The Marketing Genius of Shea Serrano
How authenticity, at all costs, made this writer a 4x New York Times best seller.
In 2020, when the 4x New York Times Best Selling author Shea Serrano tweeted, “fuck donald trump and anyone who stands with him,” the replies came quickly, including a wide range of tweets from those who agreed with his stance to those who didn’t.
Trump supporters would respond to Serrano, stating, “But Shea, I love your books. Can I still hang around?” or “Shea, you do know that there are Trump Supporters who support your work, right?” He also received his fair share of insults and racial slurs.
Most authors would either retract, clarify, or apologize for such a statement. But Shea? Shea doubled down by writing A Difficult Conversation: How to Talk to Trump Supporters, a 64-page PDF with eight chapters that essentially boils down to one message for Trump supporters, “Get the fuck out of here.”
Cover of A Difficult Conversation: How to Talk to Trump Supporters by Shea Serrano
Shea wrote, designed, and published a book to troll tens of millions of Americans. He made nearly $100,000 from the book while sharing it on his website for free. He and his wife, Larami, an accomplished photographer and Therapist, chose to give it all away.
$21.6K paid off the senior year for two undocumented students. $20K went to The Bloom Project. $10K went to the Black Futures Collective. $25K went to the Martinez Street Women’s Center. $7,224 went to paying rent for people on Twitter. $14,336 went to Planned Parenthood.
Shea marketed his way into $100,000 within days of publishing a PDF book made as a joke. For most authors, this money would be the crowning achievement of one’s career. The Serrano family gave it away without giving it a second thought.
Many would call this move insane. Some would say antagonizing tens of millions of potential readers is a career-ender. But when it comes to marketing his work, Shea Serrano simply doesn’t care what you think.
The rules of marketing a book typically start with doing your best to convince readers to read your work. You want to be kind, inviting, and persuasive. When I market my book, my messages usually start with “I’m so grateful…” or “Thank you so much…” Shea’s message is often different.
The man doesn’t even bother to use punctuation in his tweets, which, for an author, isn’t that breaking a cardinal sin?
Image courtesy of Esquire’s article Shea Serrano Is One of the Last Writers Having Fun on the Internet. He Told Us How.
Again, Shea does not care what you think.
If you haven’t followed his work, my description of Shea Serrano might make him sound like a huge jerk. Sure, I guess if you’re wearing a MAGA hat, then you’d likely find him insufferable, but ask the majority of his 428K Twitter followers, and they’d say he's the most genuine person on the platform.
As noted above, Shea consistently donates money to charity. He also sends cash to followers and encourages others to do the same.
In 2020, when I was leading a donation effort to raise money for Black Girls Code and Barbershop Books, I tweeted Shea, and he immediately sent me $250, no questions asked. This allowed my business, Be Ice Cream Or Be Nothing, to donate a total of $3,000 to these organizations.
This isn’t just a random occurrence. He does this stuff often.
While blocking Twitter users for disparaging WNBA players or telling millions of potential customers to “fuck off” in the middle of his book press tour, Shea’s breaking all the rules that most authors should follow.
But in the midst of his Twitter activity, the quality that Shea has more of than anyone in the publishing game is his authenticity. You would be hard-pressed to find another writer more authentic than Shea.
Artwork by Arturo Torres, created for Shea Serrano’s best-seller, Basketball (And Other Things).
The Dad of three, a former educator turned writer and television show producer, recently stepped out on his own, leaving The Ringer in November 2022 to focus on his publishing company, Halfway Books, and podcast, Six Trophies. Currently, he has nine projects listed on his website, including short stories and my personal favorite, A REAL HUMAN BEING — Dissecting Nine Essential Ryan Gosling Movie Roles.
You would think that his lack of backing from the media titan would encourage Shea to be a little more cordial with Twitter users or at least not tell people to go to hell. Nope. And that’s what his readers love.
While speaking to Clay Skipper of GQ in March 2020, Shea answered a question about his authenticity.
I don’t know if it’s the best way for me to be, but it’s certainly the easiest. Because if you start trying to just build up a thing that you aren’t already naturally, then this means you have to remember a bunch of shit. I don’t have to remember lies that I’ve told.
Authenticity and the internet are not necessarily synonymous. In fact, social media is known as a highlight reel of one’s life. With the prevalence of filters (or editing), even the highlight reels aren’t 100% accurate.
Twitter is filled with personalities who tell half-truths or full-blown lies, designed to generate engagement that leads to more opportunities. With Elon Musk at the helm, Twitter has taken a hard right turn, and personalities know they can market their inauthenticity into personal fortunes.
It’s not just Twitter, of course. Facebook is loaded with AI-generated content designed to invoke strong engagement from millions of its users. Instagram is filled with filtered photos that have led to staggering levels of body dissatisfaction, especially among young girls.
TikTok, YouTube, the list goes on. From SEO to digital marketing, you can find thousands of experts who’ll tell you how to increase your following, make your first $100,000 online, become a best-selling author, or become a millionaire overnight, easily!
Image of the Cast of Primo, a sitcom created by Shea Serrano and co-executive produced with Michael Schur.
And then there’s Shea, who famously uses a Twitter avatar of Damian Chapa as the character Miklo from 1993’s ‘Blood In, Blood Out.’ When Twitter users see an image of Shea and then wonder who the guy in his avatar is, he tells people, “it’s my uncle — he’s in prison right now — he got into a bit of trouble with his cousins when he was younger — i use his picture as my avatar to pay respect to him.”
Sure, the alleged 6'3" Shea Serrano uses much of his online persona to troll, and while a large part of his story includes grinding while working multiple jobs as his fiancée (now wife) was bedridden for months while pregnant with their twins, he is the first person to say, “anyone who gets anywhere and doesn’t say “a very big part of the reason i got here is a combination of luck and some strangers taking a chance on me” is a liar.”
We are so used to being gaslit online that Shea’s authenticity, combined with his immense talent to connect with readers, is the reason readers will buy his work with literally zero indication of what it’s about.
If you took a marketing class on how to market your work, you’d find very few of Shea Serrano’s marketing techniques in the textbook. If you tried to market your work the way he does, you’d likely fail.
For an author, Shea does almost nothing by the book, and that’s what makes it work for him. He’s not saying you should follow his blueprint. He’s telling you this stuff is hard and reminding you “that nobody is gonna care about your stuff more than you so you gotta be the one who makes it happen.”
The marketing genius of Shea Serrano is that he’s going to put in the work, no matter what because that’s who he is. There’s no secret sauce. There are no shortcuts. There is integrity, raw authenticity, and pure dedication to making it happen.
Maybe the people who built a building aren’t a million times smarter. Maybe they just put the work in and that’s why they were able to do it. It just made me feel like maybe there’s no magic trick here. Maybe you go through the process, you understand what it takes, and you’re like, “Maybe if I just do this with everything, I have a decent shot at it. (From How to Bet on Yourself, According to a Middle School Teacher Turned Best-Selling Author).