Planning for Book Conventions

I’ve been talking recently about what worked and what didn’t when I released book 2 of the Relic Worlds series; and more importantly, what I learned.  In one weekend I released book 2, presented the Relic Worlds series at Wondercon, and gave away book 1 in a KDP Select free promotion.  The result was not a lot of immediate sales, but a lot of people who are now following the series.

As a result, I’ve begun to plan for more online promotions on Facebook and Twitter, I’m doing a newsletter campaign on Mail Chimp, and I’ll be doing another free book promotion in conjunction with the second book having a countdown deal.  These are all the online plans, and the other half of the equation is networking in person.  This is best accomplished by going to conventions, so I’ve made a list of the conventions I plan to go to.

I was told that Texans will buy anything.  In fact, I was told that Dallas has the best sales rate of any comic book/sci fi and fantasy convention in the country.  Denver is apparently a close second.  I’ve decided to make my trips to these conventions coincide with trips my girlfriend and I want to take, and since we want to see Austin, I’ve decided my next convention will be Alamo City, which takes place in San Antonio, (just an hour’s drive from Austin.)  San Antonio supposed to be a pretty fascinating city itself, so I’m looking forward to that one.

I plan to keep Wondercon as sort of my “home base” if you will, building a regular following there while I travel to other places just once each to build my following.  I also want to attend Emerald City, which is in Seattle, and Chicago’s C2E2 Pop Culture convention.  Unfortunately, both of those are right around Wondercon, and that might be too much intensity in too short a time, (not to mention the expense.)  So I might only do one of those two.  Finally, I want to do New York Comic Con, though that might be way too expensive.  However, it’s the largest Comic Book convention, even larger than San Diego Comic Con, so it might be worth it.  Or it might just swallow a small project like mine up whole.  Maybe I should do that one a little further down the line.

I’m also looking at Sac Con, which is in Sacramento, and Nerd Con in San Diego, since they’d be close.  I did Loscon, and they want me back, but SO FEW of the people at that convention go into the dealer’s room that it’s not really worth it.

I’ll be looking at more conventions, and I’ll be going to as many as I can afford.

My Experience at Wondercon - Friday

I posted before about my experience at Wondercon.  I didn’t really say much about the specifics, or what I learned, so I’m going to tell about how things went over the next three posts.  I’m giving this one extra attention, because it was a huge event in my life.

It was important because this was the last chance I was going to give myself to make sure something happened in my profession of storytelling.  If this didn’t work, I was going to settle down into some other career, and accept that book publishing would just be a hobby.  I had promised my girlfriend Jamie that I would do this so we wouldn’t be constantly in poverty with me chasing my dream.

So the plan was to make the booth so flashy it looked like it was from one of the larger companies, not in the small press area.  I spent a couple thousand dollars on decorations, including several banners, greenery to wrap around the poles, a large diorama, and of course the books and book stands.  Basically, I didn’t want people to be able to miss it if they tried.

Thursday was setup day, and when I arrived, I was excited to see my booth was the first one you saw when you came in.  Then I realized that I was entering through the loading zone, which was at the very back of the convention hall.  However, the food court was directly in front of me, so that would be my strength.  People would see it when they were at lunch, so I used an idea my girlfriend gave me, give away free soda.  This would work splendidly as drinks at the convention cost $4.

Even though I had taken most of the supplies on Thursday, I still had a few to bring Friday, so I went a bit earlier than I had originally planned.  As it turned out, I should have gone even earlier.  By the time I got there, attendees were arriving, and it took me a while to get parked.  I took the remaining pieces upstairs and returned each time to my car.  The last big piece, the diorama of the volcano, (Jamie called it “Break-up mountain” because it almost cost me my relationship with her,) was supposed to go in three pieces.  However, time was short, so I picked up the whole thing and ran upstairs with it.  I had to run through the entire convention to get to my table, and it was so difficult I nearly had a heart attack.  Ironically, I passed the booth that I used to go to Wondercon with, the Greater Los Angeles Writers Society, but I wasn’t able to stop and say hello.  I was in a tremendous hurry.  When I set it down, I wondered if I had time to wipe my sweat off in the bathroom.  But just at that moment, the voice on the intercom announced that Wondercon was beginning.

