Tag Archives: book marketing

16 Jan 2014 · 11:30 am

Hybrid. Not just for cars.

This post, on Chuck Wendig’s blog, got me thinking today. (BTW I can thoroughly recommend Chuck Wendig’s blog, unless you’re sensitive to swearing but then, if you’re sensitive to swearing I doubt you’ll be here either).

He was talking about hybrid authors. That is, those of us who self publish their work and also have a trad deal. Apparently, these folk earn more.

You know what. I’m not surprised at that.

Frankly, I would kill for a trad deal, so I could do both. Unfortunately it’s never going to happen. I used to have a reasonably high end business job, and I know how business works. I’m a really crap proposition. It won’t always be that way, but right now it is. A stay at home mum who takes two years to write each book. Even if I managed to pen a query letter covered with just the right amount of fairy dust and unicorn pooh to score that magic read (yes even with an ‘in’ I failed to the point where they sent me a letter back with comments that showed, quite clearly that one of the readers hadn’t even read the book). Even if an agent or a publisher, absolutely loved my stuff, there would be somebody who could churn out a book every 6 months, whose work they loved just as much, who’d get the deal. Geesh! I mean seriously, I wouldn’t touch me with a barge pole, so I don’t expect them to.

If I want trad, I’ve got to have a ‘proven track record’ – ugh I loathe and detest that phrase – and to get one of those, I’ve got to make it the hard way; as a self published author.

However, at least with self publishing, I do have the option to get my books out there and, possibly, succeed. It will be much harder – although not as hard as getting someone to read my query letter – and if I do succeed it will happen in slow motion. But the opportunity IS there.

This is what I love about self publishing.

What I hate is that anyone would bung their first attempt at a novel out there unedited, unrested, without thought. It absolutely amazes me – and gets me into a bit of a frothy mouthed rage, to be honest – because they’ve turned the only route to market for many of us into a slush pile that no-one will touch.

Thanks you bunch of complete and utter bastards.

The K’Barthan Trilogy (actually it’s four books so I’ll have to call it something else, ideas on a post card please) took me 25 years to write. That’s if I count them from the first attempt. Although I admit I’ve done the donkey work in the last few, between 2008 and now. A lot of people, who would probably enjoy it will never will never find out about it, and others will never touch it because I’ve committed the terrible sin of publishing it myself.

Whatever people say, the prejudice has not gone away, with good reason (cf the complete and utter bastards mentioned above).

That is pretty galling.

Which brings me neatly onto hybrids and why I think they do better.

They’ve sidestepped the prejudice.

Those who ‘don’t read self published books’ will read the self published work of a traditional published author. They’ll pick up that author’s work in the first place. Those book shops who ‘don’t stock self published books’ will stock the self published work of someone with a trad record. It really is all about the brand. It’s the same road; getting to the point where there are enough people out there who trust you to write a good book, who will be confident giving them to their friends to read.

Hybrid is win-win. Hybrid authors have the endorsement of the establishment, they have fans from the normal off line world and they bring them with them. Those fans give the author the momentum to get their books up the listing past the glass ceiling of other authors, amazon book police and jaded, indie author loathing forumites, into the light where the ‘normals’ who are just looking for a book to read, see them. Their trad pub background gives them the golden key onto the review sites and into magazines that ‘won’t accept self published work’ but will from someone with a trad pub background. It’s definitely where I want to be.

In short, the way I see it is this.

If you’re a hybrid, you get to keep the cash and sell without the prejudice.
If you’re trad published you get to sell without the prejudice but there’s less cash to keep.
If you self publish you get to keep the cash but you earn less because until you’re seriously established, everyone you approach will assume that your work is sub standard, poorly edited crap.

It’s a conundrum. Hmm… would knowing what I look like help?

: See how trustworthy I am.

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Tagged as advice from writers, an author with children, approaching agents, author blog, author choices, author parent, book marketing, e-publishing, Finding an agent, K'Barthan Series, M T McGuire, Other Creatives, writers

1 Sep 2013 · 9:17 am

Here’s to embracing my inner tortoise. Hello Mr Hare, would you like to try some Mogadon?

