Tag: Marketing

Posted in Marketing

Marketing Monday: What Do You Think of Newsletters?

Posted on by beckylevine

For about the past two years, I’ve had an email newsletter that I send out, oh…quarterly. It usually has some basic information about what’s coming up for me in the next few months, or what I’ve been doing that’s exciting (for me, at least!). Then I add a few links to posts I think might interest readers, and I send it out.  I use Constant Contact, and I’ve been more than happy with their templates and the way they store and let me update my mailing list–either manually, or through my blog/website.

I am, however, considering whether to keep the newsletter going.  I’m going to summarize my thoughts about why and then follow up with a few questions for you to, hopefully, get your take on things. I’d love–as usual–to hear from writers who get newsletters and writers/readers who receive them (or work very hard not to).

A few years ago, I think email newsletters were the best, if not the only, way to reach readers directly–at their inboxes. Then along came Facebook and Twitter and Goodreads and all the other social networking sites. Facebook sends me a note–to that inbox–when anyone contacts me in any way on their site, and with Tweetdeck, it’s easy for me to see if anyone’s trying to get in touch with me directly out on Twitter. I get messages from Goodreads for updated booklists, and I get Google Alerts that let me know when I, or my book, am mentioned pretty much anywhere. (Okay, not yet on Mars, but I’m sure that’s just a few years away.)

The other thing that these sites all do is make it incredibly easy for me to get information out. I know there are all sorts of questions about how easy it is to social network, about the best way to tweet effectively or to use a Fan page on Facebook, but in actual time, there’s just no comparison between typing in 144 characters on Twitter and setting up the next newsletter to be delivered.

I don’t have a huge mailing list for my newsletter. In real marketing terms, it’s probably considered almost infinitesimal. And I know that when I send it out, at least a few people are reading it–because I can see when they’ve clicked over to my blog to check out some of those posts I’ve linked to. But…if I’m going to use this list to any purpose (if that’s still truly possible), then the list has to grow. Which means I have to solicit (nicely) people at workshops and conferences and do something else (ideas?) to get its numbers to increase. These tasks are feeling like they’re hitting the side of the scale I call “Not my comfort zone and possibly not worth my time & energy.”

What do you think? Where are newsletters falling these days in the marketing world, in terms of popularity and effectiveness? If you send out a newsletter, how are you feeling about it? I’d love to hear what you include, how often you send it out, and whether (and why) you feel it’s a useful marketing tool. If you don’t send a newsletter, do you still keep a mailing list and how do you use it? If you’re a reader of newsletters…why? 🙂 What is it you like about them and what makes you sign up for one and keep reading it when it comes? And if you’re someone who does whatever possible to avoid getting a newsletter, please share that, too.

Thanks again, all, for letting me pick your brains and poll your thoughts! And a happy, productive week to you all, this Monday!

Posted in Marketing, Promotion, The Writing Path

If it’s September, it Must be M…m…marketing?!

Posted on by beckylevine

Well, not yet. For pete’s sake, people, the book doesn’t come out until January. But I’ve read enough about book promotion to know that you don’t wait for the book release to get started. And the one date that has been floating in my head for a while is October—the month I’m supposed to talk with the manager at Books Inc in Palo Alto about my launch party. He sends a newsletter out in November, so he/I/we want it on the calendar by then.

And October isn’t that far away.

I’m not diving in deep yet. But I do want to at least start work on a list of to-dos and check that list for my Comfort Level Inventory, as the brilliant ladies at Shrinking Violet Promotions call it. Because we can’t do everything we want, or even everything we think we’re supposed to. And I want to have as much fun as I can with this part of the writing path, not spend all my energy on all the “shoulds” so very accessible to all us worriers.

So this week I start on the list. I’m going through ALL the blog post headers over at SVP, browsing for the helpful tips I’ve read before. And I’m going back to BubbleStampede, too, for all the great ideas Laura and Fiona put up in their year of blogging. You remember, the ones Laura talked about in her interview.

