Nearing the final lap. I have now submitted my final draft to the editor for her to add her own tweaks. The story feels really good now and has benefited so much from last summer’s trip across to Estonia and the chance to visit places and generally ‘feel’ the land. To me, if you are using real places in a novel, you have to go there and soak up the atmosphere and look for unique features. I came back from my last trip to Eesti with about 50 notes of observations to think about!
E-book still on for December. We have thought about trying to bring forward the paperback to the end of February. World Book day is on 7th March and there is an outside chance of an event at a library which could allow me to ‘showcase’ the novel.
Now is the start of things that I had only dreamed of doing in the past. Acknowledgements forewords, blurbs, covers and marketing. Marketing is a dark art to me, but thankfully with the lovely marketing team at my current employ and advice from two novelist friends, I have a start.
It’s a fallacy that books are just published and the writer sits back to let the ‘machine’ organise the marketing. Others have pointed out you have to do most of the hoof-work yourself – and with a small press, you are selling the book as much as the Press! I have spoken to the shop in Aberystwyth who is interested in doing a book-launch and they have offered to send out flyers in their regular promo mailshots. All I need is to design one… I have also made initial enquiries as to whether the local college may have students interested in collaborating on a ‘youtube trailer’…
In view of the need for marketing, I set up the website. Part of the reason was to chart my progress. If it helps someone on a similar journey, great! Part of the reason was to keep the project in people’s minds. Part of it is just to let off steam!
I have now also set up a facebook page – https://www.facebook.com/groups/243720152422647/
The reason for this is to reach those who don’t do blogs and also to get news to those who do want it on a regular basis! If you haven’t already, please join. Feel free to send the link for the fb page or this website to anyone who you think may be interested.
Next post is another Q&A, so if there’s any questions you fancy answering that are before the 9 o’clock watershed, please let me know!