Hello and today it’s time for a rant. It’s the end of August. Tomorrow it’s back to zero sales, the brown band of shame will be mocking me from my KDP reports page. I’ve long since abandoned hope of selling a single book anywhere but Amazon – despite my best efforts.

You know, I believe you can make your own luck. Except that I also know that, in reality, the only thing you can control in your life is the way you react to what happens. But I think that if you can delude yourself you are in control, you’ll probably make a better fist of it.

On to my books, or significant lack thereof. One of the many things I’m doing wrong, not writing a book every month. Instead, I’d like to share my frustration, if I may, at my complete inability to do… well… anything. Because if the Not Very Good Club of Great Britain hadn’t become so successful that it was no longer not very good any more and had to shut own, I’d put forward my online bookselling skills as my reason to join.

You see, my books have stopped selling. For the last two months I’ve made one sale. Thank you, whoever you are. Obviously, this is my fault but the more I read around to see what I can do to improve, the more obvious it becomes that the thing you need in self publishing, on top of talent, in abundance, is time. So that’s me fucked. I seldom have 2 hours a day to write, let along to do social media.

Time, for me, is up there with unicorn shit.

So, writing a book takes a long time. Seriously though, I’m particularly short of time at the moment, there’s been no social networking, I’ve not sorted any reviews and the sales free months do point to a correlation between doing those things and er… not. Oh dear, so, interfacing with my readers. Mmm… there’s a box left un-ticked.

While we’re at it. Another piece of frequently given advice. Write what sells. So that’s vampire novels, erotica and thrillers.

Oh bollocks. Double jeapordy – a quote from the Constant Gardener there (check me, I’m highbrow). The fact is I can make more money writing corporate puff so if I want to write something I’m not really fired up to write, I’ll write web copy, thank you very much.

So… what can I learn by picking through the twisted girders and dust that comrpise the Ground Zero of my literary aspirations?

Thing 1: Don’t start with a trilogy, not right off the blocks. Trilogies are really hard to write because basically, what you’re looking at is a 400,000 word book. That’s like telling your cookery teacher, at your first lesson, that you won’t cook jam tarts, you’ll cook that thing with the smoke and the iPod to listen to that Heston Blumental serves.

It’s hard to keep track of who has done what, when and to whom, in a book, especially when it’s 400,000 words long. If you are bringing up a small child at the same time – which, as anyone who has attempted it knows – is the equivalent of having your brains stirred, constantly with a giant wooden spoon, it’s monumentally stupid. The more you have to remember, the longer it takes to get back into it again when you stop. Which I have to. A lot.

The secret then, is to write lots of shorter stories. If I hadn’t published the first one in blind panic, afraid that I’d be last to market, that’s what I’d have done. Ah. Never mind. It’s a good plan. One I fully intend to exploit when I finish this wretched trilogy. So, my own advice, write short things and for the love of God, if you must write a trilogy out of the gate and don’t publish ANY of it until it’s FINISHED. yes, I published my first book in 2010. I should have been publishing it next year.

Write a series if you must, but go for stand alone books. Trust me on this one, Aunty MT has well and truly stuffed this up so that you don’t have to.

Then there’s the working hard thing. The fact is, I am a stay at home Mum and I write… well, actually I write because I can’t not. That’s why I call myself an authorholic; because it’s like a bad crack habit. If I worked at it like a job, 9 – 5 it would probably take me a bout 6 months to write each book, which is lucky because doing the Mum thing I have much less time than that. So to find the ‘six months’ required takes me about 2 years. Not feasible for a publisher then.

Even so, it seems sensible to do something with the crap I spew out, and so I get it professionally edited, get ritzy covers done and then I publish it myself. I hope to succeed, no, scratch that, I hope to write a book that is so good it will succeed on its own merits. Hey, I actually KNOW I’ve written a decent book but heaven knows, though I give it my all, I’m piss poor at selling the bloody thing. Let’s qualify that, I can sell it to random strangers on the street, at social events, signings etc but online? Nah.

Which brings me neatly onto the social networking aspect. OK I have a smart phone now so Twitter is easier but bloody hell. How do these people do it? Write a well conceived, sensibly thought out blog post every day while being a full time carer or a full time parent and publish books on top. Jeez. I’m in awe. I’m floored. Hats off folks you deserve to succeed. I just… I mean… how is it possible?

