OK, so Roy (our friendly neighborhood publisher here at
Books of the Dead) has told me to make this blog, the marketing blog,
mine. To do with it, as it were, what I
will. I’ve put some placeholder stuff up
on the blog to this point. Mostly
interviews with BOTD authors that, while interesting and fun, haven’t really
captured what I want to do with this site; namely, draw people to the site and sell 'em some books.
I got to thinking the other day about what I’ve done to help
move my own BOTD book, the extremely well-reviewed (ahem) Little Deaths. (2.99 for Kindle/ $11.99 for paperback at
Amazon. Also on Nook and at
Smashwords. Buy it.) And it got me thinking what other authors are
doing for their book. Or not doing, as the case may be. Because if you
think that most publishers are swinging for the bleachers to move your specific
title, even the big publishers, you are on illegal narcotics.
So, I thought I’d jot down a few things that I’ve learned
about authors moving their own books.
Maybe some of this will help. In
Part Deux of this article, we’ll take a look at what readers can do in this new
egalitarian book publishing world to help move their favorite books and need to come down from your ill-advised high.
But, since we’re here already and I am one, let’s start with
them that brought us to this dance…the authors.
And for the sake of this publishing company, lets restrict our discussion
to horror authors specifically.
Marketing 101
So, you finally moved from “I want to write a book” to “I’ve
written a book.” Great! Congratulations! You’ve officially moved farther along the
writer path than 99% of everyone who says “I want to write a book.” Now what?
Well, let’s jump ahead now and say that you’ve taken
whatever difficult, agonizing, ego-crushing efforts necessary to find a
publisher willing to publish your masterpiece.
Again, congrats! You’ve moved
farther ahead than 99.5 of everyone who says “I want to write a book.”
Now, I bet you’re planning on sitting back and waiting for
the royalties to come rolling in while the gears of the publishing world grind
your book out into the marketplace.
Hah…hehehe…oh my, let me catch my breath, and wipe the tears
from the corners of my eyes. At this point, you may as well believe in the
tooth fairy, William Shatner's hairline or the efficacy of trickle-down economics.
Let’s leave the world of fantasy for a bit and talk about
reality. Stone cold reality. And the reality is that you are as much—or even
more—responsible for the success or failure of your book than your
publisher. And that's not counting writing
the very best book you can.
You’re now obliged to market it.
In effect, you’ve got to come out of the cloistered,
solitary little world you inhabited as an author, pull on your big boy or big
girl pants, and go out into the great, big, indifferent, uncaring world of the
buying public and sell yourself. Hard. So, whaddaya need?
Author Site
First things first, in this brave new electronic world, do
you have a website…a blog…a Facebook page?
You’ve got to have some kind of base from which to work your marketing
magic, and in this age, it’s got to be on the interwebs. Any of these three choices are fine, as long
as you’re easy to find. If your name is
John Q. Frenulum and you’re a horror writer, your web address had better be www.johnqfrenulum.com or www.johnqfrenulumwriter.com or www.jqfrenulum.com. Not www.vervetlover.com
or www.airyfarts.com. Similarly, if your e-mail address isn’t your
name, but rather drwhofantatic@aol.com,
change it to your name. (And really who uses
AOL anymore anyway?)
The point is you need a base and it needs to be easy to
find. Besides if your just getting
started, you want your name out there everywhere, on everything you do. It might sound silly, but everything you do
should be working to generate name recognition, which is the key to the selling
game. Why would you want to generate
awareness of your love for vervets instead of your name? (And besides, vervets carry diseases, man.)
Right! Once that’s
established, now what to put onto your author site? Well, start with the basics. A bio would be nice, an authorial picture or
two might be good. Just restrain
yourself with pictures, though. People coming to
your site don’t want to see the drunken shots of your 32nd birthday party at Hooters or your kid’s first doo-doo picture.
Keep it sweet and simple and to the point.
Next, how about some credits? Some list of the stuff you’ve had published,
where, when and how an interested reader might find them. Links, as always,
would be helpful. If you don't have these yet, don't sweat it. Maybe a list of the stuff you have written and are circulating...you are circulating your stuff, right?
Links to other authors, writer’s sites that you like or
other genre sites you enjoy would be good.
This is called a blog roll, and is way to point people who come to you
site to other like-minded sites; it’s also a way to promote other sites that
could be swayed to promote you similarly.
So, bio, pics, credits, blog roll…umm…oh yeah, content! It’s not enough just to put up a static page
with this stuff on it. It’s not enough
just to have a site up that doesn’t change.
People will come one, take a poke around, then perhaps come again a week
later or so. If nothing has changed, however, they probably won’t be back again. Why
bother?
Add some content to your site;
which means, of course, that you’ll have to actually write shit…often. Regularly.
Right about what you’re up to, stuff you’ve read, other authors you like
and why, or well, just about anything.
Make it interesting, make it different every couple of days
at least, and people will come to the site often.
Then, of course, you can sell them. If you’ve got pieces that are for sale at
Amazon, be sure to include links to them.
If you’ve got a few things up at Amazon, create an Author Page. It’s simple and provides an easy place for
readers to go to find all your stuff.
OK, first step: base of operations. Check. And now...
Next Up: Social
Media. Yeah, I said it.
In the meantime, click the Bookstore link upper right, and get some great books!
Great stuff, John! I will tweet this and ram it on facebook!
ReplyDeleteThanks, mein publisher. Part Deux is up now!
ReplyDelete