Marketing Tips from #RT2018 by Jannine Gallant

All ready for the Giant Book Fair to start!

My experience at the RT Convention was interesting. I loved the Kensington signing and getting so many of my books into readers' hands. The Giant Book Fair was quite a scene, although not very productive for selling books unless you're a big name author. I wasn't impressed with the evening parties, to be honest. I used that time to talk to authors I knew. What I did find helpful were some of the workshops. My favorite was the "Cuff Me, Choke Me" workshop that featured a daytime cop who is a nighttime author and her special forces husband. They were adorable together while she demonstrated how cops really take down the bad guys in a series of holds that won't translate into a blog post. The one tip I can pass along is that cops use humor in grim situations to defuse the tension. Something for you suspense authors to keep in mind. Mostly I went to marketing workshops since that's where I need the most help. I'll share the highlights and my insights.

From "You Just Think You're Marketing" with Tara Lain: The focus was on the difference between marketing and sales. Marketing is a series of steps to create an environment for sales. Marketing does not equal sales. One of the interesting points was about creating a brand. Your brand isn't who or what you think you are. It's how readers see you. Everything you do on social media creates your brand. And you have to do it over and over to make it stick. I think our own Alison is very good at this with her Pine Cone tidbits and Useless Info facts. She is creating a persona that reflects the style of her books. I wonder at the authors who constantly whine about things or are blatantly political (tempting I know). Is that how they really want to be seen? Something to think about, and I need to do more to brand myself on social media. You may be seeing more pictures of Ginger in the woods coming your way... Tara Lain (and other presenters) did stress the importance of sticking to one or two compatible sub-genres and not being a bouncing ball. That's part of your public persona. Meet reader expectations for your sub-genre, and it doesn't hurt to let them know that your books are a whole lot like "Big Name Author's" books.

"Dive into Data" from a Sourcebooks editor didn't give me much I could use. But here are the main points I found interesting. 15% of new authors are discovered in bookstores and 15% by word of mouth. Other channels were lower. I guess it's hard to get noticed on Amazon... The message/content of the book (back cover blurb) is the main reason people buy a book. Price came in at #4. However, a cover should speak to the reader and be relateable in order to get someone to actually look at the book. Here, it is the feeling a person gets, not a direct message, that triggers interest.

"Make Marketing Your Bitch" had a panel of mostly hybrid authors. They stressed branding and coming up with 10 terms you want associated with you. Then work on showing those traits in your social media presence. They stressed being personable--not just talking about your book ad nauseam. Talk about your life. Be authentic and interactive. They mentioned having a Facebook group readers can join since visibility is poor on your actual author fan page. But even there, asking questions to get interaction will help you be seen. They did say #1linewed on Twitter has a lot of followers so it can be a good avenue. Use hashtags! Time to get an Instagram account, people. Visuals with words are strong there (think memes). They said you need a whole series before 99 cent sales or free books are really effective. Newsletters are the best way to cultivate readers. But they have to be interesting! Exclusive content and excerpts (link to book funnel for anything long) are good. They touched on joint newsletters and co-operative marketing, but I'll get into that with the next one.

"Marketing that Pays" was the group from 1001 Dark Nights. One woman (Liz Berry--she's in marketing not an author) started a co-op and asked indie/hybrid authors with strong sales to form a group. They all wrote a novella that had a central world and character interaction between books. They published 6 at a time, I believe. Each author brought her fans into the world, and those readers bought all the other authors' books, too. She organized several of these series. They're HUGE! The suggestion was for us to do this with other similar authors to each draw in more readers. I've seen The Wild Rose Press use this strategy with their series, and it doesn't sell all that great if the authors are little known. This is kind of like KindleWorlds, which is shutting down. I think the goal here would be to try to convince bigger named authors of your value to their group, or to try to draw them into your world--we can dream! But it is an interesting concept. They do a lot of crossover promo. Other topics were again newsletters and the importance of the subject line being intriguing to get a better open rate. They stressed that you own your newsletter contact list, while contacts on FB etc. could disappear at any time at FB's discretion. Think MySpace. Check out authors who are like you but sell really well to see where they promote and emulate them. They talked about thinking outside the box and using other products. Cookbooks, calendars, etc. that are tied to your books/brand, which you can sell (donating proceeds to charity was also mentioned since the charity is another avenue to use for publicity). All good ways to get noticed in new markets.

Two hybrid authors put on "Having a 20 Year Career." The focus was on finding a tribe--other authors to work with. The importance of critique partners/groups as a microcosm of readers to get feedback on your work. Being flexible with a changing publishing world, and not giving up on writing when the going gets depressing. Having a recognizable voice and not writing to trends. More talk about newsletters. (Are you seeing a trend?) I think that about covers it.

