#bookpost – Page 139 – Rosepoint Publishing

Building the Platform – Lessons from Author Marketing Disappointments

The Day 27 prompt is: What are the three most important things you are doing to grow your platform?

Having started this process with NaNoWriMo in 2011, I’ve been through the gamut of ideas, following rules and advice, and letting the creative juices flow until they became a trickle.

Several initial ideas were dumped in the effort to attract traffic to book signings:

1) Forget salt-water taffy at book signings. The kids grabbed a handful and the adults weren’t into taffy.

2) Started with inventories of flyers, bookmarks, postcards, and business cards. It was a toss-up how many were found floating around the store, left quietly on a display shelf, or at the check-out. I’ll finish out the current inventory, then redesign the business cards.

3) Laminated posters–found difficult to display without investing further in an easel (and I found irritating those authors who had as they captured the eye and blocked the traffic).

What were the three suggestions acted upon and still being implemented?

1) Reading about the idea of “branding,” I went back to my book covers and changed the author’s name font so they were all consistent.

2) I’d established a blog and paid for a custom domain. I’d created several very simple websites (including one for my Women On Wheels® chapter and this one would presumably involve a shopping cart).

3) Social Media accounts

A) Decided instead to create an Etsy and Pinterest account.

B) Opened a separate Facebook account for Stanley McShane with a Rosepoint Publishing page and a Stanley McShane page on my personal FB account.

C) Opened a Goodreads account in the name of Stanley McShane.

Would a database or email marketing list be effective? Possibly, but difficult for me to implement. I haven’t wanted to muddle a book sale with further requests assuming my ever-growing Twitter followers and blog subscribers have first shown interest and made the contact.

Other than the above, the current push for promotion and marketing strategy will have to solidify the platform, one which is hoped sufficient to provide a solid base for the current launch: “Sole Survivor-A Fiction Adventure Anthology.”

Books Are Books? Print, eBooks, or Audiobooks?

Books Are Books?

DAY 20 PROMPT: Did you publish your book as a traditionally printed book, an eBook, an audiobook, or all three? How did you come to your decision?

When I worked in graphics creating flyers for gospel concerts, I had a boss whose mantra was “they don’t know what they are doing.” That went for some of the most successful acts he engaged as well as anyone in his band who displeased him in rehearsal and upon occasion included me.

I certainly had my share of bluffing my way into jobs or events, his position being one, but probably the biggest and most recent was the publishing of my grandfather’s manuscripts. Talk about clueless….

It wasn’t like I came to a decision whether or not to create a printed book, eBook, or audiobook as much as I was steered into making a simple stock print book, soft cover, 6 x 9. The biggest decision there was glossy or matt cover? It was only with the fifth book that I chose not to do a print book as the total word count created a novella-length book and I saw no reason to go to the expense of creating a formally printed book.

Also, having no other experience than the one NaNoWriMo steered me into–CreateSpace–I came to appreciate the quality of their binding, if not the cover paper (which tends to curl slightly at the corner) and the speed with which they completed orders. CreateSpace also steers you into distribution, so there again it’s not as if you are making any big decisions.

After having created those print books, it was (again) a natural progression to find the road into “Kindle” and from there eBook formatting, becoming ever more complicated entering the world of Smashwords. While it was felt that Smashwords gave me a far greater reach for the eBook version than did Kindle, I’d yet to see a big sales advantage (and eventually dropped it in favor of Amazon).

One of the first notices I had of the choice of eBooks over print books is that I’d used the stock format for CreateSpace which uses a font less friendly to older folks. The common complaint until I got that first book into the second edition with larger print was that the font was too small and difficult to read. I suspect as we see the progression of the aging population the push to eBooks will become ever more popular as they discover the option of making the print as large as needed for comfortable reading. Rather than getting bigger and better bookcases, we’ll be looking for ever larger eBook storage capacity or flash storage. Perhaps the bookcases will hold thousands of books–but on Kindles, Cruzer’s, SanDisks, or the Cloud?

