Branding Myself

One of the panels I went to at WorldCon was about author branding -- the marketing kind, not the kind involving hot iron. I'm from Texas, so this needs to be clarified. That's something I've been wrestling with lately, and something I need to clarify before I can do some other stuff, like get a new web site done.

The "brand" is really everything involved in communicating with the public -- the tone of the communication, the messages that are conveyed, the look and feel of things, etc. It's not just a tag line, but the tag line is part of it. Something mentioned in the panel was looking at what your work has in common. This goes deeper than genre. Even someone who writes in multiple genres can have a single brand identity.

I might say that magic is still at the core of my brand because I can't imagine writing something without it. Every single story idea I have involves magic of some sort. However, it might not be a great idea to hinge my author brand on that in case I do come up with an idea that doesn't have it. I already had to scrap my "fairy tales for modern times" tag line when I started writing steampunk, and I have ideas for more traditional fantasy. I suspect I'm fairly safe with magic, though, since that can be defined broadly.

Something that came up when I raised this topic on Facebook was the fact that my books are "clean" or "sweet" -- no gory violence, not a lot of bad language, no graphic sex. This is a pretty good differentiator for me, something that sets me apart, and I don't imagine I'm likely to veer from it because I just don't like writing that kind of thing. It's tricky to incorporate into a brand, though. There's been some backlash against authors who promote themselves as "clean and wholesome" because on the one hand there are people who are offended that some things aren't considered "clean and wholesome" and on the other hand, there are people who have a different definition or different standards and who take offense at things they don't consider to be "clean" that are included in books labeled that way. I'm not sure I'd make this an explicit message that's directly stated in a tagline or in any marketing materials. That's something best communicated indirectly by being consistent in keeping my communication and marketing within a range similar to what I write. So I'm not going to be posting pictures of nearly naked hunks on my Facebook page, I don't use a lot of cursing in my posts, I talk openly about being a Christian and my involvement in my church. You can read between the lines and imagine I'm not writing grimdark fantasy with lots of erotic content.

The other thing that came up a lot in the Facebook discussion was that my books are fun reads. They're escapism. There's going to be a reasonably happy ending, or at least hopeful (if it's in the middle of a series). You're probably going to like the main characters, who are decent people. I don't dwell a lot on villains. I get a lot of reader mail that talks about reading my books while undergoing chemo, on bed rest during difficult pregnancies, while sitting with a loved one in the ICU. My books are feel-good reads. I think this is something to focus on and work with in my branding. "Feel-Good Fantasy"?

Most of my reader mail/comments/feedback focuses on the romantic elements, even though I wouldn't classify most of what I write as "romance." I think that's pretty common across the board, though. If you look at Internet discussion about just about anything, the 'shipping tends to predominate, even if there's not really any romance there. Romance or even the possibility of romance seems to be what makes the emotional connection with a lot of the audience. So I don't know if this is actually something I do well that I should incorporate into my brand or if it's just a general thing that the romance is going to get the response. If I market as romance, people who are really looking for romance are going to be disappointed. I think what I do best is more the hope, the yearning, the possibility. I love the slow build.

A lot of this stuff is more indirect. I'm not sure how to convey "feel-good" graphically. Probably not a lot of dark colors. Maybe a touch of whimsy. When I get done with this round of revisions, there are some books I want to check out of the library to read more about branding and see if I can get better ideas.

Any thoughts on how you see my books and what you think is the key common element?

Getting the Word Out

At the beginning of the year, I tend to go heavy into planning mode. I make lists of projects, come up with new time management schemes, and do hypothetical business plans. I'm trying to work on some new publicity plans, since I really need to boost my visibility and have learned that even when I'm working with a major publisher, most of it's going to come down to me. But even though this was my "real job" career for twenty years, this is something I struggle with. There's a reason I don't have that career anymore. I went through several years of almost no income (though fortunately with a savings cushion) to try to get the writing career going rather than try to find another PR job. So a lot of my publicity efforts amount to me huddling in a corner and whimpering "don't make me do that." On the other hand, it's kind of essential if I don't want to have to get another real job.

Yeah, I have crazy dreams about having a book that publishers fight over so that I get a big advance and then they actually do publicity for it and push the book, and that book then raises the profile of all my other books, so I'm making more from my backlist, and the push on the new book means that book sells well enough that they're eager for my next book. The reality has been more that only one publisher is grudgingly interested in my book and it's low on the priority list for promotion, and then in spite of good reviews and strong fan support (it seems that while not that many people have heard of my books, the people who have read them love them) the books aren't selling quite as well as they'd like, so I don't get another contract and have to start all over again.

So, I need to take a stronger role in promotion, but that world has changed since I last had that job, and most of what I know how to do is only repeatedly getting the word out to my existing fans, which helps (if everyone who'd bought Enchanted, Inc. had bought Rebel Mechanics, things would be very different right now), but there does seem to be a barrier I haven't managed to break through into some of the book venues in my genre. A lot of the things I've tried have hit with a dull thud.

Out of curiosity, what works to get your attention about books? Do you subscribe to author newsletters? Do you ever learn about books via Facebook ads or other online advertising? Do you read book blogs? Do you look at and share book videos? Are blogs still viable? Does social media really matter?

Telling Stories

I had all kinds of grand plans to write yesterday, and then a high ragweed count hit with a vengeance. Ah, it's that time of year. It's not as bad since I discovered Allegra, but I've only just started taking it daily, so it's taking a while to kick in, and then I forgot to take it for a day. I've definitely felt worse during early ragweed season, but it's just enough to mess with my head. I can think, but I have a hard time translating my thoughts into language. (So be warned that there may be odd flubs in this post that I haven't caught because that was what came out of my head and it made sense to me even when I was editing.)

So instead of writing, I read some of those books on marketing I got from the library. One had a very interesting premise that marketing is essentially the story you build around something, and the story is what often adds the perceived value. The audience already has a built-in worldview, and the trick is to suggest a story that they want to tell themselves that fits their worldview. The real marketing comes from people who are telling themselves a story, and then they spread that story to other people. So, for example, when it comes to a car, they all pretty much get you from point A to point B, and when you look at reliability ratings, the more moderately priced car is actually more likely to get you to point B. So why is a car that's more likely to break down worth so much more money? It's mostly about the story we can tell ourselves about a car like that. There's luxury in the details and the experience that makes people feel better about themselves -- if they're the kind of people who feel better about that sort of thing. If they're not, it's not going to work on them. If they are, then the more expensive car may be worth it to them because it matches the story they tell themselves about success or the kind of person they want to be. So the way to sell a car to them is to weave that story around it.

I'm still trying to figure out how this might apply to marketing books or an author. Can you spin a story around a story? I think the trick might be to capitalize on the sense of "I'm the kind of person who reads this kind of book, and that makes me better/smarter/more in-the-know than people who haven't read it." But then you have to figure out what "this kind of book" really is. In my case, I'm not sure there's really an established niche because I blur a lot of lines. For the most part, maybe what makes my books different is the lack of edge -- so much else these days is dark and edgy, but here's something for those of us who are tired of it and just want to have some good, clean fun.

There's some built-in "tribe" stuff with Rebel Mechanics that probably resonates with society today -- the makers and innovators who may be a threat to the status quo. It's also a steampunk book that's actually about steampunks -- people starting a rebellion with their technology, an actual counter-cultural movement that looks a lot like the cultural group we have now.

The trick may be to find a way to communicate these stories to these groups. Once you find some people within these groups, they tend to spread the idea to others and word of mouth spreads. The down side of that is that word of mouth spreads slowly from person to person, so you don't get that huge spike that gets you noticed in the publishing world. The up side is that it does tend to be more "sticky" that way because it's not about the latest trend but rather is about something that resonates with these people, regardless of the trend, which is why Enchanted, Inc. is still selling relatively well ten years after publication, when most of the books that were published around that time are now either out of print or went out of print and are now being brought back as self-published books. The idea didn't spread fast enough for the publisher to take notice, but it's still hanging on.

But actually coming up with a plan to do something about all this is more than my ragweed-addled brain can deal with at the moment.

I did reread a short story I wrote a couple of years ago (I think), and I was surprised by how much I liked it. I'm not entirely crazy about the ending, but I think it works. I'm not sure what to do with it, though. On the one hand, I think it could be fleshed out into a decent novella or novel that scraps the current ending and develops the middle a lot better before coming to a more satisfying ending (the current one seems abrupt, but I can't make it much longer and have it be a short story), but then again, in its current form it's short enough to read in a convention reading and it's easier to sell either a short story or a full-length novel. If I decide on a form, then what do I do with it? I'd probably make more money self publishing it, but then selling it to a good market would turn it into advertising, in a way, helping me reach a different group of readers who wouldn't find a self-published novella/short story.

I'm planning to use this story for my FenCon reading, and then maybe get some feedback from the audience, kind of like a focus group.

Charging Forward!

I'm diving into my latest stab at being super organized and productive. We'll see how long this one lasts. I figured out how much time I really need to be devoting to various priorities, and it was surprising how much time that still left me in the day. So I set out to schedule all those priority activities on my calendar, leaving the rest of the day unscheduled. I also got specific about what I wanted to do for each of those priorities. I've tried things like this in the past, where I said I wanted to spend an hour a day on publicity and marketing activities, and then it fell through because I wasn't sure what to do with that time. So I'm making a to-do list within the priorities.

