Swagalicious

Swag! Everyone wants some! The time for physical bookmarks seems to be well over. A lot of books that are sold these days are sold digitally. I don't think I remember keeping the various and sundry bookmarks I was given even back when I was reading physical books. I've never just kept my book on the nightstand where a bookmark would stay in its assigned place. I've always taken the books I was reading with me more or less everywhere and bookmarks just wouldn't stay put in transit. They're even less useless to me these days, now that almost all of my books are in digital form. But swag is an integral part of putting your best foot forward in conventions and such. It's a way of getting your work remembered even when it's not on a billboard.

If not bookmarks, then what kind of swag should you get to promote you and your book? Here are a few examples of the swag given to me during this year's Worldcon.

Pins

Pins for Karen Memory by Elizabeth Bear, Schlock Mercenary by Howard
Tayler and All the Birds in the Sky by Charlie Jane Anders

Pins seem to be the new go-to these days. The round ones are fairly cheap to either make for yourself or to have made. The shaped ones are more difficult (I may have to bug Howard about where he got them made the next time I see him) but they perform the same basic function. Although I have to admit that the Schlock pin is a lot cooler than the book pins. It's all exposure during the con, when everyone is paying loads of attention to your badge and everything that's hanging on it. And if even a fraction of the people getting the pin at a con wear it in their normal lives that's still quite a lot more exposure than without. Personally I tend to favor fan enthusiasm such as carrying around pins about books you loved over paid billboards. And from what I can tell, the same applies to most people.

Something people use

Squishies to promote The University of Iowa libraries and Montreal in 2017

Giving readers something they'll use all the time that's still somehow related to the thing you're marketing. The stress toys pictured to the left were both given out to promote generally science fictional causes. University of Iowa Libraries have a science fiction department that is busily gathering science fiction history. Montreal was trying to get the 2017 Worldcon, which, as you probably know, is the World Science Fiction Convention.

Objects from the book

Memorial pins from characters in Ancillary Justice and Ancillary Mercy

This is very possibly the best swag there is. There are objects in any book that the characters notice or use, things that may or may not be important to the plot. The first example of these that I've come across was James A Owen's Here, There Be Dragons. In the books there are Caretakers, each of whom is identified by a pocket watch they carry. Owen later formed a study program for middle schools where the students and teachers participating were given one of these pocket watches. At last year's Worldcon, Mary Robinette Kowal gave out sandalwood fans, which were mentioned in her book Valour and Vanity. This year I never did get to meet Ann Leckie but she was handing out the pictured pins, which were both featured in her two books, Ancillary Justice and Ancillary Mercy. These are things to be treasured.

Have you come across any particularly good swag?

A Round-Up of Authorly Links for a Happy New Year

A strange thing happened this week. I felt like a writer.

A real writer. You know, writer(n):one who writes for a living. Don't get me wrong. As far as making money for writing goes, I'm still a newbie. But as far as having real deadlines and multiple projects vying for my attention, I rocked the world of writing this week.

Yeah, it was the holiday season, which is kind of rotten timing, but who cares? I've waited for that feeling for a long time. To celebrate, here our some links to stuff we real authors have to know:

First of all, there was the post 10 Book Launch Considerations. I was hooked from her first sentence: "Promotion is a black hole." Isn't it ever. Kathryn breaks down ten different strategies to promote your newly published book. She talks about the time cost and the money cost, and whether she thinks the strategy is worth the bang for her buck.

This is important to me because my first solo-published book is coming out on January 24! Quite possibly my very next post will be the Big Cover Reveal for Hidden Magic.

I learned a great deal from publishing Alchemy, but the biggest thing I learned is that to launch a book successfully, time and money must be spent! Unfortunately,  the sheer number of places willing to take both is mind boggling. This blog post is invaluable.

Next, by a bit of serendipity, J Scott Savage posted a list called 10 Things Writers Should and Shouldn't Do on Facebook. I've never tried to link to a facebook page before, and I hope it works. You may have to scroll down a little, but its totally worth it, especially if you are as flummoxed by the world of self-promotion on social media as I am.  I tend to have a "Pretend like It Doesn't Exist" mentality about my facebook fan page.

J Scott Savage has got great advice and he's a fantastic writer, so check it out. Besides, he sounds like a very nice guy. Here is a bit of his advice: "One of my favorite things to do is recommend another author's book I know the reader will love. And often, when I recommend books that I have obviously read and know will be a good match, the customer buys my books as well, because they can tell I know what I'm doing."

(So that's what I'm doing. His novel Dark Memories was nominated as one of the 7 best novels of the year on ksl.com)

Finally, a word on New Year's Resolutions: I want to continue feeling like a writer straight through 2014. Corinne O'Flynn wrote a great post about writer's New Year's Resolutions here.

