Promoting Your Book Through Thematic Thinking

Last time I dropped by I blogged about writing visually because visual writing not only enables your readers to have a strong sense of the setting in your story, but it also helps when it comes time to produce your cover.

Today, I want to talk about writing thematically.

This is another important thing you can incorporate in your manuscript that will help you in several ways. First, many works are categorized thematically. There are stories classified as coming of age tales. There are works focused on conflicts. Others may focus on dangerous philosophies or political schools of thought that are emerging.

Being able to readily identify themes in your work is something that many readers will connect to. It's also something that can add depth to your material.

More importantly, it can give you something specific to talk about when it comes time to promote your latest release.

Now, I love a great story. I love great characters. The greatest joy in a read is discovering a new character that I want to spend time with who has an intriguing story to tell, like Dana and Jana in Terror is our Business: Dana Roberts' Casebook of Horrors.

Lately, however, I've also been taking note of some of the themes that have been prevalent in works I've been reading. Terror is about more than the supernatural. It's also about understanding our beliefs, confronting our disbeliefs, and restoration.

Freeze-Frame Revolution is a great commentary on the dangers of technology. The author can talk about the environment and how we're destroying the earth and what that's going to mean for generations to come. He can also talk about how technology may - or may not - save us.

Right there I've mentioned two books that are entertaining as hell that have some solid themes the authors can talk about. I mean, you don't want to give away the plot in an interview; you just want to tease it. So when you have themes in mind you have other things you can talk about that can pique the interest of potential readers without giving away the elements of your story that will keep them turning the pages.

Another example of a recent read, for me, is The Oddling Prince. Where do I begin with the themes? It's a coming-of-age story. It's about loss. It's about forgiveness. It's about evil and restoration and love and so much more. All jammed into this delightful quest story that turns the quest construct on its head.

When I wrote The Spying Moon I thought about themes. Loneliness. Exclusion. The things that keep us from fitting in, from our goals, from doing our job, from being happy. What I hoped was that incorporating these themes would add depth to my protagonist and it was nice to see these two specific hopes I had reflected in a blurb I received:

"With a keen eye for Canadian detail, Ruttan crafts a grim thriller with a unique social conscience. We need more stories like this one. Kendall Moreau is a Mountie you won’t soon forget.”
- Sarah L Johnson, bestselling author of Infractus and Suicide Stitch: Eleven Stories

Remember that people want to be entertained and they also want to find characters that they either idolize or relate to in some way. Identifying the themes and talking about those aspects of your work is a way of widening the appeal for potential readers who are hearing about your new novel. 

That Writer

by Thomas Pluck

Are you one of those writers who shrinks like a salted slug when someone asks you about your writing?

Let me put on my Andy Rooney eyebrows and ask Why is that?

We should be proud of our work, not ashamed. Maybe we're anticipating those cliche questions?
Are any of your books movies?
You must be rich, right?
I've got a great idea for a book, want to go fifty-fifty?

Perhaps, but I think some of it is that stereotypical self-deprecation, the impostor syndrome, and general shyness. We shouldn't be shy. One of the best books I've read on the writing business was Intent to Sell by Jefferey Marks. It seems to be out of print, but you can get similar advice from Lawrence Block in his Liars series of writing columns, which begins with Telling Lies for Fun and Profit, or David Morrell's Lessons from a Lifetime of Writing. Or you can ask Alec Baldwin in Glengarry Glenn Ross:

Always Be Closing.

How can you expect people to be excited about your books if you're loathe to talk about them? Of course, you can go too far and become That Writer, who only talks about themselves, their books, abandoned story ideas, interrupting every conversation to link it to their backlist, preferably with an Amazon link pasted afterward. Don't be them. But there is a lot of space between being enthusiastic about your work and being a boorish ass. Jeffrey Marks had some advice I'm not sure I'd recommend, like Vanity license plates that say you're a writer, bumper stickers, and so on. He doesn't tell people to do things like put your book facing out at Barnes & Noble, stick your business cards in books of famous writers in your genre, and leave copies of your book in indie bookstores for people to find and bring to the register, like lost treasure, so the owner will exclaim "Why, I don't carry that book! And you want to buy it? Perhaps I should order two gross, even if it's not returnable and is only printed by an affiliate of a corporation that wants to sup on my bone marrow!"

