Authorgraph Advice to Authors

A Unique Way to Promote New Books

19 March 2014 - Seattle

Summary: Since 2011, Authorgraph has connected authors with their most passionate readers primarily through books that those readers have previously read and enjoyed. For a long time, however, I've believed that Authorgraph also held great potential to help authors promote their new books. This post is a case study in how one author leveraged the readership that she built on Authorgraph to jump-start sales of her new release.

Colleen Hoover is an author of multiple NY Times bestselling novels including "Slammed" and "Hopeless" and has signed thousands of Authorgraphs for her readers over the past two years. Yesterday, she released her newest book "Maybe Someday". When I first learned of Colleen's upcoming book, I contacted her to ask if I could help promote it. I felt that a unique book deserved a unique marketing campaign and I had an idea that I thought Colleen and her readers would love.

My idea to promote Colleen's new book was this: send an Authorgraph to Colleen's readership (i.e. her previous Authorgraph requesters) for "Maybe Someday". I hoped that these readers would be so thrilled to hear from Colleen that they would not only immediately pre-order her new book but they would also likely share the Authorgraphs that they received with their friends and family. Colleen responded that she loved the idea and agreed to try it with her readers.

Together, Colleen and I quickly assembled the pieces for the promotion. Colleen wrote an inscription and I built a tool for generating the Authorgraphs and sending them to her readership. The elapsed time from contacting Colleen about the idea to sending the Authorgraphs was less than 24 hours.

So what did Colleen's readers think about this promotion? In short, the response was amazing. An astonishing 68% of readers opened the email they received and 47% of readers clicked on the link to view their Authorgraph and learn more about her book. If you're familiar with email marketing, you'll understand how incredible these numbers are.

Readers also took to social media to share their joy about receiving an Authorgraph with their followers:

And here is what Colleen herself had to say afterwards:

Colleen Hoover Authorgraph's promotion had a very noticeable impact on my preorder sales. I think it's an ingenious way to market upcoming books and will definitely use this feature for all my future releases.

Based on the success of this experiment, the ability to promote books in this way will soon be available to all Authorgraph authors. I'm excited to see how authors will use this tool to connect even more closely with their readers and I'm encouraged by the possibilities for developing similar ideas in the future.

Evan Jacobs