I'm going to use the publishing of my Book, Two Gun Hart, as an example of the promotional methods I used, along with my suggestions on how to promote your independently published book.
You should have your book mostly done six months before the books release. I did not have all of Two Gun done, but I had enough to send out as an advanced readers copy, also called a galley. I clearly marked these as such so anyone who saw grammatical errors and such would know this was an unfinished copy. However, I've found that this might not have been such a good idea as I suspect that a few places bypassed doing stories about this because they ignored the "advanced" part and judged it as though it was done. I now believe it's best to have the book almost done with only a polish left to it six months out. (You still want to be flexible all the way to close to release as good ideas and suggestions might come up in time.
Most of this phase is spent sending the ARC to reviewers, or the story out to news sources that will need time to go over it, such as magazines which have long lead times. This is also a time to have friends go over it as well to find issues you may not have noticed, or to make last minute suggestions. It is also a great time to slowly start to build the buzz.
For Two Gun, I got it out to reviewers, and because it was such a huge news story, I started sending it to news sources that would require some time to look over it. I did not send it out a mass press release yet as I wanted that to be closer to the actual release time. Also, bear in mind, the book is not available for pre-order until three months from release, so anyone who reads about it during this time cannot order it. So everything I did was intended for future results.
The one thing I largely ignored were magazines, which was more or less a mistake. I didn't intend to ignore them altogether, but I put them as the lowest priority as magazines don't have as large a readership as other sources. This still holds true, however, a large number of people who read about history get magazines, so this is something I should have made a larger priority.
Also during this phase I did a lot of my research. I started an Excel sheet that had all the different types of media color coded along with the names of the various stations, newspapers, magazines, blogs, etc. So, for instance, all the radio stations were color coded blue, and they had the station's name, any contacts I might have, their email address, their phone number, etc. Newspapers, the same thing, but I color coded them white. Blogs had just the web address and email address and was color coded yellow, and so on. These will be used in the next couple phases.
#selfpublishingpromotion
Tuesday, May 26, 2015
Tuesday, May 19, 2015
Overview of Self-Published Book Promotion
One big regret I have on this blog is that I didn't keep up with describing the process I was going through as I promoted Two Gun Hart. I wanted to give a detailed account as I went through the tedious process. I'm still sort of going through it, but it's the waning steps of promotion, especially for this project in particular. The truth is, I just got so busy with the promotions leading up to release that I didn't have time to write about it. So now, months after most of the work was done, I'm going to try to summarize what happened for you. In this issue of the blog, I'm going to give an overall summary of the plan, then, in the next three blogs, I'm going to describe each period along the way in closer detail.
So book promotions typically have 3 phases:
6-3 months pre-release (what I call pre-pre-release)
3 months pre-release to release (what I call pre-release)
Release and post-release (what I just called post-release)
Generally, the pre-pre-release phase is the period where you're priming the pump. You're sending the book out to get reviews, maybe even to some friends to get some last minute suggestions on final changes, and generating some very basic buzz on the project. This phase is primarily intended for getting the word out to any organization or person that needs time to go over your materials, or which publishes on an irregular basis. So magazines should be contacted at this time, and news organizations that you're going to want to interview you in advance of the release. But most of all, get those advanced reader copies into the hands of reviewers.
The pre-release phase is where you build up the buzz to a crescendo at the release of the book. You're going to start sort of light three months away, getting some people to talk about it in their social media, letting everyone know what's coming. Then you're going to build interest by getting it talked about in as many blogs as possible, and having stories released in the media. Hopefully you'll get some radio and newspaper interviews, and you're building up the reviews. This should built to the point where, just before release, your audience can't wait to get the book. The primary element of this phase is to get as many people to pre-order the book as possible because...
...on the week of release, all sales in pre-orders are counted as being sold on one day for the purposes of the New York Times Book Review and other book sales sources. If you were successful in the second phase, this will jump your book way up, and the third phase will be much easier, as many, many people will hear about your book through the aforementioned sources. They will also have heard about it through the hype built in phase 2. Regardless, you will be spending a lot of time in the post-release phase going to events and giving talks. I underestimated the importance of this phase in my planning, and as you will see as I talk more in-depth about it, there are more things you can try to do than just arrange signings at bookstores that often do not welcome self-published authors. (Even though they are also independent and are asking people to bypass major corporations to come to them.)
