Tag Archives: Marketing your book

When do you start promoting your manuscript?

This topic landed in my email box. When should you start promoting your book?

The writers I know in this area start once their manuscript is complete. To me, that is getting on this way too late. I mean, once your book is complete and you tell your friends and family, then what?

I started on my social platform brand once I had my first draft of my Jasper, Amazon parrot series. By the time the drafts, edits, cover, and more, I had grown a following of people engaged in me as I was in them. I had people to shout out to saying, “Finally, my book is done.”

If you wait until the end of your book, you are shouting into the wind in hopes someone will take an interest.

Your book deserves more than that. You deserve better than that.

And one more thing. When submitting my first book to publishers, they always asked where I was. It meant what is your social platform?

Fortunately, I was able to point to where I am at. If I had not done the work, I am unsure if the publishers would have picked up the book.

It does take time. You do a quick search online, which will show you the various platforms. Not all will work for you. Take one platform at a time. Put the work in. If it does not feel right, dump it and try another.

Some of these platforms allow you to schedule the posts, which helps since this frees up time.

Start slow as you build your social platform, your brand, and a gateway for you to shout to a larger audience once your book is complete and not only full but complete and published.

Do we stand outside the fire when it comes to our books?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oKl-jbC4Jec

Standing outside the fire is one of my favorite songs from Garth Brooks. When I first heard the lyrics it spoke to me on a few issue that fills our country and world. Recently, well last week, I heard the song again and I had a different take on it.

Do we stand outside the fire when it comes to our writing? Do we only peak in now and then when we have a free moment or when the mood hits us? How about after the book is done, what than? Do you let it sit in front of you churning itself alone while you stand outside waiting for the next step to appear without making an effort to churn the ashes or add to the fire wood? Sitting outside is nice and quite safe and if that is all you want from your book awesome. But if you want more you have to tend to it repeatedly letting it grow in its flame growing and growing until it has a life of its own.

Promotion is not easy or very much fun and it takes a lot of time and effort from each of us. And any little thing can derail us from doing it while we logic it away. But where we end up with our book all depends on where we are standing.