IWSG: June Already

It's the first Wednesday of the month and time for Insecure Writer's Support Group when writers from all over the world join in the blog hop started by Ninja Captain Alex J. Cavanaugh. Please share your insecurity of the moment or if you have none, share what is going so well that you're riding the high wave. And please tell us how you got there. This is a hop so find the list of participants on the IWSG site. If you haven't already, sign up and join us.

During the next few months, I have a previously published book being released by a new publisher. The new publisher is actually my long time romance publisher where my romances have enjoyed modest success. However, this previously published book isn't a romance. It's an epic fantasy, the first book in that genre that my publisher has taken on.

Like many authors who work with small presses, I've gotten to know the people running the business. When my publisher heard about the two presses going out of business who had contracted my epic fantasies, she offered to take on my books and make them the first in a new line. She's taking a chance on my books, on me. I'm feeling the pressure. Will this pay off for her? Do I deserve her Susan Kelley writing fantasy as Susan Gourley,as a way to draw my romance following to the new books but still distinguish them as a different genre. I'm very nervous about the entire endeavor.

trust? She's created an awesome cover and came up with the idea to use my romance name on the cover,

In other news, I recently read an article in Writers Digest where the author of the piece on promotion talked about hiring a marketing firm, especially if you're a new author. This is where it gets amusing. She suggests planning a 2-3 month campaign at minimum and expecting a reputable marketing firm to ask for a monthly retainer fee of $3,000-7,000. LOL. Even an author signing with a traditional publisher would need a big signing advance to come up with that. Am I wrong to wonder to whom this article was directed?

Some wisdom to get me through the final edits of my next romance novel.

"Be curious, not judgmental." Walt Whitman

"Three, helping one another, bear the burden of six." German proverb

I'm hoping for a few family members to help me finish up some major landscaping projects so I'm going to throw the German proverb at them.

Don't forget to visit others on the list at IWSG.  What writing venture made you nervous lately? Do you spend thousands of dollars per month on marketing? Can I borrow some of that?

It's Everywhere

I have a new book coming out later this month, so I'm thinking about promo more than I usually do.

Marketing can be very time consuming. Actually it can be all consuming. People are faced with somewhere between 3,500 and 5,000 messages per day. Most people ignore a large portion of those. How should I make my promotional message stand out among those numbers?

I know some authors who believe flooding Facebook and Twitter with their release messages will give their book the boost it needs to standout among so many. Not my thing though I'll certainly mention it a few times.

Another avenue, of course, is to use your blog to promote. And I'll do that also. I'll include a blurb but probably not an excerpt. I'll link to one on my publisher's website in case a visitor does want to read that. But I've recently learned another anagram. TLDR.

To Long Didn't Read. We've all done it. Visited a blog and the post is so long, we skim through it or skip it all together. As part of my promotion efforts later this month I'm going to make sure I don't violate the TLDR rule of blog visitor attention length.

Do you think that number for marketing messages is accurate? Do you think the flooding of Facebook and Twitter works for promotion? Every skip or skim a blog because it's too long? Are you my friend on Twitter or Facebook?