There are some things that I pretty much know won’t show up on the list right away. Like a trailer. I had some ideas, and I may get to them further into 2010, but I know that the visual is not my strength and there are a whole lot of twists and turns down that path that will take some serious quiet time for me to figure out. (I can hear you all now, Oh, come on, Becky, you can TOTALLY do a trailer. And I say back to you, Maybe. We’ll see. Now go away.) Some promotion I’ll be doing through Writer’s Digest, and I think it’s better not to overlap much on that stuff.

But things like:

  • Local launch party
  • Blog interviews
  • Review copies
  • Bookmarks (Are these still a good giveaway, with all the e-readers out there? I mean, think about that.)
  • Updating my profiles on different sites
  • Stockpiling chocolate

Yes, those will all be on the list. And more. Hopefully, you guys will find this part of the journey interesting, because I’m pretty sure I’ll be blogging about it now and again. And again. As the panic rises.

It’s sure to be quite a ride. 🙂

Posted in Blog Contest, Marketing, Promotion

Marketing Interview (& Contest) with Laura Purdie Salas

Posted on by beckylevine

In September of 2008, Laura Purdie Salas joined up with Fiona Bayrock to explore marketing and PR possibilities for two of their picture books that were being published the next year: Salas’ Stampede! Poems to Celebrate the Wild Side of Schooland Bayrock’s Bubble Homes and Fish Farts. And they decided to do this exploration publicly—at their LiveJournal community, Bubble Stampede. Over the next months, the two authors discussed their marketing goals, their fears, and their plans.

I asked Laura if she’d do an interview here, to talk about what some of those plans were, how they year and the release went, and which ideas worked better than others. Happily, she said, “Yes.” Read all the way through—Laura has provided a TON of specific, practical information.

And leave a comment. I’ll enter you all in a drawing for Laura’s book Stampede! I’ll draw the winner next Wednesday, September 2.

And on to the interview.

BL: How did you and Fiona hook up? What made the two of you decide to work on your marketing plans together?

LPS: When I posted one or two Marketing Monday posts on my personal blog, I told readers that I’d be sharing my book promotion journey. Fiona Bayrock and I knew each other from being on the NFforKids Yahoo group, and she emailed me to suggest we join forces and do a joint blog. I thought that was a fantastic idea and said, “Yes, let’s!”

BL: Why did you decide to do the planning publicly, on the community blog?

LPS: Well, I had a nice motive and an ulterior motive. The nice motive was that I like to share stuff on my blog, when possible, that is information and that’s hard information for beginners to find. My ulterior motive was that by sharing my promotion tasks, I’d be promoting my book, of course. Also I hoped to get feedback and ideas from some writers who were more experienced than me. And we did! Finally, I thought being public about it would help make me accountable and keep me on track.

BL: What were your biggest/basic marketing goals for Stampede!?

LPS: Here’s the list I was working from.

Interview/Reviews

  • Contact local media (personally & also through publisher’s publicist). Do again in summer with a back-to-school angle
  • Approach blog reviewers about sending review copy (give list to publicist)

ONLINE

  • Create a STAMPEDE website and give it some presence on my website
  • Create “billboard presence”—my word for a static online site/page that you don’t have to change a lot—on Facebook, Linked In, MySpace, Ning, etc
  • Update Flapjacket, Children’s Literature Network, and other sites that list my books
  • Do an ongoing marketing blog with Fiona Bayrock

Events

  • Book launch
  • Local book events with another author?
  • Attend IRA (International Reading Association) in May this year, here, in Minneapolis
  • Possibly attend ALA (American Library Association) in Chicago
  • Try to arrange to speak at some conferences in 09

Reaching out to Teachers/Booksellers

  • Teacher’s guide
  • Reader’s theatre
  • Authorless event kit? (A set of online materials a bookstore can print out to create a fun storytime with reading, activities, maybe a craft…all without too much work on the bookseller’s part and no in-person visit from the author.)

