Mining the Niche Markets

This is a two-blog day. Be sure to check the post that follows.

The Wall Street Journal had an interesting story today entitled, "Novel Ploy: Market Fiction to Niches." The article by Robert J. Hughes summarized what writers have known for some time now: getting published is tough and getting tougher.

Hughes says: "With sales of fiction slowing--and more than 5,000 novels appearing every year in the U.S., according to book tracker R.R. Bowker LLC--getting even one of them noticed is a challenge and a clear call to revise the marketing playbook."

The article says that publishers are getting more creative in their use of the Internet, interactive games and viral marketing targeted toward small niche groups. "The trick is finding their market."

I've talked about viral marketing on this blog before (see the post for 4/5/06). Viral marketing is based on Bernoulli's disease propagation model. Bernoulli postulated that an epidemic begins with an infected host. The host comes in contact with other persons. Those who are susceptible to the disease become infected; those who are resistant do not. The newly infected persons then go off to interact with a new generation of people, and the process is repeated again and again, spreading the disease.

Viral marketing works in the same way: placing a germ of an idea in a population thought to be susceptible. Hughes gives the example of a novel by Marti Leimbach about a child with autism. "Doubleday approached groups involved with autism research, counseling and support...the strategy worked." Leimbach made appearances and signings at autism groups, donating 10% of sales at those events to the cause. Word of mouth spread in the autism community as more and more people were "infected." "The novel is now in its fourth printing, the publisher says, with 44,000 copies in print."

Hughes offers multiple examples, including sending out more ARCs (Advance Reader Copies) than usual on upcoming novels to people who might be expected to be susceptible to that particular subject matter.

He also described agent Jenny Bent's strategy of mailing postcards to niche markets. She, the authors and publishers sent postcards to scrapbook fans to advertise a murder mystery featuring scrapbooking.

Again, it's about being creative and aggressive in marketing.