marketing – L. C. Fenton Author

Assumption of Crazy

April 15, 2016April 15, 2016Posted in book blogs, books, marketing, UncategorizedTagged book bloggers, book blogs, marketing, rejection, writingLeave a comment

Legally, you’re supposed to be innocent until proven guilty but on the internet, the assumption is that you are a wack job until you can prove that you’re not. This last week, I’ve had two instances where I’ve been left reeling, realising that people have made that assumption about me. Being someone who believes they have an okay grip on reality and social norms, I found it quite shocking. Not that I don’t have my moments, where I look back and face-palm, but no more than most people.

I blame the whole author/book marketing attempt thing. I don’t enjoy trying to strike up online conversations with people I don’t know, and I don’t think I’m very good at it. But you have to try. I was reading one of those “helpful” articles on how to broaden your reach by attending book festivals. Unfortunately, the only ones I’ve been invited to be a signing author at are overseas and in the middle of nowhere. So, given none of the ones that don’t require a passport and a fortune in global roaming have asked me, I took the article’s advice and approached one of the regional festivals, which are more likely to appreciate your advances.

I carefully worded my introduction, polite and to the point. The response came back, equally politely that they we already set for authors. My “thanks anyway” return then bounced. They had blocked my email. Already – on that innocuous exchange. What exactly did they think I was going to do? I’m hardly going to hunt them down and start stalking them because they are a good six hour drive into the interior of Australia. Attack them in a flood of furious emails? Who knows, but any of the options would take far more energy than I currently possess. I struggle to maintain the rage with the teenagers next door playing music at 3am. Even with the kids home for school holidays, I’ve come to reluctantly admire their mess generation skills. They have raised it almost to an art form, particularly in the field of crumb distribution. I’ve reached the point where I just stand back and marvel.

The second one was a book blogger, usually one of the friendliest of the species. I wrote a quick intro, a personal one, not trying to market anything. I genuinely thought their blog was good. Again I got a four word plus emoticon response and nothing else. It was a clear discouragement to future correspondence and they usually want to talk to everyone.

Now, I’m just waiting for the third slapdown, which will possibly send me into online hibernation for good. I’m not particularly thin skinned, but there comes a point when you have to accept that you have no idea what you’re doing and clearly whatever you are doing is wrong because people are assuming you’re deranged. People like me are why PR companies are such a good idea. If I take myself out of the equation things might go better. I’ll think of myself like a guilty defendant – the best possible course is to get a good lawyer to speak for me and then just shut the hell up.

Is Real Necessarily Better than Fake?

March 13, 2016Posted in social media, working, writingTagged commercialism, fake, guilt, marketing, social media, writingLeave a comment

I was looking at one of those home sale websites (actually several, but that’s a separate issue) that fill up my inbox. Generally I ignore them, but we’re moving house so I’m all reinvigorated housefrau, hell bent on having a spotless & flawlessly decorated trophy house, at least until we’ve actually moved, then I revert to my usual token surface dusting slackness. Along with the usual handwoven rugs and ugly bedding sets, there was, on both sites I visited, sales on bogus plants.

They seem like a great idea – no watering or sudden death and they always look the same. No drooping gerberas to mess with the still going strong roses. On a side note, why can’t florists time it so everything goes south at around the same time? At least then I wouldn’t feel bad about chucking the lot. Instead I have to deal with some extra guilt in throwing away still living flowers (who might somehow be aware they’ve been thrown in with the lawn clippings) or spend time every day playing God in deciding on the fate of individual flowers. “You’re dead. You’re close enough,” I think, arbitrarily plucking them from the life sustaining water.

If I had fake flowers, I wouldn’t have to deal with this. I have enough guilt in my life with the kids, the dog, the state of the house, the state of my career, etc. It is an extension of the Christmas tree dilemma – which I solved years ago by getting a fake tree. The kids help assemble it and it’s become a nice tradition. It also means that I don’t have to deal with the remorse from killing a tree, watching in slowly droop, turn brown and die in the hot Australian summer, which is not the best time for pine trees. It doesn’t feel part of the Christmas spirit to watch the centrepiece of your celebration die. Sure a fake tree doesn’t smell as good, but I think the whole non-death thing far outweighs the cons.

Where am I going with this? Fake flowers are on par with fake people. It might seem a stretch, but bear with me. There’s been a lot of attention on Kim Kardashian and the nudes and whether or not the photo is recent and how all those people taking selfies are essentially faking it because it takes a hundred to get a good one and lots of time and effort went into taking a photo that looks like it was effortless and no one’s life is like it is on Facebook, Instagram, etc. I get that – my Instagram looks like I’m constantly writing, when instead I’m mostly wandering aimlessly around the house or looking at stock photos pretending I’m creating teasers for books I haven’t finished writing yet.

