Debut Book Marketing Round-Up: January (Part 3)
T minus 2 months and counting. My launch date of March 14 (digital) seems to be flying towards me like a 6-year-old high on sugar. The mantra going around my head is “You only have one chance to be a debut author.” Sometimes I’ll be suddenly struck by the crippling fear that I haven’t done enough: will anyone buy the book? Will people like it? Will I be able to write a second one? The fact that there is only one of me is quite the challenge (I address this below). Anyway, here is what I’ve gotten up to in January to build the pre-launch marketing campaign for SHOOTERS:
1. Spent a day emailing magazine editors. A lovely writing friend was kind enough to share her list of UK magazine book editors with me, so I spent a day crafting personal emails to them, offering them a physical ARC of SHOOTERS. Guess how many got back to me? That’s right: zero. As a little guy with no prior relationship with these people and no big publishing house behind me, I was beneath notice. Which lead me to my next step…
2. Expanded my team by hiring a freelance book PR. I quickly realised that I would have no luck on my contacting magazines, and that time could be better spent getting results where I had higher chances of success. So I forked out £1000 for a freelance book PR with all the connections that I didn’t have. So far, this has resulted in:
a. 2 x radio appearances
b. 4 x magazine reviews
c. 3 x magazine interviews/articles (online)
d. 2 x podcast interviews
e. 1 x book club moderator/bookstagrammer review
And more to come. I consider this to be money well spent because it took a load of pressure off of me and it was nice to feel like I had somebody else on my team. The first thing she did was edit my press release to make it better. Second, she gave me a list of magazine editors to send ARCS to. This was a further expense to me (see part 2 for cost breakdown of ARCs), and a significant time outlay for wrapping, and sending all the books (I watched most of season 2 of Firefly Lane while I did it). But it’s a necessary step!
3. Spent a day contacting book accounts on Instagram. For ages, I’ve been screenshotting pages of “bookstagrammers” and adding them to an album called “marketing” on my phone. One day, I sat down and put them all into a spreadsheet and started emailing them. Like magazine editors, they get contacted by a lot of people wanting them to review their books, so I tried to make my messages as personal as possible—this is what takes the most time. For each one, I had to look at their Instagram account and see what they’d been reading and liking, and if we had anything specific in common. Out of the 25 that I contacted, 10 replied. I sent them physical ARCs of the book, so that they would be able to photograph them for their posts. I’ve had three posted so far (4.5 stars and two 5 stars). Hopefully more to come!
I decided not to continue down this path because of the time vs return, so instead I started focusing on contacting people in the photography and wedding industries, which has been much more successful thanks to my previous reputation and connections in those fields. I have secured a review and promotion with a major UK wedding resource, as well as a handful of wedding planners. I could do more, but again…TIME.
4. Contacted influencers. Influencers are different from bookstagrammers because their primary focus isn’t books. It’s often fashion or interiors or lifestyle. I contacted a couple of influencers that I know (one with 19.9k followers in the fashion sphere and one with 44.6k followers in the home décor sphere) and asked friends to put me in touch with any influencers that they knew. Always work your contacts!
5. Took a course to improve my social media reels. I am a visual learner and I really hate researching stuff. I want people to just tell me the information I need, which is why I signed up to a reels course with Andie McDowell (@dahliabeach) and Kirsty Raper (@rebuildagram) because they both do awesome reels. The course was FANTASTIC. I feel like I’ve gained a lot of new skills and confidence with doing reels (you can check out my Instagram account to see some of the reels I’ve done lately). The thing I most liked about the course was that it wasn’t just an online course where they give you the information and leave you to get on with it. They really gave it the personal touch with weekly Facebook catch ups and monitoring our questions in the Facebook group. The course is called Reels Rockstars and I don’t know when they will be running it again, but you should sign up. It was one of the best and most informative courses I’ve done in a while. I now own a lot of kit for filming video (I’m an ex-photographer, so I love a gadget, I do).
New filming gadgets
6. Started to accumulate Goodreads reviews. I asked everybody who has already read SHOOTERS to go onto Goodreads and leave me an honest review. I need loads more, but it’s a start and it’s wonderful to see what people think. Plus it gives me quotes that I can start using in social media. I’ve also asked the same people to mark March 6 in their diary, which is the day SHOOTERS goes on sale on Amazon, so that they can leave their reviews there, too.
7. Created an ARC team. This is an on-going process. First thing I did was create an ARC request form on Google Forms which you can see here (and please do apply for an ARC if it’s before March 1 and you’re a fast reader). I sent this out to my fledgling email newsletter list that I got from the TikTok competition and received 3 ARC readers from that.
