What are your current challenges?

[Nash Mascaro]

Looking forward to hearing about the current challenges that Authors face. Please share your thoughts and we can discuss.

[Guinotte]

Hi, Ignacio! Great idea for a group. Challenges...well, beyond the usual, struggling with "platform" and that whole deal. And I'm wondering what the group's thoughts are on whether or not a fiction writer needs a blog. I know "they" recommend nonfiction authors to have one, but it doesn't seem to be top priority for fiction authors, or, at least that's what I'm seeing. Thanks. G

[Laurence]

I'd strongly recommend fiction writers to have a blog. My blog helped me land Harper Collins as a publisher. It also allows me to create extensions to my novels, provide research information and location images and to keep readers up to date on what I am doing. It's easy and enjoyable too. Why would you not?

[Nash Mascaro]

Hi Guinotte and hello to you Laurence

Thanks for kicking off the thread. Guinotte when you say the usual, what is usual to you? can you give us a bit of background on you and your book, where you are from etc. and what you have done so far in terms of strategically marketing yourself as a brand and your book as a product..

And Laurence, great to hear about you landing a deal with Harper, do you have one blog or more and did you link your social media profiles? I think the biggest challenge for new bloggers is aggregating readership, what's your advice as someone who has been published?

[Laurence]

Hi,

I started with one www.lpobryan.com in 2010 and now I have three! I enjoy building them up. It does take time, but if you go slowly in a few months you have something interesting for your readers. What is your experience Ignacio?

[Nash Mascaro]

Hi

I own Crimson River Productions, we work with publishers, self publishing authors and literary agents, in fact we are working with Harper Collins now on the David Mitchell book. We are also sister company to Arcangel Images, they provide Rights managed and Royalty free images to all of the Publishers.

Personally for the last year and a half I have been working on Author Discoverability. How to get an author found when there are so many, what the best routes are, what routes are not so effective and really delving deep into the most effective ways to engage an audience.

It's been very interesting. When we started off we were really looking to produce book trailers but in my quest to drive value to publishers I realised there was a missing piece, actually many missing pieces.

In actual fact there is very little strategy in many cases from both new authors and also big six publishing houses. It's actually really very interesting to see how many missed opportunities there in the life cycle of book marketing.

[R.E.]

Hello!
Thanks for inviting me to the group! I understand that marketing is a process and it takes time. I'm learning, seeing small victories, and remaining patient. My books are receiving great reviews, but not much in sales. Looking into virtual tours and online PR, marketing, and advertising agencies. I'll let you know what I find.

[Carol]

Ignacio Mascaro wrote: "Looking forward to hearing about the current challenges that Authors face. Please share your thoughts and we can discuss."

Thanks for inviting me to the group. Some of the questions you ask here might be answered by a website called Indies Unlimited. They certainly offer a lot of sound advice to writers. I am one of the contributors and generally write about marketing strategies. I am always on the lookout for new ways to get discovered and have posted on various aspects of that.
I have done virtual tours, hosted virtual parties, written for magazines, made numerous appearances on radio and in the media here in the UK, have employed PR companies and even strode around in a sandwich board wearing only stilettos. I am always researching ways to get writers noticed!
In answer to message 2 from Guinotte, I am a fiction (and non-fiction) writer and I believe it is important for all writers to have a blog and a website. Your blog will gain you followers who will, in turn buy your books. Admittedly, it is all time- consuming stuff but it will yield good results.
I am happy to share any information and if you can't find what you want form my posts on Indies unlimited, don't hesitate to email me or ask me.

[Nash Mascaro]

Hi Carol, thanks for the info. One of the things I have found is that a lot of what is being said is good stuff but with the evolution of social media and generally untapped resources such as video and strategic marketing there are opportunities that are being missed.

I would like for this group to share information so if you have any advice that you can share within this sphere where we can all exchange thoughts and ideas that would be really helpful.

I think it's important that we try not to send everyone to outside resources or this group idea will be redundant.

[Guinotte]

yes, Ignacio and laurence: Won a cash prize and publication of Night Train, Cold Beer, a collection of short stories--H.Palmer Hall award at pecan grove press, should be out in july. Also did acquire an agent and she is presenting my novel to some publishers. And I'm still writing short stories for various lit journals. I do have a website, ad probably will start a blog when I switch it over to SquareSpace. Some info here: https://www.facebook.com/RenoPeteStCyr

Had a gallery showing (sculpture) and gave away Kansas City Boulevard Beer with the book cover as a label and a hangtag with blurbs and info on it--went quite well. Boulevard also fronted me a keg so that was cool--fun promo. Lots of buzz.

Will have readings at two galleries this summer.

Thanks for opinions on blog. I'll take them into consideration. G

[Angelien]

Hello everyone

What a great idea. My daughter in law suggested I write a book about my experiences and the first book came out last October. It is an erotic biography written by her and told by me.

