Category: Marketing

Con Log: Day 2

#books, #design, #dystopian, #nerd, #publishing, Abnormal, Art, Celebrity, Convention, Crafting, Fandom, Geek, Learning, Marketing, Novel, Promotion, Sci-fi, Sewing, Social Media, Stress, Time, Work, Writing

So today went much better than yesterday. I sold nine books at the con, which I think is not too bad for an unknown author her first time vending.

Wore the top hat that’s on the book jacket, and people seemed to like it. I got more comfortable with my pitch to customers as the day went on, and I’m hoping tomorrow brings those wait-til-the-last-day-of-con-to-make-purchases shoppers. You know, the ones who asked if I would be there all weekend. The ones who said they’d come back. Those shoppers.

As before, I end the day exhausted, but in better spirits than yesterday. Tomorrow we’ll see how I end the con, and we’ll see what we can learn from how this one went.

Clare Speaks

#books, #design, #dystopian, #nerd, #publishing, Abnormal, Art, Celebrity, Convention, cover art, Crafting, Fandom, Geek, Interview, Marketing, Novel, Promotion, Reading, Sci-fi, Sewing, Social Media, Stress, Time, Work, Writing

Now that I’m mostly free of this cruddy cold that’s had my brain all muddled the past few days, it’s time to update y’all with some news. 🙂

First off, both Arizona and Tucson business licenses have been procured! Yep, I can officially sell my book and bookmarks at Tucson Comic-Con. Now I just need those pesky books to arrive and I’ll be all set.

Secondly, TCC exclusive Abnormal bookmarks have been made! They feature the neuron image from the cover design. 🙂 I’ll have a limited supply, so if you’re planning on stopping by at Tucson Comic-Con, make sure to make Table AA147 one of your first stops. I’ll be near the escalator on the right if you’re facing the concession stand across from the escalators. Here’s a pic:

Thirdly, the character interview of Clare with The Protagonist Speaks went live last week, but because I was in a cough-syrup-induced haze I forgot to post the link! I’m super excited to have Clare’s voice out there in a new place, and I need to get onto all the social media and post it. I mean, I’ve retweeted and stuff, but I gotta post the actual linkage and stuff.

Preparations for Tucson Comic-Con are still underway, but it’s mostly little things. I know I have a receipt book somewhere, just need to find it, and also make sure I have plenty of hand sanitizer and other such things ready to go.

Five more days. Four and a half, really. This is gonna be fun!

Marked for success?

#books, #design, #dystopian, #nerd, #publishing, Abnormal, Art, Celebrity, Convention, Crafting, Fandom, Geek, Marketing, Novel, Promotion, Reading, Sci-fi, Sewing, Stress, Thoughts, Time, Work, Writing

I thought about it, and I decided on making bookmarks for Tucson Comic-Con to sell alongside my books.

As you can see, the bookmark slides onto the corner of a page, and it’s nice and graphic–with a whole slew of them on-hand, I’ll have something cool and geeky to display next to the book to draw in congoer attention and potentially get them to check out (and hopefully buy) the book. I have made several using different printed fabrics, so I’ll have a selection. I only have roughly ten ready for sale at the moment (not counting ones I’ve set aside for gifts and special requests), but I still need to make more. 

It takes roughly ten minutes start to finish for one bookmark, but with a little mass production-style work I can cut out materials for over a dozen and then work in five-bookmark increments to iron, pin, sew, iron, and sew, which takes roughly half hour to 45 minutes. I’m getting faster, though.

Credit to Crafty Staci at www.craftystaci.com for the vendor apron pattern and the bookmark tutorial. Her tutorials are super straightforward and easy to follow. Excellent work, Staci!

I’m not sure how many I’ll be able to make prior to TCC, but I’ll try to get a good stock on-hand. Right now I’m using scrap fabric I have lying around that wasn’t being used, but if I run out I know I can count on JoAnn’s to have some cool stuff to grab like a quarter yard of or something. Maybe some cool-looking fat quarters. Those are cheap. 😉

A little bit anxious, a little bit freaking out

#books, #design, #dystopian, #nerd, #publishing, Abnormal, autoimmune, Celebrity, Convention, Crafting, Fandom, Geek, Marketing, Novel, Promotion, Sci-fi, Sewing, Stress, Time, Work, Writing

So the con is 16 days away.

