Advertising-Promotion-Marketing

From BookRiot:

Pen names are nothing new in the world of publishing. Charlotte Bronte of Jane Eyre fame published under Currer Bell; Charles Lutwidge Dodgson published Alice in Wonderland as Lewis Carroll. There are plenty of reasons why someone may elect to use a pen name in lieu of one’s legal name, such as a legitimate fear that the book wouldn’t publish or sell well under a woman’s name; or to protect the writer from retribution for what they wrote.

What I found interesting as a lover of mysteries, especially cozies, is the proliferation of pen names for genre fiction authors. I’ve interviewed several people who have several, if not many, pen names for their books. Sometimes, it seems the pen name was associated with a single series, or sometimes, it may be associated with different genres, from cozy mystery to romance. I decided to talk directly to a few authors to understand their reasons for using pen names with different series.

When I first started working on this article, it seemed like the easy answer was that the multiple names were all due to branding. Ellen Byron, television writer and author of the award-winning Vintage Cookbook series, summed it up best, “If you’re writing erotica and cozy mysteries, you may not want your readers getting those mixed up.”

Several authors noted that the request came from the publishers and editors. Ellen Byron’s publisher asked her to use a pen name for her first series, Catering Hall Mysteries. Olivia Matthews, the cozy writer behind the Spice Isle Bakery series, had written romance suspense and contemporary romances under different names but was advised with her cozy mysteries to use another pseudonym since mystery readers may not want to read anything written by a romance writer.

With Anastasia Hastings, author of the recently published Of Manners and Murder, her pen names were used with different types of genre fiction. For instance, she wrote the Pepper Martin series under the name Casey Daniels, where Pepper Martin sees ghosts. But when she had the idea for a cozy series that took place around antique buttons, Hastings said, “For the same publisher, the publisher was worried if it had the Casey Daniels name on it, people would expect ghosts, so that’s how I became Kylie Logan.”

Some authors make their pen name part of the brand in fun and unusual ways. Hastings has at least 11 pseudonyms. Byron noted that one author has really leaned into her multiple pen names; her website is J.H. Authors (Julianne Holmes, J.A. Hennrikus, and Julia Henry) with the tagline: One Woman. Three Names. Many Books.

Link to the rest at BookRiot

From Kristine Kathryne Rusch:

I’m obsessed with all things Barbie right now. Not because I loved the movie. I haven’t seen it, and am not sure I will. My relationship with the doll is fraught due to some bad childhood moments, and I’m not sure I want to open that memory box all the way in the blues and pinks of Barbie World, no matter how much I like Greta Gerwig, and how subversive and feminist the movie is supposed to be.

Actually, the doll was always meant to be subversive and feminist. Created by Mattel’s co-founder, Ruth Handler, because she noted that dolls for her daughter either encouraged her to be a wife or a mother, Barbie is eternally single, someone who lives her own life.

Experts aren’t sure if Handler’s choice of a risqué German doll as the basis for Barbie was deliberate or not. Barbie certainly didn’t look like the other dolls of that era at all, which always caused controversy.

Barbie was only one small part of Mattel’s company, though. There was the Magic 8 Ball and toys for toddlers (most of which are part of Fisher Price now, and still exist) and other dolls like Chatty Cathy (which gives me the shudders just thinking about it. Dolls and I do not get along, based on long-ago childhood trauma). Hot Wheels and Major Matt Mason and other toys were all in the Mattel lines.

They were all advertised on television, and changed marketing for kids toys forever.

But Barbie, she was a part of the company. Not the whole company. And she was the original niche, something for girls that wasn’t (cough) Chatty Cathy. (God, I hated that doll.)

Barbie always changed with the times. She got a cool house and a nifty if bland boyfriend and her own car and she had her own friends. I only noticed these changes because my own friends had Barbies.

Then Barbie changed. She became representative, not just with friends of color, but Barbie herself was Black or Latina or Asian. She had real careers. I remember walking into Toys R Us back when it still existed and actually walking through the Barbie aisle, looking at all the different dolls.

It wasn’t until the movie came out that I realized how many fashion designers partnered with Mattel to create limited edition Barbies. And how many celebrities asked for their own Barbie. I didn’t realize that Barbie’s promotions had changed over the years, including  a campaign in 1985 titled “We Girls Can Do Anything” with this little tagline:

We can dream dreams and make them come true because nothing’s worth doing that we girls can’t do, your moms know it too. We girls can do anything, right Barbie?

All of these changes made an impact on the doll and on the consumer. I was listening to the NPR Politics Podcast on July 7 and I heard something that brought all of the Barbie stuff to my attention.

NPR’s Politics Podcast ends the week with a segment called “Can’t Let It Go,” which focuses on issues of the week that the reporters can’t stop thinking about. Maura Liasson mentioned that she couldn’t let go of the backlash to the Barbie movie in Vietnam.

The hosts discussed this for a moment, then host Miles Parks asked the others if they were going to see the movie. Liasson said, with disdain, that she was not going to go because “my daughter is now 22 years old and I don’t have to.”

To which host Sarah McCammon responded—not defensively, but strongly—like this: “I don’t have a daughter. I’m going to see it anyway.”

That caught my ear. I knew that Maura Liasson was close to my age. (Actually, she’s older.) She responded with the same tone and forcefulness that I would have used if anyone had asked me. It’s essentially, Barbie? Hell, no.

Link to the rest at Kristine Kathryne Rusch

PG isn’t certain whether it’s good marketing or nostalgia for girlhood or something more profound, but a lot of people have been writing about Barbie.

Of course, PG is on the wrong side of the gender divide to be in a position to speculate on the true meaning of Barbie, but he’s interested by how much writing by women of all sorts who might not have much in common with each other are being moved to write about the movie and the zeitgeist of Barbie.

From Chuck Wendig:

No, this is not about Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg MMA-fighting one another in some kind of Douchebag Octagon, though I am certainly sending my prayers to an unforgiving universe that both of them kick each other at the exact same time and in that moment they each explode in a rain of money that catches on the wind and is spread to the four corners of the earth, finding the hands of the needy and not the mitts of the rich.

