readership

Catering To Your True Fans

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This post by Ksenia Anske originally appeared on her blog on 9/15/14.

Hey, indie writers? This is what marketing your self-published books is about. It’s about catering to your true fans, even if that might upset some people. As you’re aware, I’m doing a cleaning spree on Twitter, unfollowing most accounts, so I’m left only with about 2K of those that I really want to follow and read. After being on Twitter for almost 5 years, it’s not easy. In fact, it’s ruffling some feathers, as you might have seen in the comments to this post about dealing with online trolls.

Why am I doing it?

I’m doing it to cater to my true fans. I used to be afraid to say this word, “fans.” It felt odd. Weird. Exhilarating, and yet still weird. Me, having fans? How could I? I’m a nobody. It felt somehow self-serving and egoistic by saying it. Slowly, I’ve gotten used to the idea that I do have fans. And they are true fans, fans who send me money when they themselves are struggling financially. Fans who support me in my darkest moments, dragging me out of my gloomy murderous moods and spanking my ass to get me back to writing. Fans who are patiently waiting for my next book to be published, who have already read every single draft of that book and have pre-ordered it and donated me more money on top of it. Fans who have sent me messages, saying they will travel to my first book reading this Friday, even though they don’t live in Seattle.

 

Click here to read the full post on Ksenia Anske’s blog.

 

3 Book Marketing Projects to Tackle in 2014

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This post by Toni Tesori originally appeared on Duolit on 1/8/14.

This is my year.

No more excuses.

2014, I will OWN you!

Sound familiar?

The ringing in of a new year forces us to think about what we’ve achieved in the past twelve months — and how we can do things a bit better this time around.

After the fireworks die down and the champagne stops bubbling, we sit down and make those dreaded…you guessed it: New Year’s Resolutions.

The funny thing about resolutions, though? Their success could be determined by a simple coin flip!

That’s right, less than half of us will actually stick to our resolutions — and that means half of our author friends will end the year no better where they started, which makes us mega-sad. But why does this happen?

You start out with good intentions, right? January 1st brings with it plenty of motivation, but it is darn near impossible to keep up that drive for twelve months. To actually accomplish our goals, we need to add something else to our awesome motivation:

Motivation + [Focus] = WIN!

That’s right, Focus. Motivation without focus is like deciding to go on a road trip, but accidentally leaving the map and smartphone at home. You might eventually reach something really cool, like the Jimmy Carter Peanut Statue…but, without a plan, you’re likely to turn around after an hour or so when your trip starts feeling like a waste of time and gas.

Let’s be real: choosing where to focus your marketing attention is hard. Wouldn’t it be nice if someone just told you what you should do to promote your work?

Ta-da!

3 Book Marketing Projects to Tackle in 2014

 

Click here to read the full post on Duolit.