Sharing is Caring! (or The Rules of Engagement)

OK! So, you are an author. What we all want to be is a Successful Author. However, remember; you are the person who defines your success.

For some, it’s just completing your manuscript. For others, it may be to make the bestseller lists in a category, and for others to make lots and lots of Money (I wish you joy in that last one unless JK Rowling reads this blog and she can take it for granted!)

Again, if you ARE JK Rowling, you have a complete publicity machine to roll into action on your behalf. But, sadly, for most of us, WE are our publicity machine! So today even those already commercially successful are required to do more and more themselves.

So what to do? 

In 2 words – Spend Money!💰🪙💳 A marketing campaign MUST have a budget of some sort.

 Obviously, the size of your budget can vary from a tiny amount, enough for a banner, some cards and some leaflets, right up to – in the case of some of the most successful US independent authors – many, MANY thousands of dollars. They will place adverts in social media and will use professional marketers. Because they already have success, they can almost guarantee a massive increase in sales in using their Amazon, Twitter, BookBub and a Mailing List and other Social Media. They will use all the statistical data available to plot the success of each of their adverts and repeat or change them as necessary.

The dichotomy is of course, time. How to split your time between writing and promotion/mrketing. This is a question only you could answer. You must do what suits you best and what you are happy with. In the words of Maria Kondo (how trendy am I?)  Your writing MUST bring you joy!

From my own observations, I would say that the absolute best and ONLY way to have a lasting success as an author, is to KEEP WRITING! If you look at some of my independent author friends, or some of those contracted to Harlequin Mills & Boon, one immediately apparent thing is their amazing literary fecundity!! Some of the HMB authors and many Independents are producing 4 or more books a year.

The more books they write, the more they can give away for promotion. Their marketing becomes a creature with its own life-force, and their marketing invariably involves ENGAGEMENT with their readers.

If you look at some of the more successful authors in contemporary fiction, and as examples, say, Carole Matthews and Marion Keyes, both engage extensively with their readership through Social Media. Long may they continue!

Moving towards the shallow end of the enormous pool of writers, there are two things that we can all do to further our sales goals.

1. Keep expanding your circle of friends and acquaintances both in real life (i.e. at conferences, talks, signings, book-launches, writing events and the like) and on-line through those old favourites, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram  - to which we can now add TikTok. Every time you post in ANY of these you are tossing a pebble into the pool, and are keeping those ripples moving.
2. Keep sharing THEIR news! It’s not a competition, and there is no limit to the amount of goodwill we can show to other writers. Then, hopefully, they will share YOUR good news when you have something to share. What goes around tends to come around.

So Keep Sharing, and Keep Engaging.

And now – News about Hedgehogs!!🦔

They are back! They are now beginning to wake up from hibernation. We leave food out for them through the winter in case they feel like getting up for a quick snack. As I write, we are having a series of gales, but this doesn’t seem to have any effect on them.

A few days ago, I put the camera out just on a whim – and was very pleasantly surprised to find some hedgie pics in the morning. Now a regular occurrence. We seem to get 2 calls every night, one between midnight and one a.m. and the other between three and four o’clock. 

****** As I finish this, Ive just seen an article in the Guardian making a very similar point! Sadly, the message is the same in the world of music as in our world of writing! We are not alone, so keep the faith, and keep Engaging!

‘Making music is about making assets for social media’: pop stars battle digital burnout https://www.theguardian.com/music/2022/feb/18/making-music-is-about-making-assets-for-social-media-pop-stars-battle-digital-burnout