I still had to put up the banner, which shouldn’t have been too much of a problem.  I had created a PVC pipe setup which I had practiced setting up at home and it worked fine.  But for some reason, now that I was trying to put it up at the convention, it kept falling over.  I got one end up, and the other end fell over.  It seemed as though the laws of physics had suddenly changed in the convention hall.  I was tremendously frustrated, especially since the crowds were coming in, and slowly they started making their way to the back where I was.  The other booths around me were all set up with the people at them ready and waiting.  They started taking customers, and there I was, a sweaty mess wrestling with PVC pipe that kept falling over.  I was in a near panic.  I had been preparing for this for a year, and now here I was and I couldn’t even get the sign up.

I at last had to scrap the idea and threw the pipes beneath the table.  I taped the banned to the front of the table, then went into the bathroom and changed my shirt.  (Luckily I had more Relic Worlds shirts with me that were supposed to be giveaways.)  I returned to the table, and began.

Throughout the day I set up bits and pieces, placing up one of the vertical banners of the first book hanging from a C stand I owned.  Ultimately, it didn’t look too bad, all things considered.  The convention had provided a sign for the back wall that said Relic Worlds, so I didn’t really even need the long banner.  In fact, when I got the second vertical banner of the second book up the next day, it turned out that horizontal banner in the back would have made things too busy.

As for the day itself, there were a lot of people who came by perusing, but not too many ready to buy.  The hope was that they would be looking now to buy later in the convention.  I had a lot of flyers out, one of which was a treasure hunt that led attendees to other booths.  When they returned, they would get entered into a drawing for free stuff, including a trip to Disneyland.  But to get their prize, they would need to give me their email address, which would go onto an email list.

One thing I learned from this element is the importance of the email list, and how I had shot myself in the foot by making people have to jump through hoops to get to that point.  I met other independent publishers at the event, and all of them told me how important it was that they build that email list to build their fan base, but very few were coming back to give me their email address because they didn’t finish the treasure hunt.  I would have to change strategies.

The biggest trouble that happened all day was I hadn’t heard from one of the models who was supposed to help out on Saturday.  She was coming back from Egypt and had gotten stuck in Germany.  I needed a new one fast, and she was trying to help get a replacement from Germany.  I was trying to text and make calls while also talk with customers.  At last the one that was still coming the next day said she had a friend she could bring, so it was arranged after about three hours of stress.

But that would be the next day.  In the evening I was supposed to put on the Relic Worlds miniatures game.  I was exhausted by the end, but it had to happen.  The worst part was, it was supposed to start at 7, and the convention hall didn’t end until 7.  So I had to leave a little early to get set up.  I took a couple things with me since I didn’t know how far it was.  And boy, was it far.  First I had to go all the way across the convention hall, then I had to go across the rest of the convention center.  After that was a gap before I got to Staples Center, which I had to go across.  A basketball game was about to start, one of Kobe Bryant’s last, so there were crowds to go through.  Then I had to go a block, go into the Marriott, go through the lobby, go up a couple escalators, walk across to the opposite side of the hotel, then across a walkway, then up another flight, then to the opposite side of the next building to reach the gaming area.  My miniatures game had a huge number of pieces, and this would have taken all night to get set up.  So I just returned to the convention center, grabbed the small board game, and went back.  (Someone bought a book during the short time I was back at the booth, one of the only copies I sold all weekend.)  I returned to the gaming area and found a friend.  We set up the game to show it off, and to provide a little more advertising for Relic Worlds, but we never got around to playing.  I was too exhausted.

So that was Friday.  My take away from that is that Friday is the day to present yourself, and to not expect any sales.  It’s the primer for the convention, and for your potential audience.  It’s important to have an easy and attractive way to get people to join your mailing list.  It’s also a good idea to have a great looking booth with something that catches everyone’s eyes, (Breakup Mountain was a big hit, and it actually helped that I carried it through at a time everyone saw it.)  And it’s good to have a gimmick.  The treasure hunt was great in this regard, but I needed to not have it tied to the email list.  Next time it will be just you sign your name and you draw from a treasure chest.

Next week I’ll tell about Saturday, the biggest day of the convention.

My First Booth at Wondercon

I ran my first booth ever at Wondercon this weekend, and I learned quite a bit.

First I must explain that I have been studying this for quite a while; how to best use a convention to sell my products.  I first went to Comic Con in 2007 and have been trying to utilize that convention and others in the best way possible.  Mostly, I tried to do it on the cheap, handing out flyers in the front, and running events that didn't involve getting a table myself.  One example was the treasure hunt I ran, where I gave out flyers full of clues that led attendees to several booths until they got to the last one where they got a prize relating to my series.  (The flyer, of course, also said the name of the series on it.)

