Doing things backwards
I have already written about my lack of marketing skills in a previous blog. Plus, I have realised that I do things backwards. It is only now, seven months after my book launch, that I am collecting feedback bites about my two books, to add to the website. A well-thought-through author would have sent out pre-copies to several potential reviewers in order to have the bites included somewhere in the book or at the very least on the website at the time of the launch. I am a bit like a snail, slowly plodding along, doing things at my own pace, but rather too slowly for most people or for what would be considered the norm. I don’t even have a link from my website to Amazon yet, so that overseas buyers can be directed from my site to a place where they can buy my book, should they desire to do so. However, that is all about to change as I have notified my friend who set up my website, that I will be requiring her services again to do all those things that still need doing. I would have visited her last week but decided to wait until I had a few bites gathered before I did so, so that everything could be done at once. Or supposedly.
One of my former massage clients is visiting from America. She spends several months here in New Zealand at a time, before returning back to her homeland. She is a marketer by trade and I am seriously considering using her services, or at the very least having a talk with her about what she can do. I bumped into her at the fish shop the other day and tentatively asked her if she was into marketing books. ``Anything,’’ she replied. But whether I do or not will depend on the cost, versus potential return.
The package I signed up for to publish and market Who Is Me? was just an unending stream of money requests. All the marketing proposals sounded great, cost a lot of money and the ones I did invest in, provided few sales. I knew I would have to do things differently with this second book and I still think my idea to host public talks, perhaps at the Spirit Fairs, will be the way to go with books on sale after the talks, or even holding a stall at these places.
Even to this day, almost seven years after my first book was published, I still receive phone calls from people from both America and the Philippines offering me some great service to promote my book. Once again, for a lot of money. I think most of them are scams. Somehow, they got hold of my phone number and have associated that with my book Who Is Me?. Even today I received a call, this time from Gotham Press. We didn’t get far enough into our conversation to establish what he wanted but my guess was, it would be to republish my book for me. I was told my book had great potential for whatever he was proposing, but when he was unable to name my book and instead gave me two inaccurate titles before asking what it was called and for my email address, I decided he definitely wasn’t genuine, pointed this out to him and said goodbye before he could even catch his breath. I know these people are only doing their job and I don’t want to be the one to make them have a bad day but really, if someone is not offering a genuine service, then they will get a lot of phone calls cut short.
Just before writing this I copied the bites I have received onto a new page, in readiness for updating my website. I am very grateful to the people who took the time to write these for me, and the ones who have given me permission to use parts of their messages they sent me upon finishing my books. It is always nice to receive feedback but it is especially rewarding knowing that people have used a bit of their precious time to write these for me. Thank you again, everyone. I appreciate it.