If I go by my usual pattern, I'll be gung-ho for about a week, and then life will intrude on my carefully prepared schedule, and it will all fall apart. But I'm hoping this makes enough sense that it might stick. If I feel like I'm making progress and accomplishing a lot, I'm more likely to just make it part of my life. If I find myself realizing that I'm getting so much done, producing work, increasing sales, and getting my house in order, and I still feel like I have free time, then it may become routine. I've already adjusted some things when I realized that my overly ambitious schedule that I put together last night wasn't at all realistic.

But I have actually accomplished something publicity-wise. For that video I had to do for that subscription box service, I found some cool vintage film that's from a little later than Rebel Mechanics is set but that still gives the same feel. As I was doing my reading from the opening chapter at WorldCon, several lines jumped out at me as perfectly matching the footage. So, here's a short teaser/intro video I put together, just playing around with iMovie to see what I could do:



I don't know if it will sell any books for me, but apparently YouTube is a big deal among YA readers, so having a presence there is a good thing. So far, though, most of my social media efforts seem to just sit there without getting a lot of traction or feedback other than from my personal friends. I'm trying to figure out how to get some impact there.

This was also good for getting me back into the mindset of that world because this afternoon, I'm going to start work on book 2 in that series. I wrote a synopsis for that book way back when I was writing the first book so that we could submit the proposal for the first book with the plans for the series. I'm sure that a lot has changed in the past five years, so it may require some reworking, and then I have to figure out what happens in the first few chapters so I can write the beginning.

At least I already have a title in mind, so I won't have to go through that process again for a while.

Now, off to go be productive some more!

Help an Author

Rebel Mechanics is officially out. And my web site has been updated. I'm sure there's something wrong or broken somewhere in there because it kept undoing itself and I wanted to throw the computer out the window, but it seems to be functional. There are new photo galleries for all three series. I'll be adding more behind-the-scenes stuff for the new book along the way.

People keep asking me what's the best way to buy my book to help me, so I figure it's time to do an updated version of How To Help Authors You Love:

1) Buy the book. It probably helps more to buy one of the print editions (paper or e-book) because the audio version usually comes from a different publisher, and that means the primary publisher won't count that sale when making decisions about buying another book from that author. However, I've had situations where Audible made an offer on a book before a print publisher did, so it's all good in the end. If possible, buy the book in the first week of release. Publishers are getting almost as bad as movie studios about wanting to open big. "Legs" and long-term sales don't count quite as much as a big splash at the start, and a book that makes a big splash up front might get a bit of a promo boost once the publisher realizes they have a hit on their hands.

2) If you go to a bookstore to buy the book and don't find it, ask for it at the store. The book may still be in boxes at the back of the store, and your question could get it shelved faster. The book may have sold out, and your question might get it reordered. It might not be shelved where you expect to find it. Plus, talking to store employees brings the book to their attention, which means they may look into it and start recommending it. Asking one question at the store could end up selling dozens of extra copies.

3) Write a review. Whether it's on your own blog, on Goodreads, or on a bookseller web site. Reviews help get a book noticed.

4) Talk about the book and tell others. Blog, tweet, post on Facebook or tumblr. Talk to real-life, in-person friends. Word of mouth is the single biggest way that books get sold.

So, I hope everyone likes the new book! I decided to wait on my usual running around to bookstores and signing copies because I've found that books often aren't shelved yet on day one, and it's going to be really hot today, and I'm tired from all the web design work and need to get back to revising a book. But go buy books!

Book Day Minus One

I'm staring down a few daunting, crazy weeks, and I'm sure I'll prevail, but I'm looking forward to having one or two fewer things hanging over my head. It's like the run up to finals in college, where you've forgotten what it feels like to have that nagging feeling that there's something you're supposed to be doing.

So, there's the book that comes out tomorrow, though I'm getting reports of people having found it in stores already. That means I need to finish reworking the web site today. That will be priority #1.

I also need to be doing promo stuff this week, online and in person. It's been a while since I had a bookstore book, and I really should make the rounds of local stores, meeting the staff and signing copies. There are a lot fewer stores now than there were the last time I did this, with Borders going under and B&N closing a lot of stores. I will also likely have a lot of tweets and e-mails to deal with, and I'll need to remember to actually promote myself in various relevant venues.

Meanwhile, there's other promo-related stuff. While I watch TV, I'm alternating between signing hundreds of bookplates for a special mailing the publisher arranged and putting together some swag items to hand out.

And then there's the book I have to have complete by August 1. I'm about a third of the way through revising it, and I'll need to make at least two more passes. I also need to get things going with the cover artist.

Not to mention the convention planning meeting this weekend and the convention the weekend after that. I may be signing bookplates during the meeting, and I may be holing up in my room and writing when I'm not on programming during the con.

Oh, and the people who have read the new book are already demanding a sequel and tagging the publisher in their tweets, so I suppose I need to get that proposal written.

In perhaps my last bit of true leisure time for a while, I saw the Minions movie on Saturday, and it was so much fun. I should probably be alarmed that as soon as the movie ended, all my friends said, "Shanna, you need to get a red dress." So apparently they saw a lot of me in Scarlet Overkill. But if I'm wearing that dress, it must have the nuclear armaments built in.

Oh, and if you see it, stay to the end of the credits or you're missing a lot of the fun.

Aspirations

I've been so very virtuous this week. Not only have I been diligent about doing my writing-related work, but I've also gone for a walk every morning. It started Monday when I went to the library. Then Tuesday morning I was surprised by how pleasant it was outside when I got the newspaper so I decided to go for a walk after breakfast. It was starting to get hot and muggy then, so I thought I ought to walk before breakfast, but I generally need to eat at least something as soon as I get up, so I compromised the next morning. I had toast and some tea -- and got dressed while tea was steeping and toast was toasting -- and then was out walking shortly after 8. I walked for about an hour. Then I had some milk when I got home. Today I slept later, and for a moment I was tempted not to walk, but again it seemed nice when I got the paper, so I got dressed and headed out. I think I came close to an hour again, though I didn't plan to be out so long. It's so peaceful at that time. It's past the rush of people out jogging or walking dogs before work. There are a few other people walking, mostly older ladies in saris, but otherwise it's quiet. I can walk and listen to the birds and think. We're having a cooler-than-normal summer, but it's supposed to get hot next week, so I may not be able to keep this up. But then I can switch to the swimming pool -- one benefit of deciding not to sell right now.

And that appears to have been a good decision. They had a story on the news yesterday about how this is one of the areas where they're recommending renting rather than buying right now because house prices are so steeply inflated that there might be a bubble forming. There's much less inventory than demand, so there can be multiple offers on a house before the sign even goes in the yard. Realtors are joking about how staging used to involve getting everything perfect and adding nice touches like baking cookies. Now all it takes is making the beds and putting away the laundry. Speculators are getting involved and swooping in with cash offers. You have to leap at anything you even kind of like. Since my plan is to find my dream house that I'd like to stay in until I can't live alone anymore, I'd rather wait until things settle down and I'd have the chance to be choosy. And by then I should have saved even more money and have more equity in this house, so I can get something even nicer.

And these morning walks are giving me aspirations. I walked over to the levee yesterday to see how high the water got on the other side (it looked like there had been water in places where there usually isn't water, but it didn't come up the side of the levee), and I noticed the houses on the east side of the neighborhood. There's a small lake there (really a big pond), and there are some nice houses backing up to that lake. It's a non-recreational lake, so no boating, no swimming, there's not supposed to be fishing (but people do), so it's very quiet. The water is currently as high as I've ever seen it and it's nowhere near the back yards, and I couldn't spot any obvious high-water marks to show that it had been much higher. A house there would mean water views while still having privacy, unlike the homes on the canals where there are walking paths going past the back yards. It would be so nice to sit at the kitchen table or in the back yard and watch the sun rise over the lake, or sit at an office window (the office would have to overlook the lake) and watch it rain on the water. Of course, the houses there are larger and more expensive, so I guess I need to make this book a success.

Speaking of which, I've learned that I'm not quite getting the degree of publicity push I was expecting based on my previous experience (though they have been good about distributing advance copies), so I'm going to have to put on my PR hat and get back in gear. There won't be any booksignings other than at the conventions I've already scheduled, which isn't such a bad thing, as those can be painful unless you're famous enough to draw a big crowd. Fortunately, I've got a decent blog tour thanks to a blogger who got an advance copy and contacted me, but I'm open to doing more blog tours, interviews, etc. If you know a place you think might want to know about the upcoming steampunk book or if you have a book-related blog and would like an interview or guest post, let me know. And, of course, tell all your friends, spread the word, leave reviews once you've read the book, etc.

Meanwhile, I have a book to rewrite. I know what needs to be fixed and have made a good start on it.

Talking About Myself

PR mode for the new book has begun. It's been a while since I've done this kind of thing for a release, and while it's fun, it can also be a bit draining. I have a lot of sympathy for actors who have to go on publicity junkets for a new movie. You know that only the truly obsessed are going to see every single interview, so it's new and different for the audience each time, but you start to feel weird saying the same things over and over again in interviews. But you don't want to vary too much because you don't want to contradict yourself. It also feels weird for me to spend so much time talking about myself. I managed two e-mail interviews yesterday before I got sick of myself.

