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Your A Game: winning promo for genre fiction
Promoting genre fiction grows more competitive every day, yet no two authors or careers are alike.
Our solution: a chooseable adventure so you can pick the path toward the career you've always wanted. We offer a promo game plan tailored to your personal style, strategy, and measure of success.
Your A Game explains the tools and rules of kickass genre marketing to let you make your best next move. We break down the tricks and traps facing all novelists so you can:
* build your personal brand into a professional force.
* polish your public presence, online and in person.
* reach your ideal market and access your fans.
* raise each project to the next level.
Your career should be fun. Start playing Your A Game now.
Your A Game is a guide to genre fiction promotion built around the idea that playing to win should be fun for everyone involved. Rather than dictating cookie-cutter instructions, the book is structured as a chooseable adventure which examines the unique challenges of genre promo and proposes a strategy of authentic engagement and participation for long-term career success. This book is divided into four sections (Brand, Presence, Market, Project) with appendices including worksheets, game plans, and links to resources and downloadable content. Your A Game is an interactive career adventure that lets any genre fictioneer choose a customized path to their own winning promotional strategy.
Our solution: a chooseable adventure so you can pick the path toward the career you've always wanted. We offer a promo game plan tailored to your personal style, strategy, and measure of success.
Your A Game explains the tools and rules of kickass genre marketing to let you make your best next move. We break down the tricks and traps facing all novelists so you can:
* build your personal brand into a professional force.
* polish your public presence, online and in person.
* reach your ideal market and access your fans.
* raise each project to the next level.
Your career should be fun. Start playing Your A Game now.
Your A Game is a guide to genre fiction promotion built around the idea that playing to win should be fun for everyone involved. Rather than dictating cookie-cutter instructions, the book is structured as a chooseable adventure which examines the unique challenges of genre promo and proposes a strategy of authentic engagement and participation for long-term career success. This book is divided into four sections (Brand, Presence, Market, Project) with appendices including worksheets, game plans, and links to resources and downloadable content. Your A Game is an interactive career adventure that lets any genre fictioneer choose a customized path to their own winning promotional strategy.
- GenresWritingNonfiction
ebook
First published June 30, 2016
45 people are currently reading
99 people want to read
About the author
Damon Suede
27 books2,227 followersDamon Suede grew up out-n-proud deep in the anus of right-wing America, and escaped as soon as it was legal. He has lived all over and along the way, he’s earned his crust as a model, a messenger, a promoter, a programmer, a sculptor, a singer, a stripper, a bookkeeper, a bartender, a techie, a teacher, a director... but writing has ever been his bread and butter. He has been happily partnered for over a decade with the most loving, handsome, shrewd, hilarious, noble man to walk this planet.
Beyond romance fiction, Damon is an award-winning author who has been writing for print, stage, and screen for over three decades, which is both more and less glamorous than you might imagine. He's won some awards, but he counts his blessings more often: his amazing friends, his demented family, his beautiful husband, his loyal fans, and his silly, stern, seductive Muse who keeps whispering in his ear, year after year.
Damon would love to hear from you... you can get in touch with him here.
DamonSuede.com
Dreamspinner Press
Amazon
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Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews
Read
November 28, 2016Useful models to think through and lots of tips and tricks. Very much a tool box - take what you like and ignore the rest. I found it interesting and worthwhile, also well written.
Want to read
April 9, 2022I DNF'd this one at 18%, the writing style wasn't really working for me and I didn't really feel like reading it anymore.
August 24, 2016
Holy Moly - this book was amazing. So much great, usable and useful information. I read it twice through - it was that good.
December 29, 2018
There is a unbelievable amount of information in this book! I love that it has sound advice and best practices for writers at every stage of their career. This is going on my reference shelf permanently!
December 5, 2019
Everything you’ll ever need
This book is wonderful, what an unexpected surprise. Is it all relevant to everyone? No, but so what. I’m going back to work through all the exercises. I suspect they will be gold.
This book is wonderful, what an unexpected surprise. Is it all relevant to everyone? No, but so what. I’m going back to work through all the exercises. I suspect they will be gold.
July 17, 2018
This is a promo book specifically written for genre fiction authors, and it's got a unique twist: it's a choose-your-own-adventure, where you can click on the topics that seem to fit your personality (borrowed from Meyer/Briggs types) to help chart what you should do for promotion.
The pluses: I thought giving people options for promo based on personality was very clever. I've always felt that much of the marketing advice given pretends to be one-size-fits-all, but 'be authentic' should really trump everything else, as the audience can tell if you're not. I particularly liked the discussion on branding and tag lines: I have yet to see if it makes much of a difference for me, but I've always struggled with elevator pitches for my books and my writing in general. It's much easier to write a novel than it is to boil it down to three paragraphs for the back cover blurb, let alone a few sentences to hook someone who's never heard of you before!
The minuses: the choose-your-own-adventure style seemed to jump me to relatively random places in the book, and seemed to skip over sections that I would have liked to have read. When I then tried to go back to those sections, I'd lose track of where I was when I'd jumped: there's no 'back' button. Also, the book supposedly links to a number of resources on the authors' website that sounded cool, but the links didn't work. And finally, a great deal of the book seemed relevant only to authors at a certain level: those who can throw launch parties with significant influencers in attendance. Or maybe I just got a lot of that because of the 'track' I chose on my adventure. I suppose that's inevitable though-- a book like this would have to contain lots of advice to hit everybody at all levels, and not all of it is going to fit every reader.
The pluses: I thought giving people options for promo based on personality was very clever. I've always felt that much of the marketing advice given pretends to be one-size-fits-all, but 'be authentic' should really trump everything else, as the audience can tell if you're not. I particularly liked the discussion on branding and tag lines: I have yet to see if it makes much of a difference for me, but I've always struggled with elevator pitches for my books and my writing in general. It's much easier to write a novel than it is to boil it down to three paragraphs for the back cover blurb, let alone a few sentences to hook someone who's never heard of you before!
