richardmurray

KWL Live Q&A – Romance Roundtable with B. E. Baker, Elana Johnson, Jean Oram, Jan Moran, & Kellie Coates Gilbert

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MY THOUGHTS AS I WATCH

5:54 publishing wide
opportunities expand with going wide. 
you get to join with partners, book publishing,  better.
you lose personalization on larger platforms

11:12 define sweet romance and what is the difference between women's fiction and sweet romance
women's fiction , a woman enters one way and exists another
the focus is different, women's fiction where point of view are females, while sweet romance is a double
Advertising between women's fiction or sweet romance is not the same.
We do readers a disservice by trying to labelize or niche their stories.
The Notebook is beloved

21:43 marketing reader expectations
Covers are our billboards
most use script because script smbolizes for most romance
big heavy romance readers are more acute and have many categories. if you make a romance that is small town and it is set in nyc, the readers will have a problem.
use subtitles, to specify for readers clarity
mafia romances are usually black red and gold , so an author changed her colors on her book, to handle the common assumptions of certain audiences
explicit titles can be blunt but can make it easy to be remember and focus, and in the blurb give them all the details to what is in it
branding is essential, if you go in a store and every can has no label, how do you know what you are buying.
your audience isn't everyone
as trends change, you can change books, especially if they fit

39:30 marketing strategies and what has worked best for you
one started a reader group, and she did author interviews, she uses newsletters, the she's reading group is better
one said connecting to readers and she has a readers group , and her mailing list
one is her email marketing is her best avenue, stop marketing books, and start marketing experiences, and she is on a place that nobody can change. 
one don't limit herself. she is very active in her facebook group. go for vertical sales, where people who like you and they buy your work. horizontal sales is new people. if you are selling at 99 cent and doing a lot of giveaways then you may have a marketing problem. do you need to get an editor. people on a restrictive budget are on kobo plus, not the regular sales.

51:00 audience questions
one said, if you keep writing, this is a backlist. It may not work at the beginning but when you find your audience these books can do better.
one said, you write because you love doing it. and she had a story on the shelf for five years. But, all her books are clean. People think clean means cheesy. 
one said, find yourself author friends, you can link. Don't do the journey alone. 
one said, what few say when they reach six figures in sales, even they have days when things don't go well, where you will want to quit. you watch the graph go down, and you wonder. Get your tribe:)
husbands don't make great girlfriends:) 
one, i write for it is a therapy.

1:06:00 any advice for new authors coming into the industry
one said, if you are starting out, you are going to have to write and write and write. 
one said, it is hard to advertise one book. 
one said, take a little time every day to go into author groups.  consume but don't take everything to gospel
one said, your working with something small at the beginning, every decision can be undone, everything you are making can be unfixed, following advice takes away from writing. Everyone's process is different, and other's may do well, and not your system.
try to have fun being a creator