There is a way around social networking hell. Skim, drop in the odd post, queue up lots of blog posts when you have the time. Put a timer on it – an hour, morning and evening, say and hey that’s a couple of hours left to write. However, I still find that exploiting social media (sod exploiting it, it exploits me, let’s be realistic, I’m just talking about getting the ruddy stuff to work) takes hours longer than it should. Hours. A commodity I do not have. Me, I’ve done it all wrong. I’ve made friends on line and now I spend my time talking to them. Hmm….

Having had my rant, I have to say, I’m at peace with my choice. But sometimes I feel slightly put upon, as if I am being judged for trying to write and sell my own books and have a life at the same time. But I have family and sometimes there are crises, or people are ill and they need me. Then there’s the annoying fact that I need more than 4 hours sleep a night and just… don’t have the time to pack everything into my day. But I can’t give it up. I know hard work is the answer but not at the expense of the people I love. And I know that, sure as eggs are eggs, while I strive to succeed, I am competing with people who have probably written a better book than I, who have the whole sodding day and… well… let’s say my stuff is less likely to make it big.

I’m an ex marketing manager, I know how to promote stuff and I’d say I’m quite placid and relaxed but, sometimes, even I find it hard to take the realisation that even if I cracked it with a really good novel, the difference between success and failure is, above everything, to do with the time I do not have.

So, let’s cling to the belief that I’ll manage to buck the trend; prove to the world that you can succeed in slow motion. Because lord knows that’s the only possible chance I have. I don’t begrudge anyone their success. I appreciate how hard they must have worked for it, but the fact that I do what I do in a very short day, and everything stops in school holidays, doesn’t make me any less committed, or serious. Although it might make me a bit more frustrated.

The fact is, you can set yourself deadlines but if Real Life gets too hectic you have to re-evaluate; the deadlines have to give.

Here’s to embracing my inner tortoise. Hello Mr Hare, would you like to try a Mogadon?

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8 Apr 2013 · 9:00 pm

Treasure hunting. Naval gazing.

It’s the school holidays so work on my book has stopped for a week or two while McMini and I do stuff.

Today was particularly good. We went round to some friends; mine and his. The weather was lovely, we sat on the leeward side of the house, in the warm, out of the wind, and while the kids played together we had a gossip. Then, as their house is 14th Century I thought I’d have a go with my metal detector.

Despite owning it a while, I seem to be taking a terribly long time to get the hang of actual metal detecting. All the permissions etc required take time and so far, I haven’t got round to it. This has made it tricky, well, illegal actually, for me to practise outside my own garden. And therein lies the problem. The detector does several different tones of beep for different metals. However, in my garden it usually gets all the beeps in a single sweep. It makes it rather tricky to pinpoint any of the beeps individually or work out where to dig. Added to my severe lack of experience and you have a recipe for if not disaster then, very slim pickings. All that had come to light, before this morning, was one old nail and I was cock-a-hoop to find that.

However, today I finally felt I might be getting the hang of it. Just like my garden, it was a case, not so much of failing to find anything, as finding too many signals. Three or four different tones on one swing and no obvious indication as to where to dig. The truth dawned that it is not my garden that’s full of rubbish – well it is, I’ve never dug up so much aluminium foil but I digress. Where was I? Ah yes. The truth hit me that metal detecting isn’t walk, walk walk beep, ah yes, dig here, indeed it is clear that my garden is the norm rather than the exception.

So, clearly, I realised, it might be smart to filter out some of the beeps. I played with the settings and chose ‘coins’ because that cut out about half the spectrum including iron, which, frankly, seems to be in most things. I get signals for iron off everything, even the sodding grass. Thinking that there was bound to be the odd coin lying about and at least I’d start to get the hang, not only of finding things, but also of actually digging them out.

The machine reported some coppers – it’s American so it suggested they were 1c pieces but let’s not split hairs. They were pure signals, no interference, so I was able to pinpoint them fairly quickly and dig. So have I found a gold sovereign? Have I been like the blokes at my club who turned up last week with Edward II coins, coins from the reign of King John, Saxon beads and other amazingly ancient things? Am I like the guy who arrived the month before with an Iceni gold coin?

Well… er… no.