So, after spending yesterday grocery shopping, talking to the garage door people, and doing interviews, I let myself have a TV night and caught up on the new shows that are on SyFy on Fridays (Sci Fi Fridays are back!!!!). I've put the full review of two shows that fit into the Not!Firefly category on the Stealth Geek blog.

Today I have lots more interviews and guest posts to write. Although this is a bit taxing, I'm not complaining because it's good to spread the word, and I'm excited that so many bloggers have contacted me wanting me to do interviews. I love this book, and I want everyone to know about it. In case you're in the mood to do a little obsessive stalking, I'll post when one of these interviews appears. Maybe I should start putting in little Easter eggs in each interview and give a prize to someone who can guess what the secret word is or spot the point of difference.

Meanwhile, I'm making a batch of strawberry jam. They had strawberries on sale yesterday, and I'm down to my last jar from my previous batch, so it was good timing. The jam has been through its initial cooking and is now cooling. Then it will be cooked again for final thickening before canning. I'm such a pioneer woman. Meanwhile, I've bought another rosemary plant. Supposedly, this is something easy to grow, but I've killed every one I've tried. The last one survived about two weeks. Maybe it drowned from all the rain. But I love to cook with rosemary, and having fresh rosemary handy is nice. It will probably die while I'm out of town later this summer, but in the meantime, I need to make everything that involves rosemary I can think of. I made this chicken breast in an herbal brine a couple of weeks ago that was wonderful, and I may have to do that again.

Now, off to pretend to be famous enough that people might find me mildly interesting!

Swag and Stuff

After having that big realization of what's really going on with the villain, I've been re-reading the book so far to see what I need to fix, and there's not much. I think I'll need to tweak a few scenes slightly, but otherwise, the villain is still acting the way I'd expect her to act, and while there may be some subtle adjustments to her attitude, I don't think her actions will change at all.

I've also realized that although I've been worried about how much action there is or isn't in this book, when I read it straight through it's not that bad. I've only spotted a couple of places where there's an opportunity for action that should probably be beefed up. This is one of those issues with taking months to write a book that can be read in hours. It feels like it's been ages since the last scene with action or tension, but that was only about ten pages ago. What I may need to do is trim a few conversations because the characters have a lot of long chats about what's going on. I'm plotting on paper again, figuring out what's happening by letting the characters talk about it. But once I've figured it out, I can cut some of the talking about it.

Meanwhile, I'm working on ideas for promoting the summer book. I think I'm going to do some badge ribbons for conventions, though I'm kind of iffy about WorldCon at the moment. I probably should go, but I still haven't been included in programming and they keep announcing program participants I've never heard of, so I have a feeling that I'm not in the cool in-crowd for this bunch. And there's going to be drama. So much drama. I'm allergic to drama. Anyway, badge ribbons are more of a WorldCon thing, and if I don't go I don't know if there's much point. I suppose it would be funny if I don't get included on programming and then the book turns out to be a huge hit and they have a bestseller who got snubbed. I don't know if there's much point to bookmarks anymore other than as a kind of business card reminder. There are also trading cards and postcards that might be good to use for autographings in the era of e-books when fans might want something signed but have the books on an e-reader.

Does anyone have a preference for swag from an author? Any ideas of something you'd want to see?

Being a Marketing Slacker

I have 96 more pages to proofread, and then I'll be done with this book, other than writing cover copy, deciding on a cover design (the art is done), reviewing the e-book and print book layout, and then marketing, etc. Then next week I can get back to working on the next book.

I've somehow fallen into a group of independent/self-published authors on Facebook, and seeing what they do for publicity/marketing is making me feel like a slacker.

Apparently, I should have a newsletter. I haven't done much of this -- I once had a Yahoo group mailing list, but I haven't used it much -- mostly because I hate these as a reader. Then again, I haven't actively signed up for any author newsletters. The ones I've received are from people who must have put their entire address book into the mailing list, so they're from people who may have e-mailed me once or twice, people I might have e-mailed once or twice, people I've been on another mailing list with or people I've been in an organization with. I might feel differently if I had actually signed up because I wanted to receive an author's news. I'm not sure how many more people I'd read with a newsletter, though, because that Yahoo list I had didn't have as many people on it as my usual blog hit count. Unless maybe they were entirely different people? So maybe there are some people who read my blog, some people who follow me on Facebook and some people who might want a newsletter? I can't imagine I'd reach new people with a newsletter because why would anyone sign up for it if they hadn't heard of me? I know some authors do contests to build their mailing lists -- like giving away an iPad or a Kindle -- but from what I've seen, these get spread around contest junkie groups, they sign up just to win, and then they unsubscribe from the newsletter immediately (or even mark it as spam, which can lead to the mailing service dropping you). I'm not even sure what I'd put in a newsletter, and some of these authors do them monthly. Romance authors do stuff like recipes and knitting patterns, but I don't know about my audience. However, I do have at least three books scheduled for this year, so I could probably sustain a quarterly newsletter. Thoughts?

Then they have "street teams." I've heard about this for traditionally published authors, where they cultivate groups of fans to go into bookstores and ask for their books, turn them face-out on shelves, pass out bookmarks, etc. I'm not sure what a street team would do for books mostly available online. Maybe virtual street teams? Get people to blog, Tweet, etc., about their books and post Amazon reviews? It may be the Scandinavian in me coming out (there's a cultural distaste for marketing -- something fun when you're doing PR for Ericsson), but there's something that seems a little dishonest to me about officially cultivating and even rewarding people for doing the stuff that fans do spontaneously, so that if they're doing it because of the reward but other people think it's just them being fans, then it's misrepresented. I suppose I'm fortunate that my fans seem to be good about talking about my books without being recruited and paid to do so.

Then people were posting pictures of their offices and showing their swag closets full of stuff they give away for promotional purposes. I have a box of bookmarks. Does that count? I don't even know if any of that works. I mostly use the bookmarks as a kind of business card for when I meet people who say, "Oh, you're a writer? What do you write?" and I can hand them a bookmark that lists my first four books in order. I probably need to start coming up with promo items for the new series and the steampunk book.

In my experience, one of the best ways to boost sales for all books is to put a new book out. When my publisher has done BookBub ads, that's also been effective. I may look into doing a promo like that for the first book in the Fairy Tale series when the third one comes out (the first one becomes a loss leader, so where you reap the benefit is from having more books that can also be boosted).

But I'm not doing too badly, so maybe I should keep doing what I'm doing and not worry about it so much.

Promotion in the Social Media Era

I was asked by a reader to discuss book promotion, and since that's the phase I've got gearing up, I thought it would be a good topic for today's writing post.

I have to say that this is one area that's constantly changing. My day job career was in public relations, and that world has changed almost entirely since I left twelve years ago. Back then, it was all about the traditional media and possibly their Internet presence. Now the traditional media are on a downswing and social media is the current emphasis.

But one thing remains true: the best way to promote something is to find ways to reach the people most likely to be interested in it. That means you need to figure out your target market and then figure out how to reach them. For the kind of publicity you can do yourself for a book (unless you have a huge budget), reaching the market of "readers" is too big a task. You need to slice that up a bit. For example, I generally think of the target audience for my books to be primarily women who like fantasy, romance or mystery and who have a hard time finding books to read because they don't like a lot of sex or dark grittiness. There are certainly other people who would like my books, but I think this group is the most likely to glom on to them.

The next step is reaching them. I go to a lot of science fiction conventions because that's a good place to find readers who like fantasy (one section of my readership), and I find that there's a lot of crossover with romance and mystery among those readers. People who go to conventions are obviously passionate about their interests, and they're social about it, since they're connecting with others. That means they're likely connected away from conventions, so they're probably talking about books elsewhere. I don't ever directly sell enough books at a convention to cover my cost of attending, but I figure there's a multiplier effect if the people who discover me at a convention go on to talk about my books away from the convention, either online or in person. This doesn't necessarily directly hit that more narrow slice of "not finding the books I want because I want something without a lot of sex or gore" group, but there's a good chance they'll be in the greater audience, and once those people find something they like, they get really excited about it and share it with other people they know.

Reaching people via social media can be a challenge because there's so much noise out there. I blog and use Facebook but haven't yet delved into Twitter because I find it overwhelming. What I think is more effective than an author presence on social media is getting readers who have a presence there to talk about your book. Really, the best way to do that is to write something people want to talk about, but even so, people have to discover it. With my self-published books, I've been using NetGalley. There's some cost to this, but it ends up being a fairly easy way to get copies in the hands of reviewers and people who talk about books on social media.

I'm very picky and targeted about selecting who gets copies, though. I've found that way too many reviewers/bloggers don't give the info I need to help me make a decision, or they give the wrong info. A lot of the people will go on and on in their profile about how much they love books, what their favorite reading day is like, etc., without telling anything about what giving them a copy will do for me. It's great that you love to read, but I'm passing out galleys for publicity purposes, not to support someone's reading habit. So I look for someone who has a blog or who contributes to one. I check the blog to see how frequently it's been updated. If there's a book review at least once a week, that looks good. If the last posted review was from six months ago, I generally stop considering. I like it when they list their various social media outlets and what their readership is likely to be -- average daily/weekly/monthly page hits, number of friends or followers, etc. Once I have a sense of how legitimate this person is, I look at the targeting -- does the reviewer cover other books that might appeal to the same people who might like mine? Someone who writes about gardening books or whose reviews are all for erotica probably isn't a good fit.

