Hubby and I were at a coworkers house, dropping off some holiday crab we'd caught at the beach that morning, when she turned to her son and daughter in-law and told them about my upcoming books being published.
Well, her son turns to me and asks, "I love to read, what's the first one about?"
And here my brain stopped working. Completely stalled and died. Sucked into a black hole never to be seen again. I blushed and tried to think of my blurb, my themes, my concepts. Nope. Nada. Nothing.
Absolutely NOTHING.
I fumbled it completely, stuttering something about two sisters, a war, difficulties...oh, a bunch of nonsense blubber. Finally my coworker and Hubby stepped in and filled in the babble with some semblance of the story and made it sound like the interesting story it was...but I fumbled it big time.
Then it hit me. Beside my few close friends -- who've been sounding boards as I've developed my story -- I haven't really promoted my book in person. Here yes. Of course I've got edits, revisions, and privacy to put together legible discussion here. Forums? Chat groups? Facebook? Yes, there too, but all are the same set up.
So, after my big fall from my promotion training bike, I sat with Hubby and developed a plan to be ready the next time...because there will be a next time. Here's the action items I did:
STEP ONE:
Reviewed the Synopsis
Reviewed the blurb
STEP TWO:
Wrote 2 sentences on the major theme of the book
Wrote 2 sentences per sister on their storyWrote 3 cool SF technologies I used in the book
Wrote 1 sentence why my book is important to read for both SF nuts and Romance nuts
There...now I wish someone would ask me about my book, because I would WOW them. (Yes, all in caps kind of WOW.)
Good writing all! (And watch those promotion bumps along the way.)
Great post. Promoting your work is one of the most important things an author can do and makes a major difference in sales.
ReplyDeleteThank you Alva!
ReplyDeleteI agree, promotion is definitely important. A lot of authors in this digital world lose opportunities with the person-to-person either by not doing it or by not being prepared (like I me in this instance).
I reviewed my marketing & promotion plan and have been working on adding some depth to the direct promotion activities now that I've got my verbal pitch ready.
By the way, how's the Pill Hill world going? I see some anthologies that look interesting (especially the alternate westerns). I've enjoyed contributing in PHP anthologies so much, I might take a break after this novel and write something up for it. I've been wanting to stretch into western spec.