Do Book Marketing Gimmicks Work?
Do Book Marketing Gimmicks Work?
Yes! And no. Like everything, it depends.
I’ve heard so many writers say, “I just want to write books! I didn’t become a writer to have to do self-promotion.”
Which is a perfectly valid stance. But unless your name is Stephen King, I also think it’s a fairly insane strategy in 2023. Whether you’re self-publishing or traditionally published, we live in an era of massive media overload. Eschewing self-promotion means you’re leaving the success of your project entirely in the hands of the Fates.
And these days, the Fates are just as distracted as everyone else.
Me, I consider myself the King of the Marketing Gimmick.
Over the years, I’ve tried dozens of different out-of-the-box strategies to sell my books and various other media projects.
My publicity mantra has always been: Do something different. The more others are doing one specific thing, the less likely it is to work for me.
Sometimes my gimmicks work, sometimes they don’t. Last month, I wrote about my mixed efforts trying to make a decent book trailer.
Here are some of the other gimmicks I’ve tried over the years — and whether or not they ended up working.
At the end, I’ll also draw some overall conclusions about which kind of gimmicks work best and why.
A Mail-Order Membership Club
My first real “marketing gimmick” was for my 2005 YA novel The Order of the Poison Oak — a sequel to my first book, Geography Club, which had been a huge hit. I wanted to do something to continue the momentum of my career.
The Gimmick
The Order of the Poison Oak is the story of a club for outcasts and misfits. The book is for kids, so I posted an offer on my website, and had HarperCollins, my publisher, print it in the back of the book: send me a self-addressed envelope and a letter explaining why you qualify for membership in the Order of the Poison Oak, and I’ll send you something special.
Basically, it was a kind of fan club. The “something special” I sent back was a letter of support encouraging solidarity with other misfits, a membership card, a dried leaf (which is related to the plot of the book), and a bunch of temporary tattoos.
Did It Work?
Not really. The book wasn’t a big success — but I think that had more to do with HarperCollins than anything else.
As for my gimmick, I did receive hundreds of touching letters from kids — and gave away about fifteen thousand temporary tattoos, which kids thought were extremely cool. The tattoos were also a big hit at my readings and school visits.
I do think I made my existing fans a bit more loyal, sold at least a few extra copies of the book, and maybe made the world a slightly better place for misfits.
Paying Audiences a Dollar a Question
I used to give a lot of readings and lectures, often to kids, and when it came time for questions, people were sometimes too shy to ask anything.
The Gimmick
I offered the audience one dollar for each of the first three or five questions, with the caveat that it had to be a real question (not just, “What’s your name?”), and the audience had to keep asking questions after my money was gone.
Did It Work?
OMG, yes! Kids loooooved it, and it always totally broke the “questioning” ice and made things lively and wonderful. And to this day, I think a lot of people remember The Writer Who Paid a Dollar a Question.
That said, teachers and librarians weren’t always happy with me. I think they thought it sent the wrong message about listening, that I was bribing kids or something. But I think they’re entirely missing the point. It was a silly stunt, yes, but it always resulted in an engaged, enthusiastic audience. Not everything is a moral lesson — sometimes a joke is just a joke.
Making a Music Video for My Book
My 2014 novel, The Thing I Didn’t Know I Didn’t Know, was the launch of a new series, but it was self-published, so I knew it wouldn’t get any mainstream media coverage (and it didn’t). So how could I make a splash anyway?
The Gimmick:
I approached a very talented musician-friend of mine with a deal: “If you write and record a song based on my book, I’ll produce a music video which we can use to sell both the song and the book.”
He said yes, and luckily, I loved the song he came up with. Producing a professional music video turned out to be much, much harder than I thought — you can read that story here.
Here’s the video:
Did it Work:
Yes, to a point. I was disappointed the video didn’t go viral — eight years later, it still only has 14,000 views — but I know for a fact it sold a lot of books. The week following its release, my sales had gone up an extra $1600, which more than paid for the video, which cost $1100 to produce, and I’m sure it went on to sell many extra copies after that too.
I consider this gimmick a win, and ended up developing a set of film-production skills I didn’t have before. But it was a hell of a lot of work.
Serving Whiskey and Beef Jerky at Book Signings for a Western Novel
My husband Michael Jensen writes gay historical fiction, and he wanted to get attention for himself at book signings.
The Gimmick:
He had a book set on the American frontier, and to get people in the mood for his story, I suggested we serve the audience whiskey and beef jerky during the reading. Which we did. Alcohol definitely livens up book signings!
Did It Work?
Well, we certainly made an impression. But we upset some bookstores, who told us we were violating the law by serving alcohol without a liquor license. Fair enough.
Two Novels Published Together as a Flip-Book
After the failure of The Order of the Poison Oak, mentioned above, I was desperate to reinvigorate my career. I wanted to do something really bold and audacious. And fun — I love fun.
The Gimmick
I wrote two interrelated novels from the POV of two different characters, covering the same period of time, but published together as a “flip-book.” The gimmick was readers would read one novel, then flip the book over to read the same period of time from a different POV. You had to read both books to get the whole story.
The two novels, which were for young adults, were the story of some teens working as extras in a b-movie zombie flick that was being filmed in their town. Since it was two-books-in-one, I gave the “overall” books the title Double Feature. I called the first novel (from a male POV) Attack of the Soul-Sucking Brain Zombies, and I called the second one (from his best friend’s POV, a female) Bride of the Soul-Sucking Brain Zombies.