All of these attempts failed to have much of an impact.  The treasure hunt, first of all, was too difficult to accomplish, and few people got to the end.  But the biggest problem was that I was, ultimately, outside of the convention.  To really be taken seriously, I had to go all the way and get a booth.  So that is a must.

I became impressed with Wondercon when it first moved to Anaheim.  The first year was rough; but overall it had the feel of a more independent minded convention that remembered its sci fi and fantasy roots.  It wasn't quite so owned by the corporations.  I knew that when I got a booth, it would be here.

My booth was way in the back, which made it easy to load, but harder for attendees to find.  Luckily, it was right next to the food court, so a lot of people saw it during lunch.

I ran the treasure hunt again, but this time it was simple to do.  And at the end, people who wanted to claim their prize had to give their name and email address to enter the drawing.  The grand prize was a trip to Disneyland, so there were a lot of people who wanted to do it.  This left me with an extended email list.  However, it was not as long as it could have been since people had to do the treasure hunt first, and some didn't want to bother.

The table was filled with the flyers on the right, the books in the middle, and a large volcano model I made on the left.  The Relic Worlds sign hung from the table int he front, and vertical signs of the two books hung behind me.  I found this to be a really good layout, though I might have overdone it on the number of different flyers and different books.  What I really needed was a flyer with the treasure hunt, a flyer with the books, and a flyer with a free short story.  Maybe adding the bookmark was a good idea as well, because it was easy to get people to take a bookmark after they had bought other books.

The way the days worked seems to be the same for every convention.  Friday is the day when people trickle in and look at what there is to offer.  It's best to give them previews of what I have as well as get them on the treasure hunts.  At night there was gaming in a different building.  I thought this would be super important as it would be a whole new audience that extended into the evening.  However, this year the gaming area was far away from the convention center, so hardly anyone was there.  Also, people tend to break off into cliques at these gaming events, so its effectiveness was limited.

Saturday was the big day.  It was the day to push both the free fliers and the books, as well as attract everyone with the volcano, and put on a game that utilized the volcano.  This was more effective than the night gaming as it was in full view of other attendees, who looked on at the setup with amazement.  (I spend hundreds of dollars making it.)  I did find, though, that it would be better to have a separate person run the game, as I needed to be at the booth.  I also had two models dressed as a couple of the characters posing for the cameras out front where the cosplayers hang out, and give out flyers.  This was one of the best and most effective things to do as we got TONS of people photographing them along with the books.  I could not have arranged this, however, if I hadn't had two wonderful volunteers at the booth selling books while I was dealing with the models.

Sunday is known as the dead day.  However, it's also the day people are usually more apt to buy.  They've spent the last couple days looking over everything, and on the last day they go through buying what they've decided to get.  It's also the best day to network with other booths as they're less busy.

In the end, I learned that conventions are essentially the second half of the equation to sell books.  The other half is online, which I'll get to in another post.  Conventions are where you spread the word in person.  You can't really expect to make any money at them; you're going to spend more money than you make creating an effective platform.  However, this platform should be used to create something that the attendees go back and tell others about.  The experience should be something they want to photograph either at your booth, or in the cosplay area.  (I had both with the volcano at the booth and the two models in the cosplay area.)  It's also a great way to get people to learn about your website and any deals you have going, such as a free book deal or a sale.

But what it's best for is what I've recently learned is the most important thing in independent book selling: building the email list.  I never thought of this as such an important step, but it is.  Having a website and Facebook page is important for people to go see, but the general public will forget about you unless you actively remind them of your existence, and sending short stories and/or updates is the best way to do it.  So an email list is what you need.  And there's no better way to build this than at a convention.  When people meet you face to face, they get interested in what you're doing.  They're usually not ready to buy anything because they want to keep checking you out.  So they're willing to give you their email address for you to tell them.  I made the mistake of tying it to the treasure hunt.  While the hunt was fun and unique and best of all, made me stand out, it limited the number of people who signed up on the list; and many who would want to hear more later on never came back.

So the bottom line is it's best to find a way to have the attendees join your mailing list by doing something there at the booth that's fun and memorable, but they need to give you their name and email to do it.

Finding alternative Venues for Your Book

In an earlier blog entry I explained that sometimes it’s best to have book events, such as readings and signings, at alternative venues other than bookstores and libraries.  In this entry, I’m going ot describe how to find these venues.

