We want to thank Brenna Lyons for offering This series in support of Small Press Month. Her experience as a senior editor, President of EPICauthors, and a 20 book (in print) published author is invaluable for our authors.
Book Marketing 101
By Brenna Lyons
http://www.brennalyons.com/ http://www.myspace.com/brennalyons
Chats-
Chats work well for me. I have seen appreciable sales from a chat, but that's not always the case. They don't work for everyone, but no promo works well for everyone. The best thing you can do is compile a list of every promo you MIGHT do and choose the ones you think you will pull off best. Don't be afraid to experiment.
Another note about chats... It's good to do chats at a couple of different venues. Some readers only go to chats from venue A or venue B.
Chats: Readers love and author they can talk to!
Chat etiquette- It's a good idea to go to other author chats as well as your own, but you should always beg off if someone tries to drag you into the conversation of your books when it's not your chat, even if it's a chat for other authors at your publisher. Even if it is not your intent to intrude on their chat, it will create bad feelings. The correct response is to nicely move the attention back to the core author/s and promise to answer outside the chat or after the chat ends.
The same thing goes for books you have with publisher X, if it's publisher Y's chat. Unless the chat is you, not affiliated with a particular publisher you, beg off answering questions about other books until after the chat...or in private e-mail. Now, there are some publishers that don't expect this of you, but many do.
Gauge your responses by the room. If the room isn't a wild room, leave the discussion of sex toys at the door. Follow the protocol or moderation of the room. Don't ask questions out of turn. Be nice!
Making yourself at home: you have to be comfortable- Readers want to talk to you. They don't expect you to be perfect. Chatroomese allows for typos. It's almost real time, and mistakes are expected. They want you to relax, let your hair down and have fun. If you can't show a fun persona in chat, you aren't going to have many chat visitors. They aren't a firing squad, so think of them as your sisters or best friends, all having a glass of wine and discussing movies, if it makes you feel better. Just remember they aren't your personal confidants either. Grinning... There is a line of propriety.
Choosing a chat venue: moderation or not, wild or not- You have to choose chat venues that are comfortable for you. If you are a shy person who doesn't like a fast-moving room, you want a staid chat room with moderation. If you like a bunch of questions flying at you from all sides and cannot be embarrassed, you want a wild room with either protocol or no moderation. In some venues, you can call "no holds barred" and have a great time. Neither extreme is wrong. You cannot relax in a venue that is at odds with your personality, and the point is to relax and have fun.
Buddy chatting the RIGHT way- Authors, especially new authors, can benefit from buddy chatting, but you need to do it right. The buddies you chat with should have more in common with you than sharing a publisher or sharing a community like EPIC or WRW. You should choose chat buddies that are of a similar genre and a similar temperament.
Why a similar genre? The point of buddy chatting is not just to teach you to chat but to allow crossover of readers of author A to author B and vice versa.
Why a similar temperament? If one author is shy and the other outgoing, the outgoing author may end up taking over the chat. That leads to an unequal sharing of chat time, the shy author retreating into a shell and not relaxing into the chat, and hard feelings between the authors. The one time this is not the case is when you pair a shy author with a nurturer that will steer the chat to the shy author, but the author should learn to handle the chat on her own over time.
You can have more than two chat buddies, but it is important to schedule with an eye to time limitations. In an hour-long chat, the maximum optimum number of chat guests is three. If you have more, not everyone gets to talk about their books, the readers have no time for questions, and it's generally a miserable chat.
Promoting the chat- The chat site will promote on their web site, so make sure you get the information the coordinator needs to him/her in plenty of time to get it up on the site. In addition, it's always a good idea to put chats in the publisher reader list's calendar, MySpace and like venues, and your personal newsletter's calendar as soon as it's scheduled. Set the calendar to send a reminder to the list 2 days in advance and an hour in advance. Don't stop there. Invite people on lists that allow it to your chat a few days in advance of it. A reminder that chat is starting a few minutes before is usually allowed as well. It is typically considered in poor taste to announce your chat with site A on site B's list, so watch that. Remember that your chat announcement counts as your promo per month on many lists. Use the newsletter announcements via your publisher, lists like PNR, and promotion lists to get the word out. Put it on your web site. Put it in your tag line for a week before, if you have the room. If no one knows about the chat, no one will be there.
Chat cheats- SOME chat rooms will allow you to cut and paste a line or two at a time into the message bar. If you are a slow typist, consider having a cut and paste WORD file open with blurbs and such about your book in it. If you type well but can't seem to organize your thoughts, make up post-it-notes or tape 3X5 cards up next to your computer to help you type in what you want to say quickly. The more you can talk in your hour, the more readers like it. Always have a topic of conversation ready to throw out if the chat starts tapering off. There is nothing worse than dead silence in a chat room.
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