Adam Croft's Blog, page 24

Whether you’re going down the independent publishing route or not, it’s highly likely you’re going to need to do some marketing for your novel at some point. Marketing is one of those things that can seem daunting when you’ve not done it before, but there’s no getting away from the fact that these days, it’s a crucial part of an author’s job. We have to be able to sell ourselves and our novels, and we have to be willing to put the time in.

You can help make the task of marketing your book more manageable by creating a marketing plan. We shouldn’t forget that there is a business side to writing, and creating a plan such as this can help us to get things done. With this in mind, here are some tips for creating a book marketing plan.

Identify where your sales are likely to come from – not just the outlets where you’re planning to sell your book, but the types of readers most likely to be interested in your book. After all, there are millions of readers out there and we’re unlikely to appeal to all of them, so it makes sense to do some targeted marketing.
Work out what your goals are – if your goal is to sell one hundred copies of your novel, your marketing plan is likely to be very different compared with if you decide you want to be top of the bestsellers list. Defining what you want to achieve will help you structure your marketing accordingly.
Identify your unique selling points and work with them – is there anything quirky or different you could do to market your book? For example, when I published my book Exit Stage Left, I used a specially-brewed beer to help promote it. You could also investigate things like creating apps or interactive features to help market your book.
Include wider objectives (‘do 3 guest blogs a month’) with more specific goals (‘contact so-and-so to ask about guest blog opportunity’, ‘write guest blog post on X’).
Don’t be afraid of writing the obvious. Often, business and marketing plans aren’t all that exciting. There’s no shame in writing things such as ‘Tweet twice a day’ or ‘write blog posts on Sunday mornings’.
Set realistic timeframes. Marketing is an on-going activity, but you will be more active at some times than others. For example, in the weeks leading up to the publication of your book, you might increase your marketing activity to build awareness, whereas at other times you might not do that much marketing at all.
Think what will happen when your plan comes to an end. The same marketing plan won’t last forever; it will need to be changed and updated as you write more books and marketing methods change. As well as reviewing what you do on a regular basis, think about where you would like to be when your initial plan comes to an end and how you might build on that in the future. At the moment, your ideas for eighteen months’ time might only be vague, but they’ll still provide a useful starting point when the time comes.

How do you go about designing your book’s marketing plan?

It can often be tempting just to let your writing go with the flow and, if that works for you, fair enough. However, many of us writers need a bit more structure to things if we’re ever going to finish a project. This is where a writing action plan comes in. You might have a fairly basic writing action plan that includes just a few key details of what you want to do and when, or you might decide to go much more detailed to keep yourself on the right track.

Whatever you decide, here are five tips to help you decide on your own writing action plan.

Define your goals

Probably the first thing you will need to do is to decide what your writing goals actually are. Think big: what are the broad aims of your writing right now? Do you want to finish the draft of a novel? Find a publisher? Learn how to self-publish? You might have one goal or you might have several; it all depends on what you’re currently working on.

Set smaller objectives

Once you’ve got your big goals defined, it might help you to set smaller objectives. Say, for instance, that your big goal is to finish the first draft of a novel. What are the smaller steps you would need to take to get there? You might include steps such as creating a clearly defined plan for your novel, or make each chapter a smaller goal in its own right.

Define your timetable

Your writing action plan will also benefit from a defined timetable of what you’re going to do and when. Look at when you want to finish your book, for example, and then work out how much you’re going to have to achieve each week in order to make that happen. It might sound like it’s taking all the fun out of writing, but if you do have a deadline that you need to meet, it’s a practical approach to take – even without a looming deadline, creating a timetable also gives you an end in sight and helps to stop projects dragging on for longer than they should.

Locate useful resources

It’s also worth thinking about the support you’ll need to achieve your action plan. For instance, would you benefit from some expert editing advice to get your book into top shape, or do you need the services of a cover designer on your way to self-publishing your first book? Do you need to create a better environment for yourself to write in, or arrange for you to have some ‘alone time’ each week so you can get things done?

Give yourself some breathing space

Finally, it can be useful to build a small amount of breathing space into your writing action plan – just in case one part takes longer than you first expected, and so you’re not rushing to get everything done. A certain amount of flexibility can help you to relax, while the plan will still give you the structure you need to achieve your writing goals.

Do you have an action plan for your writing, or do you prefer to take things as they come?

If there is one thing all readers are after, it has to be the perfect reading experience. Of course, reading is always fun, but sometimes it’s just something else entirely. A whole range of factors will suddenly fall into place and you just know that you’re having your perfect reading experience. In the same way that some cups of tea are better than others for no discernible yet still-very-there reason, some reading sessions are also superior to others.

But what makes the perfect reading experience? It can be tempting to romanticise about it a little bit, and suggest that if you want to have a truly wonderful reading experience, you should read a printed book rather than an e-book. There can be at tendency to think that it can be harder to lose yourself in an e-book than it is in a hardback or paperback, simply because of the medium.

