"There are many different
ways for promoting a new book. Which do you feel is the most
effective?"
by Catriona
Oh God, I knew tackling this topic on Thursday, having read three previous contributions, was going to give me a bad case of galloping inadequacy.
Group tour . . . (Does a family wedding count?) Newsletter . . . (Does mistakenly hitting reply-to-all count?) Be Louise Penny . . . I'll get right on that.
Just about the best thing a publisher has ever said to me was when Midnight Ink told me my first job in promoting the book was to write a great next book. Writing a book is easier than corralling a street team any day.
It's not as though I do nothing - more that, like Clare said yesterday, I do what I enjoy and it seems weird calling it promotion. Facebook feels like home now, Twitter like popping next door to borrow a cup of sugar, and Left Coast, Malice and Bouchercon are as fixed in the shape of a year as Christmas, New Year and my birthday. (And then there's Bloody Scotland.)
I also think it's a good idea to have an attractive and easily navigable website, with books in order, a press page and contact links. Don't you Google every new writer you come across? I know I want the first thing people find (before the Amazon One-Star Express rolls onscreen) to be what I put there. I had to take a deep breath before I ponied up to Bizango for mine (click here) but I've never regretted it.
What else? Giving books away is a big part of my promotional approach. Large print and audio to the library, prize draws on publication days or to celebrate good reviews, gifts to people who express an interest I can tell falls just short of buying one themselves . . . I think even if these books are discarded they'll be discarded to a thrift store and I first discovered Joyce Carol Oates in a thrift store (and have subsequently given her a decent chunk of my income).
I still can't and will never be able to, if I live to be a hundred, tell someone more than they've asked in the interests of promotion. A typical promo opportunity goes like this:
Potential fan: What do you do?
Catriona: I'm a writer.
PF: Oh? What do you write?
C: Mysteries.
PF: Oh, really? I love mysteries!
C: Me too. Who do you read?
PF: [names some authors]
C: [names some more authors]
And the conversation is safely off of me. If the PF wants to steer it back I can't stop them.
4 comments:
I'd say you are closer to "being Louise Penny" than you think Catriona. (That's a facetious statement of course, because you can be, and should only be, yourself.)
There are some authors, and I include you and Louise in this mix, who seem to slowly rise higher and higher on the consciousness of readers year upon year. It's nothing one can put a finger on, but it is real.
Of course, it all starts with writing damn good books, but I have to think that attending conferences and meeting fans consistently is the hallmark of both Louise's journey and now, yours.
You always have a smile, regardless of if you are talking to a fan, a potential fan, or someone who likely has no interest in your style of book. There are some authors - I won't name names - who write books that just are not my taste, but they are super great people who engage with the public regularly. When I meet fans who I know like those type books, I am always saying "have you read..." even though I myself am not a fan.
And that brings us back to WORD OF MOUTH
Kristopher - you are kindness in an orange t-shirt. And thanks for agreeing that going to jamborees is work!
Great post, Catriona! Great points—and love the last one about talking to fans about shared interests in other writers. (And I like your comment here too about Kristpher being "kindness in an orange t-shirt.")
:-)
I'm adding "kindness in an orange t-shirt" to my business card. :)
(BTW, someday I will take a photo of my closet. There is way more orange than one person should be allowed to own.)
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