October 12th, 2021
Hello everyone.
My new novel, Blink and I’m gone, has been out and widely available for about two weeks. I’ve had health problems, so haven’t been on the ball with thinking about marketing at all, although feeling somewhat better now.
Thing is, this marketing business is pretty scary for me. I’m a writer, not a business or sales person. And I’m rubbish - always have been - at self promotion. It always smack of ‘showing off’, to me, which as a fifties/sixties child, was frowned upon and disapproved of. Thinking well of yourself, if not a cardinal sin, was certainly a venial one, according to the nuns at my convent school . . . mental self flagellation being the order of the day.
When I was published by Picador I felt I could just sit back and let them ‘do it all’. Maybe this was the wrong attitude, as they didn’t exactly do it all, and if I’d been more pro-active perhaps the sales record would’ve been better than it was. However, this time, there’s no one gonna do much to help sales but me. And my skills and knowledge in this area are sorely lacking . . .
So what to do and where to start . . ?
Everything is a learning curve for me in this department. Posted two video clips of me talking about and reading from the novel on Youtube. Felt quite proud of myself for overcoming my usual defence strategy of avoidance when it comes to anything technical.
I’ve got my first two very positive reviews on Amazon. One of them - someone I know - also emailed me to tell me about a single fact inconsistency she has spotted. A reader usually feels quite self-congratulatory about this sort of thing. Actually, I think only one error to be found is doing extremely well. And how many really astute readers are there out there . . ? I defy anyone else to find it!
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