After digging two enormous holes in her lawn I came up with well… yes, two coins. They weren’t old, they were pennies, not even pennies, one pence pieces from 1971 and 1979, respectively.

For some reason this caused both of us an insane amount of mirth. Even so, both of us admitted to feeling a slight frisson of excitement that the machine had beeped, that we’d dug and that we’d managed to get something out. Even if it was only 1p.

That’s the thing, isn’t it? Success is relative. If I’d been using a metal detector for the last twenty years I’d be expecting to turn up some pretty good stuff. But I haven’t. This is the third time. I went there hoping that I might learn how to find a metal thing and successfully dig it up. So while today’s er… can I call it a haul? was laughable in most respects, I think I might actually have gained that knowledge. Job done then, right?

Food for thought.

Where does writing come in you ask? Well, here’s a short list of THINGS about my books:

I’ve written two books and I’m writing another one. That’s something I never thought I’d achieve.
There’s a chance they might be good books.
People who have read them often like them. Some people like them a lot.
People like the covers… and the merchandise.
Are people buying the books? Are they buffalo?

What worries me? What do I dwell on the whole time? Number five. Because the other four, they make it look as if the K’Barthan Trilogy is a quality product that should walk off the shelves. But it doesn’t, and it isn’t. I don’t know if that’s my fault or if I’m deluded or whether it’s just a reflection of the difficulty of the market and if I think about any of that stuff I will be undone. That way madness lies.

What the metal detecting thing has taught me is that, actually, I’ve done quite well and that maybe I should concentrate on being happier with things 1-4 and on what I want to do next. In other words, I want to find something a bit more interesting than a one pence piece with my metal detector, but until I’ve gained the skill to locate one of those with a reasonable level of consistency, I probably won’t.

In short, when it comes to selling books, no-one really seems to know what works. So all an author can do is show people where to find them, or tell them – where permitted – and hope someone, somewhere will pick up on them. Because the only thing that’s really going to sell your book, ever is readers, who love it, telling their friends. So, let me leave you with the seven golden rules of happy authordom;

Write, as much as you can. Write, to pick yourself up. Even if you can’t think of anything to write, write something. Because every authorholic needs authorhol, and when you’ve written it, get it edited, honed and primped until it’s the best you can possibly achieve. You owe yourself a decent product.
Avoid checking your sales figures more than once a week it’ll only depress you.
Avoid any places where authors who sell hundreds of books a month hang out, because you may find them complaining that their sales are piss poor almost as often as you do, that’ll make you want to weep. Also avoid the it-can-happen-to-you-too stories. It might but it probably won’t. Accept that and don’t beat yourself up.
Try not to be disheartened if you discover that the only place you can persuade anyone to buy any of your books from is Amazon.
Avoid going to forums to sell your book except in specifically designated areas. Go there to chat. If people like you and you’re lucky, they might buy your book eventually but nothing’s less appealing to them than a hard sell.
Always remember that behind every overnight success are usually several decades of hard work.
Remember that the only thing that will sell your books, ever, is readers who have loved them, banging on and on about them to their friends.

There you go.

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8 Oct 2012 · 8:40 am

Few Are Chosen by Awesome Indies but they chose Few Are Chosen!

Booyacka! Few Are Chosen has made it onto Awesome Indies. If you’re wondering why this is such a big deal, just go to their home page and check out the criteria. Mwah ha ha ha hargh!

Baasically, what this means is that to people with professional qualifications in creative writing, the quality of my book is pretty much indistinguishable from something put out by the big six. A cracking endorsement to have. I am very, very happy! Thank you Awesome Indies.

New Additions: young adult fantasy, humorous fantasy & a supernatural thriller.

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22 Jul 2012 · 3:13 pm

I’ve got my mojo working baby and I’m gonna try it out on you…

Er… eventually.

I’ve been agonising about my career choice; mother versus writer. There are aspects to the two that clash (like all of them, mwah ha ha hargh). But the fact is, it’s not just finding the time to write that poses a problem. Being an Author is like any other job. There are bits you’re good at and bits you’re not so good at; aspects you love and aspects you dislike. But as an author I stake my professional integrity on the stuff I put out and getting the bits I’m not so good at wrong could be seriously risky.