For you authors out there, I hope this proves to be useful. I'm happy to try to answer questions if something isn't clear. I feel like our group here is a great tribe. We're lucky to have each other! Oh, and since I am trying to sell books...find buy links on my WEBSITE or sign up for my NEWSLETTER where I'll share recipes and exclusive content if I ever get enough signups to make it worth sending... Happy reading!

Writing and Marketing Insights by Jannine Gallant

I didn't have a single topic clamoring in my head to be discussed for this post. Instead, I felt more like Ginger watching squirrels running willy-nilly across the yard--they're fun to bark at but nearly impossible to capture. Except for that one time, but we won't go there... So here's what I pulled together.

Does anyone out there like those #SUDOKU puzzles? I used to think they were pure torture. I tried working on the one in our local paper a few times, guessing numbers to see if they worked, and then getting halfway finished only to discover my initial supposition was wrong. At that point, I simply gave up. More recently, I sat down with the paper and attacked the puzzle from a more logical standpoint. No guessing involved. I penciled in each possibility and went at it from a process of elimination. The strategy actually works! Now, I look forward to the puzzle in the Friday paper. Sure it distracts me from writing for an hour, but I feel like it's keeping my mind sharp. I also decided to extrapolate my strategy for SUDOKU to writing and marketing. I'm beginning to believe throwing out words without a plan and writing myself into an impasse might not be so smart. I also feel like floundering with marketing without a clear plan isn't productive. So, the following is what I've come up with.

My work in progress is moving rather slowly. I've had a lot of distractions lately. A good distraction has been my youngest home from college for a week and a half on spring break, which happened to include her birthday. It's been nice to have her around. But I can't seem to write productively when someone else is in the house. So, my word count has been hit and miss (mostly miss) and limited to when she's out with her friends. That got me to thinking about WHY I'm so easily distracted. I can edit like a champion with people around, but creating new content has been a challenge ever since I started this book. Basically, I've been moving forward like a turtle from one scene to the next, and when I finish the one I'm working on, I hope like heck it will suggest something new. I haven't written with an outline in quite a few books, but it may be time to rethink this strategy. Not a full-blown outline, mind you, but I need to sit my butt down and try to put together a coherent list of bullet points to see where this book is going. Then maybe I wouldn't have so much downtime between scenes while I ruminate over that ever important question, What happens next?

Then there's the whole promo thing to distract me. My latest plan is the Amazon Sponsored Products ad campaign I put together for one of my older self-published books. It actually was working pretty well. I was seeing a few sales and more borrows for WE'LL NEVER TELL. But the .99 cent sales price meant every click was seriously digging into my profits. Two things happened. I started getting sales on the other two books in the series. YAY! I wasn't sure exactly what the ad benefited until a reader reviewed all three SECRETS OF RAVENSWOOD books (the targeted series) on Goodreads, and then left a review for WILDE ONE, book one in a completely different series. So, yes, I'm getting crossover sales from the ad to all my suspense books. In the meantime, I'd done something incredibly stupid. I dropped my bid price from .25 cents to .20 cents, hoping to save a little money. I definitely saved because the clicks stopped completely, and impressions dropped tenfold. So, I just went back in to return my bid to .25 cents. We'll see if my momentum picks up again. Patience is a virtue with marketing. It takes a while for someone who buys the book to read it and then buy more books. Expecting too much too soon got me into trouble. You have to put in the time on a marketing strategy to see results. But, if your efforts continue to produce nothing, maybe it's time to make a change. Knowing when to draw the line and quit vs. changing tactics and sticking with it is a steep learning curve. I hope I'm making progress.

One final plug. Starting soon, WILDE ONE will be on sale for a limited time for .99 cents. If you haven't read it yet, now's a great time to start that series. Buy it on Kindle, Nook or Apple. Happy reading!

Reaching Readers Through Telepathy by Betsy Ashton

Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow. The

important thing is to not stop questioning. ~ Albert Einstein

On January 22, Leah St. Thomas had a great post in this blog about overcoming the fear of public speaking. After she completed and published her book, she was faced with the Now What moment. Now what do I do to tell people what the book is about? Do I have to do it in public? Or will osmosis sell my book.

Source: Wikipedia

I'm here to tell you neither osmosis nor telepathy will sell your books. Unless you are a David Baldacci or a James Patterson, your book is going to "get found" only when you get down and dirty with marketing and promotions. In today's book environment, most publishers are not going to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars in advertising, television interviews and book tours. The return on their investments for most newbie or relative newbie writers is non-existent. Not that most of us wouldn't want our lives to be managed for the first six months after our book launches. But, it so doesn't happen.

