First Ebury Publishing and Now Bloomsbury - The Publishers Sending me Pressies in the Post this Week
I assumed that the first time a full manuscript-sized envelope dropped through my door from a publisher it would be the manuscript of my debut novel with an 'unfortunately' letter enclosed. Not so. First, Dim Wit fell through my door from Ebury Publishing and now I await the arrival from Bloomsbury of The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society.
Seriously folks, get on Twitter if you want some free goodies.
Get Involved with Publishing
Obviously, I'd love you all to be telling people about my writing and blogs but I'm not the only writer on the face of the planet and we're in a recession so it's only good publishing karma to help out the authors already in print isn't it? If they do well, the publishers will do well and if the publishers do well they'll be more likely to take a punt on new writers.
The Plan
Let's harness the power of our own little networks to see how much we can move things along. It's good practice for when we all get published ourselves after all. It's all well and good for us to be navel-gazing and pondering endlessly on our would-be-author status but the fact of the matter is that some of us will be published soon *shock!* and when that happens, we'll need to know what to do next. Part of that is the business side of publishing - marketing and what-not - so let's have a go at it!
If you look at my previous post, you'll see I've started to promote Dim Wit using the hashtag #dimwit on Twitter. The people at Ebury Publishing have already put a link to that post here on the blog.
Help Yourself
This is the point where I appeal to your inner 'but-it's-a-recession-why-should-I-help-anyone-else?' brat. If you're not feeling charitable, have a moment of self-interest. They are publishers. They will be keeping an eye on how various marketing strategies are working. If, when they search for #dimwit your name comes up as a retweeter of a book they publish then maybe they'll check you out. Worth a tweet on the off chance eh?
When I've read the book from Bloomsbury, I'll put up a review and we can all do our best to spread the word. In the meantime, if you're on twitter, look up #dimwit and get retweeting. I'll put up some shorter quotes so retweeting's easier. If you're not on twitter, cut and paste the quotes from the left column and put them on your blogs and social networking sites.
All we need to do is start a bit of online chat - not tough is it? Also, don't forget Jamie (Ford.) Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet is a stupendous book and I'm loving every page of it. Jamie's already on the New York Times Best-Sellers List and published in new countries every week but still there's no publishing deal in England. We've got to turn this around. It's great that Toad sent me a copy of the book from America but I want to see it in my local bookshop and think 'that's my chum's book. Isn't it pretty?' Let's see how much of an international ripple we can create for all these authors then - when it's the turn of one of us - we'll know what we're up to.
Happy chatting!
Rebecca
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Great post. Incidentally, if you haven't chatted with Jamie Ford, you should send him an an email. I interviewed him recently, and I found him to be a very personable author, particularly for one who is riding the humongous wave of NYTBSL. What you say here however, is very true and something we all need to keep in mind. Despite the competition, we're all in this together, and it's always a good thing when someone gets published.
Eric, my old chum, have you been on the wine gums again? Jamie and I have been chatting since he shamelessly plugged this blog in March. Little reminder...
http://frombrain2bookshelf.blogspot.com/2009/04/best-selling-author-james-ford-plugs-my.html
'Eric said...
Congrats! Obviously you're doing a good job, so keep it up :)'
That's when I started promoting him on here. I saw you beat me to an interview though, you cunning wee beastie. Good work. :) Well handled too and highly worth a read. (Pop across to Eric's blog, blog readers, if you're curious.) I was meaning to ask actually, did you interview him in real time or via email? I used to use a bit of software to interview celebs online back in the day and I can't for the life of me remember what it was called. Any ideas?
He's a lovely chap isn't he? I must say, following his journey since he was published has been a real lesson for me in the amount of work involved once a book is published. The poor guy never gets a moment to rest any more. I should imagine it's trickier in the U.S. Over here, everywhere's reachable by car but over there it's all planes and he's not a fan.
Congrats on the blog BTW, it's really steaming these days! x
Rebecca - I feel like I am out off the loop with work and preparing for the that should be happening soon. This is a really good post and even better idea. You nailed it on the head. We do need to help each other...new authors and published authors alike. I'm on board with your plan and it just so happens that I have a twit account http://twitter.com/TheNewAuthor now I need to figure out how too retweet and we can get things moving. I plan too share your idea with the New Author community.
Brian. Brilliant. I hoped you'd jump on board! Fab. This feels all Scooby Doo now. Exciting!
All you have to do to retweet something is cut and paste the text into your message box and put RT (for 'retweet')and the person who tweeted it originally in somewhere. For instance, to retweet - and hashtag - one of the tweets showing on the blog at the mo, cut and paste it from the left column then ad RT and the person it's retweeted from:
RT @rebeccawoodhead The early bird gets the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese - anon #dimwit
Once you've posted it, you can go to the search button at the bottom of your twitter page and click it. Put #dimwit into the search and it should show up on the search engine so you can see how many of us are doing it!
Don't forget the '#'
that was meant to read 'add' not 'ad' - slip of the finger. Sorry.
Rebecca - Thank you! I think you will find my article on the New Author interesting today. It is almost finished so it will be published soon.
Thanks Brian, that's really great. Let's see what happens.