Hokey Pokey Marketing

You put your right foot in,

You put your right foot out,

You put your right foot in,

And you shake it all about.

You do the Hokey Pokey and you turn yourself around.

That’s what it’s all about!

Sounds a little like book marketing, doesn’t it?  

You put yourself out there, tentatively at first, one foot in, one foot out in an effort to keep yourself grounded and balanced. You join a few groups, you test the waters, you float a few comments, and you find yourself among friends. You step back and think, “That wasn’t so bad!” So you put your foot back in and shake it around a little, update your profile, take out a Facebook ad, join a few more groups and learn how to tweet, still with only one foot in--just in case you find yourself in over your head.

Now let’s try the left foot: You buy and read the self-help books for self-published writers. You scan your groups and forums for thoughts and ideas on how to market, how to build readership, how to network, how to find your niche. Then you thrust your foot back into the circle and give it a good shake -- just to see what happens. You make a few contacts, you retweet a few tweets, and you find that you’re connecting with other writers and poets and aspiring artists who are also furiously shaking their left foot while trying to learn to dance.

Right arm, left arm, in and out, shake and spin. At some point, the whole body becomes engaged, daring to jump into the circle to shake it all about in a wild frenzy of exultation (or frustration, I guess, depending on how well you’ve learned to perform). By the end of the dance, you should have it all together, each appendage working independently and in concert with all of your other appendages. Your website, blog, author pages, review pages, groups, connections, networks, fan base, clubs, personal appearance schedule, readings, launches, and every other conceivable body part of your marketing persona should be shuffling along in a smooth and graceful dance of success, doing the Hokey Pokey on auto-pilot while you get back to your real job: writing.

I’m not sure which part is the hardest part for me: the Hokey or the Pokey. In any case, that’s what it’s all about.

Jumping into the Deep End of the Pool

Since hearing that Random House is accepting submissions for their new digital-only imprints, I’ve been thinking about submitting two of my novels, Ripple and A Solitary Life. Having now completed my submissions, I have two words for the process: Yikes! and Yikes!

I should clarify, I guess, what I mean by the process—or more accurately, my process. I looked at their website http://www.atrandom.com/eoriginals and had to think long and hard about submitting to imprints with titles like ALIBI, HYDRA, FLIRT and LOVESWEPT. I don’t mean to say that there’s anything wrong with the titles, but how do I gauge which imprint is the right one for me? HYDRA is for science fiction, fantasy, and horror so Ripple feels like a good fit. At first glance, I don’t necessarily think of A Solitary Life as LOVESWEPT, but it is marginally romantic and falls in the women’s fiction genre, although I would like to think that men will find it enjoyable and relevant as well. Nevertheless, I followed my own advice for once, closed my eyes and JUMPED!  In this case, I hit the submit button at the bottom of the page and then squelched the desire to throw up.

Now I’ll wait the two to four weeks to hear from them, to find out if Random House would like a full manuscript for consideration, and during that time, I’ll second guess every word I wrote on the submission form.  

I’ve been reading Noah Lukeman’s How to Write a Great Query Letter in preparation for my search for a literary agent and now I wonder if I should have paid closer attention before submitting to HYDRA and LOVESWEPT.  The online submission forms for both imprints have blanks for basic information: Short description of book/genre, Publishing history/writing history, Bio, Additional Notes, Sample excerpt, and Query letter (please tell us something about your book and why you think it would be right for us). Query letter? Does this mean they want a real, formatted letter, which would be a repeat of the information given above, or as indicated, just a quick, down-and-dirty reason for inclusion in their imprint? I opted for a simple explanation as to why my work appeals to my readers. In retrospect, I’m thinking my answer might have been more effective if I’d focused on why the publisher might want to read my work rather than my potential readers. (And there it is again: I won’t throw up! I won’t throw up!)

I will now focus on the next two to four weeks with positive thoughts and return to my writing with a renewed sense of exhilaration. I’ve never submitted my work to a publisher for consideration. I’ve never thrown myself out there and I realize that it is well past time that I took the plunge and jumped head first—or feet first—into the deep end of the pool. Either way, I’m all in.