Oct
17

Rennovating the Marketing Machine

Posted in blog, marketing | 4 Comments
It’s only a few more months until A Sliver of Shadow finally hits the shelves, which is awesome. In theory, some of the upcoming hoopla should be old hat for me. After all, I’m already getting emails for guest blog post scheduling and interviews and giveaways.  (And I’m dreadful at scheduling. I don’t have a PA, but I can totally understand why people have them. Oy.) In some ways, it’s far easier this time around – people actually know who I am (at least some of you, anyway).  And having the start of a fanbase is awesome in its own right. But I have to gauge whatever efforts I made for the release of A Brush of Darkness and try to figure out what was successful in helping to drive up sales (if *anything* was, for that matter.) Sure, I’ll get another round of bookmarks and stickers made up – easy to… Read more
Dec
7

Trolling for Suggestions

Posted in blog stuff, marketing, shameless | 10 Comments
Next month I’ll be starting up my blog tour (which is what authors do these days to help stir up interest in their book – it’s sort of the cyber-equivalent of doing an actual book tour.) So, blog tour it is – and at the moment I’ll admit I’m a tad overwhelmed. Lots of emails coming in from different parties (many of which have been orchestrated by the publicity guru over at Fine Print  and my awesomesauce agent.) It’s definitely beginning to make my head spin. What it means, however, is a lot of extra work. (See, these are things they don’t tell you about when you’re trying to get pubbed. LOL.) Many of these blog stops may do reviews or giveaways, but many also have interviews (some of which are probably the standard sorts of questions, although a few have thrown me for a loop). However, I’ve also got… Read more
Oct
10

Marketing 101

Posted in brush of darkness, marketing | 14 Comments
I’ll admit I don’t know much about the whole marketing/promo scheme of things when it comes to books. I’m familiar with going to cons and finding row upon row of tables stocked with all kinds of things – bookmarks, postcards, light-up boobies, pens, feathers, candy…anything and everything to get people to stop and pick them up, on the off chance another book might get sold. Of course, the big question here is does such marketing actually work? And no one really seems to know the answer. Plenty of people insist that it does and plenty don’t. We’ve all heard stories of writers who spent a small fortune on marketing gewgaws that seemed to make no difference…and then did almost no marketing at all next time around and sold a ton. Was it because of the venue? Or perhaps nothing more than the fact that by the second book, people knew… Read more