I Like Trains

Tags

Adventure, Fun, Locomotive, Trains, Travel

I hope you do too.

That’s all that needs to be said!

Happy weekend everybody. 😃

SELF-PUBLISHING UPDATE: FULL STEAM AHEAD WITH MARKETING

Tags

Adventure, Author, blogging, Blogging community, Book, Discover Prompts, Hiking, marketing, Self-publishing, WordPress

Hi Everybody,

I hope you’re all keeping well.

I knew that when I published my book, Adventure Dayze, last month that the marketing side of things would keep me busy. Just how busy, though, has been a complete surprise to me!

Taking a different route to market

As I was writing, the advice I’d researched about marketing a self-published book told me that I should do the majority of it before publication, including reaching out to established book reviewers. However, the gut feeling I got when I told others that I was writing a book was that it’d be believed when seen. So, perhaps somewhat counterintuitively, I decided to wait and do the marketing after the release date.

Family And Friends First

Once the book was up on Amazon, I put the word out to my nearest and dearest via social media. Whether people offered kind words, bought the book and maybe left a review, I was humbled by the response. The reviews I’ve received have provided me with an important step in the next stage of my marketing strategy.

The Importance Of A Marketing Mentor

I discovered Hollie Anne Marsh via the freelance website Fiverr. Hollie has a background in marketing and she is an award-winning author with her Sweetbriars book series, which is set in the world of horse-riding. Hollie has supported me to get the book published, and has sorted the advertising campaign on Amazon. This week the Facebook advertising campaign will start.

Working with Hollie has taught me a lot that’ll benefit me in the future: how to navigate Amazon Author Central and my Facebook Author page; how to write a press release statement; how to actually get a book live on Kindle; the ins and outs of marketing.

From the start, Hollie showed me the importance of having reviews for when the time comes to reach out to organisations.

Hollie has helped me brainstorm a list of hiking magazines, podcasts and websites to contact. Libraries, local newspapers, charities and bookshops are on the list too.

The Next Step

After much brainstorming and research, then, I now have a list of contacts that I’m working my way through. It’s an enjoyable process magnified by the hope that something will come of it. It takes a lot of perseverance – there’s a lot of phone calls to find a named person to contact in an organisation followed by a lot of emails – but hopefully the fruits of the labour will show soon.

Lessons Learned

Although I’ve taken a different approach as to the order of publishing and marketing the book, I can see the importance of following the much suggested route to market for my next book.

However, as a self-published author I can see that marketing is an ongoing thing and can take place any time after a book is published. So, all I’m doing now is giving me experience for the future.

Having an experienced hand to guide me has been so important. It’s made the whole experience more navigable and rewarding.

Thanks for reading this. I hope to come back soon with some positive news about who I’ve reached out to.

If you have any comments or advice, it’d be great to hear from you.

Peace and love for now 😃.

SELF-PUBLISHING UPDATE: EARLY DAYS ON MARKETING THE BOOK

Tags

Adventure, Author, Blogging community, Book, book marketing, Books, creative writing, Hiking, marketing, Self-publishing

Hello Everybody,

I just wanted to briefly share some early insights on marketing a self-published book.

This is by no means a definitive guide. I just wanted to share a few issues I’d found that may help others attempting to self-publish.

THE MARKETING ADVENTURE BEGINS

Next Monday sees my hiking book, Adventure Dayze, go ‘live’ on Amazon. It’s actually been out about a month, but my main aim in the first four weeks was to get word out to family and friends, and to build up a few reviews.

I’ve also used that time to create my Facebook page and to put together a list of blogs, podcasts, tourist boards etc as I start to promote and market the book more from Monday 5th July.

LESSONS LEARNED

My approach has been a little different to the advice I’d researched on how to market a self-published book. Normally, having a team of readers to review the book before the launch and doing a few other marketing bits and bobs is the regular way. However, it was important for me to focus on getting my book out there first and dealing with the other steps one at a time. My mind works better that way as I can give more thorough attention to each step.

That said, for my next book there’s things that I’ll definitely do differently before the book launch (e.g. getting it reviewed) as I can see the benefit in that.

What I appreciate is that I’ve had some great advice from my mentors, Jessica Coleman (editor) and Hollie Marsh (marketing), that is steering me in the right direction, and that the way I’m presently doing it is okay. It’s so important to have people around you that help you to believe in yourself.

Overall, this is all a learning curve and I’m enjoying the whole experience.

WHAT’S NEXT?

I’m returning to Rutland on a camping adventure holiday this weekend.

Then, it’s time for the marketing to begin properly.

I’ll put posts up about all this in the next week or so.

If you’ve self-published or are about to, what has your approach been? Or, if you’ve enjoyed this post, please feel free to leave a comment. It’d be great to hear from you 