#Bookpromotions #independentpublishing #self-promotion
So book promotions typically have 3 phases:
6-3 months pre-release (what I call pre-pre-release)
3 months pre-release to release (what I call pre-release)
Release and post-release (what I just called post-release)
Generally, the pre-pre-release phase is the period where you're priming the pump. You're sending the book out to get reviews, maybe even to some friends to get some last minute suggestions on final changes, and generating some very basic buzz on the project. This phase is primarily intended for getting the word out to any organization or person that needs time to go over your materials, or which publishes on an irregular basis. So magazines should be contacted at this time, and news organizations that you're going to want to interview you in advance of the release. But most of all, get those advanced reader copies into the hands of reviewers.
The pre-release phase is where you build up the buzz to a crescendo at the release of the book. You're going to start sort of light three months away, getting some people to talk about it in their social media, letting everyone know what's coming. Then you're going to build interest by getting it talked about in as many blogs as possible, and having stories released in the media. Hopefully you'll get some radio and newspaper interviews, and you're building up the reviews. This should built to the point where, just before release, your audience can't wait to get the book. The primary element of this phase is to get as many people to pre-order the book as possible because...
...on the week of release, all sales in pre-orders are counted as being sold on one day for the purposes of the New York Times Book Review and other book sales sources. If you were successful in the second phase, this will jump your book way up, and the third phase will be much easier, as many, many people will hear about your book through the aforementioned sources. They will also have heard about it through the hype built in phase 2. Regardless, you will be spending a lot of time in the post-release phase going to events and giving talks. I underestimated the importance of this phase in my planning, and as you will see as I talk more in-depth about it, there are more things you can try to do than just arrange signings at bookstores that often do not welcome self-published authors. (Even though they are also independent and are asking people to bypass major corporations to come to them.)
#Bookpromotions #independentpublishing #self-promotion
Tuesday, May 12, 2015
Reading to Kids
There's an organization I belong to which I highly recommend to anyone who would like to volunteer for a great cause. It's called Reading to Kids. The concept is all in the name. You go to schools and you read to children. It's pretty much that simple.
What you do is you sign up at their website: http://www.readingtokids.org/Home/main.php. You will choose what school you want to volunteer at, (I go to Politi,) and then you arrive for an orientation at 8 am on the second Saturday of the month. After your orientation, you'll be matched with another more experienced volunteer, and you'll go into a room with a group of kids where you'll read part of a book to them. The book is appropriate to their grade, and always has a theme that will match what all the kids are reading. The kids then get a copy of the book, or a similar one, so they can finish it at home.
Also during the session, the kids get to do crafts, and do some other fun things. This encourages a lot of them to come on a Saturday morning, which is helpful to the community as many of these events take place in communities where the reading levels are unfortunately low.
I'm missing May unfortunately as I'll be in Nebraska, but I'll be back in June, and hopefully I'll be at most of the rest of the events the remainder of the year. I also donate Relic Worlds Pick Your Path books to them to give away. I highly recommend anyone and everyone try this out.
What you do is you sign up at their website: http://www.readingtokids.org/Home/main.php. You will choose what school you want to volunteer at, (I go to Politi,) and then you arrive for an orientation at 8 am on the second Saturday of the month. After your orientation, you'll be matched with another more experienced volunteer, and you'll go into a room with a group of kids where you'll read part of a book to them. The book is appropriate to their grade, and always has a theme that will match what all the kids are reading. The kids then get a copy of the book, or a similar one, so they can finish it at home.
Also during the session, the kids get to do crafts, and do some other fun things. This encourages a lot of them to come on a Saturday morning, which is helpful to the community as many of these events take place in communities where the reading levels are unfortunately low.
I'm missing May unfortunately as I'll be in Nebraska, but I'll be back in June, and hopefully I'll be at most of the rest of the events the remainder of the year. I also donate Relic Worlds Pick Your Path books to them to give away. I highly recommend anyone and everyone try this out.
Tuesday, May 5, 2015
Relic Worlds Source in Star Wars
Since May the 4th was yesterday, and this is a big year for Star Wars with the movie coming out, I should probably say something about my own closest connection to the series, which is Relic Worlds. I did not intend to do much with Relic Worlds until the last half of this year, but it keeps creeping into so many things that I'm doing during these first months because of outside elements over which I have no control. For instance, Wondercon, the Star Wars convention, May the 4th, and all the trailers being released. Plus, I need to get the stories written in advance so that they can come out on a schedule during the latter half of the year.
