OPEN Magazine recently ran a short piece about “silent bestsellers.” One of my MFA mates–Anand Mahadevan–was featured. It’s a notable article if only to illustrate the benefit of authors acting in their own best interest, which should be a “duh” statement but is not. To wit:
No matter how much they’d downplay their small efforts to sell their wares, almost all authors admit online networking might have contributed to spreading the word. Anand Mahadevan did that in Canada. “I bought ad-space through Google and Facebook to reach out to a younger and internet savvy crowd—folks I thought would make an ideal audience for my book—and promoted the book for several months starting a few weeks before the release,” he says.
Now that’s smart marketing on Anand’s part. The other marketing efforts?
Shandana Minhas’ book has a Facebook page. Anirban Bose created his own website. Amit Varma also put out information about his book on his well-read blog.
Anand should be emulated. He targeted his audience and didn’t take the passive route. Utilizing affordable ad space (and beating the price increase, which I imagine will occur once other authors figure out the efficacy of a web presence–why is it still noteworthy when an author utilizes social networking? shouldn’t that be mandatory by now?), writing a good book, and coordinating marketing efforts resulted in some decent sales for Anand. Authors take note. If you’re not playing an active role in selling your book, your book won’t sell. Established brands sell themselves. Unknowns do not.
Small irony: No links in that piece on the benefits of online marketing. Here’s Anand’s site.