The minuses: the choose-your-own-adventure style seemed to jump me to relatively random places in the book, and seemed to skip over sections that I would have liked to have read. When I then tried to go back to those sections, I'd lose track of where I was when I'd jumped: there's no 'back' button. Also, the book supposedly links to a number of resources on the authors' website that sounded cool, but the links didn't work. And finally, a great deal of the book seemed relevant only to authors at a certain level: those who can throw launch parties with significant influencers in attendance. Or maybe I just got a lot of that because of the 'track' I chose on my adventure. I suppose that's inevitable though-- a book like this would have to contain lots of advice to hit everybody at all levels, and not all of it is going to fit every reader.
Read
October 28, 2019One of the greatest parts about this book is that it is, indeed, set up like a game. At first, I was like, "Nah. I don't know about this," but then I realized that framing promotion as a game was a great way to get me to lower my guard and listen to a lot of excellent advice.
The book is structured in such a way that you can figure out your personality and then attack promotion with the understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of that particular personality. In other words, if you, like me, are easily overwhelmed then you can find specific strategies to help you lean into your strengths. If you, like me, aren't exactly sure what your archetype is, however, then you might flounder a little. My advice? Roll with it. At first I was a little daunted by all of the skipping around that's possible, but then I just looked at the table of contents and figured out how to read the book without skipping. See, I'm at least half-achiever which means that, back in the day, I read The Customs House before The Scarlet Letter even though it wasn't required.
But I digress.
I've already flipped back to the archetype section three times. The next time I launch a book I *know* I will be looking at the last few chapters of this book to review what it has to say about systematic launch parties and various strategies. I would recommend this book for those last few chapters alone.
Now, this book is geared toward genre, and I think a lot of the strategies like "unique but familiar" work better in genres, but I still think this book will be helpful for a fence sitter like me. Ask me again after my next book launch.
The book is structured in such a way that you can figure out your personality and then attack promotion with the understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of that particular personality. In other words, if you, like me, are easily overwhelmed then you can find specific strategies to help you lean into your strengths. If you, like me, aren't exactly sure what your archetype is, however, then you might flounder a little. My advice? Roll with it. At first I was a little daunted by all of the skipping around that's possible, but then I just looked at the table of contents and figured out how to read the book without skipping. See, I'm at least half-achiever which means that, back in the day, I read The Customs House before The Scarlet Letter even though it wasn't required.
But I digress.
I've already flipped back to the archetype section three times. The next time I launch a book I *know* I will be looking at the last few chapters of this book to review what it has to say about systematic launch parties and various strategies. I would recommend this book for those last few chapters alone.
Now, this book is geared toward genre, and I think a lot of the strategies like "unique but familiar" work better in genres, but I still think this book will be helpful for a fence sitter like me. Ask me again after my next book launch.
March 5, 2018
I love how this book has different paths you can take. As a newbie to promo, I took the "Novice" path and got so many great ideas, plus learned some basics. Now I want to go back again and read one of the other paths!
The authors clearly know their stuff, and I'm so glad they were willing to share it in this book. Witty prose also keeps the text from being too dry. Again, can't gush enough about this book.
If I have any criticism, it's that I would have liked to have seen some more tangible examples. For instance, a sample press kit would have been nice, since, as I said, I'm a complete newbie. They did, however, give a list of basic things a press kit for a book should have in it.
Overall, one of the best books on book promo you'll ever see. Highly recommend!!
The authors clearly know their stuff, and I'm so glad they were willing to share it in this book. Witty prose also keeps the text from being too dry. Again, can't gush enough about this book.
If I have any criticism, it's that I would have liked to have seen some more tangible examples. For instance, a sample press kit would have been nice, since, as I said, I'm a complete newbie. They did, however, give a list of basic things a press kit for a book should have in it.
Overall, one of the best books on book promo you'll ever see. Highly recommend!!
June 22, 2018
Every author should read this book of engaging, generous, targeted advice from pros! It's a no-nonsense pep talk that energizes and inspires combined with concrete suggestions for improving your promotional efforts. For me, it's positively reframing an area of being a writer that depresses the heck out of me. You don't have to be a dynamic, room-working extrovert to successfully promote your work. You can be a cynical, publishing-PTSD afflicted wallflower and still play the promo game. Don't believe me? Read the book and find your game!
August 29, 2016
Not your cookie cutter, one size fits all guide to book promotion. The authors give us a meaningful guide that unlocks the power of focused promotion of genre fiction. They show you how to zero in on your particular promotional needs with their spunky and at times irreverent style. This book will guide you through steps that will up your promotional game. Make room for your copy and toss out all the others! It's the only book you'll ever need. Kudos to Damon Suede and Heidi Cullinan!
February 24, 2019
Whether you're just starting out as an author or you've been in the game for a while, there's something in here for you. The best part of Your A Game is that you can choose from four paths, based on your personality and goals, to devise your own strategy for success. So read it and win!
September 6, 2019
There is a ton of information packed in here, but the different tracks make an abundance of choice that can be really overwhelming. Also, I don't find it easy to go back to a previous track when it leads you away from the suggested links.
February 1, 2017
I found this really interesting and different from a lot of other self-publishing books. It covered a lot of different aspects of the subject and gave me some new ideas to put into practice.
Read
July 10, 2019A choose your own adventure style book on marketing and being an author. Some good stuff on branding, websites and more.
October 17, 2019
Hands down the most inspirational writing book I’ve ever read. Whether your read or indie minded, this is an absolute must read.
Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews