DENVER COMIC CON!!! The Ultra-Glamorous Life of an Author

By Aaron Michael Ritchey

So, I just got back from the Denver Comic Con, and boy, are my arms tired. Not from flying. You know that old joke? Right? Or am I old? Dang, I’m old.

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Anyway, my arms are tired from carrying my own books.

I carry my own books. A lot. I bought a wheeled cart from Office Depot (Collapsible! Inexpensive! Durable!) because I got so tired of showing up to events dripping with sweat from lugging boxes around.

Jim Butcher, whom I met this past weekend at the Denver Comic Convention, doesn’t have to carry his books around. He sits down, his minions come in and provide books which he signs, and then when his time is over, he get up and moseys out of the room.

Now, Mr. Bucher is a helluva nice guy and he’s written some amazing books. His fans love him, and I watched them line up to get a chance to talk to him. It’s the dream, baby, the dream of the world-famous author with money and movies, flowing in and coming out.

It’s easy to see that and get jealous. I generally waltz right past envy and right to despair. I love despair. It’s so cold and empty, and it gnaws at me with the needle teeth of midnight spiders.

I’ll never get to be the rock star author. I’ll always be struggling. No one will ever love me like they love Jim Butcher.

Part of my journey as a writer is coming to understand that if I want to be a writer, I’m going to have to carry my own books and sell them, one at a time, to the skeptical masses. This is not the glamorous life I thought it would be.

Since my epic six-book series is coming out from Kevin J. Anderson’s WordFire Press in September, I helped them run the WordFire Press booth at the Denver Comic Con and helped sell books.

I talked to people as they walked buy, saying, “Do you like to read? Do you like fantasy and science fiction novels? Do you like stories about sixteen-year-old girls on treasure hunts in France with their crazy grandmothers?” I was ignored. Or politely told they don’t read. Or they didn’t like France. That last one hurt.

But do you know what? Some of them got excited about the books. Some of them bought my book (the one about France). And some seemed to really appreciate how much time, effort, and suffering it takes to write a book. A lot of the people were writers themselves.

Then after three days of that, I helped the amazing Quincy J. Allen and Josh Vogt tear down and box up the inventory. And so it goes.

As I was schlepping boxes and tables and bins around, it suddenly struck me…I get to do this. I don’t have to do this. I get to do this.

There are millions of people who want to write books. There are thousands of published authors who would like to sell their books in big venues. And there hundred of those authors who would’ve loved to be at Denver Comic Con. But for whatever reason, the people aren’t writing, aren’t publishing, aren’t putting themselves out there. For whatever reason.

I get to write. I get to publish. I get to sell. All of this isn’t the wonder and glamour I thought it would be, but it’s real. And you know what? There is a camaraderie among writers and artists who go out in the world, doing the deal, and yeah, carrying your own books around and trying to foist them on other people is hard, but it’s the struggle that makes it good. It’s the work. The sweaty, uncomfortable work.

It’s not the cocktail parties and check-cashing I thought it would be, but I’ll continue to carry my books to places (ha, no, I'll wheel them in my collapsible cart from Office Depot), and I’ll continue to get fans, one conversation at a time.

I don’t have to do this.

I get to do this.

Hurray. Hurray. Hurray.

Aaron Michael Ritchey is the author of The Never Prayer and Long Live the Suicide King, both finalists in various contests. His latest novel, Elizabeth’s Midnight, was called “a transformative tale for those who believe in magic and in a young girl’s heart” by Kirkus Reviews. In shorter fiction, his G.I. Joe inspired novella was an Amazon bestseller in Kindle Worlds and his steampunk story, “The Dirges of Percival Lewand” was part of The Best of Penny Dread Tales anthology published through Kevin J. Anderson’s WordFire Press. His upcoming young adult sci-fi/western epic series will also be published through WordFire Press. He lives in Colorado with his wife and two ancient goddesses of chaos posing as his daughters.

For more about him, his books, and how to overcome artistic angst, visit www.aaronmritchey.com. He’s on Facebook as Aaron Michael Ritchey and he tweets - @aaronmritchey.

Marketing is a Marathon

By Jennifer Lovett Herbranson 

At every writer’s conference I attend, I hear the same thing. “I just wanna write,” says the writer when the topic of marketing comes up. Some people scoff at that; some laugh, some nod in agreement. I have no doubt at April’s Pikes Peak Writers Conference, I’ll hear it there too (have you signed up yet???).

That works in my favor because I just wanna market. I love it!

· I love chatting with total strangers about news or marketing on Twitter.
· I love participating in book parties on Facebook.
· I love finding new ideas for cover art on Pinterest.
· I love stalking writers favorite places to write on Instagram.
· Character interviews or location scout videos on YouTube? Love ‘em!

