Word of mouth–and why an author would beg, bribe and kill for a good street team.

I’m going all guns blazing with the promotion of Magic and Medicine because I believe this book is good enough to be our breakthrough on the market, but yesterday proved what really matters is word of mouth.

While I was writing Season’s War, I met reader-turn-friend and artist Reina, and every now and again, we have a healthy ‘rant at the world’ chat that I think works as a mental catharsis for us both. Yesterday, I was whining like a b… that with everything I have to do, there is not enough time for writing and living and that I need PR, and she said

‘I have free time, so what do you need?’

I have to admit I was sceptical and a bit on the fence with it because it didn’t feel fair to have a friend to do my errands, but eventually, I said that I had to do a Facebook run and post about M&M to those readers groups that allow author self-promo. There are only a few, and rightly so, but you couldn’t ask for a better pool of readers. Those are specific groups that read your genre and are your best chance of sales.

She returned after a few hours, saying she did a couple of posts and to check the sales because people showed interest.

As a reader, not an author, there was no restriction on her posting about the book and giving her honest opinion with recommendations.  

Her run around the block with ‘check this, it is awesome’ posts gave me more pre-orders than Amazon and Facebook ads combined. That is the power of word of mouth that all Indie authors hope for when doing their antics on TikTok or Instagram because it works, as the power to make your book a bestseller or sink it like the Titanic is always in the reader’s hands.

Btw: Check her website for awesome art: https://mytinybookshelfs.com/