Tuesday, February 22, 2011

Shameless Self-Promotion

It's Tuesday, that means that there's a new installment in my continuing pre-prequel fiction over at my LJ.

From time to time, we have an argument of sorts here at the Wyrdsmiths blog about the author's role in book promotion. It's not a real argument because, technically, I tend to agree with those who say that an author really can't do much to significantly boost their sales. I do think getting the word out helps. Whether my efforts to send bookmarks to romance conferences with 40 attendees in Boise or clever tweets can actually boost me from mid-list to superstar isn't really in question. (It can't.)

But it does seem to work for some people on some level, and I always end up wondering by what magic is that done? I'm particularly concerned right now because, as you perhaps may have heard, I have a small press book coming out in the middle of March. (Actually two, since I'm a contributor to WHEDONISTAS, as well.) I feel like I've been telling people about RESURRECTION CODE since the day I signed the contract, but just the other day I got a note from a friend on Facebook who seemed genuinely surprised that there would be a new book in the AngeLINK series.

What am I doing wrong?

I've got less than a month to get the word out. Ideas?

5 comments:

Paul Weimer said...

I don't know.

Debut author Kameron Hurley was recently wondering aloud on twitter if her outreach efforts, in the end, actually made any real difference to the bottom line of sales.

Kelly McCullough said...

I started a response to this, but it got so long I turned it into a post. It should go up a little before noon.

tate hallaway said...

Kelly, yay! More cross talk!!

Also, I should say that I just put in a call for the Big Idea on Scalzi's blog and donated a .pdf of this book to the "Con or Bust" charity.

Fingers crossed.

Shawn Enderlin said...

Your discussion inspired a blog about how I think the question is changing from "is it worth it" to "how do you do it effectively."

http://bit.ly/g0GgkQ

Jon said...

I think Scalzi's blog is a good place to show up. He really seems to have a wide audience.