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Book promotion thoughts
Oct. 9th, 2010 02:48 pmI posted this on ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
ramblin_phyl in response to her query about how much promotion I do for Darkover books.
For the Darkover novels, I reach out to those interest communities. (And the last one, HASTUR LORD, I previewed and blogged about on Book View Cafe.) Readers are often interested in how I came to work with Marion, what she was like, my experiences in writing in her world. The series has an established readership and while I do my best to make each book a fresh and exciting introduction to Darkover, I think most of the sales are to people who already know the world and are willing to take a chance on the dual byline. I get quite a lot of enthusiastic fan mail once they do. My hope for HASTUR LORD is that because it dealt with controversial (and timely) issues, people unfamiliar with Darkover would pick it up and fall in love with the world.
The other aspect of this is that when I began working with Marion, I didn't have the emotional resources to do much promotion. I went to a local con or two, and that was it. I'm in much better shape now and available to burble on with enthusiasm about the latest release.
It's been a while since I've had an original novel come out -- I've been writing, juggling my own worlds and Darkover, but my editor wanted to hold off scheduling the SEVEN-PETALED SHIELD trilogy until all 3 books were done -- which they now are -- and then bring them out quite close together. So at some point in time, hopefully not too far off, I'll have a LOT to talk about.
I think of promotion not so much as "buy my book" as "I had such a great time writing this and here's why." I try to share what I found incredibly cool about the story, characters, world, etc. If people like what I have to say, I don't have to urge them to rush over to the dealer's room. As a reader, I find that kind of heavy-handed promotion grating, as if the whole point of the conversation was to sell a book and my time and interest don't count, so I try to treat my own fans with respect. I am much less interested in a one-time sale to someone who really isn't into what I write than I am cultivating life-long fans. It's a bit like being a matchmaker, isn't it?
ramblin_phyl in response to her query about how much promotion I do for Darkover books.For the Darkover novels, I reach out to those interest communities. (And the last one, HASTUR LORD, I previewed and blogged about on Book View Cafe.) Readers are often interested in how I came to work with Marion, what she was like, my experiences in writing in her world. The series has an established readership and while I do my best to make each book a fresh and exciting introduction to Darkover, I think most of the sales are to people who already know the world and are willing to take a chance on the dual byline. I get quite a lot of enthusiastic fan mail once they do. My hope for HASTUR LORD is that because it dealt with controversial (and timely) issues, people unfamiliar with Darkover would pick it up and fall in love with the world.
The other aspect of this is that when I began working with Marion, I didn't have the emotional resources to do much promotion. I went to a local con or two, and that was it. I'm in much better shape now and available to burble on with enthusiasm about the latest release.
It's been a while since I've had an original novel come out -- I've been writing, juggling my own worlds and Darkover, but my editor wanted to hold off scheduling the SEVEN-PETALED SHIELD trilogy until all 3 books were done -- which they now are -- and then bring them out quite close together. So at some point in time, hopefully not too far off, I'll have a LOT to talk about.
I think of promotion not so much as "buy my book" as "I had such a great time writing this and here's why." I try to share what I found incredibly cool about the story, characters, world, etc. If people like what I have to say, I don't have to urge them to rush over to the dealer's room. As a reader, I find that kind of heavy-handed promotion grating, as if the whole point of the conversation was to sell a book and my time and interest don't count, so I try to treat my own fans with respect. I am much less interested in a one-time sale to someone who really isn't into what I write than I am cultivating life-long fans. It's a bit like being a matchmaker, isn't it?