My favorite part of her post is when she mentions that she and two other ladies got together weekly to hold each other accountable for projects during the year. Through much of December I had a friend checking up on me as I worked through a huge editing project. She was editing too, and it brought out my competitive side (in a good way). I'd love to get involved in something like this. Anyone interested? (Connie Keller, I'm looking at you!)

Even if you don't want to get involved in a Personal Accountability Group (wow, that sounds severe, doesn't it?) WorkFlowy sounds like a cool tool. Check it out here.

Self-Promotion Link Soup

With my fellow prosers launching a fabulous new book (link here), I thought I’d do a quick post on links that I found on the internet that might help with that dreaded self-promotion.  I haven’t gotten to this stage yet, but I know regardless of which route I take, I will have to do some self-promotion.  I am incredibly shy about these things, and I know I’ll end up with some dreadful self-conscious ramble here and there on the internet.  I’m not looking forward to it.

Anyway, here's my link soup that will hopefully help you promote your books without cringing.

 

Picture from Stock xchng



The Basics- This link has excellent advice that is the minimum of what every author should do in promoting their book online.  There is also a lot of advice to avoid those huge mistakes that can drive readers away.  The link is a discussion thread that is very long, but the best stuff is in the first post, so if you don’t want to read through the entire thread, just read the first post.

Social Media- There is a ton of advice on how to use social media to sell books (like here, here, here, and here), but the best advice that I came across is to only do the things that you enjoy.  If you love twitter, than use twitter.  If you hate twitter, don’t use it.  Find the social media that you enjoy using and use it.  Don’t use everything unless you just love all forms of social media.  Social media is about connecting with people, and if you aren’t willing to engage with others, then it isn’t going to work for you.  You don’t just throw up posts promoting your book, you get involved in discussions that have nothing to do with you or your book and connect with people.  It is time consuming, so only do what you enjoy doing.  Here is Sarah’s awesome post about selling books on Twitter. 

Be innovative– Agent Kristin Nelson makes a great point in this post.  By the time the word gets out on a new way to promote a book, it’s probably already too late to jump on the bandwagon.  Don’t be afraid the think outside the box and try something new.  Of course that is easy to say, and much much harder to actually do.  Which leads to the next section.

Research-It may not hurt to spend a little time researching how readers choose books.  I did a little bit of research for you.  Here is a survey done by Smashwords on how readers choose books.  Here is a discussion on Goodreads about how readers choose books.  It is complicated because readers are so different, but there are definitely some things you can do that will help.

Make sure your book itself captures the reader’s attention- Once you’ve captured a potential reader’s attention, you want to do everything you can to encourage them to buy your book.  This means that you need a professional cover that promises the kind of book you are selling.  You need an enticing jacket copy, and first sample pages that draw the reader in.  This survey done by Goodreads indicates reasons readers abandon books.  Might be helpful.

Write a damn good book- Of course if you are trying to sell more than one book, your first book better be pretty damn good.  This is for sure the most important part of self-promoting, giving the reader a fantastic product so that they want to buy more from you.  It’s pretty obvious, but it seems that some don’t want to do the work to take their books to the professional level.  But if you want people to buy more of your product, you better give them a great product.

Write another damn good book and another and another- In my opinion, what is more important than spending hours and hours promoting your book is to keep writing.  If you keep putting great books out there, people are bound to notice them.  I think there is some truth to the saying that cream rises to the top.  I’m sure not all the cream does.  Sometimes it might need a little push, but always make sure what you are putting out there is cream.  That is the single most important key in selling books.

I hope you enjoyed my link soup on self-promotion.  Please feel free to share any thoughts and tips you have.

~MaryAnn

Self-Publishing and Self-Promotion

Picture from stock-xchnge by Andreas Krappweiss

Self-publishing almost sounds too good to be true.  You write it then publish it.  You don’t have to even write a query letter or a synopsis.  You don’t have to deal with submissions and rejection letters.  Finally, you can reach your audience without those pesky gate-keepers trying to tell you what readers want to read.  You’re a reader; you know what readers like you want.

The concept is so beautiful, like The Field of Dreams.  If you write it, they will come. 

Only what if they don’t?              

I read this NY Times article the other day on buying positive book reviews (I’m going to get to that in a minute), but the article claimed that more than 300,000 books were self-published last year, and that number is only going up.  It could be more than doubled next year.  Granted not all of these books will be in your genre, but if only 1% of them were, there would be over 3,000 books for consumers to search through to find your gem.  And that is only including self-published books.  You would also be competing for attention with all the traditionally published books, which could include every book that has ever been published in modern times.  That is a lot of books waiting to be bought on Amazon.  So how do you get your book to stand out above the masses?

