Jonathan Fields left several careers behind—corporate lawyer, personal trainer, yoga studio owner—to set off on an authorpreneurial path a few years ago. He wrote the book Career Renegade: How to Make a Great Living Doing What You Love
And last week, Jonathan launched a new site, Tribal Author, including a free report that’s filled with great advice and case studies of writers who have taken charge of their own success.
Here, Jonathan explains how his career renegade philosophy empowers writers to find more fulfilling careers. Jonathan will be visiting the Editor Unleashed forum next Wednesday (details below).
How does your concept of Career Renegade apply to writers?
Being a Career Renegade is about building your career around the people, places and activities that make you come alive, while also earning enough to live well in the world. So, to the extent that writers treat their craft in this manner, they fall within the realm of the Career Renegade.
Of course, reality is, while a lot of writers conform easily to the first part of that sentence, fewer and fewer earn enough to live well in the world. My new venture, TribalAuthor.com, exists at least in part, to help provide the information, strategies and resources needed for writers and authors to reclaim control over their content and their careers.
What is the one thing about marketing your book that you found most surprising?
How rapidly the face of book marketing is changing. Tactics that launched NYT bestsellers 24 months ago don’t work today. I was prepared to roll out my book online on a fairly aggressive level and I did. We crushed it online. And, eventually landed some big mainstream print reviews, too. But, the waning power of mainstream media to sell books, compared to the power wielded by digital tribes, took even me by surprise.
Your report on tribalreader.com focuses on the importance of authors being their own marketing engines. What do authors most need to know about marketing their work?
It’s no longer enough to write a great book, hand it over, go where you’re pointed and hope for the best. If that’s all you’re willing to do, with rare exception, you should plan on keeping your day job.
You need to be the lead partner in the marketing of your book. And, one of the most powerful ways to do that is to build layers of digital tribes that play different, yet critical roles in the marketing equation. These include loyal fans, evangelists, colleagues, attention-traders, mainstream gone digital, friends and family, to name a few.
“More and more authors have been telling me how disempowered they’ve felt for a lot of years and many are sensing that there’s a window, now, to begin to reclaim power in the publishing equation.”
What are your plans for Tribal Author? And what are you working on now? Another book in the works?
I launched TribalAuthor.com last Wednesday with a report on the state of the book marketing that was part expose and part next generation book marketing roadmap. I sensed it would be well-received, but was blown away by what unfolded. I seeded it in social media for about 15 minutes, then it just took off from there. I think that really speaks to the desperate need for hype-free, fact-driven, killer book marketing information these days.
Right now, there’s nothing for sale at the site and I have a lot more pure, nonpromotional content to release over the coming weeks, including a PDF of the report, a highly-detailed Tribal Author Book Launch Mindmap, additional case-studies and more.
I’ll eventually make premium content and live-trainings available.
But, that’s still just the beginning. More and more authors have been telling me how disempowered they’ve felt for a lot of years and many are sensing that there’s a window, now, to begin to reclaim power in the publishing equation. As someone who’s one part entrepreneur, one part author, one part marketer and one-part social media sponge, I spend a lot of time exploring models for next generation publishing and IP buildout. And, the more I develop those ideas, the more potential paths it seems TribalAuthor may end up leading down. As far as next books, yes, Career Renegade was the first of many for me, but I’m not ready to go public with idea for the next one quite yet.
You’ve become a prolific blogger. Any advice to other writers who are trying to build and grow their blog readership?
Be real. Readers sense it when you’re not. The only way you can do that is to write on something that genuinely interests you…and isn’t wafer thin. You’ve got to be able to go deep, offer value and sustain that effort for an extended period of time before readers will buy into your “value proposition.”
Don’t be afraid to take a position.
As I recently tweeted, most of what can be said has already been said many times over. What makes you worth reading is your voice and your stories. If those lack conviction, it’s game over. Also, find like-minded bloggers and social media folks and join in the conversations unfolding in their communities. Do it first and foremost because you have a genuine interest. But, know, too, that links and comments that add to the conversation are the major currency across social media. Give often. And, give long before you ask for anything in return.
Mark your calendar: Jonathan Fields will be visiting the Editor Unleashed forum for a live chat, Wednesday, September 30, 1:00 p.m. EST. Go here for details.
-Maria Schneider
Get free daily updates here!
{ 1 trackback }
{ 7 comments… read them below or add one }
Great post. I wonder if Mr. Fields’ successes are helped by the fact that he’s easy on the eyes? :)
@Angie, well that certainly never hurts. :)
Thanks for the informative post! I’m in the process of putting together the marketing plan for my book (which will be published in January) and am focusing heavily on Internet and what you refer to as “digital tribes” – this just reconfirms my focus. Thanks for the advice and link to the free report.
I love what you do on this blog. Thanks.
This is great! Blogging and social networking is a must when you’re trying to get the word out about anything, really.
There’s a great new resource called Book Marketing 3.0 that helps new (and old) authors market their books effectively (and cost-efficiently) online.
When you have a moment, check out Book
Marketing 3.0, a new suite of unique products and services on
how to market a book. You can obtain
the Book Marketing 3.0 Toolbar, a productivity tool for authors for free. Go to:
http://www.proauthors.com
Fantastic post. I’ve just released my book “Sleeping Your Way to The Top in Business – The Ultimate Guide to Attracting & Seducing More Customers,” online only after I felt the distributor wasn’t up to date with the changes in online marketing.
Things have changed so much and there have been many other ways that I’ve utilised that have worked so much better in a shorter amount of time than just through one channel.
I’m looking forward to checking out your website. Thank you for the great article. :)
Cheers
Ben Angel
I wish that people would not talk about book marketing as if all books were more or less the same. I found Mr. Field’s manifesto very interesting, with a lot that rang very true…but it’s no accident, I think, that all his case studies involve nonfiction. For fiction, where audiences are far more fickle and amorphous (not to mention smaller), I think that tribe-building is probably way more difficult and much less viable in terms of generating sales. Not that some people can’t manage it. But I think it should be acknowledged that fiction and nonfiction authors face very different marketing challenges, and always did, even in the pre-digital world.