Writers in the Storm

James Preston

 We write to entertain, to share our experience, or because we have a story that simply must be told. But it's not easy. Let's be honest. If you studied piano for the same number of hours you put into your writing you could at least pound out "Jingle Bells" at the company party. Writing fiction is different. It's a solo job. I suppose you could stand up at the party and say, "Listen up, here's the first chapter of my new paranormal romance," but I wouldn't recommend it.

My parents wanted me to be athletic, so I played right field in whatever comes before you're old enough for Little League. After a while my dad said, "Maybe the kid needs glasses." He was right, but the glasses didn't help my fielding. Then it was clarinet. I could make a duck noise. Then piano. After a while the teacher told my parents I needed to find something else.

Meanwhile, I wrote a poem that the local paper published, below the fold, but on the front page. It was about a Christmas tree the day after Christmas when it's out in the alley waiting for the trash man, and it's told from the POV of the tree. Hey, I was twelve, getting an early start on teen angst, so cut me some slack.

What is it that attracts us to the writing life?

Have you ever asked yourself why you do it? If you're like me -- and I know we are alike in some respects or you would not be reading Writers in the Storm -- you have on occasion wondered if all the effort and pain that goes into writing fiction is worth it. Usually this comes at 2:00 am when you're awake, looking at your story and wondering what happens next.

We went to New Orleans with a bunch of friends from college and I spent two afternoons in the hotel room, working. Yeah, my friends are all, "Whoa, we found a dessert that weighs in at 1,200 calories! Come help us eat this monster." I had a deadline. In Vegas, my friends are feeding the slots and I'm in the coffee shop, typing. Sometimes, "Why am I here" comes when you're out in public, on display as the captive writer.

That was me a couple of weeks ago at Bouchercon in Long Beach. Six hundred writers, maybe twice that many fans. I was asked to do three appearances -- two group events and one stand-up solo presentation. And it was great! For the first time, as soon as I walked in, eight or nine people I had never met came up to me and said they recognized me, either from a previous appearance or from a dust jacket photo. Wow! Walking with my feet off the ground made me taller.

Then it was time to go to work. And that led to "Why am I here?" First there was something called "Author Speed Dating." I'm not making this up. I scrambled around to find out what speed dating was.

(Side Note: I guess I lead a sheltered life. How many of you have heard of speed dating? Has anybody done it? If you have, are you willing to talk about it? I’m curious.)

Speed dating works like this: they fill a room with tables and serve a continental breakfast. Everybody but the writers gets to eat rolls, drink coffee, and chat. The writers pair up and move from table to table. Each writer gets two minutes, for their "why you should date me" pitch.  "Hi, I'm James Preston and I write the Surf City Mysteries. They're really neat you should buy several copies. I'm speaking at noon." Then they ring a bell and you move on to the next table, where people are drinking coffee and chatting. My partner was bestselling author named Allison Brennan, who was a really good sport about the whole thing.

At noon I was scheduled for an Author Spotlight, a one-man offering scheduled for twenty minutes. After hyping it to more than 200 people at breakfast I thought it would be a slam dunk to have a nice-sized group. I should have known when I got to the room a few minutes early. The guy ahead of me had one person in his audience, and it was me. So we chatted a while and he left.

And there I was, with my audience disguised as empty chairs. Okay, in fairness, the room was in another part of the complex and very hard to find. At five after I started talking to the chairs. Hey, I'd rehearsed this thing, and dammit, I was going to do it! The presentation was about social media in general,  “Facebook and Twitter and Blogs, Oh My!”

A minute later six people rushed in, sorry they had been unable to find the room. As it turned out I drew one of the larger audiences for the Spotlight. Fans at the conference recognized me. That was nice, and I was selling books. My last event of Bouchercon was Men of Mystery. There were fifty of us on stage. We each got a minute to talk about our work, and I got to share the stage with luminaries like Barry Eisler. It was a good show and we drew a huge audience.

I had a good time, learned a lot, and sold books. I have appeared at several conferences and thought I'd share some of what I have learned.

