Successfully Marketing Your Fiction in the 21st Century

Without an obvious target market or news hook, new fiction can get lost in the sea of novels published every year, no matter how well written it may be. This is a step-by-step guide that's jam-packed with proven tips and ground-breaking strategies to make your novel a salex success. Mystery and thriller writer Austin S. Camacho offers hundreds of winning tactics that he has personally used to get his six novels onto the shelves of major bookstores and into the hands of thousands of readers. This book will show you how to: - Overcome the stigma of being POD or self-published - Create a basic marketing plan - Make positive contact with booksellers - Make your book signing an event - Handle interviews for newspapers, radio or TV - Make the best use of web-based marketing tools Austin S. Camacho wants you to succeed as an author, and he shares everything he has learned in a decade of self-promotion in Successfully Marketing Fiction in the 21st Century.

Before we get started, you should know what you’ve bought. First, this is NOT a book about how to be a better writer. You’ll find no grammar and punctuation instruction, no treatise on character development or setting, and no tips on dialogue or prose construction. This book assumes that you have already written your novel and now want people you don’t know to buy it and, with any good fortune, recommend it to their friends who will also buy it.
This is NOT a book on how to get rich. I haven’t met a single print-on-demand (POD), self-published or small press author yet who has gotten wealthy writing fiction. On the other hand, there are probably only a dozen people writing fiction right now in all forms of publishing who have made a fortune. You surely know their names because their novels have become movies, which is where the wealth is. Even among the big-name publishers, the novelists who make a good living on their writing alone are the exception, not the rule. Like myself, most of those people are writers because they feel they have no choice. They have stories to tell. So, if your primary reason for being a writer is to make lots of money, I strongly recommend that you quit now and save yourself a world of heartache.
This is also not a textbook on general marketing. The information herein will not help you much if you want to sell cars, jewelry, or real estate. It will be only marginally useful if you have a nonfiction book other than narrative nonfiction such as memoir. And if your book has been picked up by a mainstream publisher who gave you a six-figure advance, much of this may be irrelevant to you. That degree of focus is not a mistake.
When I published my first novel through Infinity Publishing (then called Buy Books on the Web.com) in 1999, both that company and the POD concept were in their infancy. To their credit, the folks at Infinity were very up front about the services they offered. They made it clear that it was up to me to sell my books. I will always appreciate the fact that they made no promises about marketing. They promised only to create a quality product from the manuscript I sent them, and they never let me down on that score.
Infinity is not unique in the marketing area. Most POD publishers offer two options in the marketing arena: nothing at all or a little help for a lot of money. By and large, POD companies are not large publishers moving into a new market. They are primarily printing companies offering a service to authors
After I learned more about the business, I created my own company and published my own books. I knew from day one that selling my books was entirely up to me. I had entered a business where profit margins are paper thin and respect for a little guy on his own is even thinner.
More recently I have published with Echelon Press, which with about seventy authors on board is still considered a small press. My publisher, Karen Syed, was as honest with me as the Infinity team. Before she accepts manuscripts, she explains to authors that she expects them to spend their energy, time, and a certain amount of money on promoting their novel. Unlike the POD companies, small presses like Echelon are able to foster team spirit, inspiring their authors to collaborate and combine their marketing efforts.
On the other hand, major publishers have extensive marketing channels in place, business relationships with the major chain bookstores and a sales force dedicated to getting books onto bookstore shelves. As a group, small presses and POD publishers are learning, and someday they may find ways to do everything that Random House and Penguin do. Not that it would matter much to you. Except for their dozen or so best sellers, big-name publishers don’t offer much marketing support for their authors either. So, the novelists who get that advance from Random House often get a shock that you won’t. You already know that marketing is your responsibility.
My professional background in public affairs prepared me to deal with the mass media, but I knew I was not a marketing expert. POD was new when I started but self-publishing was not, and I read a number of excellent volumes on how to market self-published books. You’ll find my favorites listed in Appendix A.
Still, none of those books did a good job of addressing my specific needs. The most successful self-published books are nonfiction entries. Much of the best advice on marketing nonfiction books won’t help you get your novel into readers’ hands. So I set about culling out what was most useful to me. A lot of trial and error was involved, and more than a few disappointments. This book is the result of the synthesis of knowledge found in those books, my public affairs training, and my hard won personal experience.

Marketing—it’s not just an adventure, it’s a job

Among my own marketing efforts is an e-mail newsletter that I send to just about anyone willing to accept it on a regular basis.