Reaching out to the Press

  • Create an online press kit
  • Update my bios
  • Create some resource materials (10 Great Back-to-School books, 10 Terrific Poetry Books, etc.) to share in press materials and also on Amazon
  • Write a back-to-school piece for news wire

Name Recognition

  • Guest-teach a couple of classes in the Whidbey Island Writers Association
  • Serve on poetry panel for CYBILS awards
  • Write a bi-monthly poetry column for Kid Magazine Writers
  • Attend local book club with media specialists, kidlit profs, and children’s book buyer for the entire Minneapolis metro area as members, etc
  • Anything that can bet my name in front of people and where I can slide a mention of Stampede! in there

Miscellaneous Stuff

  • Book trailer
  • Blog campaign to get people to request that their library buy a copy of the book
  • Have promotional items made
  • Campaign contacts to review the book on Amazon and B&N
  • Mail press kit to local media
  • Have postcards made as soon as cover is final and start handing them out now!

Mailings

  • Start updating contact list so that I can do mailing to schools, libraries, independent booksellers, and personal contacts

BL: What were your marketing fears?

LPS: In-person events scared me the most. I was losing sleep about a book launch. The idea made me so nervous. The other big fear was just that everything would fall flat. The more you put into it, the harder you try, the bigger our humiliation is if it all falls flat.

BL: Where and how did you gather your initial ideas about what a marketing plan might include?

LPS: The fantastic blog Shrinking Violet Promotions was a great starting point for me. Also, I had been saving emails and articles and all sorts of stuff for years in a folder marked Promotion. It was a “someday” folder…and someday came, and I really did use a lot of that information!

BL: What marketing to-dos went on your original list of things to focus on?

LPS:

  • Contacting the publicity department at my publisher
  • Building the microsite for Stampede!
  • Creating the book trailer
  • Figuring out a book launch

BL: Did you accomplish that whole list?

LPS: I did do all the stuff on that short list, though I ended up doing an online launch. It was a ton of work, but it was also lots of fun. The launch happened in April, but all the activities and comments are still live here.

BL: What was the best thing about marketing your book?

LPS: That’s a tough question, since marketing doesn’t come easily to me. Um…One was that putting so much effort into this really made me appreciate the value of my book. I risked my time, energy, money, and pride, knowing I might not get something in return—but felt like my book was worth it. Two was that by putting a lot of visible effort into Stampede!,I made my publisher aware that I was willing and able to promote my book. And that in turn made my publisher more willing to promote my book, like by sending me to ALA Chicago (and Texas TLA—Texas Library Association—next spring). This is a lot of money to spend on an unknown author, and I think (though I don’t know for sure) that my own promotion efforts indirectly lead to this.

So much stuff we do in marketing has no immediate, tangible result, so it’s hard to evaluate. But I do think impressing your publisher as a busy, effective marketer can only help!

BL: What was the hardest thing about marketing your book?

LPS: Handing out postcards or flyers or whatever at conferences—that is just so not me. Even as I’ve gotten more confident and a little more experienced, I’m still not comfortable with this. OH! And the other hardest part was in bookstore/signing events. Some were better organized than others, and some resulted in a few book sales. But I do not have a salesperson’s personality, and three hours out of too many Saturdays resulting in three books sold just got kind of old.

BL: With the book launched and “out there,” and looking back, is there something you now see as a must-do for writers?

LPS: If you’re not 100% comfortable with marketing, partnering up with another writer with a new book out is what I would consider a must-do! Teaming up with Fiona Bayrock for some online promotion at Bubble Stampede pushed me to do more. And for in-person events, which are what really intimidate me, teaming up with Dara Dokas (Muriel’s Red Sweater) was such a wonderful thing for me. The other must-dos, I think, are:

  • A website or section of a website devoted just to your book
  • Teacher-support materials (reading guide, reader’s theater, etc.)
  • Getting your book into the hands of reviewers (both print and blog)
  • Increasing your visibility in the writing community—don’t always focus on just one book; the more visible YOU are, the more people will recognize your name and hopefully check out your book(s)
  • Make postcards and/or business cards featuring your book cover and hand them out freely

There are a few things I never got to on my list, mostly because I ran out of time.