Those are bonehead moves. What you want to do is have a relationship with local bookstore owners and employees, preferably as "that local author who is always supporting us on social media and buying books at our store" so when it comes time to schedule an event, they might squeeze you in even if the odds are you'll be reading an excerpt to your mother, some weirdo from high school who wants to lock you in his crawlspace, and the local crank who wants to ask why your books don't talk about chemtrails brainwashing us. I mean, we all have to start small, and if you stick around and are pleasant to deal with, your chances of survival go way up.

But I digress. This is going to sound like I have a lot of health problems. Thankfully they are minor. But my dentist, podiatrist's assistant, and dermatologist are all avid readers. So is one of my drinking buddies at the local watering hole. We all talk books when we cross paths. More about authors we both like, such as James Lee Burke, Lee Child, Stephen King, and so on. And of course once they know I'm a writer, they ask a little about what I write, and I mention it. They've all come to my book events. Because now they know a writer!

Yeah, I'm no Lee Child. But they are happy to know me and talk about what's coming out next, and spread the word to their reader friends. And how did I find this out? Even here in New Jersey, people ask how you've been, what you've been up to. And you can say "nuthin'" or you can say, "I had a book signing last week and I was pretty thrilled at how many people showed up. How about you, go anywhere nice lately?"

And after they tell you about this little place in Barnegat with the best fried clams, they might say, "you're a writer? I love James Patterson. What kind of books do you write?"

Now here's the closer. Do not froth in a rage about the self-blurbing one-man industry! Even if they ask if you loved The DaVinci Code, this isn't the internet. People are allowed to like things you don't! Now don't suck up and lie, either. I haven't read Patterson, but I did read Angels and Demons which I thought was pretty ridiculous, but I saw the appeal. When I visited Rome, all I could think of was the priests Dan Brown murdered in overly complicated ways, so there's something there. My answer?
"I write crime thrillers."
\"Oh, like The Godfather?"
"Well I did work down at the port with some guys who were on The Sopranos, and there are some mobsters in my latest book. But they're the bad guys."

And there you go. I didn't say, "Pshaw! Li'l old me? I scribble a little, nothing you've heard of!" or "Patterson? That hack?! My undiscovered genius is worth ten times his ill-gotten fortune!" or "I don't write that kind of garbage, if you want to read some real noir you should read my story collection The Nun's Puppy Was Beaten to Death With Nazi Dildoes."*

*coming in February from BloodNoir Press.

If you've met me, I have a confession to make that will elicit laughter.

I'm an introvert.

What? Tommy Salami? The guy with the beer in his hand bloviating about Krav Maga moves is an introvert?!

Yeah, really. I got better. I trained myself to talk to people. People are scary. They want to know all about you and sometimes they say mean things, and the leading cause of death in humans is other humans. Admittedly, I used booze to make that easier in the beginning, which is an expensive and possibly dangerous solution to social interactions. But in the end, I learned that when people ask you about writing, most are genuinely interested. Sure, some will be jerks about it, or ask the dreaded questions, or make you feel small compared to Gillian Flynn or Jodi Picoult. So what? That's what people who've accomplished nothing do, bring other people down. You'll have to deal with them in your life anyway, might as well learn now.

So happy holidays, and when your relatives ask about your books, guilt them into buying twelve! Make them tell all their friends. Tell your pedicurist while she's sawing off a callus. I came this close to telling my proctologist when I woke up during a colonoscopy, but the the drugs were too good. And I got to see the video, so I know what it looks like to have my head up my ass... and I'll keep trying not to act like it.

How to Support Writers Without Going Crazy

It can be very stressful deciding how to support your favorite authors.

Do you pre-order on online retailers? Or wait to buy the book from an independent bookstore?

What if you want to go to a signing event and the bookstore sells "tickets" that include a copy of the book? Not everyone has the scratch to buy two copies. Not to disparage the booksellers--events take labor to run, and I don't mind buying a "ticket" especially when it includes the book.

