Authors Lounge discussion

Marketing one's work can be a nightmare for writers. I've posted an article from the perspective of an old adman -- which I actually am -- about how a writer can learn to wear both hats and help their careers along, whether traditionally published or not. To sum it up: Your book is a product. Embrace the idea.

Thanks for posting that. Very interesting article and quite enlightening.

I'm glad it helped. Doing the marketing is pretty tiring and can be beaucoups annoying, but eventually, it comes easier.

I hope so. At the moment I don't feel too well suited to the marketing side of things. Learning all the time through!

Set some local goals first. Write some press for your local newspaper, donate a couple of books to your local library, leave notices for local book clubs and offer to do a reading. That should help you build some confidence for the rest of the wrangling to come!

I asked at my closest local library, they only accept donations from "proper" publishers :( - I'll keep pushing there as there are lots of local libraries around here (2 within just walking distance). It's probably just a matter of talking to the right person.

We've got a few places around here that do book swaps - I've been wondering about donating some books to those.

I can't imagine myself ever doing a book reading. My public speaking phobia would kick in with a vengeance!

I'll look into the local newspaper thing. My actual local paper closed down a few years ago, but some regional papers still exist online. We used to get two weekly free papers, but they've both gone too. Almost all my promotion efforts so far have been online.

My main stumbling block seems to be that many review/news sites require books to have at least a few reviews and I've found that almost impossible to achieve. If I could just get 1% of readers to write a brief review on Amazon I'd have loads.

Fundamentally what I need is more time to work on it. Work uses up about 90+ hours per week and I lose around 40 to sleeping. With what's left after everyday things like eating, washing, chores etc., I'm probably doing well to sell a few books a day.

It's the old catch-22 of needing to quit my day job to have enough time to get my novels to sell while not being able to quit my job until the novels are selling. I'm sure a lot of us aspiring authors are in that position.

Paul wrote: "I asked at my closest local library, they only accept donations from "proper" publishers :( - I'll keep pushing there as there are lots of local libraries around here (2 within just walking dista..."

Catch 22 indeed! Where to find the time, when the time requirements seem quite large to see any sort of return.