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The hardest and usually the most unlikable part about writing and publishing is promotion. A lot of us 'try' to be humble, or try to be as incognito as possible. I can only speak for myself when I say I wish I could 'just write'. However, just writing doesn't sell books. You have to get out there, promote yourself which can be summed up as shameless begging. Not only do you need to remember what author loops you are on, you have to try to balance guest blogs, radio blogs, your own blog, twitter promotion, Facebook promotion, etc... There are so many avenues of promotion, an author can easily get lost, especially if they are doing the promotion themselves. Everyone isn't able to make the huge Romance conventions to give out postcards and swag, some of us are doing what we can the best way we know how when we have the time. It is still hard and very time-consuming, but we all do it for the love of the game right?
Hi Nevea,I completely agree. I think most of us wish we could just write! Amen. Thank goodness for internet promotion though. I wouldn't have made it back in the days when you had to go out on foot everywhere. Back then you had to do signings and talk to bookstores, etc. I did signings before but I didn't like them at all and found them useless for selling books. People always said signings were good for making relationships with stores. I disagree. The store managers you meet at a signing most likely won't be there the next time you roll through. Also, it's a new day and signings just aren't effective. It's fine if you want to do it, but if you're an introvert and don't like doing appearances (like me), you won't enjoy them. Outgoing people might do better and have fun but I still believe booksignings don't translate into sales.
Online promotion is wonderful because you can do something just one time and it can be seen by thousands or millions. Plus everything you do online is archived so people will always see it. People won't always know an author was once at a bookstore and would they care? LOL! Also, I find virtual tours more fun. I think we'll see even more of this since ebooks are becoming more and more popular.
Plus the great thing about online promotion is that it is FREE!
And you are right about the money. Most people can't afford to do all these trips to promote and most times it's not worth it. I think "face to face" networking is overrated. I have made tons of contacts online with people I've never met in person and have never even spoke to on the phone and it's led to many opportunities for me. I've built professional relationships with them that run deep. It's not how you gain contacts, it's just that you gain the ones that matter. So I am one who believes that you can gain even more contacts online than through appearances.
Best Wishes!
http://www.stacy-deanne.net
I guess I don't have much to add, other than the promotions is the part I dislike the most, because it takes so much time away from writing! I have 2 p/t jobs that take up much of my day and night, because I have multiple kids in college and I'm trying to help them. My time on-line is valuable, yet I have to spend it in scrolling through various excerpts and promos of other authors, in order to find some way to interact, hopefully in a way that a reader or two will be interested enough to head to my website. Sometimes I wonder if all of us authors are just promo-ing to each other? But then a reader will pop up and comment and make me hope it's worth the time.I'm only going to be working one job for the next coupla months, so I'm determined to do more writing, since the characters in my head are getting demanding because I keep shushing them, telling them I don't have time to write their stories!
www.fionamcgier.com
I agree as a newbie to the whole publishing world the idea of promoting my book is kind of daunting, and yes I would rather be writing any day. I am constantly brainstorming ideas to promote my book when I should be figuring out what my next book will be. (Sigh)
message 6:
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Danielle The Book Huntress , Sees Love in All Colors
(last edited Jun 14, 2011 12:10PM)
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*Cookie-cutterness in subject matter and style
*Difficulty in crossing genres and markets
*Lack of support to new authors
*Forcing genres on readers. In my case, I don't like erotica, but it's hard to avoid it.. I know some readers don't like paranormal, and it's hard to avoid. And historical romance is getting so narrow--mainly regency nowadays. People who want to get published are forced to write what is popular instead of what they really want to write unless they self-publish.
Hi Danielle,Like you I am not into erotica so that's one reason I am not reading a lot of IR books these days. I read some every now and then. Also I am not into shorts and a lot of IR books are very, very short. I want a book I can sink my teeth into, LOL! I know some people love shorts but I like full-length novels. To be honest, I don't read IR that much because there's not enough of a selection within the genre. Every now and then I find an IR book that's a preference of what I like but that's getting harder and harder to find.
As you already know, I mainly read historical romances. I read more of them than I do crime and mysteries these days. I don't care how a historical romance is published or who publishes it. It can be self-published, whatever. LOL! I will read it. I just love reading historical romances. I get such a rush. My heart's beating just thinking about them. I need rehab. LOL!
I've never read a historical romance I haven't liked. Maybe it's because I am hooked on them. LOL! I have read some that weren't as good as others but to be honest, never read one that I really haven't enjoyed. It's one genre that I never get tired of.
I find there are a lot of different books to read in epublishing. But when it comes to print, nah most of it's the same. So I do like ebooks for the reason that you can read stuff that you wouldn't normally find. Oh and print publishing from smaller and independent houses offer different niches but in terms of the big boys, yes they are going after the same type of stuff now.
Best Wishes!
Mod
My problem is with IR ebooks, you never know what you're going to get. It's made me gunshy with buying a lot of IR books. I have tons that I am sitting on, and little desire to dive in because of fears of disappointment. I have authors that I love but they are going way too erotic for me to follow all their books. It's sad, because I want to support the IR authors, but I vote with my pocketbook and with what I spend my time on reading. I see your point on the shorts too. It's frustrating to spend all that money on a short book. I did it in the past, but no more! I am cheap and I won't spend $5.00 on an ebook unless I have to anymore. Which is why most of the books I buy on my Kindle are $2.99 or less. I understand that the authors need to make a profit, but honestly, I like the fact that you can buy a good-sized book for less than $3.00. I guess I'm spoiled.
Mod
I know that erotic stories are popular and you can find them in different genres, but I'm a non-erotic story reader. Publishers should know that all readers don't read erotic stories. They need to publish more non-erotic stories.