Conference Tips

• Eat before you go. Before a presentation stick to something light. Carry energy bars in your bag.
• Get there early and find whatever room(s) you will be presenting in. Also locate bathrooms.
• Travel light! The conference will give you a bag (good) but it may be full of books (heavy).
• Water is heavy! You can usually find drinking fountains outside of restrooms, and most good hotels will have ice water in the meeting rooms. On the other hand, it’s good to have water to sip if you are going to talk for an extended period. Carrying water is a judgment call. I usually do.  Room temperature water is better if you are speaking.
• Carry a small pad of paper to capture names and emails. Pocket-sized has served me best. And of course, your own business cards.
• Finally, remember you are working. You are not there to have a good time. Listening to your favorite authors is great, but meeting new readers and talking about your work is better.

So why do we do it? Well, as far as Bouchercon, I met fans and got to interact with them.

There are the standard reasons for writing: we want to share our experience; we want to provide entertainment, and so on. But, you know what? Under it all, when you peel back the layers -- we write our stories because we want to see how they come out.

What are your conference experiences? Do you know any tips I've missed? And finally...what do you know about Speed Dating?

About James

 James R. Preston is the author of the award-winning Surf City Mysteries. His books have been selected for inclusion in the California Detective Fiction Collection at the Bancroft Library, one of the libraries at UC Berkeley. James' novella, Crashpad, will be published next year by Stark Raving Group. See bookxy.com for more information.

The newest Surf City Mystery, Sailor Home From Sea, will be launched on Saturday, December 13, 2014 at 2:00 pm at Book Carnival—348 S. Tustin Ave, Orange CA 92866.
714 538-3210
Annesbookcarnival.com
Stop in, we’d love to see you!

Penny Sansevieri

Now that everything has turned into 24/7 holiday shopping, you may wonder if it’s too late to get your book onto someone’s *must buy* holiday shopping list. While it’s late in the season to be thinking of your holiday strategy, there are some great things you can still do to nudge sales in your favor.

1. Purchase with purchase

Shoppers love purchase with purchase offers; in fact, studies have shown that shoppers are 90% more inclined to buy when they get something in addition to what they are already buying. Which is why sales tend to inch higher in cosmetics when they offer a free bag of lipsticks or samples when you spend a certain amount of money on their products. In the case of purchase with purchase, I will sometimes offer a lower-priced book, or copies of books I have on hand when they buy the book I am promoting. In other cases, I’ve known authors to partner up and offer each other’s books as purchase with purchase which is a great way to co-promote your titles.

2. Donation

We all love doing charitable works and there’s no better time to push this than during the holidays. What if you donate $1 to a charitable organization or cause for every book bought between certain dates? You’ll want to let folks know to email you their receipt (unless they bought the book from your site or directly from you at an event).

3. Buy one, Get one

Getting great deals is what it’s all about around the holidays, no? So here’s a fun trick I’ve done with great success. If someone buys your book – either on Amazon or from you, gift them an eBook copy of it for themselves or to give away if they want. Or, you can send actual books but keep in mind that this can get rather pricey. If you do this, I suggest pushing folks to order from you directly so the books can be shipped at the same time and you don’t have to pay Amazon their hefty percentage for selling your book.

4. Bag stuffers

If you have bookmarks for your book, see if you can drop them at local retailers who might be inclined to use them as bag stuffers for customers. You’ll be surprised how many local retailers would love to support a local author, and, with the shopping season kicking into high gear, you could really rack up the sales this way. Make sure your website URL is on there and if you’re doing any of the other holiday promotions mentioned above, make sure that the promotional information is front and center on your website to help draw buyers in!

5. Freebie giveaway

If you have other books, I would highly encourage you to do a freebie promotion for a day or two with a link to your new title or whatever book you are pushing for the holiday season. For example, we have an author who has five fiction books out and he’s using his older one as a freebie tool to drive holiday sales to his more recent book. There’s a holiday offer in the back of the book (in this case, he’s doing the donation).