Sixteen days to order books, order a PayPal chip reader, get the things I need to buy for the table, and get something together to sell besides just books.

FML.

I don’t know how this snuck up on me. I mean, I have a widget for my phone that tells me exactly how many days are left. I shouldn’t be surprised that it’s almost here.

I think I’m either going to print photos of some of the Instagram graphics I’ve made from Abnormal quotes (see below) or make up some fabric bookmarks. Handmade geeky stuff is good for cons, right? Either way, it’ll be something nice and quick that I can churn out before the con.

I think photos of images like the one above might be fun to print out, and I can sign them as well. A buck or two for those wouldn’t be too bad, right? If that fails, though, I can make bookmarks out of the fabric I already have and just have some geeky bookmarks on hand to sell for a buck or two, and those would go with the books nicely because hey, books and bookmarks go together like peas and carrots.

Either way, it means more work before con. I can do it (provided the rheumatoid arthritis doesn’t get too painful), but I’ll have to bust butt to get it all done.

Better get busting.

Finding my balance

#books, #design, #dystopian, #nerd, #publishing, Abnormal, anxiety, Art, Celebrity, Convention, Crafting, embroidery, Fandom, Geek, Insomnia, Learning, Marketing, Mental Health, Musings, Novel, Promotion, SCA, Sci-fi, Sewing, Sleep, Social Media, Stress, Time, Work, Writing

Work. Home. SCA. Books. I have many different facets to my life, and I’m having a bit of trouble finding the right balance between them all.

I forgot something at work last week–something major, in relation to my new position. That was embarrassing. At home, my sleep schedule is still very off despite the new dosage of meds. I’m pulling back from the SCA to try to manage the other parts, and I’m slacking on the book promotion.

I will have to force extra time between patients for the new position. I don’t know what I’m going to do about the sleep, aside from making offerings to Morpheus or something. I’m slowly finding the balance of SCA–I need to take at least one weekend a month off from it, it seems, to be able to keep sane. And as far as book promotion goes, I’m back at it this morning–between embroidery and catnaps, that is.

*Sigh.* How do busy people do it? I’ve been mostly a couch potato my whole life, and now I have work life, social life, home life, and author life. It’s a little overwhelming.

I’m going to have to apologize to my potential future Laurel for my absence from the SCA and for my complaining in this blog about wanting to take a break from the arting. From what my husband tells me (he went to an SCA event this past weekend while I stayed home), she thought I meant I wanted to take a break from working with her on arts. Not so. I just needed a break from period art in general, and I think my “weekend off” might have given me a chance to recharge and regroup.

This week, I’ll do better. I’ll work harder. Sleep more (maybe?). Craft more. Promote more.

There are people out there with fuller schedules than mine. Surely I can juggle these few things and still allot myself enough time for each.

Seeking a swift kick in the ‘nads to get my ass moving

#books, #dystopian, #nerd, #publishing, Abnormal, Celebrity, Convention, Fandom, Geek, Marketing, Novel, Promotion, Sci-fi, Social Media, Stress, Time, Work, Writing

Yeah, I know. I’m a slacker. If I don’t have constant pushing or motivation, I tend to drift away from the stuff I need to do in favor of stuff I want to do.

Take the book marketing/promotion, for example: I’ve seriously let that slide in the past couple of weeks, and from what my publisher tells me it’s shown in my sales. I’m really frustrated with myself for that, because I want the book to do well. I just am not good at pushing myself.

I’m hoping to take my promotion back on the road in the next few days to get more people interested in/hearing about Abnormal. I need to set goals and meet them, though, if I’m going to be successful at this. I can’t just keep tweeting excerpts from the sequel-in-progress or what have you. I have to remind myself that publishing and marketing a book takes hard work, and I have to treat it like the job it is. Set times each day for researching and contacting influencers, set a number of influencers per day to contact, etc.

