Let’s take a moment to talk about some people who have never heard of Twitter, aren’t on Facebook, and were really, genuinely impressed by their introduction to Skype. I’m talking about my book club, a gathering of eight women in their mid 30’s-early 40’s.
I’m sure the scenario is familiar: everyone reads the same book, gets together to eat, drink, and discuss. Yeah, I know the accusations that these groups are just excuses for moms to get together and drink wine – and I’m not denying them. Let’s just say our particular book group manages to drink AND have really good conversations about the book, too. Seriously.
Anyway, it was my turn to pick a book and I had in mind Jon Clinch’s Finn: A Novel. I went to Amazon.com and noticed a link to the author’s blog. As blogs go, his is not spectacular, but it was engaging, kept relatively up to date, and had a friendly feel. I read it and noticed that he had made an in-person visit to a book group. Intrigued about the possibilities, I looked deeper. Long story short, most of Jon’s visits to book groups are by phone, not in person. I ended up contacting his publisher, Random House, to schedule a phone call from Jon Clinch to my book group.
Before I ever spoke to Jon, I thought his book, Finn: A Novel, a re-imagining of the life of Huck Finn’s father, was an incredible book: spare, but moving, and compelling, in a way that I hadn’t seen in quite a while in contemporary fiction. Add to that impression an engaging, funny, heartfelt conversation that my bookgroup had with the author via Skype early in August, and I have now become the dream word-of-mouth marketer.
Honestly: Can there BE better word-of-mouth-marketing than actually getting to chat with a charming, interesting guy whose book you just read? As a result of that call, all of us have talked up the book and our conversation with Jon Clinch many, many times over the past few weeks.
After talking with him, I know for sure that Jon does these talks because he really wants to hear what people think of his book. He said he wrote five books before this, and all were rejected by publishers. It really came across in the conversation that getting the book published, and getting to talk with people about what they thought of it, is something that brings him a great deal of pride and satisfaction. That being said, it is certainly true that Jon must hope his efforts will lead to the sale of more books – a perfectly justifiable goal. But how effective is the word-of-mouth of me and my 7 friends telling everyone we know to read the book – literally, in face-to-face conversations, phone calls, or individualized emails?
From a marketing standpoint, Jon and Random House would generate more sales if “Jon Clinch” and “Finn” were talked about much, much, (really, can I emphasize this: MUCH) more online than they are now.
But, I have to say, I am so glad that I got the chance to have a real, engaging, sincere, hour-long conversation with Mr. Clinch rather than Googling his name and reading who he was Twittering, finding out who he is friends with on Facebook, etc., or even just reading a compendium of interviews he gave. It was a real social interaction, not “Join the Jon Clinch Facebook Group!” or “Follow me on Twitter!”
Aside from my professional analyses of this experience, I have to finish with an important personal point, a true recommendation from me to you, based on a fantastic experience I had: First, read Jon’s book, FINN. Second, if you are a social media maven – unlike me, to be perfectly honest -tell your 25, or 100, or 1000, or however many friends you have online to read it, too.
And, if you hurry, you can probably even still schedule a phone call. Unless it’s too late and he has managed to get on Oprah – which will be awesome for him, but may make it a little bit harder for you to schedule your call.
