This week, I received a linkedin inquiry from a fellow author who just finished writing his first novel, and asked me for advice on both publishing and marketing his novel. Below are my
recommendations on both publishing and marketing.
It took my four years to write my novel, two years to find a publisher, another year editing with the publisher, then two years after printing with a publisher, moving to self-publishing, and then marketing.
Publisher or Self-Publish:
Because Amazon has change the market, I moved from publisher to self-publishing. Including using and recommending, Amazon's self-publisher, CreateSpace. If you have the finances, you can still pay to have your novel on Barnes and Noble book shelves.
Marketing:
Most people and authors, including myself, think that I am done when published and the book sales will just happen. This couldn’t be further from reality. When ‘Decisions’ was published, I quickly learned that I need to treat this as the beginning versus the end of my involvement with selling my book. As a first time author with a smaller publisher and when I moved to self-publishing, I put together a plan to increase sales of my novel. Below is my high-level marketing plan:
Have diligence and patience, as you can see there is a lot to promoting your book and the process takes time. It takes time for people to read your book and recommend to others. After requesting a copy of my novel, it took a blog a full six months to finally have a blogger post a positive review of Decisions. Verses get frustrated take that energy to work even harder to increase your book sales.
Good publishing, if you have any questions, comments, or recommendations on this post, promoting books, or on my novel, please contact me at shaun@closerq.com.
It took my four years to write my novel, two years to find a publisher, another year editing with the publisher, then two years after printing with a publisher, moving to self-publishing, and then marketing.
Publisher or Self-Publish:
Because Amazon has change the market, I moved from publisher to self-publishing. Including using and recommending, Amazon's self-publisher, CreateSpace. If you have the finances, you can still pay to have your novel on Barnes and Noble book shelves.
Marketing:
Most people and authors, including myself, think that I am done when published and the book sales will just happen. This couldn’t be further from reality. When ‘Decisions’ was published, I quickly learned that I need to treat this as the beginning versus the end of my involvement with selling my book. As a first time author with a smaller publisher and when I moved to self-publishing, I put together a plan to increase sales of my novel. Below is my high-level marketing plan:
- Contact Family and Friends
- Local Book Clubs
- Purchase Google Key Words
- Write Blog and promote book
- Put together Business Cards
- Write Press Release
- Contact Traditional Local Media (both phone and email)
- Newspapers, TV, Radio to review and interview me on my novel
- Contact Bloggers with similar themes to yours and request to write reviews of your book and send them free copies
- Set-up Social Media
- Twitter: http://twitter.com/closerq
- Linkedin: http://www.linkedin.com/in/shaunpriest
- Blog: www.closerq.com
- Set up my own website and URL: www.shaunpriest.com
- Plus Facebook; Instagram; Youtube; Snapchat; Pinterest
Have diligence and patience, as you can see there is a lot to promoting your book and the process takes time. It takes time for people to read your book and recommend to others. After requesting a copy of my novel, it took a blog a full six months to finally have a blogger post a positive review of Decisions. Verses get frustrated take that energy to work even harder to increase your book sales.
Good publishing, if you have any questions, comments, or recommendations on this post, promoting books, or on my novel, please contact me at shaun@closerq.com.
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