Susan Barrett Price's Blog, page 62

Secrets of Successful Self-Marketing

I really don't know any, sorry. But I did write what I've learned so far -- mostly about myself and my personal marketing, uh, genius. A work in progress. Read on>>>

Two author things, plus hangover

I'm suffering from the effects of too much partying last night. A "hip-hop" party, where our friend Deb K. ran us through the dance-exercise paces on the grass while we drank to excess. My scales tell me this morning that the power of eating/drinking is stronger than the power of exercise. Thus, I brought the perfect snack: chocolate-dipped strawberries. Good dipped in evil. That's me.

Meanwhile, all hurdles have been jumped for getting "Passion & Peril" into the bookstore ordering stream. It may take a few weeks to infiltrate all the catalogs -- my test will be if I can find it on the Barnes & Noble website.

I have finished (for the moment) my book promo video. It is minimalist, more radio than video. In fact, it's actually a 3-minute mockumentary. It will either be remarkable or people will brand me as a total loser. It is taking 5 HOURS to upload on You Tube. When it is finally done... and if it looks okay, I'll screen it here for my loyal fans. It's been one of those projects where I've had a hundred fantastic ideas and wound up taking them all out. Go figure.

My life as a woodchuck

It’s one of those day. Nothing works. Nothing looks right. My technologies are failing me. I am both annoyed and annoying.

I am trying to track down other indie author-publishers. OMG, there are thousands of us, each more anxious than the next about which marketing tool will be the key to fame and fortune (or at least a few sales). And circling around are all the businesses who want to make a buck off our anxieties — hawking their wares, regardless of how effective they are. Right now my fellow indies are preoccupied with Amazon key words (you tag my book; I’ll tag yours), book videos (you watch mine; I’ll watch yours), and Twitter (you follow me; I’ll follow you). It’s exhausting.

My instinct is never to be part of a flock. Not a good goose. More of a woodchuck — keep to my own hole, stake out my little patch of weeds.

But instincts can be wrong. I worry about that.

Do I need a book video?

Getting out a "trailer" for your book is all the rage these days, especially among the indie publishers. Print ads are expensive and vanishing. YouTube is forever.
Still, I'm wondering if it's worth the effort. When I posed the question on Facebook: "Do people really shop for books on You Tube?," Laura (who does publicity for a living) wrote back:

I don't think in the sense that someone would say: "Hmm....I'd like to buy a book. I know! I'll see if anything on YouTube inspires me!" But if someone's already looking for, say, information on Pakistan, The Silk Road, art smuggling...whatever, and you pop up in their search, it could create a sale. Or if someone reads something about you in an article, and the article references the You-Tube video, that might make it happen. There are two old advertising saws. One says that you have to hit a potential customer two, three, four times before they buy. The other adage says: Half your advertising is wasted. You just never know which half.

So I've been Googling. There are some expensive book vids out there, with beautiful production values. The low-budget ones are cover art + music + text. Some are good, some are hardly better than a bad Powerpoint presentation. The "Ken Burns effect" of zooming and panning on stills is the big cliche, but it does get movement into the movie.

Okay, while I'm waiting for my second set of distribution channels to open up and while I'm percolating "Smugglers' Road," I might as well play with a video.

Since I'm a no-budget video producer, I better be clever. The idea I have is definitely unconventional and the voiceover clocked out long at 4 minutes. But I'm trying to follow Seth Godin's advice to be remarkable by breaking rules. And I'm following my own advice to have FUN.

DIY Publishing & the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

Ten years or so ago our friends Joyce and Larry sold their house for a 5-wheeler and a camper and have been on the road ever since, driving regularly through Mexico and making at least one trip deep into Central America. They can do that not only because they're nervy as hell, but because (IMHO) Larry has no problem opening the hood of his vehicle, figuring out the problem and getting the right fix. I am in awe of people in command of their tools... firmly in the driver's seat of their ambitions.

But here I am looking under the hood of book-publishing, up to my elbows in grease, learning the art of getting the novel off my computer and into the hands of eager readers.

In "Out of the Office: Fast bikes, slow food, and the workplace wars" (The New Yorker, 6.22.09), Kelefa Sanneh reminds me of that classic book "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values." Life is best experienced off the main highway, but that takes hard work and the ability to keep your vehicle in good repair.

Yesterday I uploaded "Passion & Peril" (tweaked cover, tweaked margins) to Lightning Source, one step closer to allowing my book to be ordered at Barnes & Noble. I shake my head at the obsessive attention to detail that the process requires. Is it worth it? Must I always travel the byways? Can't I just pull out my Mastercard and wake up in LA?

Who am I? What should my bio say?

I went to bed last night worrying that I don’t have a zippy 5-line bio for my new-edition book cover and for all the social networking sites I’ve been exploring. Unless you go exploring into my personal website or deep into the wilds of Amazon.com, my novel might as well have been written by Anonymous. I guess I was feeling anonymous when I put together my book package in November because I had no impressive writing credentials to list or awards to brag about. I didn’t think my bio was a selling point

But now — after finding myself checking out other author bios -- and after hearing so many of my readers tell someone "she really was in Pakistan" — I need to kick my self out from behind the curtain. Being invisible is not being mysterious.

But it’s weird to try to sum up your life in way that deliberately says, “I want you to want to get to know me. I want you to love me.” I’d rather be silent than sound like an asshole. But silence is not good.

For the book cover on the new edition of "Passion & Peril" I need something like, “Susan Barrett Price sketched scenes for this novel during her own road trip through Pakistan and Islamic China. She and her future husband found themselves in landslides, village lockdowns, and cold-water shangri-las. They bought ancient beads and carpets from refugees. They survived being conned and being arrested. Price discovered that traveling the borderline between wonder and insanity creates the most anxious characters and the most chilling plots.”

Still scratching my head...