In addition to reviews, I might look around for places that would like me to do guest posts or interviews. I'm probably not as aggressive about this kind of thing as I need to be, but I'm fortunate to be in a position where people often come to me.

Really, all of publicity is more of a marathon than a sprint. It's about building relationships over time. It's about word of mouth spreading from reader to reader. The most an author can do is make sure enough readers have heard about it so they can talk about it.

Out Into the World

First, thanks to all who responded to my questions about newsletters and discovering books. It looks like my instincts were right. The trick about marketing books is that it really is something that's hard to do on purpose because most people discover books in very accidental ways, such as finding them in a library and hearing about them from friends. I discovered two of my very favorite authors because I noticed the covers on their books, and something about the art spoke to me -- and in one case, the art turned out to be very misleading. It had nothing to do with the subject or tone of the book, though I think I would also have liked the book that the art would have fit. What I need to do is find ways to make people aware of the series and get them to try it and then to make sure people who've started reading the series are aware that there are more books.

Second, another one of my babies has gone out into the world, looking for a good home. Putting a book out on submission is like boarding an emotional rollercoaster. You start out with high hopes, looking at the list of editors and visualizing your book at each of those houses. And then the rejections start to come in. The rejections always come first because that can happen right away -- the editor may know from the first page that it's not right. Offers take a lot more time because the editor has to read more of the material, then take it to committee and persuade the publisher to buy it. Sometimes it seems like the rejections come all at once. You go through days of getting constant rejections. It hurts to cross each potential market off the list. But then you get a hopeful response, like when your agent follows up with the editors who haven't rejected and one responds that she's reading it and loving it or when one says she's waiting on a response from higher in the food chain. Rejections that come after that hurt more because they tend to be of the "I loved it, but I don't know what to do with it/don't think there's a market for it/haven't published anything like this before" variety. Then if you're really lucky, someone expresses interest, which triggers an auction among anyone else who hasn't yet rejected it, and that then triggers a fast slew of rejections among anyone who's not interested in fighting for it (a lot of the time, it's not that they had any interest, just that the auction deadline forces them to pull it out of the bottom of the pile, take a quick look at it and decide it's not worth the effort to do a quick read and push anything through). And then if you're really, really lucky, you end up with an actual offer with real dollar signs and numbers attached to it.

I know this is a difficult book to categorize, so I'm girding my loins. A contemporary Tam Lin (the folk tale or ballad, not the Pamela Dean novel)/The Goblin Market mash-up (the person stolen by the fairies who has to be rescued is a sister, not a lover) starring a ballerina, an injured detective and a bulldog and with a subtle semi-romantic thread that would be wrong if it happened is going to be a tough sell. I imagine a few of the rejections will be along the lines of "I love Shanna's work, but I'm not sure what to make of this." Possibly with the addition of "I'd like to see something more like Enchanted, Inc." But maybe someone will see what I love about this story and the characters and give it a good home. If not, I already plan to self-publish it because I believe in this book. Having that fallback position does make this a little less stressful. However, I would appreciate good wishes, prayers and other things intended to influence the universe.

But enough about me. My WorldCon hotel reading that I didn't get to until I was skipping the Hugo awards was Wisp of a Thing by Alex Bledsoe, a follow up to The Hum and the Shiver. It's sort of a sequel, in that it takes place in the same setting after the previous book, and there are characters who cross over. I suppose it does continue the big-picture plot from the previous book. But it also stands totally on its own. The main characters are almost entirely new, and I don't think you'd be at all lost or lose much understanding if you hadn't read the first book. These books are about a mysterious culture found deep in the mountains of eastern Tennessee. They have a kind of magic to them that's tied into their music. In this book, a young man who gained a kind of stardom as a reality singing show contestant comes to town after a personal tragedy because he's heard that there's a song in this town that could heal his broken heart. He's not one of these people, but he may be what they need to break a curse that's on the verge of becoming permanent.

I really love these books. The world captivates me to the point that I kind of want to go to eastern Tennessee and look for this town and hear this music. I like the characters a lot. He has a way of writing nice guys who are still interesting and complicated and damaged people who aren't all dark and edgy. I'd almost go as far as to say that this is "hillbilly Neil Gaiman." I think if you like Gaiman's novels, you might like this.

I spent yesterday rereading the work in progress. It seems I threw in a plot thread I'd forgotten about. Now I need to figure out where to go from here.

Military School and Marketing

I may be in even more trouble with the children's choir this year than I thought. I found out that the other adult teacher in my group has asked her Sunday school class for prayers because we'll need all the help we can get. I might also be wrong in my assessment about Problem Child. She doesn't think there's necessarily anything wrong with him, just inconsistent parenting. Yes, the mom does try to correct him, but she also tends to give up when her first attempt doesn't work, so he's learned to ignore all correction because it'll pass. I may not have a case of "no one can correct my special snowflake" or "we think the word 'no' stifles a child's creativity," but it seems to be a case of "maybe the teachers can teach him to behave, and that will make my life easier." The people in charge are even talking about getting a dedicated "buddy" for him, like they have for special needs kids, so that the teachers can focus on the whole class instead of having to devote all their attention to the one kid. I'd think that would be a huge parenting wake-up call if your kid isn't special needs but is such a bad behavior problem that he requires special needs treatment. Do they have military boarding schools for kindergarteners? That may be what this kid needs. I think I need to practice my military "Atten-hut!" bellow. Maybe the boys will enjoy being treated like they're in military school. I'll teach them to salute and march. That's sort of music-related, right?

I'm forcing myself to get back to "normal" this week. Five days should be enough time to recover from a convention and travel. I have some marketing work to do, some bookkeeping to deal with and then I want to get back to the writing in progress. I went to a really good writing session at the convention (about the only thing I managed to attend where I wasn't a participant), and now I want to see how it applies to the work in progress. I'll have to re-read the whole thing first, though. I'm a little hazy on what's actually on the page vs. what's in my head.

There may be some swimming pool time, as well, since I've realized that I need more exercise. I've put on a bit of weight over the summer, probably from eating out more often than I usually do. It's not much and probably doesn't show, but there are clothes I wore last summer that don't fit this summer, and I can feel the difference in the way my body works. I also don't have the fitness and endurance levels I'd like to have. I shouldn't nearly collapse after 45 seconds of jumping in ballet.

Back to the marketing stuff: How many of you subscribe to author newsletters? Do you actually care about them? Have you ever signed up for a newsletter to be eligible for a giveaway? If so, did you keep subscribing afterward? I suspect I'm about to have a tussle with my agent about this because she thinks newsletters are an excellent marketing tool and I think they're preaching to the choir. If you care enough to sign up for the newsletter, you're already on board. Hearing about the giveaway means you've already heard about the author, unless it gets out onto one of those contest junkie web sites, in which case they sign up for the contest, then unsubscribe (sometimes even being tacky enough to label the newsletter as spam when they do so) when the contest is over. Most of the authors I know have stopped the giveaways other than those to reward fans because they don't actually do much good. Then again, that may be my personal bias against marketing that looks like marketing, and "win an Amazon gift card!" looks too much like marketing to me. Newsletters might work better for the kind of self-published authors who have a constant stream of releases, but I don't have anything new coming for a while, just an existing series that's all out there. I guess I also have a personal bias against author newsletters. I've been automatically subscribed to too many by authors who just subscribe everyone in their address books, and I unsubscribe from them all. I do follow a few authors' blogs because they have interesting things to say, but this really doesn't affect my book purchases, and there are a few authors I follow on Facebook just to find out when they have new books coming out. I don't even know what I'd say in a regular newsletter.

What I need to find is a way to expose more people to the existence of the series, get them to try it, and then make sure they know there are more books. I don't think that e-mailing existing fans is the way to do that, but in responding to my agent, I can't just dismiss her ideas without offering any of my own. How did you first learn about this series? What works to make you aware of a book and then get you to try it? How do you keep track of a series to learn about new books?

Doing the PR Push

My house is now more or less back to normal -- aside from the hole in the bathroom wall that still needs to be patched. I was sitting on the arm of my sofa, watching them expand the fresh-air intake in the living room wall yesterday, and I somehow became the source for tools. I was expecting a conference call in about fifteen minutes, so I wanted them done and out of there. One guy would start to send the other guy back out to the truck for something, and if I had it, I'd just grab it and hand it to them. They ended up using my hammer, since my tool box was already out. When they needed a flashlight, I reached over to the coffee table and handed them one. And then I found myself wondering why on earth I have a flashlight on my coffee table. I have one in the kitchen and one in the bathroom because my cabinets and closets aren't really lit and it makes it easier to find stuff, but I'm not entirely sure why I keep one in the living room. I think maybe it ended up there during the spring storms, when it was part of my emergency supplies. I had a battery-operated radio and a flashlight at hand, and they're still there. You never know when the power might go out and you'll end up fumbling in the darkness, so I keep a flashlight near most of the places I'm likely to be after dark. Still, it was pretty weird to just reach over and grab a flashlight in my living room because who does that? (My friends: "We do!" Which is why they're my friends.)