  • I never did any mailings
  • in-person launch (fear factor, more than time factor)
  • More billboard presence for my book on various online platforms

BL: Are there any other recommendations you’d give to writers whose book will be published in the next year?

LPS: I know I said bookstore events weren’t that successful for me. But it’s great to do them to build relationships with your local booksellers. I’m doing a reading at Red Balloon Bookshop in October, but they also hooked me up with an event at a minor league baseball game and recommended me to a school looking for (paid) author event. Booksellers have all kinds of connections with schools and organizations, so it’s smart to make them aware of you, your book, and what you might have to offer.

Start early. Some of this stuff takes a ton of time! And bookstores and other venues plan events for the future.

Don’t beat yourself up. I did as much as I could for Stampede!. I wanted to learn what works best for me. I didn’t get to everything, but I tried to just be proud of what I did do. And with my next book, I’ll be more selective, concentrating on the kinds of things that worked well the first time around.

Posted in Blogging, Guest Blogger, Marketing, Promotion, SCBWI, Social Networking

Guest Bloggers: Mary Hershey & Robin LaFevers from SVP

Posted on by beckylevine

Shrinking Violet Promotions is one of my favorite blogs. I discovered it soon after I started blogging, and I’ve been a regular reader since. Mary & Robin are encouraging, enthusiastic, and seriously GET how tough it can be for writers to get out there and market themselves and their books. So, obviously, I was very happy when they accepted my invitation to guest blog here.

Ladies and Gentlemen, pull up a chair, get out your notebooks, and listen up!

PRE-Marketing: Seven Important Things You Can Do Before You Sell Your Book, by the Shrinking Violets, Robin LaFevers & Mary Hershey.

Is it ever too early to start marketing? We’re betting the answer to this question depends on who you ask. Editors, agents, and authors will likely all have different perspectives. And, of those groups, it is likely that it depends on whether you ask an introvert or extrovert.

Robin and I have thought long and hard about this question as it has pertained to our own writing path, and the path of our readers at Shrinking Violets. As a generalization, introverts are more likely to want to remain in the wings until show-time. (Some of us would prefer to stay in the wings beyond that!) 🙂

One of the things to remember about marketing is that it’s really about connecting; connecting to a community of readers or writers or booksellers. As a pre-published author, one of the best things you can do is to begin to build those community relationships. The cool thing about starting before publication is that you will comfortably know these people by the time your first book sale is made, and it won’t feel stiff and in-your-face to mention it to them, it will make sense. The good news is, it’s never been easier. Between blogging and all the social network sites, it’s easy to begin tapping into those communities and building connections.

If it feels more comfortable, start off in those communities identifying yourself as a reader; most writers are avid readers first and foremost, and that can feel like a safer place to start from. Follow librarians’ blogs, “friend” indie bookstores and your favorite authors on MySpace, join book discussions with others about your favorite books. Follow your favorite authors’ blogs and comment, fer gawd’s sake. (They will not know you are there if you don’t comment!) Begin your own blog. At first, you can simply talk about your writing struggles or what you read or the authors and librarians you meet, however, at some point, it can be really smart to create a blogging niche for yourself. Something that guarantees a source of topics for you to talk about and get people coming back to your site.

Cyber Niches can be based on so many different things: Genres, Plotting, Marketing, The Industry, Gossip, Situational (ie: SAHM, writers who are actual teens, etc.), Personal Quirks, “The Call” stories, Rejection Letters, Interviews. Yes, there are lots of blogs with author interviews, but how about one that showcases booksellers or librarians. How about Reporting New Deals, or Six Degrees of Separation in publishing. (For example, did you know that Betty Groban of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt is related to Josh Groban? Or that Jake and Maggie Gyllenthal’s aunt has just published a book?)

The point is to find something that interests you and begin building a community or connections around that. But don’t rely on that alone, be a good community member by participating in other communities as well. Again, the internet makes this easier than ever–and you’ll learn tons while doing it. Promise.

