Expert Promotion Tips from Nate Hardy.

Nate Hardy is one of those people an organization like Pennwriters really needs to be effective. Nate specializes in marketing and promotion. He advises writers to treat their career as a small business. You can still sign up for his class right here.


The APCs of Marketing is Nate’s breakdown of strategic marketing. His plan organizes the steps and process of self promotion in a way to alleviate the horror most writers experience at the idea of setting their main work aside for a short time each day. He emphasizes the need to put your name and your product in front of customers. He quoted a statistic claiming people need to see your product at least six times before they remember it.

Six times can be an intimidating number but Nate also supplied us with lists of social groups and where to find them. Much to our surprise despite all we hear about Twitter, that network in only 45th overall in social networks. Facebook is still number one with Myspace coming in at two, Flickr at three and LinkedIn at four. Nate thinks Twitter will move up but they’re not there yet.

Nate has a plethora of statistics on where the audience is and what methods will put your book and you in front of them. You can learn more about those in his online class or from his book, Know Your APCs: Strategic Marketing Made Easy for Writers.

One common sense thing Nate advised was to be kind and generous to fans and readers as well as colleagues. Collaborate with librarians, booksellers, reviewers, fellow bloggers and people in your hometown to promote your work and theirs.

Nate shared with us his ‘Promotion Pyramid.’ The biggest attention getting for your book and where you should concentrate your time and money is on publicity such as articles, media appearances, press releases, review sites, blog tours and a few others. Visit his website to learn more about his business, Plus Sign Promotions, and about his online classes.

So what do you find is best promotion vehicle for your books? How do you track the success of your efforts?

Great Gobs of Writers

I promised a report on the Pennwriters Conference and here is a small piece of it. Throughout the next few weeks I'll be blogging about some of the helpful information I inhaled and about the various writers and other publishing professionals I spoke with, listened to and even pitched to.

Jennifer Jackson gave some great tips on queries and how to select an agent. Nate Hardy, Pennwriter extraordinaire, shared his hints for promotion and getting your name out there. Agent Jenny Bent spoke to us about contracts and I think I can quote her here, 'it so complicated.' Agent Alex Glass defined the differences between commercial and literary fiction. Editor David Pomerico talked about the fantasy and scifi market. I can't wait to speak about that one. Agent Janet Reid had us all laughing and gave us many reasons to use social media and make it work for us. Maria V. Snyder instructed us on 'show not tell.' She is teacher of the year in my opinion.

I have pages and pages of notes to share with you. I'm not even sure where to start but I'll figure it out.

On a more personal note, I met many writer friends I only knew from blogs or loops face to face for the first time. One of them, Jon Sprunk, will visit my blog in early June to promote the release of his first book, Shadow's Son. I can't wait to read it. I love his cover art.

As I've recommended in the past, Pennwriter's Conference is the best buy for the money anywhere in the USA. Join us next year.

Is there a particular author you would go to a conference just to meet and hear speak? This year we were blessed with the generous, entertaining presence of James Rollins. I'll have to do an entire blog on him as soon as I read his YA novel. Stay tuned.

Conference Anticipation

It's nearly here. The annual Pennwriters Conference starts on Friday, May 14th in Lancaster, PA. This superbly organized conference offers not only wonderful hour long classes and panels, it also brings in numerous and varied editors and agents. Many of you know what that means. Pitch appointments.

It was a tough choice. Editor David Pomerico from Bantam Spectra is attending. Fantasy is what I write and what I want to sell. So I could have selected him in the hopes he would want my latest fantasy endeavor. But if he would reject it, I would be right back where I started with all those other fantasy houses closed to me and now way to reach them through their 'agented only' submissions fence.

So I decided to give a pitch to an agent who is interest in YA fantasy. Emmanuelle Alspaugh works for Judith Ehrlich Literary Agency. I putting my money on her. Hold your breath because if I land an agent, it will be bubbly all around. I'll be working on my pitch all week and rereading some of the YA novel to keep up my excitement level. I think it's really good. LOL, if only Emmanuelle will trust me on this.

After the weekend I'll be posting a review of my conference experience. I'm looking forward to lots of things not the least is listening to James Rollins speak at the Friday night dinner. I also get to attend my first published author's luncheon where we have a guest speaker. Then there will be the networking with my fellow Pennwriters, including many of my cohorts from The Susquehanna Writers. We have so planning to do together for promotions and booksignings.

Many of my fellow CPRW members are going to a retreat over this weekend and I wish them well with many words being written. I figure in about two years I'll be able to attend the retreat with them.

What things do you hope to get out of a writers' conference or retreat?