Our Advice for Novelists series continues with a publicist/marketing perspective. This is a series in which I've asked editors, authors, agents & publicists to respond to the question:"If you could say one thing to aspiring novelists, what would you say?"
Julie Gwinn says...
The one thing I would say to aspiring novelists is that the proposal is the key. Make sure the proposal not only includes the standard items, like proposed title, summary, plot and writing sample. But also include ways the writer can help to market their book, what platform they have to get the word out. Are they on the web? Do they blog and twitter? Do they have influential friends or family that can help with high-profile endorsements or reviews? Can they travel? Are they willing to visit area bookstores and libraries to meet with managers and librarians to help sell the book locally? Do they have media contacts and are they good with the media? These days, publishers are looking for authors that can "partner" with them to help sell the book, once the publisher has it placed in retail outlets.
--Julie Gwinn, Trade Book Marketing Manager at B&H Publishing Group.
5 comments:
Good advice, Julie, because it's getting tougher out there every day.
Max Elliot Anderson
Books for Boys blog
http://booksandboys.blogspot.com
Another cutting edge way to build a platform that will make editors take notice is to become an Examiner for your city.
Examiner.com is one of the top 50 info sites on the internet. It covers over 60 cities and gets over 11.5 million page hits per month. It's on track to become THE info site for major cities.
I'm the outdoor recreation examiner for Denver and have exponentially increased page hits compared to my blog. From our Words for the Journey group in Denver, we have the Christian Mental Health Examiner, the Writing examiner, two homeschooling examiners and more on the way.
What is you passion or area of expertise? Go to examiner.com and apply, please mention me Darcie Gudger, examiner #2614 as a referral.
You get paid by page hits (very minimal) but the exposure and training about web marketing is more than you can find anywhere for FREE (once you're hired).
Examiners get picked up my RSS feeds and some have recieved book contracts b/c of the journalistic srticles they write.
Oh Darcy, good to know. And thank you Julie, for adding to my knowledge as well. As writers, we should be able to come up with some creative marketing strategies.
I've seen this advice lots of places--publishers are looking for an author who can sell the book, or at least do a lot of the publicity themselves.
Great post! Thanks for the advice.
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