How do you grow your readership?

At a lovely birthday celebration dinner tonight, a friend asked me this question. I've heard the same query from beginning writers and other friends, so I thought I'd give my answer here.

Short form: You don't. You write the best book you can, and then you write the next book.

Long form: Lots of writers will give you tons of advice about marketing yourself. I think they're probably right that putting in a lot of energy can help you sell more books. I'm just not convinced that they can help you sell tons more books. That's the publisher's job, and though you can indeed do many different things to help, I suspect most of them won't nudge the needle on overall sales.

I believe you can try to find a publisher that will promote you, because what a publisher can do for you--better bookstore placement, to name but one example--is way more important than what you can do on your own. The sad truth for most of us, however, is that publishers have limited budgets, too, and they have to invest their marketing dollars where those dollars will bring the greatest return. In addition, as newer writers we're hardly in a position to insist our publishers do anything.

As writers, there's really only one thing we can control: our work. I think that's where our focus should be. Hence the short form of my answer: Write the best book you can. Then write the next book.

I'm going to return to doing the first part now. With luck, the result, Overthrowing Heaven, will be a book that grows my readership. Regardless of the sales, however, I'll be busily writing the next novel and trying to make it the best book I can.