Writers in the Storm

Penny C. Sansevieri

If you’re an author who just wants to write, you’re not alone. I talk to authors every day who hate the idea of marketing and are not even sure where to begin. I definitely can understand. Marketing is always changing, and it isn’t easy, especially if you still have a full time job and want to focus on writing your next book. However, if you don’t market your existing title(s), no one will ever know what you have written.

Realistically, you can’t just upload your book to Amazon and expect the sales to roll in. That’s not a marketing plan. And, contrary to what your mom, family and friends may think, or perhaps what you’ve been told in your writers group: your book is not the field of dreams. Remember – “If you build it, they will come?” That’s simply not the case with books. The mere act of publishing one won’t bring droves of people beating a path to your door. So, what can you actually do to drive sales? Fortunately for you, it’s deceptively simple! Probably simpler than you thought.

Here are four easy things you can do to give your book it’s best possible start:

1. Start building your fan base

Fans, and Super Fans in particular, will really help you to market your book. Start engaging with people who already like your book; they often help drive sales. Just think for a moment how awesome that is. So how do you build this fan base? One thing I am always saying is that every author should include a letter in the back of every book. Craft something engaging and inviting; you want to encourage readers to contact you. A loyal base is worth its weight in gold, and if you really want to spend as little time as possible marketing your book(s), then it’s critical to invest in the fans that find you organically. If you want to dig into this further, I wrote a more in depth article -- “How to Turn A Freebie Lover into a Super Fan.”

2. Pitch Reviewers

Pitching reviewers can seem tedious, I know. But, if you can commit to pitching five bloggers each week, it will add up fast! I think the biggest thing here is to be consistent. You should always be pitching your book to bloggers, readers, Amazon reviewers, etc. Not sure how to find them.

Check out these links for bloggers you can pitch:

• http://bookblogdirectory.com/
• https://bookbloggerdirectory.wordpress.com/

3. Start Building UP Your Amazon Visibility

On my own blog, I talk about optimizing your presence on Amazon a lot. In fact, I’m such a fan of this that I wrote a book about it. Why? Because, it works! Amazon can really help you market your book, but to make the most of it, your keyword strings and categories must be on point. Replace all of your single keywords with actual keyword strings. If you want to dig deeper here, I have more articles on how you can find keywords.

4. Post on Your Blog & Social Media

Unless you got your start by writing a blog, this is a turn off for most authors. Many of you have already started writing your next book or at least have an idea of it in your head. So you’re concerned that blogging and spending time on social media it will take away from your writing time.

Maybe a little, but don’t overthink this. Blog posts don’t have to be long, and in fact some of the best posts aren’t. But they should be interesting, insightful, even funny if being humorous is your thing. How often do I want you to blog? Once a week or so, which is manageable, right?.

And, in terms of social media, keep in mind that it’s not about being everywhere, but everywhere that matters. If you only have time for one site, then do just one site. Post one piece of content a day, that’s it. It literally takes less than 5 minutes, and it’s free. So spend those five minutes every day engaging with your fans and networking.

Whether you choose all of these things, or even just choose one, be consistent. One blog post every once in a while, one social media update, or one pitch to a blogger will not move the needle but done consistently this will have an effect on your success. All of these things are easy to work into a schedule and some (like the Amazon keywords) only have to be done once, or a couple times a year if you’re in a popular genre. If you wrote a book, you owe it to yourself and your book to do even a few small things to get the word out.

Whatever you do, don’t just throw up your hands and walk away. I see it a lot, but know that your book has so much potential.

When I was first in business I hated a lot about what I was required to do. Taxes and accounting are a great example of that. I did this myself for a while and it wasn’t pretty but I did it and it got me through. When I finally had the means to I outsourced this. I’m glad I didn’t walk away from my business just because I sort of suck at math. Why am I telling you this story? Well, to emphasize the fact that we all have pieces we hate to do but if this journey and your book are important to you, you’ll make time to do them or learn how.

You only fail if you fail to try!

Okay, Writers in the Storm readers, what non-marketing tips do you have to share with us?

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About Penny

Penny C. Sansevieri, CEO and founder of Author Marketing Experts, Inc., is a best-selling author and internationally recognized book marketing and media relations expert and an Adjunct Professor with NYU. Her company is one of the leaders in the publishing industry and has developed some of the most cutting-edge book marketing campaigns. She is the author of fourteen books, including How to Sell Books by the Truckload. AME is the first marketing and publicity firm to use Internet promotion to its full impact through online promotion and their signature program called: The Virtual Author Tour™

To learn more about Penny’s books or her promotional services, you can visit her web site at http://www.amarketingexpert.com. To subscribe to her free newsletter, send a blank email to: mailto:subscribe@amarketingexpert.com

Copyright @2016 Penny C. Sansevieri

Top photo credit: JaneB13 - Pixabay

Autumn always makes me thankful. Maybe it's because of Thanksgiving. Maybe it's because of a memory of a remote cabin in the middle exploding fall colors. Maybe it's the  reminder that I have more to be thankful for than most. I'm thankful for books. Because one saved my life.