For us to have hope for tomorrow, we have to set up a plan to get our messages out without spamming our readership. That line between sensible marketing and spamming is so fine that a mistaken step will send a writer sliding down the razor blade of life. (OMG, that's a cliche! I'm damned proud of it.)

My first book launch taught me many lessons, some of which I plan to apply to my next launch, which is coming up in June or slightly before.

Lesson one: Don't listen to people who say you have to be active on every social media site. You don't. If your readers don't use Pinterest, you don't have to have a presence there. If they are active on Facebook and post reviews on Goodreads, you'll want to be more active there. Twitter? It never hurts, although 1800 followers must find some reason for following me, even though I still don't know what I'm doing. I also find LinkedIn groups very helpful. I spend about an hour a week there commenting on the forums where I have the best likelihood of finding readers. Total amount of time a week setting up my multiple feeds: 2 hours. Most of that is on Sunday afternoon when life is quiet.

Lesson two: After Mad Max 1 launched, more of my readers bought my e-book than my trade paper book. Like ten to one. So, when my publisher asked how I felt about launching Mad Max 2 as an e-book first, it made sense. And it made life a lot easier because I could set up my marketing campaign in advance. I now need to execute it.

Lesson three: There is NOTHING like meeting readers face to face. Book clubs have been very kind to me. Seriously, with 25 around the lake where I live, I've reached hundreds of readers. Local libraries have helped. Book clubs out of my region often have Skype options, so I don't have to spend a day traveling to a group of 20 women. I will tell you from experience, libraries out of my immediate region have been a waste of time. I'm not going to pound on them again.

Lesson four: I look at Mad Max 2 as a whole new beginning. I am so enthusiastic about it. I can't wait for people to read it. I hope they will be as excited as I am. I won't know until I track online sales promotions.

In looking back at the Einstein quote, I want to amend it. The important thing is not about questioning. It's about the quest itself. May those of us who write because we are inspired by words and driven to reach readers accept the quest and go for the Holy Grail, whatever it might be. Onward.

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Betsy Ashton is the author of Mad Max Unintended Consequences available on Amazon and Barnes and Noble. The second book in the series, Uncharted Territory comes out in e-book in June 2015. 

On Being Brave by Betsy Ashton

Facebook meme

This past weekend I went to Roanoke Regional Writers Conference, one of my favorite conferences. I've been four times out of the six years it's been held. I've spoken on panels in the past. I will teach a course in the future. It's local. As a result, I know about 80% of the participants and nearly all of the panelists and instructors.

Every year this is a reunion of NYT best selling authors, small press authors, indie authors and yet-to-be-published writers. I probably talked to everyone of them before we left yesterday for our homes. I asked them what they feared most when it comes to writing.

After dozens private conversations and a couple of panels, I reduced our collective concerns to a scant few.

As a group, we feared loss of focus. That's a broad topic. For some, loss of focus fell within the end covers of their manuscripts. They can fix that with a good set of beta readers and distance. All agreed they needed to step back and the the manuscripts rest.

For others, loss of focus involved time management. We all concurred that, while we have to have that all-mighty presence on SOCIAL MEDIA, Facebook, Twitter and the rest are giant time sinks. The successful writers (not those making a living from writing, but those who balanced their time) carved out a certain amount of time each day for social media.

Two years ago a YA writer said she spent one hour three days a week responding to every Tweet that came in for her books. Because the audience was teens, she could get away with, "OMG! Thank you for reading my book. I'm so happy." Followed by a smiley face. She had a file on Word with about six responses. Copy. Paste. Done. And when her next book came out, her fan base was ready...

We all worry about what our obsession with writing and marketing might be doing to our families. The best balanced authors made the entire family part of the process. One's daughter wore t-shirts with her YA book cover on them. Another sat with his entire family at the beginning of the year. They blocked out family time on a huge calendar he hung in his office. He could use the rest of the days writing and marketing his books.

Almost to a person, we were afraid of rejection. Not the kind that come querying agents and/or publishers, but the kind that comes when you pick up the phone, cold call a librarian (for example) and pitch a writing workshop or book signing. We all were afraid they'd say no. Some did; others didn't. But those who didn't pick up the phone sat home waiting for it to ring. Or playing games on FB. Or tweeting and bleating about their lots in life.

Driving home, I vowed to be even braver this year than last. I will call more libraries. I will contact more book stores. I will contact service organization. I will contact active living retirement communities. I will be out there as often as I can.

I will not take too much time away from my loving husband, my life partner, and my partner in writing. He's the most important part of my life.

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Please check out my novel, Mad Max Unintended Consequences, available through Amazon and Barnes and Noble in paper or e-book formats.