A fake plant might create the illusion at first glance that you are a whizz with plants, much like getting botox will make you, on superficial level, look 10 years younger (but then you move or talk and the illusion is broken). And that’s okay. The thing with fake plants and fake lives is that if everyone is only looking on a superficial level, then everyone can look great. And there is something really pleasant about that. Sometimes you don’t want to see the lines and effort and dust. You might need a break from all the reality to recharge mentally. It doesn’t mean that you want to only look at the surface all the time and if you care to look, it’s pretty obvious that most of the things we are seeing are not real.

So instead of blaming the person who’s putting a synthetic version of themselves out there and judging them harshly, maybe we should give them a break. Maybe their plants keep dying and they need a fake orchid in a pot plant with fake moss or the life equivalent of it. Not everyone is good with plants and houses and kids and work, all at the same time.

Cover Reveal – is there any point?

February 25, 2016February 25, 2016Posted in books, marketing, publishing, writing, young adultTagged books, marketing, publishing, writingLeave a comment

It’s been a looong time between posts, mostly because I didn’t really have anything to say. To be honest, I’m not sure if I do now. But what I do have is a book cover. I really like it too. I’ve had it since last year because I had it done to try to inspire myself to write more quickly. Needless to say, it didn’t work. My writing just seems to come at the speed that it comes. I could no more write a book in three months than I could flap my arms really hard and fly.

It seems to be a part of the marketing process that you do a cover reveal. I’ve done it twice already, mostly because my publisher told me it was a thing, but I have to say it did seem rather pointless. So what if lots people can see the cover – even if they cared, they still can’t buy the book! Maybe it’s just me, but as a reader, when I see the cover of a book that’s not going to be out for over a month, I dismiss it instantly from my memory banks. I’m not particularly interested in a book if I can’t actually read it. I won’t store that information for weeks, because like the name of the neighbour down the road who I have no interaction with, if I need to know later, someone will tell me. Clearly, the plotlines of “Nashville” are far more important and take up the space otherwise allocated to such unnecessary things like books I can’t read and names.

So new book, new attempt at marketing. I’m not going to bother with a cover reveal, I’m just going to put it on my website. I hope you like it! “The Ragged People” should be out around April.

Book Marketing – I love it!

September 17, 2015September 19, 2015Posted in books, marketing, writingTagged books, giveaways, marketing3 Comments

Yes, that was sarcastic. I’m in my yearly period of hell, otherwise know as “book marketing time”. It the time of year when I question why and dive into a vat of wine while eating my body weight in cake or chocolate and sometimes cake and chocolate . Given the rapid expansion of my waistline, it feels like I’m about to reach terminal velocity and literally explode, Monty Python style, from a mere wafer. My trainer just laughs at me now and makes me come for an extra session.

I’m feeling a distinct lack of sympathy for my angst.

I starting off this post writing a whinge on how I find marketing terrifying, but I’ve bored even myself. Instead, I’m going to put in two links: the first to win the amazing black pearl earrings from Stylerocks and secondly to the Goodreads giveaway of signed copies of “Superstition”. Enjoy!

To self-publish or not to self-publish? That is the question…

March 2, 2015March 2, 2015Posted in books, publishing, writingTagged marketing, publishing, self-publishing, success, writing3 Comments

It’s that time again, the early months of the year when I have a finished manuscript. This one took a bit longer for a number of reasons, the main one being the first time I thought I’d finished it and proudly handed it off to beta readers to peruse, the feedback was… underwhelming. In the brutally honest words of my husband, who has the dangerous and potentially life threatening dual roles of staunchest supporter and harshest critic, “it needs work”. Cue the arrow straight to the heart. After a year of harsh labour, someone called my baby ugly. Sobbing on the inside, drowning my pain with coffee and a surprisingly good Irish whiskey aptly called “Writer’s Tears”, I muscled up some internal fortitude and completely rewrote it.

So now it’s done again and off to the beta readers. Feedback has been better, but I’m a bit scarred now. What if it’s really crap, even now? I think every writer has this fear, which makes attempting to market yourself and your work excruciating. We all know those people who are in complete denial about the level of their skills, whether it’s work, sport or ability to pick up in a bar. You don’t want to be that person, ever. That fear can be paralysing though, stopping you from doing anything in case someone, somewhere is laughing at you. Traditional publishing is great in that you can constantly reassure yourself that your book must be okay otherwise these people who don’t know you and aren’t your friends wouldn’t also like it and invest a whole lot of money in it.

Having been equally unsuccessful with both traditionally and self-published books, I think I have a sound working knowledge of the good and bad points of each. If you have success one way or the other, your perception would naturally be skewed in favour of the way that worked for you and accordingly less objective. Like the purchaser of a thermomix, you tell everyone how great it is, despite the fact there are not that many people willing and able to spend $2000 on a kitchen gadget. If it works for you, it will work for everyone, right?

