We’re entering the end stage of the new novel, and are back in the difficult end of creating the book. The text is written, the editing is under way, the title selected and the cover being design, so now thoughts must turn to marketing. For those who haven’t followed my ‘writing process’ posts on previous books, these could also be termed the ‘do as I say, not as I did’ blogs, where you get to benefit from the mistakes I’ve made in the past. And the first of these is… don’t rush!
I know it is very exciting to have the text complete, and the ability to unleash your story on the world, and hugely tempting to do it as quickly as possible, but whether you are with a trad publisher or self-publishing, this is where the graft really kicks in for the author. You have to promote yourself and your product (I know, horrible isn’t it, but if you want the public to read your opus, you really have to start considering it as a ‘product’) and that means several versions of the pitch, a synopsis, keywords, categories, likely reviewers, social media promotion, and a marketing plan, but before any of that, you need to think about who your audience is.
I’ve written before that my decision to previously write ‘outside’ a particular genre had made my marketing more difficult, and probably partly explains why Man In The Bath has been my most popular; while not deliberately written with an audience in mind, it fits into the dystopian and social-media driven world, so has been easier to pitch to a likely audience. The new book is what I’d term a psychological horror but with elements of mythology, which gives me a really good idea of my likely core readership. So, I need to look for the USPs, and the elements which will appeal to my readership. I’ve already got a tone, with the help of my playlist as shown previously, so next I’m creating mood boards and teaser trailers. Addressing these ideas at this early stage is something I haven’t done a great deal of for previous publications, which I think was a mistake.
A mood board is a collage of images which reflect the story, but in its broadest sense. There may be elements referring to plot points, but the mood board is designed to reflect how the reader and the book feels. An upcoming post will go into this in detail, and show what I’ve created, but alongside this I’ve started to toy with taglines and images to get the potential readers’ attention. Different authors do this in different ways, using different software, but for me at this stage, I’m not creating a finished product, just an idea of what I think might work. I can refine and tweak later, but what combination of text and image might make someone want to know more. As I intend to create a series, and use them on social media, I don’t have to explain everything, in fact it is better not to. So, if you were wondering what the image at the top of this page was, it is the first of these ‘mocked up’ teaser images.
In my next post, I’ll explain a little more and you’ll hopefully want to come back and learn the next step…
Stay safe
Kit