This is about a conversation that kicked off on Bluesky (god I really want to capitalize the S in BlueSky) by author pals like CL Polk, Max Gladstone, Marshall Ryan Maresca, Elizabeth Bear, Ryan Van Loan, and ultimately perhaps by Delilah S. Dawson, who lamented about those books of ours that have fallen to obscurity despite being loved by us, their wayward creators. (I’ll offer briefly my own lamentation: I wish more people read Atlanta Burns. I really liked that one. Anyway.)

I thought I’d offer some brief thoughts on why I’m largely only going to write standalones from here on out, despite really loving the big meaty toothy goodness of writing a series. This is not meant to be a commandment to you, or marching orders of any kind. It’s just my thinking. Why Em Em Vee.

a) Writing a series is depressing. It just is. By the time you’re writing books two and three (or beyond), you’ve seen the diminishing returns, the reduced support, the general “farty slow leak of the balloon as it orbits the room” vibe. And that’s a bummer. This is not the most important reason, but also, in many ways, it absolutely is.

b) Publishers, in my experience, have a rule that sequels/series releases do not get the same level of support as the initial book that leads that series. It was, I think, initially for publishers a way to “buy in” for a number of books that they can then — in theory, not in practice — coast on. Like, oh yay, we supported the first book, that energy will cascade through the next releases. This isn’t true, of course, and I’d argue they should support the later releases more than the earliest one, because you cannot Magical Thinking your way into discoverability or momentum. But generally that’s the rule: they don’t support the followup releases the same, if at all.

c) Every standalone has a new shot at ancillary rights like film/TV, foreign, or other weirder ones (comics, game, etc.). Sequels/series releases, not so much. If you’ve already sold film/TV to the first, you can’t resell on subsequent releases. Foreign sales will not come for later releases if they haven’t bought into the first. That’s not to say there couldn’t be a build-up from series releases. There could be, for international rights! But in practice, not often.

d) Every standalone is a new shot at discoverability. Discoverability remains, in my mind, one of the greatest challenges for writers. It’s just hard to get seen. It’s hard even as a seasoned writer to tell people, hey I have a book out. The Internet is noise, and increasingly messy and loud (and worthless in its integrity of information). With a series, generally that first book is the one that gets the attention — media reviews, trade reviews, that sort of thing. Followups are just less likely to ping that radar. But every standalone has a shot at finding reach. Not to say it’ll get it, but it does have a relatively equal shot at the goal. But it feels troubling when you release, say, Book Three of a Thing, and people say, “oh I didn’t know there was a Book Two.” That is definitely scream-into-a-pillow time.

Link to the rest at terribleminds

From Writers in the Storm:

The best author websites are often the most simple. You don’t need flashy fonts or expensive designs.

Overcomplicating your website with these pricey add-ons can often lead to the opposite of what you’re expecting: fewer sales.

Here are eight common mistakes authors make on their websites and how to avoid them to get better sales on your book.

1. Your Home Page Doesn’t Have a Goal

Yes, you want to sell books, but is that all?

Speaking events, media attention, online courses you’ve created, an upcoming second book, are all things you might wish to promote on a website.

Consider the toothpaste aisle at your local grocery store. Lots of options, lots of different tubes of toothpaste and you know what? It’s overwhelming.

This is decision paralysis, and it can cost you sales.

If you’ve written non-fiction that’s tethered to you or your business, then your primary goal for the homepage likely won’t be selling your book. The goal is probably to get people to use your company, sign up for your consulting, or book you for speaking.

If your book is fiction, then yes you want to have your book on the homepage, but selling your book from the homepage isn’t the top priority either.

Honestly, when was the last time you bought a book off an author website? Probably not recently unless you personally knew the author or are an extremely avid fan. For this reason, I’m going to suggest having a mailing list sign up front and center on your website.

You’ll convert more consumers into fans, followers, and newsletter subscribers and yes, this will also help convert buyers.

2. Your Text is Too Wordy

I’ve evaluated hundreds of sites and in almost 90% of the cases the reason a site isn’t converting a visitor to a customer is because of the copy.

How do you know if your copy isn’t working? Well, let’s look at some of the biggest issues.

Too much copy: Try to keep your copy between 250 to 100 words, or less if possible.. Make your pages, and your paragraphs, easily digestible and skimmable.

Unfocused copy: Cut right to it and tell your visitors what you have to offer. Be up front about it. Don’t waste precious webpage space on a full paragraph about your dog (maybe unless your book is about your dog). This is your first impression, and those matter.

Requiring the consumer to scroll: Consumers need a really good reason to scroll and even then, it’s pretty iffy. Maybe you have a big banner at the top of your website, and all the books you’ve written scroll along that banner – it’s so pretty, right? Well, sure it is, but now you’re asking potential readers to scroll to get to the good stuff. Sadly, most won’t.

3. Your Site Doesn’t Mimic Retail Sites

Notice how your eye scans the page on popular retail sites like Amazon

If you’re like 99.9% of consumers, you scan websites in a Z fashion. This means that your eye starts in the upper left-hand quadrant (so where your book cover is) then scans the book title and finally lands on the price, before the eye wanders down the page.

So what does this mean for your website?

Well, consider what’s in your upper left-hand quadrant, what’s across the top, and what’s on the right side. If there are no calls to action and nothing incentivizing your consumer to stay longer, learn more or sign up for something that benefits them in some way, then you’ve wasted a very valuable opportunity.

4. Your Site Isn’t Mobile Ready

Your last online purchase was probably made on your phone, right?

Google has even updated its SEO triggers to include mobile optimization. This essentially means if you don’t have a mobile version of your website, you likely won’t come up in search.

Keep in mind that even if you don’t care about being found on Google, non-mobile websites are much harder to read and navigate on a small screen. While it’s important to appease Google, it’s also important to make sure your consumer isn’t sent to something they can’t read or navigate through.

So I always pull up author websites on my phone when I’m doing evaluations, and I encourage you to do the same.

5. You Give Too Many Options

Ideally, you should have only 4-5 choices in your main navigation, and then drop downs under each if you really have a lot to offer people.

