Writing The Book Is Half The Job

I spent some time the last two days getting ready to promote my new book, plus an old one, for the Labor Day Weekend. If you're a writer, you should too. It's an excellent time to catch the potential reader with a relaxed mindset. Remember, writing the book is only half the job. It's important to let potential audiences know what you have to offer.

One huge step in the process is to define your audiences. I do hope you wrote the book so it appeals to more than one. The thing is, everyone is looking to satisfy a specific need, to be frightened, inspired, exposed, taken on a new adventure, encouraged to laugh, etc. So any promotion should appeal to that need. I see so many promos from new writings saying I just finished THE BIG BEAR IN THE WOODS, and it's ready for download on Amazon. I want to contact them and say, wow, that was a big waste of time.

Don't make things too complicated. Just look at your book and look at the needs of your audience and highlight how your book meets those need. One of my books I styled as "Gut-wrenching laughter" for anyone who has been in a serious relationship. And then I ended with this appeal to the audience's enduring sense of hope that one day they might find a compatible mate:

Every reader that has loved and lost and even won in the eHarmony crap-shoot called dating will see the flickering light of hope beckoning them to open their heart and climb aboard the old romance bus one more time.

As you can see, I'm appealing to at least two specific needs ... the need to laugh and the need to sustain, against all odds, the legitimate  hope (critical emotion) of finding someone in the future. This is the kind of appeal that should be incorporated into every successful promotion.

Finally, here is a sample of one of the many images I used to reinforce the humor side.

Okay .... Good luck with your promotion. You can see the same appeal process with my new paranormal  book here:


FIVE FREE CHAPTERS FROM MY VERY LATEST BOOK ... KING JUBA'S CHEST.
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http://eepurl.com/IiU5L

Drag Your Readers Into The Slime. They'll Thank You Later

I'm working on my new book for 2014. In the process I talked to a young writer asking about the boundaries of description and the risk you might offend the reader by being too vivid or gory. I'm not a fan of gory. I love vividness, however. It comes down to knowing your audience. Most readers are searching for an escape from their boring, humdrum, methodical, politically correct world. They want reality without blinders, but (and this is critical) not to the extent that reality triumphs fairness and good.

So I say to new writers, break out of the box, walk the tight rope, drag your readers into the slime. Show the hurt and despair and tragedy in life. Present an uncut reality. They'll thank you later.

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EXCERPTS FROM THE NEW BOOK ... Let's just call it "Pinky" for now.

Over in Brazoria, a third patrol car pulled up in Jason MacDonald’s front yard and parked behind the ambulance. All of the blinking red light had coalesced into a battery of cannons, strafing the countryside with flashes of impending doom. Vehicles had already started to line up along the side of the highway. Neighbors with expressions of curiosity and dread streamed down the long driveway, speculating in whispers about what had gone wrong.

As the fire truck’s hydraulic lift hoisted Jason MacDonald’s bloated body to the surface, the whispers dissolved into hysterical screams. His wife, Jean, fell to the ground in a trembling knot, coughing up brown slime all over her blue flowered dress.