The conference call was with my agent and publicist to discuss the launch of book 5, and now I'm feeling slightly overwhelmed. This week I need to put together a PR plan and timeline, and then I'll have to carry it out. I love public relations strategy and planning but I really hate actually doing it. I was made for senior management at an agency, but getting there requires going through the actually doing it phase, which was why I didn't try to get another PR job when I got laid off. I'd been thinking that all I'd really need to do is get the word out to my fans, but my agent is treating this release like a Big Deal. Now I'm getting a taste of what it's like to have a lead title, and it means doing a big publicity push. Meanwhile, I need to do one last proofreading pass of the latest project to get to my agent so it will be off my plate. And then there's some formatting/proofing I may need to do on other stuff. While all this book stuff is going on, I'm also at the busy phase of my FenCon PR job, so I need to write a press kit and do a lot of media outreach. In August I'm also helping with the music and art day camp at church and then there's WorldCon. Somewhere in all this, I need to write book 7. And then the PR starts again with the release of book 6, with FenCon coming right before that.

While I'm talking PR, it's time for another reader survey: Do you follow any blogs or web sites that give you info on books? Where do you go to learn about what books are coming out? Are there any blogs that cover books that you frequently see tweets or Facebook posts about or that otherwise seem to be pretty influential or that have a big following? I'm trying to put together a list of places to try to promote to, though the situation is a little tricky. A lot of sites won't cover self-published books. This book was published by a royalty-paying publisher -- in Japanese. It's the English edition that's self-published, and it's the continuation of a series that was traditionally published in the US. Will sites that covered the first four books refuse to consider the next books because of the publishing method? I guess I'll find out. Meanwhile, I've started a Facebook page for the series, where I'll post all the news and info. You can find it at http://www.facebook.com/EnchantedIncSeries.

I'm also going to throw out an offer: I'm thinking of doing a reader blog tour (in addition to whatever else gets set up with genre blogs or sites). So, if you want to do a short e-mail interview with me or have me do a guest post on your blog (please specify the topic because I'm not sure my brain can handle coming up with ideas to write about right now), let me know. I'd like these to run around the August 15 release date, but the sooner you get questions or post topic suggestions to me, the better because I'm going to be a wee bit swamped.

Making Something Happen

It seems that forcing myself to get up at 6:30 in the morning for a week somehow cured me of bouncing out of bed at 6:40. I slept all the way until almost 8 today. I must have been really tired because I went to bed pretty early. I think part of it is that this is my least-favorite time of year. I don't like summer in this part of the world. I read books about kids spending their summers playing outdoors, and I even lived in places where you could do that. Here, that would be a good way to commit suicide by heat stroke. I've heard that doctors in climates like this actually see a fair number of reverse Seasonal Affective Disorder cases in the summer because in the hot weather, people stay indoors during daylight hours and therefore get less sun exposure than people up north get during winter. I can see that. I have energy in the winter, but not really in the summer. It doesn't help that summer weather seems to have come on so suddenly. On the first day of spring, it snowed. On the last day of spring, it was 100 degrees. I was looking at my reading log for the year, and most of my books from May, I remember reading on cool, cloudy days when I curled up under a light blanket with some hot tea. That was not much more than a month ago. It seems like we went from having cool, pleasant weather directly to blistering heat.

In other news, I finally wrote the end of the book yesterday. I'm not entirely sure I like it, but I can fix it in edits. There are a lot of loose ends to wrap up, so I'm worried that the conclusion part pulled a Return of the King and went on forever and ever after the climax, but then I'm also worried that I skimmed over too much instead of dealing with it fully. Now I'm even wondering how much I need, if them talking about how they'll handle things is enough to give closure, or if we need to see them doing it. And I really need a title. I've been reading poetry related to the subject matter, I've done quotations searches on key words related to the story. I've flipped through movie guides to look at titles for ideas I could twist. And nada. I'm drawing a blank. I can visualize the cover, but I can't see a title on it.

I've also found a dress I can wear to the wedding Saturday, after some exploration in my closet. I've got a nice spaghetti-strap dress that I can zip up, and I learned when I had trouble unzipping it that I can slip the straps off my shoulders and twist the dress around so that the zipper is in the front to unzip it. I'm singing with the choir at this wedding (it's the choir director's wedding), so I'll be wearing a choir robe for the service, and that makes a rather bare dress a good idea for not melting under the robe. Plus, the dress goes with a new pair of shoes I still haven't worn. I'll have to iron the dress and give myself a pedicure (the shoes are strappy high-heeled sandals), but otherwise, I'm set.

Meanwhile, I seem to be getting a lot of reader mail lately. It tends to come in waves, like suddenly everyone gets the inclination to write to me, and then for a while no one does. I haven't been able to find any trigger (though maybe I should look at the Bookscan reports and see if there's a related rise in sales anywhere in there). I have started suggesting that people who write demanding more books write directly to the publisher about that. It's not that I don't like hearing from readers, but I figure the demands are better addressed to people who can do something about them. Believe me, I'm already on your side. I want more books, too, but it's not my decision. Snail mail is better than e-mail because it's more likely to be opened and read by a human being who can notice a trend than e-mail is. I've heard that people who e-mailed about wanting more books have received replies along the lines of "there are currently no more books scheduled by that author, but you can sign up for our e-mail list to be notified about new releases." I imagine if I'd received a message like that, I'd have gone into a minor rant of, "I know there aren't any books scheduled, you moron. That's why I wrote to you, to complain about it."

I'm still not sure what good it will do, as they make decisions based on sales figures, and there's currently no editor within the company championing these books who would be inclined to take a stack of reader mail to a meeting as proof that there's a great pent-up demand out there. And even there, the beancounters are likely to say that 20 or even 100 letters doesn't mean the book would sell enough copies to make a profit. To get their attention, it would have to look like the end of Miracle on 34th Street, where they bring in bags and bags of mail. But still, since I'm a firm believer in complaining to the people responsible for the decision, if you are so inclined, you could write to:
Ballantine Books
1745 Broadway
New York, NY 10019

What would make a difference? The big one is the movie being made, which I don't know that anyone can influence. You could support other movies along those lines so the studio will think this one would do well, but I'm not sure how they're classifying this project -- as a romantic comedy, or as fantasy -- and I'm never sure how they classify other movies, so I'm not sure what they'd look at when making a decision. Most fantasy these days seems to be more in the kids' movie category, and romantic comedies haven't been wildly successful this year (because most of them have seriously sucked). I've never heard of a movie getting made because fans demanded it, so I don't know if it would be worthwhile to Google contact information for Universal and write about having seen something about them optioning this book and asking when the movie will be coming out because you're dying to see it. They'd need millions of people to want to see it, so I'm not sure if a few letters or e-mails would matter.

Otherwise, I think it would take something really big to get publishers' attention -- like every single Barnes & Noble store in the entire country selling or special ordering at least one copy of each book in the series, all in a single week (or, preferably, for several weeks), so it would create a serious blip that might make the chain start asking questions. Or a grass-roots fan campaign that gets the attention of some major book blogs and then the publishing industry blogs/press, which would make both publishers and booksellers more aware of the demand as well as generating more sales (because it all comes back to sales). The thing is, these aren't things I can do, organize or lead. Grass-roots campaigns that turn out to have been generated by the person they benefit always backfire, even if the grass-roots support was genuine. It would have to be generated and organized and done by the fans with no involvement from me, other than a little cheerleading, and it would have to be big to have an impact. If you need a summer project, knock yourself out and have fun with it, but I know nothing about it (though if it works, it would look great on a resume or college application, and I'd be happy to write reference letters).

You'll LOVE This Post

I think I've figured out the writing-related insomnia situation. I don't think my muse is necessarily working the night shift. The problem only comes up when I reach a logical stopping place in the book and don't know what happens next. Even if I do some brainstorming and have a rough idea, I'll still find myself dwelling on that scene and seeing the movie of it in my head as I drift very slowly toward sleep. Quite often, that thinking will lead me off onto all kinds of random tangents, and eventually I'll get to sleep.

I'm not sure there's a resolution to the issue. Even if I got up and wrote the scene that was coming to me, I'd be left with not knowing what happens next, which would set the whole thing off again. Even if I know what happens next, in great detail, I'll find myself reliving the scene until I write it. Even after I write it, if it's not quite right, I'll worry over it until I figure out how to fix it.

It did seem to help to switch gears and read my epic reference book before I went to bed, so it only took about an hour for me to fall asleep last night. I hope I've got the next scene figured out. I guess I'll find out when I get there. After I fix the things I realized were wrong in the scene I just wrote. Though I don't think the polar bear actually has anything to do with it (just a strange dream that came from a weird chain of thought tangents. And no, it had nothing to do with Lost.).

In other news, I continue to be baffled at what passes for publicity and marketing in the book world. I've already commented at length on the silliness of the Borders "hand selling" initiative, in which booksellers are forced to push particular books on all customers, regardless of the customers' interests. I still do most of my book buying at Borders, and I'm in their loyalty program, since you don't have to pay to join and they give good coupons. But that means I'm also on their e-mail list, and while that's very targeted marketing, which is good because they can notify me of new books by authors whose books I've bought previously, there's a certain amount of tone deafness in the way they do it. I'm not sure I'd go so far as to call it a "blunder." Maybe it's more of a "gaffe."

I got an e-mail proclaiming "A new release you'll love by (author whose previous book I bought)." Except, although I bought that author's previous book, I didn't actually like it all that much. I'd heard about it and thought I might like it, but ultimately I was disappointed in it and had decided I didn't want the next one. I'm hearing that the new book is better, but I may wait to see if the library gets it. I'm certainly not rushing out in release week to buy it. Borders telling me I'd love it got my hackles up. It struck me as presumptuous -- I guess about as presumptuous as their employees sticking books in my hands and telling me I'll love them.

Amazon does a similar thing, but they strike a better tone without presuming what I'll think or feel about something. They go more along the lines of "as someone who has purchased (or browsed) this item, you may be interested in this new release." They leave it up to me to decide if I'll love it. It's especially important for them to be careful about this because they do include browsing and searching, and I use Amazon as a reference, so I look up all kinds of things that I'd never be interested in buying.

Having worked in marketing, I bet I know how Borders could have implemented something like this without it occurring to anyone that it might rub people the wrong way. In brainstorming sessions, there's a rule that you aren't allowed to criticize any idea that's thrown out there, which is good because you don't want to stifle creativity at that point. But once you take the brainstorming output and put it into real planning, you need a realist, and there's something about the culture of marketing firms where realists aren't valued. I don't know if it's the self-esteem culture that makes it seem like anyone who criticizes something isn't contributing to the team or just an overall cheerleading, team-building corporate environment, but the person who can find the possible pitfalls, play devil's advocate or insert reality into the proceedings gets labeled "negative" and will even be criticized for this in performance reviews. Never mind that the person turns out to be right and the customers point out the same things, it's still seen as negative and not team-spirited to criticize or find flaws. It should be better for someone inside the team to find those flaws so they can be corrected than to have customers complaining (or blogging) about them, but that doesn't matter when it comes to reviews that affect promotions or raises. So the realist in the group, if there is one, learns to keep his/her mouth shut and not say in the meeting, "But what if the customer didn't like the previous book she bought by that author? How can we guarantee she'll love the next one?"

Usually, focus groups catch this kind of thing, but the book/publishing industry seems to still be operating on instinct. And then they wonder why sales are down and why they're having trouble competing in the current entertainment realm.

But hey, at least I'm not working in a marketing firm anymore.

Publicity Tactics

When I made my last writing post about planning your publicity efforts, I got some questions about what kind of things a writer might do about publicity. So, this week I'll talk about some of the things I've done, with some tips on how to make them work. Remember that everyone's different, so what works for me may not work for other writers who write different kinds of things or who have a different personality. The other thing to remember is that it's almost impossible to know which publicity tactics actually work. You may hear from someone who lets you know how they learned about your book, but you can't know if that's the only person who bought the book because of that or if there are dozens you never heard from who found it a different way. In general, publicity is all about making something familiar enough that it sticks in the brain. Supposedly, it takes at least three exposures to something before a person remembers it, and this is all about creating that exposure. Ideally, it would make someone so excited that they'll go straight to a bookstore or online bookseller and buy the book, but realistically, it's more about making your book vaguely familiar, so that when someone is in a bookstore your book jumps out and catches the eye.

Depending on the publisher, you may have an in-house publicist who does stuff like send out review copies and set up booksignings. Unless you've got a lead title or are already a bestseller, that's about all you'll get, and you're expected to do some promotional work on your own. The bad news is that the kinds of things you can do on your own won't sell the number of books it would take to make you a bestseller, but the good news is that at the print run of a midlist author these days, even the small amount of sales you can influence will make a noticeable impact on your sales numbers.

Here are a few publicity tactics:

1) A Web site -- This is fairly essential because if you don't exist on the web, you risk looking invisible. Some unpublished writers like to get a site up with some information about themselves in case editors or agents do a search after looking at a submission, but this isn't essential. If you do put up a site before you're published, make sure it's something that wouldn't freak out a prospective editor or agent. It's a good idea to go ahead and secure the domain name that goes with the name you plan to write under, whether or not you actually build the site at this time.

When you do have a book coming out, try to have more to your web site than just the information you could find if you had the book -- the author bio and back cover copy. My experience and research has found that, aside from media, most people who seek out an author's web site have already read the book. They're looking for more information. You need information to help sell the book, but then you should try to have something extra to keep readers engaged, as well as information on the next book.

2) A blog -- This is one of those things that doesn't work for everyone. It really depends on how much you can keep up with it and whether it fits your personality. A blog can help build a community around you and your work and keep your readers informed and engaged between books, but if you're too sporadic about posting or if your posts don't give a reason to keep reading, you may see people fade away. The tone of your blog should be similar to the tone of your books because this can serve as a writing sample. It doesn't have to be identical, but it shouldn't give readers whiplash. There was an author whose blog I started reading before her first book was published, and it was so funny I was usually shaking with laughter and had tears running down my face. Then her books turned out to be serious literary works about death, suffering and injustice, and I was so disappointed. You can incorporate your blog into your web site or do it through a social networking community like LiveJournal, Facebook or MySpace. The up side of the social networking approach is that the network can allow you to build a readership before anyone would know who you are to seek out a web site blog.

3) Bookmarks -- I honestly don't know how effective these are for selling books, but I find them convenient for telling people about my books. When I meet someone, the "what do you do?" question tends to come up, and then when I say I'm a writer, the next question is "what do you write?" so it's handy to have something to give them, and you can fit more info on a bookmark than on a business card. They're also handy to have as giveaways at booksignings or to put on swag tables at conventions. I occasionally send packets of them to writing conferences to put in goody bags or to booksellers who request promo material. I put info about the whole series on my bookmarks, so they serve as a convenient reference for keeping track of the series books. I don't know if any of this has resulted in sales or if anyone actually looks at the bookmarks in conference goody bags, but I figure it falls into the category of exposure and familiarity. (If you've discovered my series due to a bookmark, I'd love to hear about it.)

4) Booksignings -- Booksignings are one of those things aspiring authors often fantasize about because they're a sure sign that you've actually made it -- you're there in a store with your book. The reality can be less exciting, especially for a first book when it's just your friends and family there. But even if no one shows up, there can be benefits to doing signings. For one thing, they order more copies of your book than they otherwise would, and they're often displayed prominently before and after the signing, so you're briefly getting the kind of store placement the big names get. At one signing I did, the store manager told me the number of copies that sold from the display before the signing, and it was more than the store would have had in stock if there hadn't been a signing, so I was ahead of the game before I even got to the store. Unfortunately, you can't stack the deck by arranging signings at absolutely every store.

5) Stock signings -- While you can't do booksignings at every store, you can visit stores and sign the stock they have on hand. I've heard of authors who call the stores ahead of time and arrange a visit, but I'm a big weenie about the telephone, so generally what I do is go to the store, find my books on the shelves, bring a few copies to the information desk, tell them I'm the author and ask if they'd like me to sign their stock. Then I sign them, stick in my bookmarks, and the store usually has an "autographed copy" sticker for the cover. This allows me to meet the staff of the store and bring my book to their attention. There have been times when my books weren't displayed up front on the new releases table, but once they're stickered and autographed, the staff puts them there. I've also heard from booksellers who went on to read the book once I brought it to their attention, so they became fans and then began handselling and recommending the books. I've also heard from people who saw me in the store, got curious and ended up buying books. The big chains have a handy search function on their web sites that allow you to see if your books are in stock before you go there, so you can save yourself some time. I do this locally with as many stores as I can hit around the release time, and then when I go out of town, I try to hit as many stores there as possible.

6) Conventions and conferences -- if you've got good people skills, these are a great way to build a following, depending on your genre. There are a lot of science fiction/fantasy conventions. In the romance world, it seems to focus more on writing, but there are a few fan-focused events. There are also mystery conventions. You can e-mail the programming director at a convention you want to attend with your credentials and you may get some programming slots. Make sure you meet the booksellers in the dealers' room, while you're at it.

7) Blog tours and other online outreach -- Most print publications have pulled back their book coverage to next to nothing, and if you write genre fiction or are published in paperback, you're likely to be ignored. The book review and coverage world has moved online, and there are tons of general and genre-specific book blogs. Then there are fan-oriented blogs, author blogs and topic-specific blogs. That gives you a lot of potential venues for visibility. There are formal blog circles, where the members of the group promote each others' books in a "tour" or you can approach individual bloggers about interviews, reviews or guest blogs. This can be very time consuming, but it can pay off. If you're lining this up yourself, be sure you're familiar with the blog, the blogger, the usual content and the blogger's likes/dislikes instead of making a random approach based on a Google search. It helps to be a regular reader who has made appropriate non-promotional comments in the past. Then you're part of the community instead of a publicity hound.

8) Traditional media -- see above about limited book coverage. Your chances increase with smaller venues. A major metropolitan daily newspaper or major market TV station is less likely to feature a local author without another news hook, but a suburban or small-town paper may make you the lead story. This is another case where it helps to follow the publication to see who writes the kinds of stories you might fit into. I did get featured in the major metro daily around here -- on the third book, when I'd been tracking that writer for years and knew how to approach her based on what she tended to write about.

A lot of authors love contests, but I haven't seen much benefit from them. I don't really use my mailing list because I'm paranoid about looking like a spammer, so that means I don't have much use for the addresses I collect when doing a contest. I've never made a book trailer or video, so I don't know how effective that might be. I never watch other authors' trailers, so I tend to suspect they don't do a lot of good. I haven't done a lot of advertising, but have considered looking into an online ad campaign in the future. This all goes back to what I said in my last writing post, that you need to think when planning and do something because you have a good sense that it will reach your target audience, not just because everyone's doing it or because it would be cool.

Thinking About Publicity

I made lots of writing progress yesterday, though I think I still need to tinker with the scenes. Odd things that I didn't plan keep happening, which is good, but it's making me feel a little out of control. Today will likely be a less productive day, as I have to go grocery shopping and have choir practice, but since I'm in the middle of a scene I've more or less written in my head, I may still be able to churn out some words. Meanwhile, the combination of vine pulling, watermelon hauling and a particularly tough ballet class means I'm moving more or less like Frankenstein today.

Today's writing topic came out of a recent convention panel I moderated. As usual, I came up with my best points in the days after the convention, so I thought I'd share them this way. The topic is self-promotion and publicity, and it's something that affects both published writers and writers who hope to become published (I refuse to use the term "pre-published" except in cases where a book has been contracted but it's not yet in print. If you think "unpublished" sounds too negative and doesn't fit in with your The Secret affirmations, use the term "aspiring."). In fact, writers who hope to become published can lay a lot of groundwork that can really help them when they do get a book out there.

The number one thing to do before you start doing any kind of promotion or publicity activity is THINK. Don't just rush out there and do all the promotional activities you see other authors doing. What works for one author may not work for another, and what those other authors are doing may not even be effective for them. They may be doing those things just because they've seen other authors do them. The most important part of any publicity campaign is the planning. Good planning ensures that you're making the most of your resources and hitting the targets you want to hit.

First, think about who is most likely to want to read the kind of book you've written or plan to write. What are these people like? Are they male, female, or a good mix of both? How old are they? What kind of jobs would they have? Where do they live? What else might they enjoy -- other books/authors, TV shows, movies, etc.? Where do they go for information about the things they enjoy? What are their favorite web sites? How do they learn about books? Where/how do they buy their books?

If you were working on a multi-million dollar account at a major public relations or advertising firm, you'd probably commission expensive research to get the answers to these questions. Unless you're independently wealthy and are writing books for fun, you probably aren't going to be able to afford to get hard data to answer these questions in order to market your book, but you can make some reasonable guesses and assumptions.

To start with, you should probably fit into your target market. If you aren't the kind of person who'd want to read the kind of book you're writing, then why are you writing it? Think about the other things you enjoy, how you get information on those things and where you go to discuss those things. Think about how you find out about books, what influences your book purchases and where you buy books. Before you do a promotional activity, think about how you would react to that sort of thing if another author did it. Would it make you curious about the book? Would it influence your purchase decisions? Or would it annoy you and turn you off?

You can also do informal research among your friends or the members of the communities you belong to. Those people are also likely to be in your target market, if they enjoy the same kinds of things you do. Talk to these people or conduct an informal poll. Eventually you'll want to move beyond this initial cluster of people, but it's good to have a core group to focus on when you're getting started. Under that 80/20 rule, these are the 20 percent of the market that you should focus 80 percent of your efforts on.

This step alone may eliminate a lot of potential publicity activities, saving you a lot of time and money. If you find out that these people never pay attention to book ads in genre magazines, then save your money. If you learn that they don't care about entering contests to win stuff from authors or hate getting e-mail newsletters from authors, then that's something to consider.

It may also give you ideas about places where you could go to spread your message, and that's something you can start before you sell a book. You can join communities of people who share your interests and begin participating as a member. You can comment on blogs or message boards that discuss the kind of books you write. If you do this just as an ordinary person who's not selling anything, that builds you some trust for when you do want to mention that, by the way, you've got a book out there (you have to be very careful not to come across as an obnoxious self-promoter when you do this). Those same places may be good spots for ads when you have a book coming out.

Meanwhile, you should also be thinking about what you want to say to your target audiences. What is your author brand? In other words, what do you want people to think about when they think about you and your books? Are your books dark and mysterious, funny and quirky, hot and sexy, spooky, twisted, romantic, etc.? You'll want to convey that in your promotional activities. If you write dark and mysterious, you probably don't want to put cute cartoons or kitten pictures all over your web site, for example. You don't have to take this all the way -- slinking around conventions in sexy clothes if you write sexy books -- but some authors do take it pretty far, creating a public persona that goes with their writing. It's up to you and your comfort level with that kind of thing. Your author persona probably has a lot to do with the way you naturally are or, again, why are you writing something that's so unlike you, unless it's a facet of your personality that you usually keep hidden. It is, however, a good idea for most of your marketing communication to reinforce your "brand" in some way. For instance, I'm known for quirky humor in my books, so I try to use a bit of quirky humor in my blog posts and in my public persona. My branding statement is "Fairy Tales for Modern Times," which sums up the kinds of things I write, and the logo I use on my web site, bookmarks and other items captures this brand as well as a bit of the quirkiness.

But the number one message in all of this is to really think before you do something. Think about how it will reach and affect the people you want to reach, and then think about the message you're sending.

I noticed that the sf/fantasy/horror blog on the Publishers Weekly web site has been asking for names of urban fantasy authors who might be good interview subjects, and my name hasn't come up once, so it looks like there's a target market out there that I haven't reached at all. I suppose I need to think about that.

Even More Convention Advice

First, a couple of additions to yesterday's "how to be a good con guest" post:

Rule #9: Don't introduce yourself or start off talking on a panel by saying that you don't know why you're on that panel.
If you don't know why you're on a panel, the time to ask is as soon as you get your schedule from the convention (usually at least a couple of weeks in advance), and the person to ask is the person who's in charge of programming. You never know, there could be a method to their madness. They may want you to give the outsider viewpoint, be the voice of dissent or provide a different perspective. Someone else on the panel may have listed you among the people they want to be on panels with, and this is the only panel where your schedules line up, or this could be the only place they could put you on a panel with someone you said you wanted to be with. If you don't want to be on a panel you've been assigned, if you're uncomfortable with the subject matter or just think you don't know enough to be a decent panelist, it's okay to turn down the panel. But do this as soon as you get your schedule so the convention has time to find someone else to take your place and maybe even find something else for you to do. It's better for everyone that you don't do a panel you have no interest in because it keeps you from looking uninformed and it means the audience will get an interesting panel made up of knowledgeable speakers. That face time will not significantly make or break you, and doing a panel you aren't really suited for may do more harm than good. Besides, if you have no interest in that subject, there's a good chance that the target audience for what you write will have little interest in that subject and won't even be at that panel. If you still decide to do the panel, then for goodness sake, don't say you don't know why you're on the panel. You can be a good listener, you can smile and nod and you can even ask the other panelists questions. The moment you say you don't know why you're on a panel, you totally destroy your credibility. Why should the audience even listen to you?

To prove that I practice what I preach, I turned down a panel at Worldcon, where panel slots can be hard to come by, because I knew I'd have nothing to contribute to that panel. When it comes to programming, quality is far more important than quantity. It's better to be on one really good panel where you have something to contribute and can sound witty and intelligent than to be on a bunch of panels where you don't really have anything to say.

Corollary to Rule #9: Don't do the "I don't know why I'm on this panel" thing as a form of false modesty or a joke -- as if you're really saying there should be no doubt why you're on the panel because obviously everyone knows you're the expert on the subject. If the audience knows who you are well enough to understand why you do, in fact, belong on the panel, the joke is unnecessary, and if they don't, then it falls flat and they wonder why you didn't just tell the programming people you didn't belong on the panel. Or you look insecure, like you're fishing for compliments (as though the rest of the panelists are supposed to hurry to tell you that of course they couldn't have this panel without you). About the only time when pretending you don't know why you're on a panel might be funny would be if the panel was specifically about your work or about something you're widely known to be involved in (like if it's a panel about a TV series you write for or were otherwise involved with).

This next is probably not so much a rule as it is a tip. Because they have not yet invented the Auto-Con 9000 robot to run conventions, they are still run by human beings who are fallible. It's a good idea to check the schedule sent to you against the schedule in the program posted at the con's web site to make sure they match, and then let the con know if something doesn't match. That will decrease your chances of entirely missing a panel you were supposed to be on that wasn't on your schedule or of feeling silly when you show up for a panel your schedule says you're on that doesn't list you in the program.

Other tips:
Take time to fill out the programming questionnaire thoroughly, and let the con staff know about any scheduling limitations you have as soon as you're aware of them.

If you're in a group reading, try to treat it like a panel and arrive before it starts and stay to the end rather than coming or going while someone else is reading.

Once you get to be a bigger name, be aware that the size (and maybe enthusiasm) of your fanbase means that they may be infringing on others. You aren't necessarily responsible for the behavior of your fans, but if you notice that their efforts to follow you are being detrimental to other guests, it's nice to say something about it to encourage them to behave otherwise. That includes coming and going during readings, behavior during readings when you aren't the one reading, blocking access to other authors during autograph sessions and mobbing the table after a panel discussion so the next panel can't get started on time.

Finally, be aware that if I notice bad author behavior, there's a good chance I'll have more material to post ...

And now I must get groceries before getting down to work.

