Taste of Kiwi: Blog of Author Shelley Munro

My special guest today is author, Maria Zannini who recently self-published a paranormal romance called The Devil to Pay. Maria has been out on the virtual road with the Indie Roadshow where she tells writers about her self-publishing journey and the things she’s learned along the way. Today Maria is talking about promotion, which I know is something many writers struggle with and don’t enjoy. Over to Maria…

Psst. Do you want to know the secret to good promotion? You might be surprised when I tell you because it’s been in front of you the whole time.

Ready for it?

You have to find the reader, rather than wait for him to find you. And when you do find him you have to talk to your reader and keep him engaged.

Book promotion is time consuming, expensive, and there are no guarantees that your efforts will bear fruit. But a lot of your labor can be cut in half if you focus on the reader and what S/HE needs.

Think about yourself as a reader. You just finished a fantastic book from a new-to-you author and you decide to Google the author to learn more about her. When you reach her blog, all you find are advertisements for more books. It feels like a bit of letdown, doesn’t it?

To attract the reader your best bet is to go to his haunts. And when it comes to indie publishing most of those avid readers will be found at book blogs, reading forums, book clubs, and book outlets (like Amazon).

Most of these outlets are free to you, though some might require asking for an invitation to appear. Others, like Goodreads and Shelfari welcome you as long as you keep the pimping low-key.

And there’s still room for legitimate advertising. LASR (Long and Short Reviews) and The Romance Studio are two I’ve used. Both offer low-priced packages and get a ton of traffic.

Here are a list of options for you to consider that are either low cost or no cost.

Buy advertising packages at a book-centric web sites. (Make sure they get a lot of traffic.)
• LASR (Long and Short Reviews)
• The Romance Studio
• Coffee Time Romance
• All Romance ebooks

Share yourself
• Guest blogging. Double your mileage and blog at places where you’re lesser known.
• Forums, such as Kindleboards, Absolute Write Water Cooler, and genre-specific forums

Talk to book bloggers about:
• Reviews
• Interviews
• Guest posts

Give your book away
Liz Fichera had a marvelous idea when she gave away her arc for Craving Perfect to ten people who would agree to review it. With an indie book, there are no limitations on how many books you can give away. Be generous. Word of mouth is priceless.

Go where the readers are like:
Goodreads
Shelfari
Facebook

Finally, don’t leave out television and radio. It might be difficult to nab a guest spot, but if you have a small station locally, you’ll reach an audience you might not otherwise find.

It’s scary to put yourself out there because you don’t always know how you’ll be received, but if you’ve written the best book you can, all that’s left is to be the kind of author people want to know.

And I’ll tell you my personal secret for promoting myself. I comment on many different blogs. Not a ‘hi, I like your site’ comment, but something personal and thoughtful. If you leave short and intriguing comments, I promise you, people will follow you back.

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I hope you’ll follow along with the rest of the Indie Roadshow as I share the things I learned on my road to self-publishing.

The Devil To Pay is available at Amazon and Smashwords for only $2.99. It is the first book of the series, Second Chances.

Synopsis: The road to Hell is paved with good intentions and bad tequila. Shannon McKee finds herself at the end of her rope, and she bargains her soul in a fit of despair.

Shannon’s plea is answered immediately by two men who couldn’t be more different from one another. Yet they share a bond and an affection for the stubborn Miss McKee that even they don’t understand.

When Heaven and Hell demand their payment, Shannon has no choice but to submit. No matter who gets her soul, she’s not getting out of this alive.

Bio: Maria Zannini used to save the world from bad advertising, but now she spends her time wrangling chickens, and fighting for a piece of the bed against dogs of epic proportions. Occasionally, she writes novels.

Follow me on Facebook or my blog.

Today I’m doing a guest post at The Rainbow Studio blog where I’m talking about the first gay romance I read. I’m also doing a guest blog at Alternative Read.com where I’m discussing Fancy Free and the use of condoms in romantic fiction. Should we or should we not have our heroes and heroines using condoms? Those who comment on my Alternative Read post will go into a draw to win a download from my Ellora’s Cave or Cerridwen Press backlist.

Warning: Condoms were tested and a few harmed during the writing of this story.

It’s not every day a girl inherits a condom company, and to say accountant Alice Beasley is astonished and out of her depth is putting it mildly. For an almost virgin, she needs a quick education in all things condom because her inheritance is in danger. Someone is intent on sabotage and playing nasty, trying to destroy her new company.

Alice is suddenly getting down and dirty with charismatic James, the factory manager, all in the name of business, testing new condom designs. The sex is hot. Mind-blowing. It’s a dark thrill and an erotic journey. Yeah, it’s a hard job, but a girl’s got to do what a girl’s gotta do.

