When we decided to self-publish our books, Wade and I undertook to do the editing, designing and marketing that would be done by the big publishing houses. We selected the stories from our blog and edited them. Wade did most of the designing and now I am doing most of the marketing.
I should point out that when a publishing house printed my children's book, Jason Goes to Show-and-Tell, in 1992, very little marketing was done except for putting it in a catalog. I arranged my own book signing and wrote my own press releases, so I was ready for the task of marketing this one.
I don't intend to spend entire days at this. No, I want to write and so dedicate only ten percent of my time on promoting my writing. It is the same with my storytelling work.
So I set aside an hour each morning to spread the word. I use social media, posting on Twitter and Facebook. I search for literary websites. I notify big publishers about what we have done. I set up book signings. I will be teaching workshops.
Every morning, I send e-mails to libraries around the United States to tell them about our books and suggest their book clubs look at the blogs and books. I've covered ten states so far. I volunteer to Skype during their club meetings, though so far, no one has taken me up on that.
I am not very technologically literate so everything I work on takes me a long time now that Wade is not here to take care of things. So when I decided to add the cover of my romance novel to this blog with a link that can take the readers who are potential buyers directly to Amazon.com I wasn't sure I could handle that. Wade did the Black Coffee Fiction link.
I'm on my own now, so this morning I decided to spend my hour working on the link for Yesterday's Secrets, Tomorrow's Promises. I went to the Amazon.com marketing website and figured on my usual methods of making lots of mistakes and swearing a blue streak. Certainly the instructions for the e-book had driven me to near insanity for almost a week.
This time the instructions pulled me right through in a mere fifteen minutes and the result is to the right of this posting.
I like to think I am getting better at this.
I should point out that when a publishing house printed my children's book, Jason Goes to Show-and-Tell, in 1992, very little marketing was done except for putting it in a catalog. I arranged my own book signing and wrote my own press releases, so I was ready for the task of marketing this one.
I don't intend to spend entire days at this. No, I want to write and so dedicate only ten percent of my time on promoting my writing. It is the same with my storytelling work.
So I set aside an hour each morning to spread the word. I use social media, posting on Twitter and Facebook. I search for literary websites. I notify big publishers about what we have done. I set up book signings. I will be teaching workshops.
Every morning, I send e-mails to libraries around the United States to tell them about our books and suggest their book clubs look at the blogs and books. I've covered ten states so far. I volunteer to Skype during their club meetings, though so far, no one has taken me up on that.
I am not very technologically literate so everything I work on takes me a long time now that Wade is not here to take care of things. So when I decided to add the cover of my romance novel to this blog with a link that can take the readers who are potential buyers directly to Amazon.com I wasn't sure I could handle that. Wade did the Black Coffee Fiction link.
I'm on my own now, so this morning I decided to spend my hour working on the link for Yesterday's Secrets, Tomorrow's Promises. I went to the Amazon.com marketing website and figured on my usual methods of making lots of mistakes and swearing a blue streak. Certainly the instructions for the e-book had driven me to near insanity for almost a week.
This time the instructions pulled me right through in a mere fifteen minutes and the result is to the right of this posting.
I like to think I am getting better at this.
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