togetherness

There is this concept in marketing called Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. It's a theory that splits the basic human needs into categories – physiological, safety, belongingness, esteem needs, self-actualization.

Then we take various types of industries and distribute them into the need that they fulfill. Entertainment fits into the belongingness category.

Reading books counts as entertainment. So, we read books to fulfill our need for belonging. That's why a lot people read what everyone else is reading, even if it's garbage. That's why people read what Oprah tells them to and why we have book clubs.

Crowds follow crowds because they say to themselves, hey look at that crowd, there must be something interesting over there!

This is my theory - Traditional publishing creates a crowd using various resources at their disposal. They have the best reviewers and other people in the media who write articles or talk about books.

Marketing isn’t just about visibility; it's about creating a crowd. The book buying crowd follows the reviewer/media crowds. We are all happy, together consumers.

But.

How does an indie author create a crowd? Especially an introverted author like me?

That's the marketing problem I'm working on at the moment.

In other news, I finished the rough draft of the novella today! YAY me! The word count hit just over 12,000, which s not as long as I wanted it to be. There are some parts I need to expand a little - a fight scene here, some character development there. It might hit 15,000 words, but I don't foresee it being any longer than that.

It's not long enough to put on authonomy, alas. Authonomy is for full manuscripts. I might have been able to pass it off if it were, say, 20,000 words, but 12-15,000 is just too short, I think. It barely qualifies as anything more than a really long, short story. Yes, I said 'long, short'. I can say whatever I want because this is my blog.

I do still want to put something I write on authonomy because I think the concept is really cool. I will keep all my luscious readers posted if/when I do.

Novella editing activities begin tomorrow, so I might disappear from the blog for a minute, either that or my posts may dumb down a few notches. Editing really drains the brain.
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http://www.LeaRyan.com/
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