Yay! I’m a published author!
Uh…now what?
You read those words all the time, because they’re true.
I took marketing classes at conferences and listened and nodded and scratched down a few notes, but guess what? I wished I’d taken better notes. And maybe even remember where I put the darn things.
At any rate, getting published has been an absolutely amazing experience, but from an education perspective, it’s been a little overwhelming. There are so many different marketing avenues out there from Facebook and Goodreads, ads and banners, giveaways and rafflecopter thingies and postcards to, well, everything. If it can suck your time and eat your money, it’s there waiting to be tried.
Is your head spinning yet? If not, wait ‘til you start getting in the thick of it!
I have to say, everyone at Diversion Books has been wonderfully supportive and patient with helping me through this entire process. I’ve also got an incredible network of published authors who have been so sweet as to handle my many questions with patience and offer their invaluable tried-and-true knowledge. One in particular, Valerie Bowman, wrote an awesome book on marketing for authors (see below). I found Painless Marketing for Busy Authors so helpful, I’m going to be giving one away to some lucky commenter.
As I go through this whole process, I figured I’d detail some of it out on my blog so others can hopefully follow in my footsteps…but better. LOL I don’t typically write posts about writing, but figured if it might be helpful to someone, well, why not?
Fellow history dorks, fear not – historical curiosities will be done on the same regular(ish) basis as usual here.
All that said, here’s my backstory so you can truly understand my “qualifications”:
- I’m awesome at breaking technology.
- I don’t like to sales pitch to people because it makes me feel squirmy.
- I get impatient when instructions get too wordy or have more steps than the William Wallace Monument.
- I did almost no marketing research prior to getting published.
- I make a LOT of mistakes.
- I learn from my mistakes and share them with others so they avoid my pitfalls.
- I’m great at staggering through stuff.
That said, I’ll be posting, in candid detail, the following:
- What I did.
- How I messed it up/broke it (inevitable).
- How I fixed it (or which help number/e-mail I reached out to, which is the more likely case).
- What I learned.
- What I thought of the process overall.
- My take on the results (if marketing).
- What I wish I’d known before I started.
- If I’d bother with all that crap again or never repeat it for all the money in the world.
Some ideas for marketing/social media pieces I’ll be posting on:
- Facebook (including boosting page and posts)
- Goodreads
- Time Management
- Rafflecopter (On my to do list)
- Bookmarks and where to put them
- Hosting a virtual party (On my to do list)
There will be way more as time goes on, I assure you.
Hopefully you can read through them and take something away for a smoother transition into your own personal land of Published Author-dom!
Also, please bear in mind that I’m shameless with sharing (trust me, this has a great many downsides…). If you have any additional questions or need more details, please feel free to comment or shoot me an e-mail.
Um…all that said, I can’t figure out how to get a newsletter/newsletter signup working on my website (I know, I know…), so please like my FB author page instead to stay tuned for new articles: https://www.facebook.com/madeline.martin.754
As stated previously, I’ll be giving away a copy of Valerie Bowman’s Painless Marketing for Busy Authors ebook to one lucky commenter. Please leave a comment below letting me know the most difficult thing you’ve encountered thus far with marketing/setting up social media sites, balancing time management, etc. The drawing will be held on Thursday, March 26th at 9 PM Eastern time.
