From Anne R. Allen’s Blog:
I know what you’re thinking. You see the word crisis and say, that will never happen to me. Sorry to burst your bubble, but you are wrong. As with all public figures, a reputation-tanking, book-disappearing, fan-stalking, Twitter-storm crisis can happen to any author.
And it could ruin your business and your reputation if you’re not prepared.
You need to know about crisis management.
Let’s face it, author businesses thrive or die online. Whether it’s a website, social media, our newsletters, online classes, bookstores like Amazon—whatever it is—our business and our reputations exist online. We may have lots of offline marketing going on, but the bulk of our livelihood is attached at the hip to the internet where the good, the bad, and the ugly hang out.
. . . .
1) I don’t need crisis management. I don’t pay attention to what’s being said about me online.
Listening is the first line of prevention when it comes to your reputation. If you don’t have your author name set up on a Google Alert, it needs to be. This is the bare minimum of prevention. These searches can be set to come to your inbox once a day. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. And in online crisis, sometimes there is no cure.
If you’re not listening to the chatter around your name, you will miss the warning signs of a potentially life-changing event. On the flipside, if you’re overanxious and listen to everything, you won’t know what you’re looking for.
If you don’t know how to evaluate the severity of the crisis, you’ll respond to nothing or everything. And, if you don’t have a response plan, you will be making spur of the moment decisions fueled by emotional pressure. Or worse, you’ll be tempted to hide your head in the sand—a sure recipe for failure in this connected age. The old adage is truer in crisis than anywhere else: fail to plan – plan to fail. And you can’t afford to fail in a crisis.
. . . .
2) I don’t have time to build a core group of engaged fans that will support me.
When you build engagement on social media and through your newsletter, you’re building credibility. Advocates can do more to shorten a crisis than anything you can say or do.
I have personally seen many crises cut short or averted by purposeful intervention by engaged friends, fans, and press. The sum total of your engaged network constitutes your reputation. And reputation is your biggest asset in most crisis events.
We’re not talking about taking to the internet to let loose an army of positive talking do-gooders here. We’re talking about building a network of core readers, author friends, media people, and industry friends who know you, like your books, and would do you a strategic favor if asked.
You never want to try and go online to dispel your own crisis. Everything you say when you’re under fire is gas on the fire.
. . . .
4) If people start harassing me or talking about me, there’s nothing I can do.
Actually, there are lots of things you can do. You can’t stop them from blabbing, but you can do some things to slow them down.
- Report them. Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram all have procedures for reporting stalking, hate speech, impersonation, and more. Become familiar with them.
- Familiarize yourself with deleting, blocking and reporting features on all the social media channels where you maintain a presence. Know how to report inappropriate content, where to go to register a complaint or concern on Amazon (I’ve found using Author Central is the best way), get a manual review on an ad, and report someone who has stolen your name on a social media channel. Don’t skip this one—it will save you a ton of time when you discover something is wrong.
- Don’t engage in dishonest online practices like buying followers or reviews, adding email subscribers that haven’t opted in, buying or trading reviews, or sending out spam (or cold calling as the marketing world politely calls it). Bad habits invite crisis. Your ignorance may not get your books reinstate on Amazon. Be honest, transparent, and remember you are on rented land. You don’t own that Facebook page—you’re renting it.
- Have a posting policy on your social media sites. Stick it under your About tab. Tell people you have the right to delete, block, or report. Ask people to be civil or risk getting the boot. Have the courage to delete posts that don’t comply with the policy or block people who don’t play nice.
Link to the rest at Anne R. Allen’s Blog
With all the necessary indie chores, few authors have time for advance crisis planning – because few of them will ever need it. And the few who are are not likely to be the ones who will.
This discounts the authors who know they have a potential controversy in their latest book: those probably need to be prepared. If they don’t know that, they shouldn’t be publishing about controversial subjects. It is hard to drum up any sympathy when, say, a memoirist makes things up.
Whether the notoriety will increase sales is not predictable.
At this juncture of my career, a crisis would likely sell MORE books for me.
Heh. Most indies work for years to build a network capable of simply selling books in numbers significant enough to generate real income. So how in the world is one to build this wonderful network quickly enough to have it standing ready for crisis mitigation at the beginning of one’s indie career?
Answer: Few can.
The first myth of crisis management is that crisis can be managed.
When in trouble or in doubt, run in circles – scream and shout! 😉