Your Book is About to Be Published. Now What?
Did you know that Amazon has a free author’s page? This added page on their site gives writers and editors who are included in anthologies as well as book authors, the opportunity to further publicize their work.
Good news, yes. Except that it took me an hour last night to try to update my profile because I kept getting an “error message” that I was posting objectionable content. I was confused. What bad word had I used? I did describe some of my poetry as a sensual feast. Or was it that my profile was too long? Or was it that I’d put the date of a book’s release?
Maybe a little bit of all of the above.
An email received from “Author’s Central” this morning clarified that I am not allowed to post my website address. No promotional material or time sensitive material should be included. No shipping information.
Okay, back to the document to reframe my author’s profile. I am allowed to post pictures. Maybe I’ll choose a photo of me weeding the garden and the cilantro leaves peeking up through the soil. We’ve got plenty of beautiful dill, growing as tall as my shoulder. I wrote a new poem about dill yesterday and my husband’s reaction was, “I had no idea dill could provoke such complex thoughts.”
If only I could spend my days just writing instead of on promotion. I see a parallel between invading weeds and our political system, sprouts getting strangled, but those writing thoughts of mine will have to be set aside. I have a book coming out in three months and if I do not promote it, no one else will. Even if I were published by one of the top large three mega giant publishers, writers are expected to either hire a publicist or be their own publicist. As someone who has helped nonprofits with their marketing, I know what to do, the difficulty is in the execution.
There is bravery in writing something and sharing it with the world. But oh, is it hard to promote yourself. My writing is personal. Fiction or nonfiction, I am inspired by my experiences and how I see the world. We all see things differently. Writing is my opportunity to share what I perceive.
Most people that know me, don’t know that as a young adult my dream was to be a folksinger. I love to write songs, learn variations of old ballads, and to sing. I felt great singing, my high notes resonating through the room, applause when the song was finished; but sometimes in coffee houses the patrons were more interested in talking. And sometimes people putting together concerts didn’t want to try someone new, or someone with material similar to their own material. Rejection was hard to take. I decided I didn’t have a thick enough skin to persevere as a performer. I gave up that particular dream.
Writing, I thought, was better suited to my temperament. More introvert than extravert, words gave me an opportunity to communicate from a safe space.
Now writers will read this and laugh, because we get plenty of rejection. It arrives mostly in emails rather than face to face. The situation changes when you are an author. Try to promote your book, talk to the owner of a bookstore, talk to the director of an organization offering them a reading, a talk, a book signing and the rejection gets more personal.
Online promotion: guest articles and blog posts, zoom readings, critical reviews and mentions. And yes, that Amazon author page, these are all opportunities.
Just having a good website, which once again I need to update (so stay posted on that one) is an important component in marketing your book or books.
So, what is the book? Read about it here. You can even put in a pre-order, if you ‘d like to read the work and support the artist. Ideas about book promotion? Please do share and maybe I gave you some new ideas. If you haven’t already done so, please follow me on WordPress, Substack, or Medium for FREE and receive an email every time I post a new blog. Thank you for reading Nadjamaril.com
Originally published at http://nadjamaril.com on June 4, 2024.