As a community of writing introverts, we also want to be smart and savvy about our work. We want to make sure that we take advantage of every possible opportunity, and we also want to conserve our energy for those activities that give us the biggest bang. We want to make sure that the major proportion of our personal resources goes directly to the work–to creating the best possible book we can. I believe strongly that this in itself is the most powerful marketing activity of all…writing a kick-ass book. Once that has been done, then absolutely–do whatever you can to create buzz–that enigmatic and intangible magic that gets your book into all the right hands and right places.

In the last five years, we’ve all born witness, or heard the tales of unpublished writers that have sold their work based on their mega-blogebrity status. Agents and editors have shopped them from their blog or website and offered contracts. Exciting stuff, for sure, but rare, in our opinion. The bottom line is that agents and editors are not going to come find you. You need to write a book that will find them, and grab them by their editorial lapels.

All right, all right! We promised a list–and here it is! 🙂 🙂

THE OFFICIAL SHRINKING VIOLETS PRE-MARKETING ACTIVITY LIST

  1. Meet your tribe. Get out there and start connecting with other writers. You can find them on-line and at conferences, critiques, schmoozes–follow the trail of writer bread crumbs!
  2. Join a professional writing organization like the Society of Children’s Books Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI), the Romance Writers of America (RWA), or the Mystery Writers of America (MWA). Let the world know that you are serious.
  3. Start doing some karmic networking NOW. Become a volunteer in some reading/writing arena. DO something besides focus on getting yourself published.
  4. Dive into the classics. Read the Newbery, Caldecott, Cybil, Indie Bound award winners. Taste and savor the cream. Know exactly what you are up against. Know what the market buys. Then ignore it and go deep into your own  secret, crazy, unique place and write from there–that’s where YOUR best stuff hides.
  5. Write a fan letter to an author, or editor, or librarian or teacher or bookseller. For no purpose than to celebrate their work and thank them for their contribution to children’s literature. This is not a pitch, but an expression of appreciation with NO hook.
  6. Start designing a website or a blog if you haven’t already. Before you’ve sold something? Yep! Step into the frame of your future. Try it on for size. What would you like it to look like? Have some fun! Use this as a vision for your future. It will draw you there.
  7. Choose one thing slightly outside your comfort zone in the writing field and move toward it. Examples: finding opportunities for public speaking, doing a storytime with children, introducing yourself to the local booksellers, etc.

No matter how many dozens upon dozens of books an author or illustrator may have out–don’t ever forget that we ALL start unpublished. Remember to enjoy the whole of your journey. It’s all rich!

Posted in Marketing, Social Networking, Somebody Else Says

Somebody Else Says: Social Networking Links

Posted on by beckylevine

One of the very cool things about writing my critique book for Writer’s Digest is the timing. They’re doing a lot of reorganizing, shifting themselves–as I understand it–from several distinct businesses into one integrated community. I think I, and the book, are going to benefit greatly from this, not to mention having a fun ride along the way.

The whole online community thing is an amazing tool or toy, depending on how you look at it or how much you know about it. I feel as though I’m walking into a giant ocean, putting each foot down ahead of me very carefully, to see how deep I’m getting and to identify what’s actually swimming around out there. I know I can avoid the sharks, and I’m kind of excited that I might get to see some of those bright, colorful fish that hang out in the coral.

In other words, I’m still learning!

So I thought I’d post a few links today to help you dip your own toes in. See what you think. And throw some of your theories, hopes, and worries about social networking into the comments!

This first one’s a bit intense, with a bit of a 1984/Big Brother feel to it, and the participants throwing around a lot of jargon and TLAs (Three-Letter Acronyms). But if you substitute “I” for “We” and pretend their talking about individual writers instead of big corporations…well, there’s some interesting stuff. Thanks to Jane Friedman for the link.

http://www.foliomag.com/video/folio-roundtable

Martha Engber was doing a little research on Good Reads, which I’ve been wondering about lately. She’s got a good summary of how it works for marketing, as well as finding great book recommendations.

http://marthaengber.blogspot.com/2008/11/goodreads-offers-good-reads.html

Mary Hershey and Robin LaFevers always have great info at their Shrinking Violet Promotions blog. In this post, they “reprint” Robyn Schneider’s “Facebook: A Guide for Authors.”

http://shrinkingvioletpromotions.blogspot.com/2008/01/more-marketing-tasks-facebook.html

And Michelle Rafter has a post about how freelance writers can work with LinkedIn.

http://michellerafter.wordpress.com/2007/12/07/how-writers-can-use-linkedin/

Enjoy!