Author websites that give consumers too many options at the jump drive away sales. Visitors don’t want options, they want answers.

If you want them to spend time on your site, make your navigation easy, clear, and prioritize their time in smart ways. Don’t give irrelevant options that get them off track or drive them away entirely.

This goes back to decision paralysis. Don’t just promote everything equally and let your buyer choose, tell your buyer what they need.

Link to the rest at Writers in the Storm

From Kristine Kathryn Rusch:

Niche marketing has existed since the beginning of marketing. Back in the day, though, companies didn’t call it “niche” marketing. These places marketed to their category or their type.

The idea that something could be marketed to everyone was a mid-20th century idea, bolstered by television. When programs went out to 120 million viewers or more every week, the way that Norman Lear’s shows did in 1976, the idea of placing an ad on those programs was less niche marketing than trying to reach a percentage of that huge audience.

It wasn’t quite marketing to everyone, because advertisers were targeting Norman Lear shows like Sanford & Son and All in the Family, shows that were known for their liberal points of view. But still, the advertisers were trying to appeal to a broad swath of consumers rather than a select group of people who might fall in love with the product.

Now, appealing to a broad swath of consumers is almost impossible. We don’t have many venues—anywhere in the world—where we can advertise to hundreds of millions on a weekly basis. Here in the United States, the only programming that consistently brings in what’s now considered to be a large viewership are sporting events, and even that’s niche.

Most people here watch American football’s Superbowl, not because of who is playing, but to see the ads. Now, the ads play on YouTube and other venues before the big event, so people don’t even have to watch it.

This past week, I watched a lot of hockey, because the Las Vegas Golden Knights made it to the Stanley Cup Finals. The ads were different than they had been during the regular season. Less Vegas centric, and more product centric—anything from certain types of beer to…well…certain types of beer. The Vegas centric ads were less about local products and casinos and more about online sports betting.

Advertisers were aware that they were appealing to a wider audience, one that now included people in Florida, because Vegas was competing against the Florida Panthers. As a result, we also saw a lot of Disney vacation ads and even Disney movie ads.

It’s the job of many people at advertising agencies to make the decisions about how to market to a wide group of consumers and how to target consumers.

Social media created a frenzy for a certain kind of marketing, particularly by using influencers to target a very well known kind of consumer.

. . . .

Niche marketing is what traditional publishing is doing, and doing wrong.

Now, for that statement to make sense, you have to look at the history post that I put free for everyone on my Patreon page two weeks ago.

Here’s some information from that post that’s relevant to this one:

Sixty years ago, traditional publishing’s marketing was 100% niche marketing, geared at bookstores and book distributors. Eventually, the markets expanded outward to include department and grocery stores. But that was still niche—or in those days, targeted—marketing to a specific subset of businesses.

As I mentioned two weeks ago, traditional publishing is built on a Business to Business model (B2B). You’ll note that the targets above are all other businesses, not consumers. Up until the 1990s, it was the job of regional distributors to know what each bookstore and each grocery store needed for their racks.

I distinctly remember a regional distributor tell me that a certain Canadian fantasy writer was a bestseller in the America South, but that they couldn’t give his books away in Oregon.

That’s niche marketing on a B2B level.

It matters a lot less now to have B2B marketing in books. There are very few brick-and-mortar bookstores left. The online stores have infinite shelf space.

Writers have been relying on the algorithms of those online bookstores to target readers for their books, but the writers don’t know how to go about it. As Amazon and Google ads lose their effectiveness because the European Union (and other places) have policed them for privacy violations, writers have to figure out their own way to market to consumers.

The problem is writers in particular are stuck in the old traditional ways of doing things. Even the pioneers in modern book marketing are relying on the old traditional model.

When you see the gurus talk about marketing, they’re talking about marketing to a large swath of readers, rather than finding the right readers. Even when they’re discussing things like drilling down in Amazon ads to the also-boughts or a reader who might like a different book similar to yours, these gurus are still thinking like traditional publishers.

Ten years ago, I started up a series of newsletters. That was back in the day when writers were gathering 50,000 names on their newsletters with free promotions and giveaways and other gimmicks that would bring in names.

Those gimmicks died down, particularly when writers realized they had to pay for those names of people who signed up for free. Those people wanted the free book or the chance to win an iPad. They didn’t give a rat’s stinky behind about what book that writer promoted two months later, just like I didn’t care about the various kinds of beer pitched to me during the fifth game of the Stanley Cup finals, as Vegas dominated its way to victory. Those ads were wasted on me.

My series of newsletters still exist. Some of them are small, but they’ve grown organically. I’ll be doing a bit more promotion of the newsletters in the second half of this year. Just an awareness promotion, not an actual “join this list and be entered into a contest for a free iPad” promotion.

My newsletters, which you can find on this website, are segmented in advance. I’m the kind of reader who likes Stephen King’s regular novels but hates his Dark Tower series. When I see an announcement for a Dark Tower book, I ignore it. When I see that he has a new book coming out featuring his mystery characters, I preorder.

Since I designed marketing ten years ago with my reader self in mind, I created different newsletter lists for my different pen names. I also created newsletter lists for my various series. I did the same with websites, although I let some go fallow. (That will change in the next six months as well.)

The gurus jumped all over me, telling me that I was wasting my time and energy and I should combine all of those lists into one giant list.

Well, I have one giant list. It’s for people who like all of my work. That’s the Kristine Kathryn Rusch list. It’s about three times bigger than my biggest list for a series. But if you take all of the pen names and all of the series and combine them, then I have way more names than I do on the Rusch list.

Link to the rest at Kristine Kathryn Rusch

Here’s a link to Kris Rusch’s books. If you like the thoughts Kris shares, you can show your appreciation by checking out her books.

From Anne R. Allen’s Blog… with Ruth Harris:

You can write an award-worthy story, but nobody will find it out if your book cover design doesn’t appeal to the target audience. Book cover design matters, and here’s why:

• It creates the first impression and proves that the story deserves the readers’ time and money.
• No advertising campaign is possible without an eye-catching book cover.
• An attention-grabbing book cover is essential for building your author’s brand.

