Thursdays with Amanda: Brainstorming Street Team Strategies

Amanda Luedeke is a literary agent with MacGregor Literary. Every Thursday, she posts about growing your author platform. You can follow her on Twitter @amandaluedeke or join her Facebook group to stay current with her wheelings and dealings as an agent. Her author marketing book, The Extroverted Writer, is available from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

Last week, I talked about the importance of brainstorming, and as promised, I’m going to go through a brainstorming exercise here on this blog so that you can see the train of thought…the bad ideas, the good ideas, the weird ideas.

Here are the rules:

I am going to pretend that I wrote one of my favorite books of all time, The Great Gatsby. I’m using this, assuming that most of you have either read it or seen one of the many movie adaptations. This way, we can hopefully all be on the same page with understanding the book’s content.

So, I’m pretending that I wrote this book and that I need to come up with ideas that will put my Street Team to work.

I will spend 20 minutes, focusing on idea-generating.

No idea is a bad idea.

If an idea comes, coupled with a notion of how that idea would benefit my Street Team, I’ll jot all of it down. But if it doesn’t–if I get an idea but I’m not quite sure what the benefit for the Street Team would be–I’m not going to worry about it. I can figure that out later.

Okay, so before the twenty minutes starts, I need to know a few things (and if you plan on attending my ACFW session on Marketing Plans, you’ll get this much more in depth!):

TItle: The Great Gatsby

Genre: Literary

Themes: Jazz, 20s, Flappers, New York Wealth, Agnosticism, socio-economic classes, infidelity, romance, Plaza Hotel … (this should be enough for me to work with…it took me about two minutes to come up with this list.)

GOAL: To put my Street Team to work so that I can reach BEYOND my current circles and grab new or potential readers.

IDEAS:

• Develop talks on the 20s, agnosticism, Jazz influence, etc. Ask ST (Street Team) members who live in major cities to see if they can line up or open the door for talks for me at universities, interest groups, etc. Reward would be I’d come to their area and get to hang out when not speaking.
• Ask ST to each come up with 10 BLOGS that highlight a certain theme. Give each member a different theme. Take those blogs and contact bloggers about hosting a giveaway/interview, etc
• Arm NYC area STers with paraphernalia that links Great Gatsby with the Plaza Hotel. Maybe they can talk about the book with tourists? Hand out pamphlets? Needs a takeaway…maybe a giveaway or something.
• See about working with Historic NYC Society (I’m sure some exist). Get NYC area STers on that to see about getting book features in club discussions, etc.
• Divide ST based on what themes they most identify with in my book (some may be agnostics, some may have interest in historical stories and groups, etc). Launch campaign geared to a specific group (agnostics, 20s fanatics, Jazz people) and have ST promote awareness among their groups. For example, a ST member involved in agnosticism would maybe have many agnostic friends online. They could then use those relationships to find and tap into the agnostic Goodreads groups, Facebook groups, Twitter hashtags, message boards, forums, blogs. It’s about using STers to infiltrate the groups where they already have a presence or an interest.
• Challenge ST members to a FB Page “like” race…have whomever can bring in 10 or 20 or 30 new Likes receive a prize. Must have REALLY GREAT FB content after this so that the new likes don’t disappear. Must think about engaging the new members.
• Ask STers to get involved in local book clubs well before book releases. AFter the book releases and they have been there for awhile, ask them to try and get the book to be the next read.
• Ask STers to contact local newspapers about getting a write-up on the book/me. BUT must find out if my readership actually reads newspapers. WHAT DO THEY READ? WHERE DO THEY GET THEIR INFORMATION? Must research.
• Can STers get me on their local NPR? That seems a good audience for my book.
• Wondering about hitting groups interested in infidelity/marital issues and the psychology behind that. Do these exist? Can ST help me?
• What about local Jazz groups? Can STers approach local Jazz clubs and such about advertising my book? If I arm them with a book trailer or bumper trailer…some sort of video that would appeal to jazz listeners and get them thinking about my book, could my ST get that trailer to play at Jazz clubs?
• Does anyone in my ST know any Jazz musicians? any connections? Must find out. Could get an in with the jazz community that way.
• Are there any groups interested in the history of America’s wealth? Must find out who they are and whether I have a ST member who lives nearby who could open that door.
• Must research blogs, newspapers, magazines, podcasts, radio spots, and more that deal with any of my above themes. Ask ST to help?
• What movies or books exist that would appeal to the same reader as mine? Must find out and see about tapping into those fan bases.
• What fan bases are my ST members a part of? Must find out in case there is an overlap of interest and I can ask them to try and get awareness going for my book
• Still thinking about NYC wealth…there has to be interior design groups, summer home magazine groups, etc. who chronicle east coast wealthy lifestyles. As STers to pay attention to local publications and mail them to me (i can cover postage/expenses). Could develop articles or something to fit these publications, highlighting 20s east coast wealth.
• Have STers write down all of the groups they know and influential people. ARm them with the things they need to communicate my book to these people (postcards, ARCs, trailers, websites, etc). Ask them to generate awareness within their circles once the book releases. DO a quick push in these groups and let that be the end of it. no need to harass for long periods of time.

My twenty minutes is up…and clearly I had some bad ideas. Some difficult ideas. And maybe a few good ideas. The key here is to go back to this list tomorrow, and begin to hone in on what’s do-able and what would be most effective. It’s a growing, morphing list. No idea is set in stone. And the list is never complete.

Now, one thing stuck out to me. I need to KNOW MY STREET TEAM. I need to know what they’re capable of and how they’re connected. And not every way that I’m going to use them includes the hard sell. Sometimes I’ll need them to pound the pavement or do research. This is where my incentives for them really become a big deal. The “what’s in it for them?” question is bound to pop up.

And as a general note…when I went through this I REALLY found my pre-written list of themes to be helpful. I kept going back to that and thinking “what am I missing?” “what am I forgetting?”

Okay, THOUGHTS? REACTIONS? Let me hear ’em!

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*Love my marketing advice? Check out my $5 ebook, The Extroverted Writer.

Here’s what readers are saying: “…it doesn’t just tell you the things you should be doing. It shows you how to do those things.” – Chris Kolmorgen, Amazon Review