Post by Lily on Oct 26, 2012 1:32:05 GMT -5
PEP TALK: I can't overemphasize the importance of having a blog and building a following by posting to that blog regularly, following each other to grow your own blog following and being interactive with your readers! In fact, it's so important that in the future, we're probably going to follow the example of other online publishers and are NOT going to offer contracts to authors who don't have blogs and other online presences, no matter how good we think their stories are . . .
UNLESS they have a very strong author platform with a definitive promotion plan for how, when, where and to whom they will promote themselves. Yes, we admit it's important for the publisher to promote its authors and we have always done this, even though the time factor has prevented us from promoting as much as we would like to.
However, if an author can be found only on Amazon, Barnes and Noble and the publisher's website and the reader has no way to interact with the author, that author is effectively making our efforts much more difficult and much less productive. You have to be known for people to want to read your work. NO ONE is going to get discovered by potential readers without putting out the effort to tell as many people as they can that they are out there, what they write and how people can find their books!
I love you guys, but I don't like getting the flack when your books don't sell, even though I've spent in the same amount of energy, time and effort on promoting and setting everything up for each and every author on my end. I go back and look at the ones with the least sales, and it's always the ones with no blog, no Facebook, no Twitter, no website, no online presence and no game plan of their own.
Lots of new authors think all they have to do is get published and they'll have it made, but that isn't true. The promotion end is just as time-consuming, tedious, frustrating and crazy-making as the writing and getting it published--probably MUCH more so, in fact. If you aren't willing to do both, why are you writing? Being an author in today's world requires both the writing and the promotion, because unless you are a bestseller, no publisher is going to go out of their way to promote you above the basics. It's a sad truth, but it is the truth, and you have NEVER had more competition than you do right now with hundreds of thousands of new books pouring into the market each year.
READING MATERIAL: In case you're still not convinced about what good it does to like each others' works on Amazon, here is an article that also tells you other things that you can do to help each other build up Amazon rankings (and yes, that's one of the things we're doing to try to promote, but we need LOTS more participation). Check it out: www.writers-and-publishers.com/?p=242
UNLESS they have a very strong author platform with a definitive promotion plan for how, when, where and to whom they will promote themselves. Yes, we admit it's important for the publisher to promote its authors and we have always done this, even though the time factor has prevented us from promoting as much as we would like to.
However, if an author can be found only on Amazon, Barnes and Noble and the publisher's website and the reader has no way to interact with the author, that author is effectively making our efforts much more difficult and much less productive. You have to be known for people to want to read your work. NO ONE is going to get discovered by potential readers without putting out the effort to tell as many people as they can that they are out there, what they write and how people can find their books!
I love you guys, but I don't like getting the flack when your books don't sell, even though I've spent in the same amount of energy, time and effort on promoting and setting everything up for each and every author on my end. I go back and look at the ones with the least sales, and it's always the ones with no blog, no Facebook, no Twitter, no website, no online presence and no game plan of their own.
Lots of new authors think all they have to do is get published and they'll have it made, but that isn't true. The promotion end is just as time-consuming, tedious, frustrating and crazy-making as the writing and getting it published--probably MUCH more so, in fact. If you aren't willing to do both, why are you writing? Being an author in today's world requires both the writing and the promotion, because unless you are a bestseller, no publisher is going to go out of their way to promote you above the basics. It's a sad truth, but it is the truth, and you have NEVER had more competition than you do right now with hundreds of thousands of new books pouring into the market each year.
READING MATERIAL: In case you're still not convinced about what good it does to like each others' works on Amazon, here is an article that also tells you other things that you can do to help each other build up Amazon rankings (and yes, that's one of the things we're doing to try to promote, but we need LOTS more participation). Check it out: www.writers-and-publishers.com/?p=242