But how do you get a book cover design that fulfills all its functions? Everything starts with a communication with your designer. The clearer your requirements and expectations are, the better result you’ll get.

In this blog post, you’ll learn five essential steps for effective and successful communication with a book cover designer. Follow them and enjoy the process of creating a book cover that will intrigue the readers and make them want to read your story!

Step 1. Fill in a detailed brief

Every cooperation with a designer starts with a brief. Try to make it as detailed as possible to give the designer an understanding of your book and the hooks in your plot. Here’s what the brief should include:

• Author’s name and book’s title. You can also include a subtitle, tagline, series name, and book number.
• Page count and book dimensions. Though a designer can start working without these details, make sure to add them later. 
• Self-publishing platform. The final cover must meet a particular platform’s standards, otherwise you won’t be able to publish your story.
• Format. Indicate whether it’s a paperback, hardcover, ebook, or audiobook.
• Optional elements. You can add a blurb, reviews, and author bio.
• Genre. Readers have certain expectations about each genre with its unique color palette, imagery, and typography.
• Brief plot. It will help book cover designer choose images and elements that highlight the hook of your story.
• Description of the characters. If you prefer a character-based design, the artist will portray the protagonists on the book cover.
• Settings. Each place and era is characterized by particular objects and symbols that create an authentic atmosphere on a book cover.
• Series info. Let the artist know if you write series. In this case, designer will create a cover that will serve as the basis for all the parts.
• References. A few examples of book covers you love will help the designer better understand your vision.

Step 2. Indicate what emotions you want the cover to evoke

We don’t choose books by chance. Instead, we want to feel a particular emotion missing in our everyday lives.

Romantic comedy books attract people who are thirsty for positive and love vibes. Thrillers and horrors appeal to those who want to be intrigued. Fantasy and science fiction stories grab attention if readers search for adventure and unknown worlds.

That is why it is so vital the book appeals to its target audience. So here is a little tip for you. When filling out the brief, specify what emotions you want the book cover to evoke. Based on this information, the designer will select a specific color scheme, images, and typography.

Step 3. Be responsive and cooperate with a cover designer

The best book covers are the result of mutual effort between an author and a designer. Brainstorm different ideas with the designer, share your feedback on the concept, comment on revisions, and pay attention to all the details. 

Be generous with your feedback, and if you have any doubts, changes, requests, or additional information, feel free to share it with your designer as soon as possible. Some designers have limitations in the number of revisions, so the sooner you share all your comments, the better.

Link to the rest at Anne R. Allen’s Blog… with Ruth Harris

From Publishers Weekly:

When you work at the CIA, you’re taught to keep everything you do secret. You must be invisible. As a woman who grew up in a patriarchal family, I was not unfamiliar with the imperative. So it felt dicey when I decided to make public that I worked at the CIA and was writing a book on the subject. Being exposed and vulnerable was unsettling, but with this exposure also came freedom.

I started working at the CIA shortly after 9/11. In the years that followed, there was an immediacy and relevance to the counterterrorism mission that is difficult to quantify. In 2005, I was assigned to support the CIA’s mission in Iraq. As a CIA targeting officer, my days were spent hunting elusive high-value targets, which typically meant high-ranking members of a Sunni extremist group.

In 2010, I graduated to hunting targets in the CIA’s Pakistan Afghanistan division—not just in support of the CIA’s capture/kill operations but also targeting for the potential recruitment of sources. These were challenging tasks in my 20s and early 30s—navigating both the war zones in the Middle East and the male-dominated vaults at Langley.

On one trip to the Middle East to debrief a terrorist we were trying to recruit as a source, I was told to let my male counterparts do the talking. This entailed describing me as an “expert from Washington” and a married, pious woman who took her faith very seriously. When I asked the reason for this backstory, my male colleagues said it was because the source had never met an American woman and that his idea of an American woman came from TV and movies.

At first I was appalled, but then I began to understand. This was when the TV show Homeland was wildly popular, in which Claire Danes plays a CIA officer with bipolar disorder who sleeps with the terrorist she is hunting. Similarly, Red Sparrow,starring Jennifer Lawrence as a Russian spy, shows the actor nakedly taunting one of the male trainees to prove that she’s unafraid to use her body in exchange for information. This was a widespread misconception among those inside and outside the agency about women at the CIA that I had to fight against constantly.

But it’s not all Hollywood’s fault. Mata Hari, who was convicted of seducing French men and spying for Germany during WWI, remains one of the most infamous female spies in history. Movies like Zero Dark Thirty staring Jessica Chastain, depicting the decade-long hunt for Osama bin Laden, did a much better job, having resisted the temptation to reduce female spies into dominatrices who exchange sex for information.

Link to the rest at Publishers Weekly

From Anne R. Allen’s Blog… with Ruth Harris:

It can be daunting for authors when you have no idea how to market your book, yet it is essential to get your book in front of readers to make it successful. Here are the most important and effective book marketing strategies authors can use to promote their books and reach a wider audience.

How Can You Market Your Book?

Your author platform is a slow build, so keep that in mind. Overall visibility is the key to connecting with readers.

. . . .

Build an Author Platform

The first step in book marketing is building an author platform. This includes creating a website, blog or vlog, social media accounts, and an email list as your basic first steps.

Your website should be the central hub for all your book-related content and should include information about your book, your author bio, blog topics related to your interests, and a way for readers to contact you. 

Social media accounts, such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, can be used to engage with readers and share updates about your book (and don’t forget TikTok #BookTok and YouTube #BookTube – video is popular).

An email list is a great way to stay in touch with readers and tell them about upcoming events, book signings, and new releases.

Network with Other Authors and Industry Professionals

Networking with other authors and industry professionals is an important aspect of book marketing. Attending book festivals, writing conferences, and book clubs can be a great way to connect with other authors, publishers, and literary agents. Joining online communities, such as Goodreads, can also be a great way to connect with other authors and readers.

. . . .

