Sometimes you just have to try things!
I found myself with a book idea I was passionate about and no publisher willing to take a risk on it. I could choose to sit around with my lemons or figure out how to make lemonade with what I had.
The trick though, is to be risky and experiment, but be smart about it.
So why was my book idea so risky? It was a YA novel written completely in poetry. And since I'm not a bestselling author already, that makes it doubly risky. It doesn't seem to matter that the ABA has been doing these novels quite successfully for years, CBA didn't seem ready to take that plunge - at least not with me. In fact, I was laughed at for even suggesting the idea.
I can live with that. But I still wanted to write the book. I did not want to self-publish - it wasn't even an option. My goal was to write more books for the audience I had already developed with my Becoming Beka series. Teens are voracious readers and since I had nothing in the pipeline, I wanted to get something out to keep them happy and keep my name out there while I waited for another contract to come through. I also wanted to find new readers.
I actually shelved the original novel I pitched, because I still want to sell that one someday (she says wistfully). So I kept the same poetry novel concept and developed this new book using one of the characters from my original series. This makes for a stronger marketing hook, since if the new readers like Lucy, maybe they'll want to read about Beka, too. I secured permission from my publisher to do it this way and off I went to write the novel.
I also knew that my teen audience was web-savvy and spent a lot of time online. So it was natural leap for me to decide to publish the novel online. What I chose to do was develop a blog platform that worked in reverse - when you pull up the blog, it will always have the first page of the book on the first page of the blog. I don't think this would work well for every demographic. Plus, since it's poetry, it's a lot less dense than prose and much easier to read on a computer.
I also decided to release it a little at a time, with new content every single day. Eventually I will reach the end of the book and the entire thing will be online for anyone to read. Featured in my sidebar are all five of my other books, with links to Amazon as well. I could easily extend this blog-book into an online series, but for now, I will take it one book at a time.
I did hire a designer since that's not my speciality and I adore the look she came up with.
So do I have you intrigued? Take a look at Totally Unfamous. Basically, my hope is that this would encourage you to think outside the box a bit for how you can market your own books. How could you use the Internet in a new way to gain new readers? Will this work for me in the sense that I will gain a wider audience? Will it translate into actual sales? I have yet to see if it will, but I have to be honest - even though I have no idea how this will turn out, I love this novel, and I am so glad it's not just going to sit on some file in my computer. Sometimes being a writer is about writing things you love, being creative and spreading your wings. No matter how this "marketing venture" turns out, I got to spread my wings wide and soar. And that's pretty priceless.
Sarah, another free-verse novel for teens made the 2007 American Library Association's Notable Children's Book List (includes teen books as well as children's): Yellow Star by Jennifer Roy. So hang in there!
Looking forward to checking out Totally Unfamous. Your Librarian Cheerleader
Posted by: Judy | February 15, 2007 at 01:42 PM