Author Interviews at Tim Greaton Forum... discussion

After all the hard work of writing the book and then hawking it around publishers and getting too many rejections it is a great moment when a publisher finally says yes. What you don't realise is that you are only half way through the process. Next comes editing which can be very painful and then comes publicity.

We all assume that publishers are in business to sell books but in my experience this is not evident from their performance when it comes to publicity. i had been told by friends who have published books that "you will have to do it all yourself" but in my ignorance I thought "no" I've got a publicity department. Now I am not going to have a go at my publicity department in paticular because I now know that my experience is one which will ring bells with most writers.

I have never been one for publicising myself despite the fact that I work in the media. My cv is good I have worked on features films with the likes of Faye Dunaway, I have made television programmes for broadcasters like the BBC. I have helped trace Hitler's relatives to Long Island and now I have tracked down the family of the most important Nazi spy in the UK only to find that one of his daughters became a Hollywood film star. I thought that this would be enough for any publicity department to rustle up a bit of interest.

My book was first published in May, but apart from the publicity that I managed to attract they have so far acheived nothing. I am taking the positives from this failure as a lesson. The person who is best suited to promote your book is you. You love your book more than anyone else and can probably talk about it for hours. The only thing you now need is to understand how self publicity works because even if you don't self publish you are going to have to do your own publicity.

So I was wondering if this forum might not be a good chanmce to exchange our knowledge and experinces. To tell each other about our Successes and our failures so that we can tell the world about our wonderful stories and let others share in what we have discovered.

Having said all that it would be wrong of me not to add what I have managed to do so far on my own. I had never done anything like this before so it was a big step.

Here is me on the BBC news in Wales. I got this by getting the name of a journalist who covers stories in my area and then phoned and asked to speak to him, but you do need a name

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-13...

Here is a radio interview I did. I got this by researching which programmes covered stories like mine

http://www.codenamesnow.com/#!snow-in...


This is the coverage I got in the national newspaper of Wales. Again i concentrated on the local aspect of my story to get this interest

http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wal...

Here is a website I made myself. It was quite easy (if you want details message me)

http://www.codenamesnow.com/#!

Here is my Facebook page which I have filled with photos and video I also use it to promote book signings and events.

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Snow-Th...

I have set up my author page on Amazon which is quite easy

http://www.amazon.com/Madoc-Roberts/e...

and of course here are the links to actually buy the book and the kindle. It is easy to forget to do this.

Snow: the double life of a world war II spy

Snow: the double life of a world war II spy

Hi everyone, I just uploaded the pdf of my new novel to Create Space. Now if my son does my cover I'll be able to Kindle and print Sequin Boy and Cindy - my first paranormal romance. Don't know what's getting into me these days.

Regards,
Arthur

Arthur wrote: "Hi everyone, I just uploaded the pdf of my new novel to Create Space. Now if my son does my cover I'll be able to Kindle and print Sequin Boy and Cindy - my first paranormal romance. Don't know wha..."

Hi Arthur I am not sure that you have posted your message to th right place. If you are looking to let people know about your writing then you might be better posting in the Hello thread first.

Hi, thanks for the info on the Hello thread.Where is it?

Arthur

Arthur wrote: "Hi, thanks for the info on the Hello thread.Where is it?

Arthur"

at the top of this page you will see the words "Author Interviews at Tim Greaton Forum". Click on them and you will be taken to the main page which has a menu of topics one of which is the Hello Thread. or you can click on this link

http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/6...

Then click on "post a comment" Good Luck Arthur

Thanks Madoc, I just took a look at Snow. sounds very interesting. Are you aware that on Kindle you get to keep 70% at $2.99 and that most big name authors price at 9.95? Might be good to do a little survey. My novels Johnny Oops and Johnny oops 11 - Timeless are priced at 99 cents. Also would like to recommend you to The Spinning Wheel Cafe 6 at http://www.amazon.com/forum/meet%20ou... for a friendly audience.

Regards,
ArthurJohnny Oops

Arthur wrote: "Thanks Madoc, I just took a look at Snow. sounds very interesting. Are you aware that on Kindle you get to keep 70% at $2.99 and that most big name authors price at 9.95? Might be good to do a lit..."

Hi Arthur my publisher seta the Kindle price not me. I will try the Spinning Wheel Cafe 6. Thanks

Will do Virginia. Waiting for my cover to post to Create Space. I find it relatively easy and I'm not technically oriented.

Regard,
Arthur