You know you want to write a book. I can help.
More than one person has generously compared my book A Long, Hard Look to Raymond Chandler.
One person asked why, and posted my answer at her review website.
Give it a read. Comment. (Let’s make others think I have a huge audience of loyal supporters, eh?)
[image: Baroque Rackett (a musical instrument)] Know why you’re making a racketWord of mouth is powerful. It’s the backbone of social media marketing.
It’s easy to misuse if you don’t know your goal.
Quite common in some circles to tweet or post or pin and then ask the community to pass it along.
Before you do, ask yourself some questions:
If your aim is to be someone who is known for sharing; that you talk a lot about books and authors; you’re a hub, a town crier, then share far and wide. Be the town crier, the hub, the sharer.
[image: A Long, Hard Look – a Chandleresque cozy](and hopefully, thereby, my books)
In order to concentrate on my writing, I’ll be spending less time teaching for a while.
Late last year Best Beloved and I started an experiment: could I make a living writing fiction? Or at least, could my fiction contribute enough to our income to be a business rather than a hobby?
Original plan was to release 4 books this year and see what happened. It’s a race between my children’s book Ginger, the Ship Captain’s Cat, and my first Jake Calcutta mystery anodyne to see which will be my third book this year. (If yer the betting type put your coin on Ginger.)
Three isn’t four, but it’s more than some other numbers I could name. But one year isn’t long enough to see the impact of those books. Marketing for A Long, Hard Look is just picking up speed, and that for Into the Fog is barely begun.
Five months ago we agreed that this needs another year, so I’ll still be focusing on fiction through 2015. A year from now, we’ll talk again. Maybe sooner.
Beginning now, the newsletter will go out the first of each month, unless I have reason for a special edition.
There will be a new blog post every Friday. There will be links to the past handful of posts in each newsletter. A month is a long time. Consider dropping by the blog once a week just to read up, eh?
We will only be working with one Someday Box self-publishing client at a time.
Chief Virtual Officer’s Social Media Marketing for Authors program has a good support team, so they’ll be able to take on up to 6 more clients. Email Sue for more information.
I’ll be far less active on Facebook and LinkedIn.
But I’m always available by email (joel@somedaybox.com) if you have questions or just want to chat.
Oh, and you can buy my books anytime.
[image: like a caravan climbing a mountain]Since I started the focused marketing of A Long, Hard Look, giving away copies in exchange for reviews and to get attention on Goodreads, the total results (over a the past 5 weeks) have been underwhelming. A handful (that means 5, at most) of sales, a few of which were to people I know. A few reviews, mostly from people who read my blog or newsletter.
Like I said, underwhelming. (Not that I don’t appreciate that folks who know me buy, read, and review, but that isn’t a result of all this marketing, it’s a result of our personal relationship.)
There are a million sales tactics, and hundreds of people out there pitching their “sell a million copies” process. If only I could find the magic potion, the secret formula.
Thing is, I already have it, and it’s no secret, nor is it magic.
A conversation with Ed Teja often turns educational. I wrote something about “marketing” and Ed responded very much like this:
[image: Ed Teja] Ed TejaThere are numerous discussions, blogs, courses and (of course) books on things writers can do to sell their work—both better and at all. They are comprehensive, exhausting and often contradictory. Partly the problem is that we confuse the activities that make writers more visible and their books desirable purchases. So, after hearing various comments from writers online, I thought it appropriate to help clarify what are becoming muddy waters.
Writers are supposed to be wordsmiths, so let’s start with some definitions.
We tend to blur these together, resulting in a great deal of confusion. They are quite different. Note that you can squish a bit of this or that from one category to another. I won’t quibble over specifics. The important thing is that an effective business plan must address all three aspects. Although they overlap, they do different things.
… more … “Marketing, Promotion, and Publicity (Guest Post by Ed Teja)”
[image: Goodreads]I assumed that a giveaway ending October 27th meant at the end of the day, not the beginning. There’s one surprise to keep in mind with Goodreads giveaways.
The numbers surprised me as well: 731 entries for a single book. Of those, 401 unchecked the “Add to my reading list” box (that’s 55%).
But that means 330 new people have A Long, Hard Look on their Goodreads list. All for the price of a single book, mailed to (it turns out) Canada.
The fun news is that the winner entered on the very first day, and has it on their reading list.
[image: selfprintedsplashbadge]Catherine Ryan Howard taught me how to do a Goodreads giveaway, among other things. Wanna know what she can teach you? Here’s a single Q&A with Catherine, and down below, the scoop on the latest edition of her book Self-Printed: The Sane Person’s Guide to Self-Publishing.
[image: Goodreads]Over 200 people have entered to win the paperback copy of A Long, Hard Look in the Goodreads giveaway. That’s 209 people who’d never heard of the book, but now they have. (Since I have copies on hand, I’ll even make it an autographed copy.)
During the sign-up process, they’re offered a checkbox which says “Put this on my ‘to read’ list” which is checked by default. It looks like out of the 209 who’ve signed up, about 90 left the box checked. Whether this is because they missed it, or wanted it, there’s no telling. I’m not sure why those 100+ people want the book but don’t want it on their ‘to read’ list. I can’t imagine anyone thinking they’ll make money winning free books and reselling them. It’s quite the mystery.
But here it is, in case you’d like to join the teeming hordes.
Giveaway begins October 19th and ends October 27, 2014.
See the giveaway details
at Goodreads.
End date is next Monday, so I’ll have some nearly complete numbers on signups and reading list adds.
[image: Goodreads]My Goodreads giveaway goes live on Sunday, October 19th. Many of my readers use Friday’s newsletter as a trigger to catch up on posts, so they may not read this until Friday or Saturday; thus the Sunday start date.
I also used some statistical analysis to add more countries. Intuition said my fans were mostly in the US, Canada, England, and Australia. 72% of my readers are in the US. If I add Canada that bumps up to over 80%, but adding England and Australia makes it 90% of all the visitors to this blog in the past year.
I’m still considering writing Commonsense Zero-Cost DIY Marketing for Authors but I want to see whether there’s a need, and if so, what specifically would help other authors.
Would you take this 1-question survey, and share it with as many authors as you can?
https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/MWYKSV8
I’m aiming for 1,000 responses in order to get a real feel for what’s missing in the indie author market.
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