marketing

Publishing a novel

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I’ve been away from the blog for two weeks or so, correcting proofs of my latest book in the Dangerous Journeys  Series. When the manuscript is finished and sent to the publisher, in my case electronically, time passes, and then it is returned, or at least the files are, downloaded to some vast internet cloud, and then to me. Line by line, error by error, recorded first on legal pads and then into Excel, and finally it is ready to return to the publisher. The process repeats itself, she corrects, then I correct again, and finally we both agree that we can find no more errors, omissions or outright howlers. After that, I wait, and wait and wait, while mysterious manipulations go on to convert the files to e-book format and prepare for the paper press as well.

In the meantime, I write and then of course, rewrite, a press release, find multiple free services that could disperse the press release across the internet, and read books about marketing and the importance of an author platform. So  I sign up for twitter, post more books at Goodreads, expand my Linkedin network and ask friends and relatives to post my press release when the book is ready. And then I wait some more. A problem with the files at the printer, I’m told, is delaying the appearance of NO MOTIVE FOR MURDER.

I  return to writing, now a rewrite of a book that has been hanging around in a virtual drawer. It was fun to write and now even in rewrite, mostly because of the settings, besides Toronto, my protagonist travels to Rome and Venice, Bari and Dubrovnik.

I’m still waiting.

Marketing—an update

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I’ve been investigating different avenues for marketing my books and the latest is Goodreads at http://www.goodreads.com. If you haven’t found this site, check it out. There are millions, yes more than five million of them—reading, reviewing, interacting with each other and with authors, suggesting books, and making friends. My two first books are posted there and yesterday I uploaded a short story as a sort of appetizer. Reviews gratefully accepted.

What startled me about the site, aside from the ease of use were all those members. So much for the death of the book. Rather than sound the death-knell for the written word, electronic media seems to be resuscitating it.

Marketing for writers, cont.

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http://preview.tinyurl.com/cldz5s5 

This link takes you to a Globe and Mail article this morning about publishing and marketing. The writer interviews Martin Crosbie, author of  My Temporary Life, an e-book, self-published megahit. He offers 10 pieces of advice here.

Number 4 talks about that promotional tool peculiar to the e-publishing industry, the freebie, or how to make money by giving goods away. He says the rule-of-thumb is: for every one you give away, you make one sale, so lots of freebies equals lots of sales, and moves you up on the Amazon ranking, which also means more sales.

Number 3 discusses the self-publishing programme at Kindle, and especially its lending programme, something new to me. When did Amazon become a library of sorts?

Beverly Akerman, author of the article and of  The Meaning of Children, listed in the top ten for the Giller People’s Choice award, chose to keep her electronic rights and  self-publish the e-book version on Kindle.

My latest novel, No Motive for Murder, the third in the Dangerous Journeys series, is at the publisher. Marketing is now a huge part of the author’s responsibility, although I’m fortunate that Write Words Inc. handles all the nuts and bolts of production and distribution. Coming from a profession in which the clients found me(Pediatrics), I’m struggling to learn this marketing business.

Marketing for Writers

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I’ve just posted a new link on my blog to The Creative Penn http://www.thecreativepenn.com/, a blog by Joanna Penn, an Australian writer, whose blog was voted one of the top ten for writers in 2011. Her online, free course titled Author2.0 details the myriad ways an author can promote herself and her writing, and make some money along the way.

She has also posted a video introduction to the course, available here: http://bit.ly/DjL1M. Joanne is an engaging and enthusiastic speaker, who manages to make the online and offline marketing world clearer.

The development of a blog, a website, a facebook page, a twitter account, a linkedin presence etc and so on is daunting, but Joanne makes it all seem possible.

I’ve just sent off Book 3 of my Dangerous Journeys series, entitled No Motive for Murder and set in modern-day Bermuda, but as in all Anne McPhail’s adventures with perilous links to the past, to the publisher. I’ll keep progress detailed here.

In the meantime, below are the links to Anne’s first two journeys.

http://preview.tinyurl.com/7antbxm Write Words Inc.com
http://preview.tinyurl.com/7wdtnwu My Amazon.com page

Was Dr. Johnson right?

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So here’s the thing. No one but a blockhead ever wrote except for money-Samuel Johnson. Is that true? Or do people write because their creativity is driving them, or because it’s a convenient hobby, or to exorcise their demons?

So I’m writing. Currently, the third book in a series about a doctor/genealogist who keeps finding corpses. Waiting patiently for me to return to it, is another, with a different protagonist. They’re on my mind, walking around with me, intruding on whatever else I want to do.

And I’m blogging, and a few people are reading.

And I’m trying to learn marketing in this electronic age – Facebook, and Twitter and finding groups to join and other writers to talk to.

When I started I just wanted to see if I could. Next,  I wanted to see if anyone would publish what I’d written. And now, well, I don’t think I’m a blockhead but so far very little money.

I’m still writing, so either I am a blockhead, or  it fills some other need, or answers some other call. I don’t know yet, but I still have stories to tell, so writing it will have to be, money or no. Oh,and yes, I want readers. No point in putting down in words except to communicate.

Selling Books

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The Kent Bookstore in Lindsay, Ontario is now carrying my book, Murderous Roots. Many thanks to them.

Marketing is a strange game. To date, there have been on-line reviews of the book; I’ve blogged about it; I have followed all the advice I could find and established a web-site, a Facebook site, and paid for press releases. I’ve told everyone I could, including the checkout clerk at the supermarket about it, and so on. There are online marketing courses to take but I have to draw the line at that expense. And soon I’ll have to start all over with the sequel! It’s all a long way from writing.

Winter Writing

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Winter has settled in here. Snow days, wind chills in the minus teens, slippery sidewalks, and shivering robins, still hanging around in the crabapple trees when they should be in Georgia or Florida.

It should be a good time for writing, but lately I’ve been focussed on websites and search engine optimization and Google analytics and other such arcane and here-to-fore unknown subjects, all to increase traffic to my website and blog and eventually to sales of my book. Or so I hope.

There appear to be as many people trying to make a dollar from exploitation of a writer’s work online as there are in the print world. I see sites with books by agents and marketers, ezines,  selling the surest route to a best seller, if only the author would take an eight hundred dollar course, and oh, bye the way sign up three friends to  get fifty per cent off,  and  others offering to rewrite the opus, and then it would sell millions of copies and be the next Harry Potter.

As I struggle through SEO for Dummies, and Blogging ditto, I wonder what would be wrong with writing just for me. But then I would just have to think, and remember and never write at all. Writing only has value and purpose, to my way of thinking, if shared.