We were really thrilled when we had sold 10 books! Since then we have written 5 more. Though the other four are in the romance section and we have been very happy with the sales so far.

It is has been a huge learning curve in marketing and its been a hard slog. We are on twitter, Good Reads of course, Facebook, have set up blogs, we beta read for other writers, we have beta readers ourselves as well. All of our social media platforms are linked to each other. We also do guest spots on other people's blogs and have them on ours. Pinterest as well! We pick up people from everywhere.

The writing of the books is easy. The hardest part is the marketing, we would spend at least 4 hours a day on this. Romance sells better than erotica and after the last book in The Confidante trilogy is complete we will concentrate in this area.

I was a book rep in the times before the Internet, so all this is new to me. I have had to learn fast! It all changes so quickly.

Thank you for opening these discussions I am sure I will be a constant reader.

[Nash Mascaro]

Hi Angelien, thanks for the comment and also for liking the idea behind my group. I think it's really important to be able to discuss the success/failures and challenges of book marketing.

One thing that many people have decided to ignore in and out of the book world is Google+ I would be interested to know what the feedback is from everyone is this group.

[Mackenzie]

Hello Everyone,

Thank you for the invite. I don't expect anyone in the group to come up with a magic formula for instant success. I'm more interested in what has worked for others. I use as much social media as I can and I have a large and growing following on twitter, which has been my best area. So what I'm interested in is learning and sharing hat has worked for you? I've read studies on pricing, read that some authors have succeeded serialising their books, yet this doesn't work for all.

Love to hear your thoughts and success stories.

Mackenzie :¬)

[Nash Mascaro]

Hi Mackenzie, thanks for the comment, quick question I put out there, do you use Google+?

[Angelien]

I don't know much about Google+ and have downloaded a heap of information to read tomorrow. I will definitely be using this medium.

[Dinah]

Guinotte wrote: "Hi, Ignacio! Great idea for a group. Challenges...well, beyond the usual, struggling with "platform" and that whole deal. And I'm wondering what the group's thoughts are on whether or not a fiction..."
If you're published and people are reading you, a blog is a good idea, but otherwise it could be a waste of time. That's what I've heard anyway.

[Guinotte]

Thanks, Dinah. This is essentially what I'm hearing, too. What media are you using for "platform?" So far, I use: Facebook author's page (and do a sort of running blog on that), twitter, Linked-In, Goodreads, local papers, promos such as I mentioned with the beer tie-in to title, art gallery readings (I'm a sculptor with regular shows). I find Google+ incomprehensible at this point, and I'm not a technophobe (but close). Maybe someone could recommend a simplified Google+ approach?

[Nash Mascaro]

Here is a tip, currentloy Google+ is very underused but it's also the most important platform for anyone wanting to build their brand and business. We are working on a free author Ebook at the moment which covers it in much more depth but in the meantime Guy Kawasaki has written a book which I think is about $2 on kindle..it really shows the value of it.

More or less everyone I ask about Google+ says the same thing, they are either not using it or have tried but have been put off by it. It is and will be the most important social media channel you have in the next few years. Remember who owns Google+? it's worth doing some research. Let me know your thoughts.

[Carol]

Ignacio Mascaro wrote: "Hi Carol, thanks for the info. One of the things I have found is that a lot of what is being said is good stuff but with the evolution of social media and generally untapped resources such as video..."
I hear you, Ignacio! I'll be very happy to contribute and share experiences or suggestions. It is always valuable to have new input and different takes on what is available to us as authors. I'm on Google+ and have only recently started to appreciate its worth.

[Armada]

Ignacio Mascaro wrote: "Here is a tip, currentloy Google+ is very underused but it's also the most important platform for anyone wanting to build their brand and business. We are working on a free author Ebook at the mome..."

I just started using it a little more. I'm trying to start a videocast where I interview authors, illustrators, editors and so on and I do it through Google+.

I just wish it was easier to work with and had more people actively using it. It does look like a good tool, but sitting in a perfect silence isn't my idea of fun.

[Jonathan]

I'm getting in on this conversation late, but my biggest challenge is my limited marketing budget. I try to rely on assistance from my professional circles for connections, and social media. Any great opportunities?

[jaha]

My challenge is marketing. I have several platforms but I'm quite unsure of how to leverage them. What is it I should be doing to actually SELL books. It's a challenge. My non-fiction books are out now, maybe things will change when I put out the fiction books but Imm not quite sure.

[Nash Mascaro]

Guys, it's interesting when you say that budget is the key here and of course the question, how do I actually sell books. Two key areas.

First answer/question is what type of budget do you expect to be working with after you have written your book? and answer to "how do I sell my book?" is very broad but in many ways depends on the first part budget.

There are very creative ways to sell a book and then there are more strategic methods.