Discoverability + Author Follow-Up = WIN!

by Kate Rados

I was on Twitter (natch…) and saw that the 1980s Pop Culture feed/podcast Retroist was touting a memoir written around the time Star Wars had leapt onto the scene.

“Collect All 21! Memoirs of a Star Wars Geek – http://bit.ly/aEN3yu“

As a complete and unashamed geek, I immediately clicked on it and saw the author had created a landing page for the book, offered it as a $5 PDF download, as well as a paperback via Lulu, Amazon, and BN.

I immediately Re-Tweeted:

RT @retroist: Collect All 21! Memoirs of a Star Wars Geek – http://bit.ly/aEN3yu // $5 for the PDF – I may make that donation!

Within the next couple of hours, I found an email in my Inbox from the author:

Kate -

I just wanted to say thanks for the re-tweet of The Retroist’s note
about my Star Wars book. It’s always a pleasant surprise to see my work
get a boost from unexpected sources. If you decide to get the PDF,
please drop me a note and let me know what you think!

- John Booth

Strange thing is – I wasn’t creeped out by the unsolicited email.  In fact, I was feeling pretty special and pretty damn impressed that he took the time to look me up.  True, my email is on my site and I’m pretty transparent about how to reach me, but I thought it was cool all the same.  So cool, in fact, that I bought the paperback today.  I hate PayPal (a story for another time…), so the PDF option didn’t work for me personally.  After hearing from the author, I had no problem parting with an extra $10 to get the print edition…nor adding tags on Amazon…and ‘liking it’ on Glue.  He’s got me not only as a customer and reader, but an activist.  AND I haven’t even read the damn thing yet!

I’m not saying that every author should Tweet-Stalk their potential readers, but I think the takeaway here is for authors to make a complete investment in reaching out to their community, even through non-traditional methods.  Would I have advised John to follow Retroist, then check out @ replies, then look up email addresses and reach out?  Probably wouldn’t have asked him to go there, but I think this minimally invasive approach hit the right note with me and I applaud his effort.