BLOGGING WITH BEVERLEY: Tuesday’s Tips and Tweaks

This week author Kimbra Kasch joins us with her tip. She’d a writer who grew up in an old Victorian house on Mt. Tabor, in a family with 9 kids and only 1 TV. so she spent her days reading and, later, writing. She loves books, maybe because she never got to pick any of the TV shows she watched but she’d run home after school to catch the last fifteen minutes of Dark Shadows...every day.)

Kimbra’s Tip on Marketing For Dummies…or at Least a Dumb Author

Marketing is just like anything else in life…it takes time to get good at it. But how can you get good at something when you don’t even know what it is you’re supposed to be doing. It’s like dieting. You can’t lose weight if you’re eating more calories than your expending but we don’t start out life knowing how many calories are in an apple compared to an ice cream sundae. So we have to do a little research to figure it out. That’s the same with marketing.

But first before you begin your research, you have to have a goal. So think about it. What is it you “realistically” want to do? I mean you can plan on selling 1,000,000 books but if that’s your goal, you just might have to be willing to make more sacrifices than you’re prepared to do. So really…think about it.

1) THINK ABOUT WHAT YOU WANT TO ACCOMPLISH

(jot down some notes, ideas, thoughts and do a little graph or make a list)

PROS versus CONS

2) SET A GOAL

(Now that you’ve thought about it, and made some notes, set a goal)

GOAL: _______________________________________

3) WRITE OUT YOUR PLAN

(write out a flowchart of what it is you want and how you’re going to get there)

And, it can be simple as Marketing Book – Start tweeting about my book

But, of course the more detailed and broad your plan is, the better your results will be. But, like I said, how can you do what you don’t even know? So, that brings us to number 4.

4) RESEARCH

a) Who are you writing to: adult romance, young adult paranormal, middle grade chapter books…Who is your target audience?

b) Once you determine the answer to that, you can start researching your “market”

c) How does your market buy their books (online, bookstores, book festivals)? What sites do they visit online? Which blogs do they read? What magazines do they read?

5) CONNECT – NETWORK

This can be as easy as you want to make it or as difficult and time consuming as you can imagine.

a) Join a writers’ group: Romance Writers of America, SCBWI, Paranormal Romance Guild, Willamette Writers, etc.

There is a group for every genre and age group from picture books (PB), middle grade (MG), young adult (YA), new adult (NA) or adult (A).

b) Once you’re connected, get involved.

You won’t only make marketing connections by getting involved, you’ll make friends, which will be more valuable in life and along the publishing path.

6) CREATE A STREET TEAM

For once, “using” your friends won’t be a bad thing.

It is going to be overwhelming if you try to journey down the path to publication and marketing all alone. You’re going to need people to help you to be successful in life and in writing so you might as well get used to the idea (I know, writers are introverts-usually). But your friends can review your releases, blog about your book and help you market to the general public. And there’s more than that, they can encourage you when you get a rejection, a bad review, or just when you’re feeling overwhelmed.

Blurb from “Demon’s Ink”

This is a romantic thriller but really it's about art but art that's more than anyone bargained for.

Drake and Bartos come to the Pacific Northwest, where they open yet another tattoo shop but Bartos has no trouble dealing with the competition because there’s nothing normal about his art. And he’s stealing more than clients from the local skin artists. He's stealing their souls.

Customers fall in love with Bartos Slinderman’s tats but end up paying the ultimate price for their purchase because unlike Oscar Wilde’s Dorian Gray, they can’t walk away from this art and it’s beautiful until the artwork takes on a life of its own...

But, when Drake meets Scarlett everything begins to change…again. He’s found something he never thought possible: love. And, it’s complicated. Now he’s going to have to make the choice of a lifetime—and beyond. Will he choose love or life? And, if he chooses love, he just might have to give up his soul.

Excerpt From “Demon's Ink”

DRAKE

Expectations can ruin everything. Like thinking my senior year was going to be something special. What a set up that was.

I should have known better than to get my hopes up.

Ever.

I’d never been lucky. No one in my family was. I was probably only six when I’d heard grandpa say, “We come from a long line of losers.” He was talking to my Dad. I don’t even know about what. But, now, I know I should have listened to him.

Dad had already gone to prison, leaving Mom and me worse off than ever. And we were never good but, at least while he’d hung around, she managed to act like things were okay. Now she wasn’t even trying to pretend. Really it was way worse than that; she wasn’t even getting up off the couch any more.

I’d come home from school to find her passed out. The first couple times it freaked me out. Seeing her face-planted in the front room and not knowing whether she was alive or dead, I didn’t want to be the one to find her like that, to turn her over, to have to check to see if she was still breathing but I did. . . and I had no idea if she was high or drunk. I didn’t even care because what difference did it make? She was out of it. That was all that mattered.

So, after Dad went to jail, I was completely alone until Bartos made me a deal I couldn’t refuse but that was later.

For weeks, I’d come home after class and make a sandwich—if there was bread—otherwise it was a bowl of cereal for breakfast and dinner, sometimes I’d eat it dry because the milk had gone bad.

I knew I was going to have to get a job if I wanted to survive and I’d started looking around but that was right before everything changed.

It was late one Thursday evening. I still remember because I was thinking, “Only one more day…” I just didn’t know how right I was.

I don’t know what woke me up that night. Maybe it was the smell, the heat, the sound of my Mom screaming. I really don’t know. But I opened my eyes to the thick burning haze of a room filled with smoke.

I’d gone down into the basement that night and fallen asleep.

Looking around, I already knew there were no windows. I was trapped.

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