Next I signed up to StoryOrigin, which is an online system where authors can find reviewers, build their mailing list, and increase sales through newsletter swaps and group promotions. The good thing about StoryOrigin is that it manages the whole ARC process and you can vet the people who apply to read your book; for example, what is their history of following through with reviews on ARCs that they have applied for? I uploaded my book and sat back, ready for the requests to flood in. I received 3, one of which I rejected because she never posted her reviews. To be fair to StoryOrigin, I haven’t engaged with the other parts of their service yet (mailing lists and reviewers), which would help me get more ARC requests. But everything just takes TIME and I only have so much of it.
I also approached NetGalley because they are the MacDaddy of review resources. They sent me their prices, which were too high for a small fry like me ( $399 per month for up to 5 titles). This was obviously their pricing for bigger publishers, so I contacted them to ask what they did for the little guys. They pointed me in the direction of BooksGoSocial, which you can use to get your book onto NetGalley—sort of a back door route. I’ve signed up for the $99 service to get my book onto NetGalley for one month. I’ll report back in February how it went.
P.S. I have no idea how many ARC readers I should be aiming for. 50? 150? Answers on a postcard please.
8. Brainstorm campaign ideas and implement. Maybe it’s my background in advertising, but I wanted to create something visual and special to mark the launch of SHOOTERS. I can’t tell you too much about it here, but keep your eyes peeled to socials on March 14 for something that will hopefully give you a giggle. I’ll talk more about how I put the campaign together in the March round up.
9. Started planning my launch event. I’m launching SHOOTERS at the SWPP Convention in Hammersmith from March 15-18. I’ve chosen that event because SHOOTERS actually starts at a fictional SWPP (called BAPP). Choosing an event to coincide with your launch can be a good idea. I have a friend who wrote a stunning book called How We Mortals Blame the Gods which is a sort of sequel to Ulysses by James Joyce. She chose Bloomsday to launch her book, which is an annual celebration in Ireland of the day on which Ulysses takes place.
The organisers of the SWPP Convention have been great in helping me launch the book there. They’ve given me a table at the trade show from March 16-18. If you fancy coming along and getting a signed copy of SHOOTERS, you can pre-book yourself a FREE trade show ticket and come find me. You’ll especially enjoy the show if you like photography (professional or enthusiast).
On Wednesday from 3-5:30, I’m doing a Q&A masterclass with the fabulous James Musselwhite where he’s going to interview me in front of a live audience about writing a book and how I applied the skills I learned marketing my photography business to launching a book (we’ll be recording it so another friend can release it on his photography podcast).
I’ll be giving copies of the books to some of the speakers to give out as prizes at the end of their talks.
And I’m organising a HUGE competition with a handful of suppliers at the trade show for one lucky attendee to win over £1000 in photographic prizes. It’s sort of like a scavenger hunt. Entrants need to find signs planted around the convention and post pictures of the signs on social media. Each sign they post is an entry into the competition. I’ve been so excited about the support I’ve received from my old friends in the industry. It just goes to show that it’s all who you know!
10. Commissioned cover for Book 2. F-STOP!, the second book in the series, is coming out in September. I want to put it on sale the moment that SHOOTERS is available, so that there is another book that people can buy from me. The manuscript currently stands at 71,000 words with another 30k or so yet to come. My days are taken up with marketing, so I have joined the 5am club to carve out a couple hours of writing time before my day begins.
11. Bought Joanna Penn’s How to Market a Book. This is a wonderful resource, with loads of advice on the process of publishing for people at all stages of their career. For me, it’s a great checklist for making sure I’m doing the right things, and filling in the blanks about the stuff I just don’t know about the publishing process. She even discusses what to do the week of launch which is helpful. I highly recommend this book.
12. Continued to build our podcast audience on Two Lit Chicks. Last but not least (and I’m sure I’ve forgotten a few things), but I’ve been working really hard to build our audience for Two Lit Chicks because that is my strongest author platform right now. We started doing shorter content in between our big episodes, including a literary quiz on Fridays, and it has worked like a charm. I can see from our download numbers that new people are discovering us and downloading our entire back catalogue all the time. It’s taken 3 seasons, but the podcast is really starting to pay dividends (not in real money. Maybe that will come in season 4).
A lot of my time is spent chasing up people to make sure things we’ve discussed are still happening. There do not seem to be enough hours in the day, but I’m doing my best to give myself the debut launch that I’ve always wanted.
It would be great if peri-menopause wasn’t making me break out in tears at random times, but that’s life. I’m only managing to grab time to write this article because my Covid booster has laid me up in bed.
Next month, I should be able to report on some of the fruits of these labours and then it’s (gulp) MARCH. Wish me luck.