Self-Promotion: A Guide to How Not To Do It

Part of the reason I am a particularly unsuccessful self-published author is the fact that I'm also a terrible self-publicist and/or marketeer. 

I don't do 'pushy'.  I can cajole, convince and steer during conversations, but give me a head-start on a two minute slot where I can openly tout my wares and I'll be a tremulous wet mess before you can say 'fer Gods' sake, spit it out woman'.

Case in point last weekend.  We were out at a brother-in-law's house (yes, the same one from 'that other' post here) and everyone was going on about what they'd been up to and what was happening currently in the Real World.

Mention was made of guttering, plumbing systems, restoring an old Volvo, the temperatures we are currently experiencing and the terrible wages your average care worker receives.

There was scant talk of anything that was happening in My World.  

And in My World lately there had been BIG THINGS.  But if you've been up to your knees in the care of re-plumbing an old Volvo in this heat, then chances are it probably hasn't hit your radar.

So... *ahem*. Nothing.  *Aaaah-HEM!*

Start BIG, was my plan... and usually I can get away with being a little 'outbursty' by reason of My age/My disposition (not sunny at the best of times) and/or My Occupation (that's the literary one and not the paid one you understand).

"I have a book out today" I said as proudly and as nonchalantly as possible.

Nothing.
And then...

'Oh My God, really?' came a reaction.  'What's it about? Do you have it with you? Where is it?'

*this is where I run out of puff - other people's expectations are FAR higher than my own I think.

"Okay - *still smiling* It's called STORIES FOR HOMES.  It's an anthology.  I have a story in it along with about 60 others."

'What do you mean? You didn't write it?'

"Well I have a story IN it.  Oh, I also designed the cover which I'm really....."

'So where is it?'

"Well.. it's an e-book - so it's... y'know, on Amazon.'

'You mean a Kindle book?'

"Well, yes, you can read it on a Kindle but you don't have to have a...."

'I haven't got a Kindle.  I can't see what all the fuss is about....'

"You don't need a Kindle to read an e-book - you can get a Kindle App for anything. I haven't got one, I download my books onto my pc and ..."

'You don't have a Kindle but you've published e-books? How does that work?'

*some time later*

'So how much are you getting for it?'

"It's for the charity, Shelter, so, nothing.  It's all for charity."

'Oh.' *definite disinterest*

"We're planning a paperback in the Autumn, though."

*murmur, mutter, back to the Volvo action.

This, people: THIS is why I get so heebie-jeebie about trying to announce anything to anybody in that place called the Real World.  They just don't get it, do they?

So - for those of you who DO get it, can I please proudly announce the birth of the wonderful 'STORIES FOR HOMES' anthology which is available to purchase on the Amazon Kindle site (and you DON'T have to have a proper Kindle, you really don't). 

All proceeds are going to the charity SHELTER and we have been riding high on the Amazon Kindle charts for the past week since it came out.

My story is No.27 and I might have mentioned I designed the cover too - did I?

*shrinks away because blatant self-promotion is excruciatingly embarrassing*

BUY IT! 

....Please?

Sign of the Times

Regular readers may recall that in my last post I was musing about publicity.
I'd received a pre-meeting email from my new publicist, Jamie, asking me to consider the PR campaign for Dishonour.

I looked over what I'd done for my previous books, and what I could add to the mix.

Well, I've now had the meeting and thought I'd share with you the nuggets of wisdom Jamie passed along.

First up, it's worth mentioning that Jamie turned out to be a woman. A young woman at that. Loud, funny, with a slash of scarlet lipstick. She talked ten to the dozen, one hand grasped around a perpetually winking blackberry, the other around a chilled glass of wine.

Over mussels, chips, and more wine, she told me about the current state of the industry.
In a word, it's quiet.
Many publishing houses are cutting their staff and dumping authors whose sales are less than sparkling. Those not dumped can expect low advances.

The good news is everyone is looking for debut authors. The Holy Grail being the book acquired for a song that goes on to do some serious commercial business.

Many houses are also slashing their publicity budgets.
'Big mistake,' Jamie announced.

Well, in the words of Mandy Rice Davis, she would say that wouldn't she, I hear you cry.

Actually though, I agree with her. There seems to me to be little point in buying a book, editing it and launching it, with all the concurrent costs, only to release it into the wild with little more than a pat on the back and fingers crossed all round.

But what do I know?

Anyways, we then discussed what we both thought were the best ways to help a book sell. Jamie's view is that first and foremost you have to concentrate on the brand. And the brand is the author. Writers, says Jamie, have to accept that selling ourselves is part and parcel of the job.

But, but, but...I hear you say, it's not what we're about. We're about words, and craft and creativity.

Jamie told me that she understands that, even has sympathy with it, but when a writer is reluctant to join the publicity junk, her heart sinks.