Tucson Comic Con should help sales pick up a bit, but I have to promote that appearance, too. Gotta get word out that I’ll be there, and I have to think up something other than just books to have at my table. I’ve got some ideas (one excellent one in particular thanks to my Editor in Chief), but it’s going to take some–you guessed it–work to get them done.

Too bad “author” isn’t a job where you can clock in for your hours worked and rake in the dough that way. That would be awesome.

Of course, if it was like that, G.R.R. Martin wins the game. Straight up trolling his fans by letting the TV show surpass the books in story and just, as far as anyone can tell, not finishing the series. Not cool, man, not cool.

Nervous energy

#bipolar, #books, #dystopian, #nerd, #publishing, Abnormal, anxiety, Celebrity, Depression, Fandom, Geek, Health, Insomnia, Marketing, Mental Health, Novel, Promotion, Sci-fi, Sleep, Social Media, Stress, Work, Writing

Maybe it’s because my confidence has always been low. Maybe it’s because the process is still new to me, even though I’ve been through it before. Maybe it’s just those just-submitted-my-manuscript jitters.

Regardless of the cause, I’m abuzz with a ton of energy–too much for the amount of sleep I haven’t gotten yet.

I thought there’d be a rush of relief, a release of pent-up adrenaline, something, but nope. All that excess energy is still swimming around inside my head, and it’s frustrating. I want to sleep. I want to rest. I don’t really want to be up right now, yet here I am. Sure, I could have stayed in bed, but as I’ve discovered lately, unless I’m woken by my bladder and my bladder alone, when I’m awake I’m awake for at least a good hour or two, and the longer I spend in bed lamenting my lack of sleep the harder it is to doze back off. At least out in the living room I can get stuff done.

Yesterday I finished revisions on the draft of Book 2 and started the tedious process of writing an outline, synopsis, and query letter. Yep, those nasty little necessities that make being an author actual work. I bet if I logged the actual hours I spent working on writing, editing, revising, marketing, and promoting, I’d be in OT. Like, every week.

I know my husband isn’t at all happy with my predawn antics. He wants me in bed, resting. But it’s not like I’m getting up early on purpose–I just…wake up. A lot.

Tomorrow morning I see the ol’ psychiatrist. Guess it might be time to change up the sleeping meds…again. The last med he gave me works well enough at full dose, except I can’t wake up properly in the morning. I get extremely groggy, and I’ve had some close calls on the commute to work when I take the full dose. The doctor said that if that happens I can half it, so I half it. But fat lot of good it does at half.

Sometimes I wonder if this insomnia is bipolar-related, but when I think back on it this has been going on a very, very long time, too long for it to be a manic episode. I think I’d be proper crazy if I was in a sustained manic state for this long. As it is, I’m only semi-crazy, so I guess it doesn’t stem from the bipolar. Is that a good thing? I have no clue.

The psychiatrist should be pleased that Abnormal has been published, along with a book signing and a library appearance, but he’ll be disappointed that I haven’t been on Oprah’s show yet. I guess that’s his gauge of success for an author: appearing on Oprah.

I somehow doubt Oprah would be interested in my writing style, but who knows? Maybe I should add her to my list of influencers to contact. Lol

Trollin’ with my homies

#books, #dystopian, #nerd, #publishing, Abnormal, Celebrity, Fandom, Friendship, Geek, Learning, Marketing, Musings, Novel, Promotion, SCA, Sci-fi, Social Media, Thoughts, Time, Writing

I’ve finished the latest round of revisions on Book 2, and as I go to do the Write Event games on Twitter (follow @writevent to see what I mean) I’ve decided that I let too much of Abnormal go out into the Web as tweets. Sure, it garnered interest, but how much is too much? And how much of Book 2 should I give my Twitter followers a peek of?

My solution: I’m going to start writing fresh lines just for the Write Event games. Some will be from my WIPs, but some will be pulled out of thin air.

That’s right. I’m going to keep people guessing. It’ll be my own personal writing game: Sneak peek or made-up crap?

