family and initial fans) should never have to buy a book. This is a controversial position to take as some authors hate this idea as they believe it devalues their work. But Bunting suggests that authors should not shy from asking their core readers to read their books and, if they enjoy it, share it with their friends, and, he goes on to say, that core readers should be given as many copies as they need. Bunting has been informed by Mike Worley, of Clymb Marketing, that it is possible to predict book sales in advance, based on the number copies given away. And finally, Nick Alexander, author of over 20 books, informed me that he successfully increased the size of his reading audience by offering free copies of one of his novels.

Increasing public awareness of self-published books is extremely difficult, as I have discovered, but we should not forget our nearest and dearest. They should be one of the best bets to help authors achieve the public awareness holy grail. The question is should they get free copies?