The Choices of Reference

Using Reference Groups to Build Your Brand

By: Kimberly Grant

In the world of book publishing, everything is about reference groups.  How else will a good book get good word of mouth?  These groups make the book industry go round.

Referrals Are Everything

A reference group is a collective of individuals who have significant relevance for a consumer and have an impact on the consumer’s evaluations, aspirations, and behavior.  These groups can be anything from your family, your friends, or even that group of influencers you follow on Instagram.

These groups have hypnotist level influence on the ways in which consumers choose to buy or not buy a product.  In the publishing industry, the most influential groups are book clubs, editors, and even agents.  Getting your books in the hands of readers rests and resides with the groups just mentioned.

Choices, Choices

There was a time that in order to publish a book you had two choices:

1. A book publisher optioned your book then marketed and sold it
2. You paid to print 100s of copies of your book and then spent your own money going from place to place to sell your book to bookstores

The second option was only done when you had disposable income to do it.  Not many of us have that luxury.  These days, with the advent of Amazon Kindle and Kindle Direct Publishing, there’s no need to put money upfront just to self-publish your book.  Amazon takes care of the initial costs and then charges a fee for processing your book; whether in digital or physical format.  This led to different ways of marketing books.

Socially Relevant

With social media a huge part of everyone’s lifestyle, it would stand to reason that social media campaigns are the way to get more people reading your book (self-published or traditionally published).  This is actually not necessarily true.  People who read for leisure aren’t necessarily looking at social media for ideas on their next read.  They’re actually checking places like Amazon.com or Goodreads.com for info and insight into their next favorite book.  They’re also looking to a reference group that will shed light onto whether or not a book is worth the read.

Reference of a Dream

There are so many books in the market right now that readers have too many choices.  For a self-published author like myself, I’m competing against people who are also self-published writers with limited reach and authors who are backed by publishing houses with considerable reach.  The books that are backed by publishing houses have a higher chance of reaching millions of readers through various paid (read: expensive) promotional strategies and even film and tv deals.  One of the biggest promotional strategies in the book world is to get your books in the hands of prominent book clubs.

Two of the biggest book clubs in the industry right now are Oprah’s Book Club and Reese Witherspoon’s Book Club.  These book clubs are popular for obvious reasons, they’re backed by A-list stars who have the resources to turn a book into a bestseller then an award-winning TV series or movie.  (Think: OWN’s Queen Sugar.)  They literally have the power to make a writer’s dream come true. 

Book Clubs

As an author who is self-published, getting my book into these book clubs is a monumental task.  I’m not backed by a major publisher whose got a team of agents marketing my content to Reese or Oprah.  I don’t “know a guy”.  And if I plan on being at a success level where I can only write and live off the income generated from it, I would need to have my books be a part of these clubs. 

These clubs are what people use in their search for books to see what’s worthy.  These clubs are used to review books so that people who aren’t in the club will know that your book is worth reading.  These clubs will do a lot of the marketing for a writer (or small publishing company) on a limited budget. Gone are the days of people only reading Publisher’s Weekly to find out what books are available to read.  Gone are the days of the small book shops that will sell your books for you just to get them into as many hands as locally possible.

In essence, when it comes to book publishing, books clubs have a lot of power.  This particular reference group is what makes the book industry go round.  Hopefully, I’ll be lucky enough to infiltrate this reference group.  If not, there’s always a career in marketing.

Interested in other marketing insights?  You can read my last post here.