When people ask me why I began writing, I lie. I tell them that I had an idea that wouldn’t let me go. And that’s true, as far as it goes. But the reason it wouldn’t let me go is the real story. See, I write about my own demons. I think on some level, we all do, don’t we?

I’m not going to bore you with all the backstory, but suffice it to say that my decisions ended me at nineteen, with a guy I’d known a total of ten days before I said ‘I do’, living in a log cabin in the Back of Beyond, Michigan.  We had one car, which he took to work each day. I wasn’t allowed to work; a woman's job was in the home. The mailbox was a mile walk away, and town was ten. We didn’t have a phone.

There were other cabins within a mile of ours, but they were summer homes; there were no neighbors in autumn. We had electricity, but no money for propane. No worries.  We cut wood to keep us warm for the coming winter. But no propane meant no gas for the stove, range, or washer and dryer. So I learned to cook everything in an electric Dutch oven. I washed our filthy blue jeans with a floor brush on the boards of the porch.

Don’t get me wrong, it was beautiful. The cabin was beside a river, and the trees were bursting with color. I fished, and picked wild huckleberries for pies. Fires at night were warm and romantic.

But then he started hitting me.

I thought it was my fault. After all, I knew almost nothing domestic. He even had to teach me to cook.  I made mistakes, I screwed up. I learned as fast as I could, trying to make him happy, and proud. It didn’t work. He still got mad. No, furious. And I’d end up with bruises. But he was so sorry afterward that I believed him, that it wouldn’t happen again. I believed it because he believed it.

But as time went on, and I got better at that life, he didn’t change. The home I grew up in was falling apart, and I didn’t want to admit I’d made a mistake, so I never told them. I had nothing to do all day but clean and think. Believe me; you could have eaten off any surface in that cabin. But my thoughts just cycled in an endless loop.

Most of the time, things were fine. I was even happy. The anger wasn’t always there. But the potential always was, hanging like static electricity in the air. I stayed alert, always. I lost weight.

The highlight of my week was going to town on the weekend to do laundry, because I could go to the library. I was always a reader, and now it sustained me – I could go away in my mind. They'd only allow me to check out seven books at a time, so I’d choose the heftiest tomes I could find, so I’d have lots to read during the week.

That’s how I came upon Ayn Rand. Atlas Shrugged gave me the answer that I had missed, in all those hours of thinking. It never occurred to me that I was the answer.  It was a beginning.

People who know me now can’t picture me in this past. That’s because that naïve powerless girl wasn’t me. The more years I live, the more I uncover who ‘me’ is.

I never forgot the power that book opened in me.

That’s the real reason I started writing. If something in one of my stories gives one person a glimmer of an answer they seek, I’ll have paid forward what Ayn Rand gave me, all those years ago.

Your turn, WITS readers. What book has touched your life? Will you share it with us?

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About Laura

Laura Drake is a city girl who never grew out of her tomboy ways, or a serious cowboy crush. She writes both Women's Fiction and Romance.

She sold her Sweet on a Cowboy series, romances set in the world of professional bull riding, to Grand Central. The Sweet Spot won the 2014 Romance Writers of America^®   RITA^® award in the Best First Book category.

She also published a four book, small town series to Harlequin's Superromance line.

Laura’s first women’s fiction, Days Made of Glass, released January, 2016.

In 2014, Laura realized a lifelong dream of becoming a Texan and is currently working on her accent. She gave up the corporate CFO gig to write full time. She's a wife, grandmother, and motorcycle chick in the remaining waking hours.

First, I am not crazy. Well, not that way.

I've finished four manuscripts; all have finaled or won in several contests. I've sent out a dozen queries, maybe more, thanks to Laura Drake. The two books I thought were most salable, have been requested and sent to a handful of agents and editors in New York.

In June, I woke up one morning and asked, "What are you waiting for?" Just like that, I boarded the self-publishing train, taking the first steps necessary to set myself up for success.

• I contacted a freelance editor who I met at RWA San Antonio two years ago. While I listened to Tiffany Yates Martin's presentation at that conference I thought, "If I ever get a chance to work with this woman, I'm grabbing it." I sent her eight pages from the middle of the book I decided would be a good "starter." This gave her a chance to see if she wanted to work with me, and the edits she sent back were my opportunity to see if I wanted to work with her. I called Laura Drake and read some of Tiffany's comments. Laura's response: "She's got your number in just eight pages!" Needless to say, I signed a contract with Tiffany. Best move ever!
• Now that I had my money on the line, I jumped all in. Those of you who know me, know that when I commit to something, I am laser-focused. I knew I needed to make time for this new "job," but how could I guarantee my usual daily activities wouldn't be the time sumps they could become? This may be extreme for some of you, but I disconnected my cable TV. I returned the box to the company. (Don't gasp for air. I'd been threatening to do this every time their rates went up.) I gave away my not-smart TV.
• Electronic games can suck down the better part of the evening if I get hooked in. I put my shiny games in a folder and tucked it deep in my hard drive. There are no games on my lap top. I left only one game, my favorite, on my phone. Since my phone is not my device of choice, I knew I wouldn't play more than fifteen minutes at a time.