Clearly the happiest author is going to be the one who writes full time but unless you’re Sir Terence, with the might of Transworld behind you, that’s not realistically possible. Actually even Sir Terry has to do other stuff.

However, happiness really is a state of mind. And more to the point, none of the other scary stuff; the marketing, for example, and the grammar – or the grim business of reasearching and approaching the various gatekeepers who are going to throw your manuscript in the bin and tell you to piss off. None of that is going to go away.

So, I’ve been a bit blue lately. My perfectly acceptable (two years ago) punctuation is now unacceptable and because I’m a self published author it’s no good arguing – as both my editors do – that it’s consistent. Sure if you’ve a contract with Orion or somebody, the indie bashers will merely ‘disagree’ with your approach but if you’re M T McGuire, self-published nobody, they will consider it ‘wrong’ and review accordingly. So my book’s going in for a third edit.

That’s why I haven’t written anything on here. Because, I was beginning to wonder if I should try to continue being an author, or at least publishing my efforts. Yes, yes, I admit it, an artistic hissy fit, but it all felt very real to me – like I’d really lost my mojo – and what can you say about feeling like that? Nothing interesting or constructive that’s for sure.

Then I realised that anyone, in any job, is going to feel a bit pants about what they do from time to time. The trick is to ditch the negative aspect that’s bugging you for a day or two – even if you have a deadline – and concentrate on an aspect of your work that you’re good at.

So, in my case, that would be the actual nitty-gritty of writing the story. Except that it’s the end of term, there’s lots on and I’ve been rather strapped for time to write. So my usual negativity cancellation technique has been an epic fail.

While I was wondering what else I could do to get the feel good factor back, the answer cropped up totally unexpectedly; at toddler group. There I was, with McMini, and I ran into a fan. Someone who I didn’t know – one of the dads – who had read my books. And he sidled up to me, shyly, nervously even, took a deep breath and told me he’d loved my books and couldn’t wait until the third one came out. And he used things like my name and the word ‘talented’ in the same sentence. And I thanked him – from approximately 40,000 feet up because I was flying. And suddenly even though I was looking down the barrel of the summer holidays – which, while a delight in most ways, does present a daunting eight week moratorium on all writing – McWorld was McRight again.

It’s things like that which make all the scary I-could-get-this-so-wrong-and-destroy-my-reputation-for-ever side of publishing your own work worth it. And then I read this post and it got me thinking.

My cyber buddie Mr Will Macmillan Jones. It’s in his honour that I’ve used a jazz lyric for a post title… that and the fact it made me laugh. Mr Macmillan Jones is a fellow humorous fantasy author; Mancunian, exciled to Wales and driver of a slightly more plutochratic but similarly stupid car as myself, he does a lot of book signings. Now, OK he’s a proper author because he has a real live publisher, not one actually, two – I swear he’s made some kind of pact with the devil – but I digress.

Anyway, he does a lot of book signings. As I understand it, he rings a branch of Waterstones, introduces himself and blags them into letting him spend an afternoon in their shop, with a big pile of books, flogging them to unwary customers. I think it scared him quite badly at first but it’s abundantly clear that he’s become rapidly addicted. Like delivering a good stand up set, it clearly gives him a buzz.

Now, on the one hand, the idea of doing signings fills me with toe curling, buttock clenching fear – and I don’t have time to do more than about five a year anyway. On the other, I’m an ex stand up comedienne so I really should be able to handle it and anyway, it’s not so bad, is it? After all, I only have time to do about five a year.

Furthermore, I’ve sold 200 copies of Few Are Chosen over the past year simply by having a copy in my handbag so that if people ask me what I do I can say, ‘This.’ And show it to them.

In other words, though the prospect of doing signings scares me, the chances are I might enjoy it. I might even do it reasonably well – or, certainly, be better at it than I am at selling e-books. I may not have sold as many via the handbag as I have via the web but my handbag hit rate is a lot higher, I can tell you.

Signings also get you into the real world. OK, don’t tell anyone this but believe it or not, out there in the normal, non-scary world beyond Amazon, people still quite like authors.

There is one small problem. I’ve only written two books. It’s not enough, but come next year, when I’ll have written three… and it’ll be a trilogy… THAT’S when it might be smart to look at signings. In earnest.

