Author Marketing Experts

Dear Reader - Sharing Good Books Five Minutes at a Time

How can you convince people to read more books when they tell you there’s simply no time? Suzanne Beecher came up with a novel idea - e-mail them five-minute book excerpts for one week and see what happens next.

Beecher’s audience, initially women who worked part-time at her family’s software company, got hooked on reading. “They went from saying they didn’t have time to shave their legs, never mind read a book, to having a book on their list,” she says, and DearReader.com was born.

The daily dose of book bytes spread by word of mouth and Beecher’s shrewd marketing. Beecher lives in Sarasota, FL and she pitched her idea of e-mailing daily book blurbs to the Sarasota Public Library, which became her first client. Beecher then traveled around the U.S. to introduce her concept to other libraries. At first, it was a hard sell; it was 2000 and the Internet was still new. “Using e-mail to attract patrons to the library was an untested concept.” Beecher notes.

Now DearReader.com has 3,000 libraries nationwide that use the chapter-a-day format to promote reading to their members. DearReader.com provides a resource center libraries can use, from technical support and Web sites to newsletters and book selections, all branded with the library’s name. The library’s daily e-mail includes Beecher’s column as well as book samples for the day.

In addition, DearReader.com currently has an e-mail list of more than 290,000 members worldwide. Each book is featured for one week, approximately two to three chapter’s worth, and subscribers can choose from 12 genres: fiction, non-fiction, mystery, romance, audio, science fiction, teen, business, pre-publication, good news (no bad language) and horror.

Finding new readers is critical since the publishing industry has faced declining revenues due to low readership. “It goes back to the old-fashioned idea that people say when they have a block of time they will read a book, but they never find the time,” observes Beecher. “DearReader.com shows people it’s fun and easy to read, and we make it convenient to them.”

DearReader.com has expanded its services from libraries to offer the format to businesses, county governments, public schools and Web sites that offer DearReader.com clubs to their members, and Beecher also works with more than 80 publishers. “What I look for is ways to partner, smart ways to market DearReader.com,” Beecher says.

The variety of genres, expanded over time due to reader requests, ensures that DearReader.com subscribers will be exposed to an eclectic mix of books, which is Beecher’s goal. “What I’m hoping for is that someone joining the book club will try different genres,” she says. “I get e-mails from readers saying they never would have picked up this particular book at a store or at the library, but now they’ve been turned on to the book.”

Making it easier for readers to connect with books is important, she says. “If they walk into a bookstore with a list of books they’ve sampled it’s an easier decision for them to buy the book, especially if they have to spend $20 per book.”

Prospective books excerpted on DearReader.com share one attribute regardless of genre: They have to fit into the five-minute-a-day format. A complex book that requires a reader to flip back and forth to keep up with the narrative won’t work on DearReader.com. “People have to want to continue reading the book so they will go to the library or the bookstore to get a copy of the book, so a book can’t start slowly,” she says. “By the end of the week they know if the book is a good match for them,” Beecher adds.

Print on Demand books also do not work with DearReader.com’s format. The decision has nothing to do with quality, Beecher says. There are plenty of good POD books being published, but the companies that support DearReader.com have to be able to buy the book at a bookstore or check it out from the library.

Books are chosen for DearReader.com through submissions from publishing houses, orders from publishing catalogs, author submissions or suggestions by the DearReader.com staff. A staff of 13, mostly full-time, many of them mothers, comprise DearReader.com. Beecher says she will feature a book that doesn’t appeal to her if someone on her staff reads and recommends the book.

DearReader.com staff looks at all the books they receive – up to 50 a day -–although they are not able to feature every title or contact every person who submits a title. However, books that are not excerpted in e-mails may be used in other ways; for instance, DearReader.com regularly runs several contests and may give away books as prizes, Beecher says.

Authors should submit their book several months in advance. DearReader.com’s libraries receive eight week’s advance notice of its selections. Interested authors can e-mail DearReader.com and they will receive a form with submission guidelines. Authors who submit their own books should also include a letter to distinguish their book from a publishing house’s submission and provide their publisher’s contact information. “The easier you make it the better chance you have,” Beecher explains. In addition, Beecher recommends that authors target their book pitch to DearReader.com’s members – busy people who say they don’t have a lot of time to read, so they need to be enticed by daily book teasers.

DearReader.com is the best of both words, says Beecher. “It’s a job, but it’s a job that gets people to read books,” she says. “We want to make money, but we’re looking at ways to get people back into the habit of reading. All ideas funnel back to that. Hopefully, one day we’ll open our e-mail and everybody will have a book club.”

Although Beecher’s job involves reading she says it’s difficult to say how many books she’s read since starting DearReader.com in 2000. When Beecher read all of the books herself, she would read the first 40 pages or so – enough for a week’s worth of excerpts and to know if the book would work. She didn’t finish reading those books due to lack of time. But one book she recently read (and enjoyed) is Marshall Cook’s Murder at Midnight, which the author submitted.

Current goals include continuing to expand DearReader.com and finishing writing a book based on her daily column, which is another way she connects with the members of DearReader.com. The column is about her life – the ups, downs and topics Beecher thinks about daily. “When people read about the things I write it causes them to think about how this happens to them in their life, making it fun and easy for them to reflect on their own lives,” she says.

Beecher recommends that DearReader.com be contacted via e-mail, but correspondents also should include their phone number to make it easier for the staff. DearReader.com receives 300 to 600 e-mails daily, and they answer as many as they can.

Contact Suzanne Beecher at DearReader.com by calling 941-373-0700 or e-mail Suzanne@DearReader.com. The Web site is www.dearreader.com.

Article contributed by Paula Krapf, an Associate at Author Marketing Experts, Inc. and a super savvy marketing specialist. You can reach Paula directly at: paula@amarketingexpert.com

posted by Penny C. Sansevieri @ 6:39 PM