Self-Publishing Promotion - Phase 1 (6 - 3 Months Before Release)

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

A Big Decision to Make

After a couple weeks of not posting, this week I’m going to post something similar to what I wrote a while ago.  The reason for this is less laziness, (though I am a bit lazy right now,) and more because it’s a very serious decision I need to make.

After approaching more than 50 agents to try to get an upcoming book published through a traditional publisher, I had finally given up and was willing to accept that this book would be published independently as well.  I had been wanting to do this one traditionally so that I could connect with a lot of places that I couldn’t connect with on my own.  But now it was looking like it would be added to my collection of independently published books, and was making plans.

Then one single agent wrote to me and showed some interest.  I’m not sure how interested they are, as their emails have seemed pretty indifferent, but they’ve at least been wanting to take a look at more and more of the book.  So I’ve been sending it to them bit by bit.  I have meanwhile been making plans to independently publish it, so now I’m left with a dilemma.  If they say they want to represent me, should I accept it and go with them, or should I go independently anyway.  Here are the pluses and minuses of each.

Traditional Publishing:

Positives – There are two basic positives to publishing traditionally.  First, the publishers provide promotions.  Second, they get your book into places you can’t get them; namely bookstores.  They have connections at all of these places and send out regular catalogues from which materials are ordered.  These are too numerous for us to do on our own, and when we do contact them, they usually turns us down because we’re not traditional publishers.  This is true both of bookstores and promotional places, such as television and radio stations.

Negatives – To get to a publisher, you have to first sign with an agent.  While you do research on an agent and try to get one you can trust, it’s difficult to know for certain until you’ve already signed with them whether they’re going to do right by you, and by that time it’s too late to turn around and do it yourself.  There’s also no guarantee they’ll actually send it to publishers.  They could just sit on your book because it competed with one of their other books, and they didn’t want it out there in the market, or they might change their mind and not do anything with it for whatever reason.  Then there’s the possibility that even though they do pitch it to publishers, the publishers decide they don’t want it, and then you’re completely stuck, because the agent still has exclusive rights of the book, but it’s not getting published.  And in the end, either the agent or the publisher could decide that you need to revise it in ways you don’t want to revise it, and if you don’t, they still have the rights to it, and you’re not getting published.  And then, even if it is published, it could take two years or more to actually get onto the shelves.

Independent Publishing:

                Positives – Full control.  This is especially important with this piece because it’s about a family that really wants to make sure their ancestor is well represented.  Also, there are multiple places that might want to make this into a movie, and if I get it published soon, they might be serious about that.  If I wait too long, they might lose interest.

                Negatives – A lot of people close their doors to independent publishing.  It’s not right, but they do it.  Many bookstores won’t carry it; even independent bookstores, (go figure.)  As for promotions, many, many radio and TV stations won’t cover you.  Even many blogs, which are independently published themselves, won’t cover your book.  And even those radio and TV stations that criticize corporations and claim to support independent artists, (like the Colbert Report,) won’t even consider independently published books.

So there you go.  That’s my dilemma.  I don’t know which direction I’m going to go.

But I hope it helps some of you out there.