Create a Book Trailer

Creating a book trailer is a great way to give readers a taste of your book and build buzz. A book trailer is a short video that can be shared on social media, on your website, and on YouTube. It can be a simple animation or a more elaborate production, but it should be engaging and give readers a sense of what your book is about.

. . . .

Host a Book Launch Party

Hosting a book launch party is a great way to celebrate the release of your book and build buzz. You can invite friends, family, and media members to the event, which can be held at a bookstore, a library, or even your home. The event should be focused on your book, and you should have copies available for purchase and signing.

Zoom became super popular during the COVID-19 period, so be sure to consider an interactive, web-based platform as well. In fact, you can now hold audio-only spaces on Twitter Spaces (mobile-only), Clubhouse, or do video ‘lives’ on Facebook or Instagram.

I did a Twitter Space launch for my seventh book, Broken People, and had several hundred attendees!

Link to the rest at Anne R. Allen’s Blog… with Ruth Harris

The author of the OP is a a female author named Rachel Thompson. PG checked her Amazon Author Page. He was not impressed, but others will disagree.

From BookBub:

The book launch. Whether it’s your first precious baby leaving the nest or number double-digit joining a long line in your series, the launch is always stressful… but each one is also a great opportunity.

If you talk to ten different authors, you’ll likely get ten different launch strategies they feel work best. They may all be right. Genre, time of year, timing after last release, and dozens of other factors play a part. Especially for those of us focused on Amazon and Kindle Unlimited (KU) readers, the biggest needle mover of all is your relevance. The more books you sell, the more The Great Zon promotes you. In the past, Harlan Coben, Colleen Hoover, and Gregg Olsen have been voraciously consumed, so guess what happens when they release a new book? The Zon shows their shiny new cover to everybody.

. . . .

Part I: Reaching Your People

Newsletter

Our golden arrow in the quiver, without question. This is a direct message to Your People who want to know about your latest novel.

I prefer to grow my list as organically as possible, but that’s a choice I employed after reaching a reasonable number of subscribers through newsletter swaps or Bookfunnel events. What’s that number? One man’s floor is another man’s ceiling, so as with all of this, opinions and successes will vary greatly, but mine was 1,000. I spent a long time at the 800-subscriber level as I weeded out the freebie grabbers from past Bookfunnel promos and my organic sign-ups grew. Once I inched across the 1,000 threshold, I became more particular and the list has grown steadily from there.

I send a short newsletter containing only the new book and the next one going on preorder. That’s it. Two calls to action — which some will tell you is one too many, but I get a nice start to the preorders from it, and I don’t think it hurts me in any way.

I resend unopened emails two days later. For my latest release, Anchor Point, I even did a third unopened resend. I average a 50% open rate on my newsletters, and the unopened resend gains another 10%–12% of the original list. The second resend gained another 5% for a total of 68%, which is pretty good I’m told.

Okay, we’ve fired our golden arrow three times and reached 68% of our subscribers, which leaves all the people who dodged the arrow… plus the people who were hit but too busy to remember to buy the book… plus those who love your books, but haven’t or won’t subscribe to a list. So what’s next?

Social Media

Whether we like it or not, part of the business is having a social media presence and building a following. I use Facebook and Instagram. I use them both as they’re linked, and I can post on both at the same time. If they weren’t, I’d probably ignore Instagram. I have a Twitter account and I even tried TikTok for five minutes, but neither gained traction for me and they now sit idle. I know they work well for others, so pick your poison and focus on the outlet where your buying audience spends their time.

Regardless of which platform you use, creating a buildup to your launch can be very effective. I made graphics for 10 days out, seven days, three days, tomorrow, and day of launch (I use Corel Graphics Suite, but Book Brush is a great, affordable option). I’ve used book trailers as part of this, as well as still images capturing the vibe of the book. A catchy teaser line, a few emoji thingies, and with Facebook’s new Ad Manager platform, I can set up everything on a schedule… job done. Sort of.

. . . .

I’m sure some of you know, Facebook is determined not to show Your People anything the algorithm decides might be a promotion. As soon as you add a link to an outside source, forget it — your mum and Auntie Gladys might see it, but very few of your book-buying followers ever will. Putting the link in the first comment gets you a few more eyeballs, but I’ve heard the Facebook algo machine is getting wise to that too.

Link to the rest at BookBub

From Jane Friedman:

Certain words and phrases are bandied about all the time in publishing, but they don’t always make sense. One of the biggest is author platform. You may have attended enough writing seminars and conferences to recognize that even people in publishing aren’t consistently using the term.

How and where authors reach readers: that’s platform. It’s a combination of four factors, and let’s use the TV show Gilmore Girls to help visualize it.

• Message: an announcement shouted to the citizens of Stars Hollow from the gazebo
• Target Audience: the Stars Hollow citizens gathered to hear it
• Platform Tools: the gazebo and the directional signs to it
• Brand Elements: the gazebo they see and experience
• If your message and tools are built effectively, those in your target audience will be so invested in your platform, they will personally deliver that message to anyone drinking coffee with Lorelai and Rory at Luke’s Diner.

If you need to run off and watch a few episodes to understand my analogy, I’ll wait here. For those who have already seen the show, let’s start with the author message…

Author message (the announcement from the gazebo)

I know you have something to say. You wrote a book! But your author message is not the subject of that book. Rather, your author message is tied to why you wrote that book.

For instance, my first novel, Carrying Independence, is about a guy hired to help gather the final signatures on the Declaration of Independence. But why I wrote this story has nothing to do with the document. I firmly believe we can learn about ourselves by traveling and engaging in history.

Sure, other authors are also motivated by one or both of those things, but when I couple my belief with my particular brand of humor and unbridled nerdy enthusiasm, my author message becomes intrinsically mine. It becomes my purpose, and one my readers can experience with me. They can #TravelWithAdventure while #ChasingHistories, too.

For some authors, the reason they write is to provide an escape. For others, it may be to debunk faulty thinking. Once you define your message, you must figure out how to share your message.

