Site of the Week - Fiction Factor

As an aspiring writer you have a goal – PUBLICATION! And not just any old kind of publication; successful publication.

You research agents and publishers for the right fit for your novel. You perfect your query letter and novel synopsis. You polish your manuscript until it glitters like a flawless diamond. You tirelessly send it out and ignore the pile of rejection letters because you just know your book is fantastic.

And then it happens – your manuscript is sold!!

Now what? Just sit back and wait for the money to start rolling in, right? Wrong.

Writing is a business and you – not the publisher or agent – are the business owner. In the publishing world you are a lowly “NO NAME” author.

But wait, I have a name! It’s a great name, just ask my mom!

Unless it happens to be Jim Butcher or Anne Bishop it might as well be Hey You because your book will have zero publicity dollars. And if your book doesn’t sell enough, don’t count on the publisher asking for a sequel.

So, what are you going to do to make certain your business, your BOOK is a success?

Ummm, me?

Yeah, Y.O.U.

Marketing – it’s not just for buying groceries anymore. That’s right. You, the creative, go-with-the-flow writer has to get serious about promoting your book. It’s your baby and if you want it to make its way in the world you have to step up and help it along.

But how?

Well, I’m glad you asked. After taking a seminar on starting a business my eyes were opened to the just how crucial self-promotion is to your success. So, I started surfing the web for advice on how to apply this knowledge to my writing. And I found Fiction Factor. It’s an ezine dedicated to doling out advice to aspiring authors.

Their drop-down menu at the top of the home page has a wide variety of topics to choose from, but for the purposes of my topic select “Promotion, Publicity and Marketing.” (You have to scroll down to see it – that’s how much information is on this sight.) You will be given a list of articles written by experts in the business. The articles I perused were very helpful and got the wheels turning, so to speak.

Planning ahead is worth the effort. Those of us with blogs and memberships to writing forums are already working on self-promotion, but we have a lot more to learn. Why not let those who have been there before give us a few pointers?