How to Promote your Novel

This Hub is for Crash Cromwell. Crash has been struggling to sell his sci-fi trilogy. He has been posting excerpts of his work on sites all over the internet, and it's not helping. That doesn't surprise me!

If you type the title of Crash's novel into Google, up come all the sites where Crash has posted his excerpts, so he probably thinks he's doing well. Trouble is, it means nothing! No one is searching for the title of the novel - they don't know it exists! There's absolutely no point in spreading the title around the internet, until you've got people interested enough to search for it.

So, we've established that scattering bits of your novel on various sites does nothing to raise its visibility. What's more, it has a major snag if you're secretly hoping a mainstream publisher will see it and snap it up!

As some writers have already found, mainstream publishers don't want material that has already been published elsewhere. If you've published only one or two early chapters, it's easy to rewrite them - or track them down and delete them. But if you've published a lot, especially on sites that don't allow deletion, you'll have a major rewrite on your hands. Not to mention tracking down all the plagiarized copies that will inevitably be out there.

For that reason, it's much safer to post an excerpt somewhere once, then put all your energies into marketing that URL to your target audience. In any case, one site with lots of links pointing to it will attract far, far more attention from the search engines than several sites with fewer links each. And if you need to revise and improve your excerpt, it will be much easier to update just one version.

So we've decided to publish only one or two excerpts from our novel. But what excerpts?

I certainly wouldn't recommend doing what Crash has done, and publish the first chapter of my second book. In so doing, he gives away the ending to his first book - so who wants to buy that now? It's also hard to see the benefit in publishing later chapters of anything - true, they give a taste of what the story is like, but I wouldn't particularly want to buy a book if I already know what happens in Chapter 8.

So, it's Chapter One, and perhaps not even the whole of that. If you don't think your Chapter One will hook a reader, then you have some serious rewriting to do. The opening of Chapter One is what will sell your book when someone picks it up off the bookstore shelf, as well as online. You absolutely must have an intriguing first sentence, an interesting middle and a devastatingly effective hook wherever you decide to end the excerpt - so the reader just can't stop there!!

You can preface the excerpt with your bookjacket blurb, and follow up with a note about yourself - but nothing else. Don't make the mistake of offering a bio of your main characters. For instance, Crash's novel opens with an incandescently angry man. Reading it, you get so curious about why he's angry, you want to buy the book. Unfortunately, Crash has also published an article explaining why he's angry. Result - lost sales!

Remember, never give away the rest of the story - that way, the only way your readers can find out what happens is to buy the book. And that's what you want, isn't it?

You'll find lots of advice on how to promote products on the internet, but many of them aren't terribly relevant if you're trying to sell a novel. It's true that every link on the internet helps to raise your visibility - but if you target your links in the right places, you can also get direct sales.

What's your novel about? If it's a specific genre like science fiction, fantasy, or romance, you're lucky. Genres have fans, and wherever fans congregate, you can take advantage of a captive audience.

Check Google Groups and Yahoo Groups for your genre. Google for forums about your genre.

• Join every Group and Forum, even if you don't think you can possibly participate in all of them.
• If there's a chance to create a profile, make sure it includes a link to your book, or your promotional website (as an example, my HubPages profile has several links to my other websites)
• See if you can have a link in your signature when posting - and if so, make it a link to your book or chapter.

Now do some posting. Don't jump in with both feet and start spruiking your book - establish your credentials as a fan yourself first. Then, once you know people, you can start mentioning your pet project. People are more likely to buy from someone they know and like.

You can do the same with social networking sites. Join Facebook, MySpace, Yuwie, Tribe, Tagged - anywhere that takes your fancy. At all these sites, you'll find special interest groups you can join. On many of them, you can theme your profile by choosing photos and backgrounds to suit your novel - plus, of course, you're going to have a link on there, aren't you?

Of course, you'll get the most benefit from all these sites if you actively participate, but don't fret if you can't. Just having all these links sprinkled around the internet helps, and if you're a member of lots of groups - especially small ones - you never know who will stumble across your profile.

As will be obvious by now, the key to success is to reach fans of your genre. Why waste time on places like Craigslist when you can make direct contact with the people who are really interested in your novel?

That doesn't mean other links are worthless. Take some time to review your internet presence. Make sure that every profile on every site has a link to your book, whether it's relevant or not! And speaking of internet presence...

You may wonder why I'm just plain Marisa Wright here on HubPages, instead of a catchy internet nickname. It's a deliberate strategy to create a reputation for Marisa Wright as a writer.

Let's say someone sees my book or my "taster" chapter. They wonder "who is this author?" If they Google "Marisa Wright", they'll find my name and image all over the internet - and that gives the impression I'm a more established writer than I really am! They may even read my articles and like my style, which makes them more likely to buy the book.

Likewise, let's say I'm a member of a forum somewhere and casually mention I'm writing a novel. If I'm using the name "Marisa Wright", it's possible for people to find the book. If I'm using a nickname, no one will know how to find the book and I could have lost a sale.

So rule #1 is - choose a pen name and use it, everywhere you have a presence on the internet, even if it's not relevant to the genre of your novel. You never know when you'll get a chance to mention it.

If you can afford it, it's well worth buying the domain of your name (in my case, www.marisawright.com). It's the ideal place to post your "taster" chapter, along with links to your other writing.

Another idea that may work, depending on the subject of your book, is to start a blog around that topic. Michael Ray King has written a good article on Blogging as Book Promotion. Bear in mind that you'll then have to promote that blog, as well as your novel excerpt.

Of course, let's not forget there's a real world out there, too. Marketing your book locally (selling it out of your car boot at markets, hawking it round bookstores on a sale or return basis) may seem to be targetting a pathetically small market, but it can still be worthwhile, and generate word of mouth sales. It does mean that you'll have to invest in getting some copies of your book printed (whereas if you stick to online marketing you can use a POD publisher), so that is a decision you have to make.

This is a final message to Crash. I know you don't want to hear this, but...

No mainstream publisher will ever buy a trilogy from an unknown author.

Even writers like J K Rowling had to start with the sale of just one book. So if you're to have any chance of publication, you must make your first book complete in itself - no cliffhanger endings!

A publisher makes a huge investment when they publish a book, so signing an unknown author is a big risk. They're not going to multiply that risk by signing up for more than one book at a time. They will only buy a book that stands on its own as a complete novel.  Pitch your book as a trilogy and your submission is liable to end up in the slush pile in triple-quick time.

On the plus side, if your first book is a success, you'll have two more books ready to go, to capitalize on that success.

*

All text copyright Marisa Wright.