Zen and The Art of Marketing, a survival message for writers

by Samantha Wilde
My long-awaited second novel, I'll Take What She Has, hits the shelves today. I have spent the past two months eating, sleeping, drinking and making love to marketing. (Bad in bed, by the way.

If you are going to work at getting your book out into the world, into the hands of readers and reviewers and critics and bookstores and bloggers and radio stations and television stations and friends, no good marketing plan can be without this: DTIP.

Sounds like a vaccination, doesn't it? Actually, it is. It's the way to vaccinate ourselves so we don't, as writers, become sick with the effects of the responses to our marketing. If you get yourself and your book out there, you will undoubtedly come up against rejection, criticism, silence, and the worst of them--failure.

I don't mean that you'll fail at everything, but, honestly, even with the best efforts, we can feel as if we have failed. If you want Oprah and #1 on the New York Times bestsellers list and you don't get there, you feel like you've failed. If you get in touch with bloggers who don't reply or reviewers who give you two stars, then you're bound to feel some sense of rejection. And this applies to all, including the most brilliant and accomplished of novelists. No one can write a book everyone likes. No one can market without some rebuff or silence or insult.

That's why we all need DTIP: don't take it personally. This is my survival advice for writers. It's my survival advice for living.

One person loves your novel. One person can't stand it. One blogger wants you on their site, one blogger never responds. You get a hundred people to read a post, you get ten. You're still putting out your best. Your book doesn't change in the hands of the readers; the readers are different. I truly don't know how any writer could survive the challenges presented by the layers of rejection involved in publishing and promoting a creative work without the ability to see that, in the end, it's not personal. And I don't mean that a person isn't rejecting you when they reject your book, I mean more than that.

Once you surrender your work to the ferocity of the modern world, the uncensored judgement of the internet, and the fierce competition of the publishing industry, you have to hold close to Zen.

When my copies of I'll Take What She Has arrived at my doorstep, I dressed up and I lay down in those books and rolled around in ecstasy. I wrote a book that was scheduled for 2010, went through five changes of editor, almost didn't release, and finally came to me in 2013. I wasn't going to wait for People or Oprah or the NYTimes to feel inside that experience of success. And you don't need to wait either. The world will or will not validate your work, or it will do it in part and not in other parts. Don't take it personally. The world has its own troubles. In truth, some of the most successful, prominent and most celebrated writers still do not feel they have gotten there yet. Where we all want to get to, it isn't a place, it's a feeling--and you can go there all on your own. And that's the Zen of it.

Watch the book trailer for I'll Take What She Has here. Buy I'll Take What She Has today and give Sam some more Zen! The book, about envy, friendship and new motherhood was an RT Book Review Top Pick. Sam, the mother of three small children and the author of This Little Mommy Stayed Home, is an ordained minister (believe it or not!) and a yoga teacher. Read her blog, laugh at her outrageous videos on FB or follow her on twitter @whatshehas.

Is Going Indie Right for You? by Jess Riley

Unless you’re a member of the Lykov family, you’ve probably noticed that publishing has undergone some dramatic changes in the last few years. Most notably, it’s become easier to self-publish your work and actually make a living writing.

But how do you know if “indie publishing” is right for you?

My first novel was published in 2008 by Ballantine Books; the book sold at auction and went back to press three times. Not too shabby for a scrappy little midlist title! But the publishing landscape has changed significantly since that book sold, and I’m convinced that the same manuscript wouldn't sell today.

In the four years since that book was released, I wandered through a bleak literary desert littered with false starts, missteps, second-guessing, rejection, and depression. My original editor tried to help, pitching story ideas that I inevitably botched because they didn’t come from my own little Eeyore heart. She moved on to different publishing houses and new projects, and I returned to the desert.

