Do You Lead A Tribe?

By Susan Reichert, Editor-in-Chief for Southern Writers Magazine 

Everyone has heard the word ‘Tribes’.

What is a tribe? The dictionary says it’s a social division in a traditional society consisting of families or communities linked by social, economic, religious, or blood ties, with a common culture and dialect, typically having a recognized leader. In other words, a tribe needs to have people with common ties.

In today’s age of social media, we can build a tribe quickly. However, to do that we need to know what we stand for and what kind of tribe we want to build. What is our mission.

For an author the tribe needs people who enjoy the type of books the author writes. People want to feel they are an important part of the tribe and what they think matters.  Relationships must be built, and bonds established.

People want to feel needed, important, part of and we can offer that as authors.

Once this is established, your tribe is going to tell people about you as an author, about you as a person and they are going to tell people about your books.

It must be a win-win for everyone however if it is to succeed.

Did you know you can also create a tribe around a book series? Think about it.

Seth Grodin, wrote a book called Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us. He is the author of 18 books that have been bestsellers around the world and have been translated into more than 35 languages. He writes about the post-industrial revolution, the way ideas spread, marketing, quitting, leadership and most of all, changing everything. In addition to his writing and speaking, Seth founded both Yoyodyne and Squidoo. His blog (which you can find by typing "seth" into Google) is one of the most popular in the world.

Obviously, he has built a tribe!

Here is a summary from Samuel Thomas Davies about Grodin’s book Tribes.

Tribes are an important part of our lives. We have this need to belong.