Maybe this is true for some people, but I think other factors are far more important than what format you choose to read in. Above all, it’s all about the book. All of those external factors – where you’re sitting, how comfortable you are, how much time you have to read, the time of day – matter, but even if you have the perfect environment, without a cracking book your reading experience will always be lacking something.

And when it comes to a cracking book, it doesn’t really matter how you read it, or when or where. If a book is truly good, it should capture our attention regardless and make us want to read on no matter what else is happening around us. Simply reading creates the ideal reading experience – something that should certainly encourage all of us writers to keep on improving, no matter how long we’ve been in the business.

There have been a few stories in the news recently about how e-reader and e-book sales growth is starting to slow. This is undoubtedly significant and it’s certainly something worth taking note of; however, what is equally important is the fact that sales are still continuing to grow – good news for all of us who rely on e-readers and e-books for part or all of our livelihoods as writers.

And this week we have some more statistics that demonstrate significant growth in sales is continuing, even if they aren’t growing at quite the same rate they were a couple of years ago.

These figures come from the US and concern e-book sales figures for September 2012. The statistics show that adult e-books were up by more than 30%, and that children’s e-book sales were up even more – 44.4%. Plus, when we look at the year-on-year sales figures, children’s e-books are doing even better. They’re up 177% for the first three quarters of 2012.

It will be interesting to see what the figures for the remainder of 2012 tell us – did the holiday- and present-buying season lead to an even more significant increase in sales?

For now, if you want to read more about this story, you can do so here.

I’ve looked before on this blog at some of the different things you need to keep in mind when editing a novel, but what about when you’re editing a crime novel? What are the specific things you need to keep in mind when you’re going through your book? Here are some of the most important ones, and do feel free to add your own suggestions in the comments box.

Is the plot coherent? This is something that matters when editing any novel, but crime novels have a special focus on plot and so it’s an issue that arguably matters even more than normal. Can you follow the plot through and does it make sense from beginning to end?
Are there any minor discrepancies? Even the smallest detail out of place can destroy the credibility of a crime novel, so it’s worth going over everything with a fine tooth comb to make sure it all adds up.
Are the characters consistent and/or do they develop properly throughout the novel? We can often be working with loads of characters at once in a crime novel, and they all need to be plausible. They need to develop properly throughout the novel in order to make the story work, so this is something to watch out for.
Have you tied up the subplots? We often see quite a few subplots in the same crime novel, and it can be all too easy to leave one of them hanging without proper editing.
Are there enough teasers and clues, and do they work? Part of the fun of reading crime fiction is trying to figure it out as you read it. Make sure that any teasers or clues you’ve added make sense by the time the reader gets to the end, and ensure that they give just enough information at the time without giving it all away. This can be a tricky balance to get right, so it’s worth spending some time on.
Have you solved the crime? This might sound obvious, but if the crime that makes up your novel isn’t properly solved or doesn’t provide some sort of satisfying conclusion, readers will notice.

We all know that Twitter can be a useful tool for authors, particularly for those who take the independent publishing route. It’s a great way of engaging with readers and helping to build your author platform, but it’s also the case that your Twitter account could end up doing your writing more harm than good.

With this in mind, here are six reasons you might not be getting the most out of your Twitter account – they’re certainly things to watch out for.

Lack of use

One of the main reasons your Twitter account could be doing more harm than good is through lack of use. There’s no point having an account if you then don’t use it. It takes time to build success through social media sites such as Twitter, so a certain amount of commitment is needed – otherwise you could just end up looking a little bit flaky.

Too much focus on irrelevant topics

It’s also important to make your Twitter account relevant to your goals, or else it won’t help you achieve them. That’s not to say you can’t Tweet about things that are irrelevant to your writing – in fact, that can help you appeal to a broader base – but it’s also important to keep your writing aims in mind.

Too much time spent plugging a book

That said, too much time plugging your book on Twitter can put people off. If all you’re Tweeting is the same link to your book, over and over, it’ll quickly get old and people will start to unfollow you. There’s nothing wrong with promoting your work, but it needs to be sufficiently balanced with other stuff to stop it becoming tedious. In many ways, Twitter is about social engagement first, promoting your books second.

Lack of engagement with others

Linked to the above point is the fact that your Twitter account could end up doing more harm than good if you don’t engage with other people. If a reader sends you a Tweet, reply. Of course, it might not be possible to reply to every single Tweet that you get sent, but if you don’t respond to any of them, it doesn’t look that great. One of Twitter’s benefits is that it allows you to interact with other people – who might buy your books – and that’s something that writers should definitely take advantage of.

No coherent strategy

A lack of strategy can also lead to your Twitter profile drifting and note having as much impact as it could. Think about what you’re hoping to achieve through social media and how you could go about doing that. Random Tweets are fun, but you still need to be thinking about your goals.

Too much use

Finally, your Twitter account could end up harming your writing simply by taking up too much of your time. It can be very addictive and, while spending a bit of time on there every day won’t do much harm, we still need to make sure we’re leaving enough time to actually write. After all, there’s no point promoting our writing on Twitter if we’re then not getting the writing done.

How do you make sure your Twitter account is a help to your writing rather than a hindrance?

