Inkshares Community discussion
Promotional Strategy Discussion
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I sent a tip to IO9 at the beginning of the contest. Suggested maybe they'd like to pick some books to champion. Haven't seen anything posted yet.
Yep. Sent a tip to io9 for my book a while ago too. Maybe it's just me being selfish, and I know there's a lot of writers out there. But man, Io9 got it hard for the writers...Yes I am being self-centred and bit of a douche, but then again, I don't if I am one or just a really enthusiastic writer. :(
I am doing a thing but I hesitate to talk about it until it is approved and 100% sure of happening.
I'm finding a giant wall. Nobody wants to talk about books that aren't done or not already in print :(. But I'm doing what I can. All the book stores by me might as well be a deadzone waste of time.
One of the self-promotions I have made for myself is some postcards to give out and leave behind at conventions (DragonCon, AWA). I made mine through Overnightprints.com - they are pretty dang cheap but come out good quality. I got a hundred cards made for less than $50. Being a graphic designer helps, though. ;)You can see how mine came out here:
https://inkshares-production.s3.amazo...
E. R. wrote: "One of the self-promotions I have made for myself is some postcards to give out and leave behind at conventions (DragonCon, AWA). I made mine through Overnightprints.com - they are pretty dang chea..."Oh those are lovely!
Mod
Your cards are gorgeous!
No problem. I need to work on my cover. Maybe fiddle around on photoshop next week.
E. R. wrote: "One of the self-promotions I have made for myself is some postcards to give out and leave behind at conventions (DragonCon, AWA). I made mine through Overnightprints.com - they are pretty dang chea..."Wow, those look great. More professional than the postcards I put together at 3 A.M. in the morning a few weeks back.
I'm not sure if anyone else has mentioned this, and it's certainly not something that would work quickly, but one thing I'm always doing is trying to get short stories published by magazine and short story sites. It can be nice to have a break from the weight of the novel, to concentrate for a day or two on something smaller and more manageable. And ideally, maybe there's a character in your novel who deserves their own short story. (A couple of characters from my fantasy story were first thought up in short stories, and then expanded in the novel). Then hopefully when someone reads the short story, and they find in the author bio afterwards that, Holy effluent! This cool character pops up in a novel! And it's crowdfunding now! And then (in theory at least) maybe they'd come check it out. Does anyone else do this sort of thing?:)
Actually, on the heels of that thought...One thing we could do is - any of us who are interested, we could each write a short story, set in our own universe, starring a character or two from our stories. Some past adventure of theirs, something like that. Then we put them together and release it as a free ebook (we would have to get it together ourselves, but that's pretty easy to do on smash words or something) then each promote it on our social media feeds and stuff? Would anyone be up for this? Could be fun as well as potentially useful self- (and other-) promotion?
Jamie wrote: "Actually, on the heels of that thought...One thing we could do is - any of us who are interested, we could each write a short story, set in our own universe, starring a character or two from our s..."
I think this is really a great idea. It would also be interesting to see if a common theme stems out from all our stories together, or what kinds of similarities are discovered. Where might the description of a character, or a city, or an artifact be mentioned in one person's tale, be the exact thing someone is talking about in another's person story.
*Example {James never liked her, something about the way she always went to her favorite bar and never called him} Ok, now the bar is never mentioned, but what if by chance someone describes a bar in their story. Could they be the same bar???? The mind wanders. Stuff like that. It would have to happen randomly, and there might not be any instance of it...but who knows?
*It made more sense in my head I think.
We could call it "Shared Ink: A culmination of short stories by aspiring authors"
CoRy wrote: "We could call it "Shared Ink: A culmination of short stories by aspiring authors""Love it.
Jamie wrote: "Actually, on the heels of that thought...One thing we could do is - any of us who are interested, we could each write a short story, set in our own universe, starring a character or two from our s..."
Very cool idea! I'm game for that =)
I like the 'Shared Ink' title idea :). So do people think this would be something a few of us would be up for doing? I guess if at least seven or eight of us were up for giving it a go, it could be fun...?