Target audience (the citizens gathering around the gazebo)

These are the loyal readers most likely to gather around your gazebo (real or virtual). If you are a young adult (YA) author, yet your Twitter feed and primary contacts are moms and librarians, you’re not speaking directly to your readers. Or, as I said to a YA author with this problem, your target audience of teenagers is talking about books in the cafeteria while you’re hanging out in the teachers’ lounge sounding like a boring grown-up. Yes, librarians recommend books, but authors should connect with the bullseye of their target—the people most likely to jam their noses into your book and who will then turn to their friend and say, “You also have to jam your nose into this book.”

Your readers hang out in certain places online and physically. They have other books, magazines, movies, vocabulary, and activities they love (or hate). For example, if you write Georgian romances, your readers are likely women ages 16 to 65 who read Jane Austen, follow Colin Firth, know the difference between corsets and stays, and might be members of Regency societies.

Platform tools (the gazebo and directional signs to it)

If all you have is a gazebo from which to sell your book, your readers will consist of only those citizens who happen to come to the town square. That means you need to think bigger, broader. A platform tool is anything a reader will engage with that comes from you. If they can see it, touch it, or hear it, it’s a platform tool. If you’re a cookbook author or your novel includes recipes in the back, your loyal readers may even taste it!

Tools, like directional signage pointing to the gazebo, are the means by which your target audience finds and engages with you. What are your primary tools? Your book(s), website, and newsletter. You also have social media, advertising, publicity, presentations, and even printed materials such as bookmarks and business cards.

However, not all platform tools are effective at capturing your particular target audience. YA readers are less likely to be on Facebook than on Instagram, for example. And AARP events and retirement communities won’t be ideal places for middle-grade authors to give presentations.

Link to the rest at Jane Friedman

PG never watched The Gilmore Girls, but the OP seemed more than a little saccharin and gimmicky for him. He’ll rely on others to comment on how effective the metaphors in the OP are.

From The Wall Street Journal:

Years after she started writing her debut novel, Chelsea Banning settled into Pretty Good Books in Ashtabula, Ohio, on a Saturday in early December for her first author signing.

She waited with neatly stacked paperback copies of her book, “Of Crowns and Legends”—which she calls a King Arthur reimagining that takes place 20 years after his death. She had props, including a crown, a little statue of a knight kneeling and holding a pen, and pictures of friends dressed as her characters, in medieval garb.

The 33-year-old librarian in Girard, Ohio, whose real name is Chelsea Vandergrift Podgorny, was optimistic. Friends in the area said they wanted to stop by and have their books signed, and 37 people responded to the Facebook event listing that they would attend.

During her three-hour signing, just two people showed up.

The next morning, Ms. Banning tweeted to her roughly 100 followers that she was “pretty bummed about it…upset, honestly, and a little embarrassed.” She felt a little sheepish after writing the tweet and planned to remove it, she recalls in an interview. She didn’t want the no-shows to feel bad.

Then, Henry Winkler chimed in. Yes, The Fonz himself.

“That is the beginning,” the star wrote, retweeting her post to his one million followers. “Then word gets out and they come!”

She isn’t sure how, but her online confession had gone viral and was ricocheting around the arts and literary world. Thousands were retweeting it, including big-name authors. She had exposed a truth of the publishing business. Lonely events are a rite of passage for authors.

“Join the club,” Margaret Atwood, author of “The Handmaid’s Tale” and many other books, responded. “I did a signing to which Nobody came, except a guy who wanted to buy some Scotch tape and thought I was the help. :)”

Stephen King—the king of horror himself—jumped in, writing, “Dear Chelsea Banning: When you do your next signing, let us know. We’ll let EVERYBODY know.”

In an interview, Mr. Winkler says Ms. Banning’s tweet struck a familiar chord. In 2003, he held an event at a book store promoting the first installment in the Hank Zipzer children’s book series he wrote with Lin Oliver. It was billed as a reading and a chance to meet Henry Winkler. Six people came. “It doesn’t get easier,” Mr. Winkler says.

Pulitzer Prize-winner Junot Díaz says one person, a friend, attended his first reading as a published author. “I did a reading for my friend and the embarrassed booksellers and called it a win,” he says by email.

Jodi Picoult, who has sold millions of copies of her books, says once, at a signing at her hometown bookstore in Hanover, N.H., she sat alone until a wandering patron needed help finding the bathroom.

Paul Bogaards, who ran publicity campaigns for 30 years at publisher Alfred A. Knopf and now runs his own company, says the in-store author appearance is, in large part, a holdover from a time when they generated local-news coverage. As local news has shrunk, filling seats is harder.

This hasn’t diminished the author’s desire to pitch books in the flesh, Mr. Bogaards says in an email, “if only for one person eating a Twix bar in the front row.”

The same day Ms. Banning signed books to a sparse audience in Ohio, Jon Land was at the Rhode Island Author Expo promoting his new thriller, “Blood Moon,” which he wrote with Heather Graham.

More than 100 area authors spread across a hotel ballroom, waiting at tables laden with books, and lures to entice browsers.

Mr. Land, who has written dozens of books, deployed one of his regular sales tools—free candy. The children come over and take some, he says, and parents feel guilty and buy a book. But the best way to get customers to engage at a signing, he advises, is to bring a child yourself.

Link to the rest at The Wall Street Journal

Quite a long time ago, 50,000 years BA (Before Amazon), while living in a suburb of a mid-sized city, PG attended some book signings featuring popular authors that drew a large crowd.

He doesn’t remember exactly how many channels his television could tune in at that time, but he thinks he could have counted them on one hand. It was between seasons for the local high school team, so a book signing by a famous author was the only thing happening other than reruns of The Cosby Show.

In the somewhat distant past, PG participated in some book signings. Even back when, flop-sweat is not a comfortable experience.

If an author’s time is worth anything, forgetting about book signings is the only rational decision.

From Rolling Stone:

NOTHING GOOD STARTS in a Facebook group. The Ward, a reading group founded by Tennessee-based author Susan Meachen, largely went dormant after a September 2020 post — supposedly written by her daughter — was shared from her page announcing that she had died by suicide following bullying and harassment from members of the book community. Now, more than two years later, Meachen has decided that she wants her life back and returned to Facebook to reveal that she was never actually dead in the first place.

