Lots of Books

You may have noticed from what I've written so far that I've had many books pass through my hands in the last few months. Lever is produced by Taegais Publishing LLC, a newly-formed independent publisher. OK, I'll admit it, this is me. I can get as many books as I want directly from the printer, as long as I have the money to purchase them.

If you have a well-established traditional publisher, you may only get ten, or twenty, or fifty books. If you self-publish through a book packager or self-publishing company, you'll probably have to buy books at a possibly significant mark-up, since many packages only give you a certain number.

Through my studies of book marketing techniques, though, I've read that starting word of mouth is much easier if you have LOTS of books. I knew I'd be buying books, so I've been budgeting for this for a long time. During this enterprise between August and December I went through nine (!) boxes of 22 ARCs (198 books), although remember many were sold through that wonderful book signing at Curves, that then paid for more books. I've sold more, at the August conference and to friends-of-friends of people who'd read Lever. I passed many books out to reviewers (which you've already heard about), and to other groups such as endorsers, the blog tour, home-schooling companies, Christian bookstores, schools, librarians, and a few to contests. I sent a book to a woman collecting reading material for soldiers in Afghanistan. And another fairly large group I passed books out to was influencers.

What are influencers?

Influencers have been a wonderful group, people I've so much enjoyed meeting! If you participated in my contest in December, for example, you may have won one of my books -- this was the last gasp of the 9th box of the ARCs that I had, and you were among my final group of influencers. I found other influencers through asking on the ACFW loop, or through directly finding reviewers and bloggers and asking if they might want to review my book. BTW, a great link to find top amazon reviewers is HERE.

Influencers have a platform, and are so named because they can influence others if they like your book. The platform can be a web presence, but the way I look at it EVERYONE is an influencer. After all, if your friend tells you he's just read the most wonderful book, isn't that a platform? For each book I sent out, I stated that if the person didn't like the book, then I greatly appreciated their time and consideration and I didn't expect them to promote something they didn't believe in. (I had three of these). However, if they DID like the book, there were a number of things they could do if they wanted to to help. Some of the most important things were to tell their friends and book clubs, ask their local library to order it, and write an amazon (or other site) review. Lynn Rush yesterday sent me a wonderful list of things influencers can do, put together by an author, and I'd like to contact her to see if she'll let me post it. Thanks Lynn!

Thinking back on the avenues I've explored over the past few months, I have to say that the influencer pathway has been the most rewarding -- not just because many people have given me valuable feedback and have facilitated further sales, but because it's been great to meet so many wonderful people!

I look at marketing as picking up one grain of sand at a time. There is no shovel; you've got to just keep going, one small thing after another, and before you know it you've made quite a bit of progress. Then again, though, isn't that how most things in life work?

Marketing with Blog Book Tours

The internet creates startling opportunities to network and disseminate information. One fabulous twist on the old-fashioned book tour is the Blog Tour, something that you're probably familiar with. Basically, a single book is featured within a short period of time, such as a day or week, on multiple blogs. The goal is to increase the book's exposure, since it's been shown that repeated reminders of a product make it more likely for someone to convert (ie buy the darn thing). Furthermore, since the reviewers usually give honest opinions of the bad as well as the good, a potential buyer can get a reasonable assessment of whether he might actually like the book.

These book-review blogs take a little bit of work to find: use google or other blog search engines to find blogs that review books, and check them out to see which might be appropriate. You can make a list, then comment or write to the person to see if they might be interested in reviewing your book. Coordinating them will be a challenge, but multiple exposures of a book over a few weeks or months won't necessarily be horrible, providing you can keep other marketing techniques going at the same time to maintain a potential *buzz.*

But wait! There's an easier way.

There are organizations that put blog tours together for authors. Some of these operate out of a publisher's advertising/marketing department, and only work for this company. Some operate from self-pubbing organizations, and you can purchase a package that will help you put together a blog tour. Some are freelance marketers that you can hire. I have the names of some of these companies that I will be happy to give you if you email me, but since I have no direct knowledge of the quality of their work and they're fairly costly, I don't feel comfortable putting their names out here.

However, if you have a book that is consistent with a Christian world view, I have an even better option for you to consider: First Wild Card Tours.

First Wild Card Tours (the link is HERE) is a *free* service that puts together blog tours. You the author must provide the books and the postage, but while not inconsequential financially, that's it. It works like this: You find an open date that works for you, and submit the title, a brief description, the first chapter, and an author photo. You also state how many books you can provide; a good number might be 25. The director makes an announcement on the loop, and then interested bloggers contact you directly. A few weeks later, on your date, the blog tour goes up.