I also love blogging when I have something to say; talking to civic groups or spouses organizations and teaching writers about marketing. So you guys can write and I can do the marketing.

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Wait! Wait! Wait

That’s the easy way out! I want to help you be the best CAREER author you can. And that means you need to learn how to market yourself and your books. You need to. Because people want to get to know you, not the hack hired to do it for you.

Here’s the thing. Not only have I been doing marketing and communications for nearly 15 years, I’m also a reader. A voracious one. Last year I had a competition with my daughter to see who could read the most books. I read 60. She read 68.

Where did we find out about those books? From people we trusted and the authors who take the time to let me know them.

Where are those people? In my neighborhood. At work. At school, church, and online.

You don’t have to market if you don’t want to. You can just write. But how will anyone hear about your book? How will anyone get to know you and care about you and care about what you have to say?

I know what you’re thinking: well, you, Jenny, you enjoy doing it. Yes, I do. But I can also make it easier for you with this little secret.

It isn’t hard and it doesn’t have to take up all your time!

Nope. And here’s why. It’s a marathon, not a sprint. Start slow and build up over time.

Most people are told to build a blog, blog every day, Tweet every day, Facebook every day, get on every major social media platform you can. Go talk to groups. Sell your book at your favorite watering hole. Talk, post, photo, pic, video, chat, screeeeeam!

While all of this works in your favor, if you did it, you’ll be so exhausted you’ll curl up on your couch and suck your thumb, never to leave again.

So I’m going to tell you what you can do that is good enough.

Build relationships.

This is the first and foremost thing you can do to kick start your marketing campaign or build your author platform. This is how you get people talking about you and then your book. This is THE most important thing you can do for your writing career. Because here’s the deal: selling books is not like selling cars. Writers don’t compete with one another. They don’t. Think about it. If you like one author’s books and you finish her list, don’t you want to find someone a lot like her?

I read Vince Flynn, Nelson DeMille, John Grisham, Robert Crais, David Baldacci. See a pattern? Spy thriller, noir stuff. I’m not going to diss Nelson just because he’s not David. Heck no, I’m going to read them both because I love the genre.

So what’s the point? The point is to build relationships with authors just like you because cross marketing makes life easier. Help each other out. Build a support system. This is why you read reviews by other authors on a book’s flap. The big dogs are already doing it.

How do you build relationships with other authors? Attend writers conferences, writers workshops, book signings, find their blog, like them on Facebook, follow them on Twitter. No this is not stalking. It’s finding someone to make a connection.

I spent the summer in Alaska and while there, read an article about a hometown girl who just released her latest novel. Found her on Twitter and arranged a coffee date. She was lovely & we chatted for nearly an hour. From there, I found several other writers to connect with. Since I’m back in DC, I engage with them online.

Once you start making those connections, give them something to keep coming back.

It’s all about CONTENT.

This is where “Buy My Book” doesn’t work. Ever. Not as content. People know you are a writer so you don’t have to bombard them over the head, screaming “Buy My Book!!!” This isn’t to say you can’t mention it ever, you just don’t need to mention it often. Launch time is good, sales, give-aways…all that is when you need to bring it up.

But what you can bombard them over the head with is how wonderful you are.

So pick a platform… ONE of them. Blog, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Tumblr, Edgar, Google+, Vine, whatever and offer your connections something fun. They want to know you. They know you are a writer, so they don’t need to be told to write your book.

What makes great content? Think about anything you click on while scrolling your Facebook feed or flipping through Pinterest boards. Fun, interesting, compelling content. That’s what you want to develop. How do you do that? Well, you have to first believe that you are interesting. Of course you are. And selling books is about making a connection with you not the book. What do you find interesting?

PPWC Keynote Mary Kay Andrews is a huge junker and antiquer. She’s always sharing pics and info about what new thing she’s found for her Tybee Island place.

Author Mary Karen Meredith loves hugs and peanut butter.

Author Jamie Farrell calls her kids Squeaker, Peanut and Buttercup and shares their hilarious exploits.

The point is great content comes from you think is awesome about life. What are you interested in? What do you do for fun? Share pics, share insights, ask questions, create a game and give your reader something to bond over.

Leaving you with this

Do you need to do this everyday? No, remember it’s a marathon, not a spring. Slow out of the gate, steady in execution. So not everyday, but you do need to do it consistently.

And make sure engage with your peeps when they do post or respond to you. The reason Taylor Swift just hit the 52M follower mark on Twitter is because she is always engaging with her followers. She posts pics, replies, videos of their content. She makes the follower feel valued and important.

Sure it requires some work but it is supposed to be fun. If you aren’t having fun, it will show. If you aren’t having fun, don’t do it. Find the avenue that is appealing to you and then do it relentlessly.

