Playing to Your Front Row: How to Make Your Writing Career More Satisfying

All writers want basically two things: free food and for others to love their work. So often, you write, you put yourself out there and wait with hands clasped and bated breath…and then other people just keep living their lives. Going to the grocery store and bathing their kids and not stopping everything to gaze in awe at the thing you worked so hard on. THE NERVE! But just like so many other things in life, sometimes you have to take charge of getting your own satisfaction, instead of waiting on other people.

Except…how though, Michelle? Obviously, you can work on your writing craft, to make your stories the best they can possibly be (see: every other blog on this website). You can put yourself out there more often to give your work the widest possible audience. But there’s a third thing you can do, and I’d argue it’s the most important for making you a happier writer during any phase of your career.

I call it Playing to Your Front Row. It’s a concept I discovered while writing lots of books about musicians. You see, when you’re on stage, you’re pretty much blinded by the lights, so whether it’s an empty dive bar or a packed stadium out there, basically all you can see is the faces of the people in the front row. That’s who you’re playing to, and their enthusiasm or boredom is what you’re going to assume the rest of the crowd is feeling. That’s why musicians want their #1 fans in the front row, not the people who won a free ticket from a fishbowl raffle, and that’s why YOU need to go out and make sure you’ve got a front row packed with loud, enthusiastic fans instead of just hoping for the best.

In writing, much of the time we don’t hear back from our readers. Applause isn’t even a thing, and basically no one ever throws their bra onstage during a reading (thankfully). The vast majority of readers don’t leave reviews or send you emails, even when they love your work. So the best thing you can do for yourself is figure out how to get your writing a front row of visible fans. If you do that, I’m going to tell you a little secret: it will no longer matter how many or how few other people are standing behind them.

Of course, you can always just sit back and hope people will find your book and that some of them will talk to you about it. However, if you take charge and make sure you’ll get feedback in some form, and mindfully pick who it comes from so you’re more likely to be in front of an audience who gets you…well, this pays emotional dividends that will save you a lot of therapy bucks, let me tell you.

Your options are different based on whether you’re currently published or not, but I’m going to give you a double handful of ideas here for where to find yourself an enthusiastic front row. You can pick and choose from there, judging by which will bring you the most happiness and satisfaction.

