Admittedly, everything I have learned, with specific regards to producing my work in Theatre to now designing and marketing my first novel, THE WOMAN IN THE SUN HAT, has come out of necessity more so than a burning desire. The desire, as exists with many artists, has always lied in creating and, at least for me, that's why I've been knee deep in the creative world.

Going into this particular venture, that of marketing my novel, I have tried to be as open as I can to learning about how to widen the wingspan of a book that I feel (in all modesty) it deserves. For one, this was not published by a big name publisher. No, this was published by fandango 4 Art House. Sounds pretty reputable, yes? Well, I'd like to think so, even if fandango 4 Art House is actually my own theatre/arts education company that we elected to expand to publishing in order to release this book. And while I take a lot of pride in the fact that we made it happen, it nevertheless has put a considerable onus on myself to do the legwork of, as the blog title indicates - getting it out there!

Part of it, of course, was creating a cover design that I felt served the tone of the book and was eye-catching. Following that was a synopsis (ever the devil to many writers) that served the book well enough. Then it was (and still is) about getting the ball rolling - sending paperback copies to friends and family and encouraging them (only if they liked it) to write reviews and tell folks. But it appears that the most important step is the one I'm at now: the unknown. Or more accurately, getting more people that I do not know to read this book and, ideally, spread the word. Yes, folks - it really does take a village.

This week, I concluded two ebook giveaways (for Goodreads and a smaller one through Voracious Readers Only). I set these up with a specific desire to accrue a larger readership for THE WOMAN IN THE SUN HAT, and I am glad that I pursued both avenues. While it is too early to tell how impactful the results of these will be, it certainly brought the book before the eyes of people who knew nothing about it before. For the Goodreads Giveaway, 100 folks won ebook copies and 472 put it on their To-Read lists. Now how soon any of these lovely people will read the book is anyone’s guess – yes, I have noticed that many folks on Goodreads have To-Read lists that are into the tens of thousands. But I still think it was wise to do it. For the latter giveaway, it was free and reached 22 people (the max was 20) who specifically requested the book – and some have already read it and graciously given the book a lovely review, to which I am certainly thankful.

The next and, to date, biggest step will be expanding the distribution of the book to a larger platform that will allow greater retail access for the book. In other words, the upcoming move is expressly designed to make it more accessible for book stores (and maybe one near YOU) to carry it on their shelves, even though it’s listed on a variety of sites, aside from Goodreads and Amazon.

This blog post might be less interesting to some, as it is, admittedly, more designed for like-minded indy-authors who may have their own concerns about hitting a glass ceiling with selling their books. But to those of you to whom this post most applies, I hope this has been helpful in some way.

Stay well and stay creative.