Authors Jerred Metz, Wes Phelan and McKendree Long in WWW’s booth at the SC Book Festival
This past weekend was a busy one for the WWW team! While I enjoyed a weekend with a great tribe of writers at the Tallahassee Writers Conference in Florida, WWW team member Matthew Dix was running our booth at the South Carolina Book Festival in Columbia, SC!
Though we were at two completely different events, in two different states, the common thread (besides a whole lot of folks around who love books and writing them) was the cooperative spirit of authors helping authors.
I can’t overstate the power of this phenomenon. In SC, many of our authors gathered at the WWW booth, the BQB Publishing booth, and the Lowcountry Inititiative for the Literary Arts (LILA booth). Principally, they were there to sell books. Technically, that might make many of them competitors.
But therein lies the beauty of books and authors. No two are alike. And, rather than approach their business as competitors, they look for ways to help each other, promote each other’s work, and learn from each other. Before I got home from my trip, I already had emails from the authors who’d been in SC about ideas they’d heard from other authors and couldn’t wait to try!
I couldn’t help but think how cool that was, even though I’d just seen the same thing happening in the sunshine state. Their conference drew over 100 aspiring and emerging authors, most of them from within a 30 mile radius. The event was put on by their local writers association. Meaning, none of these fellow writers were paid to produce the event. They did it out of their passion for writing; and they did it for each other. That created some great energy early on in the event, and that kind of energy is contagious!
Much like we saw a few weeks ago at our own PubSmart conference in Charleston, writers were so eager to meet each other. I saw them exchange cards and emails, and talk about the potential for working together to promote their work. They explored the possibility of sharing the spotlight (but packing a bigger marketing punch) with online events and live booksignings. One clever group was even looking into sharing the expense and work of a website and blog between several authors, allowing each to shine and bringing each of their own audiences together to form a bigger, stronger audience of readers for each.
Who knows – your fellow authors may be the best marketing tools in your toolbox. At the very least, forming a cooperative of a few likeminded authors will let you share your ideas and resources.
Have you worked with other authors to collaborate on ideas, events or marketing efforts? We want to hear more!
Creator of Where Writers Win, Shari Stauch has been involved in publishing, marketing and PR for 30 years. She is also the principal author of the WWW blog, and speaks at conferences around the country. The Where Writers Win team’s newest collaboration is The Winner Circle – vetted book review directories, book clubs and other cultivated resources for emerging authors.
Hi Shari,
You’re absolutely right about fellow writers being our best marketing tools, but also supporters in keeping the juices flowing.
I’ve visited several writers’ groups here in So. CA who meet in coffee shops, bakery cafes, etc. Each is usually friendly, encouraging and supportive. I’ve seen some listed in meetup.com who have strict rules and structure, but I favor the informal ones. One group began at a NaNoWriMo, and enjoyed writing together so much that they’ve continued to write together each week.
There’s amazing energy and wealth of ideas flowing among active writers.
Outstanding, Flora — good to hear that energy flows to both coasts! I too favor the informal groups – our own group is a spin-off of another and we’ve been together for years; they become the beta-readers with whom you build trust before you send your bouncing baby words out into the real world, eh?
Terrific! I believe that cooperation is the only way to go. We are a group of six writers who worked together and a couple of years ago formed a publishing company for us and other writers where most of us donate our time to help each other and other writers whose books “need” to be published. I am a psychotherapist, and just finished a self-help book for veterans and families and friends, called “How to Cope with Stress after Trauma” and all of us are sending a note to our e-mail lists to spread the word that it’s on Amazon.
That’s awesome, Anna! (And thanks for your service to our servicemen and kin, too!). And for folks who want the link to Anna’s book (this is NOT a setup — I just looked it up since you were too modest to include it, lol) it’s http://www.amazon.com/How-Cope-Stress-After-Trauma-ebook/dp/B00K08SFB8/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1400538607&sr=8-1&keywords=how+to+cope+with+stress+after+trauma
I like the idea of authors sharing a blog and combining followers. I think this idea would benefit readers to with a wider range of topics.
Deb@ http://debioneille.blogspot.com
I agree! I’ve only seen it done once or twice, and unfortunately where I have seen it done, it seemed one author was doing all the work/posting… There definitely needs to be some agreement up front between the authors on areas of shared responsibility, all posting to social media, etc. to really make it viable.
Nice surprise. I keep thinking about last year’s Book Fest when I wished I was one of those WWW authors. Thank you, Shari.
Well now you are, darlin’… and you ROCK! Thanks so much for being there 🙂
Dear Shari: I just love everything about WWW and this post about the concept of sharing is a true gem. Our writing critique group banded together and created http://www.santafewritersgroup.com, a site dedicated to sharing the writing journey with writers far and wide. Sharing is caring and fun, too!
Brilliant, Nadine! Would love for you to do a post for us on this — how it works, division of labor, etc. Thanks so much for sharing!