Top 10 Ways to Sink your New Book Like The Titanic

Two weeks ago I self-published my romantic comedy novel “Christmas in Wine Country” on Amazon as an ebook. And let me tell you, it’s been a wild ride. Apparently, there’s this thing called “marketing” or “advertising” your work. Some experts even recommend starting this process BEFORE you publish. Crazy, right?Anyway, I’ve learned a lot in the past two weeks about trying to get the word out about a new book. And I’ve come across a lot of helpful advice on the Internet, usually written by best-selling, self-published authors who’ve gone from zero to hero with savvy marketing plans and amazing headshots of themselves that they didn’t just crop out of a photo in which they’re surrounded by four children.Well, how about some how-tos from someone who’s doing most things wrong? Let’s turn my pain into your gain.Here’s my Top 10 List of Things Not To Do when Promoting Your New Book:#10 Tweet, repeatedly, to no followers.#9 Have difficulty navigating your new gmail account so that when people express interest in your book you don’t see their emails and never reply.#8 Feel too awkward promoting your book to mention it to anyone.#7 Insist that your book defies categorization – not chick lit, not rom com, not women’s lit, not romance. It can’t be boxed-in or even really described, you just have to read it.#6 Spend a lot of time wondering if it’s really all worth it.#5 Glance up from your computer screen, look around and really take in the filth. Feel compelled to clean instead of whatever else you were doing to promote your book.#4 Start reading that 5-pound tome that won the Pulitzer Prize in fiction. Wonder how much better it is than your book. Tweet about it.#3 Miss out on sleep by having nightmares that your new job is blogging for a pimp. (This actually happened to me. I don’t mean to be presumptuously self-analytical, but is it possible that I’m conflicted about promoting my work??? Funniest part of my dream: trying to find the “upside” of pimp-blogging. As in, “maybe the content will be so risqué that my blog will get a lot of followers!”#2 Devote the majority of your time to emailing the publicists of super famous people and telling them how much better your book is than their clients’ movie/single/TV show, etc. Then asking for the endorsement of aforementioned super famous people.#1 Widely publicize your mother’s review of your book, but only if she self-identifies as your mother and her review is mixed. “Well, my daughter’s always been something of a disappointment…”
Originally appeared on the "Chick Lit Goddess" wesbite -- thank you site administrator Isabella Louise Anderson! Here's a link to her great site: http://chicklitgoddess.com/2012/12/04...