Creative Commons[/caption]Today, self-publishers can publish with the click of a mouse. But will millions of consumers buy your book? Not without a lot of work on your part.
Considerations like this show us why book publishing takes such a long time. Some authors who are new to the game are shocked at how long it can take a traditional publisher to release a book. Even more surprising to them is the fact that things have slowed down more than they’ve sped up, which always brings up the topic of technology: If you can publish a book so quickly, why don’t publishers take this route? Why so slow?
“With the Internet and blogs, word of mouth travels more quickly today, but there’s a glut of information. To help a book break through the static, publishers have to plan months in advance,” says Rachel Donadio in her essay Waiting for it on the New York Times website. Less time is needed for a well-known author like Patterson or Atwood, but if the author is a virtual nobody, it’ll take a year or more for readers to find them. According to the article, publicity begins before the book is even edited.
Self-publishers, take note.
If you’re releasing your book next month and expect sales without building your online author platform, without working off a solid marketing plan, there is something wrong here. I have met a number of these authors, and once their book is published, they aren’t sure what went wrong.
Know your audience. I’ve just signed a publishing contract for my novella entitled When I Dream of You, about a young woman who struggles with the trauma of date rape, and also searches for a way to escape a living situation with an alcoholic parent. The book is based on true events, geared toward other women who have also endured trauma, and I hope to send the message that healing can come in many forms, and transformation—blossoming into something new and wonderful—is the end result. If you aren’t sure who your audience is, and you cannot succinctly define what you’re trying to do in a few short sentences, you have some work ahead of you. If you want to make a living off writing, you must know your audience.
Your author platform must be solid. Publishers love an author who works hard to push his or her own writing. That author does a lot of promotion on social media, and on their website. There is a lot of controversy over which method is best; most importantly, regardless of how you do it, make sure you’re promoting your book in as many ways as you can, without coming across as irritating or overbearing.
Recently, I spoke with an author who casually said, “I’ll start marketing on Facebook when the book is released.” Bad idea. You should start now, long before the book is published. Why? Because you want to spark interest in your book now, so people will want to buy it when it comes out.
Write a marketing plan. Even if it’s just a hand-written page, a list of things you intend to do to publicize your book, write it down. You have to have a plan; otherwise, you’re just driving around with no real destination in mind.
I’ll be writing about a number of other publicity and marketing options in further articles, as well as expanding on some of the ones I’ve mentioned here. I’ll include something many authors have trouble with—branding themselves.
Clarify your goals. Pinpoint what it is you want to accomplish most. Make sure your message, your marketing approach, is strong enough and catchy enough that it stands out among the competition.
And most importantly, take your time with publishing, especially if you’re a self-publisher who has yet to build a name for yourself.
Publishing truly is an exercise in patience.
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