Once you are comfortable with that one way, you can expand.

Next time we’ll talk about social media dashboards to help make social networking effective and a lot less hassle. I promise marketing can be fun, and you can develop ways to open up your calendar so you don’t have to market for hours on end day after day. 

If you’re going to Pikes Peak Writers Conference in April, make sure to check out these workshops:

Author Platform Building (For People With a Life) with F.T. Bradley

Guerilla Marketing: Skip The Monkey Marketing with J.A. Kazimer

“Tell Me About Your Book” with Alex Kourvo and Pam McCutcheon

If you aren’t convinced yet, find me online and let’s chat or even better, register for Pikes Peak Writers Conference in April & find me to chat some more. I’ll be there all week!

   

About the Author: With a combined 14 years of active and Reserve time as a US Air Force Public Affairs Officer, Jennifer Lovett Herbranson has marketed books, shows, concerts and more. She is currently the speechwriter for the Director of the Defense Logistics Agency outside of Washington DC. In her spare time, she is pursuing a career as a fiction writer. Find her at:

       

Twitter: jennyl0vett
Facebook: facebook.com/jenniferlovettherbranson1
Blog: livefrommycouch.com

Indie Publishing and Me

(Note from the Editor: With so many submissions from PPWC attendees, you are seeing a lag between conference time and the time we can schedule out the posts. But it's never too early to start applying our writers' insights into next year's conference!)

By Fatma Alici

I’d been considering indie publishing for a while. As is my nature, I started to read every online article, every book, and look into every resource I could find. What I got in return in was a lot of conflicting information. Some sources talked about how horrible most eBooks were. Others claimed the only real way to get your books to the public was to go to big publishers. Even more warned of the horrors of traditional publishing and how it would eat your soul.

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None of it really offered any truly practical advice. I wanted charts, graphs, and evidence. And failing that, I’d like some down to earth advice. From what I already knew, this wasn’t going to make me a millionaire. But I wanted to be a writer. I never thought I’d be a millionaire anyway. What did it really take to be a successful indie publisher? How did one market? How did I even know where to start? Which products or services did it make sense to pay for and which didn't? What should I be aiming for?

Becky Clark and Deanna Knippling aren’t really that much alike when it comes to the ways they set up their publishing. That ended up being an asset for their workshop. They each do it their own way. That was the first thing I learned. When you enter indie publishing, you need to figure out what you want out of it. What are you trying to accomplish? What your goals are will determine everything else.

Together, they had great marketing tips. Marketing is the key to getting yourself, and your book, out there. And it’s definitely not tweeting the same book blurb over and over. Instead, you have to look at everything you’re doing to see what you can apply to marketing. Your author bio doesn’t help you if it is only about you. Instead, what about you makes your books unique? You might write a certain genre, but what makes your vision, your words so different from everyone else’s? It is the small changes to things you already do that are the start of marketing. The rest is realizing you are marketing director, your boss, your editor, and so forth. You have to know your strengths and your weakness.

There is a community of independent publishers around you. Connect with them. They can help you keep up with the latest new developments. They can give you reviews on services you might need. Let’s face it; none of us can do everything we need to be published.

The most important thing I learned was the hardest one for me and they mentioned it a few times. Don’t be afraid to fail. Don’t be afraid to do it all wrong. Don’t be afraid of not being perfect. You will mess up. You will get things wrong. You will not be perfect. In the end, you have to accept those blows, dust yourself off and get right back up. That’s what indie publishing has in common with writing -- at first we were all terrible, and with time we found our stride. If I can make it through critique groups and rejection letters, I can take on indie publishing.

About the Author:  Fatma Alici is gamer geek turned writer who blogs about neglectful gods, magic gone crazy, tech that can save you or kill you, and of course aliens, lots of aliens. Each week I take a slice off these realities and put it up at http://www.fatmaalici.com.

Be A Winner - Marketing Your Book

By Jennifer Lovett Herbranson


It’s Football Time!

Bring on the tailgates, the barbecue, and the excitement. I’m originally from Birmingham, Alabama, and there is nothing in this world like a Saturday in autumn down south.

RV's park themselves outside the game field a week before the game. Crowds litter every available inch of real estate on campus and set up tents, grills, coolers and yes, even televisions. Strange new phrases reappear in the lexicon after a six-month hiatus. “Roll Tide,” “The Swamp” and “Suuu, eee” are heard from Savannah to Texas. Can’t you hear the marching band and the cheerleaders?

What does this have to do with marketing your book? Everything.

Legendary Alabama Head Coach Paul “Bear” Bryant once said, “Everything you ever need to learn in life can be learned on a football field.” With six national championships under his belt, I think he might be on to something. So grab a box of hot wings, a cold iced tea, and some Dreamland Barbecue Sauce. We’re gonna' talk football.