This sort of marketing works better for non-fiction, as many of the venues are going to be educational institutions.  But there will be some for genres of fiction as well.  Just understand that they will probably be venues that are strongly into a certain genre, so you’ll have to focus on that.

To figure out what venues will be appropriate for your book, the first thing you need to do is define what subjects your book covers.  For instance, in Two Gun Hart I cover:  Italian-American studies, American history, the Old West, gangsters, law enforcement Nebraska history, and Chicago history.  I also lightly cover these areas:  Italian history, Idaho, Washington, South Dakota, New York, and Iowa history, and film history.

In fiction, my book Relic Worlds covers:  Adventure stories, science fiction, space travel, archaeology, anthropology.  (I told you it’s harder with fiction.)

What you want to do now is figure out what places cover these subjects, then narrow in on specific locations.  For instance, with Two Gun Hart, I assume that Italian-American culture and history is studied at universities.  I figure out what schools have these sort of programs, then read a bit about them before writing them down.  I also look at Old West museums, groups interested in law enforcement history, etc.  I make a long list of all of these places, then begin calling to see if they’d be interested.  I send them a copy of the book; preferably an e-copy, but sometimes a paperback version.  Then I set a time to follow them up.

This will eventually narrow down into a  manageable list of places to visit, and I set times to go and give my signings and lectures.  You’ll need to space them out, or combine those that are close together, to make sure you can afford the trips.  As you make your budget, remember that you’re not concerned with making a profit at these locations, you’re trying first and foremost to spread the word.  What you make at the venues merely help with the costs of going to them.

Radio Talk Shows and the Extremist Bent

In our constant search for promotional opportunities for our books, one of the best options for us seems to be the radio, namely, talk radio.  They work primarily in words without images, just as we do.  They need content 24 hours, we are trying to get ourselves heard by the public.  It seems like a perfect match!  Alas, it is much harder to make that match work than one might imagine.

First, you have to wade through the majority of radio stations that play mostly music and only interview celebrities.  That leaves a much smaller number of talk and news shows that will actually consider what you have to offer.  You can narrow down to these stations using the Radio Locator found here.  This will still provide you with a pretty large number, especially if you’re looking for stations nationwide.

However, when you go to these stations, you discover a very discouraging trend.  Most of these talk radio stations are dedicated to irrational, angry hate speech, most of it conservative.

This is not to say there is something inherently problematic with conservatism.  Though I’m a centralist who leans left, I see value in beliefs on the right; and above all, I’m a big believer in everyone having the right to their opinion.  However, most extremist talk-show hosts do not.  Shock-jocks like Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck are nothing more than authoritarian bullies.  They pretend to be conservatives to gain an audience, but the truth is, they don’t really care about politics or what’s best for the country.  All they care about is the controversy they spread to raise their ratings.

This is not where I want to talk about my books.  It has nothing to do with what side of the political fence I stand on.  It has everything to do with the fact that I don’t want to be on a show that refers to people as “pinheads” and tell callers to “shut up” just for disagreeing with their opinions.  As for the stations that carry them, that is a bit more of a gray area with which I have struggled.  For a while, I sent my press releases to stations that carried these shows, but had other programming that might be worth my time.  But I’ve stopped doing this.  Part of the reason is I have such a long list of places to contact now that I’ve narrowed down the number of places I contact in the interest of time.  But another reason is because I got to thinking about what kind of station manager would play programming of that sort.  Let’s take Rush Limbaugh for example.  When Robin Williams died, he heartlessly said that he deserved it.  When Michael J. Fox came out about his disease, Limbaugh callously made fun of him.  A station manager who plays Limbaugh actually listened to those things and said, “I want that on my station!”  That is a channel for which I have no respect, and no time to appear.

What I do instead now is look for “news” channels.  “Talk” channels have become so overrun by these extremist that they are virtually code words for “duchebags who merely want to spread the seeds of hatred.”  It’s still difficult to get news producers to notice you because you still need some angle that is informative for today.  (My books being historical in nature often don’t have any relevance to today, but I try to take advantage of any opportunity I get.)  I also try to get onto NPR.  Some like to say they have a liberal bias; but regardless of whether they do or don’t, you don’t hear them raging against someone day in and day out, belittling anyone who disagrees with them, as you often do on talk radio.

