How should a writer start looking for readers?

What should you do while you’re still writing the book?

Set up your home page and a mailing list now, even before there’s anything to sell. It will take about an afternoon to set up. Your mailing list will grow slowly, so the sooner it exists, the more readers you’ll have gathered by the time publication comes around.

Your home page can be modest. A recent photo, a short bio, a line about what you write and a sign-up form are enough. When someone hears your name and searches for it, this is the page you want them to land on.

Why set up a mailing list? Because it’s the single best way to know who your readers are, and how to stay in touch with them. A mailing list builds a strong personal connection between you and your reader. There’s nothing else quite like it. Start one now, before your first book is even planned, and write a short welcome message for new subscribers. Then write to your list at a pace you can keep up, whether that’s monthly or even just once a season.

Writing in public without giving the book away

You can share plenty while the book itself stays private. Readers enjoy the world around a book, and none of it spoils the story.

• Research and discoveries: the strange fact, the place you visited, the letter you found in an archive.
• The writing life: what’s going well, what isn’t, and what you’re reading.
• Short pieces: essays, stories or articles in the same territory as the book.

Keep long extracts and the plot’s best turns for the finished book. That way any agent who reads your manuscript, and the readers who buy it, will meet it with fresh eyes.

What changes when you start querying agents?

Once you’re querying, assume that an agent who likes your writing will do a quick search for your name. What they find should match the writer in your letter: the same name, the same kind of book, and a calm, professional tone.

Before the first query goes out, look at yourself the way a stranger would.

• Search your writing name: use a private browser window, and read the whole first page of results.
• Check your home page: it should say what you write, show a current photo and give a way to get in touch.
• Review your public posts: delete or hide anything you’d hate to hear an agent or publisher read aloud.
• Use one name everywhere: the name on your query should match your page and profiles.

A début novelist usually isn’t expected to arrive with a huge following. A reasonable number of subscribers still helps, because it suggests you’ll be a good commercial bet. More on this stage: What agents look for.

What matters most if you’re self-published?

Your mailing list matters most, because it’s the one route to readers that no third party controls. When a new book comes out, you can tell your list directly, on the day, without buying advertising.

Put a sign-up link at the back of every book, so a reader who reaches the last page and wants more knows exactly where to go. Consider offering a small freebie as a sign-up incentive, such as a short story or a deleted scene. The promise of news about the next book can be enough on its own.

Buy links that work

Check every buy link on your home page, in the back of your books and in your bio. Do it after each new release and a couple of times a year in between. A broken link loses a reader at the exact moment they’ve decided to buy.

A steady rhythm of new work

Self-published writers tend to grow their readership book by book, and each new title gives earlier readers a reason to come back. A pace you can sustain matters more than a fast one, and newsletter issues and short pieces keep readers close between books.

If you have a publisher, isn’t this their job?

Well yes, part of it is, for a while. A publisher’s publicity usually concentrates on the weeks around publication: review copies, press pitches, retailer promotions and sometimes events. After that, their attention moves to the next season’s books, and yours (we hope!) carries on through word of mouth and your own efforts.

Support varies a great deal between publishers, and even between books on the same list. Ask your editor or publicist early what’s planned, so you can fill the gaps instead of repeating their work.

Some things only you can do, because they belong to you and outlast any single book.

• Your mailing list: readers who chose to hear from you, and who stay with you if you change publisher.
• Your home page: the one place that lists every book you’ve written, whoever published it.
• Your relationships: with booksellers, librarians, festival organizers and other writers, built up over years.

How much time should this take each week?

An hour or two a week is a sensible starting point for most writers, with more around a launch. Treat the figures below as suggestions, and fit them to your life.

• While writing: about an hour a week, to keep your page current and write to your mailing list now and then.
• While querying: a few extra hours at the start of the process, to tidy what an agent might find, then back to an hour or so a week.
• Self-published: two to four hours a week, rising in the month around each release.
• With a publisher: an hour or two a week, more in the months either side of publication, planned with your publicist.

Do this work after your writing session, not before it, and keep it to one or two fixed slots in the week. When time runs short, the book comes first.