Creative Reviews discussion

As you all know I just recently got a publishing contract and I am now comprising a list of marketing ideas that I can impliment for my novel.

Anyone have any awesome ideas?

This is what I plan so far:
FB
Twitter
this group
and author page on GR
Blog interviews (and my blog stuff)
Radio talk shows
Cafe press merchandise
a web site
a possible jewelry line
Myyearbook.com
Ads on various sites like GR and blogs and FB
Hopefully book club features
and of course the usual, posters, bookmarks, business cards, book signings (i hope), etc.

Try to get into libraries and do readings, or maybe a high school in the area.

Good thinking!!

I think I obsess about your book almost as much as you do. I'm just not dreaming about it...YET.... :)

for the religious books. Going to big events such as family camps and youth events. Talk to someone about opening a booth to sell some books or a Q and A session.

Send copies to christian review magazines

Amy-- i dream about it sometimes. I dream about rejection letters too. And i don't mind feel free to obsess. LOL

Those are good ideas David.

I'd say, don't start too many different web-based things as you can't keep up with them all - choose 2 or 3 main ones. For my money, (and bearing in mind I'm hardly a bestseller so check with people who are higher up the charts!) the ones that spark the most hits are:
Twitter
Facebook
Goodreads.

Wattpad I am venturing into and is good for samples but so far it's too early to tell if any sales are resulting - but at worst it's getting my stuff available to a lot of people.

Re media - start thinking of "angles" for the various places you want to get articles in. Places won't write about you because you wrote a book - but the local paper might be interested in "local girl write a book" - your old school might be interested in "alumni writes book" - your place of work might put in in their newsletter as "colleague writes book" etc.

Also, work out who your reader is. Target them specifically, not everyone.

Amazon forums are a good place to sell stuff but also shark-infested waters, and Amazon.com is making it more and more difficult to advertise your books, so in all honesty I wander on there and post every so often more because of the conversations than anything, and even then with caution and only on certain threads. Best idea is probably to nip over to the Amazon threads on GR and say hello to some people first so that at least they know you're not a drive-by spamming when you turn up there.

Anything else occurs to me, I'll tell but that's your essay for today!
JAC

Thanks JA! I don't know much about the Amazon forum and such but it sounds dangerous! LOL.

You sure are knowledgeable about all of this...

6 months of procrastinating does that to a girl....it goes something like this:
Shall I get on with some editing?
Ooooh look I haven't been on the forum in a while.

I should really do some editing.....
Ooohh look a shiny thing, etc etc ad infinitum...
heheheh
JAC

Don't forget your local papers - send them press releases and find out who writes the local arts sections and send them their own press release. Good luck!


Baxter Clare Trautman, The River Within
Web site: http://baxterclare.com
http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/...

Great tip Baxter Thank you!!

JA- I get distracted like you do too...

I love how helpful this group is! My book is due back from my editor at the end of this month and I am trying to get a plan together for my marketing.

I already lose hours on my life on goodreads so I'm going to have to be disciplined when it comes to online forums and promoting.

Good luck with everything Cambria.

Good luck to you Emma!! I understand what you mean. Promoting and Networking takes away from so much writing time!
I just posted a new thread last night in the Author Resources folder about No money marketing- All you need is Like its a new Ebook from one of our members. I grabbed a copy to hopefully give me a few ideas. You should too!

Many of the bloggers on here are wonderful ways to help get your books out there, and they love to do interviews! :)

What is your book about, Emma?

This group has already been invaluable to me for ideas and resources. As soon as my book is back from the editor (the end of the week, fingers crossed) and I've gone through the changes, I'll definitely be asking for reviews and checking out the eBook Cambria suggested.

It's a women's fiction novel about a young woman who has just come out of a long-term relationship and takes it as an opportunity to start over. She gets a job as a make-up artist on a film located in India and the narrative follows her as she finds her feet and regains her confidence. There is a big love story element to it as well. I've put a synopsis up in the new discussion topic requesting feedback on my cover ideas in '?'s for CR members'. :)

I saw (and threw in my two cents) the covers! It sounds like it would be a great book for people who that that genre! When do you think it will be published?

Thank you - I hope so. Mid-late September was my original plan but I'm not sure I'm going to be able to get my website up and running in time. :\

Emma- Are you doing a website yourself? I am too, right now. LOL. isn't is a pain? I am almost done with mine tho.
Good luck with it and be sure to share the web address when you get it done!

