Sue Noye Clark's Blog, page 3

THE DREADED MARKETING!

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That’s the trouble - it’s not just a case of unravelling ideas until you have a plot, turning it into a book and then, one way or another, having it published.

If that’s all I had to do, I’d be perfectly happy. After all, I’m a writer and that’s what I want to do – write.

But it turns out I now have to go about selling my book – and myself – to the world. Or at least the part of the world that constitutes my potential readership.

Marketing. To me, the word smacks of pushiness, selling, standing up and yelling “Look at me! Look what I’ve done! Come and look! Come and buy!” I’m not a pushy, yelling kind of a person and I’m not especially comfortable with the idea of selling myself.

However, I’m discovering

In Matador’s marketing section they write; “…for the majority of self-published authors, the more you put into the marketing yourself, the more rewards you can reap.”

Although I realise the truth of this, I surely can't be the only one who thinks marketing is a necessary evil. There must be others besides me who grimace inwardly at the idea of press releases, book launches, building ‘media platforms’etc?

A book I’m finding helpful is A Seriously Useful Author’s Guide to Marketing and Publicising Books by Mary Cavanagh. It’s published by Troubador Publishing Ltd and costs £7.99.

I also read an article by James Calbraith on the ALLI (Alliance of Independent Authors) blog, relating his experience of his first year as an indie author. He gives advice on what has and hasn’t worked for him re getting himself, and his writing known about. He eventually whittles down to five concise points what he considers he’s done right over the past year. It’s worth reading and if you’d like to have a look you can find him on:

http://selfpublishingadvice.org/blog/my-first-year-in-self-publishing-8000-sales-on/

There’s a hoard of good advice on the ALLI blog.This is the link: http://allianceindependentauthors.org/about.html If you sign up (free) they’ll email you links to new articles/info every few days.

Meanwhile, I'm repeating this simple mantra: No-one will buy a book they don't know exists. The only way anyone will find out about it is if it is marketed. I am an essential part of my book and I have to take an essential part in its marketing. Accept it!

 

THIS BLOGGING BLOG!

Well, this is my first post. Hello everyone. There have been not a few blogging expletives as I have been creating this site – my mind doesn’t work at its best in blog-creating mode, I have to say.  But here it is, and it’ll have to do for now!I’ve read quite a lot about blogging, and whether or not writers need to do it. Opinions are divided but I particularly liked what Randy Susan Meyers had to say on her blog Word Love. Her agent told her: “Try it, see if you like it, if you do, then blog. If you don’t, don’t”. Seems like sense, doesn’t it?  I found Randy’s article (To Blog or not to Blog: Authors Online) informative and helpful – you can read it at http://www.randysusanmeyers.com/2010/10/to-blog-or-not-to-blog-authors-online/

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