Top Tips for New Authors in 2018
by Steve Conway
The literary marketplace is a huge business, with an estimated three million books being available to purchase on Amazon alone. New authors can often feel intimidated by how saturated the marketplace is, but in truth, if your novel is good and is marketed in the right way, there is no reason why it can’t find its audience.
Make Sure Your Work is The Best It Can Be
The world moves fast, especially now that the internet is so far-reaching and accessible. Society often expects instant access and information, and this is the same for authors. Once you release that first novel, you’ll soon find yourself being asked to release the next one. It can be tempting to go for the high-volume approach, and some writers can pull this off better than others. Whatever suits you is fine, but just make sure that your manuscripts are the best they can be before you send them out into the world. This means having them professionally edited and proofread, and that’s before you go to your publishers. The focus should be on your story once you hand it over, not any typos or story holes you might have, so take the time to get your story straight.
Be Prepared to Fight for Your Work
Authors should take time out from their busy writing schedules on occasion and look to develop themselves as business people, as well as writers. There are inevitably going to be times when you are going to come across somebody who doesn’t agree with something in your work. This could be an editor or a publisher. You have to be prepared to fight for your work, whilst still being professional and not being petty. You have to be a collaborator in the literary world, and some conflict resolution skills might not go amiss either. If you can steer the ship back towards positivity when you find yourself butting heads, it will be better off for everybody involved.
Get Yourself Out There
Once your book is done, dusted and available to buy, the next step is to start marketing your novel. There’s a chance that your publisher will have a budget for marketing, but it really pays to put yourself out there yourself. This could mean anything from reading excerpts from your novel at open mics and writers groups to speaking at events and turning up at writer’s conventions. There is no end to the ways that you can make yourself more publicly accessible, just don’t spend too long away from the writing desk.
Be Social
Many authors use social media to chat with their fans and readers to hear what they like and don’t like about their books and to inform their readership of any events and readings that they are attending. It’s a great way to interact with the literary world, and authors should certainly consider being active on at least one or two social networks. As previously mentioned, there are around three million book titles out in the world, so you have to get the name of yours into people’s minds by any means necessary. At least social media is a fun way of doing so. People want to get to know you and what makes you tick.
Consider Self-Publishing Your Novel
If you feel like the publishing world isn’t for you and you’d like a little more control over your literary career, you can always try self-publishing instead. Being in an indie author is tough because you have to take care of everything which includes the editing, the cover design, and the marketing yourself, but if that seems like your kind of challenge, there’s no reason why you can’t take the DIY approach.
You can have a paperback and eBook version of your book available on Amazon and other platforms within a matter of minutes, and you can release follow-ups whenever you’re ready. There are plenty of success stories in self-publishing, so don’t be put off by it. The Martian was a huge seller and became a Hollywood film starring Matt Damon. The Fifty Shades series was also originally self-published, and that is a multi-million seller and film franchise. You might not get these levels of success, but don’t discount self-publishing as an option.
Guest Post by Steve Conway:
Steve Conway is a content marketing professional and inbound marketing expert. Previously, Steve worked as a marketing manager for a tech software start-up. He is passionate about discovering new software that will that will advance his already well-honed digital marketing techniques.
Thank you for interesting tips.I have written a children's book about our planets and universe. I am also a painter so all the illustrations are by me. It has taken a lot of years to finnish: The Universe a Work of Art. I hope a lot of children around the world will enjoy it. The Norwegian title:
ReplyDeleteUniverset som et Maleri. Greetings from Eva in Norway.
Congratulations of publishing your children's book, Eva!
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