You might want to think of a book trailer. There are some who won't touch that, but a book trailer on youtube almost seems essential these days. My daughter is helping me with mine!!! LOL

Cambria wrote: "Emma- Are you doing a website yourself? I am too, right now. LOL. isn't is a pain? I am almost done with mine tho.
Good luck with it and be sure to share the web address when you get it done!"

I am doing it at the moment and it is a major pain! I'm pretty much only in charge of the content - I have to rely on my partner for the technical stuff which is difficult because he's really busy with work at the moment. I can't wait to get it done.

@Dale - I'm not keen on the idea of book trailers but I have noticed their rise in popularity. I think I'll leave it as a Plan B for now because I have no clue how I'd go about it anyway, lol.

I'm pretty sure any book trailer I came up with would be so terrible it would do more harm than good. Plus I can just picture my poor friends shivering in the local park as I dash them with buckets of fake blood, while trying to record the whole thing on my cellphone camera.

Emma-
Webistes are a pain! But you could try Wix.com, I am positive you could do that one yourself without any help because I have been able to do it on my own. And i have NO computer finesse.
Its free too. Check it out. (well mine wasn't free because I bought the domain name but you don't have to.)

Dale- I am getting a trailer done for my book. By Ember Marketing!! It is going to rock! Angela in our group is part of that team making it! I am so excited to see it when they are done!

Julian...you are too funny!

Julian wrote: "I'm pretty sure any book trailer I came up with would be so terrible it would do more harm than good. Plus I can just picture my poor friends shivering in the local park as I dash them with buckets..."

comedy trailers would definitely catch people's attention!! :)

great idea!

You are doing the best thing you can do right now...Being in this group and meeting people. The more people you know, the more friends you make, the easier it will become.

With the right friends (Plenty of them) and quality material, the networking and marketing thing will get a bit easier. It will never be a cakewalk, but it is always more manageable (and fun) to do with your friends.

Jacki wrote: "It's so nice to know there are other Authors going through the same dilemma. My Debut novel, Sleep Stalkers, is going to be published by Mythis Books in a few months and I’m freaking out. I have no..."

Jacki-
You are definitely not alone! I have a debut novel coming out this winter and i feel the same! There is so much to do i hardly no where to start!! My advice woud be to do things one at a time. Get your FB started then get your Twitter, and so on.
Don't forget to leave posts here with your info so we can all follow you!
Right now I am kind of going on the thought, if you build it they will come....
LOL

I'm getting ready to launch a Twitter campaign. With time and persistence it isn't too hard to get followers -- getting them to pay attention to your tweets is a different matter! I just opened a new Twitter account for my author name: @frank_acland

I will follow you back! :)

Any Twitter tips would be appreciated!

Frank

Frank wrote: "Any Twitter tips would be appreciated!"

I second that. Twitter completely passed me by and I know I have to get my head around it for the promotion, it just seems like an alient concept to me at the moment.

I guess the only good thing is, that you can link your facebook to twitter...I've had Twitter for years and I guess staying active is the most important thing. I try to rhyme all my tweets to make it fun an interesting for readers but I havent been that active. I make maybe one personal tweet a week, the others are reviews and stuff around the web.

One of the earlier responses mentioned library readings. I've got a good local library that holds an event of that kind every month, but I'm not sure they'd care for my grueseome horror novel. I suppose I could hand out sick bags like they used to do as a gimmick at some B-movies.

Julian wrote: "One of the earlier responses mentioned library readings. I've got a good local library that holds an event of that kind every month, but I'm not sure they'd care for my grueseome horror novel. I su..."

HAHAHA!! That would be great, just pics alone of the faces of the people you handed them out to would be priceless.

lol.
Twitter is still a foreign concept to me as well...but I am trying. all these symbols and # signs...hows a girl supposed to know whats going on?

agreed!! I get the tweets on my phone, and I dont know how to respond to people, what the #s mean or anything else...we need a tweeting expert!!

By the way...I just put up a new post on my blog a guest post from Jenn!
She explains Twitter and some of the symbols and things that a few of us are confused on.
feel free to check it out:

http://theunlockeddiary.blogspot.com

Oh yea!!! Twitter explained!! :)

I'm twitterless....I mean, I have twitter, but am twitterless about using it! LOL. Just finished and posted my book trailer on youtube today, and am very pleased!

I've been lurking and reading and often laughing at some of the comments. I'm so glad I joined the group, even if I'm still lurking more than talking.
I couldn't resist getting in on the Twitter discussion. I thought I was the only one who didn't Tweet and doesn't understand the symbols, or how to respond etc. I'm going straight to the Cambria's blog. Thank you, Jenn for the help. I have one book published, one coming out next month and one more late winter. Everyone says, Tweet. I'm with Emma, it's an alien world--to me.

I used twitter for a while and it was great, much less complicated than it looks and groups like litchat were really interesting. To start with, I thought you just tipped one liners into the ether but once I realised it worked like a forum I began to really enjoy it (you all sit there at a certain time and then do a search for #whatever the group's called and put that on your tweets and you get to chat with people about one subject like you would on here).

That said, it's holidays and that's a period when I don't really have the luxury of being able to sit down and do something at a prearranged time.

Also I found that basically, it's a forum, like this, only less user friendly. Then again, I'm using it from a pc. I would lay bets it comes into its own when you're using it with a phone.

I'll have to start using it again. We could all meet up on there. I believe if we just make a date and time and put say #CReviews or something in each post then we're set.

On the other marketing front, it sounds really obvious but I reckon that submitting a new book for review pre-launch to every review site you can find that's relevant should create a spike in sales of about 3 months (depending on whether they have a 3 or 6 month lead time) or at least, a buzz of interest that will help get it off the ground. In my experience the problem is not so much selling the book but getting it somewhere visible in the listings. On amazon 74% of the people who visit my book's page buy it so I'm clearly talking to the right people, just not enough of them!

Right, gotta go. Only half an hour until we leave for church so I need to get Mini Me into 'we're going out' mode!

Thank you for the blog link... I will go check that out.

Cheers

MTM
Few Are Chosen
Warning: contains car chases, futuristic technology ad sarcasm.

I too, am twitterless. LOL. Great advice though, MTM!
Amosa22us- thanks for dropping in and commenting!! Good luck with those books coming out! feel free to drop in anytime and to stalk our discussions anytime!!
LOL

tons of great ideas on here. thanks all so much!

I would echo: try to get book reviews or author interviews/spotlights on blogs. Other than that, you can do book giveaways. I am still learning though, and I learned more from this post than I gave back I'm afraid.

I'm sure you will have some great things to contribute in other ways! :)

James- thanks for the advice!! And I am glad you learned something!

MTM wrote: "I used twitter for a while and it was great, much less complicated than it looks and groups like litchat were really interesting. To start with, I thought you just tipped one liners into the ether ..."

Hey MTM - how do you get into a Twitter group? (You mentioned litchat). I only recently joined Twitter and yes, I thought it was people throwing out quotes and one liners, hoping someone catches them. Not very satisfying! But a more group engagement sounds great. Would appreciate some tips.

Once I figure out Twitter, I may go for some fancier stuff! :)

All I did was a search for #litchat and there are a couple of other similar things #amwriting I think there's probably an #amreading and a #mywana which is, I think, about trying to write.

Where there are discussions you usually find a post with a day and a time (they give the time zone too) so you can be there ready when it all starts.

Then you just keep saying yes when it asks to show you a new tweet. I think you can download free programmes to help you do that kind of thing more easily like Tweetdeck but I found it more complicated like that.

Anyway, good luck with it!

Cheers

MTM
Few Are Chosen
Warning: contains futuristic technology, car chases and sarcasm.

Thanks! I'll give it a try.

I used to be a brand manager but the dichotomy is, while they want bright graduates to be brand managers, you don't actually need to be that bright when you're selling a household name because half the battle's already achieved - everyone knows who your product is. It's simply a case of creativity and a dash of applied charm.

Selling something no-one's ever heard of is a completely different thing... So, if it makes anyone feel better, I can tell you, for deffo that keeping a big national brand in the public eye is a piece of cake compared to flogging an indie novel that no-one's ever heard of.

Cheers

MTM
Few Are Chosen
Warning: contains car chases, futuristic technology and sarcasm

I just learned this trick of how to link your book in the comments you leave here on Goodreads.

I never knew this! I can see it being spam if used too much, but if you are talking about your book, as we often are, this is a great way to show as well as tell.

Here's the link to the article I'm reading (and I shared it on another post)
http://editioselfpublishing.com/how-t...