I began cutting words from the book I was sending to Tiffany, due August 1, leisurely cutting and working a couple of hours a day. When Laura came home with me from RWA San Diego, I mentioned that I wasn't sure if I'd get through the manuscript in time. Here's what has turned out to be the most important step for me.

• Look at the full body of work you have to complete. Count the number of days you have to complete it. Do the math to figure out what must be done every day. In your calculations, give yourself a day or two off for emergencies.I subtracted ten percent of the days until my due date and used that as my "number of days." Here's my calculation: I had 22 calendar days, but I subtracted three for emergencies and day off, so I had 19 work days. 380 pages ÷19= 20 pages per day. Here's the formula: Number of pages ÷ Number of work days= How many pages you must finish per day 
• Keep to the schedule. Yep. Period.
• Work whenever you have a chance. Fifteen minutes six time during the day takes off an hour-and-a-half that night. I worked while I waited for people to arrive at my house. I worked for ten minutes before I left to exercise with the trainer. I'd never sat down to write without at least a one-hour block of time before.

I had to get through twenty pages every day to finish. Luckily, I was only cleaning up verbiage and cutting words (I had nine thousand words to cut!), so I knew I could do it. There were nights I didn't finish until midnight. Sometimes it was two a.m. But I knew if I didn't finish "my allotment," I would have even more to do the next day, and that might roll over, too.  Then I'd have this huge  word boulder chasing me down revision mountain. It only took two consecutive two a.m. mornings to get me to start working throughout the day.

Here's the part where you can nod and say, yep, Fae's a little crazy. During the word-cutting revisions for Keeping Athena, I decided I wanted to do the same thing for PRISM, my YA that was promised to a publisher on, you guessed it, August 1. I recalculated my page count for six less days (now I had to finish twenty-seven pages a day), and finished Keeping Athena a week early. I took a day off. I figured out that I needed to go through seventy-six (!) pages a day to meet my goal for PRISM. Luckily, it was the last book I've finished, so it was in better initial shape. And I had a routine down. All I had to do was cut words to streamline it. Since I had no goal for the number of words to cut, it went faster. Five-and-a-half days later, I sent it to the publisher.

Here's what I learned:

• Your words are not cast in cement. Even when you think they are as good as you can make them, you can improve the flow, the emotional impact, the sensory details—all while cutting "the fluff." Phrases like "He began to run…" become "He ran…" and you've axed two words.
• Save deleted paragraphs and scenes for use in promo material or another book. I had a wonderful beach scene that did little but provide warm fuzzies. Probably a reader would skim it. They won't have that opportunity, because I cut it. But I can resurrect it in another form, so I'm okay with the cut.
• I can do this. Again, I can do this. Maybe because, deep down, I wasn't sure of myself, I didn't consider self-pubbing or query more.
• I enjoy doing this. Who knew that "hard scheduling" my time with friends, having to say no to a few invitations, would provide the satisfaction of achievement that came from sticking to a very tight regimen. I even read a book a week during the twelve weeks. I haven't done that for ages.

Tomorrow I'm starting my first round of edits to the sequel of Keeping Athena. I have three weeks while Tiffany does a second pass through Keeping Athena. Why not get the next book in shape to send her? A secret—yesterday I took the day off from writing. I didn't know what to do with myself; the day was so long. I pulled out the chapter print outs for the next book and put them in order. This one's going to be a lot tougher than the first two. I haven't looked at it for six years, and I'm swapping out the son of the couple in Keeping Athena for Athena's brother, so there will be some re-writing. Bonus: When doing the editorial revisions that Tiffany returned, I got a slam-bang idea for the third book in the series. When I get through all these revisions, I can't wait to start it!

Next month I'll share the writing and editing tips I learned from the first round of editorial revisions Tiffany suggested.

Do you have tips to share about getting ready for a revision marathon? What works best for you?

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About Fae

Fae Rowen discovered the romance genre after years as a science fiction freak.   Writing futuristics and medieval paranormals, she jokes  that she can live anywhere but the present.  As a mathematician, she knows life’s a lot more fun when you get to define your world and its rules.

Punished, oh-no, that’s published as a co-author of a math textbook, she yearns to hear personal stories about finding love from those who read her books, rather than the horrors of calculus lessons gone wrong.  She is grateful for good friends who remind her to do the practical things in life like grocery shop, show up at the airport for a flight and pay bills.

A “hard” scientist who avoided writing classes like the plague, she now shares her brain with characters who demand that their stories be told.  Amazing, gifted critique partners keep her on the straight and narrow. Feedback from readers keeps her fingers on the keyboard.

When she’s not hanging out at Writers in the Storm, you can visit Fae at http://faerowen.com  or www.facebook.com/fae.rowen.

Photo credits: Pixabay