Self-Publishing Promotion 3 - Release (Release - 3 months after)

As I stated in the last blog entry, the week of release is vitally important.  This week is your best chance to reach the New York Times Bestseller List, and other important lists that will be seen by thousands of people.  You need to work hard this whole week, but it can't be the start of the work.  This will be the time to follow up all the work you've been doing for the past six months.  Remind everyone who's been showing interest that the book is now out.  Post anywhere you can that all the clips you've been showing are connected to a book that just released.  Basically, get all those people who have been on the fence about whether or not to purchase to take the leap and buy it already.

Also, this is very important, Amazon and Barnes & Noble to not allow reviews to be posted until the book is released.  So go to all those folks who said they'd post a review to do it now.  This is vital as it determines how far up in the list you'll be.  I have books still on Amazon that, when you type in the exact title, are not the first to come up.  (Instead it's other books that don't have the exact title, but have more reviews.)  Even bad reviews help you reach the top of the list, so have them post it immediately.

I did all of these things.  I took time off from work to reach out to everyone.  I was even on a true crime podcast the week of release.  Still, I had dismal results.  On retrospect, I believe the reason was because the entire six months I was dependent upon news organizations to spread the word.  Of course I did a number of things as well, informing people in groups that the book was releasing, and putting up an ad on Goodreads and on Facebook.  But ultimately nonfiction depends heavily on readers hearing about the story from people they trust.  This is usually the news media, such as the radio, NPR, television, etc.  The fact that I was largely ignored by them hurt my chances greatly.

This has explained to me why that other author said fiction is easier to promote when you're self-published; you have more control over reaching your niche.  You do need to make them trust your writing style and storytelling abilities, but they're not so stuck on reading and listening to traditional sources that they won't give you a chance.

However, all hope is not lost for non-fiction.  The week before release, I was flown out to Salt Lake City to speak to an Italian-American department at a university.  Many of the students got extra credit if they went to listen to my talk.  Others in the university who was what the subject was about came out to see what it was all about.  Since that time I've also found other venues with the same sort of niche; genealogy groups, other universities, old west and crime museums, etc.

I thought that bookstores would be interested in this, but again, I was largely ignored.  Most surprising were the bookstores in San Francisco, who claim to pride themselves on supporting independent artists.  I guess that doesn't include independent authors, as most authors they have listed are from major publishers.  (So, they don't want you going to the big company called Barnes & Noble or Amazon, but they themselves will only deal with big publishers.  Great.)

However, these niche locations are far more interested.  I am now scheduling those events, and each time I go, I see the people's eyes get wide, and they take their books home to tell everyone about it.  I always notice my sales go up after these.

So that's about it.  I know I didn't cover it in anywhere near as much detail as I intended, and there's for more that would be helpful, but too much for me to think of and include in the blog.  So the best thing for me to do is leave it as it is, and let anyone reading this ask me questions.

Self-Publishing Promotion - Phase 2 (3 months before release - Release)

This phase is, in many ways, the most crucial, as it is your best chance to get into the New York Times Bestseller List, or other lists of the same sort.  You can put your book up for pre-order during this time, and start getting it purchased by bookstores.  All sales during this period count during one day, the release date, so the longer time you give yourself, the wider your net.

The first obvious thing you want to do is have the book go on pre-order as far from release date as possible.  This will probably be 90 days.  You also want it available in as many sites as possible.  The top ones are Amazon and Barnes & Noble, the latter of which should be done through Smashwords.

Now is the time to build the buzz as large and as fast as you can.  Reviewers who were getting it during phase 1 should start putting out their reviews now.  You want to do a general press release to go to as many places as possible, and to write to the places that you believe will be your biggest supporters early on so you can schedule interviews to happen before release.  These will probably be on your list you made on the Excel sheet.

For the major press release I used PR Web, and I used the $250 option.  This wasn't the top service, but it wasn't the bottom.  It provided wide coverage without offering a lot of information I didn't need.  There are "cheaper" options, but nothing that's actually cheap.  There are a few sites that do this for free, but no one does it with the sort of coverage and results PR Web gives you.  What I've discovered from doing all this is "go big or go home."  I've done the free service in the past, the $100 option, and now the $250 option.  The free option barely got picked up by any news sources.  The $100 got some moderate coverage, but not a lot.  The $250 option got covered by several hundred places, so it seemed to be worth it.

