You can click on the title of this post to visit Stephanie's blog, and I can tell you, I'm printing it out for posterity.
Friday, January 23, 2009
A Great Interview about Promotion
As I mentioned in my last post on book promotion, there is a lot to think about when it comes to getting attention for your book and building a loyal audience. Sara Dobie from Sylvan Dell popped by Stephanie Ruble's blog yesterday to share her wisdom about promoting your book. Many of us had a chance to post questions ahead of time, and big nods to Marissa Doyle, Maggie Stiefvater, Dawn Metcalf, Sookie06, and Carrie Harris for some excellent questions.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
I'm not even close to thinking about promotion yet (first I have to finish writing the thing) but it sounds like a whole different ballgame. I think it's important to get your book listed in the library catalogs as well (Follett Library Resources, Baker & Taylor, Bound-To-Stay-Bound, etc.). Often I go to order an author's book from a jobber's catalog and the title just isn't listed, making it difficult. Libraries don't order from Amazon.com but from jobbers who purchase books from many companies and offer cataloging and processing options. Anyhow, hope this day isn't far off for you.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Stella! I wonder if marketing departments work that angle? If not, we writers had better pay attention.
ReplyDeleteMarketing is tough. I'm trying to do everything I can to get my publishing house noticed and out there but with so many folks spread around the country (and several overseas or out of country), it is difficult. I'm trying super hard to get in the libraries and schools since I feel my books have school value (at least as a supplemental book for social studies classes).
ReplyDeleteBook signings are okay - they are good if you hit the right market but if there are tons of things going on around the community at the same time, then it's difficult to gage the traffic. I've had two book signings at the same bookstore - the first time was the last weekend of the county fair and the store had maybe six customers total the 2 hours I was there and there were no sales for me and maybe, one sale total of anything else. The second one was a few weeks ago and I had one sale and several "will definitely get with you later" customers. They have all my contact info, yet they haven't contacted me thus far. One was a retired teacher with seven grandchildren who wanted copies but she didn't have money with her at the time so she was going to order from me directly when she got home; one was a mother whose son's third grade teacher is looking for things to supplement the after school program; one was a first grade teacher who said she would pass the info to the right teachers in her school and one was a student who had been buying a birthday present for a friend (I didn't catch her soon enough to prospect my book to her - lol). So being out there works sometimes and not other times. I'm hoping to be making appearances at several upcoming book festivals (but this gets costly when no one else is willing to share in that cost) and hopefully by the end of this year my books and my name will get out there.
I have a website and a blog to my series (have a personal blog but after reading that interview, see it was probably not necessary but I feel my book series really needed its own personality to fit the books and not my life) and my publisher's website and I'm a member of several forums and have started a newsletter, yet sales are low. Nothing to speak of since October. It's very hard in this economy. I will have to see where all my publisher's books are listed so that we can definitely make sure to hit the library markets.
Thanks for the tips. See you all in the postings - E :)
----------
Elysabeth Eldering
STATE OF WILDERNESS, Book 1 of the Junior Geography Detective Squad 50-state mystery trivia series, now available.
STATE OF QUARRIES, book 2 of the JGDS, 50-state, mystery, trivia series coming 2009
STATE OF RESERVATIONS, book 3 of the JGDS, 50-state, mystery, trivia series coming 2009
STATE OF HEIGHTS, book 4 of the JGDS, 50-state, mystery, trivia series coming 2009
Where will the adventure take you next?
http://jgdsseries.blogspot.com
http://junior-geography-detective-squad.weebly.com/
http://elysabethsstories.blogspot.com/
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/jgdsseries/ (series newsletter forum)