the marketing parable of the submarine sandwich
I occasionally get asked if writers really need to do marketing for their books.
Okay. True story time.
A couple of days ago I was at a Subway for lunch. Subway is an extremely common restaurant in the United States. I don’t know if this is accurate or not, but Google says there were 26,000 Subway locations in the United States in 2016, and that certainly seems right. A few months ago I drove through a town of 50,000 people that had six different Subway locations, and I’ve visited towns of 10,000 to 15,000 people that had two Subway locations.
So Subway is a common restaurant. One might even say ubiquitous. And Subway advertising is common – TV commercials, internet ads, billboards, sports sponsorships, and so forth.
Anyway, I was in line, and the woman behind me approached the counter in great confusion. Evidently, she had never heard of this “Subway” before, and wanted to know if their name meant they served submarine sandwiches. You might think the woman was confused and elderly, but she looked to be in robust good health, and couldn’t have been older than 60 at the most.
The conclusion: if a restaurant with 26,000 national locations and constant advertising still has potential customers who have no idea it exists, then writers need to do marketing for their books.
Speaking of which, buy my new book! The ebook costs less than a submarine sandwich. 🙂
Image copyright Jonathan Moeller 2016.
-JM
Huh. I mighta guessed the opposite conclusion – if after all that marketing there were still people who didn’t know what Subway is, then it’s hopeless for an indie author to reach his audience.
But what sorta marketing do you do (other than this blog and making first books in a series free)?
Of course, one could argue that Subway’s marketing was so successful that it has 26,000 locations in the US alone. And it is the nature of people to forget things. Marketing reminds them.
Other than this blog, I do my newsletter, Facebook, Twitter, free short stories, and occasional paid advertising.
An outdated list of everything is here:
https://www.jonathanmoeller.com/writer/?p=5144