So Relic Worlds is a mixture of the two biggest media influences of my youth: Indiana Jones and Star Wars. It was, in fact, originally developed without Indy so much involved, as much as I wanted to create my own galaxy far, far away. I invented it first as a science fiction series called Travelers that I pitched to Digital Domain. They were in the process of doing the effects for Titanic, and the top managers there believed the movie would be a flop, so they wanted to prepare their company to go independent of James Cameron as soon as it did. Of course, the movie was a hit, and everyone denied they were planning to jump ship, as it were.
It was then redesigned as a TV series that got overlooked by everyone, including the Sci Fi Channel a number of times. At last it was finding a home in internet channels in 1999 and 2000. The bubble burst, and they ran out of money. But rather than just admitting that, they acted like they had never met me before. It was strange.
When Firefly appeared on TV, the style was so similar to my concept that it was pointless to even pitch it. So I put it on a shelf for a while, only to come down a few times when it seemed relevant to be pitching it.
I wound up doing something similar in comic book form which came close to having some success, but it faltered as well.
That was when I got into independent publishing, and I learned through my first book The Table of Truth, that publishing through Amazon was not only the best bet, but had the best chance at getting noticed by the public. Somehow, book distribution through Amazon got more attention than comic books, even online ones. My belief is that people who read comics fall into two categories: Those who want to see comedy, and those who want to read the same material over and over.
This last is a problem we have in geek culture. Many self-defined "nerds," the people who will read a lot of comic books and graphic novels, have a sort of obsessive compulsion today. They will read anything written about subjects of which they already know, such as Star Wars, Star Trek, Marvel or DC superheroes, Firefly; anything that's been shoved down their throats by corporations. But hand them anything that's new, even something similar to their interests like Relic Worlds which is a combination of two series geeks love, and they won't even try it.
And as a result, new graphic novels that are not comedies will not be read by anyone. But there is a pretty strong audience for independent books of all genres.
I guess I didn't get around to talking about Relic Worlds connection to Star Wars per se, but you can read more about that at the Relic Worlds blog: http://relicworldsobservationsandthoughts.blogspot.com/.
So Relic Worlds is a mixture of the two biggest media influences of my youth: Indiana Jones and Star Wars. It was, in fact, originally developed without Indy so much involved, as much as I wanted to create my own galaxy far, far away. I invented it first as a science fiction series called Travelers that I pitched to Digital Domain. They were in the process of doing the effects for Titanic, and the top managers there believed the movie would be a flop, so they wanted to prepare their company to go independent of James Cameron as soon as it did. Of course, the movie was a hit, and everyone denied they were planning to jump ship, as it were.
It was then redesigned as a TV series that got overlooked by everyone, including the Sci Fi Channel a number of times. At last it was finding a home in internet channels in 1999 and 2000. The bubble burst, and they ran out of money. But rather than just admitting that, they acted like they had never met me before. It was strange.
When Firefly appeared on TV, the style was so similar to my concept that it was pointless to even pitch it. So I put it on a shelf for a while, only to come down a few times when it seemed relevant to be pitching it.
I wound up doing something similar in comic book form which came close to having some success, but it faltered as well.
That was when I got into independent publishing, and I learned through my first book The Table of Truth, that publishing through Amazon was not only the best bet, but had the best chance at getting noticed by the public. Somehow, book distribution through Amazon got more attention than comic books, even online ones. My belief is that people who read comics fall into two categories: Those who want to see comedy, and those who want to read the same material over and over.
This last is a problem we have in geek culture. Many self-defined "nerds," the people who will read a lot of comic books and graphic novels, have a sort of obsessive compulsion today. They will read anything written about subjects of which they already know, such as Star Wars, Star Trek, Marvel or DC superheroes, Firefly; anything that's been shoved down their throats by corporations. But hand them anything that's new, even something similar to their interests like Relic Worlds which is a combination of two series geeks love, and they won't even try it.
And as a result, new graphic novels that are not comedies will not be read by anyone. But there is a pretty strong audience for independent books of all genres.
I guess I didn't get around to talking about Relic Worlds connection to Star Wars per se, but you can read more about that at the Relic Worlds blog: http://relicworldsobservationsandthoughts.blogspot.com/.
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