I’m sure most of you in the reading/writing community have come across the term Street Team in your literary travels and some of you may be wondering what exactly I’m talking about. Today I’m here to shed some light on this author marketing tactic, to uncover the what, the why, and the how. Shall we?
A street team is a group of fans that help promote an author’s upcoming novel prior to its release. In simple terms, an author gives a member promotional material and the member uses his/her various platforms to spread the word far and wide, but I’m getting ahead of myself.
The How:
The first step in creating a Street Team is setting up a sign-up sheet for members, you want their names, ages(for target audience purposes), the reason why they want to join your team, and a list of the various platforms where they have influence. You can include more questions, but those are the basics. A decent Street Team is around twenty members so the reach is maximized without drowning out some of the voices. Choose members based on their influence, but also based on their excitement for the endeavour.
Now you have your team. What next? The second step is creating a virtual group where you can all meet in real time. Most people use Facebook groups, but you can use discord or Instagram, if your group is small. Now Street Teams typically utilize weekly challenges for promotion. Each week the author will challenge the members to do something like share the cover or share the pre-order link (anything to promote the book). Those who accomplish the task in the set time are entered to win a prize. The author also encourages members to brainstorm their own challenges.
The Why:
The biggest benefit to the author is reach. No matter how many platforms you maintain, you are only one person and your influence can only be heavy in 2-3 platforms. Your Street Team members offer the chance to get the word out to new people and places, especially if they have more followers than you and a good reputation. Encouraging brainstorming can also lead to new marketing ideas that you never would’ve thought of on your own. In short, Street Teams are great for driving up business for your book, before it’s even hit the shelves.
And what to the Street Team members get out of this? First off, the members can get almost one-on-one time with the author through the group chat, an experience most people can't get. Second, the weekly prizes for accomplishing tasks. Some authors offer free previously published books, candles, other book merch, gift cards, and more. It is also often expected that Street Team members will automatically receive an ARC of the book being promoted. For those of you who don’t know, an ARC is an advanced readers copy, meaning you’ll get to read the book before it’s published. Pretty cool, eh?
All in all, Street Teams are great investments for authors and not implementing one was probably my biggest publishing regret for Silent Night.
Wait. Does that mean...?
Indeed, it does. I will be hosting a Street Team for Sacred Ruse! The sign up form will be officially opening this Saturday, June 27th, but as a thank you for reading this blog to the end, you guys can sign up now through the link below! I thank you so much for your interest.
Thank you guys for reading. It was a bit of a long one today, but I hope it was informative. If you want to be notified as soon as I upload a post, sign up for my newsletter on the bottom of this page. My next post will be on the authors who have influenced my career so far, so stay tuned and as always, keep writing.