...Author's Guide to Marketing and Publicising Books, published by Troubadour, has just been sent to me by its author, Mary Cavanagh whose two books A Crowded Bed and A Man like Any Other have been reviewed on Random. Mary's first book was published by Transita, but as mentioned in a post a week or so ago, this publishing house has abandoned its remit of producing books for the Mature Woman and is concentrating on non-fiction. This meant that all ex-Transita authors have had to find other homes for their next work and promote and market it as much as possible on their own.
We all know how difficult it can be to get books from small publishers reviewed in the papers, or on TV book shows or anywhere really. The large bookshops are paid to make a certain book The Book of the Week and smaller houses and first time authors cannot afford this. This was one aspect of the difficulty Transita faced that really made me cross when, as mentioned before, Phillipa Gregory rubbished the idea on Mariella Frostrup's book programme and then lo and behold the following week one of her historical novels, complete with headless woman on the front cover, was plastered all over Waterstones and advertised in the dailies.
So if you have had a book accepted by a publisher and you are not Penny Vicenzi, Maeve Binchy, Salman Rushdie, Martin Amis or Dan Brown you are thrown back onto your own devices and this is when this book from Mary comes in very useful. If I were ever to have a book published, then this guide would be the first thing I would take down from my shelves to see how I set about telling the world of my magnus opus. I found it it lively and readable and a real eye opener into the world of publishing and marketing. I am a blogger, not a writer so I will never have to make use of this book, for which I am devoutly thankful and after reading it, I am full of admiration for authors such as Mary Cavanagh who have to throw themselves heart and soul into promoting their writing.
The chapter headings of this Really Useful Guide are:
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On being a published author
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Quality control and pre-publication advice
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Pre-publication publicity and marketing
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Post-publication publicity and marketing
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Bookshops and Libraries
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the Internet and Marketing
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Further Ideas
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Success Stories
and here is where I declare an interest as Under Chapter No 4 Mary has this to say about Book bloggers:
"A bookblogger is an independent person who takes it upon themselves, for no financial reward whatsoever, to postonline articles about books they have currently read, mostly on a daily basis......their reading output is amazing.....as well as being devoted and fanatical readers, they also review books. The biggest breaks of my literary career were made by Book Bloggers and without them I would have got very meagre coverage in any sphere"
In this chapter are articles from http://bookwitch.wordpress.com , www.cornflowerbooks.co.uk, http://dovegreyreader.typepad.com, http://vulpeslibris.wordpress.com and ME. Three and a half pages of copy produced by yours truly and I tell you that as this is the only thing I am every likely to have in print, my bosom swelled with pride when I read it. Pages 103-106 are well thumbed I can assure you.
This leads me neatly onto the second part of this post which is to say that it was three years ago, in June 2006, that I started Random Jottings. Since then it has grown, is still growing, and has become a part of my life which I cannot imagine ever disappearing. I hope to be bashing away at the old laptop when I am of Zimmer Frame age, and hope that many of you lovely visitors will stick with me as well.
My last sentence in my small contribution to this Really Useful Guide was:
"And of course, the main reason for blogging? I simply LOVE it..."
and I do.
Here's to the next three years.