The Happy Surprises in Publishing – A Writing Prompt

Day 17 Prompt: What has been the biggest surprise about writing/publishing your book? What has been the most enjoyable or most memorable aspect?

What has been the biggest surprise? Lots of surprises! As most people know by now, I’ve published my grandfather’s manuscripts written under the pen name of Stanley McShane. He also painted and sold various paintings with some dubious success under both his pen name and that of J. Wesley Rose. The paintings I have are on little pasteboard 8 x 10’s and were meant to illustrate his books.

Surprises Include:

Discovering that my mother really knew little about her father’s life, nor had been sufficiently interested enough to ask or get some of the most basic facts.
Reading and writing his manuscripts, discovering the tale we grew up with (that of his being born on board his father’s ship the “Marguerite” off the coast of New York) may not have been wholly true. Indeed, in succeeding manuscripts, he offers two additional accounts of his birth–including the one of his birth in a maternity home in New York while his father’s ship was being loaded as it was mentioned more than once that his mother always sailed on the Marguerite (which was named after her) with her husband, the captain. There are no birth records.
Stumbling over 90-year-old English common of the day and sailing jargon also common during the turn of the 20th Century as he claimed to have sailed into the early 1900s.
Walking in his shoes through streets still dusty from the choking red clay powder surrounding ghost and near-ghost towns where he sought riches.
Among the most enjoyable or memorable aspects would have to be the people; those who’ve bought and shared their stories; authors with whom I’ve created a rapport. Among the latter, I would have to note Michael Reisig, who wrote the “Road to Key West“ series as well as my favorite of his historical swashbuckling, page-turning adventure, the “Caribbean Gold“ series.

But the most amazing and happy surprise?

The discovery of a fella named Gary Long, coincidentally from Idaho where I published the books; claimed he had been in the possession of a McShane painting with one of his poems on the back. The poem stuck with him for the rest of his life, although unfortunately, the painting went missing. He had apparently been researching the name on the internet and wrote me. I was totally astonished and asked if I could use some of his story in the anthology I’ve been working on. I’ll be sending him a copy that includes his story when I complete and release “Sole Survivor.”

This writing thing–sure opens up the world to you–doesn’t it.

Writing-The Short Of It-Is There Anything Faster Than Flash Fiction?

Writing-The Short of It

Every occupation has its own buzz words, general or common to the specific endeavor and writing is no different. Whether writing for fun or profit, fiction or non, there are terms–probably too many to try and cover here–that pertain to the profession.

The subject of this particular article is the word length given to those published documents that denote the specific type of creation. It used to be anything that was not a book or full-blown novel was a short story. Not any more!

Now we have:

Flash Fiction
Short Story
Novelette
Digital Novel
Novella
Book

They break down roughly as follows:

The format that holds the fascination for me is “flash fiction.” Just the word “flash” immediately conjures the imagination. The internet is so full of flash these days, why not coin a new term to apply to that little story which is generally thought to be a minimum of 100 words but no longer than 1,000.

Gee, seems deceptively simple, huh? But you know in your heart nothing is simple. This must be a novel with a plot, characters, dialogue, and climax. It has to contain a complete story: a beginning, a middle, and an end.

It is said that the story should be contained within the time it takes to smoke a cigarette. WOW! The possibilities! Read a flash fiction story on the elevator, before your next stop off the subway or bus, or in a bank line; not while waiting for the doctor.

There are contests now for flash fiction such the Flash Fiction Competition by Pigeon Review as noted on Reedsy.com. Entry fee is $5 and first place wins $125.00. This one with a July 31st deadline. Another with a free entry. There are whole books containing flash fiction or very short-short stories on Amazon.com–what they are, how to write them, or anthologies of the best.

We’re in an age of instant. It has to be fast to hold our attention, keep us in a movie, riveted to a book. Does it get any faster than FLASH?