I would like to see more interracial bw/wm stories that aren't base on race. If a writer is going to put the couple together, then do so and leave the race out of it. Some people are against interracial pairing, but not everyone is against interracial. And not every couple is against interracial pairing either. I'm tired of seeing couples breaks up, because on person feel that they shouldn't be the with other person, because of their skin color. It's mostly the black women that feels this way.
I want to see tenison on the stories. If a hero starts off as a bad boy in the beginning, continue to let him be a bad boy. Don't make him bad and then scared of the old man that owns the grocery store, because the man is against interracial dating.
Please don't let the black woman compare herself to another race and thinks that's what the hero prefer. I don't want an "Let me experience interracial dating", so I can see if I like it. The heroes ex-girlfriends, ex-wife or women types shouldn't be brought up, in my opinion. Just let these two people be together and end it like that.
I think ebooks should be long. I don't like reading long, long stories, but if an ebook is going to be the same amount as a printed book, then the pages length should be a good amount too.
I have to agree with the other authors--promotion is the thing I dislike the most. I like talking online and I've made friends of readers and authors, but at some point I have to say, "oh, by the way, my new book...buy it...it's great...etc., etc." I worry about overkill or coming off too pushy. Danielle, I have to tell you, my experience as a new author has been very positive. Other authors are very supportive, and I've been pleasantly surprised by the number of readers who've taken a chance on me. I didn't know what to expect, but I can honestly say lack of support is not an issue.
message 11:
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Danielle The Book Huntress , Sees Love in All Colors
(last edited Jun 15, 2011 12:38PM)
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Yes, that's pretty much the norm. Even the big names are losing financial backing in the marketing and promotions dept from pubs. The newer presses tend to be more helpful (in my experience), but established ones let the authors pretty much fend for themselves. If it weren't for other authors offering advice and tips, we'd be up a creek.
I'm a Multi-Cultural author that writes Erotica, Horror, Historical, Contemporaries, Paranormal Dark fiction. I find that for me balancing writing and self-promoting is become even harder as my backlist of published work grows. Strange, but the more I write, the more I want to write. I recently had to sit down with myself and have a serious review of my goals and objectives. Am I an 'author' or a 'writer' and what's it going to take to be both.Another self observation has proven to me that I'm not really considering what readers want on this journey. I'm an introvert, my writing is a very solo personal journey. Due to this my reader base is often left scratching their heads over my material.
An example is my first two books:
1. Zoe - by TA Ford (Historical Romance) Non-Erotica. The book was hugely popular in 2008 from my perspective and is in print and e-book. And thought it was a romance I never wrote another quite like it. I still have no clue where the story came from.
2. Aaren - by TA Ford (Contemporary Mystery) Non-Erotica I published in 2010. It did fairly well, but my readers who loved Zoe weren't really sure of why I made the leap to a contemporary murder mystery. yes, it was romance, and yes it was Interracial, but it was totally different than my first and I got a very lukewarm response.
So I set aside TA Ford and created Sienna Mynx. As this author 'everything' goes and went. I LOVE Erotica, let me say that again: I LOVE EROTICA. But writing it can get boring quick. I found this out because my first book was supposed to be Erotic as Sienna Mynx. I quickly discovered that a hot sex scene is not a story. So my writing again detoured off the path. I did a romantic Comedy (Mel and Tia Series). It had one sex scene. Though the sex was hot, the story was hotter.
Then I did a dramatic women's fiction story (Tale of Three Hearts Series)Both the stories had super sexy, sex but the stories IMHO were novel length dramatic tales that wore my readers out.
I soon discovered I can do both in my writing. And that's what readers will find in my summer releases. I can't wait to blow their socks off.
For those of you that want to know more of my style. I have a current free read (Non-Erotica Historical Romance) at Smashwords. Download and read for your self.
On The Wings of Love: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view...
Sienna Mynx aka TA Ford
http://thedivaspen.com
I agree with most of the other commentors. Promoting is extremely difficult, especially with a full-time job or two, but so very necessary. I think most writers just want to write. It's who we are. We write. We edit. We rewrite. We get frustrated. Take a break. And of course, back to writing. When I was first published, I had no idea that self-promotion could take up six hours easily, per day. I knew the main sites to join (Facebook, Blog, Twitter) but gradually learned of Goodreads, Shewrites, etc. Without self-promo, it's almost impossible for a new writer to gain a large readerbase.
Now, I spend as much time as I can promoting my works (Fallen and Bound-contemporary paranoraml IR) as I can, while maintaining creativity for new works.
Violette D.
http://violettedubrinsky.com/
Hi Everyone,
I am a bit of a newbie and even though I'm a month late on this thread, you ladies have offered some excellent advice for those of us getting our feet wet.
I was especially struck by the fact that some established publisher want some authors to do their own promotion. It would seem to me the more established publishers would have a game plan for their new authors, but I guess not! Perhaps they think their "name" speaks for itself?
Thank you for sharing your thoughts.
O
I am a bit of a newbie and even though I'm a month late on this thread, you ladies have offered some excellent advice for those of us getting our feet wet.
I was especially struck by the fact that some established publisher want some authors to do their own promotion. It would seem to me the more established publishers would have a game plan for their new authors, but I guess not! Perhaps they think their "name" speaks for itself?
Thank you for sharing your thoughts.
O
Mod
Nevea wrote: "The hardest and usually the most unlikable part about writing and publishing is promotion. A lot of us 'try' to be humble, or try to be as incognito as possible. I can only speak for myself when ..."So true!
Part of why I'm a writer is that I'm introverted. lol. Selling myself really goes against my grain.
I'd like published authors, unpublished writers, writers from all walks of life to weigh in on this question. I'm just curious.
What if anything do you like least about the writing/publishing industry and why? What really gets you? You can speak in terms of publishing, reviews, promotion, anything.
Best Wishes!