With that now safely ensconced in my brain, I think I’ll be able to entertain myself for months. The bonus is, even if there are Write Event themes that don’t fit with my WIP, I can still tweet something related to the theme and make it look like it’s from the WIP.

In other news, this morning I plan on starting to outline my *cough* semi-completed draft, as well as writing up a query letter and synopsis. My November deadline for submission is fast approaching, and I’m going to try not to cram for it this time.

First, though, food. It may be oh-dark-thirty in the morning, but I’m starving. I didn’t grab enough food at last night’s SCA household meeting. Well, potential household–we’ve camped with them twice now, which meets their requirements for joining, but they’re waffling on voting us in or out. It makes me slightly suspicious, and I have to admit I kind of feel like my husband and I are the redheaded stepchildren of the household. Like, we’re kind of part of the family, but we’re expected to do more work and it’s kind of assumed that we’ll be around…not, like, appreciated, y’know? Sure, there are a few people in the household who I know like having us around, but I’m not sure why they didn’t vote last night, which was the first household meeting since our second time camping with a large contingent of the household. Hmm…

Maybe I’m not the only troll in the room…

Crafty

#books, #design, #dystopian, #nerd, #publishing, Abnormal, Art, Celebrity, Convention, Cosplay, Crafting, Fandom, Geek, Learning, Marketing, Novel, Promotion, Sci-fi, Sewing, Stress, Time, Writing

Tucson Comic Con is rapidly approaching (27 days), and I have gained too much weight to wear any of my cosplays. Bummer, right? Well, I found a compromise the other day, and yesterday I made something new.

I only spent about nine dollars on the zipper, thread, and button–much less than if I’d decided to make even one new cosplay! There are a couple of mistakes in the apron, but they’re small mistakes and nothing I can’t live with. Plus, with making it myself, I was able to alter the pattern and make a ton of pockets for markers for signing my book. 🙂

I used a pattern I found on Pinterest, and I’m happy with the results. Crafty Staci I think was the name of the woman who came up with the design. Great tutorial, great design.

So far that’s the only real prep I’ve done for TCC. I need to bust butt getting books ordered and setting up my PayPal reader with my phone and figuring out how much change to bring for cash. Every time I think I have all the plans solidified in my head, new things pop up. I’ll get there, though. And this experience will prepare me for future cons and appearances.

Excelling…or am I?

#books, #dystopian, #nerd, #publishing, Abnormal, Celebrity, Critique, Fandom, Geek, Interview, Marketing, Novel, Promotion, Sci-fi, Social Media, Stress, Time, Work, Writing

So I thought I was doing pretty well with contacting authors, podcasts, and book bloggers about Abnormal. I mean, I’ve been following along with the Marketing 101 assignments that my publisher has been putting out in the Facebook group, I’ve been researching places to contact, I’ve been documenting my contacts…so why is it that, when I input the contacts I’ve done into an Excel sheet, I’ve only contacted about twenty people/businesses??

I guess reality is not the same as perception sometimes. I’ve got a list of five more book bloggers to contact today, but I’m a little discouraged at how dismal my personal efforts have been. I want Abnormal to succeed, so why am I slacking?

Well, part of it is just life. I get busy (or I get too sleepy in the mornings), and I forget. Or I say I’ll do it after work. Or something. Regardless of the reason for the slackiness, I need to step it up. Get cracking.

My efforts look so much more impressive when they’re scrawled in a composition book or date planner. I guess I write much bigger than I realized. Lol

I just have to tell myself that I can do this. I’ve got a form email saved for sending to places, I’ve got a list started of places to contact, and I am looking every so often for more places. I’m less overwhelmed than I was previously when it comes to finding places to send requests for reviews/interviews to, but I still don’t feel like I’m doing enough.

On the plus side, I got my author copies in this past weekend, and they look great. I mean, I’ve seen the paperbacks when I did my signing at the local bookstore, but it’s cool to have a copy to carry around, and the hardcover looks great, too. 

Ain’t they a beaut? 

I guess I should get off the blog and get to the blogs. Er, book review blogs.