The Magic Lever

While we writers like to portray ourselves as servants to the Muse, as mortal scribes channeling Inspiration, we gotta pay the rent and that means selling books. That and riding herd on the day job. Every established writer gets hit with the question: How do I market my book? Which is another way of asking, How do I make money in this writing gig?

The easy answer, Sell lots of books. Be on notice that if I had my hand on the magic-selling-books-lever, you can be sure that I wouldn't let you put your toner-stained mitts on it. So how to sell books? What helps is getting your name out in public. Let me share my experience of what happens when you don't. Last year I cut back on my touring schedule, appearing only around the Denver area. However, I did keep tabs with my fellow writers working the Bard's Tower booth, formerly the WordFire booth, as they dragged the setup from comic con to comic con and greeted metric tons of people. Make no mistake, working the booth is an effort. Set up and tear down is a real pain, and holding court on the exhibition floor keeps you on your feet for a solid twelve hours. The upside is that you're meeting new readers and occasionally, even fans. Paying for travel and meals takes a bite out of your wallet and even if you sell out stock, which I've done, you won't come close to covering your costs. Even so, I missed the excitement of the shows, the comradery of hanging out with this gang of misfits, and the chance to see a new city. But more importantly, a consequence of not touring was a downturn in my royalties. Not good.

This year I signed up for as many gigs with the Bard's Tower as I could fit into my schedule. Though I haven't appeared in many shows, what I've seen is a lot more traffic to my Facebook book pages and more engagement in Twitter. We'll see if that translates into an uptick in royalties. Stay tuned.

Author Speed Dating

I'm lucky to be included in an author speed-dating event at Bouchercon. The email I received asking about it contains terrific information. It's quite clear. I'm pasting it into this blog because I've always appreciated the shared advise on Type M.

Two persons are "teamed" and we will move from table to table. I'm working hard to prepare 160 table favors for fans and others who will remain seated. The authors making the pitches move from table to table. Not the fans.

I like to sew and fiddle with crafts. The 160 favors is not as daunting as composing decent pitches.
I suspect it's a good idea to wear comfortable shoes. Not an ideal venue for stilettos.

From the organizers:

What is “author speed dating”?

Each author gets a chance to pitch their book(s) to 20 tables of up to 8 readers to a table. Authors are put in groups of 2 and move from table to table every 4 minutes — so if you and I were paired I would talk for 2 minutes and then you would talk for 2 minutes. We’d pass out bookmarks or other stuff. And then at the 4 minute mark we’d travel to the next table!

 You two will be making the rounds of the tables together. You’ll both begin at Table # 15.

It is incredibly popular and the book room floods with buyers when it is done!

THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW RIGHT NOW:

There will be TWO GROUPS OF TABLES – tables 1-22 and tables 23-44 – two sessions taking place simultaneously in the same ballroom. Each group consists of 44 authors. You will be traveling from table to table only within your group.

Please prepare your pitch and be sure it is less than 2 minutes long. Each author gets 2 minutes and you will then get 1 minute to move to the next table, for a total of 5 minutes for each session. We MUST enforce the time limit strictly in order to allow every author to address all the readers in your group. Leslie has a handbell and Les has a microphone and we will signal you when it’s time to move on.

It will help – a lot – if both of you work together – author 1 speaks while the other distributes any flyers, pens, takeaways, etc., then author 2 speaks while author 1 distributes. Please plan accordingly.

Each group will have two tables with just two seats and a LARGE Reserved sign. They’re your rest stops. When you reach one of these tables in the rotation, it’s a chance to sit and catch your breath for 5 minutes. You’ll be glad of the rest stop.

 

Wow, what a chance for promotion! I'm looked forward to this high energy event. Bouchercon is in Toronto Canada this year. It's count-down time already!