I self-publish my novels (not non-fiction) via Authors OnLine, and am pleased with the service they offer. I can discuss how it's worked out for me if anyone's interested.Originally Posted by MrBF1V3
One downside is that you have to do your own marketing. Any advice on the best places to send review copies? I understand that it can be difficult to get self-published books reviewed.
It's pretty much the same deal. A lot of the techniques you can use for marketing a selling work, you can use for a free book. But you also have to keep in mind spam rules on forums like this one, because even though you aren't trying to get money for your work, you are soliciting readers and seeking free advertising for the project.
Tony -- there's only so much time to read things, and a published book, even from a small press, indicates that at least one other person besides you the author liked the novel, so your self-published work is more suspicious and offers less incentive to peruse. But it still may be worth hitting up reviewers and see if you can find one sympathetic. There is a woman who has a blog or site where she specifically reviews self-published novels. Don't remember her name or if she does sff, but you could do a Search and see what you find.
OK, thanks Kat.
She doesn't do SF/F.
Why not put the first chapter in the community here and get that reviewed by everyone, then see if anyone would like to take the rest of the work?
J
Willinglly, although you can actually read it on the publisher's website here: Scales (just click on "sample").
I also recommend that you get your book on books.google.com. People can get a limited preview of it there.
Mine is there.
The whole marketing thing seems to be a minefield, and there doesn't seem to be a lot else to do other than the tried and tested methods.
What seems to be agreed upon by most is that (a) you need to have written a good book and (b) word of mouth is the best marketing you can have.
With this in mind, I'm going to be trying a new tactic. I am going to call it the "chain book" marketing method.
I have a new novel out, just published by a small press. It is out in hardback and comes with a pretty hefty price tag which, personally, I don't think a lot of people are going to pay for someone they've never heard of, published by a press they have never heard of. So how do I get it in the hands of people and then get people talking about it.
I'm going to start leaving copies of it places. I'm going to put a note inside explaining to the finder that the book has been left for them to read. I request that when they are done with it, they leave it with the same note in another public place for someone else.
Is it costly to me? - sure it is - but if it means the book gets read then I'm half way there.
You may well read this and think "Oh, you're gonna lose those books." Agreed, I might, but if the person who picked it up likes it so much they keep it and don't pass it on, then I guess I've gained a fan and if they like it that much I'm guessing they'll talk about my book to other people. If they think the book is "just all right" or don't like it, then they'll be more inclined just to pass it on - which is also fine by me - that's the whole intention of the scheme - but again, I've got someone else to read it and that could be someone else who might talk about it.
I'll let you know how it goes!!!
Questor: BookCrossing.com does this for you. There's a booklabel you can use, and there's a way of tracking the books (I think!)
Best of luck.
Hobbit
Mark
Thanks Hobbit.
I was aware of bookcrossing - I'm also going to be pursuing that too. Only thing with that is that you have to know of bookcrossing to get your hands on the books right? - Or at least have the finder log on to the website to understand the whole bookcrossing concept (and even then there's no guarantee that they'll go for it).
I figured if I do some through bookcrossing and some just as "random giveaways" then I've got both avenues covered.
But thanks again for having my back. I appreciate the thought and suggestion.
Questor, you might also find this article to be interesting, on the topic of free-books-as-marketing.
I tend to agree with the premise mentioned there, that the surge in interest via blogs and whatnot is A) hard to measure in terms of concrete results (as is any marketing, really), and B) may only be viable while it's a 'newsworthy' event. However, if you're game for it, it could be an interesting experiment. Let us all know what you find out!
Thanks Radthorne,
Another excellent suggestion and an interesting read. I'd seen Peter Watts book popping up all over the place recently. Who would have thought that it almost didn't get past its first printing.
I was also switched on to what Cory Doctorow was doing by a friend of mine who is big into the whole issue of copyright. Hey, I guess it must work - I just recently bought a copy of Doctorow's "Overclocked"
Whether I can apply it to my marketing schemes I don't know. My publisher has all the electronic rights to my book so whether they would go for it I don't know (but I can certainly ask). The good news is that the e-rights clause doesn't have to apply to all of my future releases.
Thanks again for your insight and helpfulness. All these things are great to have in your marketing arsenal.
Good luck with your own efforts and your own book!
Regards.
Here is what you're up against if you're promoting your own novel: Lou Anders is chief editor at Pyr and the latest entry on his blog shows what a major publisher can do if they decide to push an author: http://www.louanders.com/2007/04/boo...g-it-real.html.
Just saying.
Brian, what percentage of traditionally-published novels get that kind of treatment?
Ah, Pyr's making their move here. They're going to be the next Tor in a few years. Robson, I believe, has a solid fanbase in Britain going? Anyway, she's got some buzz on the sites, so she's a good bet to do this with.
To answer your question, Tony, it depends. A list like Pyr is going to do more per title, where they can, because they're new, they're trying to make a splash and get a sales surge going to carry them into next season, and because while they have some money from their big trade partner, their distribution isn't probably yet as big as the main sff imprints.
A smaller press, like Nightshade, can't do this because they don't yet have the cash. But they can make a push behind one or two lead titles each month, and they can get creative. If Bantam Spectra then comes and buys up titles for reprints, or at least signs up their authors for the next book, that helps them out a lot, and they'll do more publicity on those authors, since they are becomming better known.
In the big houses, they do it by hierarchy. There's the lead title for the month, and the two supplementary leads. Then there is the second tier, then there's the target books -- books that they aren't expecting to be leading sellers, but are willing to try to do something funky with the marketing for, because they think it will particularly appeal to a sub-audience. And then there's the rest of the list for the month. So the big publicity moves might be done on 20-40% of the titles for the month. The paperback original mid-listers on the bottom who are still building up their audiences might not have an in-house publicist, or might have one who handles a group of books and does only standard basics, or might get special attention to help fill out display riders and such. It just depends on what they are doing at the time, which is due to numerous factors.
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