I've chosen a cover for Perfect Lives - not too different from the one the original publisher was going to use. The designer is going to come up with half a dozen layouts for me to choose. Suddenly, it's starting to feel real, though it's been a very long haul considering Book 1 was originally scheduled to come out last December and Book 2 in April.
At least I'll hit the Christmas market this year, though I won't have the weight of a big publisher's marketing department behind it, worse luck. A friend of mine, James North, who has a thriller, Deep Deception, coming out soon, reckons he's spending over an hour a day bigging up his book on Twitter. He blinded me with science, telling me about apps he's got that tell him whether his followers, who he in turn is following, have done it just to bulk up their own Twitter audience and, having claimed him as one of their followers, have promptly 'unfollowed' him. Something like that, anyway.
Honestly, life seems too short for all this diddling around with tweets when I'd rather be writing. Or do you think he is doing the right thing? He tells me that if I don't follow his example, my book will just languish in cyberspace and sell about three copies. He could be right. I have just read this article:
http://bookmarketingbuzzblog.blogspot.com/2013/09/making-your-book-more-promotable.html
It feels like a full-time job! Perhaps I'm just living in the wrong century. Would Tolstoy have been able to write War and Peace, or Proust scribble all those volumes of A La Recherche du Temps Perdu if they'd had to spend hours tweeting, posting and blogging?
Think of Dickens, though. When it comes to self-promotion, he was your man, always on the road giving readings from his latest works and wowing and wooing the ladies. Yes, I think Dickens would have tweeted. Oh dear. Better get started. Though I have taken a leaf out of Dickens' book (Great Expectations!) and volunteered to read an extract at the Uxbridge Bigfest Literature Lounge event on September 29th. Wonder if I can find a section that's clean enough for public consumption? Or shall I set the marquee simmering with a love scene? The one under the Brazilian waterfall perhaps. Clothing optional. Look out, Uxbridge!
Hello Again!
4 months ago
1 comment:
Promote, promote, promote! I was speaking to a frind of mine once who owns a shop where she sells other people's (high quality) handmade jewellery. She said the one thing her artists hate to do is self-promote. It takes time away from the craft, but it's such a necessity! I feel the same about my baking :/
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