Monday, March 17, 2014

And You Thought I'd Never Talk About This Again

The book is published on Kindle. \o/ (That's a little dance I'm doing) The print version will take some time. I have to wait for the proof copy to be delivered to my house. That sounds so authorly!




If you're thinking, "Yay, finally. We can stop hearing about this book."

Wrong.

The book isn't finished when I hit that publish button. Now, I have to promote it. Hundreds of readers don't suddenly show up at my publishing door waving dollars at me, so they can buy my book! I promise I'll try not to pester people, or linger on the publishing/promoting thing beyond this first week, but I have to get the word out.

Here's what I've been doing since hitting submit.

1. Join forums like KBoards and Mobile Reads, create a profile and add a post.
2. Create a media kit of sorts
  • a. Four sizes of covers to fit each board and what they might require.
  • b. Upload the smallest cover to Tinypics to link on forums.
  • c. Make a file with the blurb, links to all social media accounts, author bio, excerpt and ISBN.
  • d. Have the blog address and book link in the same file.
  • e. Realize that you don't have a Goodreads author account and set that up.

3. Turn the book document into an epub, mobi and pdf file for various submissions.
4. Submit to book sites on Facebook that don't require "free" KDP books.
5. Add to review site Manic Readers.
6. Review the print version, make 27 changes and upload the file 27 times. 
7. Decide on the free days. (Has to be 2-3 weeks away for promotional purposes.)
  • a. Submit to the dozens of sites that promote free ebooks.

These things take between an hour to a few hours depending on difficulty. I should have been submitting to reviewers as soon as the book was completed, but I've never understood how you'll get reviews for a work that isn't published yet. The review has to be placed on Amazon to be effective. With no book page, there's no link. Book bloggers and websites will list the book on their own sites, but I'd like to receive some Amazon reviews.

For the next week or two, I'll be pimping the heck out of this book! I'll try not to be obnoxious about it, but I figure I can provide information at the same time. That makes it less obnoxious, right? Right?



12 comments:

  1. Congratulations! I love the cover! Hope you can promote it and gets lots of great traffic for it!!! It's not obnoxious at all to promote it!!!

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    1. Thanks! We'll see how you all feel at the end of the week.

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  2. Wow! This is turning into a full-time job in and of itself! And did I mention how I love the cover?!

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    1. It feels like a full-time job!

      I'm glad the reaction to the cover has been pretty positive.

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  3. So excited....I am starting chapter 3! Love it and love your honesty about the process.

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    1. I'm excited that you're excited! It makes me all giddy when people like my stuff. I'll try not to get the giddy all over you!

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  4. Yay! I'm doing a "snoopy dance" for you! Can't wait to review it! I loved it!

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    1. Ha! Snoopy dance. That's awesome. Thanks so much for leaving a review. I really appreciate it.

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  5. Oh how exciting! You're almost famous!

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    1. One day, I hope to be moderately, maybe, almost famous. Or at least be able to buy a happy meal with the money from my books!

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  6. A touchdown victory dance over here.. like a true Patriots fan! I am so excited for your first book signing!! oh, did you say you were guest signing at hmmmmmmmm, hard rock café?!! how fun would that be. You have to promote the hell out of yourself, afterall.. you should.. this book is amazing, the cover is a awesome and you are very AUTHORLY.. woot woot.. hope you're having a party for yourself! I can't wait for the print version. Rock On Missy K!

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    1. I would probably pass out if there was ever a possibility that I'd do a book signing anywhere, never mind the hard rock cafe. Crazy!

      Thanks so much for the victory dance. I could almost picture it!

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