It’s a question that all independent publishers have to think about at some point in the process of writing a novel: when it comes to time to publish, who should you be targeting with your book?

There are a few different issues to think about here, and they can all affect who you eventually decide to aim your book at. For example, the type of story you’ve written will undoubtedly have an impact on the age range you target, as well as the genre. How you publish your book might also have an impact. Something else to think about that’s linked to this is how people read – does your target audience tend to go for print books, or are they more likely to read e-books?

An interesting finding to come out recently is that if you’re looking to self-publish an e-book, you might want to seriously think about targeting older readers. It can be tempting to think that it’s more likely to be the younger readers out there who have e-readers, but in fact, people over the age of 55 are currently more likely to have them than younger people.

Mintel, a research group, found that 22% of people under 55 have an e-reader, while 29% of people over 55 have one. This might not seem like that much of a gap, but it’s still significant and definitely worth taking notice of when you’re planning things such as how to market your book. And, when you think about it, it sort of makes sense that older people would be more likely to have an e-book, if only for reasons such as the fact they can enlarge the text and they’re easier to hold than many print books.

So it’s important to do our research when we’re independently publishing an e-book; they’re read by a wide range of people, and we need to make sure we cater to all of them.

You can read more about the findings of Mintel’s research here.

Here’s something that’s sure to be of interest to those of us who are passionate about independent publishing and all that it has to offer authors: more and more writers, including those who have previously been published in the traditional way, are becoming interested in the idea of self-publishing their next book.

We’ve known for a while, of course, that more authors are becoming interested in independent publishing, but it’s always good to get some new figures to back up the anecdotes and general feeling of a shift in the mood. This time, those new figures come from a survey by Digital Book World and Writer’s Digest. The survey of 5,000 writers found that a third of writers who have been traditionally published are interested in the idea of independently publishing their next book.

The survey also found that out of the hybrid authors it questioned (those authors who use both the traditional and independent publishing models), two thirds of them would be interested in independently publishing their next book.

These findings are interesting, not just because so many authors are now interested in independent publishing, but also because most of them are still also interested in traditional publishing. Issues of distribution, marketing and more are all still draws of the traditional publishers, and the findings suggest that the hybrid model of publishing is becoming more attractive to a wide range of authors who can see the benefits of both publishing options.

You can read more about the findings of the survey here on Digital Book World, and please do let me know what you think about the results.

This is something that I think all writers think about from time to time. Actually, scratch that. I think it’s something at least most writers think about quite a lot of the time.

Namely, is our writing actually any good? And how would we know if it is/isn’t?

The issue of good writing is an interesting one because good writing is generally so subjective. Different people respond to different things, and while one person might think a particular book is the best thing ever written, someone else might find it dry and dull. It can be hard to reach agreement.

For instance, is something good because the use of language is exemplary, or is it because it has a cracking plot and well-drawn characters? I suspect that there are a whole range of answers to this. If you’re someone who goes for plot, that’s probably how you’ll judge writing. If you’re someone who loves literary language, that’ll be where your focus is.

The trouble is that there are so many different ways of measuring what’s ‘good’ that as a writer, it can be difficult to know exactly where you fit. For instance, you might know that you’re not the best linguist ever, but you also know that you’re good at creating suspense. It’s all a matter of personal judgement.

Yet the commonality among writers is that we all want to be good. For most writers, I think that being a good writer is more important than being a popular writer, but even so, good and popular are still intertwined. Does something become popular because it is good, or is it popular for some other reason? Does something count as good just because a lot of people like it, or does it need to be technically brilliant as well?

This is an issue that I suspect could drive us all mad if we think about it too much, so I’ll end this little ramble here, expect to say this. Different people have different views on what makes something good; writing isn’t a science. It’s probably for the best that it’s not.

Many writers who set out to write crime fiction don’t set out to write just the one book – they set out to write a series of books. We usually do this for a variety of reasons: we think we’ve created characters that are interesting enough for more than one novel, we want to explore the world we’ve created a bit more, we think that readers will want to read more about these characters and their stories.

But what is it that makes some crime fiction series more compelling than others? What keeps us coming back to them time and time again, always on the lookout for the next book from a particular author?

Like so many things in writing, there is no definitive answer to this. It depends from series to series, because they all have their own draws and strengths. In many crime series, we come back again and again because of the characters. We like them and the way they are written, and we want to read more stories about them. Sometimes this will be to learn more about them, and other times it will be because they are comforting and familiar.

In other crime fiction series, we might want to read more because we like the type of stories that the author constructs. They might have a flair for plot or explore a particular area that we’re interested in, or set their books in a place that we like to read about. Or maybe we just like the way the author writes – they have a way with words and language that we just love and will never get bored of.

Whatever it is, one thing we cannot deny is that for a crime series to be compelling and to keep us coming back book after book, it needs to have some sort of hook. It needs something to make us interested and then keep our attention. It might be character, it might be plot, it might be the writing; whatever it is, there needs to be something

.

And that something needs to be a gift that keeps on giving, because as soon as it stops giving, the readers are unlikely to be there anymore.

 

What keeps you coming back to your favourite crime fiction series?