Sunday, December 9, 2012

I HAVE BECOME A PROMOTING 'HO!

Never did I think I would see the day when I would shamelessly push, promote, advertise, and in general, throw myself on the mercy of the eWinds out there. Between the Alvarez Family and the Persephone Cole Mystery Series, I hawk like a barker for a 3rd-rate carnival.
Facebook and I are close pals. I'm even learning how it works. I tweet like nobody's business. If I could afford to hire a plane whose duff dragged a long sign overhead promoting my books, I would. Maybe even a dirigible. Roadsign, anyone?
And I used to have so much pride. But pride doesn't get you sales, nosirree. I have discovered that maybe I'll never do the sales of Agatha Christie or Janet Evanovitch, but if I sit still and wait for the fates to do it for me, it might never...okay, will never happen at any level.
Man oh, man. I had no idea that being a writer involved so much of this end of the stick! It seems now the luxury of writing is the actual writing, itself!
Any thoughts on this, dear writing pals?
And before we leave, here's my buy page at Amazon, just to keep this 'ho thing going!!

http://www.amazon.com/Heather-Haven/e/B004QL22UK/ref=sr_tc_2_0?qid=1355071938&sr=1-2-ent


Happy Holidays, everyone!

9 comments:

Helena Fairfax said...

I liked your post, Heather. I agree, it's a terrible business having to sell yourself when all you want to do is write. But a girl's got to eat. I downloaded A Wedding To Die For and am looking forward to reading it!
www.helenafairfax.com

Ann Herrick said...

Great post! While promoting can be fun, it *is* a lot of work and time consuming too.

Margaret Tanner said...

Hi Heather,
Great post. You might well have taken the words out of my mouth. It is dreadful having to go around and "sell" yourself all the time. A necessary evil, I suppose you would have to say. I know of some authors who love doing it, and are very good at it, but I am not one of them unfortunately.

Cheers

Margaret

ccarpinello said...

How true. Just spent 8 hours yesterday at a Xmas Festival. Had I sat on my butt at my booth, would have sold nothing. Speaking out to strangers, offering autographed books as unique gifts, etc. enabled me to sell not a bundle, but at least made it worth my time!

Heather Haven said...

Helena, thank you so very much! I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. It was such fun!!

Heather Haven said...

Margaret, we are soulmates. Absolutely!!

Heather Haven said...

Ccarpinello, have looked for you and your first name in Muse, but you're not there. Write back and let me know your first name, please!!

Wendy said...

You must be doing something right Heather because I have two of yours on my Kindle waiting to be read.

I don't look at it as selling myself as much as selling my book, but I think it would be so much easier to proudly promote a print book in person than an ebook. So I live in hope. All of my online and e-mag promo for the ebook version of The Unhewn Stone has been a total waste of time and it's such a shame because it's a damn good story. :) Guess I'll just have to wait till Hollywood promotes the movie version. :)

Heather Haven said...

Wendy, first, thank you for buying my books. Second, am in the process of printing one of my books thru CreateSpace. I can let you know what that entails and if it's a viable solution. Contact me at heather@heatherhavenstories.com and I'll give you a blow by blow. We're in this together!! Happy Holidays!!