Pre-Pubbed Publicity, what you need to do right now
© Kit Frazier 2011
Published by Artemis Publishing at Smashwords
kitfrazier@yahoo.com
www.kitfrazier.com/wordpress
Other books by Kit Frazier
Sassy, sexy, laugh out loud funny!~Lake Country Living
On sale for a limited time-$2.99!
Kit Frazier's Redneckedness had me snorting in an unbecoming manner!~Literary Book Guild
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Coming Soon in e-edition:
DEAD COPY (a Cauley MacKinnon Novel)
MORGUE FILE (a Cauley MacKinnon Novel)
Acknowledgments
Writing is easy. Writing well is hard. And when you’ve learned to write well, you need an edge.
Every published writer I know (except for the fabulous Julia London who is a brilliant NYT bestselling anomaly and sold her very first book without ever talking to another writer), has come up from the ink-stained trenches. We have all faced the same challenges you face.
It’s easy to get discouraged—but as bestselling author J.A. Konrath said, “What do you call a writer who didn’t quit?—Published.”
There are several writers in our writers group who are so close to getting published it’s painful—I know because I’ve been there. They’ve clawed their way up from the Valley of the Slush Pile, navigated through the Dark Forest of the Guardian Agents, and are on the Golden Front Porch of the Publishing Palace, knocking on the door.
The thing is, most good writers, having worked hard, learned Craft, Goal Motivation & Conflict, finished and polished manuscripts until their little noses are skinned from the digital grindstone, just need a little boost.
I offer you the following advice, based on years of experience, and learning at the Manolo’s of some of the most talented authors this century. This book, I dedicate to them . . .
Chapter One: What do you want agents, editors & readers to see when they Google you?
Chapter Two: Face Book Fan Page
Chapter Three: Free Google Q Boosters
Chapter Four: How Do You Write a Bio?
Chapter Five: Blog Like a Pro
Chapter Six: What is Your Message?
Chapter Seven: Identify and Create Your Brand
Chapter Eight: Who Are You and Why Are You Interesting?
Chapter Nine: Build a Fan Base
Chapter Ten: Brainstorm Your Marketing Plan
Chapter Eleven: Your Marketing Plan
Chapter Twelve: Writer’s Marketing Plan Template
Bonus: Conference season and the Secret Weapon
Introduction
What do agents, editors and potential readers see when they Google you?
Whether you plan to publish through the traditional New York Big Six publishers or join the digital revolution and go e-pub, in order to be successful, you're going to need pre-publicity, and part of that is have a positive, professional presence.
Why? Because according to Associated Press reported that 85% of Americans think they will write a novel some day.
While most of them won't finish one chapter, let alone an entire book, 80% of them have access to a computer . . .which leads to a whole bunch of books.
You want people to buy your books. So, you've got to have an edge, and a Pre-Published Publicity can get you that edge to get you and your work noticed, get published, and get a fan-base of readers, who in turn, will buy your book and pass it along.
The question is, where do you begin?
Any six-year-old with access to an iPhone can create a web presence, and my dog has his own blog. You have to figure out what makes you "remarkable." In other words, how do get people to "remark" about you and your work?
What is it about you, your book and your message that sets you apart?
Chapter One: What do you want agents, editors & readers to see when they Google you?
Whether you're going for a job interview, a first date or querying an agent or editor,
you're most likely going to be Googled.
So what pops up when you get Googled, and where are you in the order of web-dom--if you're not on the first page that pops up, it's not likely people are going to pound the cyber pavement trying to track you down.
Google yourself for a gander at what the pros will see when they come clicking–
As entertaining as pictures of your kitty are, unless you’re writing “Marley & Me Get a Kitty,” you probably ought to be making sure you’ve got something kicking around on the web that says who you are, what you write, and just how clever and talented you are.
what you need to do is raise your "Google Quotient."
So what is a Google Quotient? It's your visibility and rank on popular search engines.
But how do you get noticed on Google?
Of course, you should create a website and a blog (and we'll get to that in a moment), but there are other means of boosting your Google Q.
Chapter Two: Face Book Fan Page
Creating a Facebook Fan Page is one of the easiest ways to set up a web presence.
Two crucial advantages of administering a Fan Page are user analytics and these pages are easily embeddable, with buttons and widgets.
With the recently overhauled Facebook Insights, you can view all kinds of useful data about user activity on your page, including how many likes and comments you received each day, demographic break-downs and much more. This data can be useful for understanding the characteristics of your customer base, and knowing which wall posts get the best reaction. This data is not available to individual profiles on a regular Facebook Page.
Another thing ordinary profile pages don't offer is the means to embed a "Like" button and other Open Graph plugins that you can eventually integrate into your own site, and
Fan Pages Can Have Unlimited Fans while individual profiles are limited to 5,000 friends.
Once your profile friend list reaches 5,000, Facebook will encourage you to set up a Page, but doesn't offer a tool to convert your profile to a Page, so it's best to start off with a Fan Page, even if it chafes against your humble senses.
If you already set up your business on Facebook with a profile, converting "friends" to "fans" is no simple process. The only way to switch them over is to politely ask the friends to do it themselves. This can be accomplished either via status update or by sending them all a message explaining the change and linking them to your new Fan Page, which can seem presumptuous.
A third option would be to use Facebook's formal Page recommendation tool to suggest that friends "Like" your new page.
The downside of this is that this option doesn't give you the opportunity to type a custom message explaining why you're asking them to do it.