The Secret to Marketing Books
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Author's Note
New Releases (That I'm Excited About)!
Two Writers You Should Read
Events
It's Contest Time!
Other Writing
The Secret to Marketing Books
A reader of these newsletters recently asked me for any marketing advice I can offer - I've mentioned before that my day jobs have comprised over twenty years of marketing experience. So it's true that I do have some insight into tactics and approaches that can be successful, and I constantly glance through industry newsletters and read dreary columns full of depressing buzzwords like "dynamic" and "brand."
But the companies I've marketed already had established platforms and audiences. Publishing is a different business, particularly for an author who's not a household name (which is almost all of us). This industry is congested and competitive and the requirements for true success involve people reading a 300+ page book. It's a tremendous conversion, one of the hardest sells possible, and it's being asked of a dwindling audience.
No Home for Killers is going to be published on February 1st of 2023, and there's very little I can do for it between now and then. For someone that likes to do things - as long as it doesn't involve being outdoors in the summer or too much physical exertion - that's frustrating.
And it's particularly frustrating because so much of the business side of writing comes down to the dispiriting notion of waiting. If you go the traditional publishing route, as I did, then you send out your finished novel and you wait for agents to respond, a process that can often take months. If you're fortunate enough to sign with an agent, then the agent sends it on to publishers for consideration, and you wait to hear back from editors. Again, this is a process that can take weeks or months. After the novel is accepted for publication and the celebrations quiet down and the edits have been made, there's the waiting for reviews and what lists (if any) on which your work has been included, and the waiting for publication.
I'm at that last step and all of these steps, while admittedly fortunate to reach, are hard on writers. For one thing, it's rarely as easy or straightforward as I laid out above.
Agents and publishers reject you.
Reviews can be unkind.
Publication day can quietly pass.
And there's a sense that I desperately want to do more for this book, but there's only so much I can do.
Of course you can do the essays and interviews and paid social media campaigns and conferences, and you should. And you'll hopefully find that, like the best writing, your best marketing efforts are going to be the efforts you enjoy.
Hopefully the conference you attend will introduce you to some new readers interested in your work. And the paid social media advertising campaign will prove both intuitive and profitable. And the essay you publish will resonate.
In all likelihood, none of these will be transformative on their own, but like rungs on a ladder, you and your work will both rise. And even as you climb higher, you'll begin to do so assuredly.
No one can guarantee anything, and no marketing approach is destined to succeed. At best, all we can do as writers is hope. We can hope that the steps we take will place our book in front of the right person - someone excited by the concept, and willing to read or listen to it. Someone willing to trust, as they open your book to page one, that you'll give them either the story they expected, or one they didn't realize they wanted.
And so it's hoping, and waiting, and writing.
Look, I don't mean to come off as overly serious or even pessimistic about marketing. It's tough, and publishing can either be wonderful or draining. More than likely, it'll be both these things for you at different times.
But if you stick with it, and if you find that the complicated demands and ups and downs of being a published writer actually seem like blessings, then the marketing will become organic. Like the best books, it'll be successful, and that success will be both unexpected and inevitable.
EA
Speaking of marketing, I should try and get people to pre-order my next book. I've been sharing the lovely blurbs I've received on social media, but I wanted to add them below (with a few more to come!). Click HERE or on the graphic below to learn more about my next thriller!
MARKETING!
Beneath the roiling waters of the Arkansas River lie dead men and buried secrets.
When Jane Mooney’s violent stepfather, Warren, disappeared, most folks in Maud Bottoms, Arkansas, assumed he got drunk and drowned. After all, the river had claimed its share over the years.
When Jane confessed to his murder, she should have gone to jail. That’s what she wanted. But without a body, the police didn’t charge her with the crime. So Jane left for Boston—and took her secrets with her.
Twenty-five years later, the river floods and a body surfaces. Talk of Warren’s murder grips the town. Now in her forties, Jane returns to Maud Bottoms to reckon with her past: to do jail time, to face her revenge-bent mother, to make things right.
But though Jane’s homecoming may enlighten some, it could threaten others. Because in this desolate river valley, some secrets are better left undisturbed.
Nora Best is starting her life over . . . again. Spotting a 'team leader' job with a therapy program for troubled girls at Serendipity Ranch, Nora thinks it's the perfect role. She'll be surrounded by the beautiful Montana wilderness and be able to make a difference in the kids' lives.
