by Paige Daniels
It’s taken years of blood, sweat, and tears, but you’ve
finally done it you’ve written your first book. You’ve written query letter
after query letter and had your hopes dashed time after time. Your fingers are
bloodied stumps from typing pithy attention getting synopsis and after
synopsis. Finally, your baby is published! You have a hard copy sitting in your
grimy little paws waiting for the world to read, because you know, everyone
wants to read it. So, now that all your hard work is over what do you do? No,
seriously, I’m asking: what the heck do I do?
I’m a newbie to this whole writing business so this won’t be
a blog about how to maximize your reader potential or whether Goodreads is
better than Shelfari. No, I just want to give my newbie point of view about
marketing my book. This is something that most authors, at least me, don’t give
a second thought to when they plot chapters and edit grammar.
When I talk to most of my friends who aren’t familiar with the book biz (yeah, I’m hip I call it biz) they assume that the book publisher takes care of all the marketing and the author can sit back, eat bon-bons, and watch the money fly in. I’m lucky enough to have a great publisher Kristell Ink (plug plug plug) that has helped me a great deal with contacts and marketing material. However, it is really up to the author to go to local bookstores, tell friends and family (aka annoy the crap out of them), use social media to get your message out there, and generally just use old fashioned hard work to get the word out there about your book.
I’m the shy kind of introverted type at least I don’t like bugging people too much about things, but I’ve found that I’ve really had to go out of my comfort zone when it comes to this. I’ve had to call/write bookstore multiple times to get my book stocked. I’ve had to beg and plead for reviews. But it all comes with the territory.
I’ve had to be brave about putting my book out there for God and everyone to see. But I realize I have to be willing to risk someone not liking the book to get to those who will like the book. I’ve had to endure sitting at a cold outdoor book fair while roughly a million people (give or take) walked right by my author table. Talk about an ego blow.
I’m not complaining though. I think all of this has been a great learning experience for me. I’ve learned to not equate the money earned on my book with a dollars per hour kind of figure. If I did it would be depressing. No, this is a labor of love. I think in the end I’ll walk away with some good lessons for the future if I decide to walk down this author path again and if I don’t then it was a fun trip while it lasted.
When I talk to most of my friends who aren’t familiar with the book biz (yeah, I’m hip I call it biz) they assume that the book publisher takes care of all the marketing and the author can sit back, eat bon-bons, and watch the money fly in. I’m lucky enough to have a great publisher Kristell Ink (plug plug plug) that has helped me a great deal with contacts and marketing material. However, it is really up to the author to go to local bookstores, tell friends and family (aka annoy the crap out of them), use social media to get your message out there, and generally just use old fashioned hard work to get the word out there about your book.
I’m the shy kind of introverted type at least I don’t like bugging people too much about things, but I’ve found that I’ve really had to go out of my comfort zone when it comes to this. I’ve had to call/write bookstore multiple times to get my book stocked. I’ve had to beg and plead for reviews. But it all comes with the territory.
I’ve had to be brave about putting my book out there for God and everyone to see. But I realize I have to be willing to risk someone not liking the book to get to those who will like the book. I’ve had to endure sitting at a cold outdoor book fair while roughly a million people (give or take) walked right by my author table. Talk about an ego blow.
I’m not complaining though. I think all of this has been a great learning experience for me. I’ve learned to not equate the money earned on my book with a dollars per hour kind of figure. If I did it would be depressing. No, this is a labor of love. I think in the end I’ll walk away with some good lessons for the future if I decide to walk down this author path again and if I don’t then it was a fun trip while it lasted.
Oh and by the way, it wouldn’t be a good marketing blog if I didn’t market myself. Right now I’m having a giveaway. Everyone likes free stuff not to mention, lots of free stuff. I’m having a rafflecopter giveaway that ends May 15th. There’s lots of cool stuff like an autographed copy of my book, a tote, an Amazon gift card, a t-shirt, and maybe some other surprises. So go to rafflecopter and follow their directions to be entered. It couldn’t be any easier.
Click here to visit Paige's website.
Click here to read a review of Paige's book, Non-Compliance: The Sector.
a Rafflecopter giveaway
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