Wednesday Writing: A guest post from Vanessa Couchman

Pre-launch book publicity: what works?

My guest today is Vanessa Couchman, whose first novel, The House at Zaronza was launched last week and stormed the Amazon. I wanted to know what Vanessa did in advance of publication to create such an immediate impact. Over to Vanessa.

I’ve always disliked the word “networking”. It conjures up visions of captains of industry swapping business cards over lavish lunches. But this word sprang (or crawled, anyway, after a booze-fuelled launch party) to mind when David asked me to write about the pre-launch publicity I did for my novel.

The House at Zaronza was released on 29th July in paperback and e-book formats. By the end of launch day, it had clambered into the top 3,000 in the Kindle rankings and was number 6 in the women’s historical fiction genre.

This is my first novel and my first taste at publicising my own book. I used to work in publishing in the days before Kindles and e-books were a gleam in anyone’s eye but things have changed radically since then. A few years ago, I thought a social medium was a nice cup of tea. I’ve been on a steep learning curve ever since. And they keep coming up with new ones!

I’d like to say that The House of Zaronza’s success in the charts was the result of a carefully-considered marketing strategy. But that would be economical with the truth. I did draw up a marketing plan or, rather, a jumbled list of 80 things I thought I ought to do. Working out which of those should be a priority has not been easy, but here’s what I think did it for me:

I have been priming people about the book’s origins and, later, publication for some time. My blog, Life on La Lune , gets about 7,000 hits a month so it was a no-brainer to use that as a platform. However, it’s about French life rather than writing, so I had to be careful not to spam readers and drive them away. My blog is linked to Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and LinkedIn.



Being of a certain age with several careers behind me, I’ve got a lot of contacts, many of them with literary interests. This is where the networking comes in. I’ve discovered the power of email in drumming up interest for other activities. A week before publication, I emailed everyone I know with info about the book, but didn’t say, “Please buy it.” Sales of the paperback spiked the next day at #4,000 in the Amazon overall rankings – and that was pre-publication.


In the 10 days before publication, I tweeted a daily quote from the book with the link to Amazon to ca. 550 followers. I also tweeted links to relevant articles by other people. Retweets and mentions from Twitter friends helped, too.


Also coming up to publication, I published extracts from the book on Facebook. Having not only my personal page but also the Crooked Cat Readers page increased the reach.

What didn’t work?

I set up a Facebook page for the novel. It got a lot of likes in the first few days but declined sharply after that. Trying to drive people to it was time-consuming but unproductive. It became confusing posting to it as well as my own page and the Crooked Cat one.

One thing I am sure about: you can’t just sit back after publication and expect the book to sell itself. The three months after release are probably critical to its success. And people have to like it, too.

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Vanessa Couchman is passionate about French and Corsican history, from which she derives the inspiration for much of her fiction. She has lived in France since 1997, where she runs a copywriting business and also writes magazine articles. Her short stories have won and been placed in creative writing competitions. The House at Zaronza is her debut novel.

 

 

The House at Zaronza

Set in early 20th-century Corsica and at the Western Front in World War I, The House at Zaronza tells the story of Maria Orsini, the daughter of a bourgeois family. She and the village schoolmaster carry on a secret romance, but Maria’s family has other ideas for her future. She becomes a volunteer nurse during World War I and the novel follows her fortunes through the war and beyond.

Find Vanessa at:

Blog: Life on La Lune – http://vanessafrance.wordpress.com

Writing site: http://vanessacouchmanwriter.wordpress.com

Amazon author page: www.amazon.com/author/vanessacouchman and http://www.amazon.co.uk/Vanessa-Couchman/e/B00LQM4T9O/ref=sr_ntt_srch_lnk_1?qid=1407067430&sr=8-1

Twitter: @Vanessainfrance

Facebook: vanessa.couchman.3

Authorsden: http://www.authorsden.com/visit/viewwork.asp?id=63918&authorid=182844

You can find The House at Zaronza at:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/House-at-Zaronza-Vanessa-Couchman-ebook/dp/B00M5A0U6C/

http://www.amazon.com/House-at-Zaronza-Vanessa-Couchman-ebook/dp/B00M5A0U6C/