This weekend and next I'm handing over my blog to my two favourite people, Jenny Twist and Tara Fox Hall who want to talk about something dear to any author's heart - promotion (and FREE promotion at that!)
So straight away...here's Jenny.
I always assumed, rather naively, that once your book was
accepted by a publisher all you had to do was sit back and wait for the money
to roll in. Well, it doesn't happen like that. In order for a book to sell, the
author needs to have a fan base, to get fans the author needs to be actively
marketed. Even the best publishers cannot spend time and money marketing an
unknown author. They will only do this for new books from authors who are
already best-sellers or for those whom they believe have a really good chance
of becoming best-sellers - celebrities writing their autobiographies, for
example.
So is this a Catch 22 situation?
Not quite.
The answer is you have to market yourself. Ultimately books
sell through word of mouth, so the more people you can get to read your book,
the better chance it has of becoming well-known.
I have no money at all to spend on advertising, so all my
marketing is through social networking and blogging. Don’t knock it! You
wouldn’t believe how many people you reach through Twitter and Facebook.
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Twitter: You are only allowed 140 characters per
tweet. Make every character count. Put RT at the beginning, which is an
invitation for your followers to retweet. Every retweet will reach all the
followers of that tweep (Twitter-speak for one who tweets) who may themselves
retweet you. See how this works?
Always put the buy-link of your book in there. For example,
if you are tweeting about a review by all means put the review link in as well,
but include the buy link whatever happens. People buy on impulse. Make it easy
for them.
Facebook: Create your own author page and post all
your book news there. Invite people to share a link when you’re doing a full-on
campaign. Don’t forget to include the buy link!
Join author
groups - Yahoo has dozens of them. So does Facebook. I have a master spread-sheet
with all the sites I post on so I don’t forget any. I also bookmark all the
sites so it’s quick and easy to post one after another. Be careful to obey all
the site rules. Some have certain days when you’re allowed to post, some will
only allow certain kinds of posts.
Every time anything happens that gives you an excuse to say
something, tweet and post it. When a new book is launched, when you have a good
review, when you write a blog. You are building your fan-base. Make them
remember your name. And remember, if you want people to support you, you must
be prepared to support them. Thank them for sharing your link. When they
retweet you, reciprocate. You will make good friends who will always support
you.
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Reviews sell books. Send your book for review to any review
site that seems to be appropriate. Again I keep a spread-sheet for each book,
tracking where I sent it and the response. As you go along, you will find the
sites that like your writing and you will end up with a golden list of those
you are confident will give you a good review. Here’s a site with a
comprehensive list to start you off: http://kimberlykillion.com/writers.asp#bookreviewers
Ask other authors to review your work. Offer to review theirs
in turn.
Offer to do
interviews and blogs. It's
time-consuming, but it really does work. When I first started I used to prefer
interviews because the blogger did all the hard work. All you had to do was
answer the questions. Now I’d much rather write a blog myself on some subject
that interests me. It’s more interesting for me than trotting out the same
answers all the time and I think it’s more interesting for my readers.
Every time you do this, advertise it on the social networks. Post
the link to the site and ask people to comment. Keep revisiting the site to
respond to them.
Free downloads: Finally, there is one avenue I have only
recently discovered that seems to work like magic. If you have self-published a
book you can put it on free download every so often. Amazon’s KDP lets you do 5
free days every 90 days. Advertise it on all the free book sites and promote it
like mad.
Only a fraction of the people who download it will read it. Only a fraction of
those will review it. But an even smaller fraction, the golden nugget, will
become fans. They will go on to buy your other books. They will tell their
friends, who will tell their friends.
Stardom, here you come!
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About Jenny Twist
Jenny Twist was born in
York and brought up in the West Yorkshire mill town of Heckmondwike,the eldest
grandchild of a huge extended family.
She left school at fifteen and went to work in an asbestos factory.
After working in various jobs, including bacon-packer and escapologist’s
assistant, she returned to full-time education and did a BA in history at
Manchester and post-graduate studies at Oxford.
She stayed in Oxford
working as a recruitment consultant for many years and it was there that she
met and married her husband, Vic.
In 2001 they retired and
moved to Southern Spain where they live with their rather eccentric dog and cat
Jenny's first book, Take One At Bedtime, was published in April 2011 and the second, the highly acclaimed Domingo’s Angel, in July 2011. Her novella, Doppelganger, was published in the anthology Curious Hearts in July
2011, Uncle Vernon, was published in Spellbound, in November
2011, Jamey and the Alien was
published in Warm Christmas Wishes
in December 2011 and Mantequero was published in the anthology Winter Wonders in December 2011. She self-published Away With the Fairies, an intriguing modern fairytale in September 2012.
Her
latest novel, All in the Mind, about an old woman who mysteriously begins
to get younger, appeared in October 2012.
All Jenny's titles are available from Amazon. Just click on the following links: Amazon US and Amazon UK
This is a FREE collection featuring excerpts from our stories as well as lots of great recipes and party ideas to bring glitz and glamour to your own Cinderella-themed party this Christmas and New Year.
As you'll see from the above collage, my contribution is Wishful Thinking, and is available from Friday 4 December at the special low price of $0.99/£0.99 just until Christmas – appropriate really, considering the story takes place at Christmas.
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