The testing turns personal. Alice wants James. She craves his talented touch and sultry kisses, she desires passion and physical pleasure on a permanent basis but first she must convince bad-boy James to give up his fancy-free ways…

Here’s a special sneak preview of the cover for House of the Cat. Syneca did the cover and I really love it. All going well, I hope to have House of the Cat up on my website with the blurb, excerpt and a release date before I head off on holiday to Thailand.

What do you think?

I’m guest blogging at The Romance Studio today and talking about my adventures with Wii Fit. My post is titled Podgy Stomachs and Competition. I hope you’ll pop over and say hello.

I was very excited to learn TEA FOR TWO won the 5 Heart Sweetheart award from The Romance Studio this week.

This week’s 5 Heart Sweetheart…

“Ms. Shelley Munro is quickly becoming a must read author. I enjoy her style and her approach to her varied plots. These two main characters were certainly no exception. The storyline was full of secrets (from both Hayley and Sam). The more time the couple spent together, the less likely it became that Sam would buy into his family’s theory that Norville’s fell in love at first sight. Ms. Munro has such an appealing way of revealing her story that it is impossible to put down the book.” – Brenda Talley.

Thanks so much to The Romance Studio and all the readers who voted for Tea For Two!

Promo is something that always weighs heavy on my mind. Am I doing enough? Am I doing the right thing or am I making prospective readers run in the opposite direction? That’s the difficulty with promo. It’s hard to quantify and decide what actually works.

I have a few promo rules I adhere to:

1. I never spend more than I earn or think I’m going to earn.

2. When I do promo I tend to promote my brand as a whole rather than focusing on a particular book. (there are a few exceptions to this rule but now that I have a backlist I tend to promo me)

3. When it comes to a choice of promo or writing, the writing wins every time. I figure if I don’t have the product then there isn’t any need for promo.

4. I have a rule I call the rule of three where I try to do three things every day to promote my name or books. This makes the whole promo beast seem more manageable because I’m breaking it down. Today I answered the questions for an interview, I posted two excerpts on the Romance Excerpts Only loop and requested a book review.

My promo consists of:

I like to blog hop as much as I can. Some days I have more time than others, but I think this is a way of getting my name out. I tend to steer clear of contentious blogs because I don’t believe anyone wins in an online war. When I blog hop I also find books to add to my to-read list and it helps me keep up on market info.

I like forums. I belong to the Romance Divas forum and the Coffee Time forum. I don’t manage to get there every day but I enjoy the contact with other writers and readers. Both places are extremely friendly and make newbies welcome.

I take advantage of guest blogging and interviews whenever possible. I join my publisher loops and post as often as I can.

I joined The Romance Studio when I was first published and have kept up my membership. It’s very reasonable and offers many opportunities for advertising and promotion.

I’m not sure that print advertising is good value for money. It can be very expensive and it’s difficult to quantify the results. If I have a print book I always consider print advertising since this makes sense, but once again I think it’s very expensive.

Take advantage of free offers. Manic Readers (see the button in my sidebar) has free author pages. It doesn’t take long to set up a page. Author’s Den also has free author pages. (A fee is charged for the Featured Author pages)

Bookmarks – I don’t believe it’s necessary to have bookmarks. Yes, it’s nice to have them. Yes, I have bookmarks at the moment, but I don’t think you’ll lose sales because you don’t have them.

Online Banner advertising – I’m not convinced banner ads work as a method of advertising. Others might disagree, but they haven’t worked for me.

A good website, kept up-to-date, is the best thing you can do to promote yourself. Look at other authors’ websites. Features and designs that attract your eye will probably attract the attention of readers as well.

Bottom Line: I think any promotion you do should be enjoyable. It shouldn’t stress you out or make you crabby because it’s taking you away from family or your writing. If you get to this stage, concentrate on your writing because that’s the most important thing.

If you’re a writer, how do you approach promotion? What do you do? What are your favorite methods of promotion? What things do you enjoy? If you’re a reader, what sort of things make you pay attention to a writer? What makes you pick up a book or order a book online from a new author or an author unfamiliar to you?

I have a new interview up at The Romance Studio this month featuring my latest release Wanderlust.

What’s next for me? My next release is called Lovers at Last, and it’s a friends to lovers story, which is one of my favorite plots. Read an excerpt here. Lovers at Last is out on 4 June from Ellora’s Cave.

June 10 is also the release date for Midnight Treat anthology, featuring my story Curse of Brandon Lupinus. It’s already available for pre-order from Amazon and other online bookstores, including Fishpond (for NZ and Australian readers).

I’ll leave you with a video of The Feelers and their song Stand Up. The Feelers are a New Zealand band and their song is currently playing on my ipod. The video was shot in Downtown Auckland.