IWSG, Must I Corset?

Welcome to another installment of the Insecure Writer's Support Group conceived by illustrious Ninja Captain, Alex J. Cavanaugh! Our Twitter hashtag is #IWSG

I'm not sure I can do this cosplay thing...

As you all may know, I am currently two books deep into a Steampunk trilogy. I LOVED H.G. Wells and Jules Verne as a kid and have always lost myself in this type of story. The what if and elegant inventions. Writing in a genre I have always admired is a DREAM!!

But the other day I was talking with a friend of mine about going to a conference as a vendor to offer my book and maybe connect with other lovers of the genre and she asked me if I was going to dress up.

I was confused... "Like, wear a suit?" I asked her.

No, it turns out that she thought I might go all steampunk'd out to the conference since the GearCon's and Gaslight Gatherings celebrate dressing up and cosplay. I knew that attendants did this, but vendors?

In fact she showed me some blogs of other steampunk authors and they are all dressed in period/world attire.

Panic Cat demonstrating my expression.

Panic set in. I'm not sure I can do a corset and not manage to fall all over myself. 

I want to look professional...like an author...not like one of my characters. I mean, I have never seen Stephen King dressed up as Pennywise or Cassandra Clare dressed as a Shadow Hunter.

I write Gothic Mystery also and have never had cause to be all 'ghosty' or whatever.

Not sure what to do. Is this something I should be worried about? Is there a compromise...perhaps some sort of 'nod' to the devices in my book that I can have displayed instead?

Help!!

Kill Me Now! - "K"

K is for Kill me now... the feeling of wishing the ground would swallow you up.

The unattended book signing.This is a major fear for almost every writer.  I know it terrifies the dickens out of me. I've seen this happen and it looks painful.  


To ease the pain, mystery author, Parnell Hall has a funny video out about it:



Here are some tips to make your book signing a success:

• 7 Tips For A Successful Book Signing
• Writing World also has a helpful article.
• Writer's Relief site has a great post on the practical side of book signings.

With a lot of sales now coming from the digital market, do you think that book signings are still important?  Would you go and meet a favorite author if they had one near you?

Until next time...Go Write!

Photograph by KH Rawlings.

Business Cards or Book Marks...Postcards?

Did you know that there are chocolate business cards?  I did not know this. Apparently you can get your name carved on almost anything.


I'm currently reading a lot about book marketing. One of the things that keeps coming up is the book promotion paraphernalia.  I'm talking about bookmarks, postcards, business cards...things you can give to bookstores as bag stuffers or hand out at libraries.


There seems to be a lot of  talk in the blog-o-sphere about what is old news and what is hot in terms of marketing tools right now.


For instance, there is the business card.  It can come in all sorts of forms from weird origami contraptions to thin sticky notes. The possibilities are endless...just look at one of the sites I found.  Pretty, yes, but are they effective?   I have no idea.  


Then there is the postcard.  A bigger space for your book cover and blurb...but I'm worried people will just toss these.  And they're more expensive than business cards, yet are ideal for mailing to prospective bookstores.  So there's that.


Bookmarks are the tried and true go-to marketing tool for writers. I used to work in a bookstore and we were constantly stuffing bags with bookmarks of the latest release. They're useful and practical. People do use them for their own books and they're inexpensive.


My question is which is more effective?  Have you bought a book based on a postcard or a bookmark?  Let me know what you think.


Until next time...Go Write!
Photograph by Googlisti.

Digital Dose And The Twitter-Sphere

A lot happened this week in the Twitter-sphere. I'm here to give the highlights I found helpful as a writer. 


We start of with a post from guest blogger and author, Mary DeMuth, over at Rachelle Gardner's Rants and Rambles on 10 Ways To Be Awkward at a Writer's Conference. This is a hilarious tongue-in-cheek list that exhorts you to "Be a Stalker" and to be sure to "Get Visibly Angry" at rejection. Some helpful stuff couched in humor.


Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Christian publishing giant, Thomas Nelson Publishers had a great post on Defending Your Brand Online. This is especially helpful to speakers and non-fiction writers. Amazing how a bad experience with you can snowball into thousands hearing about it via blogs and Twitter. His best piece of advice: Respond quickly.  Take that to heart.


