Words! by Christine Duncan

Yesterday, I had that Meet the Author event at the library that I’ve been obsessing over. I had no bookmarks, they all got bent and messed up. I had no flyers asking people to invite me to talk to their book groups–my computer went down. I forgot to bring the Sony reader because I was so upset over the other stuff.
And yet, it was a very nice couple of hours talking to people who love books.
Did I sell much? Nah. Neither did anyone else I talked to although there was a bunch of trading of books going on between the authors. I think the woman with the cookbook was the winner there.
A lot of the talk was about the recession and about how hard a time it is for books–especially fiction books. I know I’m buying fewer myself these days.
It was just nice to talk writing for a bit. Promotion, marketing, dialog, critique groups–all the stuff we talk about here, but the conversation went on for a couple of hours and not just with the other authors there.
One exchange I had with a gentleman who was making the rounds of the tables was about how you can tell when someone reads–or writes.
I think it’s vocabulary. Readers and writers strive for the exact right word. We know there is one. We may not be able to think of it at just this moment, but we know it. So we look it up.
What do you think?

Selling Your Own Book by Christine Duncan

Recently one of my publishers wrote a group email about links on our websites to sell our books. She has special banners for each genre. And the idea is that we should include those on our websites with the link to Amazon.
I don’t mind selling my book that way. It seems easy enough and it’s one of the reasons I keep a website along with a blog. But other ways of selling my books are…harder.
A couple of years back I went to Wyoming author’s day. That day was difficult because it was just part of the fair. People were there to do the kinds of things they do at fairs, eat fried stuff and ride rides that make the fried stuff seem like the mistake it probably was. And we authors were in a building in the middle of this, by ourselves sitting at tables with our books. People came through because they wanted to see what was in the building or to go to the bathrooms, or just to get out of the sun for a minute and were a little surprised to see us. My son helped me by giving out bookmarks, or maybe it was fliers and asking folks if they liked mysteries. I sold a couple of books and went on a couple of rides myself after the writers all went home. But it was a long afternoon.
A year or two after that, I did one of the Wal-mart deals where they put authors in the aisles. I forget why. They may have been promoting literacy. Another long afternoon of startled people who didn’t really expect to find authors in the women’s underwear section or wherever I was. No son there to hand out bookmarks.
So I tend to believe that it is hard to sell books when folks don’t expect to see you. So I was surprised to see a post on MurderMustAdvertise by author Susanne Alleyn saying that she has had some success selling her books at her own yard sales. She sells at a bit of a discount and says her best line seems to be “Signed first editions by an almost-famous author!”
I’m willing to try anything once–and I have as much junk that could go in a garage sale as the next person, but I’m not convinced. Wouldn’t that tend to make folks think your books were…I don’t know…junk?
What do you think?

Promo Solutions? Not here! by Christine Duncan

I came across a couple of links on writing and book promo this week, courtesy of Crimespace again. The links go through the old and tiresome debate of what exactly makes books sell. Writer Sell Thyself
The Business Rusch: Promotion

As you can see if you read them, what you believe about promotion tends to revolve around whether you are the self flagellating type who tends to believe that you should have done more and better or whether you are the type who believes that nothing much sells a book but more books.

Being the type who really desperately believes I should somehow be doing more, I did tend to think that carried over into promotion. These past few years have changed my mind. At this point, my twitter account is overwhelmed with authors begging me to buy their books and I don’t even want to look at Facebook invites anymore. I think I may have finally learned that more can be much, much too much. Really folks, I don’t live just to buy your books.

The other thing I think I believe (yeah, I’m not positive–anyone with a good argument might be able to persuade me differently.) is that writing more can make me buy more. By that I mean, if I like your stuff, I am going to want to read more of your stuff–whether it’s books, short stories whatever. Unless of course, you are writing a series that I have gotten sick of. Or I like one of your series so I am afraid to try another in case I get them mixed up. Or you traitor, you write in more than one genre and one of them is something I absolutely won’t read. (I haven’t yet really discovered what exactly that is, but I’m working on it.)

And the whole what makes you try an author debate? Yeah, we’re back to the usual. You buy because of the cover? Really? Synopsis? I can only hope. That I might have some control over.
You saw it advertised on TV? Well, they say that works with prescription drugs but dang! I have no hope ever then.

Don’t even talk to me about what is the publisher’s responsibility and what is mine. I have learned that really depends on whether you are the published or the publisher. Otherwise known as hope springs eternal–on both sides.

You know it’s not even that it’s just a really personal decision on what attracts. It is just random. A friend and I were discussing this just the other day. Sometimes, you can pick up a book and it just does nothing for you so you set it down after the first page or two. And then, months down the road you might pick up the same book and devour it in one sitting, just wowed by the whole deal.

I’m guessing none of these arguments change any minds either. The writers I know who think that promotion should be done at each and every event they attend and be at the forefront of their every thought and prayer, will keep doing that. The writers who think, “Eh, I want the thing to suceed or fail on its own merits” will keep doing that. And some in each group will suceed despite their own best efforts.

