One of the main points that has stuck in my mind is that the presenter pointed out that marketing your book is an extension of writing (these are my own words). Writing the book does not sell the book, marketing and putting it out there does.
And marketing is really in a way more writing. You should write press releases, newspapers articles, blogs, twitter, facebook and other kinds of promotional material. But writers find this part difficult.
During my usual rung this afternoon I pondered why writing the promotional material is difficult, and I think it is because we have to write about ourselves and the work as opposed to create a story (or work of non fiction). Most people are embarrassed about hosting, and promoting ones work could be seen as boasting. It is no different to confident people being mislabelled as arrogant.
What does this mean? It means you need to believe in your work and be proud to write and tell people about it. Why shouldn't you boast about the fantastic novel you have written and self published. None of those things just happen. They take hours and hours of work. You should tell people about it.
I know I am the worst offender when it comes to promoting my own work, as I am worried people will think I am boasting.
However, I shall practise (what was it again? ten thousand hours before you get good at it?).
The number of sales on my book have been steadily rising which has been a real thrill for me. Thank you to all of you who have bought a book and thank you to those who will buy one. I hope you enjoy the stories as much as I have enjoyed writing them. You may be pleased to learn my novel Just and Equitable is in the final stages of being edited and I hope to be able to release it in early December (unless there is a change in plans... you never know).
As I leave you for the night enjoy the opening paragraphs of another story in Briefs - a collection of short stories.
Work in Progress
The news of some guy having barricaded himself into a solicitor’s office
just around the corner was not welcome. To start with it was preventing
Samantha from getting back to work and precious billing hours, not to mention
the weekly five thirty masseuse appointment which might now be missed.
The nuisance, as she had
referred to the barricaded man in a telephone call to her office, was the icing
on the cake, so to speak, on a day she cared to put behind her with a glass of
red and some take away pizza.
The day had started with a telephone call from the dreaded Legal
Services Office, the overseeing body for lawyers, and deteriorated from there.
The complaint as far as she was concerned had no basis and was designed to make
life difficult, as well as take her away from precious billing hours, a key
aspect to her life.
She had assured Mahatmut, at least that’s what it sounded like to her,
but with the thick accent it had been difficult to tell and since she still
could not spell it after having asked three times she had written it the way
she thought it sounded, she would give it her utmost attention and reply within
fourteen days. There had barely been enough time to grab the file for court and
hail a cab to take her two blocks down the road, making sure she arrived on
time looking good. In the haste she had not seen the fifty page long affidavit
the other side had served on her by email minutes earlier.
“Excuse me,” she said to the heavily armed police officer guarding the
footpath barricade. For good measure she tried to paste a smile on her face. “I..ahm..was
wondering,” she started tilting her head slightly to the left. Some guy she had
once dated for about two seconds told her she looked irresistible when she did
that. “Do you think I could just drop these into my office and…”.............................
The warrior watching over you :)
No comments:
Post a Comment