Hi Readers,
Have I got a treat for you! The author of the contest-winning
story Must Love Breeches Angela
Quarles wants to share her tips on launching her novel.
Angela Quarles is a geek girl romance writer whose works
includes Must Love
Breeches, a
time travel romance, and Beer
& Groping in Las Vegas, a
geek romantic comedy in novelette form. She has a B.A. in Anthropology and
International Studies with a minor in German from Emory
University, and a Masters in Heritage
Preservation from Georgia
State University.
She currently resides in a historic house in the beautiful and quirky town of Mobile, AL.
Here's 13 Things I Learned about Launching a Debut Release
1. I use OneNote to organize everything related to my book,
outside of the actual manuscript. It's so nice to have everything (links, tour
stops, bios, blurbs, formatting) in one easily accessible spot.
2. Have a street team, no matter how small. I started out with
only 3 but by the release, it's seven and they've been a great help
3. Do a Goodreads giveaway early on. My book released yesterday,
and I have over 350 people who've added it to their TBR pile and a significant
portion of that came from the Goodreads giveaway. Mine was for 2 and a half
months.
3. Take advantage of Amazon's preorder ability. They've opened
it up now to everyone. Consistency of sales is key with Amazon's algorithm and
so I think it's going to help that I've had sales spread out leading up to my
launch.
4. Start your social networking before you're published. I
started blogging on hanging on Twitter in 2011 and so the friendships I forged
by participating in discussions since then paid dividends this week. Everyone's
been supportive and they're doing most of the promo for me as they're happy to
see my book out too.
5. Add contacts you make along the way no matter how far out you
are to publishing. Anytime a contest judge or someone else said they wanted to
know when the book would be out, I added them to my Gmail contacts. Then, over
the course of this summer, I reached out individually to each one.
6. Start a mailing list. And then treat them like gold. But
don't add names to your list unless they opted in. I also didn't try to build
mine artificially by running contests. I don't want people on there unless
they're genuinely interested in learning about new releases from me, etc. I
just make the link accessible on my website and let them accrue organically.
8. Make sure you have a compelling blurb
9. Create a Media Kit on your website. I wish I'd done mine
sooner, but I finally knuckled down two weeks ago and did it. For ideas, visit
mine: http://angelaquarles.com/media-kit/ Anyway, immediately after mine was up,
I was getting hits, since I had review copies out with people and up on
NetGalley. That week, one reviewer, on her own, mined that page and put up my
image quotes and all sorts of stuff.
10. Which leads me to, see if you can rent NetGalley coop slot.
I put out a call on some writer loops that I was looking to rent (and I put out
that call several months before I needed the slot) and snagged one for a month
for a very reasonable fee. I'm already getting reviews now from that.
11. Join writer loops to keep up with the latest indie news. I
heard about the day they opened up Amazon preorders on the day it happened and
so was quickly able to take advantage of that.
12. Stagger your announcements so that you're not spiking your
sales all at once. Amazon now rewards consistency, as noted above. Even though
it's hard, I've held off notifying friends and family via email, and staggered
other announcements too.
13. Relax and try to focus on other projects too! Thought it's
really hard not to keep checking stats!
Thanks for stopping by and reading this
post. I had the pleasure of reading some of the super scenes in Must Love Breeches and I’m guessing you’ll
like this story, too. Here’s the blurb, which I hope will entice you.
She's
finally met the man of her dreams. There's only one problem: he lives in a
different century.
"A
fresh, charming new voice" – New York Times bestselling author Tessa Dare
HOW
FAR WOULD YOU TRAVEL FOR LOVE?
A
mysterious artifact zaps Isabelle Rochon to pre-Victorian England, but before she understands
the card case’s significance a thief steals it. Now she must find the artifact,
navigate the pitfalls of a stiffly polite London,
keep her time-traveling origins a secret, and resist her growing attraction to
Lord Montagu, the Vicious Viscount so hot, he curls her toes.
To
Lord Montagu nothing makes more sense than keeping his distance from the
strange but lovely Colonial. However, when his scheme for revenge reaches a
stalemate, he convinces Isabelle to masquerade as his fiancée. What he did not
bargain on is being drawn to her intellectually as well as physically.
Lord
Montagu’s now constant presence overthrows her equilibrium and her common
sense. Isabelle thought all she wanted was to return home, but as passion
flares between them, she must decide when her true home—as well as her
heart—lies.
If you’d like to get in touch with Angela or find out more about
Must Love Breeches, here’s her contact information—
And we’d love to hear from you. Feel
free to leave a comment. Thanks.