Building A Social Hive
18. Get Everyone Involved
Some concrete examples: Coffee House Press published a book last spring called Submergence, by J.M Ledgard. The book did very well, not in the least because it’s a fabulous book, but also because every single member of Coffee House’s tiny staff read the book, knew it intimately, and advocated for it on a large and small scale. If you were to log in to your Twitter account right now and tweet something about Submergence, I’m willing to bet $10,000 that Chris Fischbach (publisher of CH) would retweet, favorite and probably respond directly to your post. He’d probably follow you as well. There’s almost no chance higher-ups at major houses would have that kind of interaction with their readers.
Ellen Harvey is a freelance writer and editor who covers the latest technologies and strategies reshaping the publishing landscape. She previously served as the Senior Editor at Publishing Executive and Book Business.