When I explained that I see publicity as imperative and ultimately my responsibility, she beamed.

And so to business...she pulled out a typed document detailing everything she'd already done for May's launch, and everything she was going to do. Much of it involved her 'contacts'. Another reason, if you needed one, why good PRs earn their keep. They eat, breathe and sleep this stuff. Jamie tells me she is out at industry functions most evenings, that she lunches her contacts several times a week, and that she spends 'hours' on internet social media.

It's an exhausting schedule that most of us couldn't keep up.

As lunch drew to a close, I made a note of those things I needed to do.

1. Get back in contact with anyone and everyone who has 'helped' me when I launched my last three books. Note to self, keep records in future.

2. Suggest some feature ideas to sell me in. Hard sells don't work. Think of the non fiction hook that can give me my in.

3. Networking. Apparently I need to Twitter.

4. Be available. There will, hopefully, be an onslaught of interest around launch and through the Summer. I need to prioritise publicity during this period.

With that, Jamie drained her Tia Maria coffee and headed off for cocktails with a well known blogger and Mark Billingham.

I stumbled back home and tried to work out how the hell one sends a tweet.

What's the point of book signings?

Strictly Come Dancing's Tess Daly has had a tough time lately. First her husband, Vernon Kay (er, right - who?) owned up to some sleazy shenanigans. Now the Daily Mail has jeered at her 'disastrous' writing career. Her book, The Baby Diaries, about life as a new mum, is apparently a flop - because when the Daily Mail looked at Amazon, it ranked a mere 351.

Oh no! 351? And there's me feeling pretty happy if my book's at 351,000. What's worse, according to the Mail, is that Tess did a signing at a Dublin bookshop and there were 'less than (sic) 30 people' there!

While I don't give two hoots about Tess's (or anyone else's) experience of motherhood, I do sympathise with her about this snide coverage of her supposed failure.

Selling 30 books at a signing is brilliant, and the photos show Tess quite rightly smiling. For losers like me, the shops only order about 25 copies in the first place (which is good, because I can say 'I sold out!' and people are more impressed than they really ought to be.) Some authors and publishers are ambivalent about the value of signings because of the time involved for relatively few sales, but the number shifted on the day is only a minor measure of an event's success.

The main benefit of a book signing is the publicity surrounding it - for most of us this is at a

rather more local level than for celeb writers, but is still not to be sneezed at. You can't exactly keep firing off press releases titled 'Book came out last year, author still begging everyone to buy it,' but a release about a specific event has a good chance of attracting interest. Often the papers will not only mention the forthcoming signing but also send a photographer on the day, so you can grin like a gormless hamster from the pages of next week's edition too.

If you live near the venue, you can ask local shops to display posters - all helping to make the cover art familiar to readers next time they see the book. At the signing itself, you can give out bookmarks (see here for instructions on getting them cheap) or postcards with your web address. Only a really miserable sod will refuse a free bookmark. Any of this publicity can lead to someone picking up the book at a later date, and you can be spotted by festival organisers, local reading group members, librarians - anyone who might be in need of a friendly author for an event. My first ever signing resulted in an invitation to speak at a literature festival; the next got me a county reading groups event and a couple of library talks... which meant the library authorities had to buy a few copies, which have been constantly out on loan ever since (yeah, I do check the online library catalogues, I'm that sad.)

A signing is also a great opportunity to meet the booksellers who talk to your potential readers every day. Make a good impression on them (i.e. by being an average nice person – anyone who has ever worked in retail will know that's rare enough) and maybe they'll recommend the book to customers - maybe even put it face-out on the shelf.

Though the Mail's unpleasantness about Tess Daly is all we can expect from the tabloids, I hope she isn't too disheartened. A signing's success isn't down to the number of sales, but to the sometimes surprising opportunities that can result - and perhaps even the negative coverage will bring The Baby Diaries to the attention of people who will appreciate it.

Blogging - look before you leap

A couple of months ago, Colin Mulhern did a guest post for us on the advantages of blogging. So let's say you have decided to go ahead and are currently canvassing opinion about the merits of Wordpress, Blogger, Posterous and Tumblr. With free software so quick and easy to set up, it's tempting to dive right in and launch 'Fred's Self-absorbed Musings' with a post about how the publishing industry hates you and writing is soooo hard and only slebs get book deals because agents are too stupid to accept your stream-of-consciousness account of life as a depressed headlouse. Before starting a blog, however, there are a few things that might be worth considering:

What's it for?
There is no right answer – everyone has their own motivation, but it's helpful to know what that motivation is. A few examples:
To attract the attention of agents or publishers
To publicise an already-published book
To keep a personal journal
To regale the world with your superior knowledge about everything
To enjoy the achievement of completing short pieces while working on a novel.
To campaign on an issue that is important to you.