Did It Work?
No, it was a complete and total disaster.
My editor had okayed the books, but once they were done, the HarperCollins publicity department said, “We need a new overall title. Kids don’t know what a ‘double feature’ is.” I said, “But ‘Double Feature’ is the whole concept of the book! Plus, it’s supposed to be kind of retro. The plot is that they’re filming a B-movie zombie flick, remember?”
Then they said, “Double Feature is too boring a title.” And I said, “Really? A book with the subtitle Attack of the Soul-Sucking Brain Zombies is too boring for you?”
They absolutely refused to bend, and we finally compromised on the title Split Screen, which I absolutely hated. I thought it completely muddied my whole two-books-in-one gimmick, not to mention the B-movie theme.
I also hated the jacket they came up with, which only included one of the sub-titles. You had to flip the book over to see the other title, but even back then, most people’s first introduction to a new book wasn’t through a physical book — it was the jpeg, either online or in a magazine. So HarperCollins’ choice confused readers even more. Huh? What’s the title of this book?
Years later, I self-published my own reprint edition of the book with a cover that was more like what I had wanted all along. It has sold very well.
But looking back, with HarperCollins so determined to screw up my gimmick, this whole project was doomed from the start.
Writing and Recording an Original Song for One of My Novels
I said earlier I self-published a whole series of books. For the first book in the series, mentioned above, I had that friend write a song, and I produced a music video based on the book and song. Now I wanted to do something for the third book in this series, The Road to Amazing.
The Gimmick
This time, I decided to write and sing my own song — which I also incorporated into the plot of the book. Then I had a friend create a video by setting the whole thing to scenes from one of the feature films based on my work.
Here’s what we came up with:
Did it Work?
As with the music video, this video immediately paid for itself: it cost $500 to make, and I sold an extra $1500 in books the week directly after its release.
But in this case, I also had a blast. Yes, I know I’m a mediocre songwriter and a very weak singer — God bless you, Autotune! — but I was very proud of myself for doing something so far outside my comfort zone.
The Lessons Learned About Book Marketing Gimmicks
Except for the disaster with Double Feature, I think all of these gimmicks worked to some degree. If nothing else, they got additional attention for my projects, which had been the point all along.
The most successful gimmick, the music video for The Thing I Didn’t Know I Didn’t Know, was also the most amount of work. But it was also fun work. I got to write and produce a music video! I also loved writing and recording that song for The Road to Amazing. I’ll probably never do it again, but hey, at least I did it once in my life.
Which brings up a good point: whatever you do, try to make it fun. Try to see it as an opportunity to learn some new skill, not as a required slog you’re dreading.
Looking back over all these gimmicks, I’m frankly a little disappointed they didn’t get more attention. I think most of them were pretty clever.
So do marketing gimmicks work?
Yes. Sort of. Sometimes. If you’re lucky.
Then again, the thing about the arts is that there is almost never one thing that leads to success: everything needs to work together. And overall, I’ve had a respectable career.
This brings up another good take-away from my experiences: if the partners in your project are not on board with any one gimmick — like HarperCollins wasn’t with Double Feature — they can easily sabotage it.
But there’s also an old saying in publicity that 80% of your success will come from 20% of your efforts — but you never know which 20%. That means in an era of massive media clutter, you need to do as much as possible to get attention for your project.
That is, if you care about it as much as you say you do.
I’m not trying to lay a guilt trip on you, fellow writers, but I write my books to be read by as many people as possible — and also to make a living, of course.
As a result, I’m going to keep ringing my bell and beating my drum — and handing out temporary tattoos, and serving whiskey at book readings, and making videos based on my books.
If all this brings me a few hundred extra readers, I say that’s win — especially if I had fun along the way.
Brent Hartinger is a screenwriter and author. Check out his other newsletter about his travels at BrentAndMichaelAreGoingPlaces.com.
Great post, Brent. I’ve actually been thinking about all this lately and then stumbled onto your post. Perfect timing!
Seems like the world of Substack has opened up some interesting possibilities as far as marketing a book in 2023. Perhaps more with self-publishing, but still. Has that stoked your imagination for your next book marketing campaign?
When my first book debuted, it seemed like everyone was trying gimmicks. Unique swag, recipes, contests, book trailers, entire digital "worlds." From what I could see, very few of these things worked. There's no guarantee that someone who likes the swag will like (or even bother to read) the book; there's no guarantee that what the author is offering is something people want. The two most ambitious writers, who created entire platforms (recruiting other writers to help provide content), ultimately couldn't sustain their online worlds *and* their writing careers *and* all the other parts of their lives. And with the rise of blogging, new websites had a splintering audience and a lot of competition.
The best thing I ever did was work with other writers so we could pool our efforts. I also did a lot of different things, trying almost anything that occurred to me for my first book. For the second and third books, I only did what I enjoyed, or what seemed to work a little for low effort on my part. I no longer did difficult elaborate things that I didn't even enjoy. I found everything helped a little, but nothing helped a lot.
Edward Burns has a great memoir, "Independent Ed," about what it's like to make movies, to have hits and flops, to work in a crazy industry. There are so many parallels to the writing world, and he talks about the gimmicks or hooks he used to have successes with some projects. It's a good book for writers to read. (I'm not getting a commission or anything, LOL; I just like the book and found useful analogies to the writing life!)