Don't Just Write it - Promote It!

[jacey]

This is an amazing tale of a writer's own promotion efforts that pushed her fantasy YA book up the sales tables. It makes you realise what a bit of savvy can achieve.

Comments

[ferlonda.livejournal.com]

Made me exhausted just reading about it. The book sounds nice, though perhaps a bit derivative of BTVS. Neat, though...

[green-knight.livejournal.com]

Her promotional efforts started not so different from the promotional efforts of a thousand writers I have not heard of and who didn't make it onto the NYT bestseller list.

I think the relevant passage is [the publisher] began hearing early praise for WAKE from the national sales team. and everything that comes in the wake of that - the publisher pulling out all the stops,, book tour, trailer, a thousand promotional copies given away.

Ok, if the writer had been less enthusiastic, they might not have put as much effort into it, but to say 'this is what you get when you self-promote vigorously' is hardly the full story.

Compare msagara in a recent interview (http://jimhines.livejournal.com/362977.html) with jimhines (she's a bookseller and published writer). She talks a fair bit about the (nearly nonexistent) effects of self-promotion.

[http://users.livejournal.com/la_marquise_de_/]

That's one brave woman. I'm impressed (and rather like the sound of the book, too) but I doubt I'm capable of similar efforts.

[birdsedge.livejournal.com]

Indeed. What her bit of savvy achieved was mainly bullying the publisher to put some muscle behind the promotion. But - hey - on whatever level it worked.

I see this in the music world all the time. Popularity seems to be proportionate to the marketing budget. There are one or two notable exceptions, but I'd guess around 95% of all UK folk acts follow this golden rule