In 2011 I was hit with the idea for All the Lonely People. My agent loved it (which came as a huge relief), and we submitted to maybe a dozen publishers, getting heartbreakingly close rejections. A few months into our submission process I began to lose patience and heart. Maybe I should have given it more time, but this past fall I pulled the book from submission and after lots of agonizing, released it myself.

I was inspired in part by Karen McQuestion, another Wisconsin writer who told me self-publishing was the best thing she’d ever done for her career; she controlled her destiny, and her readers were judge and jury of her work. (And who could argue with sales topping 500,000?) My husband also eloquently pushed me into the indie camp with, “You don’t want to be like the Confederacy of Dunces guy, and people only read your stuff after you’re dead.”

Several of my other author friends also encouraged me, because they too had made the leap…and it wasn’t that scary.

So I swallowed my pride along with any misgivings I had and prepared for Plan B. It’s a personal decision for each writer, and knowing what you hope to get out of it before you take the plunge helps. I’m pretty new to it all (and I still have lots to learn), but here are a few early observations:

Know your audience, know your genre. If you write genre fiction—especially romance or thriller—self-publishing could be right for you. If you write literary fiction, legacy (traditional) publishing is still a better fit.

Learn from the best. Before I took the leap, I researched what other successful indie writers were doing. Many are incredibly generous and knowledgeable (J.A. Konrath and Dina Silver come to mind), and have blogged at length about their experiences. In some cases, I hired their cover artist, formatter, and editor.

Hybrid helps. If you go indie, having a background in traditional publishing helps.  You can still succeed without it, but it does make things a little more challenging (depending on your genre), at least initially.

Define what success means to you. Regardless of how your work is published, remember that a very small percentage of all writers can earn a living writing full-time. Have realistic expectations; self-publishing does give you a bit more breathing room (no push to sell big the first week, no pressure to earn out an advance), but it might take months or years for your career to build.

Book bloggers are an indie author’s best friends. I was fortunate to have the support of several awesome book bloggers. If you don’t have the time to devote hours and hours to researching and pitching bloggers in your genre, consider investing in a coordinated blog tour or netgalley listing. You won’t have traditional exposure, so reader and blogger reviews are more important than ever.

Most importantly, be a professional, and be 100% sure your book is the best it can be. You might get just one chance to convince a reader that your story is worth their time and money. Quality counts.

Have an eye-catching, professionally-designed cover, and be prepared to pay for it.  The same goes for conceptual and copy editing. Which brings me to:

Have an amazing, professionally-edited story that people will recommend to their friends. Both legacy and indie publishing depend so much on word-of-mouth. Write a freaking incredible book.   This goes without saying regardless of how the book is published, but self-publishing can make it too easy to put something out before it's ready for prime time. (Refer to Saralee Rosenberg's awesome blog post a few days ago for some tips on that front.)

And be flexible and kind to yourself. There is a learning curve involved. If something doesn’t work, try another approach. Tweak your sales copy, re-do your cover, experiment with pricing or author collaborations. Keep learning, keep evolving. Take full advantage of the control indie publishing affords you. Think of your marketing approach the same way you think about your crummy first draft: you can always revise it.

Or better yet, write the next book.