So what do I do?

I am not a big fan of Amazon, despite starting as a self-published author who used Createspace and the Kindle Select program. I tried all their plans, I used Amazon Associates, too. I'm not very satisfied as a customer; they have gone the way of eBay, there's so much junk that you can't wade through it. And I'm not even talking books, but when I want a phone case or a cable, home goods, or whatever, I've had to send back so many items. Then there's their business practices. Not gonna judge if you use the 'Zon but I don't. I moved the Protectors anthologies and my own books to Ingram distribution for print, and Draft2Digital for e-books. They distribute through Kindle, but I'm not directly using Amazon anymore. Their reporting was terrible, too.

But they will not be ignored. So I pre-order books there to help authors whose work I want to support. And then sometimes I cancel that order a week beforehand and order it at my local bookstore or get it at a signing event. Maybe that makes me evil. Maybe I don't care. If Barnes & Noble is your local bookstore, use them. Pre-order there, especially if they don't carry the press it's published by. That can help. Maybe they'll carry the next one.

As for Goodreads and so on, I try to rate every book I read there. Even though Amazon owns them and now charges $119 to $500 for a Goodreads giveaway. Which is downright horrible for small presses and indie authors, who have to pay for the books and postage as well, turning a $50 proposition into a $180 one. But there's more! Now giveaways will annoy readers by automatically putting them in your Want to Read list (previous it was optional) and sending you a notification to Rate and Review the book (and give the author one star because you are angry at the world!!!!!) a few weeks after the giveaway ends. Reminding you that you lost, and making you angrier.

Another thing I do is make sure the book is at my local library. Many libraries have online catalogs and if you are a member, allow you to suggest books if they don't have them. So this is a free way to help authors and read their books if you can't afford to buy them, or are on the fence.

How about social media? I'm not convinced that retweeting or sharing a writer's promo links has much effect. I've had links shared by people with 180,000 followers and it resulted in zero engagement, clicks, or sales. Maybe if Stephen King does it with his 6 million followers, you'll see action. The best thing a reader can do is spread word of mouth, make their own post on social media about how much they enjoyed a book. If you're not a book collector, give your used copy to a friend or the local library.

I'm not a fan of the memes "how to help a writer!" that turn readers into combination publicists, cheerleaders, and therapists. You bought the book, thank you. If you want to review it, thank you some more. But I really don't think you owe the writer anything. Just as the writer owes you the best book they can make at the moment, after that, everything is lagniappe. You come to a book event? You're awesome. Thank you. Every writer deals with empty seats, and it's a good time to chat up the booksellers when it happens. Or if only one or two readers show? They get a more intimate experience, as they share cookies and cheese cubes with the writer.

So, thank you for whatever you do, readers. If you like a book, spread the word. As I've said before, if you don't shout out about what you love, don't be surprised when it's gone.

Handbook for Infamy

Over the past few weeks the publishing news has been dominated by one story; it isn't often that one hops over to EW.com and finds a front-page story related to publishing that isn't about a book that's being made into a movie or TV series.

The Handbook for Mortals became the exception.

The book - which nobody had heard of - sprung to the top of the NY Times Bestseller list from nowhere. An investigation inferred that the publisher and/or author had made bulk purchases of the book from stores that report to the Bestseller list in order to secure a spot on the list.

An account of the allegations and reason for the book being pulled can be read here.

That isn't what made the front page of EW.com, however. That was reserved for the author's response.

It does sound as though someone (not the author) with a business interested in the book ordered a lot of copies of the book. Whether this was intentional or not, what it brings into question is whether all book sales are considered equal. If the author had no knowledge of this action, is she an innocent victim who shouldn't be punished for the actions of others?

It almost doesn't matter now. The book isn't famous; it's infamous. Its name is known for all the wrong reasons, its existence evidence of cheating.

One could easily hop on Google and research the story further to form their own conclusions.

What's sad is that there are a lot of great books out there that aren't getting press coverage because what matters more to mainstream media is a scandal. And as long as that's the case, there will be more desperate new authors looking for any way possible to raise their profile so that they can compete in the cutthroat world of book publishing.

