Hooray, finally, it’s out! Our short story collection – LOVE, LIES AND OTHER DECEPTIONS – is for sale on Amazon, birthed perhaps with more of a raspy mumble than a shout. Oh, we’ve mentioned it in our newsletters, blog posts, blasted a multitude of tweets on Twitter, posted the news on our personal and professional Facebook pages and offered it at a special launch price of 99 cents. Our review team has received advance copies and so far we’ve garnished five reviews, happily all 5 star. And so off goes another book baby into the big wide world.
Which begs the question – how do you get your book noticed? When our first novel, How To Survive Your Sisters, was launched by Arrow, the publicity department handled everything, arranged radio interviews and a Daily Express two-page spread. We had a brief glorious taste of the celebrity author life, flowers from editor and agent, champagne launch parties. We sat outside Waterstones signing copies as Lorraine’s American (and born salesman) husband, Gary, dragged unsuspecting passers-by over to our little table. Alas, the whole thing coincided with the stock market crash and despite good reviews, our sales, although respectable, could hardly compete with the massive despondency that hit the publishing world that year.
Our third novel Looking For La La was also our first self-publishing venture. Boy, were we innocents! It was only when our agent asked us where were the reviews, where were the blog posts, that we realized we had to take control of our destiny. Luckily that book had an interesting back-story, based on a lipstick-imprinted anonymous love postcard Pam’s husband received through the mail and which Pam, like any dedicated author, had promptly used as inspiration for a murder mystery. We contacted all the chicklit sites and started a whirl of interviews and blog posts. We also put ‘La La’ out on free, joined a zillion Facebook ‘free novel’ sites, redid our web page, started developing a Twitter following. Our previously undiscovered novel shot up the Amazon charts and we became much more media savvy, not to mention befriending some wonderful bloggers who still support us today.
Recently though we’ve been questioning which efforts produce results and which aren’t worth the time. Does anyone pay attention to those ‘free book’ Facebook groups except for other authors hoping to promote? We don’t think so. Is it really worth paying for any promotions, except, of course, for the highly-competitive Bookbub? Some things you do because they’re fun, like Lorraine’s party for a hundred plus friends to launch To Catch A Creeper, where everyone dressed up as cat burglars and had a whoopee good time, although with all the alcohol consumed, not too many remembered to buy the book. Professional book tours provided a hell of a lot of action but also a lot of work, writing endless original and witty copy. And when sandwiched between a YA vampire story and a slice of steamy erotica, you have to question if the audience you’re reaching is the one you want!
Still we can all agree that promotion is important and glowing reviews most important of all. But how to get them? We just finished a free stint of our novel Million Dollar Question with over 20,000 downloads. Will that lead to a jump in sales now that it’s back at full price? Or a slew of new readers? When we find out, we’ll let you know.
I’m looking forward to what you decide/find out. I’ve promoted my two self-published romantic suspense books lightly (I’m much too shy…) and found that my best sales were from friends (a big e-mail rush) and then through word of mouth. With my just-published children’s book, I’m using social media, yes, but also finding local venues the best – giving talks to three different libraries on ‘how I published a children’s book’ – so many people out there want to know – and then they buy my signed copies. It’s labor intensive, but a wonderful way to meet people who love books like we do.
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I’m about to self pub my second novel, so I’m desperately looking for ways to promote it. I look forward to following your progress and hopefully getting some tips!
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Thanks Suzanne. We’ll keep you posted here at Take Five Authors. Good luck with your second novel.
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Thank you.
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Reblogged this on Chicklit Sisters.
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Good question. A lot of authors mull over how to get discovered. And you’re right, Bookbub is highly competitive and awfully choosy.
You might find this helpful:
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Thank you. Looks great 😀
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Love, Lies and other Deceptions is already on my Kindle – looking forward to reading it. Looking forward to learning whether your last promotion of Million Dollar Question resulted in new sales and readers after it went back to full price. I’ve done no promotions for months – and it really shows!
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Yes, we’ve discovered if we don’t promote, the books just languish unnoticed. We’ll let you know if this latest one was successful.
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Glad you liked it, Sue. That means a lot.
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It’s hard work promoting any book, let alone an indie one. I know – I’ve tried it. In addition, the e-book market is changing – and not for the easier. Your journey will be a really interesting one for all of us, Pam and Lorraine – please do keep us posted on how it’s going as the journey progresses!
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Thanks to much, Jenny. Appreciate the kind comments. And we will!
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Following! Can’t wait to learn more. All the best to you
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Thanks Jena. That’s great!
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This is a seriously useful and interesting post, which could be useful to writers at almost any stage of their career journey.
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