The one problem is that the news sources who picked it up barely mentioned the book, if at all.  I had done the press release near the beginning, so the book still wasn't releasing for nearly 3 months.  Therefore, most sources seemed to ignore it since it was going to be a while before the book would be out.  I had done it so far in advance in case some of them wanted to do interviews, but that didn't happen.  I don't know what to say about this.  The results seemed really positive, and in some ways it was as the news of the subject of the book really got out there.  But the book got no sales directly from it, and people didn't really learn of its existence.  Bottom line, if you're going to do this option, do it closer to the release date, and make a bigger deal about your book.

As the release date got closer, I talked more and more on Facebook groups and sent out to Twitter.  (I'll be honest, I suck at the latter.)  I let out bits of information and clips from the book to get interest.  This worked in small, yet sure ways.  People showed interest who backed it up with sales, though VERY few bought pre-order copies.  They wanted to make sure the book was out before they got it.  But I did see people talking about it, and not always just with me.  Those same people bought the book when it came out.

The month leading up to release, I spent all my time working on the book and its promotions.  (I still had a little work to do on it.)  I wrote to every media place I could, especially public radio and television.  They pretty much entirely ignored me, which was bizarre considering the incredible story.  One of them sent a link to the kind of "historical" stories they do, and it went to someone who went to a psychic and got "possessed by the ghost of Montgomery Clift."  I guess, how can the long-lost Capone brother who broke the Italian stereotype compete with that?

I had scheduled the release date for a Friday, assuming it would follow the same rules that movies do.  Have it released through a weekend that people will want to buy it and read it.  About halfway to release, I learned that the best day to release is Monday, as the New York Times and others count the first week of sales along with the pre-releases, and every day will count to your total all the way to Sunday.  I couldn't push it back without losing the right to do pre-orders with Amazon again in the future, so I had to pull the date back from Friday to Monday of the same week.  It made a few things have to rush, but I got them all done...

...and had only 11 sales.  It was disheartening.  I know I made a few mistakes, especially in sending out the press release too early, but I'm satisfied that I did enough things right to feel I couldn't have done a lot better.  I can't force the media to tell my story and talk about my book.  I can't make them interview me.  And the subject matter is dynamic enough that I refuse to believe that's the problem.  I mean,it's Capone's long-lost-freakin'-brother, and he was a freakin' Prohibition officer.  If that isn't a perfect story for public radio and history stations, I don't know what is.

I have been remembering what I read from another self-published author, that he self-publishes fiction, and traditionally publishes non-fiction.  I didn't understand why at the time, but now I do.  When promoting non-fiction, you are counting on news sources, such as newspapers, radio stations, and especially NPR and PBS.  You count on them because your readers trust them more than they'll ever trust you.  History readers are typically more traditional, and they want to know that what they're reading is the truth.  Most have bought into the idea that a traditional publisher has multiple readers and editors scouring over the facts and double checking them to make sure they're accurate.  They do not realize this is all a myth.  Nevertheless, the media outlets perpetuate this stereotype by connecting with the traditional publishers, and their time and space is filled up with authors from these publishers.  Many of them are friends with the editors and producers of these media outlets, having made these connections while they were both climbing their career ladders.

It was a discouraging lesson, and I was frankly very depressed by it.  But I did start having a small ray of hope as I began moving into phase 3...

#self-publishing #bookpromotion

Relic Worlds at Wondercon

Since Two Gun Hart released only two weeks ago, I wanted to focus only on promoting it for the next couple months.  However, Wondercon is taking place this weekend, and it is the best place to promote science fiction and adventure.  As such, I have been preparing for it, and I will be there promoting Relic Worlds all three days.

I'll of course have all the Relic Worlds materials there, including books, samples, descriptions, etc.  I'll be host the miniature game of it on Saturday evening.  But the primary promotion involves a giant treasure hunt that covers the entire convention.  The flyers below are being given out at the front and on social media.  People who choose to do it need to photograph themselves at the proper locations, then post the photos on Facebook and Twitter with the hashtag: relicworldstreasurehunt.  If this works, it will bring attention to the series, and cause a lot of people to put Relic Worlds onto their own social media streams.

To prepare for this, I've had to get two short stories finished and posted on the Relic Worlds page.  The first was the pirate story which had been started but never finished.  I couldn't leave it hanging, so I needed to write the rest of it.  Unfortunately, this story turned out to be longer than I had intended.  Then, I couldn't have the latest story be the pirate story; then new readers would think that's the primary storyline.  So I had to write a Lancaster James story to have at the top of the main website.  Since a lot of new people will be coming in after this, I wanted this story to be a classic Relic Worlds story with a basic plot.  He travels through the jungle, finds a tomb, gets through traps, has to get away from monsters, then run away from local tribesmen, all while getting help from his trusty assistant Little Jack.

