If you thought writing was hard, this part is even harder!! If you don’t self promote, all your hard work will die a slow and painful death, with NO sales. NO recognition for all your sweat and tears.
So...How do you do it? Who can you ask? Here are a few ideas.
It’s no good getting a prime guest slot on a blog; if you can’t promote that you’re there. You cannot generate traffic (readers, authors) by just being there. YOU need to get people to see what you have to say. You have to put in effort and time to promote your work. Nothing is free in this world!!! Sales WON’T come to you on their own.
The first thing you need to do is join all the networking sites.
My space
This may seem daunting to those who don’t negotiate the internet well (like me ) But it really is easy and free. The prime word here!!! FREE.
You need to make your presence known on the internet and that means talking about yourself and your work. NETWORKING will now be the main word on your mind ALL the time. Your MAIN objective in everything you say and do from now on.
Writer’s loops are essential for advice and keeping up with the writing trends. I have listed some below. Sign up, and not only are you starting to promote yourself, but you will also get to meet some really nice people from all over the world.
Also, join critique sites that will give you fabulous feedback on your work.
http://www.critiquecricle.com/
http://authorspromotingauthors.blogspot.com/
enchantersloop@yahoogroups.com;
World_Romance_Readers@yahoogroups.com;
BrendaWilliamsonRomanceParty@yahoogroups.com;
Romance_Bistro@yahoogroups.com
RoRRChatters@yahoogroups.com;
EuroReviewsChat@yahoogroups.com;
promoonly@yahoogroups.com excellent for promoting your work and sites.
rb_afterdark@yahoogroups.com;
How to promote yourself
Every author should have a website to promote their work. Remember, Publishers will go there and look at your site, so make it look professional. If you don’t know how to build one, there are LOADS of sites that will guide you through it. Google Web Building.
The most important thing of all is to get yourself a blog. Go to Blogger.com. Even if you set up a basic account, that’s great, as you will get a blogger ID. That will now allow you to log onto other writers blogs to comment on their posts and get yourself recognised.
Prepare for your blog date. Don’t sit back and think fame will come to you. IT WON’T. You have to go and find it for yourself.
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I have a thursday blog slot called Food for Thought with Authors Promoting Authors.
Here you will see others authors helpful comments that appear on the blog. that the words
Today we discuss whether 'Um, Ah, etc in character dialogue, are extraneous words that can make your work look unprofessional and can send a very good book into an editors slush pile.
Julie Hayes
Some people do say um and uh, and it has a place, just not all over the place. Used sparingly it can work. I think your dialogue should fit how you draw your character, and it reveals a lot about him or her in their own words.Diane Scott Lewis
People do speak with "ohs" and occasional "Uhs" and in incomplete sentences. So why shouldn't characters?
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Today we discussed rejection letters. Here are some others authors opinions.
*Best comment of the day.*Zvi :I was getting so many rejections, I was ready to give up. Then I discovered the query-tracker forum (http://querytracker.net/forum/). Within six months, three of my novels had been accepted*
Julie Hayes.
When you get a rejection, you have just discovered one publisher not to sell that particular work to.
Everyone gets rejections. It's a rite of passage. Accept it, don't let it get you down, you're part of the club now! Maggie Dove;
Write, edit, re-write, ...send it out and send it out again and again until it finds a home!L.K. Below.
I adore rejections which give feedback because more often than not, I can use that feedback to make my book better.That's when I find my most brutal beta reader who would be most likely to hate that particular book and ask for their advice as to why it isn't so great.www.lbelow.net Lorrie Struiff:
I remember reading something about Stephen King wallpapering his room with rejection letters. He never gave up and look where he is now.
I started with short stories and my rejections would be like Mr. King's. But persistence is the key, or to me, plain old stubbornness not to give. Lisabet sarai:
One thing that many authors don't realize is that your work may be rejected for reasons that have nothing to do with its quality. Your book might not be what the publisher is looking for at the moment. Alternatively, the publisher may already have contracted other books with the same theme and doesn't want another book that is similar - even if she likes it.
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Revising you book. Whe should you do it?
Diana says.www.dianalaurence.com
I think every author has his/her own way of revising. I'm with Jabelfeld...I actually enjoy editing, so I am constantly tweaking the text as I write. I'll write as long as the flow is going, maybe a paragraph, maybe a page, and then reread and tweak. Generally if I pick up the next day writing the same chapter, I'll reread and edit from the beginning before starting to compose new material. Once the chapter is done, I do an edit on the entire thing. And then, before sending the book to my editor, I'll wait a bit to refresh my brain, then reread and revise all copy one more time. Of course, the final edit is when I review her changes/suggestions, and only then do I call the book final.
Kay says http://kayspringsteen.wordpress.com/
I plot the main part of the entire story from start to finish and sometimes add or subtract along the way. Every once in a while, I'll get stuck when writing and at that time I go back over the last few pages, often finding the reason I'm stuck is because I'm heading in the wrong direction. I don't do any major re-writing and sometimes when I pull something it's good, just not right for the current wip, so I save it elsewhere.
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The pitfalls of titles. What grabs atention more. Title or cover?
Mqaggi Sherwin says Titles can indeed by tricky. I always check out my ideas on Amazon and Google to ensure they are original. If there was another book with the same title, I'd probably change it.
Mike Pettit says For Paper authors the most important thing to catch a reader's eye is the book cover graphics. When A potential reader walks down the book isle , you have less than a nano-second to catch his eye. Color, graphics layout, all play a roe in grabbing the person, The seconde thing he sees is the name. So I think a title is the key to grabbing a reader.
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