Posted in Marketing

Free Books: One Giant Step for Writerkind?

Posted on by beckylevine

M. J. Rose has this article up on The Huffington Post. In it, she talks about the logic and marketing sense behind giving away her book The Reincarnationist for free.

I told you I wasn’t going to stay organized. From first drafts to marketing all in one week. I’ve heard this discussion before, though, and it’s an interesting one–this seemed a good time to share.

I think Rose is probably right. If you make the assumption (or goal) that you are going to write and publish more than one book in your lifetime, then you are not so much trying to market each book, as you are working to market yourself.  As Rose points out, people buy books by the authors whose other books they’ve liked. Not just “people.” We do. I do. I’m still waiting eagerly for the next Deborah Crombie or Jo Bannister mystery, and my son and I agree that the definition of optimism is hoping there’ll be a new Roald Dahl book soon (or a Jane Austen, as I once heard someone say).  

Of course, we’re talking electronic versions here, not the cost of paper and ink and binding, but still…If giving a book away for free gets readers to you, isn’t the return going to be much higher than the expenditure? Not just in people reading your book and talking about it, but in them coming back for more–your next book and your next and your next.

Like I said, I think M.J. and all the other people putting forth this argument are right. And yet…there’s a corner of my brain still shouting, “What?! Really?!” and wondering about doing this for myself.

Luckily (or unluckily!) I’m not yet at the point where I have to make this decision. I suspect, though, that sometime in the future I will find myself there, in a discussion about one of my books, not the hypothetical book of a theoretical author. It’s a step on the path that’s coming, I think, for all of us. And so it’s a step worth thinking about and listening to what others are saying.

Thanks to Jessica Faust for putting the link up on Facebook.

Posted in The Writing Path

Welcome

Posted on by beckylevine

Wouldn’t it be nice if we knew every step along our writing path? Not just the ones we’ve already made or the one our foot is coming down on just at this moment, but the ones yet to come?

It’d be a bit like taking your list to the grocery store–walking down the aisles, picking the right items off the shelves and putting them in your cart, checking off ingredients one by one. The whole journey would be well-planned, organized, and straightforward, and each step would bring you closer to your goal. You’d be heading toward the check-out line, you’d know exactly how to get there, and you’d succeed. Easy. You could even work it so you had a nice bar of chocolate at the end.

Unfortunately, our writing paths are a lot harder than shopping for milk and bread. Fortunately, they’re also a lot more fun and way more interesting. We do all the work we can to try and figure them out–take classes, read books, join critique groups, and write and write and write. There are steps along the path that are nothing like you’ll find at the market, when something happens that has you doing Snoopy’s happy dance in front of your computer. There are also moments that feel like you just stepped in the broken-egg mess left behind when someone dropped a carton.

At this new website & blog, I want to talk about all these steps (yes, the bad ones, too). When you visit, here are some of the topics you’ll find:

  • The BIG elements of writing–plot, characterization, voice, pacing–you name it
  • The writing process–outlining, first drafts, revising, polishing
  • The critique process–reading deeping & thoughtfully, giving and getting constructive & supportive feedback, brainstorming, revising (yes, again!)
  • Networking–getting to know other writers, and agents and editors, in person and online
  • Marketing & PR–websites, blogs, social-networking sites, book launches, workshops, signings
  • Book reviews–books about the craft and business of writing, as well as books that I just fall in love with

Today, more than ever, all these pieces are stepping stones on our writing paths. I hope you’ll stop by frequently, enjoy the posts, and leave your two cents (or three!) in the comments. Together, I believe we can make more progress than if we walk alone.

Let’s start the discussion. Leave me a comment about who supports you on your path, and how you work together. What are the benefits you gain?