Writing Lesson From a Plant Man

Marketing advice with a twist

Photo by vadim kaipov on Unsplash

Standard marketing advice for authors these days is to figure out who your reader is by creating a reader avatar, also known as a target reader. You’d do this if you were selling soap or furniture or baskets, and so why not books?

You do this by asking questions: who is likely to be a reader of my books? Where does she live? What other authors does she like? What is her job, what are her hobbies besides reading, etc., etc. And it is good to delve into demographics, such as age, race, income, education, level, marital status, and so on. It’s also recommended to do psychographics such as political views, religious status, values, interests and fears.All of this combined gives you a good picture of your reader.

The reason for creating a reader avatar is so that you know who you’re going to market to and where to find her. (And yes, would that we authors could spend all our time writing and now worry about marketing. But those days are long gone.) Because, obviously, if you write romance your readers will congregate in different places than if you write literary fiction. Many of those places will be on the internet, on social media sites, blogs, and websites.

Creating an avatar is excellent advice, which I have followed myself. (At least the creating of the avatar part. The implementing, not so much.) But I think that there can be a deeper side to this process as well. And in order to share that, I need to tell you a story. Last night I went to see Hilton Carter. If you’re not a passionate plant person, you may not have heard of him. He’s a plant and interiors stylist, the owner of a plant store in Baltimore and the author of four luscious books. His most recent, and the one he was touring to support is Living Wild. Oh, and he also has his own line at Target.

Hilton with the co-owner of Ecovibe in a not-the-best photo by me.

The event was held at a plant store, of course, and it was a delight to hear Hilton speak. He told a lot of entertaining stories (“I’m long-winded,” he kept saying, but nobody minded) about his life and career. One of the best was about how he discovered plants. One day, when he was going through a rough spot in life, he walked into a plant store and immediately just felt…good. He bought one plant and then another and another and he discovered that he not only liked being surrounded by greenery in his home but that caring for his plants relaxed him. It also taught him how to truly care for and treasure the important people in his life.

That was all wonderful to hear but what I really loved and what pertains to the topic at hand was his answer to a question about why he opened his plant store in Baltimore when he already had so much on his plate. He said he did it because he wanted to provide the people of Baltimore the opportunity to feel the way he did that day he first walked into a plant store.

So what if we worked with our reader avatars with that sentiment in mind? What if we approached all our marketing with that in mind? I don’t know about you, but so often with marketing I feel like I’m foisting something on my potential customers. Haranguing them to buy my wares. And that just feels ick, which is why I don’t pay as much attention to it as I should. But what if we go in with the idea that we’re sharing something that people out there want instead of foisting something upon them?

Yes I know that “giving back” like this has become a dreadful cliche. But think about it. You love your books, right? (I sure hope you do.) And when you love something you share it. When you read a book that you fall in love with, you tell everyone you know about it. (My friends and family really wish I would shut up about The Remains of the Day.) And since you love your own books, don’t you want people to know about them? To have the same delight in your characters that you do? To appreciate their sparkling banter, the lovely descriptions, the compelling plot?

Of course you do, or you wouldn’t be writing. I’m preaching to myself here, too, and it truly does twist my brain around into a more positive space to think about marketing like this. I hope it helps you think about it a bit differently, too.

Have you worked up a character avatar? Put it to use in your marketing? Do you have any tips for changing mindset around marketing?

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