WRITING LESSON: Executive Dysfunction

Okay; so here I am, galley finally put together and done…I wanna make a final pass before I get it printed, but in the meantime, I am coming up with a fundraising campaign, prior to the book’s launch.

I’ve already got stretch goals set up; well, written down on a list…and I’ve even got targets and an ultimate goal; but now, dear Acolytes, you accompany me into my first foray into the unknown territory of crowdsourcing and fundraising.

This is one that I didn’t expect to be on the lesson plan; because the first thing I have, is a bunch of fucking questions I don’t know how to answer. Well, more precisely, questions whose answers I will have to research.

QUESTION ONE: Okay…how do I create buzz around this book?

Doesn’t that look all fancy and official?

Okay; so driving buzz does require having some form of social media presence; like I said, I’ve migrated to BlueSky, and I cannot endorse such flaming piles of shit like the Website Formerly Known as Twitter, or the Facebook. However, I can’t recommend Tumblr enough for aspiring writers and artists. I used to be on there, but there was drama and well…you young’uns probably know more social media sites than I’ve listed; like Discord, Reddit, Threads, Oingo-Boingo, Talking Heads…oh wait; those last two are bands from the 1980s New Wave era.

So if you have an established SM presence, you simply join the groups/chats/whatever about writing, or creativity in general, and then you post there and to your own followers about your work. That’s the first stage.

Second stage buzz-creating: Drive them from your Social Media to your weblog, by having a link in your bio, and dropping the occasional post to your followers and mutuals to get them to go have a look.

It also helps if you play with the #WritingPrompts hashtag on those sites, to create quick and clever microstories (Character-Limit long.)

Put some content on your social media; put the same content on your blog. Now you’re cooking. You should, once you’ve made friends with readers, writers and other creatives start seeing more aggregation of like-minded people following you; follow back! Initiate follows.

Don’t go looking for free advice from big authors like Stephen King or…you know, I don’t know of any other big authors on social media that I follow. I mean, they MUST be out there…but anyway, they’ve been exhausted by advice-seekers their whole career. At best, you’ll get ignored. The best people to talk to are your fellow indies; we, like you, have had to do the whole thing ourselves – and now you can benefit by avoiding the mistakes WE made and make entirely new and original mistakes all your own! As you well know, there’s nothing a writer loves more than talking about their work and themselves. Writing is a very narcissistic process, and indies are hungry for coverage and sales. We’ll talk your ear off, blog your eyes dry, etc.

But yeah, indie writers? We’re a dime a dozen, yeah, but the Indie Publishing industry is actually fairly solid, and hungry; as long as your books are properly edited (don’t do it yourself) and formatted (Submission guidelines are HOLY SCRIPTURE,) you’re bound to make connections. Don’t half-ass it by trying to edit and design your cover yourself; I’ve done that, and it ends up making something you love into an embarrassment.

Places like Fiverr and other Gig Posters are a great place to find people who are studying editing and writing to work on your book – and there are countless illustrators online; even if it means you have to wait and put money aside to pay for proper editing and a proper book cover, you want to use their help, and give them credit in your book’s acknowledgements and make sure to include “Cover Art copyright [NAME] used with permission” line, because it IS their work and you paid for permission to use it, and, they want to make money off their work so if you give them credit, somebody else might use them for their book jacket. Same thing goes for reviews, but you DON’T EVER NOT EVEN ONCE pay for a review: there are people who will review your work – FOR FREE – because they can actually MAKE A LIVING reviewing indie books for their webpages or something.

But, I’m getting ahead of myself; you’re not looking for reviews – yet – your book isn’t even ready to roll.

You’ve got the galley edited and ready, cover art is commissioned (Best let them design it, although you can have input; the cover of They Came in Peace was inspired by a view of the occultation line between night and day taken from the International Space Station, and the artist liked my idea and ran with it) you already know that Draft to Digital is the best game in town for self-publishing, and you’re nearly ready to roll. You’ve got your followers, mutuals, and you’ve got people who will occasionally see your posts in your feed. Okay. Level One-A accomplished.

Thing is, if you publish your book now? Chances are good it’s gonna fail. Pimping a book out requires a minimum amount of marketing money. Oh, fuck; you’re broke as hell and it already hurt to save up and take time to pay for editing and a cover! Now you have to pay for MARKETING?

Yup!

And THAT’S why you don’t want to publish, yet. I mean yes, it’s always a good idea to have the .epub ready to go, but you can generate a book on D2D without “launching” it right away.

QUESTION TWO: So how the fuck do I pay for marketing?

You don’t: You get other people to pay for it, for you.

Wait; what?

Did I stutter? Your first marketing campaign is to FUNDRAISE for your book launch. There’s Kickstarter, Gofundme, Co-fee or something…there are many available options. All you need to do is come up with some reasonable push-goals; for example, a digitally signed copy of the ebook, early edition or pr eorders, or if they donate enough an autographed physical copy of the book, online meet and greets, etc. The goal of each goal of your fundraising campaign is to pay for the NEXT goal, and the next, and then, when you’ve hit your final target, you have the money to pay for marketing.

Okay, so where do I go to pay for marketing?

Wow; you want everything on a silver platter, don’t you?

Hey, this post was your idea, not mine; you took my nickel, I paid for the ride.

You realize you’re just talking to yourself right now, right?

Do you?

Okay, so there are myriad online publicity agencies. An ad run or marketing run could cost you a few hundred or a few thousand dollars; how much money you raise will determine how big your campaign will be.

So you start looking at marketing before you start fundraising. You’ll want to check out as many online marketing agencies as you can. You’ll want to filter out anyone who isn’t specialized in books or other creative endeavors. You’ll want to talk to people who will know where your ads are going to be the most effective. You’ll want to avoid being put in a pop-up, and you’ll want your ad to be tailored to a specific client, namely, people who would be interested in reading your book.

Next you gotta check and see if these agencies are actually worth the money, who’s used them, what they’re known for…and you might want to filter it down to the genre or even subgenre if they specialize in that sort of thing. You want the ad campaign to be tailored to you as much as possible; a preplanned package might not be what you’re looking for, so don’t be afraid to express that; right now you’re just trying to test the waters, so you can answer my questions three:

1-How much money do you think you can reasonably fundraise?

2-How much money do you want to spend on advertising?

3-How much do money you want to keep for yourself, up-front?

The first two questions are simple arithmetic. The third one depends on how much you think your time is worth given everything you’ve done up to this point, from coming up with the idea, to writing, rewriting, beta-reading, editing, etc. The Rule of Thirds works well: Two thirds of what you raise should be for your campaign. The last third is yours.

A lot to take in, right? Because now we have to talk about SCHEDULING. Because, you don’t want to make your book available until it’s been hyped and buzzed, right?

Timetables are going to be based on how long it takes you to fundraise, how much you fundraise, and how big your campaign is.

Patience is the key; your book’s ready. It’s not going anywhere. There’s no expiry date on when it can launch.

And, guess what else:

You’re going to want to research book launch dates.

You guessed! Yep; you’re going to want to have a look at what books released when, going back a couple of years, just to see what time the tide comes in for your genre.

Yeah, you might have wanted to launch sooner rather than later – believe me, I know the feeling. Had my book been launched six months to a year earlier, it would have had a better chance, given I was at the time with a small press. But right after it launched, we went into lockdown. COViD killed They Came in Peace.

So, I’ve taken the intervening time to rest, recuperate, and try writing other things. But, I’ve kept getting drawn back here, to this book; and honestly, given the times we’re currently living through? I’d rather put it out there yesterday.

But without the right hype, it won’t have the legs to run.

Tune in next time for an exciting new episode!