Selling Out

One of the realities that authors face is that they almost always have to do public appearances sooner or later. This comes more naturally to some, while others struggle to adapt to marketing themselves. As writers, we tend to live in our heads a fair bit, and that puts us in a place where we get wrapped up in our own fears and thoughts and often make things harder on ourselves than they need to be.

That was one of the key things I took away from a recent Skype conference with author and literary event manager, Sarah L. Johnson.

When she launched her own book, Johnson had been coordinating events for over a year, but “when you’re talking about your own work it’s very different and you get nervous.” Although the nerves are natural, she says that one of the most important things an author can do to prepare for a bookstore event is to relax. “It really isn’t a big deal. It’s a friendly room. There’s nothing to be worried about. These are people who want to support you.”

What's the secret to a successful author event? Sarah's insight and advice is running in full today. I think for me, the biggest thing I took away from this is that we are our own worst enemies.

I will say that it can be hard to fully embrace the self promotion aspect, though. If you're in your own hometown you should have a strong audience to pull into an event. For some of us who've moved around far too much as an adult, we have limited local social circles. It's left me wondering if there's a void that can be filled with online book launches. I know the odd person still does blog tours, but the heyday of blogs and the large author social circle online seems to be far behind us, and I do find myself wondering why that is. Are we only able to invest in immediate results, and because we can't always see the impact of a blog post to the overwhelming majority of the audience, who do not comment or interact with the writer, does that render the medium ineffective? When I post here and get no comments or only 1 is it a sign that it's time to pack it in? Yet the site stats tell a different story, and it does leave me wondering why the shift away from internet promotion, or the change in how that occurs.

Which is probably enough to get me wrapped up inside my own head for the rest of this Monday morning. So instead of falling down that rabbit hole, hop over to Spinetingler and check out Sarah's tips for successful bookstore events.

I've Got the Promo Blues

by Holly West

(sung to the tune of Honky Tonk Blues)

You can hum that while I take care of a little housekeeping:

I released the official cover of my second book, Mistress of Lies, on Monday:

Isn't she pretty?

It's now available for pre-order on Kobo, Kindle, and Nook readers, so do what you do best and go order it.

Pretty please?

Now that's taken care of, we can get on with today's post.

If you've ever thought to yourself, holy bananas, Holly West sure does complain a lot, consider this: I make an effort not to whine too much. So you're getting maybe 50% of the overall gripes that cross my mind. But today, not for the first time, I lamented all the marketing and promotion I have to do as an author, and darn it, I'm gonna do a little kvetching. 

Let me explain: I spent the last couple of days re-designing my website for the billionth time (which is a whole other problem I have, this chronic dissatisfaction with my website and the compulsion to re-do it every two weeks). As part of this process, I visit other author websites and figure out what I like or don't like about them to figure out what features I want to incorporate in my own. This time around, I was hit with the realization that other authors seem to do a much better job with promotion than I do.

In short, I have promo envy.

Actually, it's not so much envy as confusion. I see authors doing loads of different events, getting blurbs, receiving all sorts of reviews, getting lots of ads placed, etc, and I think: Things? Why am I not getting any of these things?

(said like Withnail when he questions why he doesn't have any soup):

Side note: If you've not seen Withnail and I, you must remedy that situation immediately. Don't even finish reading this post, just go watch it now.

In fairness, the fault lies with me when it comes to dropping the promo and marketing ball. I've nothing against it in theory, but when it comes down to actually doing it, I get overwhelmed. If only there was a comprehensive list of things I should be doing and when I should do them. Does a guide like this exist somewhere?

I asked several authors to give me blurbs for Mistress of Fortune. I followed through on only one of them (shout out to Susanna Calkins) because I was too shy to actually send the others the book.

Shyness doesn't sell books, people! Cajones do!

I know that publishers often set these things up for authors. Carina Press did a few things for me, but I should've done a whole lot more myself. With the release of book two, I'm really trying to be proactive about getting the word out to more than just my friends on Facebook.

I also know that a lot of authors work their butts off doing everything themselves. They do anything they can to get the word out. Here's where I fall flat on my face. I do have a "say yes to everything" policy, but I should be going out there and rustling up business instead of letting it all come to me.

