interviews
Is there a
marketing
technique
you’ve used
that’s had an
immediate
impact?
That’s a great
question. So, I’ll
tell you, from a
writing standpoint,
I’m always trying to
get better. That's my
goal. I'm a small business
person, and I want the
product to evolve and get
better continually. Two years
ago I found a cool app. It’s
www.TopShelfMagazine.net
If you could
walk into any
bookstore with the
ability to merchandise
your book the way you
want, how would you
would
have ever
taken that
plunge.
called the Hemingway App. It's a couple
of bucks. You can drop in sentences,
paragraphs of work, and it will go
through and tell you what writing level
you are writing at, if you're using too many
adverbs, or if your sentences are too hard
to understand. It’s a fun kind of thing, but
you could drive yourself crazy with it.
From a marketing standpoint, it’s
tough because I don't think the publishers
understand where all the readers are these
days. I believe they are fragmented. The
Internet has people all over the place.
They’ve got a lot of stuff distracting them
and taking away from time that at one
point would have been spent reading. For
me, the biggest thing I do is to pledge to
the people who I work for––my readers, I
wouldn’t have a career of writing if it
weren't for the readers––that if they
pick up a Brad Thor book, they are
going to get a wonderful value. We
can all go out and work harder and
make more money, but the time
you invest reading a novel you
can never get that time back
again. That’s time you could be
spending at work or with your
friends or family or in a pursuit of
a hobby that you love. So, it's
incumbent upon me, as an
author, to make sure people
are getting an absolute,
fantastic, white
knuckle, thrill ride
every single time.
You can’t hone it
in. I’ll never do
that to my fans.
They’ve
allowed me
to enjoy
such a
wonderful
dream
and
career
that it
would be
disloyal to
not put all
my heart
and soul
into writing
a book.
if the book's no good? What if you never get
it sold? Why waste your time doing that? I
think that which we’re most destined to do
in life, we’re most afraid of. This was my
case. I took a laptop overseas after
graduating college. I saved money so I could
live and write my first novel. About three
chapters in I talked myself out of it and
shipped the laptop back home. I then
traveled the world and came up with the
idea for a travel show called Traveling Light in
the 90’s. I pitched my idea to public
television and got on the air. It was a lot of
work, but it was the most bizarre form of
avoidance behavior because I was afraid of
what might happen if I tried to become an
author. It wasn’t until my honeymoon,
when, I was sitting in the piazza in Italy
with my wife having a glass of wine, and she
asked me, what would you regret on
your deathbed never having done?
And I said, never having written
a novel and getting it published.
She said, fine when we get
home you need to start
spending two hours a day,
protected time, making that
dream come true. If it
wasn’t for her, I don't
know if I
INTERVIEWS
ensure that your book is in the spotlight?
First of all, we’d reverse alphabetical order,
so I’d be at the top of the shelf instead of
down at ankle level. People used to ask me if
Brad Thor was a pen name? I’d say, come
on, if I were going to pick a pen name I’d
pick something between Clancy and Coulter
so I would be racked at eye level. Joking
aside, we do a lot of this with the publisher.
There is a co-op fund that gets spent at
bookstores. Everything important is to be on
the front new releases table or the New York
Times bestseller shelf, once your book hits
the list. That's all important stuff. You want
to stand out, and I think it's probably more
important now than ever. It's important to
be in any part of the store where your book
can face out. In fact, one thing I have asked
my publisher to start doing is to place a
band on the spine that says #1 New York
Times Best Seller. So if you get racked, you
can still see the spine and say, Oh wow ok!
This guy a #1 New York Times bestselling author.
It's important. I'm reminded of a great
thriller author, Vince Flynn, who passed
away several years ago, worked for Kraft
Foods setting up end caps at grocery stores
and places like that. He used to talk about
the importance of having your product
some place that catches people's eye and so
end caps are another place.
Read more of our interview with Brad Thor at:
www.TopShelfMagazine.net
TOPShelf magazine
AUGUST2017 19