When Sue told me, “The difference between an unknown writer and a successful writer is discovery”, I wasn’t paying much attention. If you must know, I was thinking about SCREAM QUEENS, the television show, and Sue had already revealed she was one episode ahead of me – so I had to ask her to repeat what she’d said.
She repeated her line, adding the obvious: there are more writers publishing every day, some good, some bad, all the flavors in-between, and the most successful authors aren’t necessarily the most talented of the bunch. The popular writers are the ones who promoted themselves most effectively. They are the ones who are getting discovered by readers.
I knew Sue was absolutely right, but why was she telling me? She already knows that book promotion is my kryptonite. I largely avoid the whole social media thing. My idea of promotion is…well, this tiny website.
“If you want Sixth Brother to get noticed, you have to get it out there,” Sue told me.
“I told people when it came out!” It was pretty much one entire blog post. Plus, shortly after publication, Amazon sent me an unexpected email, asking if I wanted to let my fans know about the new story. I wrote up a short message about the series and sent it to the Powers That Be. I still don’t know what they did with it. But something, certainly. Unlike me, Amazon is all about the social media thing.
As far as I was concerned, we were doing okay. Sixth Brother recently received its first review; and thank you, wonderful person whoever you are, for being good enough to share your thoughts, it meant a lot. Plus, our mailing list grows by a few more subscribers every week. Score!
“Score?” Sue looked amazed I was happy about this. “I mean, good about the mailing list, I guess. But there’s so much more for you to do. The least, the very least you can do, is to add your book listing to your own website.”
“Oh.”
I knew then that Sue had done something I hadn’t, not for months: she’d checked Books and Such, the second page on this site. Focusing on my weekly blog post, I’d mostly forgotten the Books page.
It turns out, I’d also forgotten to add 6th Bro’ to our list of publications. Then I discovered I hadn’t added Belle, Book and Kendall when it came out, or Twisted Games when it arrived, either. I’d also forgotten to show the translated pieces we have out there. I’d somehow neglected to show the six shorter pieces we have for sale in places that aren’t Amazon-centric.
So Sue was right. No score.
It had been so long since I’d visited Books and Such, I’d forgotten how to add new listings. So I swore to do better, rolled up my sleeves, and got to work. Struggling to make things come together, even though Weebly is a simple drag-and-drop system, it took me 135 minutes to place just two of the missing titles on the page. Dividing the page took ages and, even when it finally worked, I didn’t quite know how it happened. When I tried to add the next two titles, everything got screwed up again.
So I abandoned the project and went to watch SCREAM QUEENS on DVR, instead.
I have to get better at this.
She repeated her line, adding the obvious: there are more writers publishing every day, some good, some bad, all the flavors in-between, and the most successful authors aren’t necessarily the most talented of the bunch. The popular writers are the ones who promoted themselves most effectively. They are the ones who are getting discovered by readers.
I knew Sue was absolutely right, but why was she telling me? She already knows that book promotion is my kryptonite. I largely avoid the whole social media thing. My idea of promotion is…well, this tiny website.
“If you want Sixth Brother to get noticed, you have to get it out there,” Sue told me.
“I told people when it came out!” It was pretty much one entire blog post. Plus, shortly after publication, Amazon sent me an unexpected email, asking if I wanted to let my fans know about the new story. I wrote up a short message about the series and sent it to the Powers That Be. I still don’t know what they did with it. But something, certainly. Unlike me, Amazon is all about the social media thing.
As far as I was concerned, we were doing okay. Sixth Brother recently received its first review; and thank you, wonderful person whoever you are, for being good enough to share your thoughts, it meant a lot. Plus, our mailing list grows by a few more subscribers every week. Score!
“Score?” Sue looked amazed I was happy about this. “I mean, good about the mailing list, I guess. But there’s so much more for you to do. The least, the very least you can do, is to add your book listing to your own website.”
“Oh.”
I knew then that Sue had done something I hadn’t, not for months: she’d checked Books and Such, the second page on this site. Focusing on my weekly blog post, I’d mostly forgotten the Books page.
It turns out, I’d also forgotten to add 6th Bro’ to our list of publications. Then I discovered I hadn’t added Belle, Book and Kendall when it came out, or Twisted Games when it arrived, either. I’d also forgotten to show the translated pieces we have out there. I’d somehow neglected to show the six shorter pieces we have for sale in places that aren’t Amazon-centric.
So Sue was right. No score.
It had been so long since I’d visited Books and Such, I’d forgotten how to add new listings. So I swore to do better, rolled up my sleeves, and got to work. Struggling to make things come together, even though Weebly is a simple drag-and-drop system, it took me 135 minutes to place just two of the missing titles on the page. Dividing the page took ages and, even when it finally worked, I didn’t quite know how it happened. When I tried to add the next two titles, everything got screwed up again.
So I abandoned the project and went to watch SCREAM QUEENS on DVR, instead.
I have to get better at this.
RSS Feed
