Sunday, February 28, 2010

Promote or Perish


Any author will tell you that the hardest part about being published is the promotion. Before I was published I was under the assumption that the publishers marketed books for their authors. Ummm...No. The truth is unless you're Nora Roberts or JK Rowling the publisher doesn't do much in terms of marketing. Virtually all of it falls on the author. The trouble is that most authors aren't experinced in marketing and in many cases they don't have the money to hire someone else to market for them. It can be a very frustrating experience to say the least. So here are a few tools that have worked for me.


I know that lots of people are a bit squeamish about self-promotion. If you're an author I've got three words for you--"GET OVER IT!"


It's really quiet simple. If you don't promote yourself--no one else will. Well... not at first. As a new author the responsibility is on YOU to tell people all about your book and why they should run out and buy it/download it--whatever.


Social Networking. No...not for dates...for your book. Twitter, My Space, Facebook, Blogspot, Shelfari, Good Reads and We Read are all FREE!!!


Anyone promoting a book should have every single one of these accounts live and online. If you have each of these accounts you can then link them all to each other, creating your own business network.


Why do they help you? Twitter, for example, I didn't understand initially. A status update with only 140 characters. Huh?! Well the idea is to follow a flock of like-minded people. Here's just one example of how Twitter helped me.


Since I write Paranormal Romance I did a search for "paranormal". Well as you can imagine a lot of funky folks came up. One of them was "Paranormal Podcast" with Jim Harold. I followed him and he followed me back. I asked him if I could link his website to mine. We got a little conversation going. He took it to the next level and asked me if I'd like to be interviewed on his podcast show. Absolutely! Jim gets 90,000 downloads of his podcasts a month. Our interview has already been downloaded 10,000 times! Think about that.....all of those people...a brand new audience simply from connecting on Twitter.


So that's a bit about the Internet. What about face to face?


If you're an author you absolutely have to set up a book tour. It's not easy and you'll have to be persistent but it will pay off. What better way to personally connect with readers? I exectued a book tour last summer via various Borders and B&N and used all of the social networking to help promote it. These face to face signings were an outstanding way to connect personally with readers you may not have found online.


Okay. You get them face to face...and then what? What do you do you tell them? Easy. Give them your "elevator pitch". In other words...if you were on an elevator with your dream publisher and only had 60 seconds to grab their attention and sell them on your book....What would you say? That's an "elevator pitch". For me... the hook question to bring passers by to my signing table was..."Did you like "Twilight"?" Now, my series isn't about vampires...BUT...it's the same genre. I got their attention and got them to stop and listen a bit more. Then comes the elevator pitch.


I have to say that I throughly enjoyed all of my book signings. You can see an example of my experiences here on my blog.


I hope these thoughts were helpful. Believe me...after all of the publicity and promo...I need a big glass of Pinot!


"Nothing ventured, nothing gained."

Sunday, February 21, 2010

Skiing, Snowtubing and Shufflebord

Does anyone else find the last day of vacation to be a form of torture? Sundays are always slightly torturous because you know that Monday is taunting you from just around the corner. It's sitting there just waiting to jump on you with one unpleasant surprise or another. The Monday after vacation is even worse. As it looms closer I thought I'd take a moment and remind myself of the fun we had this week--so when I get hammered tomorrow I'll know it was worth it.

Our four sons had their winter break this week. We usually go away for the February break. The idea of being stuck inside with four boys for a week is less than appealing, so we decided to take them upstate for some skiing, snow tubing and other family fun activities. They're relatively new at skiing so the place we went was perfect for them. It had two very easy ski slopes and one ski lift so no one could get lost. It was great to be able to give them the freedom to go up and down the "mountain" on their own. They had one or two falls but no one had a "yard sale".

The resort we stayed at (and I use that term loosely) was great for the kids. The adults however--not so much. It's up in the Catskills and it is about the only thing up there, so the only activities, restaurants and so on....are at the "resort". This place was like a cruise ship without the ocean--or something out of "Dirty Dancing". We got a kick out of watching the boys splash around in the indoor pool. I thought their heads would explode when they saw that it had a slide. However, I refrained from actually going in. The bathing suit is not my friend.

The game room was complete with a ball pit, pool tables, ping pong, boccie ball and shuffle board. We tried the shuffle board. I spent most of the time laughing because the boys were still incredibly competitive even though they had no idea if we were playing it correctly. It wasn't entirely old school--there was an arcade of course. The sports complex even had a little bowling alley.

