How To Successfully Promote Your Novel (And Learn Something Along The Way)
The easiest thing about writing is sitting down a few times a week and tapping away at my computer, transcribing my ideas into words as my narrative coalesces and my characters become more like real people (I hope) upon the page. Over a period of several months (up to a year if you throw in a bit of editing as well) pages become chapters, and chapters form into solid, identifiable chunks which in turn splodge together like a huge roast dinner to become a book. And that is when the whole writing process slows down and becomes incredibly hard. In order to get the readers to buy my novel, I have to promote it in as many interesting and innovative ways as I can, and along the way generate some (hopefully) favourable reviews that will in turn lead to more downloads and further positive reviews until the whole thing becomes one big pleasantly vicious cycle that results in my book climbing Amazon's charts and me feeling really, really good about myself and my incredibly huge literary talent (I wish!).
I published my debut novel - Jack Strong and the Red Giant - on Amazon over ten years ago now on July 7th, 2014. To say that I have had an exceptionally steep learning curve would be an understatement. I think most of the mistakes I made early on were purely born out of the fact that I just wanted to get the book OUT THERE as soon as possible for people to read and buy in their hundreds and thousands (well I can dream!). The first and perhaps the biggest mistake I made was the cover. I have taken the liberty of including both the original cover (in all its textbook sexiness) below, together with the updated Hollywood movie poster version that Fantabanner on www.fiverr.com (A great website for indy writers by the way) designed for me. About 18 people downloaded (well I pestered them!) the original version but it became increasingly clear to me that if I wanted a stranger to go to the trouble of parting with his or her hard-earned money then I needed a cover that jumped out at them and said READ ME! Hopefully, the new cover satisfactorily addresses that issue, though I still think it could do with more work. Another problem with the book has been the blurb. I need a few snappy sentences in order to attract the readers without giving too much away. I'm still not happy with it - perhaps I never will be - and so far I think I've re-wrote and re-jigged it about five or six times. Not unlike the cover, I want somebody to read it and for it to jump out at them and grab their attention like the blurb for Harry Potter or else The Lord of the Rings.
Another particularly daunting - and not to say tiring - challenge for me has been trying to take the book beyond my immediate circle of friends and family and trying to get strangers to buy it. So far my main focus has been the internet. Since the book's launch (though in a way it's more like an enduring campaign) I have swamped Facebook and Twitter and Google + (now defunct) and Linked In etc with updates and promotions all about my book. It's pretty time-consuming stuff (as those of you who are currently engaged in it will no doubt know) as I have to post links, reply to comments, and even post sample chapters (a good way to draw the reader into the quality of my book) in various places, all in the pursuit of scant sales. But where once I daydreamed of a hop, skip, and a jump to international literary fame - I now come to value how important one single sale is. It just goes to show that somebody out there thought enough of my book's blurb or the photo or any of the numerous posts I've plastered all over the internet to download my book. Sometimes as writers we have to be willing to make the hard yards in order get a few touchdowns. Actually, last week I went on holiday to France and upon my return several days later I found that five people had downloaded my book and I hadn't even promoted it whilst I'd been away. How good was that? I felt like the Terminator, that I could conquer the literary world five readers at a time.
The Scourge of Bad Reviews
But if there was anything that could have brought me back down to Planet Earth it was a bad review. For the past few weeks, as part of my promotional efforts, I've been sending free copies of my novel off to several book reviewers in the hope that they will adequately (or more than adequately I hope) review my book on Amazon and Facebook etc. so that this will in turn generate more buzz and thus MORE SALES! As there is a direct link on Amazon between the number of positive reviews and actual sales this is acutely vital for many writers like me. Well, I got one such review and it stank like a rotten egg that had been left out in the farmyard for a month or two. I won't go too much into the details - I can't even remember the website now - but suffice to say that it was not exactly conducive to a good and happy mood on my part. I felt down about it for a while (well, pissed-off is the word). They hated all of my main characters and much else besides – and pretty much thought that it was the worst book they’d ever read (it really isn’t you know!). But was I going to stay in this gloomy state forever? Not a chance. As Chef might've said in South Park - fudge em'. It's all a matter of opinion after all, and there are plenty of people who write great, snotty-nosed epics slaughtering Stephen King and Tolkien and Shakespeare et al and saying how rubbish they are too. Not that I'm saying I'm as awesome as they are but it's just that as a writer I believe that whilst it's important for me to be open-minded and thoughtful of what other people say about my work, I also believe that I must have this stubborn zeal to carry on regardless, otherwise I'll end up losing all my confidence and then I may - just may - end up changing my voice to suit others - others who may not give a fig about my work one way or another. Besides, I've had far more positive reviews about my novel than bad and I'm still averaging four point two stars on Amazon – so hurray for me!
Another way I'm trying to promote my novel is through this blog and my new podcast, ‘What! The Heys’, where I discuss various literary issues with other writers like myself. Hopefully, people who are interested in reading it will also want to check out my novel. Of course I have no stats to back this up - but like I said earlier you gotta have faith. The more innovative I get with my promotional tools the more success I believe I will ultimately get. But whatever happens I will keep on promoting and trying new things that can help me bring my book to my target audience. So far I've shifted 130+ copies of my book and this is something that I'm incredibly proud of. Hopefully, I will shift a few more copies over the coming weeks and months, and then maybe, just maybe a Literary Agent or publisher in the U.K or the U.S.A will see my book as more marketable than it had been when I first set out on this journey. And then the rest will be, as they say, history.
Comments
Post a Comment