Gaining Fans for Life and Keeping Them

[Philip Overby]

So I read a blog post that PaulineMRoss had posted in another thread that discussed making those first 1,000 fans is very important for a writer. If you have that foundation, you can bank on those diehards to buy every single thing with your name on it. Sounds easy right? Um, probably not.

I got to thinking about that. How would you really get at least 1,000 people willing to buy every single thing you produce. I guess there are lots of writers that can do that. I know of hardcore Stephen King fans who have bought every single new book he puts out. Same with J.K. Rowling. These people of course have more than 1,000 fans. But for those of us starting out, getting those 1,000 fans (or even ONE fan) is pretty important step to gaining more readers.

So how do you get these fans and keep them?

I'm just curious what others have to say about this topic.

Here's the original article that Pauline linked: How to Find the Perfect Audience for Your Book, And Sell It to Them - LiveHacked

 

[GeekDavid]

Step 1 is obviously a quality product. You can't get any fans with shoddy writing.

 

[Butterfly]

Step 2. Having more than one book on the market.

 

[PaulineMRoss]

Step 3: write in a popular genre. Romance and/or YA in particular, but any genre is better than literary fiction (in terms of popularity, that is). And don't genre-hop.

Step 4: write continuing series with the same characters in them (people love the familiar).

 

[Devor]

Well, I mean, you have to find some way to get your work in front of a thousand people.

 

[GeekDavid]

Step 3: write in a popular genre. Romance and/or YA in particular, but any genre is better than literary fiction (in terms of popularity, that is). And don't genre-hop.

I'm probably going to break that rule, but only so far as writing science fiction goes. I have some cyberpunk ideas rolling around in my noggin that I really want to do.

But first, I need to finish this trilogy, and to do that, I gotta finish this book!

 

[A. E. Lowan]

Step 3: write in a popular genre. Romance and/or YA in particular, but any genre is better than literary fiction (in terms of popularity, that is). And don't genre-hop.

I'm going to add a caveat to the bit in bold there. There is nothing wrong with an author genre-hopping - it happens all the time. What can't make the hop is our pen name. That's our brand, and readers find it confusing when it pops up in strange places. When a writer becomes very popular you'll find that this changes a bit, and books that they have written under other names begin appearing in reprints as "by so-and-so written as so-and-so," and variations on that theme.

 

[Chilari]

Step 5 - engage with fans. Talk to them, respond to their emails and tweets, offer free books in competitions, auctions and suchlike, and get involved in relevant forums. People respond really positively to that.