I’d love to hear your thoughts: if you’ve gone indie, and what are your takeaways from the experience? If you’re an aspiring author, which publishing model appeals to you more?

~~~~

Jess Riley just released her first novella, Closer Than They Appear:
a quirky mix of lad lit and chick lit with recipes and bingo cards, because why not?
 

Scoop.it Tips For Authors

by Sara Rosett 

Have you heard of Scoop.it? It is a curation site designed to help you share interesting articles and links from the web. It’s like Pinterest for articles.

I’ve been using Scoop.it more and more as I try to simplify my online life. We’re talking about transitions here at GBC and I thought instead of focusing on the thing that comes to mind first —moving boxes and U-Haul trucks—I decided to explore another transition: how I shifted from traditional blogging to micro-blogging.

When my first book came out out way back 2006 (i.e. in the dark ags, pre-ebooks) I was blogging my little heart out at my own blog, Rosett Writes. I’d joined Girlfriends Cyber Circuit and happily blogged about friends’ books. I joined with four other mystery writers and created a “grog,” a group blog called Good Girls Kill because we were nice women writing murder mysteries.

And, oh yeah, while all this blogging was going on, I was also writing books.

Then one day I realized I was spending more time thinking about my blog posts than about my WIP (work in progress).

Not a good sign.

I closed down my individual blog and said a temporary good-bye to the Girlfriends. (I rejoined later after the Circuit was remodeled into GBC). My group blog died a natural death as we all reached a sharing saturation point and mutually decided it had been a great time, but we were tried of the weekly post commitment.

Truthfully, I didn’t think I had much left to say, either witty, funny or informative. Blogging had wrung me dry and I wanted to concentrate all my writing energy on my books. And I also had a feeling that I wasn’t reaching readers with my blogs. It seemed much of the blog activity was authors busily commenting and connecting with other authors—not a bad thing, but I wanted to reach readers.

I didn’t want to abandon all on-line activity and kept up with Facebook and Twitter. I wanted something a little more interactive, but without the huge time commitment of daily blogging.

Enter Scoop.it.

I’ve always posted lots of links to book-related news and blogs, so I created a topic on Scoop.it last year called All Things Bookish, a topic broad enough to attract readers and writers. I love the magazine-style format and the easy integration tools.

I post pretty much anything that I think is interesting in a book-related way:  articles about writing, photos of amazing libraries, and publishing news. Recently, I posted an article about how to create a computer screen saver with your ebook covers as well as an article about swimsuits that resemble book covers, which was got some attention.

Five Scoop.it Tips for Authors:

Think carefully about your topic title— you can’t edit the title of your Scoop.it topic once it’s entered. Decide if you want to go broad (Publishing) or niche (Cozy Mysteries). You can create several Scoop.it topics and they will all appear on your account with you as the curator. 

Install the Scoop.it Bookmarklet—I use the Scoop.it bookmarklet to “scoop” an article or photo to my All Things Bookish page, then I edit the appearance of the scoop: pick a pull quote, change the headline, and even select which photo I want to run with the mini-post. Scoop.it has apps for the iPhone and Android phones, so you can update your site from your phone. 

Link to your other social media accounts—This is my *favorite* thing about Scoop.it. I’ve linked Scoop.it with my Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr accounts as well as my website through Wordpress. I can post the same link to them at once. Pinterest isn’t supported yet, but there is a workaround. Once the post appears on my All Things Bookish page, I can use the installed “Pin it” button on the post to send it to Pinterest.

Website Widget--There are Scoop.it widgets and buttons for your website and blog. I send my most recent posts directly to a section on the lower section of my website home page. It keeps it my webpage updated with fresh content.

Connect—You can connect with other curators and find topics similar to yours. Scoop.it emphasizes that they help you curate content, bringing you lots of articles and links related to your topic. You can create streams with info related to your topic. I haven't found their content that helpful, but you can just ignore it, which is what I do. 

If you want more control on the appearance of your Scoop.it account or more detailed feedback on visitors, you can upgrade your account, but the free account works fine for me.

You can check out my All Things Bookish topic or see the most recent posts on my website. 

I’m curious to hear from you...do you blog? Why or why not? And, what tricks and tips have you found to save time with blogging and/or social media?

~Sara

A native Texan, Sara is the author of the Ellie Avery mystery series and the On The Run travel thrillers--watch for the first in the series, Elusive, out in September. As a military spouse Sara has moved around the country (frequently!) and traveled internationally, which inspired her latest travel thrillers. Publishers Weekly called Sara’s books, "satisfying," "well-executed," and "sparkling."

Sara loves all things bookish, considers dark chocolate a daily requirement, and is on a quest for the best bruschetta. Connect with Sara at www.SaraRosett.com or on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, or Goodreads.