Joining the Club
By Michael Drew - Oct 17 , 2007
I’ve never met an author, publisher, or PR professional who wasn’t looking for the answer to the million-dollar question, What will motivate people to buy this book? And while I don’t believe there is any one magic recipe, I do think we can identify some of the ingredients if we strip away the literary focus and ask ourselves the more basic root question: What will motivate people?
A Sense of Belonging
In 1954, psychologist Abraham Maslow published his book, Motivation and Personality, which contained his Hierarchy of Needs. For those of us who slept through that 8 AM Psych class, Maslow’s Hierarchy was the result of his research into human motivation, and was originally depicted as a five-level pyramid (after his death in 1970, 3 more levels were added by others):
The context behind the Pyramid is that people rarely consider higher-level needs until their lower-level needs have been satisfied. In other words, it’s hard to dive into a novel when you’re alone in the Amazon Jungle and you’ve depleted all your rations. Fortunately, the Physiological and Safety needs of those in your target audience are currently being met. You don’t have to worry about positioning your book as one they can eat or use to ward off large jungle predators.
For the opposite reason, there’s not much to gain from attempting to tap into the higher level needs, either. Remember, the Pyramid principle is that people rarely consider a higher need until their lower needs have been satisfied. And the truth of the matter is, most of us spend our entire lives stuck right smack dab in the middle of the Pyramid, searching for a sense of belonging.
Armed with this perspective, is it possible that one answer to the million-dollar question of What will motivate people to buy your book? is by appealing to their search for belonging? And if so, can you think of at least one way to go about doing this?
Join the Club
If a club can be defined as “an association of people united by a common interest or goal,” then human beings have been joining clubs since Moses led the Israelites out of Egypt. The ancient Greeks and Romans had their clubs. And the fraternal society of Freemasons has existed since the building of Solomon’s temple in 957 BCE (as far as we know). Today this desire to ‘gather with kindred spirits’ is stronger than ever.
We have organizations, associations, affiliations, congregations, alliances, unions, companies, groups, fraternities, and sororities. We belong to sports club, social clubs, service clubs, hobby clubs, indoor and outdoor pursuit clubs, age-related clubs, media clubs, and lifestyle clubs—and yes, even book clubs.
Barnes and Noble ‘joined the club’ by creating several of their own. Their online book club site, found at bookclubs.barnesandnoble.com, was designed to allow readers to connect with their favorite authors and has been a runaway success. Their First Look Book Club, which allows approximately 1,000 readers to sign up for a free galley, got so many requests for the first book in the program that they had to turn readers away. These interactive communities are not only exciting for readers, they should also be appealing to book industry professionals like you and me. As Marie Toulantis, CEO of BN.com, put it, this promotional opportunity “meets the needs of authors who are eager to reach as broad an audience as possible.”
Do you know anyone who is eager to reach as broad an audience as possible? Join the club—or start one of your own. There’s a tremendous upside to tapping into people’s true and hidden motivations.
Questions about your marketing plan may be directed to Michael R. Drew at the Austin, Texas, headquarters of Promote A Book : 512-858-0040. You can also contact Michael via email at michael@promoteabook.com.
