Not
that long ago the only thing that went viral was a disease. Now we crave when
something goes viral – online. I had my biggest personal experiment with the
intentional pursuit of having something go viral a few weeks ago. It was a
modest success. Here is what I did, what results, we generated, and what I
learned when I sent out this link:
I emailed each of my 4,500 LinkedIn
connections and wrote a short but passionate letter about how I am available to
help them and just asked that they read a blog post that was about how to make
things go viral – and to share it with their pool of followers and readers. I
usually don’t email my LinkedIn contacts directly, except for the very first
time they connected with me. The response was very good.
By the end of the first day I had
1215 hits to my blog. I normally average about 200 per day. The second day I
had 801 – four times my norm. Not only did people read and share the link, many
expressed gratitude for the content. Five or six people asked me to guest-blog
for them. Several others inquired about hiring the company I work for to
conduct a publicity campaign. Many said they signed up for the blog. It was a
resounding success.
Lessons learned:
·
There is viral fatigue out there.
Some people said that they cannot keep up with the information sent to them nor
can they take the time to re-circulate it. I wasn’t surprised to hear this.
·
Others asked for
reciprocation – to follow them on Twitter, to tweet about them, to read or
subscribe to their blog, or to mention their site on my blog. Seemed fair
enough. In most cases I offered to interview people for my blog. It gives me
useful content and quality exposure for them.
·
The majority of people
did not read the email. Of those that did, a tiny percentage wrote back to me.
But I know many people read it and clicked on the link, and some shared it
without saying they did so.
·
All respondents
commented favorably about my blog and my offer to help them. Just one person
said unsubscribe out of 4,500.
·
Having posted some 350
times on my blog, none of my posts got distributed to as many people as this
one. It shows a direct email will be read and acted upon more so than a random
Tweet or post on FB and LI.
Going viral takes a
lot of things – great content, luck, timing, a large pool of followers – and
the right incentive to convert a reader into a raving fan who shares your link
and advocates on your behalf. But the process of building a social media
network is time-consuming, mind-numbing, and filled with favor paybacks that
would make lobbyists and politicians blush. It is a necessary evil today – to
succeed as a writer, producing great writing is not enough. You need to create
a marketing machine – out of your time and effort – or you need to hire someone
to hunt for you.
Does this force us to
be better writers, knowing that we need to write something that is truly
marketable? Will it make us more disciplined, knowing our time to write is
infringed upon, if not dwarfed, by the time needed to hustle and market
ourselves and our works?
Technology and lower
barriers to get published make it easier to be more prolific but it also means
your competition is more prolific, too. Further, your time to write is
decreasing as a result of all the social media activity you need to execute. Try
and balance your wirting and marketing – you may one day go viral, too.
Interview With Winning Writers Co-Founder Jendi Reiter
1.
What
is winningwriters.com?
Winning Writers is a comprehensive online resource for creative writers, with
an emphasis on literary contests. We have been in business since 2001, and have
been named one of the "101 Best Websites" by Writer's Digest every
year since 2005. Our database (available to paid subscribers) features complete
guidelines for over 1,250 English-language contests for poetry, fiction, and
nonfiction. Sometimes we have more current information than the contest's own
website! Our free email newsletter, with listings of free contests and
advertisements from carefully vetted literary publishers and workshops, goes
out to 40,000 subscribers. We also sponsor several contests of our own. Winning
Writers has a "consumer protection" orientation, in that we not only
list contests, but we advocate for more transparent judging procedures,
dialogue with contest sponsors about improving their rules and prize structure,
and help subscribers resolve complaints. Unlike our competitors, we rank
contests based on our impressions of their prestige value and other factors,
and we give guidance about finding the contests that are most appropriate for
an entrant's skill level (emerging, intermediate, advanced).
2.
Are
you a published author as well? Yes, I have had three
poetry collections published:
Swallow (Amsterdam Press, 2009), winner
of the 2008 Flip Kelly Poetry Chapbook Prize
My prizewinning poems and short stories have also appeared in
such journals as The Iowa Review, Bayou Magazine, Anderbo.com, Alligator
Juniper, The Adirondack Review, and many others.
3.
What
are the rewards/challenges of being a writer today?
The abundance of connectivity and content available at your fingertips nowadays
is both a reward and a challenge. A reward, because you no longer have to live
in an expensive big city or work at a university in order to be part of a vibrant
literary network. It feels like there are more books, stories, poems, blog
posts, etc. available to read now than ever before, and the Internet lets you
discover them directly, without the gatekeeping of big bookstores and
publishers. But this is also a challenge because you have so many distractions
taking you away from writing, and so many other voices that compete with your
writing for a reader's attention. In every era, I think, a writer must take the
improbable leap of faith that toiling in solitude for years with invisible
materials will someday have a meaningful impact in the so-called real
world.
4.
What
advice do you have for struggling writers? Depends on what
they're struggling with! Learn to know yourself and trust yourself. It's better
to make your own mistakes than to succeed by pleasing a teacher or critique
group. Don't let interpersonal static drown out your inner voice. Let the book
tell you what it needs. You can think about the market later. A good book is a
self-contained world that is consistent with its own inner logic. When
something is shoehorned in, or whitewashed over, because you think
"vampires are hot this year" or "no one will publish a book with
a disabled protagonist" or whatever, your book becomes that much less
true, and that much less necessary to the world.
5.
Where
do you see book publishing heading? I think the stigma of
print-on-demand and self-publishing will continue to fade, just as online
publishing used to be seen as an amateur forum but is now becoming competitive
with traditional print journals in terms of prestige value. The growing
popularity of e-books will further lower the barriers to entry. I need a
traditional press to fulfill print inventory orders, but I can sell an e-book
to anyone with an Internet connection.
As a practical matter, there's not much difference between being
self-published and being published by a small press, since you still have to do
most of the marketing, editing, and proofreading by yourself. Even writers who
have been published by larger commercial houses tell me that agents and book
doctors are taking over the traditional functions of editors; the publishing
house itself is investing less and less effort in any one title, whether in
editing or in marketing. So why not eliminate the middleman?
An interesting intermediate step, which removes some of the
vanity-press stigma, is for a writer or group of writer friends to start their
own little press to publish their work AND others. Is that self-publishing? I
see that question as becoming less relevant. Probably the academic job market
is the main force keeping the publishing hierarchy alive. Writers who teach
need those prestige points to put on their resume, even if their books might
get better treatment from a small press or DIY operation.
RECENT BLOG POSTS: DON’T MISS THESE
What Is Your Book Marketing Attitude?
Are You Cashing In Your Expertise &
Ideas?
Will Book Vending Machines Replace
Bookstores?
The Doctor-Author Connection
Has Facebook Peaked?
Brian Feinblum’s
views, opinions, and ideas expressed in this blog are his alone and not that of
his employer, the nation’s largest book promoter. You can follow him on Twitter
@theprexpert and email him at brianfeinblum@gmail.com. He feels more important when discussed in
the third-person.