Saturday, June 12, 2010

Promotion without losing your mind, money and soul


You know you have to do it. If readers aren’t aware of your book’s existence, they aren’t going to buy it. If you don’t know that, you must be dreaming or have a huge fan base to buy your books and do all the selling for you by word of mouth. Yeah, that doesn’t usually happen. Even if you’re with a large publishing house, you’ll be expected to make the occasional public appearance. The bottom line is: if your books don’t sell well, your publisher might not love you anymore. If your publisher doesn’t love you anymore, someone else’s books will be published instead of yours. It’s not like they’ll go under without you or that there aren’t several other authors waiting to step into your shoes. Unless you’re a big deal and you’re publisher loves you for your name, alone, you need to promote your books.

Now, what about the new or relatively unknown author? They need to promote their books even harder. Their budget for promotion may be very limited so they have to find venues that are free or very inexpensive—mainly on the Internet. Perhaps that’s why chat loops, blogs, ezines, and review sites are springing up in record numbers. New authors are some of the most Internet promo savvy authors out there—because they have to be.

I'm not new, but I'm new to the mainstream marketplace. People know me for my erotic romance, but many reviewers and bloggers out there have never heard of me. So...I reintroduced myself on my website: http://www.ashlynchase.com, created a 'brand' literally--I have my own logo...see middle of webpage.

Knowing that, let’s move on to the survival aspect. I went to a workshop given by Vicki Lewis Thompson on promoting according to your personality. If you’re an extrovert, lucky you! Promoting your books in person will be easy. People will automatically gravitate to you and they’ll even forgive you if you act like your own biggest fan. And, by the way, you have to be when promoting your work. If that’s extremely uncomfortable for you, it might be easier to hire a good publicist, pay for advertising, and give loads of promos to venues willing and anxious to distribute them for you.

Most authors dread promotion. In my typical overly honest and irreverent way, I’ve even referred to it as “pimping” my book. But I have a secret. When I’m having fun, it isn’t work. ‘Playing’ with readers online is fun for me because I can let my outrageous personality shine through and readers have a blast. Ultimately, they look at my website and buy my books—at lease I hope so. I’m sure there are those people who think I’m a lunatic and run the other way. Oh well. They’re no fun, anyway. So, there’s my secret in a nutshell. Promotion can and should be fun.

5 comments:

susan said...

Ash, I love your article here and I sure do appreciate the time and effort authors use to let us know about their new books. I depend on this alot since I do not get out much and my computer gets me in touch with you and others. susan L.

Wynter said...

Good topic - thanks. The Internet is definitely a great way to promote and there are so many ways as you point out.

Hot Ash Romance Novels said...

Thanks for taking the time to read and respond!

Contests are another good way to promote!

Today's contest winner will be announced on my blog tomorrow.

Ash

Jina Bacarr said...

I love promoting on the Internet! You can reach so many people in so many places. You have the right idea, Ashlyn, make it fun for you and your readers will have fun, too!

Dalton Diaz said...

I've been lucky enough to learn from you, but I still don't know how you do it and still be so prolific! Someday I hope to figure out how to do it all.