Swag The Dog: How Obsessing Over Promotion Can….

HANK:  Pssst. You know Kristi Belcamino and Bryon Quertermous? They’re right over there, talking about...something bookish.  How Obsessing Over Promotion Can Kill An Author's Mojo?  That sounds pretty darn interesting! Let’s see if we can listen in…

Kristi Belcamino: I don’t know about you, but I just fixed myself a cocktail! And I’m raising it to US! Because a year ago, you and I were both sitting here dreaming of being published authors, right? And look at us now? So I’m raising a glass to US. Salut! Chin chin! Clink!

Bryon Quertermous: That really is amazing isn’t it? (And if we had signed traditional publishing deals we’d STILL be waiting for our books to come out and you’re already putting out #3!)

KB: True. We both walked into our deals forgoing the traditional author dream of seeing our books in bookstores and holding our books in our hands and yet, somehow, we both ended up with real, physical books …

BQ: The future rocks. What cocktail do you have? I’m drinking a Diet Pepsi.

KB: I’m doing it up Gabriella Giovanni style (in honor of her, of course) and having Absolut straight up, chilled of course. While my 11-year-old is decorating envelopes for some mailings I’m sending to readers.

BQ: And that’s a perfect transition to what I think will be the major focus of this

conversation today: author promotion. It’s absolutely necessary in this new publishing future but it’s HARD and frustrating and depressing.

KB: Can I agree to disagree with you here?

BQ: No.

KB: Well, I’m gonna anyway.  I’m not going to do any promotion if I think it is hard and frustrating and depressing. I only do what I think is fun … for instance, I really dig interacting with readers on Facebook. For someone who sits alone writing for eight hours, it is a social outlet for me.

BQ: Ah, okay, then I suspect we may actually agree. I like doing promotion, specifically the stuff you mentioned that’s interactive, what I find hard and frustrating and depressing is not knowing if any of it is working.

KB: Aha. Anyway, here’s the thing - we really don’t know if it is working. Were you the one who said throw it out and see what sticks? So that’s why you can’t stress out about it too much. I think our role as authors in this day and age is to be engaging enough so that when readers seek us out, they feel like, hey, I sort of relate to this person AND like her books, so I’m going to follow what she is up to.

It’s about selling yourself by being yourself, right?

BQ: You are very right. I just finished up my first solo book event today (pause for Kristi’s congratulations).

KB: Woot! Woot!

BQ: And it was great. I started the morning with a giant stack of books and was able to see concrete results of my promotion efforts as that stack diminished through the morning. But we don’t get that sort of experience regularly. People buy our books from websites or stores away from us and we have to wait until our publishers send us the cryptic maps to our sales figures to even get a remote sense of whether what we’re doing is working or not.

KB: Well, first - that is awesome! And bravo! But dude, that is why I became friends with you before we met in person in Milwaukee, because I liked your personality online and felt sort of like you were a little brother. That is why I bought your book because I liked your personality and hoped to see that in your book. That is why I think it’s important we be authentic on social media—although I do try to rein in my super bitchy side, even though my main character can be somewhat bitchy at times, too.

BQ: I know I’ve bought plenty of books from authors I never knew because they were entertaining on a panel or authentic. I like that you used that word because I think some authors think you have to be Jerry Seinfeld or Taylor Swift up there being charming and funny and ON, but there are plenty of people both of us know who are quiet and subdued but when they talk they convey an authenticity that readers find intriguing.

We seem to agree that social media is very helpful if done right, but what about swag? This seems to be a fairly divisive topic among writers in what seems to work for different writers and different audiences.

KB: I think swag is hard to measure. What I use swag for is as a way to spread the word through a grassroots campaign. It’s not going to help me to send bookmarks to someone who has never read my books or who is lukewarm about my writing.

BQ: Oh, that is SUCH a great point. When you look up advice on promotion for writers and weed through all the bullshit from “gurus” and “experts” one thing that pops up time and again is that the best promotion a writer can do is write another good book quickly. 

KB: Yeah. The only thing we really can control is writing the next book. But there is only so much money in the pot for the publisher to spend on promotion so my job is to let them know I’m pulling my weight in getting the word out. I’m open to interviews, I’m keeping the social media ball rolling, I’m spreading the word in my own way …

BQ: How about newsletters? After being adamantly opposed to the newsletter idea for a long time, I think I’ve finally come around to their usefulness. Can you talk a little bit about your newsletter experience? Why did you start it, how do you make it successful, how do you get folks to sign up for it, etc.?

KB: I’ve learned a bit about it since I started the newsletter last year. What I did wrong was essentially bribe people to sign up for it, which was not ideal. Why? I offered some cool gifts to random newsletter subscribers every month for the first few months. The problem with that, is you DO NOT want to bribe people to subscribe because essentially then their subscription is useless. Because they don’t care about you or your books. They signed up for the chance to win something cool.

But if you offer something that only an enthusiastic reader would want - say a deleted chapter from your book, a copy of your book, a short story you wrote - then you are focusing on your ideal newsletter subscriber - somebody who signed up because they like your books and your writing and will care about what you have to say when you do send out that newsletter.

And that’s why a newsletter is important - you’ve winnowed down the people who are enthusiastic about your books and you have a direct line to them for all your book news.

And I reward them for being enthusiastic with giveaways each month.

BQ: I think that’s a great place to end this. Thanks so much for taking the time to chat with me. I know I’ve found it beneficial to learn about your failures and false starts and I’m sure our readers will as well.

KB: Bryon, thanks to you, as well. I loved talking bookish things with you and am happy that we both have landed where we are and that we are friends.

HPR:  We loved it, too! Such fun to listen to you guys! (And congratulations on the Anthony Best First nomination, Kristi! YAY!)  Reds, writers and readers alike, weigh in! Agree? Or disagree?

Bryon Quertermous is the author of Murder Boy and the forthcoming Riot Load. His short stories have been published in a number of journals of varying repute and he was shortlisted for the CWA Debut Dagger Award. He currently lives outside of Detroit with his wife and kids. Visit him at bryonquertermous.com and follow him on Twitter @BryonQ.

The only thing standing between Detroit writer Dominick Prince and his dream of a writing fellowship in New York City is his thesis adviser who doesn’t want Dominick’s crime novel tainting his last chance bid at tenure. When Dominick tricks a bounty hunter into helping him kidnap the professor, things spin quickly, and violently, out of control.

Kristi Belcamino is a writer, newspaper reporter, and Italian-American mama who makes a tasty biscotti. As an award-winning crime reporter at newspapers in California, she flew over Big Sur in an FA-18 jet with the Blue Angels, raced a Dodge Viper at Laguna Seca and watched autopsies. Her first book, BLESSED ARE THE DEAD, was based on her dealings with a serial killer while she was a reporter at a Bay Area newspaper. Find out more at http://www.kristibelcamino.com.

In BLESSED ARE THOSE WHO WEEP, San Francisco Bay Area reporter Gabriella Giovanni stumbles onto a horrific crime scene with only one survivor—a baby girl found crawling between the dead bodies of her family members. Reeling from the slaughter, Gabriella clings to the infant. When Social Services pries the little girl from her arms, the enormity of the tragedy hits home. Diving deep into a case that brings her buried past to the forefront, Gabriella is determined to hunt down the killer who left this helpless baby an orphan. But one by one the clues all lead to a dead end, and Gabriella's obsession with finding justice pulls her into a dark, tortuous spiral that is set to destroy everything she loves …