Sigh. This is a depressing post. Sorry. Let's leave it at this: What's the most effective marking thing you've done to promote your book? It's hard to know what directly contributes to sales, but the day I did a guest blog post on Chuck Wendig's blog, I saw a big rise in my Amazon ranking. Of course, many authors say Amazon rankings are essentially meaningless, so take that for whatever it's worth.

Now it's your turn. Tell me the secret to selling lots of books. KTHX.

Crap shoot

by: Joelle Charbonneau

As you read this, I am in the upper peninsula of Michigan for the first out of town weekend on the SKATING OVER THE LINE book tour. Before I started writing, I thought book tours sounded so glamorous. The idea of people standing in line for hours waiting to get a book signed by an author was pretty cool. Of course, that is before I got to know the business a bit better and learned that those lines are the exception to the rule. More often than not, an author on tour hopes he or she won’t be sitting alone in the bookstore when the signing starts. You hope someone – anyone – will come, talk to you and hopefully buy a copy of your book. If not – well, that’s the way it goes sometimes. Even for the big names. Some days the line is around the block. Other days there are crickets.

So why do it? Well, in my case I am lucky that the stops on my tour will hit places where I have friends and family. Thus, I will just about guarantee that I will have at least one or two people to talk to in case a stampede of clamoring readers doesn’t arrive. (Ha! A girl can dream, right?) But besides visiting with family and friends, the tour will allow me to talk to and get to know booksellers.

Getting a bookseller to carry your book even if it is published by a big publisher is a trick. Some bookstores or chains don’t like carrying books by authors who don’t have a strong sales history with them. Well, if you are a debut, or in my case a sophomore, author you haven’t had a lot of time to develop a sales history. They only have so much shelf space. They want it dedicated to books that will sell. If you don’t have a sales history or you don’t live in the region – they don’t trust it will sell.

Tricky, right?

So paying a visit to the stores, meeting the booksellers and letting them know you are more than a name on a page is important. Since you can’t do this for every story in the country you have to pick your battles and know that most of the battles will never be fought. You can only hope that a reader who wants your book will go into those unknown stores, ask for your book and order it thereby getting your name in front of the person who places the orders for stock. Maybe they’ll decide to look your book up, think it sounds like something their other readers might like and order a few extra copies.

Or not.

It’s all a crap shoot. Physical touring, blog tours, advertising, tweeting, Facebook posts and everything else done to promote books are all crap shoots. Some might work some of the time. Others might not work at all. And no one can tell you when and where those things will work for you. Fun right?

That’s what’s nice about this blog where I can ask the authors reading this – what touring/promotional stuff do you do for your books. And for the readings – what book promotions draw your attention? I’m dying to know!

Thanks, Chuck or HOW I LEARNED TO STOP TALKING and LOVE THE REWRITE

I'm exhausted.

Like brain fried, body overheated, friggin' exhausted. I work in a school, and if you remember your days of going to school, you'll know that in the early summer most buildings are like brick ovens. And it was 97 degrees outside today. Imagine what it was inside.

So, when I got home, the last thing I wanted to do was write. I wanted to sit down, drink some water, surf the internet, and then the fall asleep.

Then I read this wonderful post by Chuck Wendig and felt like complete crap.

Writing is important to me. I love to do it. Love the entire process, even when it's frustrating. And after I read Wendig's post, I realized how long it'd been since I'd done it.

Okay, not exactly true. I've been writing. Just finished a short story that you'll read soon.

Buuuuttttt, there's something I've been putting off since Witness to Death came out: I have to do a big, nasty, book changing rewrite of the novel I'm working on.

I'm not talking minimal edits like making sure Jim's eyes are the same color in chapter 1 as they were in chapter 18. No, I'm talking combining two minor characters into one major one. Changing events. Making the book work.

And see that's a part of writing. A big part.

It's what the people who aren't really cut out to be writers don't know and what Chuck points out so well. That you have to keep working on it and keep working and keep working to the point where in the course of writing a 75,000 word novel, you've actually written 200,000 words and cut most of them out.