I've finished the stories, but need to get back to it to do the touch-ups and insert links, so I better get to it.

Huffington Post Talks About the Shifting Landscape of Book Reviews

My mother sent me this wonderful article from the Huffington Post talking about the changing landscape not only of publishing, but of spreading the word regarding books; primarily through reviews.  They even bring up a topic I spoke on earlier; that of the need for bloggers not to ignore their own kind and review other self-published authors.

See it here:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/19/self-published-book-reviews_n_3467890.html

Making a Book Trailer

When you look up book trailers, you usually find very dry, dull, and most of all, cheap videos that leave you less likely to buy the book than when you started watching.  I don’t think this is from a lack of trying.  I think it’s from a lack of looking at it from the reader’s point of view, and a lack of creativity.

There are a lot of trailers that have the author reading the book.  In these cases, I can’t even tell you what he’s saying.  When given visual and audio cues, we tend to take the visual.  I hear “Person talking, person talking, person talking, person talking.”  It’s suggestion through visual leads.  There are many other trailers which show cliché images, like a person’s shadow while a narrator, (usually the author,) reads a part of the story which doesn’t show how the book stands out.  And then there are those trailers with just words.  I might as well just read the description at that point.

What works is making it look like a movie trailer, using the elements that make people go, “I wish I was watching THAT right now.”  If it’s a book, people will want to read it to get those same images in their head.

In doing this, the most important aspects are twofold.  First, be clear about what it is; and second, show how it stands out.  If you show a trailer that makes it look like every other book of the genre, people will just go, I’ve already seen it.

As for being clear, understand that this doesn’t necessarily mean showing it in chronological order, or showing whole scenes, or even telling the whole plot.  Sometimes getting the idea across includes showing a series of shots that express your story or theme.  In the case of many fiction stories, this means just showing clips of single lines of characters mixed in with other shots appropriate to the genre.

In non-fiction, the best route to go, I find, is some sort of documentary.  Make it clear that this is a true story, and make the images, words, and music go along with it.

How to get these images is the biggest question.  You’ll have to make a budget for it, but don’t break the bank on this.  You can get great stock pictures at several sites, like Pond 5 or Shutterstock.  Shooting actors in front of green screens makes it possible to put whatever you want behind them.  And sometimes what you want are images you don’t have to create.  For instance, if it’s non-fiction, you often want images from the true story itself, including photographs and newspaper clippings that are probably already in your book anyway, so you have the rights to them.

And if you’re not planning on showing your book on TV or some other place that requires all the rights to be cleared, you can get away with a lot more.  Youtube actually allows you to post video up of other people’s material, as long as you’re not making money on it.  If you’re doing a book trailer, you truly are not wanting to have other people’s commercials on it, because the trailer itself IS a commercial.  Therefore, you don’t need to be having commercials on it and making money from it.  Below are a couple examples of how I’ve done this.

Relic Worlds – Lancaster James and the Search for the Promised World:  I used all sorts of images from other movies and video games, intercutting my actors in front of blue screens that were replaced by backgrounds that looked like the places in the movies and game videos, so they looked like they were in among the other, better visuals.  The cuts are usually so fast that most of it looks like it’s all part of the same scene.  Also, in true trailer form, I have a character start talking in one shot, and it carries over the next, which gives even more of a sense of connection.  To top it off, I used music from Battlestar Galactica, which not only sounded better, it appealed to BSG fans.  Youtube allows me to have this up, as long as I’m not making money directly from the trailer.  And I’m able to post the trailer up in various locations.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KcDFJT5RPQ8&list=UU1CcgAwLJ7dVsIEVVyQwaVg

The Great Heist – I mixed typewritten information with images from the book.  I then put it all to the music of The Untouchables, which is thematically appropriate to the material.  Again, while it’s not music that I own, as long as I’m keeping it on Youtube and not making money directly from it, it’s okay.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qaFGR1CPmgA

Two of them that I’ve had a lot of luck with are the ones for Pro Bono and the Pick Your Path books.