Right, so, if any of you are still awake, the conclusions I’ve come to for happy authordom are as follows.

1. Write as many books as you can, GOOD BOOKS mind you, as fast as is humanely possible without letting your quality standards drop.
2. Do the Lightning Source thing and get them into the wholesalers or get a publisher so it’s really easy for both independents and chains to order them.
3. Do signings.
4. Publicise them. Do press releases and send them round to local newspapers where you’re going to appear – pimms media guide or similar in your local library will have a list with contacts. Or ask the manager of the shop you’re going to for any press contacts they have. Many will be happy to help – they’re as keen as you are to sell lots of books, after all.
5. Do schools events – I’m not sure how, as yet, but I’m sure it’s worth it.
6. Get in touch with your local literary/library officers if you can.
7. Make post cards and other promotional items and leave them wherever you go – here are some examples.
8. Take a copy of your book with you, wherever you go and if people ask you what you do, don’t be shy, whip it out and show them (phnark).

I’m not saying I’ve applied my plan – apart from the postcards and the taking my books about – but when book three is in the bag, I will have to seriously get my finger out. There’s no chance of intensive signings, not on Saturdays but I think I should be able to swing some. So I think I’ve found… well… if not my mojo then a plan and now that I have a plan, even if I have to wait 18 months or so – hnur hnur hnur hnurrrgh – I’m gonna try it out on you.

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Tagged as advice from writers, author blog, author choices, book marketing, creative book marketing, e-publishing, marketing a book, Other Creatives

20 May 2010 · 8:52 pm

Taking the plunge

Having discovered the lovely Smashwords is going to charge witholding tax I have been feeling, for some time, that my plan to e-publish my book has been a bit well… to put not too fine a point on it, pissed on. Now though, I have a plan.

So, here’s the deal. I’m going to serialise my e-book for free, starting the last week in July. Anyone who gets bored reading the instalments can buy a copy of the e-book in advance for £2.50 or, if they really want to push the boat out, they can buy a paperback. Incidentally, the free, serialised, e-book will always be available. My aim is to get it printed for a price that will allow me to sell it for £7.99 and send it anywhere in the world for a tenner!

Terrestrially (is that the right word) I’ll try to sell the paperback locally, my local book shops, a signing, publicity in the local papers, radio and if I could swing it, TV, e-mails to friends, family, clubs etc. The angle being stay at home parent with two year old writes and self-publishes book – might add NCT or the like to the list for press releases then.

I’ve thought about Amazon but because they demand you sell it half price I’d have to list it at £15.99 in order to sell it for a reasonable amount and leave room for costs an their cut, let alone actually earn anything from it. It all seems to be a bit artificial to me.

So there we go, that’s the plan… I took a big breath and sent off for the ISBNs today… one for each format of the serialised e-book, one for each format of the sold e-book and one for the paperback.

And yes, it’s a lot of money all this printing and isbns and gubbins and I could end up looking a real idiot. It’s sort of daunting and yet quite exciting too.

On a lighter note, scion pointed at my Dr Who mug today and, unprompted, shouted “Darlick”.

I did tell him what a Dalek was – when he was about 5 months old at any rate – but I don’t remember mentioning it since. Even so, clearly it went in.

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Tagged as an author with children, book marketing, creative book marketing, marketing for unpublished writers, on line publishing options, Other Creatives, writer mum

14 Mar 2010 · 7:43 pm

Blimey!

I’ve had a bit of a pip tonight.

My first freebie short story, Is This Heaven? has had 108 downloads on Smashwords and is linked in two other writer’s profiles. It’s had about 350 hits on Freado/bookbuzr and Scribd but I’m not so sure of the accuracy of their stats… but I digress…

My point is, I put the second short story – Bog Man – onto Smashwords at about 6.00pm last night. I hoped to get a few hits, I thought that if I did it would mean that the people who’d downloaded Is This Heaven liked it and had been waiting for the second one. Well, by the end of the evening 75 people had downloaded it, by 6.00pm today, 86 people had downloaded it, even better, two of them were new readers who liked it so much they downloaded Is This Heaven, too… 7 Smashwords authors have linked to Bog Man in the first 24 hours, too.

Mmm (says a very smug M T). Isn’t that a pip?