Every day I play marketer and strategist for several organizations. I navigate the social playgrounds and promote their brands through conversation management and thought leadership. My technical savvy and chatty nature makes it easy for me to multi-task the different brands and industry audiences—creating ripples of awareness that become organic. It also helps that I have more business experience than someone with my youthful complexion should be able to advertise. Goods and services are easy. There’s usually a need the brand is managing, and I assist in the strategic mapping of that need with the social brand.
Self-marketing is a little trickier. Especially when that “self” is me. I find that marketing a novel does not fit neatly into a good or service. It belongs in entertainment—technically a service, although the novel itself is a “good,” which arguably may not be a need—or even a good “good.”
I’ve opted to create as many ripples of awareness as I can, and allow the organic nature of the industry to do the rest. But where to start the ripples? Ah, that is the question. I’m not certain that there is any one “right” answer. I’ve selected a few dominant sites to become active in, I’ve gifted book bloggers across the globe with copies, I’m getting out in the public locally, I’m building the most heart-stopping, pulse-pounding video book trailer of all time, and I’m committed to author interviews with various book sites. After that, it’s up to all of you—the readers.
To begin with, I’ve had an excerpt of my novel republished at indiesnippets.com. And my first author interview is posted on Peace Love Books—which you can find here. I’d like to be able to say that I lost my interview virginity to PLB, however, there was this incident when I was a kid at Safety Patrol camp (don’t judge me) that involved a locked school bus and a smoke bomb.
I hope I’ve started enough ripples. It’s a very big pond.
~uberscribbler
This is a great technological time to gain exposure as an artist. I, for one, am about to throw myself into the e-book explosion. In a few short weeks my debut novel, “In a Celandine World” will be released as an e-book. The “indie” world is fascinating and full of possibilities. It makes me feel a little dangerous, a little invincible, a little Jason Bourne-ish. I’m a rogue author treading out into the black-ops arm of publishing. Yippee ki-yay mutha’—.
