Fun With Marketing and Promoting

Okay folks! I’ve been, and still am, researching, researching, researching!

Yep, just as I figured, marketing is key. Facebook, Twitter, even Google+ and LinkedIn (both of which I have yet to understand) help greatly. As well as YouTube. It’s best if you already have a book to link to for people to review and purchase. But, I’m learning that pre-publication promotion is just as helpful.

My editor has finished with my book and we’ll meet this coming week to go over it. So exciting!

Trailer Fun

I wasn’t sure if I was going to get a separate author’s page, but I don’t think that’s necessary. Not yet anyway. So this is the place for now. I’ve just made a trailer for the book. After looking at a site that makes them for $79 and up, and seeing their samples, I thought to myself, “I can do better than that.”

So, first I tried Power Point, but it seems you have to pay to send out your project to the public, and adding audio was difficult. So instead I used Paint, and transferred the slides to Windows Movie Maker. Adding audio was extremely simple. I think the trailer is good. I’m getting feedback before I publish it here, YouTube and link it onto Twitter.

Literary Agents

After being stunboozled (Yes, I made that word up. Like it?) daily by the number of writers there are who have written books and trying to publish them, and seeing how my book fits within such a relatively new market (again, that’s Christian speculative fiction), I’ve decided to send no more query letters. Agents want to know that you’ll have a definite market-base for the book. Although I believe Anticipation of the Penitent is marvelous, I’ll need to prove that in the real world by…you know…successful marketing.

Other Publishing Opportunities

I have been making other types of submissions: to anthologies. Anthologies are magazines or books that publish collections of stories, poetry, essays, art, etc. They often publish works within a particular theme for that series. It’s a good way to boost your writing résumé and get your name out. Some pay very little, some a little more, and some nothing. You just get the publishing credits, or they may send you a free copy of the publication as payment if they accept your work.

I’ve found a couple of sites that keep the calls for submission list to anthologies pretty updated. Here are a few:

http://www.newpages.com/classifieds/calls/

http://client.writersrelief.com/writers-classifieds/anthology-calls-for-submissions.aspx

http://www.pw.org/classifieds

It’s very important to submit in the way the periodical wants. Many of them will only publish pieces that have not been published before, including online. So, those publications won’t accept the stories and poems that have been published on my blog. That just means I have to write more! But there are some who will publish work that has already been published.

I’ve submitted stories to three anthologies so far, but won’t hear anything until at least December.

I’ll continue to provide updates on my research, and will place my trailer soon! 

God bless!