6. Holiday Fairs and Events

Though this will take a bit of time, most of these fairs don’t book up. Call your local Chamber for a list of event dates or check online, then contact the organizer and see if you can get a deal on a booth or share a table. You’ll be amazed how much traffic these events get so close to the holidays. Also, if you have a book that ties into an event or fair consider doing that, too. For example, we have a pet-holiday parade and craft fair here, and I’ll often see dog and cat books there. It’s a great place to zero in on your exact right market!

Bonus tip!

Post-Christmas: You can really pull in a lot of holiday sales using the “Now get the gifts you really want” mantra. I always encourage authors to do promos for their books, especially if they have a pretty low price point. Some marketing people say that many shoppers have buyer’s fatigue post-Christmas, but I have not known this to be the case. Some of my best book sales happened in January, but again, the price needs to be right. So offer your book or books at impulse buy pricing. Generally anything $9.99 or below is considered an impulse buy, if it’s an eBook then $4.99 and lower.

Logistics: For some of the promos that require you to know if the consumer bought the book, make sure that you’re clear that you need the receipt emailed to you. You’ll want to put this on your website, and, possibly on the blog that offers this deal. Be clear and uncomplicated about what they need to do. For example, if you’re donating money to a good cause make sure that you have the receipt so you know they bought the book. Also add those buyers to your mailing list so you can stay in touch with them.

How to get the word out: Now that you have your promotion lined up, it’s time to let your readers (and future readers) know about this. I suggest putting up a blog post, maybe even doing a quick update to your home page copy to reflect this promotion. If you’re on Twitter I recommend sharing this several times a week leading up to Christmas, and to also post your promotion on Facebook. There are some great hashtags you can use, too. Here are a few you may want to incorporate in all of your social media:

#holidayshopping
#holidaydeals
#holidaygifts
#savemoney

While it’s always nice if you can get a jump start on holiday sales, it’s not always reasonable given all we do as authors to promote our books. And considering that the above ideas generally won’t take up a lot of time, if even one of them brings in new sales, it could be a really great thing and give you some ideas for next year’s holiday season, too!

What sorts of book promotions do you love? Do you find holiday sales appealing yourself? What books are you looking forward to reading over the holidays?

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. Her company is one of the leaders in the publishing industry and has developed some of the most cutting-edge book marketing campaigns. Penny is the author of five books, including Book to Bestseller which has been called the "road map to publishing success."

AME is the first marketing and publicity firm to use Internet promotion to its full impact through The Virtual Author Tour™, which strategically works with social networking sites, blogs, Twitter, Pinterest, Linkedin, YouTube, and relevant sites to push an authors message into the virtual community and connect with sites related to the book's topic, positioning the author in his or her market. In the past 24 months their creative marketing strategies have helped land 11 books on the New York Times Bestseller list.

To learn more about Penny’s books or her promotional services, you can visit her web site at http://www.amarketingexpert.com. Follow her on Twitter @bookgal

Holiday photo credit: smilla4 via photopin cc

Jen Karsbaek

So, you have a new book coming out, not a ton of marketing support from your publisher, and not much of an advance you can put towards your own marketing budget. What on earth can you do to get the word out about your book?

Well, there’s this awesome community of readers out there who are extremely passionate about books and absolutely love to share information about what they are reading with their (sometimes quite large) audiences. Now, these bloggers aren’t your marketing team, but if you can find the ones most likely to love and review your book, they might help you build some nice buzz and word of mouth.

But how do you go about orchestrating reviews with the bloggers who could really do something for your book?

1. Find bloggers who fit your book

If you have a good sense of what your comparative titles (also called read-alikes in some circles, books which are similar to yours and which are likely to have similar audiences) are, a good place to start is by searching for bloggers who have reviewed (and preferably liked) those comp titles. Make sure you check out their review policies though, to be sure that they are currently accepting books in your genre. The review policy may also tell you what sort of lead time the blogger requires and how likely they are to be able to actually review your book.

