Bouquets for Author Support - post 1

As I seek to promote Mine to Avenge, I am compiling a list of people who have helped me along the way. I am listing those who have been most helpful in offering services that supporting me as an author in my promotion and marketing endeavours.

Some on the list offer services to other authors, and others have stepped up to help me in a more personal way.

By way of thanks, I thought I would like to return the favour and run a series of occasional posts on my blog, to promote them in return, as I add to the list.

This week’s three are -

1. Celebrating Authors

This site is managed by mystery/suspense author, Carolyn Arnold. Her goal is twofold - to connect readers with authors, and to have authors supporting authors. Carolyn has several options available for promotion, and she asks authors to choose one option from a range of seven ‘features’ - author interview, amazon snapshot, book excerpt, character interview, proceeds to charity and Trailer time.

There are a few requirements to be featured, but no cost other than supporting Carolyn and other authors. Carolyn requests that you follow both her and Celebrating Authors on Twitter, Facebook and her personal blog as well as the Celebrating Authors blog.

Contact details - Celebrating Authors

Twitter, 

Celebrating Authors on FB

Blog

Contact details - Carolyn Arnold

 Facebook

Twitter 

Author blog

2. Author Quiz

Author Quiz is run by Charles Fudgemuffin, who sums up his site as follows - ‘Author Quiz is a chance for authors to introduce themselves to book lovers with a personalised interview, and a chance for book lovers to discover some of the up and coming indie authors breaking into the self-publishing market.’

As an author, you can feature on Author Quiz by choosing one question from each of 10 sections, with a degree of flexibility around choosing from the sections. Charles specifies no adult content.

Contact Details -

Website

Twitter

3. Clive Eaton

Clive is author of The Pyramid Legacy, with Operation Stonehenge coming soon. As well as promoting himself and his work, Clive occasionally creates opportunities for other authors to increase exposure and improve ranking in Google searches, such as author interviews and sharing author links. I’d recommend following Clive on Facebook and Twitter as well as his blog and keep your eyes open for further opportunities as Clive offers them.

Contact Details -

Website

Facebook

Twitter

What should I include in a blog tour?

Following on from my previous post, I have prepared a list of items that I am considering to have ready and prepared before I begin to approach bloggers to host me in a blog tour. I have very much appreciated the help and advice gleaned from those who are experts at this sort of thing.  

• Photos from the actual book launch
• Promotional banner
• Cover images
• Press release
• Back cover blurb
• Author bio
• Why I became a writer
• Answers for interview questions
• Several guest post/s
• Excerpt/s
• Character interview (not sure that this would work well for Mine to Avenge)
• Review/s
• Giveaway
• Story of cover art
• Q & A
• Destination guide for settings in novel

If any bloggers reading this would be willing to host me, I’d love to hear from you. I am thinking of maybe working towards a date in late April.

Promotion AFTER publication

I continue to plod away at the daunting task of marketing and self-promotion. As I go, I am compiling a list of blogs/bloggers and websites that have been supportive and helpful to me along the way, and I plan to share these here on the blog as a resource for other writers when I collect a few more.

My next major venture as part of the promotional journey of Mine to Avenge, is to sift through blogs and bloggers in an attempt to organize a blog tour. In terms of timing with respect to my own book, I am planning this much later than I should have, largely because I’d finished and published my book well before I knew anything about marketing and promotion and things such as blog tours. I was still getting my head around writing my own blog, let alone knowing what a blog tour was. A blog tour is best organized well before your book comes out.

I’m sure I’m not the first author to be in this predicament, and I’m sure I won’t be the last. I was about to say that learning marketing and promotion after the book is published is a bit like shutting the gate after the horse has bolted, but that isn’t really accurate, because if your situation is anything like mine, your ‘horse’ is probably still sitting inside the stable most of the time with the door open, but still needing a significant nudge to get out that door.

Mine to Avenge is occasionally popping out of the stable and showing itself off – I am getting a steady trickle of positive reviews and testimonials, as people are reading it. There are currently two people reading it on Goodreads, and there are some great reviews on that site as well as on Amazon, but it is going to take a lot of hard work and determination to catapult it further into the world.

I don’t believe all is lost if you are a writer in the same situation. I think you can still get your book out there, but it will require persistence and determination on your part, and the help of wonderful supporters like bloggers and avid readers. The challenge is to find them and use them, even if your ‘horse’ is like mine and a bit late out of the starting gate.

I’d love some reader feedback with this post. If you are a blogger keen to help self-pubs, let me know the services you offer in the comments section. If you have some experience with hosting blog tours or doing your own, let me know what kind of ‘stops’ work well. I have a list I’m working on which I will share in the next blog post. If you have a ‘horse’ still in the stable with an open gate, please share any helpful resources you have found.