Mired in marketing my novel, less of a shrinking violet perhaps, but still paddling in the shallows, I was pleased when the latest post from the Carrot Ranch appeared in my inbox this morning declaring that Charli Mills also has marketing in mind. “Marketing takes time,” she says. “You’re too damn right,” says I. But when the alternative is readers failing to find my novel, I accept I have little choice. Because when they find it, and let me know they’ve not only read it but loved it, I still get a buzz.
Today’s highlights have been a tweet from a reader who found my novel via a tweet of this photo by Rebecca Root and a yes from one of the quirkiest independent bookshops around these parts in response to my email nudging them to stock my book. Small gains, but they matter. As Charli says, “Being a marketer is like being a watchmaker. The gears do work, but you have to get it all aligned one piece at a time.” At the moment, I don’t even know what the pieces are, but I’m doing what I can to at least give them a chance of lining up.
Today’s highlights have been a tweet from a reader who found my novel via a tweet of this photo by Rebecca Root and a yes from one of the quirkiest independent bookshops around these parts in response to my email nudging them to stock my book. Small gains, but they matter. As Charli says, “Being a marketer is like being a watchmaker. The gears do work, but you have to get it all aligned one piece at a time.” At the moment, I don’t even know what the pieces are, but I’m doing what I can to at least give them a chance of lining up.
Charli is boosting her own marketing mind-set by declaring herself an author. A similar declaration for me might be claiming my authorial authority and saying I believe in this particular book. Yet, on second thoughts, given that I’ve been a published novelist for two months now, that’s not much of a declaration. Can I be braver?
A few months before Sugar and Snails was published, and thinking it unlikely, other than at my own launch events, I’d be offered slots to talk about it, I put myself forward to local library staff to lead a discussion with reading groups on psychological therapists in fiction. The first of these happened earlier this week and, with a small but enthusiastic group, I really enjoyed it and sold a couple of copies of my novel. Though I am in the process of contacting other groups that might be interested, I hadn’t, until now, put anything about this on my website. But another conversation this week, with someone who had been proselytising on behalf of my novel but assumed I wouldn’t be willing to come and talk to groups about it, has persuaded me I need to declare myself as a potential speaker. In that endeavour, I’d appreciate your feedback. Obviously a webpage isn’t able to market itself but, right now, I’m more concerned with what it looks like. At this stage, I’m not even sure if author talks is the right name for what I’m offering.
A few months before Sugar and Snails was published, and thinking it unlikely, other than at my own launch events, I’d be offered slots to talk about it, I put myself forward to local library staff to lead a discussion with reading groups on psychological therapists in fiction. The first of these happened earlier this week and, with a small but enthusiastic group, I really enjoyed it and sold a couple of copies of my novel. Though I am in the process of contacting other groups that might be interested, I hadn’t, until now, put anything about this on my website. But another conversation this week, with someone who had been proselytising on behalf of my novel but assumed I wouldn’t be willing to come and talk to groups about it, has persuaded me I need to declare myself as a potential speaker. In that endeavour, I’d appreciate your feedback. Obviously a webpage isn’t able to market itself but, right now, I’m more concerned with what it looks like. At this stage, I’m not even sure if author talks is the right name for what I’m offering.
And so to my flash: 99-words on declaring an intention. One of the novels we discussed on Tuesday was Pat Barker’s Regeneration, set mostly in a psychiatric hospital towards the end of the First World War. In honour of that, and the declaration within it, as well as perhaps in recompense for my slating of her contemporary therapist in my review of Border Crossing, my story is a précis of her excellent fictionalisation of the meeting between army psychologist, WHR Rivers, and the poet, Siegfried Sassoon:
Sassoon wasn’t mad, just misguided in publicly declaring his opposition to the war. Rivers agreed court-martial was no solution, but why Craiglockhart? What of his men’s morale?
Yet, after hours attending to shell-shocked soldiers, Rivers looked forward to his conversations with Sassoon. The poet was intelligent, cultured, so damn reasonable; Rivers had no power to change his mind?
His method was intuitive, fatherly: bearing witness to the horrors of the trenches to help his patients adjust. But Sassoon turned his thinking upside down. Rivers didn’t cure, he realised, but silenced protest, denied sanity, sent the soldiers back to hell.
A final declaration on the subject of marketing is that for three weeks starting tomorrow, Inspired Quill is running a Goodreads giveaway for Sugar and Snails. Tell your friends! By the time you read this it’ll probably have gone live with a widget in the sidebar. (And no, I don’t know why the linky phrases are in a colour I’ve never seen on the blog before.)
Sassoon wasn’t mad, just misguided in publicly declaring his opposition to the war. Rivers agreed court-martial was no solution, but why Craiglockhart? What of his men’s morale?
Yet, after hours attending to shell-shocked soldiers, Rivers looked forward to his conversations with Sassoon. The poet was intelligent, cultured, so damn reasonable; Rivers had no power to change his mind?
His method was intuitive, fatherly: bearing witness to the horrors of the trenches to help his patients adjust. But Sassoon turned his thinking upside down. Rivers didn’t cure, he realised, but silenced protest, denied sanity, sent the soldiers back to hell.
A final declaration on the subject of marketing is that for three weeks starting tomorrow, Inspired Quill is running a Goodreads giveaway for Sugar and Snails. Tell your friends! By the time you read this it’ll probably have gone live with a widget in the sidebar. (And no, I don’t know why the linky phrases are in a colour I’ve never seen on the blog before.)
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