Promotions & More RWA Dirt

All right, I know, I had promised to have a real blog this time. And believe me, I will but I just wanted to pass along a little more on the RWA front. Mainly in the form of links and the like because it’s time for everyone to form their own opinion.

You all should read every one of the links posted on Dear Author because they contain relevant information to anyone epublished. Yes, there is some rehashing over the whole problem but since last week, RWA’s President Diane Pershing has given us a rebuttal. Oh, joy. Look at the links and discussion here: http://dearauthor.com/wordpress/2009/06/23/the-case-for-rwachange/ as well as here: http://espan-rwa.com/ Lots of good information on both sites.

Also, if you are serious about challenging RWA’s stance on ebooks, epublishers and epublishing, you might want to join the RWAchange group. It is planning to change the name here shortly to reflect what the group is as a whole and to not get RWA any more upset than they probably will be. They just don’t want to be sued…but then…who does? You can join the yahoogroup at RWAchange-subscribe@yahoogroups.com and just to give you a few stats, this group was formed on June 20. It already is planning an election of officers and has a membership of 527 as of this writing. Pretty impressive if I say so myself.

Still, like I said, this is the time for individuals to decide just which side of the fence they are going to stand on. This is much bigger than just the local chapters loving the epublished authors and national not. It looks to the future and as we all know, time waits for no one.

Moving on…what I really wanted to talk about this week is…promotion.

Now, personally I have a promo group who does a lot for me. I don’t usually post any excerpts, they do but I do send out notices for things like this blog. I also have to prepare exactly what the promo group is sending out so I know what’s being posted. Eventually, I’m sure I’ll even have someone do that for me but right now, I like the control.

I belong to many yahoo promo groups as does my promotions manager, so she gets to post things about me in over a hundred different groups. Recently, I caught the tail end of an email, which stated that many of the promotions groups were changing their rules because so many authors didn’t know or understand promotion etiquette and they were tired of the blatant disregard of those rules.

That bothered me because I know I go out of my way to make sure I and my promotions group does everything correctly. What is correctly you might ask? Here are a few tips on how to promote yourself well.

1. Make sure you follow the rules of the group perfectly. This means, if they want a certain thing in the subject line, put it there. For example, if you must label your excerpt as PROMO, then do it exactly as their example shows. This would include making sure you post on the correct day and their requested way. Don’t be surprised if your promotional item doesn’t show up if you haven’t followed the loop rules.

2. Make sure you don’t inundate the loop with the same promotion repeatedly. Between me and my promotions group, we belong to roughly 200 lists. We have a set schedule of who posts what where and how many times for that month. A good rule of thumb would be to promote heavily on release week, up to once a day on the loops for the first week, then only once a week thereafter. If the book is from your backlist, then once to twice a month is sufficient unless it has a tie in to your current book. Example: I have a Christmas elf series. About 2-3 weeks before release day, I start promoting book 1 of the series all the way up to the current book. The items on the current book are usually little teasers with a full excerpt on release day. Then I promo the heck out of it the first week dwindling down to just a couple times a month for as long as I want to promote that particular book. And yes, I promote all my books, even those published in 2004.

3. Do one to four guest blog spots a month in addition to your own blog. Not every blog is the same and you will not necessarily find the same people on all the same blogs. This means, you can recycle material if you need to. Most of the time, the owner of the blog will send you a set of questions to answer. They post them and you need to check for comments several times during the day. Make sure you answer everyone who comments. This goes a long way with the readers. Everyone wants to be recognized for something they did or for stopping by. By doing this, you are exposing yourself to a new group of readers at least once monthly.

4. Try to participate in one loop chat a month but never do more than four. Reason, being there more than once a week can really make readers annoyed. At least that’s what I’m hearing from many of the promotion groups. You need to keep your content fresh and interesting. If you’re there every day, it can be hard to bring readers back again and again because they’ve heard your spiel before.

5. Don’t overstaturate the market. Exposure is good, overexposure is bad. I’ve taken many marketing classes before and have been told it takes about 10 times before someone remembers your name. Another 10 to remember your product and then another 10 to associate said product to you. This means a minimum of 30 times before you start getting name recognition. With the digital age, it’s not hard to do at all. The trick is doing it in such a way people look forward to your excerpts, blogs and chats not gloss over them because they’ve had too much. If you only have one book, this is hard as readers do get bored with having the same item over and over again.

6. Last, join promotion groups and loops to see what promotional opportunities are available to you. Here’s a couple of links to get you started.

http://1stturningpoint.com/
This is a website/group started by authors to teach about promotion. They have good articles and are extremely good at helping a beginning author.

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Promotion_Loop_Schedule/?yguid=266457368
This is a yahoogroup that gives you a daily message regarding where you can post your promotion. It is very good as you will get reminders in your mailbox. To subscribe to this loop, use this link Promotion_Loop_Schedule-subscribe@yahoogroups.com

Happy promoting! See you all next week!