Pro Bono – I did two videos in this case.  One of them was a semi-documentary where I mixed footage of an interview with my father talking about the case with images of the case itself all to Bruce Springsteen music that was written about the story.  The other is simply a real documentary that was made in the 1970s about the case.  This has been extremely popular, as it is a documentary lost to history about a case no one forgot.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ODW6uh1Bt0Q

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8LgGj5nFmoo

The pick your path books actually allows the viewer to pick a path.  They get the initial video, which takes them onto a planet where they follow the main character to some ruins.  He looks at three doors, and the reader gets to click on whichever one they wish to go through.  This takes them to a video that shows them what happens when they go through that door.  (Each one, of course, just leads them to one of the books.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qC46wo5qAVU

Twitter versus Instagram

I’m not the best when it comes to social media.  I find it to be more or less a necessary evil.  It’s not a horrible thing really, but all things being equal, I’d rather be writing my next book and let it speak for itself than be finding things to talk about on Facebook, Twitter, or even a blog.  Even now, I had to force myself to do this before getting back to my next book.

So for the wide release launch of the first Relic Worlds novel, I’m getting a social media guru to help me.  She gave me a choice of two platforms through which she would help.  Facebook is a must, and the other can be either Twitter or Instagram.  My first thought is for Twitter, but she recommended Instagram.  She said that Instagram is more popular with young people these days.

I therefore have to consider the pros and cons of both platforms.  I’m not crazy about either of them as I’m someone who prefers to have longer, deeper conversations, which are not conducive to the brief Twitter posts, or the picture-only Instagram.  My promoter said we could post things relevant to Relic Worlds such as scientific photos and science fiction pictures.  We couldn’t do much in the real world as pictures of me would involve me in the chair in front of my computer, then me in the chair from another angle, then me with a cat on my lap, etc.

This wasn’t a bad idea, but then I got to thinking that the reason why Instagram is more popular with younger people is because many of them are more interested in images than words.  If I was doing Relic Worlds as a comic book, this would be a good idea, but I’m not.  I want to attract people who are interested in reading, in taking in words, brief or otherwise.

One of the most important things I’ve learned in marketing is that you have to market to people who may actually buy your product.  Marketing to anyone else may seem like you’re casting a wider net, but you’re really just wasting time.  It’s for this  reason that I’m probably going to go with Twitter promotions throughout July.

I’m no expert at this, though, so if anyone reading this has further insight, I would love to hear it.

Relic Worlds Novel Free Today on Kindle through KDP Select

My latest novel, Relic Worlds: Lancaster James and theSearch for the Promised World, is now available for the Kindle on Amazon.  I had been releasing the series on Drivethru Fiction, and had even done this book as a serial there, releasing each chapter as I finished it.  As such, I was going to have the novel come out on Drivethru and all the other e-readers upon release.

However, I looked over the results of my last two books, Pro Bono and The Great Heist.  I released the former through the free on Kindle program, and even though I gave thousands of copies away for free, I sold thousands more after the promotion.  That book still sells better than any of my others.  Meanwhile, I put The Great Heist through Amazon’s other promotion program, Kindle Countdown Deal, where it is sold for a lower price for a limited time.  I had almost no luck with that, selling only a few copies during the promotion period, and it’s never taken off, despite the fact that the subject matter is even more appealing to the general public than Pro Bono.

Of course, none of the other major e-reader platforms have a good promotion program other than Drivethru, which, unfortunately, is not a site highly trafficked enough to get a huge amount of sales.  So as a result, I’m going exclusively with Amazon to give away those copies for free so hopefully those people will spread the word.

I am doing this promotion in two stages:

First promotion:  I’m making it free for two days over a weekend to give it away to all the fans of Relic Worlds and people who have been following me on blogs, Facebook, Twitter, etc.  It’s a bonus to them, and hopefully those people will begin spreading the word in time for the second promotion.

Second promotion:  About a month later, I’m making it free for three days.  I will be promoting this one far more widely.  Those areas include:  Book Bub, Pixel of Ink, Facebook sci fi sites, Google + sci fi sites, Kindle Daily, etc.  This is the one I’ll really be pushing, and trying to get people to purchase.

The intent is to generate interest while there’s still time left in the exclusive Kindle deal.  The reason this is helpful is because it maximizes the book’s exposure in one area, making it more likely to get on their top books list.  If people have multiple readers, they purchase it on Amazon, and that pushes me up the Amazon list higher.  If it was on multiple readers, the book would go more evenly up multiple lists, thus making it so the book never reaches bestseller status on any one site.

Since the other e-reader sites do not have promotions that support independent artists like Amazon does, I chose Amazon Kindle.  Simple as that.  They all bemoan Amazon for having unfair business practices, but they do that while not improving their own services for independent authors like myself; so I don’t feel too sorry for them.