To sell books, exposure is crucial. But what’s the right exposure? And where do you find it? How do you avoid over-exposure? Hell if I know; I’m still trying to figure it out. For what it’s worth, here’s my two cents:
Attend writer’s conferences. These are great places to network and get noticed. If you’re an expert in your field, or have a great workshop idea, many conferences offer opportunities to submit a proposal for teaching a workshop or doing a presentation.
Blog. I know, some of you hate blogging and I get it. You don’t have to do it, but it is a good way to showcase your writing chops. I love this post by Chuck Wendig who takes a hysterical look at whether or not you should blog. I do it because I enjoy it. I might say stupid things every now and again, but I really do try to be helpful and maybe even entertain here and there.
Offer free stuff. Many authors will tell you to never write for free, and I agree, but I don’t think there’s anything wrong with offering a free chapter or two to entice readers. There’s no obligation to the reader, and if your work is the on par, it will get readers to buy. (You can read the first 4 chapters of my novel, Bobbing for Watermelons HERE. I didn’t plan this. I promise.) I talk about a Lead Magnet in a previous post about marketing that might help.
Be active on social media. Choose your poison: Facebook, Twitter, Google +, whatever . . . focus on one and submit quality content. I don’t have a big Twitter following, but I enjoy using it and meeting others and tweeting helpful links.
Join a local writing organization. This is another opportunity to network and talk shop with like-minded folks who want to help you on your writing journey. The more writers you connect with, the more writing/book events you’ll attend, which will lead to getting your name out there.
A couple of don’ts:
Don’t over-tweet or over Facebook your book. That’s over-exposure and people will soon ignore you because they’ll think you’re a narcissistic ass-clown.
Don’t post pictures of your bare ass.
That is all.
What do you do for maximum exposure?
Great ideas for exposure. One idea I plan to do once my next books comes out, is to do a reading in the community room of the local library. Phyllis, my old critique group leader, said her most successfull, well-attended events took place at the library where she’d do a talk and reading.
I love your photo accompaniments!
Thanks, Deb. Doing library readings is a great idea!
I really like your suggestions, April, especially the idea of blogging and trying to be helpful. Unfortunately, for me all of these seem to take time away from the main event, writing. How do you handle it all?
That’s the eternal question, JP! I think it’s about finding balance by creating a schedule and sticking to it—or trying to at least. For example, maybe you spend one day a week working on blog posts and decide how many posts per week you want to commit to writing. Write those post, say for instance, on Sunday, schedule them to get posted on whichever days you want, and spend the rest of your days writing. You can then decide that you can devote maybe 30-60 minutes on the day you have your posts go live, for replying to comments, etc. This is just an example, and I’m not great at sticking to it because sometimes an idea for a blog post strikes and I abandon what I’m doing and write it. But then I can go back to my regularly scheduled agenda 😉
Thanks, April. That’s exactly what I meant by writing a helpful blog. You’re a good inspiration. I liked your suggestion about scheduling. So tomorrow I start with 1 hour on the novel, one hour on poetry, and another hour working on the blog, interspersed with harp practice which i always find relaxing Thanks again.
Thanks, John Paul. And it sounds like you’ve got a great plan. If only I knew how to play the cello—that would be my favorite way to end the day.
Timing is everything and your “full moon” is a couple days late from the eclipse. Oh well, two moons are better than one (I think.) And if you find the golden ticket to exposure and the balancing of what works, I shall worship at the house of the full moon to ass-certain the answers.
You’re such a wordsmith, Dean!
Balancing exposure without over-exposing is hard, that’s for sure. For my own purposes, I like blogging and feature regular guest authors, a regular Facebook page (no author page for me), Twitter, Goodreads, and a little bit of Google+ although I’m not sure that one is going to be around much longer. The other place I’m going to spend some time figuring out this month is a site called Library Thing. I’ve heard that’s where the librarians are….
I’ll check out Library Thing—thanks for passing that along, Pat. There are so many outlets, that it’s hard to figure out which one is going to have the biggest payout . . . if any.