Lynn

The Singles Travel Club

Alright, I finally have something to rival AJ in the weird and different department. But I digress; I need to start from the beginning.

Those of you, who know me, know I do way, way too much. I volunteer for many functions within my writers groups to which I belong. Take this week and month for instance. Last year, I volunteered to chair the EPICon conference right here in Las Vegas, Nevada.

And yes, that means lots and lots of work. I have to help in every aspect of the con. That means PR, picking the venue, food…you name it and it has my signature on it somewhere.

So while we're all working on putting more 'umff' in this blog, in the back of my mind is this conference and what I need to do for it. Never mind that I have a couple of books due and two talks that I'm giving on Saturday. This conference is a big deal and this is a very, very bad year to do it for a variety of reasons. One, people are financially strapped and two, things I thought were being done, weren't.

So all this weekend, actually beginning late last week, my mind has been flurry of activity. In other words, I'm scattered right now. BUT I can usually get on track with a list of things to do. But never mind all that…I can deal with those…it just means I've got to hustle my butt and go to some of those local writers meetings. While there I've got to do the smoozing thing, pass out brochures and let everyone know just how wonderful EPICon is.

And for those of you who've never gone, here's my shameless plug. EPICon 2009 is happening this year at the beautiful Tuscan village of MonteLago Resort in Lake Las Vegas, Nevada. That’s a picture of it at the top. While there, an author can learn everything, well, almost everything, about the epublishing world. Along with that, we have a kick-ass keynote speaker in one Penny Sansevieri, author of 'Red Hot Internet Publicity' and man, does this woman know her stuff! Penny is absolutely great! The conference is March 5-8, 2009 and you can learn more about it at http://www.epic-conference.com/. Since, we're all green authors, we should attend if possible. If nothing else, to smooze and visit with each other. I love meeting and hanging out with my fellow authors and frankly, what better place to do it?

Again, I digress. Sorry. Anyway, on my list were three writers meetings this week to attend in hopes I could entice someone to attend EPICon. They are the Las Vegas Writers Meeting, Las Vegas Screenwriters Meeting and my RWA meeting. I just found out about a fourth meeting on Sunday, a Sisters in Crime chapter meeting that I've decided I'll invade as well.

So tonight I get it together, I make some brochures, get all my regular work done and make sure the DH knows where I'm going so he won't worry. I also mention to CR that I'm going to this meeting and she says, "Isn't that on Thursday?"

"Nope," I say, "it is tonight and I've got to get my butt in gear." So I take a nap, take a shower and get it together so I'm out the door by 5:45 which just gives me enough time to get there and get comfortable. One the way I talk on my hands free phone to a friend and in no time I arrive. Grabbing my stuff, I'm dismayed to note that I am actually a few minutes late but no matter, I've been with these people before and usually enjoy myself.

I go in and don't recognize anyone but this group is rather large and I can see this is a big gathering tonight. I get a name tag and listen to the speaker who's talking about doing a reading. She's going over the important of the details she needs in order to give you a correct one. All interesting stuff. The sign-in person tells me to fill out the forms and bring them back at the end.
No problem. I can do that.

I go sit down and scan the room. Not one familiar face. That's odd, I'm not so far gone that I can't recognize any one. I flip through my brochures about to take them out and decide I should really listen to the speaker. So, I scan the room again and nada. Surely, not every person I know is gone today?

Mentally, shaking myself. I pull out the form. Maybe I should fill this out because the speaker is now getting on familiar territory and it's not so interesting any more. I glance down once, then up. That can't be right. I look down again. Hmm. The dues aren't the right amount. No one every lowers their dues. I look up a little more and see the name of the group: Singles Travel Club of Las Vegas.

I shake my head and rest my chin on my hand. Okay, so maybe I need to do a little observation for my books, you never know what you'll see, right? I really begin to look at the people and by this time, I am trying to hold it in. At first I think, if this is the best that Vegas has to offer, there's a problem. Then I look at the form again. It's the over 60 Singles Travel Club of Las Vegas.

Oookkkaaayyy. Even a little old for me right now. I quietly pick up my stuff and go back to the sign-in table. I give the paper back and tell them to mark my name off because I've come to the wrong meeting. Sigh. Once in my car, I call the dear husband and let him know. What started as a snicker became a laugh. He couldn't believe it. I told him to make sure I really had a writers meeting before I went to the next one and started home. The trip is 45 minutes and the whole time I reflect on just why I was so gung-ho that the meeting was tonight.

I get home and email CR. Know what she says to me, "I can just see your face when you discover the mistake." The exact same first words out of the DH's mouth. Geez, are they in cahoots? LOL!

Sigh. Just chalk one up for the dodo who definitely needs to volunteer less and sleep more.

See ya next week! Or my new partner in crime…it'll be a surprise!

Lynn