How to Be a Good Con Guest

This is something of a follow-up to my "promoting yourself without being a jerk" post from last week, but getting a little more specific about conventions. If you write science fiction, fantasy, anything paranormal or even mystery, attending conventions is a fun way to promote yourself. By definition, people who go to conventions to talk about things they're into are people who talk about things they're into, which means they're the best people for spreading word of mouth. They're in contact with other fans, whether in the real world or online, and they're often "early adopters" who like to be among the first to discover something, so if they discover something great, they'll want to make sure everyone knows what they've discovered. Conventions give you a chance to discuss your work in formal settings like panels and readings and in informal settings like the con suite and parties. People who like you may be inclined to pick up your books, but there are also pitfalls if you don't handle yourself the right way at a convention, and negatives spread far more quickly than positives on the fandom grapevine.

So, here's a quick guide, purely from my own perspective, of how you can be the kind of convention guest who doesn't annoy people. This isn't the final word, just one opinion. And while I usually will say this isn't directed at anyone who might be reading this because I don't want to hurt anyone's feelings, I suspect that the people who most need to hear it don't think it applies to them, so let's just say that if you're absolutely sure this doesn't apply to you, that probably means it does (the ones it doesn't apply to are probably stressing over whether they might have ever done one of these things, even if they haven't -- and it's that kind of thinking that makes them good guests).

1) Don't be a panel hog.
I think this is rule number one and needs to be embroidered on throw pillows. Panels are like show business -- leave 'em wanting more. If the audience is intrigued by the things you said in a panel but wish you had said more, they will find you later in the lobby, bar, con suite or at a party to talk to you some more about the topic. If you hog the panel and go on and on and on, particularly if you keep the person the audience most wanted to hear from getting a word in edgewise, they'll be sick of you. Yeah, you'll have made them remember who you are, but probably not in a good way that will result in book sales. In general, each panelist should get approximately the same amount of time, but not all panelists are created equal. The more prominent panelists who are the ones the audience most likely is there to hear (bestsellers, award winners, the guest of honor, etc.) should probably get more of a chance to talk (that doesn't mean that if they're not chatty they should be forced to speak, but it does mean that the other panelists should allow them to get a word in edgewise and shouldn't butt in when audience members ask that person a direct question).

Corollary One to this rule: It's always safest to assume that you are the least prominent/important person on the panel (unless maybe you're a multiple Hugo winner, national bestseller, a Grand Master or the convention's guest of honor). Just because you haven't heard of the person, it doesn't mean that he/she doesn't have a room full of fans ready to hang on his/her every word. Even if you are more prominent, it's far better to have the audience directing questions to you because they want to hear more from you than to have the audience rolling their eyes and wishing you'd get over yourself.

Corollary Two to this rule: If you think you're the most prominent person on the panel, you probably aren't. I don't think I've ever seen someone who deserved to hog a panel or who could get away with hogging a panel actually do so. The panel hogs are almost always first-time authors, people who've had a few e-books published or people who've sold a few short stories and who think that makes them special.

In reality, panel dynamics will vary. It's up to the moderator to make sure everyone gets a chance to speak, but there will be quiet people who have little to say and people who are on a panel about their absolute favorite thing who have more to say and who are capable of being interesting while doing so. Just don't interrupt other people, don't jump in on someone else's question or turn talking until they're done, no matter how important whatever you have to say may be, and stop talking when the moderator jumps in with something to the effect of "I'd like to hear what this other person has to say about this." That's the panel equivalent of the Oscar ceremony orchestra raising the volume and it means that it's time to shut up.

2) On a panel, introduce yourself as briefly as possible while still giving the audience enough context to know who you are and why they should care what you have to say.
This goes back to that Swedish belief that the person who has to brag probably isn't any good. The more you say about yourself in an introduction, the more it looks like you're a nobody who has to give a detailed introduction before anyone will know who you are. Larry Niven can get away with introducing himself on a panel as "I'm Larry," and most of us can't do that. But reciting your entire bio with every accolade you've ever received only makes you look like you're either very pleased with yourself or very insecure. Leave that in your bio in the program book, and if people are interested in it, they'll find it. I generally stick with saying what I'm most known for, my latest book and, if applicable, any particular reason that I might be on that panel.

3) You have to share space as well as time on panels or multi-author readings.
It's pretty common to put a couple of books or book covers on the table in front of you so that people can see what you write. Just remember that each person on the panel should get a similar amount of space. Clipping your book cover posters all over the table, building a fortress of books around you on the table or having a mile-high stack of books that partially obscures the person sitting next to you or keeps that person from being able to show a book even spine-out is greedy and selfish. I've heard different schools of thought as to whether or not it's bad to stand the books upright. On the one hand, there are those who say it creates a barrier and on the other there are those who say it's pointless to have the books out without showing the cover. I'd say just don't hide behind the books or infringe on other people's space. If people can't see your face, lay the books down, and limit it to your most recent or maybe the one you're most famous for instead of a copy of every single thing in print that has your name in it.

4) If you're doing a reading, prepare for it.
Very few cons do single-author readings these days, except for the big names, but your schedule sent to you as a guest may not tell you who you're sharing your reading with. Always check before the con on the posted schedule to see who else is in your reading slot. Subtract about five to ten minutes from the overall time in the slot, divide that time by the number of people who are reading, then prepare something to read that fits into that amount of time. Print it out, mark it or otherwise do something to make it easy for you to find right away. Don't get to the reading and then leaf through your book to find your selection or spend part of your reading time playing "I know it's in here somewhere" on your laptop or PDA. Don't take more than your share of time so that someone else gets cut off or cut out.

5) Talk to people.
This one is hard to put into a hard-and-fast rule because personalities and convention dynamics do vary, but you're not going to get a lot of promotional value out of your attendance at a convention if you hide in your hotel room the whole time when you're not on panels or only associate with your friends. The whole idea is to meet people. However, the more time you spend on the convention circuit, the blurrier the line between "hanging out with your friends" and "mingling with the fans" becomes. You may also find yourself in particular comfort (or even safety) situations where you need a buffer zone of trusted friends because someone of the opposite sex has mistaken your general guest author friendliness for romantic interest or because you've picked up a stalker who thinks you are the ticket to his future publishing success and who wants to tell you in excruciating detail about his 1,000 page fantasy epic so you can recommend it to your editor or agent. I probably cling more to my friends than I used to because I've made more friends among the regional con crowd and this is my chance to catch up with them and because I do quite often pick up the unwelcome romantic interest and having friends around allows me to be distantly friendly without landing in an uncomfortable one-on-one situation. Whether you're doing so alone or with a few trusted friends, try to spend at least some time at every con in the con suite or lobby and try to make the rounds of the room parties. It's fine to network with other authors or publishing professionals, and one of the perks of being an author guest is the chance to hang out with bigger names as a professional peer, but try not to get too cliquish or snooty about it, like you're too good to associate with the nobodies. You still need to be available to the fans. On the flip side, it is okay to take time out occasionally to recharge, so if you're a raging introvert and need an hour of alone time so you can be at your best for socializing at evening parties, you should probably give yourself that time.

6) Have something to hand out and put on the freebie table.
Even if someone is blown away by your wit and intelligence, they may have trouble remembering which person of interest you were in the blur of a convention. It's good to have something to leave with people you meet. The old stand-by of a bookmark listing your books works, as do fliers and postcards. If you want something fancier, you can do other giveaways like pens, keychains, coasters, etc. So far, I've just gone with bookmarks. I can leave them on the freebie table for people to pick up and I can hand them out like business cards if someone I'm talking to asks what I write.

7) Remember that your appearance is part of your "brand" as an author, whether or not you put any thought into it (so you may as well put some thought into it).
You don't have to go for the full-on professional attire at a convention, but you do need to be aware that your appearance will leave an impression on people. I think what's appropriate varies depending on the nature of the con, the people who are attending and the specific event. You might not want to wear your Klingon costume or your elaborate fairy outfit when you're on a panel -- especially if that panel includes an editor you'd like to have think of you as a professional -- but you'd probably score points with some of the fans if you participated in a masquerade or costume contest. Most authors don't wear costumes for panels or programming, unless the costumes are related to or part of the programming. There aren't really any fashion rules (beyond public decency laws) for conventions, so costume-like elements often make their way into non-costume attire, and some authors wear things at conventions that they might not wear in their ordinary lives. I think it's probably going to leave a better impression if you're not too obviously "HEY! LOOK AT ME!" when participating in programming -- the visual equivalent of avoiding being a panel hog. Meanwhile, you probably don't want to come to a panel looking like you spent all night in the gaming room (even if you did). Personal hygiene is your friend.

8) Stick to the schedule.
This should go without saying, but apparently it doesn't. If you have been scheduled for something at the convention, you need to be there. If something comes up that will keep you from being there, let the convention staff know as soon as possible. It's also probably a good idea to let your panel moderator know directly if you're not going to make a panel so the panel won't be sitting around waiting for you to show up before they start. Stick to your appointed time so you don't run over into anyone else's time. That includes autograph sessions, and that includes set-up and tear-down time if you do an elaborate display for an autographing. The next person on the schedule should be able to sit down and start signing at the very beginning of his/her signing time, which means your stuff needs to be cleared out by then. Failing to follow this rule is rude to not only the next author, but also to that author's fans, who may be waiting for the start of that autograph session. And, let's face it, unless you're the big-name guest of honor who has a long line, you're probably not going to stay busy the whole hour, and anyone who's going to come see you will likely have done so by the time you reach the 50-minute mark.