1. Street team/ARC team: These are amazing. This is a handpicked group of readers who love your work, who you can send ARCs to before everyone else. From there, you can get personal emails from them about how they liked the book, and/or they can review on Goodreads, Netgalley, social media, and their own blogs. It’s such a soft landing for the first round of people who see your book to be ones who love your style. Also, it can’t hurt your book’s chances for those first reviews on your page to be positive ones.
2. Positivity Pass: These are a very versatile choice, because you can ask for one at any point in the writing or publishing process, and you don’t have to be published to take advantage. You can ask for a positivity pass when you’ve only written one chapter of a new book, or when you’ve just started querying it and you’re full of nerves, or when your book has been out for 6 months but Rando Reviewer #322 just said the novel of your heart was all about dog sex (this really happened to NYT bestselling author Maggie Stiefvater). A positivity pass is when someone read your work, but instead of giving you feedback on what needs to be improved, they only highlight the parts that are WORKING. The stuff you did well, the dialogue that sparkled, the character they swooned for… This amazing term was coined by author and editor Katie Golding and it’s been sending ripple effects of positivity through the writing community ever since. These are a great pick-me-up for all authors, and make sure to return the favor for your friends!
3. Bookstagram: One of the greatest pleasures of my writing career is when I’m scrolling Instagram and a picture of my book pops up! It’s almost more fun when no one tagged me and I’m not expecting it. No matter how they appear, I love the gorgeous pictures that people set up. It’s fun to see your book celebrated in such a visual way. You can make sure your book pops up more on your Instagram–regardless of what your publisher does or doesn’t do–by booking an Instagram blog tour through a PR company, or by contacting bookstagrammers you admire one at a time and offering a copy of your book if they’re interested.
4. Blog tour/review tour: There are many services out there that offer blog review tours, or ARC services (same thing). Of course, the reviewers may not all like your book, so be sure to peek ahead at the star rating to make sure your book was for them before you read the review. It works best if you target this to readers who especially like your TYPE of book and if they can opt in for specific books at will. Then, this can be a fun way to make sure you’ll actually get to see what people thought of your book, since many regular readers don’t have time to leave reviews. I’ve definitely gone out of my way to schedule review tours for all my books: not for the extra marketing or exposure but just so I could personally see some readers’ reactions to my books. It’s always been completely worth it. Remember to shop around a bit: the pricing on blog tours and ARC services varies wildly.
5. Facebook group: Many authors have a Facebook group just for their readers, and this can be a really fun place to talk about your books to people who actually care, and who have read your backlist. Plus, it’s free!
6. Frame Your Book Cover: This is less about other people’s opinions and more about remembering to celebrate your accomplishments in a visual way so you remember and enjoy the beautiful moments of your career. Like I was telling an author the other day, celebrating isn’t just an excuse to eat cake: when you mindfully make time and space to celebrate writing milestones, you’re also building up your future confidence by remembering you’ve done these things once, so you can do them again. Some examples: a wonderful blogger friend had my first book cover framed for my Christmas present that year. Two writers I know buy themselves flowers to commemorate writing milestones. When I got my first starred review from Publisher’s Weekly, my CP framed it and mailed it to me, so that I wouldn’t smile once at the email and then forget it ever happened. She very smartly knew if she framed it, I’d feel guilty if I didn’t hang it up. So now it’s in front of my desk, reminding me on hard days that once upon a time, industry professionals loved my work enough to give it that most coveted of gold stars.
7. Reader Events or Book Clubs: Now, this one can backfire, because once you schedule an in-person event, whether it’s on Zoom or in a bookstore, you have to wake up in a cold sweat between 2 and 47 times, worrying that no one will show up (listen, I don’t make the rules, these are just the facts according to Newtonian Physics). However, if people DO show up, talking to real actual people with real actual faces who have really actually read your book is wild. And deeply satisfying. This can happen even before you start booking author events. When I visited my mom’s golfing group was the first time I was ever in a room full of women who had read all my many books, and I had to stop myself from stuttering “Really? You’ve really read them?” Over and over again. Of course, the novelty backfired when they all started asking whether I’d written my sex scenes from personal experience, but hey, you can’t win ’em all!
8. Print Out Your MS: This is a great one, because you can do it whether you want to seek publication or not. Something about the weight of the pages is so incredibly fulfilling. It makes you feel, sometimes for the first time, that you MADE A REAL THING out of nothing more than your imagination (and okay, a little blood, tears, and sore typing fingers). You can print out your book and put it in a three-ring binder, or with a touch more work, you can format it and use a print on demand service like Lulu or KDP to print a paperback for yourself. One of my friends who didn’t want to pursue publication printed their book as a paperback just to share with family and friends, and it was so fun to be able to read it bound like a real book!
9. Make Teaser Art: One thing that I wasn’t expecting to enjoy about being published was making marketing graphics. Not the graphic design itself–seeing me try to graphic design is like watching a snake try to hopscotch. What I loved was the process of choosing images to represent the mood and characters of my book, then picking out my favorite lines from the book to put on the teaser. It reminds you what you love about this darn book, after all. You can also use them for actual promo or ads and sometimes, seeing people react with excitement to teasers reminds you that there are other people out there who like the stuff that you like. Chances are, that will make you feel a little more confident that they’ll like your book, too.
10. Commission Fan Art: I’ve seen many authors commission art for their characters or books and it serves so many purposes. 1- It’s a way to visually celebrate what you’ve made and have a keepsake separate of the manuscript. 2- It supports another artist, paying it forward in such a lovely way. 3- If you do publish your book, you can use the art for social media promos, or as a swag gift for a pre-order campaign, or to go along with a signed collector’s edition!

Those are all my ideas for now, but I’d love to see what things have worked for YOU or what you’d like to try in the future. Report back!

The most important thing is to choose an enthusiastic audience for your art, and find a place to get it in front of them where you will actually get to hear their reactions. There’s nothing more beautiful than watching your art find its way into the arms of people who love it.