For those of you with impending book releases or who are set to sign contracts, there are were two awesome Tweets to help with marketing. Alexis Grant had a post on How To Write a Press Release For Your Book and Weronika Janczuk wrote an eye opening piece on What Your Publicist Can Do For You.


Over all a great week to garner information for building a platform, working the marketing end of publishing your book, and honing your net-savvy. For a lot of authors, the business, especially the techie-side, of publishing can be intimidating but there are sources out there...take a peek.


Until next time...Go Write!
Photograph by Vancouver Film School.

Marketing *Gulp* and the Writer

I used to think that getting a publishing contract was the finish line. The publishing house takes care of the rest, right? According to many writers and agents out there this is wrong…so, so wrong.

So when I think about marketing my *fingers crossed* future books I try not to get too overwhelmed. There are a lot of agent and editor blogs out there that have wonderful ideas for marketing your book once you get published. Instead of lamenting the fact that I don’t have use for them yet…I collect them, categorize them, pysch myself up with the idea of me doing them. In that vein, I thought I'd share a bit of my insanity with you all today.

Chip Macgregor wrote a great article called The Hidden Cost of Social Networking. In it, he explains that Facebook and Blogging are all well and good, but if they don’t create book sales then you’re wasting your time. Web presence is nice, but there is much more work that a writer must do. There are some great suggestions you can, and are expected to do, yourself.

• First you need to educate yourself. Read a marketing book and come up with a plan you intend to implement. This is really great when talking to agents at conferences. It shows you are serious about the business side of publishing.

• Pitch yourself to local radio stations and give them segment ideas. Does your story revolve around a current controversy, event, or breaking news?

• Regional magazines often do reviews of local authors, offer them an incentive like a signed copy for a contest.

• If you’re having a book signing, call not only the local papers, but the free community readers. Print up inserts for bulletins and bookmarks for libraries, coffee shops, and other venues willing to promote book signings by a local.

• Online community calendars sell advertisement space, and you can put in your book signing date and a link to your book website.

• Go and physically visit your local book stores. Get to know the owners or managers and let them know that not only is your book coming out, but you’d love to come in and sign some.

• Create press releases and send them to local events, like Renaissance Faires, Comic book conventions, etc…anything that includes people that are into your genre.

• Go to conferences and build relationships; this is a key item on any writer’s marketing list.

• Promote your book on Goodreads.com. It offers an amazing opportunity not only for unpublished authors to set up a profile page, but for published authors to set up links to their website, upload signing events, do giveaways, and even book trailers.

Writing the novel isn't the end of the journey, but the good news is that there are a lot of ideas and strategies that we can use to make sure all our hard work ends in sales success.  Do you have any ideas to share? How have you prepared for your own success story?

Until next time...Go Write!

Photograph by David Boyle. Photgraph by A. Germain. Photograph by rintakumpu.

Y is for Yelling Into the Ether

When I was a young girl, I was out driving with my mom during a rainstorm. We were trying to get back home from the grocery store in our VW bus. Living on an island, the storms sometimes turned furious in a matter of minutes. Of course...we broke down and when we got out to walk to a nearby store, I could see my mother's lips moving, in a grimace from yelling, but all could hear was the pounding of the rain on my hood and the roofs around us.

Blogging reminds me of this sometimes. Yelling into a tumult, trying to get your voice heard...It can sometimes be quite frustrating. As a writer, I'm supposed to have a platform. I'm not published yet, and I write fiction...what could I possibly have to offer to the raging blizzard of words out there?

There are a lot of very good websites for getting a grasp on the inner workings of promotion. Aside from what your publisher will do; set up radio interviews, etc. There is a great site called Marketing Tips for Authors. For those poets out there, WordTech has an excellent tip sheet for getting your poems seen.  Marketing professional Amber Naslund over at Altitude Branding has a free PDF download on how to use social media for product elevation. You or I may not be ready to launch anything yet...but it never hurts to get prepared...It's my form of posititve thinking. 

What about you? Do you sometimes feel like you're yelling into a hurricane? How do you connect with other people on the internet? If you have a product or a book coming out...how do you get yourself seen? I'd love to hear what you have to say.

Until next time...Go Write!

Photograph by db*Photography, Uploaded on March 15, 2008.