“I debated on how to do this a million times and still not sure if it’s right or not,” Meachen wrote in her back-from-the-dead return to the group on Jan. 2. “My family did what they thought was best for me and I can’t fault them for it. I almost died again at my own hand and they had to go through all that hell again. Returning to The Ward doesn’t mean much but I am in a good place now and I am hoping to write again. Let the fun begin.” (Meachen did not immediately return Rolling Stone‘s request for comment.)

Fun isn’t exactly the word that springs to mind for those in the book community who had befriended Meachen and were shocked by her death. “We grieved for the loss of the woman we considered a friend,” wrote Samantha A. Cole, a fellow author who regularly chatted with Meachen online, in a receipt-filled post exposing the details behind the suicide hoax. “I personally was harassed by another author who loves to create drama, claiming I was one of the authors who bullied Susan and drove her to suicide.”

Cole said that, after Meachen’s alleged death, she beat herself up over not having reached out sooner, wondering if it might have made a difference. Having lost other people in her life to suicide, it weighed heavily on her. But she got a second chance to reach out to Meachen after she commented on the author’s comeback post in The Ward asking if the entire story had been made up, only to be invited to message her privately instead.

Cole’s first question, shared in screenshots, drew from her disbelief and confusion: “What is going on????” Meachen wrote back an hour later with less urgency. “Nothing,” she responded, as if she didn’t just spend two years pretending to be dead. “I simply want my life back. My family was in a bad place and did what they thought was best for me.”

Link to the rest at Rolling Stone and thanks to T. for the tip.

PG suggests that, even if you’ve always wanted to see an article in Rolling Stone about yourself, setting up a fake suicide is not the best way to do it.

This applies to authors and everyone else.

From BuzzFeed News:

Two Ana de Armas fans can continue their lawsuit against Universal Pictures after a federal judge ruled Tuesday that movie studios can be sued over false advertising in film trailers.

Conor Woulfe, who is from Maryland, and Peter Michael Rosza of San Diego County, California, each paid $3.99 to rent Yesterday on Amazon Prime because de Armas appeared in the film’s trailer. They were disappointed to find she wasn’t in the film and have since January been pursuing a $5 million lawsuit as representatives of a class of movie customers who were deceived by the trailer.

On Tuesday, they cleared a hurdle when US District Judge Stephen Wilson issued an order rejecting Universal’s attempt to dismiss the entire case.

Universal had argued that the lawsuit should be thrown out because movie trailers should be protected under the First Amendment. They called the trailer an “artistic, expressive work” that conveys the theme of the film — not simply a commercial that would be covered by rules against false advertising.

“What is obvious about trailers generally and the Yesterday trailer in particular: they are expressive works in their own right and may not be relegated to a class of ‘purely commercial’ speech that receives watered-down First Amendment protection,” lawyers for Universal argued in a motion.

Lawyers for Woulfe and Rosza, meanwhile, said the two have never seen an actor present in a trailer who wasn’t also in the film. The judge allowed their allegations that Universal had violated California’s false advertising and unfair competition laws to continue to move forward in court.

. . . .

Yesterday, which was released in 2019, follows a struggling musician (Himesh Patel) who wakes up in an alternate reality where the Beatles never existed.

De Armas was initially set to have a major role in the film as part of a love triangle involving Patel and Lily James, but writer Richard Curtis told Cinemablend that she was cut out after test audiences expressed distaste for Patel ​​straying away from James.

Link to the rest at BuzzFeed News

One lesson for indie authors is to accurately depict what your book is about in your book description. This definitely doesn’t require that your book description be boring, but don’t promise what your book doesn’t deliver.

So PG doesn’t frighten anyone, in the OP, the idiot promoters included a actress who is evidently some sort of star in the advertising for the movie when the actress made no appearance in the final produce being advertised.

This wasn’t what courts often call “mere puffery” in advertising, e.g., “You’ll be shocked at the surprise ending,” when more than one reader can predict how the book will end.

From Jane Friedman:

Say he wants a blurb, he wants it bad. He’ll give you less than a week to read a rushed PDF,  and the thing is, you hardly know him. Decades before, maybe, and as a favor to his editor, you wrote a boosting paragraph after his first book launched, but you’re pretty sure that doesn’t mean you’re friends.

Still, his need is urgent—you feel the pulse of desperation beneath the skin of his email. You say yes when you shouldn’t. You claw at your schedule, make reading time. You’re only a few grudging chapters in when you know the trouble you’re in. The blurb-seeker’s book is self-absorbed, self-pitying, self-aggrandizing, without beauty, and to protect your own name, to defend your own ethos, you must step aside. You must let the author know, and soon. You must write the kindest possible declination, and swallowing hard, you do.

Maybe this is hypothetical. Maybe it is true. But let’s continue on. Let’s say your no is not well received. Let’s say you become—increasingly—the object of the blurb-seeker’s ire. Let’s say the whole affair becomes so preposterous—your refusal to engage escalating his anger, his anger escalating into threats—that when you finally shut his emails down and step away, you’re left wondering what this thing is anyway, this thing we call the blurb?

A blurb is an advert, a puff, a commendation, a gloss, according to various dictionary definitions. Or, in the words of Rachel Donadio, writing years ago for The New York Times, blurbs “represent a tangled mass of friendships, rivalries, favors traded and debts repaid, not always in good faith.” Indeed. But how are we to manage them? What place are they to have in our literary lives? Is a blurb an obligation? An apprehension? A price? A prize?

I have, over the course of my writing life, done a lousy job of taking a definitive stance on blurbs. I have been inconsistent and hypocritical, grateful and suspicious, honored and unsure, careful and compromised. I have blurbed books I’ve loved for people I’ve loved and been humbled by the pleasure. I have said no when I should have said yes (I am so sorry). I’ve written blurbs for books I didn’t fully understand, and I’ve written blurbs that were elbowed out of use on account of the blurbs proffered by writers more sexy and glam than I am (but then why was I asked in the first place?). I have died a thousand deaths asking for blurbs for books of my own, then opened emails from dear friends saying, Please, ask me for a blurb. Then received the kindest blurb. Then stood in my office and looked all around—incapable of locating just the right words to express my gratitude.

