Dirty Word of the Day

Did that make you look?

I don't mean the really nasty seven bad words.

The Dirty Word of the Day today is Advertising.

Yes, I know - an erotica writer should have better bad words that. Sorry to disappoint. Actually, I do have many more enjoyable bad words at my fingertips, but this one is a special curse. It deserved its own post, I think.

Advertising is the part of this whole writing business I hadn't really considered before I decided to leap into publishing. I guess I sort of had a vision in mind of Other People taking care of that. Who, I'm not exactly sure - the Publishers, I guess. I mean, didn't Bridget Jones work for the marketing department of a publishing company? So, some pubs out there must do some marketing, I assume. Helen Fielding wouldn't lie to me, would she?

But, I think to get in bed with the kind of companies that do the advertising for you, you need an agent and the decades of prayers, dark rituals, gift baskets, etc, that it likely takes to make it with an established company with funds for such things. Oh, and proof that your books can earn back the money they shell out - i.e. a damn good backlist to your name.

Sadly, I have none of those, so I'm pretty much on my own flogging my books, published through smaller companies who ask us to handle the lion's share (if not all) of our own marketing.

I've been learning a lot about this side of the business, I admit. Been working the social media, Tweeting and re-Tweeting until my hands fall off, trying to get my name out there with a happy connotation. Sure, none of it's worked yet, but it may eventually. Hey, I've only been in the business officially since October 2010 - Rome wasn't built in a day, right?

I've also only had a handful of titles released, and as I rectify that (hopefully with some bigger companies in the near future), I suspect name recognition might start to climb a bit.

But, today I am thinking of honest-to-goodness advertising. Which makes me a little ill, to be frank.

As a consumer, I am very used to ignoring ads and cursing spam - even going so far as boycotting the really aggressive ones. Therefore, the thought of becoming one of those guys makes me feel a bit filthy.

Okay, I know: "No one can read your book if they don't know it exists."

Yes, I have heard this, and am really trying to dig its practical applications. But, when it comes right down to it, Tweeting sales links icks me out. Nor do I really believe it works, since I would never buy anything from a sales link sent to me via social media. My mind marks it immediately as spam, and that's it for me. I might post such a thing on the release day, more as a "Ommigosh, I can't believe I'm on Amazon" sort of thing than anything else - but I can't bring myself to keep going with them. As a result, I now only use Twitter to chit-chat and share bits of my writing, and for networking among other book folks, which is really much more fun, anyway.

So, I think: Perhaps purchasing ad space is a bit more savory, since it is obvious and somewhat honorable. Everyone knows the deal - an ad is placed in a space that looks like an ad, and paying attention to it is fairly voluntary.

But, even with paid ads, there's a bit of a sticky wicket. Most of the sites I could afford to advertise on are basically only visited by the authors with ads there and maybe the blogger's mom. The sites with actual traffic are way out of my price league. It's not even a matter of, "Will this make my money back through the ad?" it's a matter of, "Which bill will I skip paying this month so I can make this initial layout?" Yes - it's not good.

However, a little boon came my way recently. The site The Romance Reviews gave me a handful of site credits for signing up, and they happened to be running a sale on their monthly ads at the same time! Now, starting today, I have my first real ad up someplace that seems to get relatively good traffic - for a whole month!

The ad-less (and sale-less) wonder is ad-less no longer!

I'll let you know how it turns out. If this experiment works, I might consider trying more low-key paid marketing over the next few months. But, realistically, I'm not likely to pay out tons and tons to promote books that aren't ever going to earn that money back. I like writing; I enjoy seeing my books available; I love to see reviews and notes from people who've read them. I'm proud of my books so far, and I look forward to seeing what I can do in the future. In the end, rankings on Amazon are nice, but they wouldn't make this worthwhile if I didn't have fun doing it. And worrying about marketing really doesn't add to my authorial enjoyment, that's for sure. So, I will take it as it goes - I'm learning a lot, and, with luck, it'll all pan out in the end.

Welcome to a new month! Happy sales to all, and to all a high ranking!