by Stina Lindenblatt
@StinaLL
©Stina Lindenblatt
Unless you’ve been wandering lost in a desert for the past year, you are
aware that the publishing industry is rapidly changing. With it, the number of
self-published, small press, ebooks, and traditionally published books being
published each week is dramatically growing. What does this mean? More people
are trying to gain the reader’s attention. The same reader we want to check out
our own new release.
Elana Johnson blogged last week on how we’re starting to suffer from asocial media hangover. Promotional
activities (blog tours, giveaways, interviews) that used to be effective are
now turning people off. Some readers still enjoy them, but most don’t bother to
read the posts. Based on comments from Elana post, personal experience, and
feedback I’ve received from others, this is what I’ve learned:
Covers are
important. If your cover looks amateurish, no one (other than your mom) will be
interested in your book. When you send the JPEG file to be used on a blog, make
sure you send one of high resolution; otherwise, it will look blurry and
amateurish. If you plan to self publish your book, invest in a professionally
created cover.
A compelling title always
tromps a dull one. Study titles in your genre and figure out which ones grab
your attention and which don’t. Why is one more appealing than another? Apply
what’s you’ve learned to your own title. After you create a list of potential
titles, google them to ensure every other author in your genre hasn’t used the
same ones. You want it to stand out and be unique in case the reader can’t
remember your name but remembers the title.
Make sure
your blurb is tight and interesting. If your blurb is dull and vague, I’m not going to
read your book. I’ve seen a number of self-published books lately with great
covers and boring blurbs. Use power words that hook the reader. For example,
hidden room, strange fascination, obsession, horrifying discovery, chilling
truth, terrifying events, mysterious disappearance, twisted legacy, malevolent
life of its own, a bottomless hunger for new victims (In the Dark of the Night by John Saul).
Don’t
irritate people with your promotion. This is a serious issue with Twitter and Facebook. It’s
also becoming a problem on Goodreads. If you want people to pay attention to
your new release, then please avoid spamming. If you DM someone who just
followed you back on Twitter, you can guarantee they WON’T read your book (or
blog) if you tell them to. Many people will just unfollow you.
Use
Goodreads wisely. Goodreads is a great way for people to find out
about your book via word-of-mouth. Plus, fans of your books can check the site
for the release date of your next novel. It’s also a good way to invite your
“friends” to your book-release party. However, people often delete the announcements
(unread) unless they’re excited about the book or the author is a friend of theirs
(A real friend. Not a social networking “friend”). Other people have mentioned
they are frustrated by the amount of spam being generated on Goodreads by
authors using it to promote their book. Spamming doesn’t cause people to want
to buy your book. It does the opposite.
Word-of-mouth
is your best promotion. When we love a book, we can’t wait to tell our
friends about it. And when we share the same taste in reading as our friends,
we are more apt to rush out and buy the great book they just read, even if we’ve
never heard of it before. This is how many books become unexpected hits. It has
nothing to do with the initial promotion, which is often lacking. Just look at Harry Potter. In the beginning, it didn’t
receive any hype. Its popularity increased due to its fans: the kids on the
playgrounds in England, gushing to their friends about the great book they just
read.
Be selective
with your blog tours. You are better off having your book reviewed on a
major book blog (if possible) than swamp your blogging circle with a blog tour.
According to the comments on Elana’s post, most of us avoid reading guest posts
that are part of a blog tour. This is especially true when a number of the
blogs we follow are part of the tour. The exception is if the topic is of
interest to us. Then we stop to read it.
Remember the
purpose of social networking. The key word here is social. This is your chance to make genuine friendships.
Friendships that could eventually lead to positive word-of-mouth about your
book.
Keep your
promotion small, unless you can spread it around so it’s not hitting
the same people again and again. Every so often, subtly remind us about your
book. I might not buy it right away, but the reminder later on might be all I
need to pick the book up. This is more effective than over promotion, which
tends to turn some people off a book.
If you’re
going to do an interview, KEEP IT SHORT. Most of us don’t have time to
read to a 750-word plus interview, unless it’s by our favorite author. When
doing an interview, keep your answers brief. You are better off spending the
time working on your next book than spending it on a long interview that most
people will skip or skim over.
Make sure
your book is professionally edited. There is nothing worse than reading a book that is
poorly written and ridden with typos. And there is nothing more damaging to
your sales than word-of-mouth about the poor quality of your book. The best
edits include structural, line, and copy edits. Unfortunately, editing isn’t
cheap, but if you want to do things right, it’s worth the investment.
Start
working on your next project. The best promotion for your last book is your next one.
I recently read a book that I loved so much, I decided to read another of the
author’s books. It happened to be the first book in a trilogy. I ended up also loving
that book and bought the other two. And how did I find out about the initial
book? A friend recommended it to me. That’s right. Word-of-mouth is a beautiful
thing.
How do you decide what books to read? Are there any forms of promotion
that especially turns you off? Do you have any other suggestions for getting
your book noticed?
Stina
Lindenblatt @StinaLL writes young adult and new
adult novels. In her spare time, she’s a photographer and blogging addict, and
can be found hanging out on her blog.