So what to do with this one? I no longer have expectations of immediate critical and commercial success, which helps. One of the good things about self-publishing is the control, which people talk about a lot. It is probably the best thing about it and comes with good data about how much you’re selling and where, which helps with book promotion and knowing when you’re doing something right. The information is available quickly, so you can be responsive. The downside is that you don’t have professionals get your book polished and out there without major financial outlay and to reassure you when the doubts creep in. You pay for this though, by handing over control and the majority of sales revenue. Whether it’s worth it or not depends on the writer and the book and can only be decided in hindsight. There is no right or wrong answer, but the best thing you can have is options. If publishers are likely to be interested, it’s worth finding out even if you don’t end up taking that path. If it isn’t the sort of book they are looking for, then at least the decision on what to do becomes easier. Just strap on the chainmail before the sharpened arrows start heading in the direction of your heart. And put some make up on your book baby.

Minions Required

September 10, 2014Posted in books, marketing, publishing, success, working, writingTagged marketing, publishing, working, writing, writing style2 Comments

Fuck me, I need a drink. And a minion. Maybe a host of minions (is that the collective noun? No idea but I’m going to go with it.) If I had a host of minions, there’d be one just to get me a drink and another look up the collective nouns for things. The rest would be hard at work, doing all the shit that I either don’t have time for or the necessary fucks to give one away willy-nilly. I might even dedicate one to swearing for me, as it’s unladylike and my mother always thought it important that I be a lady, not that I think that’s been overly successful.

I like writing. I enjoy it and it gives me a great deal of satisfaction. What I am quickly coming to not enjoy so much is the other stuff that you have to do. I’m sure it’s been raised by other people, but if you’re responding to facebook and twitter constantly, when exactly are you supposed to write? What about joining groups? Start up a conversation, with witting sayings inserted in appropriate places, until everyone is madly in love with your writing style and will instantly download your book. Excellent strategy, except everyone else is doing that too and once everyone does it, the forums quickly becoming extraordinarily boring with everyone trying to market to each other. There really is nothing more desperate that writers trying to get other writers to buy their stuff.

Host an event! Invite people to attend and they will invite their friends and soon you’ll be famous! Another excellent strategy except I have no idea how to do that. The only parties I’ve held successfully have involved darkened rooms and lots of alcohol. How can I be witty and exciting when, being on the other side of the world, it’s the early hours of the morning and I can’t see anyone’s face? Hmmm… actually maybe that does have some possibilities. If no one knows what I look like, I can be Batman!

Rant over, I do need to knuckle down and listen to my lovely PR person, who is only trying to help. The market is saturated at the moment, so I’m given to understand, and it’s hard to stand out. And dressing like Batman really won’t be enough. Damn it!

When does marketing become cheating?

August 21, 2014Posted in books, marketing, publishing, success, writingTagged commercialism, marketing, publishing, success, writingLeave a comment

Being a less than successful author leaves you open to a whole lot of helpful hints on how to make your book sell better. Given than none of the people offering advice have been in publishing, and I know almost nothing about marketing (what the f**k is a hashtag anyway?) these conversations tend to go round in circles. Friends in marketing for other industries have offered some useful insights, but none that my PR retarded self has converted to actual sales.

Several times the subject of “buying” reviews from India has come up as a suggestion. My immediate reaction has been “can’t, that’s cheating”, but the reply I got today was “no, that’s marketing”. The theory is that you have to spend money “advertising” your product, which in book terms means getting reviews and your book noticed. If you have a few hundred dollars to throw at it and it’s the most effective way of getting a return on that investment, then the logical path to follow would lead to the sub-continent.

Is it morally any different from buying a cake from the supermarket and dressing it up to pass off as your own? Taking the tags off new items of clothing and pretending they’re old? Buying ad space on a website that will then give a glowing review to your product? Pretending you have the degree you nearly finished? I knew someone who did that and I don’t think they were ever pulled up on it. These are all things that go to your credibility, but are hardly going to bring about the apocalypse.

The thing is, I’ve read a few books that had lots of amazing 5 star reviews, and realised after finishing that there was nothing redeeming about it and a book with that many typos and grammatical errors, as well as leaps in logic would never on its own get such a good rap. So I know they bought the reviews and I won’t read anything by that author again. Their next book might be a huge improvement, but I’ll never know (unless one of my favourite book bloggers recommends it and everyone else is reading it, then my militant stance will be out the window).

“But your book is good!” is the next response. Thanks, but everyone thinks their book is good or they wouldn’t put it out there. Also, you like me so you’re biased.

Marketing is never going to be my thing and I have enormous respect people who do it well and come up with new and exciting ways to promote their books. People outside the industry might not get why most of us will never buy reviews for $5 a pop, but writers in there for the long haul want to build up goodwill and loyal readers. After all, who is actually doing it for the money?