2. Evaluate the bloggers on your list

Hopefully you found a ton of bloggers who you think would be a good fit for your book, but unless you have free range with e-arcs you probably can’t send a book to everyone. You may be tempted to just pick the blogs with the biggest audiences, but they are often the ones who are busiest, so you need to weigh bigger audiences against blogs where you are more likely to get reviewed. Big audiences may also not be as helpful as you think if the blogger in question doesn’t really have authority in speaking to your genre.

3. What to offer book bloggers

Obviously you can offer a blogger a copy of your book (which they will probably accept for consideration of review, not for a guaranteed review), but you can also increase your chance of getting blog coverage if you can also book an interview, guest post, or giveaway. All of these things require more work and/or resources on your part, so be sure you are able to commit what is necessary before you offer these things.

4. How to approach book bloggers

Most book bloggers have jobs and family lives that come before their blogs so be respectful of their time and approach them in a professional way. Book pitches should be done via email, unless another method is specified in the blogger’s review policy.

Pitches to bloggers should be approached in much the same way that you might approach a query letter for an agent or editor. In a pitch, as in a query, you will want information on ‘the hook, the book, and the cook.’ In other words, a brief hook to grab the blogger’s attention, pertinent information about the book, and a brief author bio.

If you’ve done your research on the blogger you are pitching, the hook may be something about why you believe that they might like your book, instead of only being about the book, since you’ll get into more in-depth information about the book in the next paragraph. It is fine to use your back cover copy or other marketing copy to describe your book in the pitch, but please also include your publisher and the book’s release date, at minimum. This information can help a blogger make a decision about whether they could possibly fit your book into their editorial calendar. Your bio can be very brief, but feel free to include any writing awards you have won here.

In your pitch you will want to be clear about what you are offering. Occasionally authors send bloggers pitches that make it sound as if they are asking for the blogger to buy and review their book, which usually leads to the blogger simply ignoring or deleting the email. Be clear whether you are offering a physical review copy or an electronic one, and if you are open to doing a guest post or interview, that information can be conveyed here as well.

So that you don’t waste your time crafting personalized pitches to bloggers who are unlikely to accept your book for whatever reason, it is a good idea to check the review policies of the bloggers you most want to have review your book.

Review policies are documents written up by bloggers to say whether or not they are accepting anything for review, what sort of things they’re open to seeing pitches about, and often how much lead time they prefer and what formats they like to read in as well. This is a step you may want to take as part of your initial ranking of bloggers, but even so you will want to check review policies again before you send out pitches. Being able to personalize your pitch with information gleaned from a review policy makes you look like someone who respects a blogger’s time and preferences, which can definitely help you get in the door at a busy blog.

There are many things you can do to optimize your experience of working with bloggers, all of which are detailed in my Short Fuse Guide to Working with Book Bloggers (which is free until the end of the year, so if you think you’ll need it at some point, get it now!). If you’re pressed for time and don’t want to read 8,000 words of ideas, though, you can boil it down to this: if you work with book bloggers in a professional manner you may not get all rave reviews, but you are likely to get fair reviews, and to get your book talked about on social media and help you build your word of mouth.

What questions do you have about working with book bloggers? What has been your experience with them so far? Are there any bloggers you recommend for a particular genre?

p.s. For our American readers...HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

About Jen

Jen Karsbaek is an associate agent at Fuse Literary where she represents women’s fiction, historical fiction, upmarket commercial fiction, and literary fiction. Before becoming an agent, she ran the very popular book review blog Devourer of Books. You can find her on Twitter as @devourerofbooks. 

About The Short Fuse Guide to Working with Book Bloggers

One of the very best ways to reach readers is to connect with a passionate and internet-savvy group of readers and reviewers who delight in sharing the books they love with others: book bloggers.

In The Short Fuse Guide to Working with Book Bloggers, literary agent and book blogger Jen Karsbaek shows you how best to approach and work with book bloggers to secure reviews, spread word of mouth, and build strong buzz for your new release. The Short Fuse Guide to Working with Book Bloggers and Fuse Literary’s other Short Fuse Guides are free at Smashwords through the end of 2014 and are available for purchase as Kindle books.

Books photo credit: Sunshine Lady ! via photopin cc