Thinking Outside The Box

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Marketing is a real pain as it stop you from writing.

As a full-time writer I would love to say I give my writing a hundred percent of my time everyday. In truth, there are days when I might only give it 1 percent. Life gets in the way too often. After all, I’m not just a writer, but a mother, housewife, and gardener too. As well as being my own PA, editor, a blogger and promoter. Then I also need to exercise my body and mind to remain fit and healthy, with a clear head to think up new plots too. It’s too easy to neglect oneself.

In the last few days, I’ve had my promoter’s hat on and I’ve been busy thinking outside of the box, while looking for new places to promote my work. Like all writers, it’s far too easy for us to just follow the flock, rather than think outside the norm. If you have been a guest on my Clubhouse Guest’s Chat pages, you will know I use over 150 odd Facebook sites, Twitter, Goodreads, and LinkedIn to promote my guest’s chats, as well as my own work. The trouble with promoting on the Facebook sites, or any online media sites, is there’s no way of knowing whether you’re generating sales. So I’m now going to try other places to promote my work.

This company promotes your book online, and in their printed magazine.

When I set off on my writing journey, there were a few milestones ahead of me I wanted to reach. Of course, I knew there’s no such things as a overnight success, when chasing one’s dream. There isn’t any short cuts either, so I was prepared for years of dedication and hard work and never lost sight of my goals.

My first milestone was to get something in print. This I succeeded this quite quick when I had a few nonfiction articles published, and earnt some money from them too. Next was to have a piece of fiction published. This took a lot longer because writing fiction and nonfiction requires two different writing skills. Now that I’ve mastered fiction I can move to my next milestone. I wanted to have my work in a physical bookshop. This box will be ticked soon.

A week ago, I googled all the local bookshops I could find. Of course, there were some big named companies like Waterstones, but if you don’t asks, you won’t know whether they will support local authors, or not. I sent a quite detailed email off that listed all my books, with a brief synopsis of each one, plus their links to Amazon. Always check the site to see if you can find a name of an individual, and address your email to them.

Between The Lines Bookshop, Great Bradfield Essex.

I received answer back from a little independent bookshop in a village, not far from me. On Saturday, I went with my husband to meet Jenny. The feeling I got just sitting in the shop was sheer delight as I listened to Jenny explaining what would happen next. We chatted for over a hour, and she even said once the pandemic was under control she would like to do a book signing at the shop too. How wonderful is that

So why stop at bookshops, why not book festivals too.

I’ve just email my local book festival to ask how a local author goes about putting their books forward for the festival. I guess, it’s just a case of waiting to see what happens next.

I hope I’ve encouraged you to think outside of the box, too.