All in all we had fun. It was great just to be together as a family. So as Monday creeps closer, and the impending responsibilities at work creep into my mind, I'm clinging to the moments of this past week. My husband playfully teasing his sons at dinner--and all of them bursting into fits of laughter. The look of pride on Ian's face as he made it down the mountain on his snowboard-- without wiping out. Leo's laugh bouncing down the mountain as he raced ahead of his brothers. The sight of William as he whizzed fearlessly down the mountain and perfected his "racing stance". Jack doing flip after flip in the pool and asking, "Did you see me Mommy? Did you see me?"
I saw it all and that's what will keep me going.

Thursday, February 4, 2010

The ‘Difficult’ Second Album


Hey there! I know you've all heard me mention this hot new band from Scotland--The Strike Nineteens--well one of the singers/songwriters from that fab band is my guest blogger. Ladies and Gentleman....David Muir.

There are many clichés in the music world. After all, it’s not what you know, its who you know. It’s about being in the right place at the right time. At the end of the day, when the chips are down, it’s a game of two halves.


Doesn’t make much sense does it?


In my brief foray into the periphery of the ‘music’ business I have came to one conclusion. There are no standards, only benchmarks. What I mean is this – there is no secret formula into making it big. If there is, I have yet to get my hands on this elusive Pandora’s box. Does this mean you should give up? Absolutely not! Why? Simply because the times they are a-changing.
One of my favourite quotes is, “a mind that has expanded to have an idea rarely returns to it’s original size”. The reason I find this so pivotal is that we can use everyone’s experiences to further our own knowledge of what is possible. The benchmarks of others are there like rungs on a ladder to help us upwards and onwards.


My name is David Muir and I am the lead singer/song writer for The Strike Nineteens. Is my band signed to a lucrative record deal? No. Have I given up the day job? No. Have I had a No. 1 hit single all over the world? No. If you ask me if I think we are good enough to answer these entire questions yes, then YES I do believe truly that we are. So what’s gone wrong? Well nothing actually, apart from the fact that in this industry usual rules do not apply. When was the last time you went for an interview and you adequately displayed your skills and attributes only to find out that they gave the job to someone with no experience, no skills and even talent? This is commonplace for the music business as I’m sure it is for many other “Art” driven careers.
I am glad to say that I have woken up to the truth. The dawning realisation hit me like wrecking ball. It was so obvious yet the answer hid in plain sight. YOU HAVE TO WORK HARD. That’s it. No more, no less. I had grown up with the exciting tales of bands that turned up at gigs drunk, had a stack of girls in the dressing room and a fat man with a cigar waiting to say , “You guys are brilliant. Let’s make a ton of money”. No matter how talented you are, no matter good your material is, everyone needs to PROMOTE, PROMOTE and PROMOTE. In this technically magnificent era our job is so much easier. We have Facebook, Twitter, Bebo, Youtube, Internet and so many more portals to get our message out.


When we released our first album, Screams for Denver, we put it on itunes and waited for the cheques to arrive. To put it bluntly, my letterbox was as busy as an Amish Inbox. I couldn’t believe it. I had poured my heart and soul into an album that I was proud of and even let my guard down and talked about subjects that I had bottled up for so long. Why wasn’t it an unmitigated success? Basically, in the whole excitement of launch parties and local paper events I had forgotten something. No-one knew us. No-one had heard of us. No-one knew that our album had hit itunes. It was the equivalent of finding the cure to the world’s fuel problems and launching them into space.


Our second album is imminent and I am glad to say the lessons I have learned in the past 12 months have come to bear on this new project. To such an extent that we are promoting hard pre-launch. That’s right! It’s not finished yet but already the cogs are oiled and starting to turn. By the time the album comes to fruition we will have emailed, Bebo’d, Poked (facebook) and flyer’ed everyone that we know and everyone that they know. It won’t put the album to number 1 but it might get us some new fans in countries that our budget otherwise wouldn’t allow.
We now have regular meetings to discuss promotional strategies and business opportunities. This is a concept that took some time to become comfortable with but the successes we have achieved have help underpin their importance. I look at media radically differently now. Where in the past I may cringe at a poor advertisement, I now analyze it’s pro’s and con’s and try to learn from it. It is a fresh and somewhat strange feeling to do this but I sincerely believe it to be vital.


The most amazing thing is this – I have enjoyed every minute of it and I have met some truly spectacular people along the way. The proof will be, I suppose, that someone will read this in years to come and say “Wow, look at them now!”
Work smart AND hard!


Cheers, peace and love
David Muir.


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