Creative Ways To Interact With Your Audience: Enter The QR Code

In ye olden days, writers hawked their tombs of bound paper, kept whole by glue and string, to the masses who gathered at ye olde book traders to hear them speak and sign their flowing prose. In this digital age if you are someone like Cecelia Ahern, backed by a large multinational publisher like HarperCollins, you can place a specialised glyph (or picture/character) within the pages of your book. When your reader goes to the publisher’s unique author website, they show the glyph to the webcam and get instant access to a whole new virtual world inspired by your stories.

While many indie authors can only dream of having such a creative interaction with their audience, there are still achievable ways you can foster your author/reader connection. As mentioned before you can upload your own video trailers to YouTube and even encourage readers to upload videos of themselves acting out the scenes (whether it be for a competition or just for fun). If you have the patience to do a bit of extra formatting you can even add illustrations to your work. Stick figures are always popular...

Another fantastic way to interact with your audience is through podcast. Scott Sigler is the king of this particular method. Scott created the first podcast only novel in 2005. Today, by giving away his self recorded audio books as free, serialised podcasts he has gathered a massive following for his work. A large slab of his following was formed BEFORE he was traditionally published. You can think of a podcast as a more modern version of the early serialised radio fiction, without the fake British accent. By serialising the e-book not only can you gather a following, but later when it is complete you can sell it or give it as a bonus with your e-book (to entice people to buy and also to justify a higher priced book).

Subscription websites also offer a great chance for indie authors of children’s books. These sites allow a parent to record a video of themselves reading a children’s book (selected from the list) on their webcam. This recording can then be played by a carer to the child while their parent is away. This allows your reader to add a personal touch to your work.

The final strategy for the day centres around QR codes. Now if you don’t know what a QR code is don’t worry too much. Just accost any teenage girl with a mobile phone or harassed looking business person with a blackberry and they will be able to tell you. Just be prepared, anybody with a touch screen smart phone will look at you like you have grown antlers... and possibly fur. A QR code is a 2D barcode, generally square in shape that can be read by barcode apps (on desktops and mobile phones) and camera phones. You may have seen them on various promotional posters, on the side of Pepsi cans or on ads in the subway. When someone scans the barcode with their phone it takes them to a website which can contain additional information, videos, or coupons for discounts. An example of one is shown below. If you have a smart phone, scan it and your phone will be directed to a video I did for the Sheila Hollingworth interview. If you don’t already have a barcode app on your phone go to the website http://percentmobile.com/getqr using your phone and download an appropriate one for your model.

How cool is that? This type of interaction between an author and a reader has never been done. Ever. But it is being used to generate thousands by large corporations, and the best part is, you can generate your own QR code for free. How do I know about QR codes? I have been studying internet marketing for well on 6 months now. Imagine having one of these scannable codes at the beginning of your e-book that leads to a video of you thanking your reader for making the purchase, or providing a discount for the next novel in the series. Or better yet, what about a series of QR codes throughout an e-book or series that unlocks extra short stories or podcasts of a chapter. Put them on business cards so people can scan them and see a trailer to your book. If you are in a major city why not set up a treasure hunt by scattering posters with the code around the streets so that readers have to physically visit each code to unlock the next part of the story. The interactive possibilities are immense, you can set up an endeavour very similar to HarperCollins without paying even a thousandth of what they did to set it up.

This sort of reader interaction is what will set indie authors apart in this coming digital climate. Perhaps it’s time you gave up ye olde book trader for something more modern...

TOMORROW: The Media Machine: How customising your book to be unique can generate huge demand for your work.

SUCCESS?? Have you started to apply the tips in this blog yet? If you have had success, I would love to hear about it! Please feel free to tell us in the comments section below.