Marketing and Publicity by Philippa

You will not sell or share your book without somehow telling people it exists. Word on the block says you must have an e-profile but if you’ve never been out there on the net it can be hard. You have to realise that with an e-profile you cannot totally control who reads your details and it’ll be open to all. I joined Linkedin which felt quite safe, and was already on Facebook as an individual, but had always used it with caution.

I continued with the personal approach and e-mailed everyone on my private e-mail contact list asking them to send details of the book on to their friends too. Everyone I met or bumped into had to listen to my pitch about the book, and these contacts as well as a fabulous book launch evening at Wivenhoe Bookshop have resulted in over 300 sales. Relative strangers now come up to me in the street to say how much they’ve enjoyed the story, so it had obviously moved beyond simply family and close friends reading it, which is exciting.

I was able to put the paperback on Amazon but I don’t believe that has resulted in any sales so far, so the next decision is whether to e-publish. The big question now is whether my IT skills are up to it and I suspect the answer is ‘no’ so I’ve asked for help from Wivenbooks and that is going to be the next stage of the journey. We want to try to get it on to multiple e-readers in order to support independent bookshops which often stock e-readers other than Kindle. Once ‘There’s No Sea in Salford’ is digitally available I aim to give it it’s very own Facebook page.

I’m also hoping this blog from Wivenhoe Writers, a small group of local writers who meet up once a month to share their work and discuss writing, will continue to raise the profile of my writing. It feels safer than trying a blog of my own and I hope will be stimulating in it’s own right – we’ll see. So it’s blogging and short story writing now till the autumn, then head down for the second novel as the nights draw in.