Furthermore, these don't have to be new books, so if you have an older release date you're still good to go. First Wild Card will also tour self-published books.

Personally, I think this is a great deal! My blog tour is next month. When the time comes, I'll link to all of the blogs that will be carrying my book, and you can see what you think.

And by the way, if you have a blog, you like free books, and you don't mind writing reviews, you might want to consider joining this group as well. There are no minimum standards for participation, and you get to choose the books you'd like to read. Not bad.

Marketing, the Next Installment

I have news before I start:

To review events, two weeks ago I found out serendipitously that A Lever Long Enough was one of seven candidates for the ACFW's March Book Club selection (link to join this free Club is HERE). While I was happy with God's will on whichever book was selected, I recognized that this was a good opportunity and would have loved to win if possible. I wrote to many of you to ask that if you were a member of this club, would you please consider voting for me!

Last weekend the poll was closed. My book and one other book were finalists. The final runoff poll started this past Tuesday and lasted until Saturday two days ago. I prayed that whichever book was chosen, God's Kingdom would be advanced.

I am pleased, humbled, and excited to announce that I WON!

Many of you voted for me, and I just want to say thank you, thank you! You allowed me to have an amazing opportunity. I so appreciate your confidence and help in this whole process, and I won't forget it.

So, this is where the rubber meets the road. I pray that Lever hits its marks during the month of March. I am eager to hear feedback, have the book touch hearts, and basically have it become a little better known. This is a big club of about 728 members, so the possibilities could potentially snowball.

*******

The goal of marketing, as well as I have been able to understand it, is to get that wonderful *Word of Mouth* (WOM) phenomenon where *everyone* seems to be buzzing about your product, whatever it may be. There are some books written about this, such as Malcolm Gladwell's The Tipping Point and many others. I've flipped through some of these books; they have common sense observations, but nothing that you probably couldn't figure out on your own. This is my own opinion, for whatever it's worth.

This WOM comes about serendipitously, through a lucky confluence of a number of factors. Even so, there are a few things that increase the chances. The first and most important factor is that you must have a top-notch product. If it's not good, even if you ignite the sparks they will not be able to catch: Witness certain well-known figures getting a massive book advance, and the resounding flop of the book sales. All the advertising in the world can't prop up a bad book.

The next thing is that you must show up. You must tirelessly work to get your book's name out there, in as many venues as possible.

My last entry finished with my sending out a bunch of books cold to review sites. In general I don't do cold applications, but some of these places especially the big ones don't consider books any other way. For my After-Action Report on this aspect, I think I'd only consider sending books to the big-three sites (Publisher's Weekly, Kirkus, Library Journal) on the off-chance that they might take a look since it would be such a coup if they did, but then again maybe not even these. Although many of the books I'd read highly recommended this maneuver, for me cold reviews were a disappointing flop. And FYI, I plan to resend to Midwest Book Reviews cold (because, after all, they did write to me), but that's it.

There were other major groups that I sent books out to: invited book reviews, influencers, contests, and potential marketing groups, to name a few. And notice that I sent out A LOT of books. This is critical to start getting your book's name out there. Insist that your publisher do this, or (better, because you know it'll get done) that you have the capacity to do this adequately. I was fortunate because the money I made from the Curves signing after tithing was just enough to pay for these extra books. Also, when I ordered the books, an extra box of 22 books was delivered with the order. I called and no one knew anything about it -- they were just there. Do you see what I mean when I say I sense God's hand in all this?

I have a secret weapon to help get the word out for my book. This single thing is as close to a magic bullet as I've been able to find. I've been using it for three years, I'm STILL using it, and I expect to use it for a long time to come. It's amazingly helpful even if you don't have a book out yet but are still writing.

Are you ready?

If you have a Christian world view, this is your ticket: The American Christian Fiction Writers' Organization (website HERE).

This is an organization of over a thousand writers, ranging from newbies to multipublished authors, plus editors and agents. They have many resources including critique groups, regional meetings, and several very active loops that pass on amazing bits of information. I have made a number of friendships here, including many of you reading this blog. I can ask questions, I can help other people with their questions, I can learn, I can find helpful websites, I can enter contests, and on and on. Joining is $50 the first year and $40 each year thereafter. For me it's been well worth it. For what it's worth, I'd suggest you get single emails rather than digest, and also you get a separate email address so your other correspondences don't get snowed under.

