We CAN! promote our books

Marketing Gone too Far?

Yes, that's me. Our own Susan May Warren (and brand new board member) decided to turn me into a human billboard to announce her latest book.

Yes, folks, marketing can go too far. You might be an over-marketer if...

How Much Time?

It's summer time. That means my kids are home and the amount of people and things demanding my attention has...tripled.

I'm sure some of you can relate.

Authors are the same way. You are here because you have an interest in marketing, as we all should. But how do you decide what to spend your time on? It's so easy to think you have to do everything but I have found that it's smarter to do a few things well, rather than a ton of things badly.

Who are you?

While this is a picture of me, I am not a guitar player. I'd like to be one. I even took lessons for a few years. But I learned very quickly that it takes a lot of work and a lot of practice and I just didn't have the passion to stick with it like I needed to. I liked the "idea" of being a guitar player, but that was all.

I think writing is an art form that lots of people "want to be". If I had a dollar for every person who came up to me and said they wanted to write a book. Statistically, I think some 85% of the population "wants" to write a book.

And though I can't prove this, I think there are a fair number of people who consider themselves writers, who talk about writing, read about writing, but at the end of the day, don't do all that much writing. What about you? What does your time tell you about who you are?

Breakout?

I'm going to be attending a one-day seminar with Donald Maass this summer and I wanted to be prepared. I always get more out of stuff if I'm already working from a basic understanding of the teaching.

So I ordered his book, "Writing the Breakout Novel".

Why, oh why, did I wait so long to get this book???

The Idol effect

I will fully admit to watching American Idol (and a few other reality shows that I won't confess to right now). This season is one of the best yet and for the first time I am going to be sad to see someone go each week.

So what does American Idol have to do with book marketing?

Lots.

Making Readers Work

"Dear Mrs. Sumpolec. I loved your books so much!!! I read them all last week and now I'm letting all my friends borrow them so they can read your awesome books, too!!!"

I get a lot of letters similiar to this. Usually with misspellings and lots of exclamation points - or no punctuation marks at all. I write for teens - and I love it.

But this kind of letter is great and terrible all at the same time. Isn't it? Yeah! You love my books. That's ten more sales down the drain...

Photo Redux

Continuing the author photo discussion...

Laura asked:

"You said get a wardrobe that fits you as an author (brand). What about wordrobes for different genres? For instance, the suspense author shouldn't wear the same clothes as an author of historical romance. Any tips?"

Smile!

If you aim to have a career as an author, then there are certain investments that must be made. A good author photo is one of them. Typically, you don't need an author photo until you have a signed contract. But nowadays, we have pre-pubbed (an interesting dose of hopefulness in that term, isn't there?) authors posting websites to show editors who they are and sometimes, those websites include...well, less than flattering pictures.

You've Got Mail!

I love hearing from readers. I really do. Because I write for teens, most of the mail I get is from girls between the ages of 11-16 and their letters are sweet and encouraging.

But as much as I love getting this mail, more and more I am finding that I have to "manage" this aspect of being a novelist. It is a vital part of marketing and yet it can be very time-consuming. Balance is required, but that balance is not always easy to find.

Experimenting

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.