Self-publishing is so easy, but self-promotion is so tough.

It is hard to proclaim to the world how wonderful your book is.  No one is going to take you seriously.  You can become really annoying if all you do is talk, tweet, and blog about your book.  It is so much better if that comes from someone else.

Which brings us to the NY Times.   According to the article (link above), some authors paid a man named Todd Rutherford money to write positive reviews for their books.  He charged $99 for one review, $499 for twenty, and $999 for fifty.  Before too long, he started making $28,000 a month.

I think this practice is dishonest and shady, and I feel that Mr. Rutherford was taking advantage of authors desperate to get some attention for the books they put their heart and souls into. I seriously doubt that very many of them actually made that money back in sales. But I do understand why the authors chose to buy reviews. 

Reviews should be for the readers, but good reviews and high ratings can help sell books because someone else is singing the praise for your book, making them more trustworthy.  However, if you have few or no reviews, your book isn’t going to look too promising.  And if just one of those reviewers gave you a low score, that is going to substantially affect your book's overall rating.   Furthermore, if other writers are artificially inflating their positive reviews, this is only going to make your book look worse than everyone else’s.  I can definitely see the dilemma these writers are in.

Still I don’t think that lying and manipulating consumers is the way to go even if it has been the corner stone of all advertising.  Books aren’t the only products with fake positive reviews (see the NY Times article above).

I wish I had some real answers on how to get your book out there in a more honest way, but I don’t.  I’d be horrible at self-promotion which is one of the main reasons I want to go the traditional route (yes I do know this also requires some self-promotion, but hopefully, I'd get some help).  For good advice go to Amanda Hocking who actually achieved that level of success from self-publishing that we all dream about.  Sheena also did an excellent post on how youtube videos go viral and how that can be applied to books.  While I think they both give great advice, it really comes down to getting your book into the hands of the right people, and there is so little control you have over that.

I think the truth is that there are no real short cuts to this publishing thing.  You either struggle to capture an agent or publisher’s attention or self-publish and struggle to capture consumers’ attention.  Either way, you need to find a way to stand out, and while there may be tricks to get yourself noticed, you won’t create a buzz unless you’ve written something that really resonates with readers.   Only then will they talk, tweet, and blog about it and hopefully, recommend it to their friends.  So no matter what path you choose only one thing truly matters, you need to write one amazing book.  J

So what are your thoughts on self-promotion?

~MaryAnn

Upcoming publication

Life has seemed very slow lately, and very scattered. Too much attempted multitasking on my part, perhaps, without really getting anything done. There've been some very good spots though, like Lawyer Friend and I going on an epic journey to try to get Mexican food. Which really should not be hard in San Diego, but the first two restaurants we tried were closed. Finally, we went to Old Town and had excellent food. Plus there was free tequila sampling, so all's well that ends well.

Even better, this week I got the PDF proofs for my horror short story "Failed Sacrifice." The story will be appearing in Kayelle Press' upcoming anthology Night Terrors.

Here's the blurb:

What would you do if you received a phone call from a dead person? Or if aliens and zombies were killing everyone you loved? Or if your best friend offered you as a sacrifice? Or if you discovered a family secret that you’d prefer not to know? Do you know what’s waiting for you in the attic? Or at the cemetery? How would you react to the pressure of being pushed over the limit because you desperately wanted to fit in? How would you feel being locked in the dark with a hungry creature outside wanting … you? And can the children and the ancient ones really be trusted?

From classic horror to modern day fears, Night Terrors will have you checking the wardrobe and looking under the bed before you attempt to go to sleep at night.

  

That third line about the sacrifice is my story! This'll be my very first publication in an anthology.  The anthology will be available in paper and ebook format.

More details at http://www.kayellepress.com/books/anthologies/night-terrors-anthology/

And here's an excerpt from the middle of the story:

 
"A flat face with a slit for a mouth emerged from the darkness. Opaque eyes a shade darker than its skin regarded her. "You belong to me," it said. "But as you are, I cannot keep you."

     If you cannot keep me, set me free, she shouted at it with all the mental strength she possessed. Let me go, please. I do not want this.

    The creature's lips slid open in a mockery of a smile, revealing rows upon rows of needlelike teeth, tinged a pale orange in the dim glow."

I actually wrote the story for a different anthology, one about the sea. But I didn't finish the story in time (which I'm sure will surprise no one here).  The evil demon/god in the story is based on an angler fish, because if there's anything that wants to eat your soul, it probably looks something like this:

The anthology should be out March 31.

Also, in searching for an angler fish photo, I found my new favorite creature artwork ever here. 

Can't stop giggling at it! I really want a print to put in my office.