Well, word of mouth, obviously. But apart from that, do you know what I've found is the most effective, the most sure-fire way to bring your writing to the attention of new readers?
Release new titles!
I know it's a radical idea. Authors should be facetwitting and myblogging and yousharing until the world sits up and takes notice, but it doesn't hurt to put some of that effort into ... you know ... writing new stuff. (I'm as guilty of this as anyone. I head off to a few favourite sites, and two hours later I'm still viewing mildly amusing pics, updating my signature on writing forums and rearranging the cover art on my website.)
This month has seen a 50% bump in my ebook sales, from a fairly healthy daily average. Did I take out adverts, upload a new trailer, run a new competition or spam my my long-suffering twitter and facebook acquaintances? No, I just put the first chapter of my upcoming novel on my website, and mentioned it a couple of times in passing.
Today I put the second chapter up, and I more-or-less decided to add a new chapter every day until the ebook is released. The ebook should be out in 10 days, and the book has 35 chapters. There's a nice ticking clock for you ;-)
I'm not saying the free chapter is entirely to blame for the increased attention. In the past 30 days I released the second book in my junior science fiction series (ebook and print), published a collection of my short stories (ebook and print), reissued the Hal Spacejock novels in new print editions across Europe and the US, and also swapped out the temporary ebook covers for newer artwork which more accurately reflects the contents. (These covers are still works in progress. That's the beauty of ebook publishing, although I can hear the pros choking on their bikkies over that one.)
I also released two new stories and published one reprint.
But last month I also managed to write a 30,000 word junior novel, and today I bashed out 2000 words of Hal Spacejock book 6. This is the opening chapter, and I'm so keen to write this book I can hardly wait to finish this blog post and get back to it.
Sorry kids, takeway for dinner again ... Dad has a book to write!
Simon Haynes is the author of the Hal Spacejock and Hal Junior series (Amazon / Smashwords / other formats)
3 comments:
I'm gonna guess your kids will urge you to keep writing so they can eat takeaway all the time! ;o)
Noted. And Thank you.
Word-of-mouth rules when it comes to marketing fiction! In times of social-media it means more than any other type of promotion, and it's fun and rewarding in the process as well.
Nothing beats networking with others and gaining new readership and allies. :)
Wish you the best, Simon!
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