What Carmen Sandiego Can Teach Authors About Marketing

Using geography to draw attention to your book, no matter what it's about.

Good morning, authors!

I write a lot about the importance of social-media engagement when it comes to book marketing, and I’ve offered some tips in previous newsletters for generating it. Here’s another tip today…

I’m guessing many of you remember the 1980’s video game, Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego? It started out as a “mystery exploration” game, but surprisingly caught on in school classrooms as a tool for teaching kids geography. Carmen Sandiego was a fictional international thief, and the goal of the game was to stop her from stealing treasures from around the globe (and ultimately capture her). But first, players had to figure out “where in the world” she was. Discovering her location was a big part of the game’s appeal, which ultimately spawned a very successful media franchise (that even included a cartoon).

Now, I’m going to let you all in on a little secret: It’s not just kids who like discovery games. Adults do too. And since a key component of your marketing efforts as a new or unknown author should be discoverability (for you and your books), why not use a proven model for achieving that?