Branding? Don’t They Do That To Cows? by Christine Duncan

In my never ending search for a way to market my mysteries, I keep coming across the concept of branding. The idea seems deceptively simple yet I find it hard to narrow it down to one sentence. Part of it seems to be that everything you do should be done with the idea of getting your name out. So use your name.

Are you on Twitter as Reader, on Dorothy L as Agatha C. and on your blog as Anonymous? Then you are not taking advantage of branding. You need people to see you and recognize you on all these places (and where ever else you hang out) so that they will be interested, remember your name, buy your books.

Along with this goes the rather old fashioned idea that you don’t do anything in public (the internet, your facebook page, your bookgroup) you can’t write home about. Don’t go on Goodreads and offend folks with your bad manners and language. Don’t go on Facebook and badmouth your publisher, your bookcover or your granny. Moms of the world are applauding loudly. Haven’t they been telling us this all along?

In other words don’t brand yourself as an idiot.

And if there is something unique about you and your work–trumpet that. But not so much that folks get sick of hearing it, if you can figure out where that dividing line is.

Some of this seems like plain common sense to me. Then again, I AM a mom. And we’ve all heard of folks who have had bad consequences from behavior online that was less than well thought out.

But it all seems so artificial. And I’d rather look for a way to really connect. Branding. Like a brand name. Like a product. Like I’m not really a person at the other end of the blog-o-sphere from you. It makes me feel like that cow.

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Promo, Promo, & More Everlasting Promo

As I get closer and closer to the print release date for Safe House the promo tasks begin to seem overwhelming. It didn’t help that I was locked out of Twitter this week for having clicked on the wrong direct message.  I had to start a new account, find all the people I had tweeted with before, and start over. And I thought social networking sites would save me time connecting with others.

I have also been sending out ARCS for review.  This is also a time consuming process, just figuring out who to send to and when. Some review sites, like Foreword and Kirkus want ARCS months beforehand, some want them on publication (Midwest Book Review is one of them.) Meanwhile, I’m looking for blogs who will host me for a blog tour, and putting together an email press kit to mail to book stores in my area to try to arrange signings and talks.  Which means I need to figure out what to talk about and how not to stammer and stutter my way through the talks. I have started a database list of radio shows that I will also send to.

I have said publicly and on other blog posts that this time I was giving myself permission to take time to promote and to not be obsessed.  I LIED.

I am a perfectionist.  I am not able to cut myself that much slack.   I am more and more aware that authors have to sell this book to be able to get the next one published.  And my next book is my favorite so I really want to get it published. So I want to do it ALL. If I only knew what it all is and how to do it.

What are you doing for promo? And why do you think it’s a good thing? C’mon, give me a clue–I could use one.

I can’t market myself – I’m English!

Marketing. I know I should do it. I know it’s the best way to get my work known. I know the chances are that I will never get discovered, make a fortune, win both the Booker and the Orange prize without it. But the very thought of it makes me cringe….

 

You see, I’m English. Very very English. And here, it’s just not the done thing.

 

Perhaps an author might sneak into a bookshop. They might sidle up to someone and whisper, half-hoping not to be heard ‘That’s my book. You might like it. It’s okay, I guess. I like it. But it’s okay if you don’t. Don’t feel you have to buy it, or anything. Sorry to disturb you’ at which point they run out of the shop, blushing fiercely, and feeling somehow dirty.

 

Marketing, especially aggressive marketing, can backfire, here. It gets our backs up. I have met so many people who refused to read Harry Potter because of what they perceived as ‘aggressive marketing’

 

The funny thing about Harry Potter is- it wasn’t marketed to start off with. It started small. The word about this great book didn’t spread via viral emails, or clever TV ads, or anything else. It was children, telling other children about this great book. And bit by bit, the whispers spread. I was working in a library at the time, and heard the whispers myself. ‘Try this book, it’s great’, kids told each other. Then The Prisoner of Azkaban came out, and, with hardly any marketing at all, it shot straight to the top of the chart.

 

After that, we had the marketing techniques. The toys, the midnight sellings, everything else that Muggles considered ‘intrusive’. But by that point, us Potterites wanted the toys and midnight sales and movies. We’d done the hard work. We’d spread the word ourselves. We’d wanted to be proved right. And we enjoyed all of it, knowing that we were there in the beginning, when the word of a good book was spread by children’s whispers.

 

So yes, us English (and Scottish, and Welsh and Irish) can do the big marketing campaign. But it makes us feel a little dirty. It’s not how we work. It’s not how things are done. We prefer the idea that we can get big just because we’re good. And J.K. Rowling, bless her, showed us that we could.

 

On the other hand, she was the lucky one. I shall have to get over my English reserve, and learn to market myself. And one day, I will. Perhaps. Maybe. I don’t know. After all, I am English!