I have been fazed by the giving and fazed by the taking, and I have been—equally—shamed.

Link to the rest at Jane Friedman

From Women Writers, Women’s Books:

How do you sum up a whole book in a few words?

Your book is nearly ready to enter the world. You’ve got a title, a cover, even some endorsements. Then, something you’d almost forgotten rears its head: the jacket copy (or, as we call it in Britain, the blurb). It’s often an afterthought in the publishing process; the dowdy cousin to the dazzle of a cover design. But those few words can make a world of difference to a book’s fortunes. 

So how do you encapsulate your work in a way that is enticing? That creates instant appeal, a sense of place and character, mystery and intrigue, and makes anyone who picks it up think ‘I must have this book in my life, now’? (No pressure then). 

I have been a copywriter in publishing for over twenty-five years, and I know how hard it can be to find the right words. I began my career at Penguin Books, where there used to be an entire department dedicated to writing blurbs. There, in a quiet room lined with shelf upon shelf of books, we read, yes actually read at work, and learned how to distil thousands of words into just a few. Times have changed since those halcyon days, and we are folded into various marketing departments at what is now Penguin Random House. But is still our job to make every word count. 

. . . .

A professional copywriter is always thinking of their audience. At many publishing houses, blurbs are written by authors or editors or both. However, someone like me can bring a fresh eye to things. It’s hard to see the wood for the trees when a book has been part of your life for months, maybe years – some authors even say that writing the blurb is harder than writing the book. Here are some things I’ve learned: 

1. Don’t leave your blurb until the last minute. Terry Pratchett recommended writing it as soon as possible because ‘getting the heart and soul of a book into fewer than 100 words helps you focus.’ I wrote one alongside my proposal. It forced me to think hard about the point of my book. 
2. Identifying the core of your work can be an anchor for the rest of the blurb. The novelist Elizabeth Buchan, who used to write copy at Penguin, described it as ‘The backbone. In one sentence, what is it that makes that book that book? I wrote Revenge of the Middle-Aged Woman. Its backbone was: “living well is the best revenge”.’ Buchan’s line snaps with the tension of opposing forces. Where does that fizz lie in your book? 

Link to the rest at Women Writers, Women’s Books

From Just Publishing Advice:

Do you know that you can add more Amazon categories to your book?

You can only select two categories when you first publish your book or ebook with Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP).

But these are not Amazon categories. They are BISACS (Book Industry Standards and Communications) headings.

If you want your new book to be much more visible, you can add up to ten new categories to make your book more discoverable by Amazon book buyers.

. . . .

How to add more Amazon categories to your book

You could use category keywords in the past.

But the only way now is to ask Amazon to add your new categories.

Why would you want to do this?

When you list your book in only two BISACS headings, it’s lost in a sea of thousands upon thousands of other books.

There is almost no way your book can climb high enough to rank in the top 100 books.

If you list your book in Fiction, Romance, or Science Fiction, for example, you have no hope.

Even if you refine your selection from the options available, you are still in a pool of thousands of other books.

For instance, Fiction / Romance / Contemporary or Fiction /  or  Science Fiction / Apocalyptic & Post-Apocalyptic.

But when you look at the Product Details section, do you see your book listed for any best-selling ranks?

You can check out some top-ranking books on Amazon.

You will notice that when a book has these, the categories are generally narrow and are very rarely BISACS headings.

When your book is in smaller and far less competitive categories, you have a much better chance of getting a Best Sellers Rank.

How to check your categories

A book’s categories don’t appear on an Amazon book page unless it ranks.

Only the general category appears at the top of the page, such as Kindle Store›Kindle eBooks›Science Fiction & Fantasy.

There must be at least two, so how can you check?

Luckily, there is a nifty little free Book Category Hunter tool by the NerdyBookGirl.

All you need to do is paste the ASIN or ISBN, and presto! You can see all the categories.

It’s the best way to start the process of improving or adding categories to your book.

If you only see two for your book and ebook, it’s time to do some work.

Let’s look at how you can do this.

Finding new niche categories for free

When you publish a new book with KDP, you can choose seven search keywords and two categories.

Chosen well, these help readers find your book on Amazon.

You can’t use more than seven keywords, but you can add more categories.

There are two ways you can do your research to find additional categories for your book.

One is free, and the other requires specialized software.

The free technique is relatively easy but a little time-consuming.

You will need to check high-ranking books in your genre and look at the ranking categories.

However, Amazon only shows a maximum of three.

Clicking on a category will only give you a list of more books.

You need to copy the ASIN or ISBN of the books and use the Book Category Hunter tool to access the categories.

Then you can see all the categories for the book with the entire category strings.

The book above has twelve Kindle and ten book categories.

That’s too many to list here, but here are a few examples.

Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Mystery, Thriller & Suspense > Thrillers > Legal Thrillers

Books > Mystery, Thriller & Suspense > Thrillers & Suspense > Crime Thrillers > Murder Thrillers

Books > Mystery, Thriller & Suspense > Thrillers & Suspense > Spies & Political Thrillers > Assassination Thrillers

You might need to check ten to twenty books or more to find categories that are a good fit for your book.

When you have your list, you can then ask Amazon to add them. I’ll show you how to do it later in this article.

. . . .

The best way to add more Amazon categories

The big drawback with the free method is that you don’t know how competitive or effective your choices will be.

The only way to get an accurate guide is to use Publisher Rocket to access the Amazon database.

Now you can check how many sales you need to rank in the top ten or at number one. You can check for books, ebooks, and audiobooks.

With the software, you can search for less competitive categories to give your book the best chance to rank.

Kindlepreneur has a terrific guide on how to use Publisher Rocket to find better categories for your book.

Link to the rest at Just Publishing Advice

PG notes that he has been using Publisher Rocket for several years and has found it both helpful and time-saving.

PG notes that he has no relationship with the folks who created and maintain Publisher Rocket and mentions it simply because he likes it. The OP caused PG to rethink some of the ways he uses the program in order to improve the visibility of Mrs. PG’s books.