Author and science fiction guru Jacqueline Lichtenberg has been blogging recently that one major reason the use of social networking to market books (or any product, really) by publishers isn’t a smashing success is because the publishers (often) aren’t the customers of the product. It’s like they enter a conversation at a party without first checking to see what’s being discussed or even taking time to listen & learn first before talking.

When I hear about the challenge you stated above, Ami, I immediately think of Sam Raimi and the Spider Man film franchise. I think one reason Raimi’s incarnations of the webbed wonder were so successful was because in addition to being an accomplished director, he was also a fan of the source material. He knew what fans wanted but also how to deliver the blockbuster that the studio required.

Maybe one way to embrace readers is to do a Sam Raimi: hire staff (editors, PR folks, art department, etc.) who are the customers–fans–of the books in question. Or tap into the fan base among the staff that may already exist. Or do some kind of outreach/focus group.

If publishers can engage in genuine dialogues with readers in forums and other online communities (as members & fans, not marketers), that would be a start. But they’d have to leave the sales pitch at the door.

. Part of the problem, I think, is that it’s hard to know *how* to embrace your reader when you’re a publisher who has sold to middlemen for years.

This is so true. For insiders, my next statement will appear laughably naive, but until 2009, I actually believed I was the publisher’s customer. In 2009, I learned, through extensive re education, that the customer of the publisher is the wholesaler, retailer, bookclub buyer; seemingly anyone but the reader.

Once I had accepted this, every statement to the press by publishers made sense, albeit not always in a good way. I think that publishers can still sell to the retailer, to the wholesaler, to the corporate buyer while still messaging to the reader, but it seems that an internal mind shift, akin to what I underwent in 2009, will have to take place.

I’d be really interested to hear especially about how the romance publishing and writing community has worked to embrace readers, and what specifically worked and (perhaps more interesting) what failed.