tips from authors

by Rain Trueax

Promoting books is tough for me. To mention them, as a product, feels like I am pushing something onto someone; and yet if writers don't get their books seen, they cannot get readers. Some pay someone else to promote their books. Sometimes a writer gets lucky and has fans promote the books they liked. I've been lucky that way and even with some who may not read everything I write but like my writing style. I've also had those who email me they loved what I wrote; but they won't tell that to anybody else because after all these are romances-- not well respected by literary types. When someone tells me my writing compares to the best they've read but they won't tell anybody else, I have to respect their choice and don't say--- grrrrr followed by lol.

I have contemporary books that I am convinced (of course, I am) someone somewhere would like if they just saw them. Getting the right person to see them is the problem. I've read some claim marketing is 50% of being an author, and I could believe it. The question is what is the best way to do it.



Although I do share my writing process here and the ideas behind my writing, I am aware that most of my regulars are not open to romances. I more or less share it not for sales but to encourage others to find their own genres and write. Many think they couldn't write. Sure they could. It takes doing it. Humans are born to be creative. It does get taken out of them by rules and sometimes lack of respect for what they do, but it's still there ready to be awakened.

On my topic here, marketing, it came up because I was following a thread at FB where one of the commenters said you can share a link to your book by going to its Amazon product page. On the right will be the tool.

On my own, I would never find something like that as I am not much for techie exploring. Despite knowing that about myself I was surprised and headed to one of my books, [Sky Daughter], which you can click on to find it for yourself. Like the author said-- there were the buttons for sharing: email, Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, along with an embed code. I clicked on the one for Twitter and then went to check. There it was. I am sharing the tip here because it is a marketing tool that doesn't take much time. Fun and easy way to get a potential buyer to your product, whatever it might be. You could also use it for something you purchased and loved.

Back to marketing, I don't know if Twitter sells products of any sort. It seems to go so fast. When I type something in there, it has twenty more tweets before it even goes up. The only way it seems someone would see mine is if they had set up somewhere to have all of mine come together, which they say can be done.

Out of curiosity, I tried the embed code for a different book. It gave me the code. I learned how to get them seen when I wanted to embed videos. You go to the top of your page where you see Compose, which is where you have been writing, click on HTML to see all the codes. Find the place in the text where you want your new code to go. Put it there. Go back to Compose to see if it worked. Although it's handy for a quick way for readers to check out the book or even share it, it took extra time to center it. I had to save the post and come back. Not sure what that was about.

One more 'tip' from me. If you have a blog, it is possible to link your Twitter feed alongside. Another author told me that. You do it when you are in writing mode through Gadgets in your Layout option. Find your Twitter link and post it under the HTML option (I think, but it's been a while. If you try that and it doesn't work, let me know in comments.

The thing is once done it remains although it doesn't come up instantly. I have liked it as another place to share farm or trip photos. Twitter is a spot to jot down some quick thoughts; but whether anyone reads them-- that's another story. I might do more with the book links there given how little time it will be taking with that tool. I suspect though that if I shared my books too often, I'd lose followers. 

That's the problem with marketing-- too much and people leave. Not enough and nobody knows you have a book out there.

Yes, the turkeys are still with us. They scatter for the days but so far have returned to the oak trees for the nights where, except when it's storming, they fly 40 feet up to roost. I love having them, listening to them, and seeing how they interact. They might not have been native to the PNW, but they feel like they belong now :)

Update: Until the blog was up, I didn't realize what the Preview button did. Click on it and you get two options for size of print and then hit the arrows and it gives the sample that someone would get by going to Amazon. If then you want to buy or share it, those buttons moved to the top. Technology is amazing (and a little terrifying).