Readers, the best thing you can do to help an author whose books you like is to spread the word about the book and the author and to buy their next book. Also putting up reviews at all the places you can: sales venues, Goodreads, Facebook reader groups, other reader groups. Spreading the word is the best way to reward the writer for the entertainment they've given you.
I try to get on blogs. Tours work the best because your book and name gets in front of potential new readers and not the same people who are reading the blogs your on all the time. Writing post for a blog tour can be daunting but worth it when you see sales. I gave the book away on the last tour. That person wrote to me to tell me how much they liked it. planned to get the next books in the series and had put up a review. When I wrote back I suggested she sign up for my newsletter. I give all newsletter recipients a three day period when a book first comes out to get it at a reduced price before I up the price. She wrote back and said she signed up. A newsletter has become the best advertising tool for a writer. But you have to get people to sign up for the newsletter. You can sign up for mine at: my blog- Writing into the Sunset, my website, or here- http://eepurl.com/1CFgX
The hardest part for me about promotion is telling people I write and handing them a card or bookmark. My husband gets frustrated with me because I don't tell everyone I meet I write. Not everyone is a reader and not everyone wants someone walking up to them, saying, "Hi, I'm Paty Jager, I'm a writer. Here is a sample of what I write." I'm not that pushy. My husband meets new people. "Hi, My wife is a writer, here's her card." He can do that all he wants. I can't. It's not in my DNA to spout what I do and shove a bookmark at them. I'll leave a bookmark on tables in restaurants, coffee shops, doctor offices, and the like but I can't hand one to a person unless they say they are a reader.
The other hard part about promotion is knowing what is working. Every time I get caught up and start doing whatever it is they say is the "Hot" button for promotion it's changed and I have to go back and research again. I've decided what works for one does not work for another and as long as I keep putting my books out in front of as many people on the internet as I can that will be my best promotion.
To that end: This is what I am promoting right now:
The first ebook of the Halsey Brother Series is now PERMANENTLY FREE! You can download it for free at all the major ebook vendors. This is my push to help sell the other four books in the Halsey Brothers Series and the three books in the Halsey Homecoming Trilogy.Marshal in Petticoats
After accidentally shooting a bank robber, Darcy Duncan
becomes marshal of a town as accident prone as herself. Darcy’s taken care of her younger brother the
last five years, and she’s not about to take orders from a corrupt mayor or a
handsome drifter, whose curiosity could end her career as a marshal and take
away their security.
Gil Halsey is looking for his boss’s son who is riding with
outlaws. Taking the young man back to the ranch will seal the foreman’s job.
When he discovers the town’s new marshal is a passionate woman with high regard
for family and being framed for a bank heist, he has to has to decide which is
the better future—the feisty woman or the ranch.
Windtree Press: http://windtreepress.com/portfolio/marshall-in-petticoats/
And I have a short story at Kindle Select. It's $.99 or FREE if you have Prime.
Secrets
of a Christmas Box: An Isabella Mumphrey Adventure
This short story
has anthropologist Isabella Mumphrey excited about spending her first Christmas
with her Venezuelan DEA agent boy friend. The two met in the Guatemala Jungle
in Secrets of a Mayan Moon. They
found their missions intersecting in Secrets
of an Aztec Temple. This Christmas story takes place before Isabella meets
with her aunt at the Hopi Reservation and becomes entangled in Hopi myths and
human slavery in Secrets of a Hopi Blue
Star.
Only Isabella’s
plans of a wonderful Christmas are thwarted when her father hands her a World
Intelligence Agency mission. He allows Tino to help her with the mission, so
they can be together. As the days hasten to Christmas can she decipher the
wooden cube she’s been handed or will her first Christmas with Tino be a bust?
As a reader, what is your favorite promotion by an author? As an author, what do you like to do to promote a book?
I totally relate to all you wrote regarding the difficulty of promoting and being comfortable with it or knowing whether what I am doing helps at all. I get wrapped up in the story I am writing or want to be writing next, thinking about what works and to move out of that mode and figure out promotion is really hard. I also am very reluctant to push onto anybody that I write. If they express any interest, than it's easier. I envy the extroverts who find this kind of thing natural to them. For me though it's anything but natural. I would love to have others do it for me. Some writers seem to have a network that promotes their work, but I don't have that either, but do have a few readers now who have been very encouraging. Writing = wonderful; Promotion = less than wonderful -- but needed.
ReplyDeleteRain, I think most writers are like us and struggle with pushing our work onto people.
DeleteI enjoyed today's post and related to everything you wrote about promoting. It's just not natural for most of us. Writers spend most of their time alone, clicking away on their computer's keyboards, words their only companions. Then after the book is published (yippee) we're supposed to morph into a media darling! Where's my fairy godmother when I need her?
ReplyDeleteWhen you find your fairy godmother would you share, Sandra? ;)
DeleteAnother bad thing about promoting is the market changes so rapidly we have to constantly learn new techniques. Looking for Sandra's fairy godmother, too.
ReplyDeleteCaroline, I agree. Just when one thing is said to work and you try that, it is something else that is working. Frustrating!
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