You know, Squiders, no one talks about the work one has to do before one can even start to think about marketing.
(Well, someone probably does. But it’s not obvious.)
Shards comes out in a little over a month, and I’m doing all the last minute things I need to do now before I can start my main marketing scheme. You can’t just launch into marketing, oh no. You’ve got to do all this prep work before anyone sees a word of advertising.
This week I am:
- Supervising the final steps of my website overhaul
- Preparing new and exclusive material for the website
- Finalizing a new author photo with a photographer
- Working with my cover artist to finalize my cover
- Finalizing my book description
- Putting together a media toolkit
And that doesn’t include Halloween, obviously. (Oh, and I’ve decided not to do Nano for my own sanity. I think this is probably the right idea, as I am calmly watching everyone else run around flailing.) Also we are going to see The Book of Mormon on Saturday which should be excellent.
Once all that’s done, I can actually start marketing–you know, contacting book reviewers, guest blogging, making fun goodies like icons and desktops and bookmarks. That sort of thing. Can’t really do anything yet. “I’d like you to review my book. What’s it about? Well, uh, I have a half-written book summary here you can have, I guess.”
It’s kind of an odd sort of limbo, this pre-marketing stage. There’s a lot of work to be done, but none of the benefits are tangible yet. I think, once it’s all done and live, it’s going to finally hit home that it’s almost time, that Shards is almost loose in the world, come what may. And I think that will be both terrifying and awesome.
But, for now, there’s work to be done.
How are you, Squiders? Can you believe it’s almost November?
