The Problem with Promotion: Part I
On the eve of the launch of my new novel THE RAVEN'S POOL I am stuck with a dilemma. I must single-handedly promote the book. It wasn't supposed to be this way. I was supposed to have an agent, and she was supposed to find me a publisher. A big one like HarperCollins or New American Library with their imprints of Signet, Onyx, Mentor and Roc. They were supposed to arrange a book launch for me in one of the big chain bookstores and then my tour would start first in North America, then Europe, then Japan. Oh yes, Japan. The Japanese love the Pacific Northwest where my story takes place. They love Native American culture and mythology.
Things didn't happen that way. Yes, I had an agent, and she did get my manuscript read by the executive editors at HarperCollins and New American Library (bless her soul), but they declined. My agent died from breast cancer shortly after receiving the manuscript back and in honour of her memory and to enable myself to move on with new writing projects I have published the novel with Trafford Publishing, a print on demand company.
The drawback with going this route is that now I am solely responsible for promotion. As part of Trafford's "Bestseller" package, they sent me a book called: A SIMPLE GUIDE TO MARKETING YOUR BOOK. Book marketing, according to author Mark Ortman, is identifying who would find value in reviewing, selling and buying your book. Promotion has to do with creating the demand.
But you can't make people like what you write if they don't. However, Ortman believes that "the shortest and best way to make a fortune in business is to let other people see that it is in their interest to support yours." Selling a book is no different from selling soap or potato chips.
Actress-turned-blockbuster author Jacqueline Susann knew this. She gave away fifteen hundred free copies of her famous novel VALLEY OF THE DOLLS. She arranged her own promotional tour, TV and radio appearances. In each city she hired a taxi and visited all of the bookstores, talking to the manager and clerks, making sure her books were prominently displayed. Because she cared, the bookstores cared and helped promote the book. When clerks admitted to not having read her book, she bought them a copy right then and there. "A clerk won't really push a book if he hasn't read it himself," she explained.
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