E-BOOK PROMOTIONS--EEK!

Reach Out and Touch Someone is available. Yea, yippee!

Time to promote that fact, for which I must venture forth from my nice safe garret—Sob.

It’s a well-ridden dilemma, this particular horned beast on which I’m currently impaled. (Not in the good way.) Frequently mounted or not, that thing’s nowhere close to tamed. E-book sales have hurdles enough that promotion’s even more necessary than with, say, small-press print. I know this; if I want anyone to know the story’s available, I have to tell them so.

So, fine, I’ve come down from my e-garret to promote. As briefly and painlessly as I possibly can, after which I shall retreat to cat and keyboard and caffeinated fantasies. For now, at least, I’m out in the virtual world, ready to speak my piece.

...Now what?

AS SEEN EVERYWHERE ELSE

I don’t belong to nearly as many chat loops as some people—hermits not being known for chatting, you understand—but even reading only my relatively few lists, the repetition of posts fairly quickly makes me grind my teeth. And I’ve seen enough complaints by more vocal posters to know that I’m not alone. It’s gotten to the point that these days if I see anything labeled “X-Posted” I skip past it, certain I’ve seen it before. And at that, I’m grateful for the poster’s courtesy! Seeing the same excerpt in several places on the same day doesn’t ring that “magic number” advertisers talk about for acquiring mindshare, at least not in my mind—it only annoys me.

So, what’s an author to do?

REPETITION = BAD but MINDSHARE = GOOD

Like many readers, I’m very author-centered—tell me an author I like has a new release and, resources permitting, I’ll buy it. All it requires is that (A) I recognize the name, and (B) you tell me where/when/how to purchase the thing. For authors I haven’t read yet, or those relatively few not yet automatically sorted into yes or no, occasional postings of different excerpts help. But in those cases where I haven’t made up my mind, repetition only serves to dissuade me.

Where’s the line between announcement and annoyance? Sure and certain, I don’t know—even the market researchers who spend their working days on the problem can’t seem to pinpoint it—but I know when it’s been crossed. And I hate the thought of inspiring that same feeling in readers that too-profligate promoters spark in me. But now I’m promoting my newest release, which means that I have to put on the marketing cap, itchy though it may be.

MONDAY MALAISE

I’ve been checking the rules for the various loops to which I belong (on which I lurk), and many of them allow promotions only on one day a week. The same day, too, for an astonishing number of them: Monday. Which is, of course, why the same posts show up in so many different places at the same time: it’s the only time they’re allowed!

Does this seem short-sighted to anyone else? Monday, the most hated day of the week. The start of the drudge-trudge workaday weariness. And you want to clog up the loops with promotions on that of all days?

Still, it’s not my job to criticize; I can barely run a blog, much less a chat loop. And in fairness, not all group owners set their rules that way. It just happens that several of those to which I belong do. Which leaves me with, for this new release, three excerpts I can post to many more than three groups and only the one day on which I’m allowed to post them with all the attendant promotional text.

Hmm.

I suppose I could divvy them up, posting excerpt #1 to groups A and B, #2 to C and D, etc. then switch for the next week—but if I do them one or two lists at a time, it’ll take forever and not reach many people, and if I cross-post them, I’ll get ulcers from the guilt and the fear of annoying people who might otherwise decide to read the thing. There’s always option #3, doing nothing, but then the readers won’t know the story’s out there. And wouldn’t that be a shame?

BRAND-NAME AUTHORS

Non-eremitic folks have a solution I really can’t match: they show off their personalities rather than their books. Posting daily to say hi, sending good wishes, writing essays, sharing pictures, just generally being friendly and accessible. Planting their name in people’s minds. It looks absolutely exhausting to me, but it works for them.

Might it for me? Well, I’m pretending not to be a hermit just now, so I thought I’d give this a try; wrote myself a new bio and posted it upon joining another loop:

Species: human; sub-species author.
Gender: female.
Allergies: limelight.
Distinguishing marks: bad puns, twisted humor, tendency to lapse into erotica and/or science.
Habitat: electronic garret. Occasional sightings in the blogosphere. Rumored to have been spotted at publisher chats and loops, too infrequently for verification.

Lung-chin's Guide to Impossible Beings says :

Tracked by the mysterious letter-string "pxj" (postulated to be either the creature's initials or an acronym suffering low self-esteem), this perpetrator of strange humor and disseminator of stranger information may be a hoax, though there would seem little point in that. More likely, "pxj" is, like the sea lily, inclined to retreat at any cost. Reproduction appears to follow no particular schedule, but new creations, i.e. books, arrive frequently enough to dispel any thoughts of this being's extinction.

Tacked on a .sig line with a buy-link and (one hopes) interesting tag for Reach above the usual blessing, and, feeling quite pleased with myself, began planning further posts in a similar line.

Until the reply came back:

“Are you published?”

So, okay; I’m not enough of a brand name yet to do name-only appearances. Sigh. Other options?

$$$ WELL SPENT?

Writers with better finances than mine hire promoters, but the companies with approaches I find acceptable are all out of my price range, and I refuse to pay someone to annoy me by cross-posting to every group in cyberland. The few a la carte services I both like and can afford don’t seem to be the ones that influence readers, at least according to the sketchy research currently available. Some people swear by bookmarks and magnets and pens, others recommend candy or keychains, still others offer only books; some people get fantastic results with, say, purchasing banner space on site X, while others see not a blip in sales... I’d consider a pay-for-results deal, but at present, when it comes to e-book advertising, there’s no guarantee.

This time, I’m putting my money into prizes. Which means that I’ll have to run some contests, through the e-Garret and during scheduled chats or author days. Will this translate into higher sales? And if it does, was it the allure of gift certificates that sent people off to Fictionwise or...did they really like me?

AND THE ANSWER IS...

What, you expect me to know? Darlin’s, I haven’t a clue! But I do have a plan. Sort of.

I like Romance Excerpts Only, think it’s a great idea. But not every potential reader belongs. Mondays and whenever else promos are allowed, I will be trying the sorted-posts approach, all the while trying not to overdo. There’s always the blogosphere with all its links, and web-rings, and the rest of the “passive promotion” options, but new releases are time-sensitive, so I’ll try some more active things as well: Contests and author days and live chats and maybe even a virtual or RL signing.

(Lions and tigers and bears! No, wait—those don’t bother me.)

All of this sounds like entirely too much work, but then, action isn’t really a hermit’s stock in trade. I miss the days of transoms, you know? A scribe could just toss a manuscript over one and go on about her anonymous day. Of course, she probably didn’t make enough money to buy new paper and ink. Or pixels and bandwidth, I suppose. And more even than the money, I’d really like Reach to be read! Which means that, somehow, I have to get the word out that the story’s out there.

Accent on the somehow. Cue the Buffy soundtrack, folks, and join in on the chorus:

Where do we go from here?

I don’t know about you, but I’m headed back to my garret. Just for a few minutes. Really. Maybe an hour or two. But I’ll come back! Have to—there’s no coffee in the place right now. Besides, I have to go schedule an author day.

peace and x-rated joy,

pxj