Francine Craft

How To Realx

When do you market this gem that you’ve written?  As soon as it’s finished?  Wait for reviews?  Neither.  If you’re wise, you’ll begin your marketing even before you start your book.  Once you’ve designed, outlined and pretty much know what the book is about, start marketing.  Bear with me while I explain why.

It’ a big help to blog when you’re a writer.  Your readers so often have the best ideas imaginable, and they can help you avoid expensive mistakes.  By discussing your book, you’re getting a feel for what others like and will buy and enjoy.  Don’t let their ideas substitute for yours, but listen carefully, exchange ideas and don’t forget to  compliment.  Okay, you’re writing all the time you’re doing this.  You’ll find it’s much easier to write.

In time, your book is finished, revised, and you feel it’s the best you can do.  Now is the time for a market analysis.  Google it for good leads.  The one I used to extreme satisfaction is Wheatmark.com.  They’re inexpensive at about two hundred dollars and worth their weight in platinum.  You’ll find a listing of similar books, how well they sold, for how long, and for how much.   They’ll also make suggestions for exactly where to market.  Who will carry your precious book and who won’t.  This way, you won’t waste your precious money pitching toward readers who couldn’t be less interested.

It’s not a concept I wrote with before and it sounded foreign to me, but I tried and now wouldn’t be without it.  I will be writing more about marketing when you really get into it.  Believe me your work will be far easier and far less expensive.

Later:  More marketing tips.  The value of a superb edit

You and Blogging

I hope you like or can learn to like blogging, because it will prove to be one of the best things you can do to market your book.  One writer said, “Well, it just seems to be the wandering of my mind.”  But oh, it’s so much more.  It’s a great way to communicate, to share your thoughts with the readers you want.  Some people are putting excerpts of their books on their websites and on other venues like Blogger.com.

Another excellent blog to study is this one:  Wheatmark.com.  You get so much information on self-publishing here.  Authors who’ve successfully published with them tell you how they did it, what worked and what didn’t work.  I don’t think blogs get much more useful than this.

So, put on your blogging hat and get started.  You don’t have to publish your blogs until you’re comfortable with them, but you don’t need to take forever to get comfortable.  People know you make mistakes and most are forgiving.  Try it.  You’ll like it.  I promise.

Flowing Water

It will be useful to you to study the ever widening field of self-publishing.  There is now a fairly wide range of publishers out there that will help you with your book.  Google the subject, then google the ones that seem a most likely fit.  I believe you  will find that Wheatmark.com . offers more than most.  I found them reasonable, but if you need real economy, there are others you’ll readily find on Google.

I’d like you to check in with Wheatmark and order their big brochure entitled “Marketecture.”  It gave me so much more assurance about what I wanted from my book in terms of audience, expenses, energy I would need to expend.   The brochure suggested that I actually begin thinking about and planning marketing before writing the book.  Think about it and you’ll find it makes great sense.

Tomorrow I have another suggestion with this company that will prove to be one of the backbones of your marketing.  Hey, you’ve written a book and that’s wonderful.  Now get out there and let the world know how good it is.

Things of Beauty

You may think I’m skipping steps here, but first-rate marketing is one of the first things you need to begin to master when you have a book to publish, and long before. You really need to think deeply, study and know what audience you want to reach even before you begin to write.  But if you’ve already got your book done, it’s not too late.

Ther’re a lot of companies out there that will help you self-publish and will do a bang-up job with it.  Far fewer are able to do a creditable job of helping you to market your book.  But just as certain companies specialize in self-publishing, so others specialize in helping you market.

Get used to the idea that the load is going to be yours to carry, no matter who you get or how much you pay, and you can pay plenty.  I no longer take the time to put websites and info in my blogs.  I tell you to google.  They’re better at it than I am.  But a word of caution: learn to phrase your questions carefully.  It can mean the difference between getting the answer you want and something that makes you cry.   And Google can be wrong.  From time to time, check other sources.

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Splendor In The Sky

As I said last week, self-publishing is the wave of the future and there are good reasons. Prices are variable and some are affordable.  Others are pricier, but offer more, sometimes much more.  Publishers now demand that you not  only write a best seller, but that you get out there are push it for all you’re worth.  And more than a few good writers have decided if they’re going to give it all they’ve got,they might as well keep a bigger share of the profits.

If you’re interested in self-publishing, please check out Felecia Trotter’s letter from my last blog.  She’s high on self publishing. And don’t forget to check out what she says about Wagfest and the link that takes you to it.  Wagest ought to be required membership all over the country, but trust Atlanta to be there with it.

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