I love this idea and would be game to join in, but honestly getting this together in time before everyone's funding period ends would be very tough. I assume everyone is done around late November?
Hmm good point. Though I put my funding period for 6 months cos at the moment I'm more concentrating on my on-fantasy book. I heard that it's possible to apply to the Gods of Inkshares to extend funding periods, though I'm not sure how much people would want to. The other thing is, I guess it would still be fun, as well as a sort of little calling card for our larger stories, whether they meet funding targets or whether they are self published at a later date. I've got an idea for a short story set in the world of my novel, so I might just write it anyway; then if other people end up having time to do likewise, we can try putting a little book out, but no worries if not :)
It's still a fabulous idea from a marketing standpoint. If each person has fifty readers, and you get 8 people together, that's 400 readers who will look at this work, many who have never seen your work before. If you plan on publishing anything on the future in any form, it could be good publicity.
Good idea! I think I could write a short story where my character makes a different decision and have a happy ending. Instead of an ambigious ending that hints at a book I'm currently planning and foreshadows a series that I'll do should the book funds(no spoilers). So think of this as a character graveyard.
Ah, now I like that idea too - the alternative realities that our characters could inhabit, what would happen if they made different decisions. That would be fun.
Jamie wrote: "Ah, now I like that idea too - the alternative realities that our characters could inhabit, what would happen if they made different decisions. That would be fun."I know. I cry myself to sleep every time I killed off a character that I got emotionally attached to. Heck, a reality where they didn't die and became a vibrant character in their own right...that would've been amazing.
Or another pssibility would be to write a short story about an important character's motivation. I have this character that lose someone important before the story starts, his slow descent to madness from that point onward is pretty central to why he did what he did and became what he became. Though it was touched upon, I feel like stuff like this could be covered more in depth.
Jamie wrote: "Ah, now I like that idea too - the alternative realities that our characters could inhabit, what would happen if they made different decisions. That would be fun."I know. I cry myself to sleep every time I killed off a character that I got emotionally attached to. Heck, a reality where they didn't die and became a vibrant character in their own right...that would've been amazing.
Or another pssibility would be to write a short story about an important character's motivation. I have this character that lose someone important before the story starts, his slow descent to madness from that point onward is pretty central to why he did what he did and became what he became. Though it was touched upon, I feel like stuff like this could be covered more in depth.
- Get the hashtag to trend on Twitter - set an hour of time where we all tweet about our projects and respond to each other, talk about our writing processes, art, storytelling, anything, and try to get #InksharesNerdist to trend. I have no idea if we could accomplish this, but at the very least we'd have a fun hangout time!
- Get some press - Anyone want to write an article about this contest for the io9 Observation Deck and ask one of the staff writers to share it on io9? I have never done that before, but maybe someone here has... Also, one of you ppl with blogs could either write an article about Inkshares and submit it to thebookdesigner.com, or see if you can get a guest post on the site. Anyone have an in with Hugh Howey? He's ignoring my calls... Joanna Penn? Lindsay Buroker?
- Share some resources: we could pool together some flyers/posters geared toward different locations - coffee shops, college campuses, community centers, bookstores... maybe facebook pages? - that let people know about Inkshares in general and the Nerdist contest. We could leave space to personalize for your project, or maybe not, and authors could tack on business cards or whatnot. (What's the point of sharing resources when we could be vicious competitors, you ask? PEOPLE MIGHT PRE-ORDER MORE THAN ONE BOOK, DUH. Also, they might not really like the book by the author they talked to at the YMCA or whatever, but they end up liking YOUR book instead! Sharing is nice.)
- Pinterest - we could start our own pinterest pages with images related to our books, covers of similar books, actors we headcanon for our characters, art, clothing styles your characters might wear, anything! If we all start tagging things with #InksharesNerdist it could advertise for all of us, AND visuals really help sell your book.
Any other ideas? Anything sound good to you?