Tag Archives: marketing

Aug27

Marketing

Posted on by
Marketing

I said I was gonna use this page more often and hopefully get some regular readers so here I am once again. When I first started out writing stories I thought the hardest part of that was going to be all the grammar rules I didn’t know at the time and the actual writing of said stories. Now that I’m a few stories in I can tell you that I was horribly mistaken. The hardest part, by far, is the marketing.

It doesn’t help that I don’t enjoy talking about myself or trying to nudge people to buy my books. Its not that I have some insecurity that I have about talking about myself, it just seems very fake and forced. I think my stories are awesome. I’ve read them dozens of times and not just to do edits or revisions. I just never liked the idea of tooting my own horn to make money. It just seems akin to a used car salesman (no offense meant to any actual car salesmen).

All that needs to change though. I was talking to my friend Melinda a few days back and gave me a piece of advice that I had actually given to other people (mostly theater folk) numerous times over the years but didn’t realize I should be taking it myself. She told me that I need to think of marketing as a role. Don’t be me, be that person that smiles and shakes hands and asks if they want a copy signed for a small extra fee. To basically put on a mask and be someone else when it comes to marketing. Of course she was absolutely right I just needed to hear it out loud.

Then today I got followed on Twitter by the president of the SFWA (Science Fiction Writers of America) a group that I have been a part of for a few years now. The problem is that even though I’ve paid my dues every year I wouldn’t say I’ve been an active member. They provide a lot of services and have tables at a lot of conventions that I could save money on going to if I coordinated through them. Its also a place filled with other writers that all market themselves as well so I’m sure they could be very helpful on ways to go about getting myself out there. So as soon as I finish this piece I’m going to mosey on over to their forum site and write an introduction post putting myself out there to try and interact a bit more.

I said last year that I was going to try and attend more conventions this year but that kind of fell to the wayside, so I think I’ll see if we can put that on the marketing agenda again for next year. I will hopefully be at the Arisia sci fi convention again in January and am looking into getting a table in authors alley. Normally, I just do my panels and that’s that so we’ll see if spending time in authors alley helps any.

That is the extent of my marketing schemes so far. I’m optimistic but it’s not something that’s going to garner overnight results. If anyone else has any suggestions please feel free to leave a comment.

Back to marketing,

Don

Jun25

Just another day ending in Y

Posted on by
Just another day ending in Y

I’ve been slacking lately. I’m just putting it out there because its true. I know what the problem is and I’m working on fixing it, sometimes shit just gets a bit… overwhelming. I don’t like to use that word a lot but I find myself feeling that way more and more recently. There’s a list of things in my head that I know need or at least should get done but for some reason or another they get put off or I can’t quite seem to figure out how to get them done and just put it off. This doesn’t make for a very productive day and leads to frustration and procrastination.

I love being a writer, I do, but the marketing and self promotion end of it gets to be very tedious and sometimes infuriating. I knew all that when I took on this gig and for a long time it was good. Lately its been not as good, I know I need to fix it but trying to figure out the details of how to get to that point is where the gap in the bridge shows up. I need to get a bit more organized and maybe put together a marketing idea to get back on track and move up to the next level.

Anyway, thanks for listening to me bitch for a bit I’m gonna get back to work and try and pull my shit together so I can get back to pumping out some kick ass stories.

Don

Nov14

Guest blogs and interviews.

Posted on by
Guest blogs and interviews.

I’ll start today’s post by admitting that I have indeed been distracted for the last few days with a new video game. Call of Duty, black ops 2 has indeed captured my attention much to the displeasure of other members of my family. It’s very well done and addictive as all get out. That being said I still managed to get my work done today. I did NOT get my work done yesterday but one day off once in a while is okay I suppose.

Enough idle banter… As some of you know I’ve been working on marketing lately. I’ve got the writing part pretty well down pat  for now, marketing, not so much. I’ve been seeing a lot of other authors doing guest blogs and interviews. This sounds like a great idea for marketing but my problem is that I don’t really know a lot of other authors. I don’t have any idea what I would say in a guest blog, much less an interview, but I’m sure you all have figured that out already!

Read the rest of this entry →

Oct28

marketing and stuff

Posted on by
marketing and stuff

I was talking to a friend last night about the third book, writing and marketing. We both agreed that I should probably have a website sometime in the near future, I’m still not sure how this is going to help sales in the long run but it is a step in the right direction.

I’m still very shaky when it comes to marketing. I’m doing the normal twitter/Facebook stuff along with chatting with folks on goodreads and writing my blog, as you can tell. I’m just not sure where to go from here. I know as an indie author this is the hardest part, selling yourself. I have no qualms in doing in and used to believe that my ego would be fine with doing something like this. I quickly discovered that I find it distasteful. I feel bad trying to sell folks on the idea of buying my book. It’s almost embarrassing. I believe in my self and the books I write I just think that I tend to be a far more private person than I thought I was. Read the rest of this entry →

Oct16

Random Updates

Posted on by
Random Updates

I’ve been neglectful of my blogging duties the last week or so since I’ve been trying to make sure I get my writing done. So far that seems to be going well. I took a few days off, but now I’m back at it. The third book is at just about 30k words, so that makes me happy. Just 10k more and I’ll have an actual novel. I still would like to have it done by the end of the year, even if I don’t release it then. I still shake my head in disbelief at the fact that I’m writing my THIRD book. Three years ago I would have laughed at the idea of writing one, much less three.

In a couple months I will also be attending my first convention as a writer. I’m gonna be at Arisia 2013 in January for the whole weekend. I won’t be at the dealers table or anything but i will be shmoozing with the crowd and hopefully throwing the best party there. I’m tentatively calling it After the Storm the Party! If you don’t know what Arisia is and live in the Boston/new England area you can check it out here http://2013.arisia.org/ . I’ve been to quite a few of these convention in the past during my stint in a Rocky Horror Picture Show cast and they’re a lot of fun! There also tends to be a lot of people interested in the post apocalyptic kind of stuff I write in attendance so I’m hoping it will get my name out there a bit. If you’re interested tickets run around $50 for the whole weekend until December, then I think they go up a bit. Read the rest of this entry →