The novels I've written... most of them are nearly unrecognizable from their first drafts. The plot, the characters, they have the same names, but they do different things.

I've never given up on a novel.

I'm not about to start now.

The rest of you can go out and talk about writing your book. You can talk about your concerns, your plans, your promotional ideas. That's all well and good.

But it doesn't mean squat if you haven't put in the work.

Gloria Steinem said, "I do not like to write--I like to have written."

There are a lot of people on the internet who would be better served if that quote read "I do not like to write--I like to talk about writing."

I will not be one of those people.

Writing isn't drafting and proofreading.

Writing is drafting, tearing the whole thing up, putting it back together, tearing it up again, and then proofreading.

And it's work, whether you're tired or not.

So tonight, before I wrote this post, I re-wrote the hell out of the first scene of this book. And it's going to make everything else harder down the line.

But the book will be better because of it.

Thanks for the reminder, Chuck.

It's the end of the world....or not

by: Joelle Charbonneau

Despite all the hype, the rapture didn’t happen. The world is still spinning. Which mean I have to start thinking about gearing up for my next release.

I find the pre-release process to be both exciting and scary. Last week, I finished proofing the typeset pages of SKATING OVER THE LINE, which was lots of fun. For those who haven’t been through the process, this is the last step in which I the author can make any changes before the publisher waves his magic wand and turns the pages into a real life book. Yippee.

This is only the second time I’ve had to go through this step and each time I held my breath hoping to God I’d still like the book after I was done reading it. So far, so good. Although, I am well and truly baffled as to how so many typos that weren’t in my word document version of the book (I know this because I am anal enough to go back and look) ended up in the typeset version. Something tells me this mystery is a lot like the sock going missing in the dryer and will never be solved.

Now that the pages have been proofed and the corrections sent back to my publisher, it is time for me to start working on pre-release publicity and all that entails. EEEK! So, I now am embarking on setting up a blog tour, getting copy ready for some advertising opportunities and scheduling signings and conference appearances. (Now do you see why the end of the world was looking so attractive?)

So, I am now asking for your help. Tell me – what are your favorite blogs to read about new books? Do giveaways and other novelties draw your attention? Do short stories in magazines grab your notice and make you want to pick up the author’s longer fiction? In short – tell me what you think I should be doing to get the word out about my books. And if the rapture folks got the date wrong for the end of the world and it ends before I respond to your comment – thanks for the help! I really appreciate it.

Promotion

by John McFetridge

When we started this blog we said it would be okay for us to do some self-promotion here.

Great.

Now if someone could just figure out how to promote a book.

It seems these days people are trying just about everything. Last year I downloaded a free version of the book Beautiful Children by Charles Bock as a promotion from the publisher. A great book, but I haven't seen another one from that author so he still hasn't made a sale to me as a result of the free give-away.

There was an article in the paper today about Margaret Atwood promoting her new novel with a book tour that will include actors and original music performed live at the events. Sounds like fun, but the article didn't really say anything about the book, The Year of the Flood, which I understand is a sequel of sorts to Oryx and Crake (which I liked a lot). That could be a great publicity-generating promotion, but it's not really something many of us could do.

My Canadian publisher is small and doesn't have much money so there's little promotion beyond sending out review copies and hoping for the best. When my first book came out we had a launch party in my neighbourhood which was really just so I could show all the folks I knew from the schoolyard where I dropped off my kids that I really was going home to "work" during the day. It was a good party, but it wasn't really book promotion.

Because I sometimes like to play around on the computer, I've tried my hand at book trailers:






I think I'm getting better, but I don't think it's realy helping to promote the books very much. I think people who read books aren't fooled by some flashy graphics (if I had those, I mean). So, I try to go against the advice and actually put a lot of words into my trailers. I think people who like to read books are okay with a lot of words. Marketing departments may disagree with me, but I'm stubborn.

So, I have a book coming out in September in Canada (February in the USA) and I'm trying to think of ways to do some promotion.

Give it away free like Beautiful Children?

Stage events like Margaret Atwood?

Blog tours?

Trailer?

Any ideas?