I had a different post planned for today, but Blogger just ate it. Which irritates me, hence the picture. (And it’s a good fit for my muse this week too, honestly.)
At any rate, the original finely crafted piece was about my complete and utter lack of any ability to organize anything. Hell, one might argue that if I were more organized I would have written the original post in Word or something, but I’m a blog-by-the-seat-of-my-pants kinda girl, I guess.
So now that we have proof that I’m an unorganized idiot, we’ll just move right along into something else – namely my marketing plan, or lack thereof. (I’m spotting a trend here.)
I’m hitting the moment in time where I really have to start thinking about how I’m going to get the word out about my book. It’s almost like a perfect vacuum of sorts- but I have to be careful. If I start generating too much buzz too quickly, it’s pretty much a guarantee it will fizzle by the time the book is released (which is why you’re not going to see too many guest blogs and interviews in the remainder of this year). So I’m aiming for most of January and February, since people would hopefully be more willing to make an impulse purchase if they know it’s either ready to go or just a few weeks out.)
Of course, I have to start planning this stuff out now, since there’s often a 6 to 8 week waiting list on some of the larger blogs, particularly if I’m hoping for them to do a review of some sort. And since I’ve already pointed out how hopeless I am when it comes to the organization thing, you can see where I’m at.
It’s a fine line, though. As a completely new and unknown author, I pretty much have to run the gauntlets of guest posts and interviews, giveaways and contests – although how much of those actually translate to sales I will probably never know. The key thing, as I understand it, is just getting it in front of people, not necessarily the content of whatever I’m going to talk about.
It’s a bit heady in some ways, thinking people might actually pay attention to anything I have to say. I mean, sure, I’m sorta interesting. Sometimes. But just how many times do you want to see the same questions asked and answered? (And I’m going to do my best not to recycle blog posts either, since that seems a bit lame. Might need some help coming up with interesting topics, though, so feel free to suggest anything.)
I feel like I need to update my “official” site a bit more, too. I’m working on ways to at least make the first page a bit more dynamic – now that I’ve gotten a few blurbs and reviews, it seems like the good thing to do would be to highlight those.
Clearly, you can tell by this particular post that I’m not very good at the whole marketing thing. It’s sort of hard to crow about myself when everything I was ever taught growing up tended to point me into the direction of modesty. Feels a bit vulgar, somehow.