'Nuff said.

Is this marketing getting boring yet? Tomorrow I'll cover more of the groups that I sent to, but if you'd rather I can go back to other subjects. Let me know if you can't stand this!

Here We Go!

Just think, if you're reading this blog, you have a ringside seat to the marketing strategies of the first book of a new, unknown author. I'm making my marketing strategies up as I go along, but I've read a lot about this and am happy to let you know of my errors and good choices as things progress. Also, please feel free to write to me if you have any specific questions. Since I have a new independent publisher (read: approximately zero marketing dollars or industry connections), I'm basically doing all my own marketing tout-seul from scratch.

Some authors may think that marketing is *beneath them;* they want to just write in their garret, but IMHO (in my humble opinion) if no one knows about your book you could have written the next Great American Novel, and it would not get into anyone's hands. Maybe your heirs searching through your old desk drawer will find your manuscript in 50 years and be amazed.

Marketing is an intensive enterprise without magic bullets. It's like picking up grains of sand: each humble opportunity is important. I have a little *Marketing* section on the side of this blog, so scroll down for a few tips. Let me tell you what I've done so far:

Most frustrating for me, I've had to put further work on two half-finished manuscripts on hold (my novel Nest Among the Stars, and my nonfiction book The Story Template) because between marketing and family obligations, I don't have the energy to write as well. I probably could if I really really tried, but for me to write I have to go into a well, and I'm interrupted so much it's hard to get the start-up energy. Right now I'm barely keeping my head above water as it is.

Let me say for this next section that I'm normally a shy person, although I've learned a strategy to overcome this: basically, I pretend I'm someone else. It works!

The box with ARCs (advance reader copies) arrived on my doorstep at the very end of July 2008, delivery squeaking just in time to take copies with me to a writer's conference in August. I pushed my book quietly but shamelessly: I put it on my desk for each lecture and I recruited whoever I could to also visibly carry it around. At meals or other socializing times, when people asked what I wrote, I told them and showed them the book. I collected and passed out business cards, and followed up after the conference. I was fortunate enough as a new published author to participate in a panel, so got to talk about my book to a full auditorium. I promoted a contest for book reviews -- you can see the results by scrolling down the right-hand panel of this blog. Carmen Leal, who did a series of workshops on Marketing, saw my book on the desk, held it up, and told the class that she'd seen several people reading this book with great interest (God bless her!) I also approached several faculty -- authors, blog reviewers, and such -- and asked them if they'd consider endorsing the book if they liked it. If they said yes they'd consider it, I autographed and handed them a copy. At the end of the conference I had sold 15 ARCs from the consignment table, and was told this was a VERY good showing for fiction by a new author, especially since money was tight and the table was full of how-to titles and works by well-known authors. I was happy.

OK, this blog entry is getting too long so I'll continue tomorrow. Let me finish with a quick piece of news:

*****

The ACFW Book Club Poll to select March's discussion book is now on until Saturday 1/17. This is a run-off vote between Michelle Griep's Gallimore and my A Lever Long Enough; I've posted descriptions of both books under yesterday's blog entry *Ohhh Nooo* These two books were selected from a previous poll last week of seven books under consideration.

If you think my book is worthwhile and would consider voting for me in this poll, I'd be very grateful. Michelle and I have had a brief correspondence and we're both on good terms no matter who wins. I am praying that either selection advances God's kingdom, but even so have to admit I'd like to win because this is a great opportunity. So.

To vote, go to this link HERE. The banner shows *1 Poll Closing* which is the one of interest, or you can go to the navigation menu on the left top of the screen and hit *Polls.* The poll to vote in is the second one down the page, and is labeled *Runoff.* (be careful because the original poll with 7 titles didn't close -- don't vote here by mistake!)

If you are not a member of the ACFW Book Club, you can join by going to the link (HERE it is again), and hitting the *Join* button on the top right hand side of the screen. It is a free group, a loop with emails that you can receive either singly or in a digest once a day. You can quit any time you want to, although hopefully it will be interesting to you in its own right! NOTE: If you're a member of the main ACFW loop, you don't automatically become a member of this loop: they are separate, so you have to join. It takes less than a minute.

I can't know who votes or not, so if you don't want to for whatever reason don't worry! Thank you for considering my request.

Quiet but shameless?

That's all for today.