How to Keep Today's Viral Hit Rolling Along

We can dream about our background story being important enough, wild enough, catchy enough that the Twitter-verse goes into overload. However, if there was a guaranteed formula for something going viral there would be no need for marketing your book. And developing awareness of your book is the single most important role you have as author and publisher. Developing awareness of your book is the first element in book sales, followed by reader interest and distribution. Having a great story, excellent writing, and a terrific message are your best tools. But they are often not enough in this competitive marketplace to gather reader's interests and therefore sales.
In our media driven world today's great story may be quickly surpassed by tomorrow's bigger flashier story. Imagine a review of your book was printed in a major publication like Publisher's Weekly, Foreword magazine, or the Denver Post. Most people would think this was a done deal for jump starting book sales. But tomorrow the headlines are all focused on the plagiarist who made up his supposed "true story". Your reviews can slip into the shadows as if they have never been. What do you do?
Now is not the time to coast and hope that the review will cause your book sales to soar. Instead use those reviews to make more reviews, more awareness of your book. Compound the interest in your book. Banks offer compound interest on your savings. Investing in your success and expanding on that success is exactly the same. Your money works for you, you earn interest. You develop the awareness of your book, you earn interest. You earn interest you gain readers. More readers equal more sales of your book. As you can see there are steps to this awareness process.
Now how do you do that?

• Blog about your review. Share your excitement.
• Post the review on your social media. Facebook loves success stories.
• Send out an eblast to your mailing list announcing the review.
• Ask your followers to share the review.
• Comment on the review online, and ask followers to do the same.
• Thank the reviewer and offer your expertise for future articles.
• Now that you have the validity of a review in a publication solicit more endorsements from colleagues and competitors.
• Research which other magazines or newspapers might cover your story and your book. Query them as to their interest.
• Research submission guidelines for articles in magazines similar to where your review was published. Submit articles.
• Each review adds to your credibility as an author. As you earn credibility you become more attractive as an expert and as a speaker.

There will always be the next bright shiny thing. You can count on it. People like bright shiny things, and are often distracted when the next one pops up. Who knows you may become a bright shiny thing for tomorrow. Meanwhile do you remember the last Meme on Facebook you commented on, or the last thread that you followed on Twitter? Did that flash translate in you buying something? Follow the thread, enjoy the meme, but be the one who continues to build awareness.
*Inspiration for this article came from a Buzz Feed post by Jami Attenburg about her story going viral: "I waited for the whole thing to turn into a moment. On Sunday morning, I did another interview, this one with a local cable news show. How many of these could I do? And what would any of it have to do with my books?"

Mari Selby is a contributing writer for San Francisco Book Review. For the past 16 years Mari has been the director of Selby Ink, a publicity and marketing firm. http://www.selbyink.com Selby ink promotes authors who make a difference, and helps those authors to develop name recognition through traditional publicity efforts as well as social media. Selby ink specializes in the following genres: body-mind-spirit, relationships, environmental issues, and social justice.