Join the Launch Team for “The Restoration of All Things”
The other day I saw an Instagram clip of Ann Patchett being interviewed about writing and book marketing. Patchett is an accomplished author and the owner of a large, independent bookstore in Nashville. The interviewer mentioned conventional forms of promoting a book, such as book tours, podcasts, and radio interviews. Then he asked Patchett, “What actually sells a book?”
“I can give you the definitive answer to that question,” she said. “It is not a book tour, an ad, a radio show, a television show, a celebrity book club pick. The only thing that actually sells books is a person reading a book and turning around to their friend and saying, ‘Oh my,* you have to read this book.’ Books are a word-of-mouth product like nothing else.” Then she added the insightful observation that she believes “the experience of loving a book is not complete until you have turned around and said to someone, ‘You have got to read this.’”
It’s interesting how similar her last line is to a famous C. S. Lewis quote. “I think we delight to praise what we enjoy because the praise not merely expresses but completes the enjoyment . . . . It is not out of compliment that lovers keep on telling one another how beautiful they are.” Then he added, “The delight is incomplete till it is expressed” (Lewis, Reflections on the Psalms). Lewis gives several examples of completing joy by expressing joy, and the first example is about a book: “It is frustrating to have discovered a new author and not to be able to tell anyone how good he is.”
Fascinating, right? In all our ways of marketing our books and gaming the algorithms, the most important step in actually selling books is word-of-mouth: when one human likes something so much that they complete their joy by expressing it to other humans.
I think about this a lot in the context of promoting church events. Ministry leaders want their pastors to announce their events from the stage. And I understand why. It does help. But the main way it helps, I think, is by making the event legitimate in people’s minds. Knowing an event exists, however, is not the main reason people go to an event. I can tell you that the definitive reason that people go to a Bible study, a men’s breakfast, an evangelism seminar, or a women’s retreat is not an announcement from the stage or a blurb in the bulletin, but when one person turns to another person and says, “Will you go with me?”
And I guess, according to Patchett, this is what also gets people to buy books.
So, here’s my question: Would you be willing to help me get others to buy my book, The Restoration of All Things, by joining the launch team? I wrote the book to help offer more hope to people’s lives. And I don’t know anyone who couldn’t benefit from more hope.
I’m setting up a launch team to spread the word. You can sign up here.
When you join some book launch groups, the authors or publishers often give away copies of the book. I’m sorry, but I’m not in a place to buy books for fifty people. I want to do that! I just can’t.
Instead, I thought of two different “giveaway” options that I think most people might enjoy better. Everyone who joins the launch team will get either 1) a phone call to chat with me or 2) a personally recorded section of the audiobook.
If you choose the phone call, there will be no official agenda for the call. If you want to tell me something you liked about the book or didn’t like—or ask something about the book—then that’s great. I’ll be up for that. And if you just want us to get to know each other or catch up and talk about life and ministry and writing or whatever, that’s great too.
I know some of you who read my blog are friends and family, so a phone call might not be that special. Indeed, I know I’m not that special to anyone! That’s why I also have the option of a personally recorded section of the audiobook. Just pick your favorite section, and I’ll send you a recording of it with a personal note about that section. You can build a fire and sit and listen, if you like. Doesn’t that sound pleasant? (By the way, the publisher Baker Books hired a professional voice actor, as they are called, to read the book, which is why a reading of the whole book by me doesn’t exist. So you’ll have something no one else has.)
In summary, here are the requirements to join the launch team: A willingness to…
Buy and read the book
Share about the book on social media (and tag me if you want to)
Write a super short Amazon review
Most importantly, tell a real human about the book in a real, in-person conversation
Once you do that, we’ll just set up a 15-20 minute phone call to talk or I’ll ask you for your favorite section of the book so I can send you an audio file of me reading it.
Are you up for joining the team to spread the word? It would mean a lot to me if you did.
* If you watch the Patchett clip, know that she says OMG, which I omitted when I typed her answer.
** Photo by Dominic Kurniawan Suryaputra on Unsplash
