Guest Blogger Charles Deguara on Building Your Following

 Finding Your Reader

    One of the most important things for an author is gaining a strong reader base. The first challenge when you start writing is actually finding the right readers for your work. Most authors think and dream about having millions of fans and readers hungering for their books. After all,

we all want best seller status no? The problem most authors face is expecting best seller status overnight. In this post I want to cover the basics of finding your readers and how that can eventually lead you to your goal. 

 Jesus Had Twelve Followers and One Unfollower  

    Excuse the religious reference here, currently working on my upcoming novel Satan's Slave so this has led me to research and immerse myself into religion. On to my point, Jesus initially was not quite the most popular guy around; he was a carpenter's son who was now presenting himself as the messiah; whilst I will not debate religion here, there is a lot to learn from the way Jesus built his own following. 

    The first thing you need to realize is that he started with twelve devoted individuals, not one hundred or one thousand.  These twelve disciples believed in him and loved what he had to say. Each of his followers would spread the word further. So as an author it is important to keep in mind that it is better to have a team of twelve loyal readers who absolutely love your work and will sing praises about you as opposed to one hundred or one thousand silent fans. 

    How do you get those first twelve fans that are absolutely in love with you? Visit them; you should by now know what style of writing you intend on doing, so you should be looking for forums and websites where your potential fans might be communicating with one another. A cheeky way for example is visiting websites of other authors in your same genre; if they have a commenting system pitch in to the conversation and introduce yourself. 

 Hi! I’m Charles J Deguara and I love the horror genre so much I have actually been 

working on a horror novel.   This post gave me some food for thought and I would like 

to personally thank the author for posting it. I have   also read through the comments 

and love what some of the readers have to say about it. I would love  to have  a few 

great readers give me feedback on a few excerpts from my book.

    Do this enough **without being spammy** and you’ll find that you’ll easily get your own set of potential SUPER FANS - once they arrive at your doorstep, you need to give them VIP status and treatment.  You really want them to be involved in the process, they need to have all the insider stuff that only your top fans can have. If they love what you have to say, they will spread the word. 

    Take it for granted that there will be a few who don't quite jump on the bandwagon; so don't stop searching for SUPER FANS just yet, you will need to rotate a few until you have your twelve and even then you might have an unfollower or two. 

Being a Miracle Author

    You don't quite have Jesus's abilities, so you can't quite go around performing miracles, but you can help other authors and individuals along the way. You need to do some awesome things as you trudge along, in order to continue building a base of readers. Jesus is known for telling stories to many audiences, you need to do that also, you need to get chatting and find your platform. Twitter, Facebook, Guest blogging, TV appearances, Radio interviews, family gatherings, weddings, you need to be preaching the good word about your writing. You also need to be performing your little miracles for your initial fans, signed copies of your books, special insights etc. 

Love Thy Reader  

    Above all if you really want to build a strong base of readers, you need to love your readers. Remember your job is pleasing your readers, ultimately above everything your reader is the one that needs to love what you write. If you write for you ... well, that’s nice, people might love what you write anyway; however, ultimately you write for your reader. Love thy reader, this is another lesson you can take from Jesus, he loved his followers so much he was crucified for them. I do not expect you to turn yourself in to the Romans or anything but you have to appreciate that you have to love your readers.  

About Charles Deguara  

I am a relatively new author; however, I have been working in sales and marketing for over ten years. I specialized specifically on online marketing and advertising for international brands (mainly food & clothing). My books are available on AMAZON.  If you want to get to know me better, you can connect with me on Facebook, or my website, or follow me on Twitter @ipopnetwork