First, what do Peyton Manning, Tim Tebow, and Joe Namath have in common? He married his college sweetheart; he wrote a book about faith; and he played football with my Daddy, respectively. So nothing, really, other than they were all SEC quarterbacks who made it to the NFL.

Quarterbacks are in charge. They read the field, decide the play, and either let go or keep the ball - all before the barreling monster of a defense lineman squashes him to a pulp. In the writing world, you are the Quarterback. The head honcho of your team. The one to decide when to release the ball and when to hold onto it.

And here’s the deal: whether you are an introvert or an extrovert, if you want to sell your book, everyone expects you to do the marketing. Yep you. Even if you get the Big NY Deal, you are still expected to do the marketing because, frankly, there is no reason to gamble on a new or mid-list writer, which means little-to-no marketing money. And who wins? The guy with the biggest motivation and perseverance. They guy who reads the field and decides how to make the plan.

Repeatedly, writers tell me they just want to write. They hate marketing. They don’t want to learn and don’t see the point. I understand. Really. But if you want to sell that book, listen to Knute Rockne: “Build up your weaknesses until they become your strong points.” He is often considered one of the greatest football coaches of all time.

Once you decide you’re gonna' dig in and go for it, the first thing you’ll do as the quarterback is find a way to fend off the defense. For writers, that can be anything. The massive defensive end coming at your left side is self-doubt, the one on the right is procrastination, and the guy coming up the middle? That’s the competition. Finally, that defensive line blocking every move you make? That’s the industry. In spite of all this, crush ‘em head on because “when you win, nothing hurts” and Hall of Famer Joe Namath, veteran quarterback of the NY Jets and the University of Alabama, should know.

And winning is only possible with a Coach. You need a Coach who will yell and scream and holler and cheer and push and hug all at once. In the world of writing, there are a lot of different coaches: writer's conferences, marketing programs, books, mentors. These coaches will teach you to develop, understand and tackle the game plan. Do you understand why you need to market on specific outlets? Do you understand the outlet? Do you know how to reach people online and turn them into readers? Seek out the people who can help you with this. “It’s not the size of the dog in the fight, but the size of the fight in the dog.” - Archie Griffin, the only two-time Heisman trophy winner. So get out there, high five the coach and fight, fight, fight!

Why? Because there is nothing sweeter than stepping into a fan-crazed stadium pushing its outer limits with pandemonium. Look around. The world is your stadium and it’s bursting with fans screaming and cheering. The band is playing and the cameras are popping; they want you to succeed. So after you find your coaches, you need a game plan.

Coach Bryant said there are three rules: 1.) Surround yourself with people who can’t live without football. 2.) Recognize winners. They come in all forms. 3.) Have a plan for everything.

In the biz, the marketing plan, or playbook, is called a communications plan. The best way to learn the playbook is find out what is working for other writers. After that, create your own.

Every game plan should include:

• Target audiences
• Readers
• Interest Groups
• Media (TV, radio, print)
• Bloggers
• Other Writers
• Agents, Editors and Publishers
• Online strategies
• Website and/or Blog
• Facebook Author Page (not the personal one, a professional one)
• Goodreads (for giveaways and author discussions)
• Twitter ('cause it’s fun & all the publishing industry is on it)
• Pinterest (it’s the up and comer)
• YouTube (3rd ranked search engine behind Google and Facebook)
• Face-to-face strategies
• Attend club meetings
• Hold a signing at a hardware store
• Speak (schools, civic organizations, anywhere)
• Messages and themes
• Define the overarching themes in your story and use those to help sell it
• What message are you trying to get across in your novel?

Ask yourself: Who will you market to? How? What will you say? Put all that in your playbook. Be as bold and creative as you can. Include offensive and defensive methods.

You will be successful, but it takes time. Start slow and make small goals. Inch up to national championship status with daily interaction on all outlets. Most of all, hang in there. Writing, just as with “Football, is like life – it requires perseverance, self-denial, hard work, sacrifice, dedication and respect for authority.” – Vince Lombardi.

In the life of writing and marketing, the game never winds down. You play, you practice, you watch game film, revise the game plan, sometimes you’ll even switch out the players. But it is all part of the continual cycle of getting better, finessing your game and playing to win.

Now “Winning isn't everything, but it sure beats coming in second,” said Coach Bryant. “And I ain’t never been nothing but a winner.”

Now, go out there, find your game and Be A Winner!

About the Author: With a combined 12 years of active and Reserve time as a US Air Force Public Affairs Officer, Jennifer Lovett has marketed books, shows, concerts and more. She is currently an Air Force Reserve Public Affairs Officer at Patrick AFB in Florida and in her full-time life, pursuing a career as a fiction writer.