Paul Austin Ardoin's Blog, page 17

5 Things I Learned About Marketing from Writing a Novel

Today, Tuesday, May 22, 2018, I’m officially a published novelist, something I’ve longed to be since I was six years old. The Reluctant Coroner was a frenetic, messy, wonderful process, and I learned a whole lot—especially the way writing and publishing a book correlates to B2B marketing. For the next five weeks, I’ll share five lessons about what I learned during the writing of The Reluctant Coroner.

Lesson 1: Judge a book by its cover.

For all the talk of artists talking about writing what their heart wants to write, when it comes to getting other people to pay attention to your book, 90% of it is done with the title and the cover. My book was originally called Out of the Park—because the main character was named Fenway Stevenson (yes, after the stadium where the Boston Red Sox play). And because the murder victim was found outside a state park. Two details which would never get across in the half-second someone browsing on Amazon or Kobo or in an independent bookstore would ever get.

I had to ask myself: if I saw a novel called Out of the Park in the mystery section, what would I think? Would I think it’s a thinking person’s mystery with family drama, suspenseful action, complicated people making heartbreaking decisions? No. I’d think it was a baseball mystery. And I’d be disappointed, no matter how good it is, because it didn’t meet my expectations.

If you’re in product marketing, like I have been for most of my career, this means you can’t be overly clever naming your products or your features. By the same token, Woman Solves A Murder isn’t descriptive enough (like “Acme Network Firewall”), but Out of the Park was so, ahem, out of left field—just like some of the weirder product names you find, that may make a lot of sense in context. But it’s context the audience doesn’t have when they’re making the...Read More

It's Launch Day!

Launch Day is finally here! The Reluctant Coroner is available on Amazon, Kindle Unlimited, and Barnes & Noble, and is also available to order at your favorite bookstore (in the latest Ingram catalog)!

Thanks to all of you who have supported me in this journey, and thanks to those who pre-ordered. If you can't get enough Fenway, look for book two early next year!

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Paperback Now Available!

The paperback for The Reluctant Coroner is now available on Amazon! If you pre-order it, you'll have it on May 22, the release date. It's also available for order from your favorite bookstore—just give them the title and author name.

A huge thank you to Ziad Ezzat, the designer of the book cover, who patiently shepherded me through some bumps in the Amazon paperback process, and spent his Saturday night reformatting the cover so Amazon would accept it. Go hire him to do some design stuff for you.

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Five Days to Fenway!

Five more days until the release of The Reluctant Coroner! I've received the electronic proof of the paperback—and it looks great! The paperback version will be available soon after my May 22 launch.

In the meantime, my early readers can submit their reviews on BookBub (a site that gives you fantastic deals on books! The Reluctant Coroner isn't part of the BookBub deals yet, but the more reviews, the higher the chances that it'll get selected!

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One Week To Go!

Just one week left until The Reluctant Coroner hits the virtual shelves! On Tuesday, May 22, my debut novel hits Amazon. The e-book will be available that day, and the paperback will be following shortly thereafter. I've seen the preliminary design for the spine and back cover (complete with three rave reviews!), and—well, it's super exciting. I've wanted to be a novelist since high school. Now I just have seven days left before it's official!

There's still time to pre-order!

By the way, a new review was posted at Goodreads today!

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The Genius of Grafton

As a fan (and now a writer) of murder mysteries, and as a graduate of UC Santa Barbara, you might think I've read all of Sue Grafton's books many times over. Well, it turns out I'm late to the party. If you are also late to the Sue Grafton party, stop what you're doing and go buy A Is For Alibi. It's very well written. I'm on B Is For Burglar, and I'm just as hooked with this one.

Here's a sample of a description that's just jaw-droppingly good:

"The man appeared to be in his seventies, corpulent and benign. Old age had given him back his baby fat and the same look of grave curiosity."

Yeah. I KNOW. So, if you haven't been exposed to Sue Grafton's genius yet, get going, yo.

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Pre-Order Page now live!

After getting a ton of feedback from beta readers and my second round of pro editing, I'm pleased to announce that The Reluctant Coroner will be available on Amazon on May 22, 2018! The pre-order page is now live! (E-book available for pre-order now; print version coming soon.)

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Into Thin Air

As an author who hasn't yet published my first novel, I'm seeking out a ton of advice from others. One thing I hear from EVERYONE: the best way to market your first book is to write a second book. So although I'm a month away (roughly) from launching my debut novel, I'm also about halfway done with the first draft for my second book (tentatively titled The Ballot Box). One of the best tools I've used are word sprints (basically setting the timer for X minutes and doing nothing but writing, not even editing). I used WriteOrDie.com today, and I finished a particularly rough scene—Fenway has to confront a painful memory about her past, and it was painful. But, seriously, everyone, I thought I nailed it. It was poignant without being sappy, powerful without being overwrought. And then?

Then I hit the TAB key in WriteOrDie.

And it erased EVERYTHING.

The whole screen went black. There was no scrolling, no back button—nothing. The words I had just written—about 1,050 of the most painful words I had ever managed to put down—were gone forever.

WriteOrDie.com doesn't have an auto-save feature in the web version—if you write it, you must copy and paste (or export to a .txt file) in order to keep your words. I never thought hitting TAB would be so catastrophic.

Guess what tool I won't be using anymore?

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Feels like the final lap!

I've started to get feedback from the beta readers... and I've gotta say, I'm pretty pleased. And relieved. There are some things I need to work on, of course, but it's not a "tear it up and start over" criticism that I (and every debut author) fears.

 

If you make sure to sign up for my mailing list, I'll send out a link to the pre-order page on Amazon as soon as it's up! It will have a set-in-stone release date, a special pre-order price... and I'm hoping to have a special offer available too!

 

Thanks to all the beta readers who already gave feedback, and for those who are still reading, please be assured that I'm not editing until I get everything back (or on April 20, whichever comes first)!

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Taking the Beta Reader Plunge

Well, there it goes, out of the nest. My little Mystery Novel That Could is growing up.

I finished the latest round of edits earlier today, packaged up all the electronic files, and sent it off to my beta readers.

It's going to be a long four weeks until I get those edits back... but I'm still on track for a mid-May release. (I'd like to release before Memorial Day weekend to get in front of the summer reading groups.)

P.S. If I told you that you could be a beta reader, and you didn't get a download link, let me know!

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