All is going well until it's revealed a girl recently died at the ranch. The other girls are struggling with the loss. The official line is she jumped from a cliff, but she was afraid of heights and would have struggled to get there alone.
As trouble at the ranch escalates and another shocking discovery is made, Nora's determined to find out the truth to protect the girls. However, with her recent troubles, the local community, police and program leaders won't take her seriously. Can Nora overcome her past to help the girls, or are the girls using her past to help themselves?
For elite assassin Nena Knight, eliminating dangerous players on the world stage is part of the job. The Tribe, a powerful business syndicate in Africa, ensures that she has those opportunities. But for Nena, the Tribe is more than just her employer; it’s an organization that supports the African people—until it turns on itself.
As Nena embarks on a new mission, a violent siege by a paramilitary group throws the Tribe into chaos, and mysterious acts of violence plague the Tribe’s territories. As the attacks escalate, Nena suspects a different kind of enemy at play: someone on the inside, determined to undermine the Tribe’s leaders.
As this new threat closes in on her own family, Nena enlists a team to root out the danger. But as she gets closer to the truth, she will have to risk everything to protect the future she holds dear—even if it means facing off with an enemy she never expected.
From the Introduction by Gary Phillips
"Within these pages you’ll find stories of those walking the straight and narrow—until something untoward happens. Maybe it’s someone taking a step out of line, getting caught up in circumstances spiraling out of their control. Maybe they’re planning the grift, the grab . . . whatever it is to finally put them over. Other times the steps they take are to get themselves or people they care about out from under. You’ll find the offerings in these pages are a rich mix of tone—tales told of hope, survival, revenge, and triumph. Excursions beyond the headlines and the hype.
The settings herein reflect South Central today or chronicle its colorful past, such as the days of the jazz joints along Central Avenue . . . From South Park to East Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, from the borderlands of Watts to the one-time Southern Pacific railroad tracks paralleling Slauson Avenue, take a tour of a section of Los Angeles that may be unfamiliar to you but you will get to know, at least a little, by the time you finish reading this entertaining and engaging anthology."
Featuring brand-new stories by: Steph Cha, Nikolas Charles, Tananarive Due, Larry Fondation, Gar Anthony Haywood, Naomi Hirahara, Emory Holmes II, Roberto Lovato, Penny Mickelbury, Gary Phillips, Eric Stone, Jervey Tervalon, Jeri Westerson, and Désirée Zamorano.
Shawn Wilson and I met over email, and I'm so glad we did because it gave me the opportunity to meet a wonderful crime fiction writer who bases her work in DC. She asked if I'd consider writing a blurb for her new mystery, Duplicity, and I read it over a few nights (normally I'm a much slower reader) and was eager to provide my endorsement. And I wasn't the only one. Publishers Weekly gave it a starred review, calling it "...a cracking good time. One doesn’t have to be a mystery fan to relish this." Duplicity is out from Oceanview Press on October 18, and you should definitely nab a copy!
And a writer Shawn Wilson recommends?
The little chapel in New York’s Hudson Valley is an Irish pub and country store filled with endearing, colorful characters. And for Gwendolyn Bounds, a Wall Street Journal columnist, forced from her downtown Manhattan apartment after the terrorist attack of September 11, it becomes a place for healing. Her experience is an uplifting love story that continues to provide solace and hope during challenging times, whatever they may be.
To learn more about these authors, click on the photos above.
Interview with Bonechilling Books
I'm excited for the chance to do an IG Live interview with Magen from Bonechilling Books! As you can tell from the logo above, Magen likes dark books, which is sort of my exact jam, and this interview takes place days before Halloween! Come check us out at noon on October 26 on her IG page!
It's contest time! The monthly contest winner wins copies of the books listed in my "Two Writers You Should Read" segment. And the winner is...
eko_@sa_el.net
Congrats, and keep your eye out for a separate e-mail from me!
I was thinking about writing spaces after rediscovering Jill Krementz's The Writer's Desk, and wanted to put thoughts down in a column for the Independent. So I did, and I also asked Eryk Pruitt, Kathleen Barber, and Yasmin Angoe to talk about where they did their writing. I find those little peeks at personal spaces endlessly fascinating. It feels like a secret. You can learn their secrets at my essay HERE.
Until next time, much love and happy reading!