One of the new concepts discussed at the 2023 Imaginarium Convention this past July was how the Rule of Seven affects promoting author fiction. Originally coined by American movie moguls in the 1930s, the concept states that potential customers, i.e. theater-goers, must see or hear about a film at least seven times before commiting to watch it. While this rule-of-thumb may have worked back then, does it still hold true for marketing in the digital age? If so, how does it work for authors?
Then And Now
Drawing public attention to a new Ruitem or service was more difficult in the 1930s. Fewer advertising outlets existed, and promotional techniques were less sophisticated. Radio, newspapers, and magazines acted as the prime purveyors of information and promotion. Consequently, movie studios flooded the few media outlets available with theatrical movie previews and stories about the stars in those movies in magazines such as Star and the Hollywood Reporter. Such activities still go on today with promotional budgets far beyond the cost of creating 1930s films devoted to alerting and (for the most expensive films) deluging the movie-going public with information about the latest cinematic releases.
However, today’s fiction-readers receive information about new and favorite writers from a firehose of media outlets. Advertising and promotions inundate them to such an extent that repeated exposures to the same message or brand may have a counter-productive effect. Research from the University of Sussex suggests that “being presented with the same message over and again could actually do more damage than good.” In short, people tune out.
An Antidote
Rather than continue to hammer the promotional message to an increasingly resistant buying public, the answer may lie in less repetition and more diversity. Results from that same study indicate repeating a strong promotional message may be counter-productive. As a result, the target audience becomes saturated with the message and “they gravitate toward novelty.”
But not just to anything new or different. People enjoy a blend of the new with the familiar. Repeated exposure to the new product or service remains key so long as it is interlaced with more customary concepts and ideas. As the researchers concluded, “What appears to be key is variety.”
Importance of Branding
Of course, The Walt Disney Company (Disney) has millions of dollars to flood the media with their variety of products. Most authors, including myself, have little or none. Yet authors can take a page out of the Disney playbook and hone it to scale. Disney’s theme parks and merchandise still serve to promote its movies and cartoons, the bedrock of Disney’s various enterprises.
Authors and writers can do the same. They may not have the resources or exposure of the Disney Corporation, but even its founder started out with pen and paper and an idea from which he sought to tell stories. Fiction writers have their own ideas and imagination to draw upon. And unlike the writers and artists for Disney, they can intersperse the promotions for their books and stories with narratives of their own unique experiences–promotional branding in written form. In fact, such product promotions may be stronger on an individual level because they can take a more personal and familiar approach.
What It All Means
Promoting one’s fictional works in the information age needn’t be as daunting as it first appears. The Rule of Seven still applies. Yet applying that rule must ssume a different form. Due to the multitude of advertising outlets and competitors, authors, particularly fiction writers, must know their brand and the audience(s) to which their brand appeals. More important than appearing on a dozen social media platforms like Facebook or Tik-Tok, they must develop their brand. Why? Because their books are projections of who and what they are as artists. And knowing that, hacking deep inside themselves, they can project their ideas through personal interactions with readerships (and buyers) receptive to who they are and what they have to sell.
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