Marketing

I'm going to reply at length to Tyler's comment on my last post, talking about some of the plans I have. I'm not sure how much I am actually going to do.

The main problem I have is actually getting the work done and out. I can this solve by myself. Buckle down! Write! Finish! Get the stories out!

The next step (obviously) is publication. I have enough short stories for five collections. The big New York houses publish almost no short story collections. So I need to go to independent presses. There are a number of these: Night Shade, Tachyon, Golden Griffin, Aqueduct... I have an ongoing relationship with Aqueduct, so I will go there first. However, I have a contract with Aqueduct for the sequel to Ring of Swords, and I need to finish it, before I go to Aqueduct about any other books.

The backup plan is to self publish the collections as e-books and market them via nook and Kindle. Naomi has done this and can talk about what's involved.

There is also the question of my out of print novels. There are four of these, and e-books sound like the right solution. It's possible I can find an independent press willing to do the work. If not, I can do it myself with help. I don't know HTML. But there are people who will turn a book into an e-book for not too much money. Again, Naomi knows more about this than I do.

Once I have books available, I can think about marketing. What I'm doing now is watching what other people do.

I said I don't think things like bookmarks and post cards and refrigerator magnets don't help much. However, they don't cost a lot, and they are fun. I have one of Kelly's magnets up on my refrigerator, and I am always happy to get bookmarks. I'm using one of Lyda's right now.

The key thing, I think, is to pay attention to how much marketing is costing you in money and time. As a fun sideline, it's okay. But if it sucks resources better put into writing, pull back.

The late Joel Rosenberg gave me wonderful advice once. He said, "Most of what happens in publishing is outside our control. We need to focus on what we can control, which is getting the writing done and out."