Identifying the purpose of your blog will help you start – and, more importantly, keep going - on the right track.

How are you going to sustain it?
You don't have to blog every day, but to build up a regular readership you do need to update often – preferably two or three times a week. Is this possible? Have a think about what subjects you want to write on – will you really be able to keep generating regular posts for years, or will it soon become a chore?

Who will read it, and will they all be people you know anyway?
Consider whether your blog will appeal only to the 20 people you already talk to every day online. If that's exactly who you want to reach, that's fine, but if you're looking for a wider audience, think about what will attract and retain them – the blog needs to give them something (e.g. entertainment, knowledge, useful advice), not just beg for their attention.

Does it really have to be about writing?
Just because you're a writer, that doesn't mean you have to blog about writing. Of course, there might be tons you want to say on that subject – if so, great! There are other topics in the world, however. I made the mistake of setting up a writing blog and then realising I don't know a whole lot about it. My history blog, however, has a bottomless supply of material that appeals to people who like history – many of whom also like to read historical fiction.

What's it going to be called?
It's possible to set up a blog very quickly in a fit of enthusiasm. But it's worth spending some time thinking about a name. 'My Ponderings' might be ideal for a personal diary that you don't expect others to read, but it won't necessarily stand out from everyone else's musings, jottings, random thoughts etc. A name can also end up limiting what you write about – be too specific and it will be difficult to shift the direction of the blog once you've got into the swing of it.

These are just a few points I wish I'd put more thought into before I started my first blog. Of course, one of the wonderful things about blogging is that you can write what the heck you like without me or anyone else telling you how – but I reckon it's worth doing a bit of planning before you jump into the blogosphere head first.

Online Book Promotion for Idiots

Today, I am cheating. I've been ill for two weeks with swine flu. (Actually, it's sinusitis, but I'm a writer, I'm allowed to be melodramatic.) It has killed my last remaining brain cell and I am not up to writing a proper article. So, bearing in mind only five people ever read my own blog, I'm taking a gamble on you not noticing the fact that I have rehashed this post from something I wrote last year:

With fewer publisher pounds going into publicity these days, authors are increasingly expected to do the bulk of their own book promotion. Fortunately for us, the web provides a wealth of free opportunities. Unfortunately for everyone else, some authors don't realise what will do more harm than good. Here are the instructions for becoming one of those authors...

1. Join every book-related forum you can find – the members are waiting with bated breath to hear about your opus. Don't read the forum first, or introduce yourself – there’s no time for that in the fast-paced online world. Your first (and only) post should be:

You all should read The Undertaker by Doug Graves, ISBN 978-14M4N1D10T. This hilarious comic fictional novel has been described as Terry Pratchett meets The Da Vinci Code!!! Buy it now!!!

If it's a forum for writers rather than readers, add:

Yes, it happened to me!! I'm living proof that you should never give up! Be inspired, because even you miserable wannabes might one day manage to get published like ME!!

Then move on to the next site and wait for your Amazon ranking to shoot into the top 10.

2. Just think of all those stupid agents who rejected you. There's nothing that will humble them so much as a mass email with your ISBN and a huge attachment of the cover image. Ha! The joke’s on them now. They'll realise that they made the worst mistake of their life and will buy your book to serve as a constant reminder of their own fallibility.

3. Did some ignorant Amazon reviewer only give your book three stars? Don’t worry – you can turn this to your advantage. Use the comments facility to say:

Wow, did I upset you in a former life, you moron? This is not *supposed* to be great literature – are you too stupid to see that? Well, obviously you ARE, because there's a typo in the third line of your “review.” I know where you live, so if you keep telling people you only found my book “fairly amusing,” you’d better watch out, OK? And I'm getting all my friends to mark your review as unhelpful. So there.

The reviewer will be so scared he’ll give your next book five stars, and everyone else will be so in awe of your feistiness that they’ll place an order straight away. Result!

4. Put a SIGNED FIRST EDITION!!!!! on eBay. The key to success is to have at least ten identical auctions running simultaneously – you wouldn’t want anyone to miss out now, would you?

5. This is the most important one: plug your book in the comments section of blogs. DON'T just stick to relevant blogs, either – you never know who might be interested:

This sounds like a fun lake to go carp fishing – if you're sad enough to like that sort of thing LOL! By the way, if you’re interested, my latest novel “The Hound of the D’Urbervilles,” ISBN 978-5UPER1D10T, is a pacey thriller featuring Tess as a jaded detective and Angel Clare as her bumbling sidekick. It’s available from Amazon for only £17.99. Happy angling or whatever you call it!


Good luck! You'll need it.

Most of this post originally appeared on Writing and all that.
Oh yeah, and... you all should buy my book!!! Visit http://www.carolinerance.co.uk/ to find out how!!!