Vlog on "How to prepare for your release?"

This was on SA Larsen's blog earlier in the week. Thought I would share it here.

What do you think? What else do you need for a release?

Marketing Pet Peeves - Change your mindset!

Authors need to change their mindset. 


Whether you are traditionally pubbed or indie pubbed. Marketing is a huge component of getting your books out there. Some of us are lucky to get tons of marketing from publishers. Most of us aren't. Most of you will do it alone with very little support. So you might as well except it and do it.


It's a matter of changing your mindset. 


Here are some of the DONTs of Marketing - in my opinion. These are mindsets that I still see and they make me smack my forehead. 


1) My web site is longer than Santa's naughty list - Don't make us page down through pages of text. The standard web rule is the user should not have to page down on a web site more than 2 times. (this is more lenient on blog posts) Your web site is an executive summary and TOC of you - not a book. You only need something short and sweet that grabs people. Web sites reflect your writing. If you drone on for pages - I might not want to read your book. Keep it simple, professional, and short. 

2) I like marketing from The Land of Cheapo. Come on! Don't put out crap. Nowadays you can get inexpensive, solid quality marketing swag from various web sites. You really don't want a plain white business card with your face on it. You really don't need a bookmark that is so flimsy it can be used as origami. Do yourself and your image a favor, invest in high quality pieces or don't do them at all. I don't want to see one more perforated business card that is black and white. Your card is your mark on someone. They might not remember you but if they see the card - it should interest them.  It is better to invest in a few key pieces than to do a bunch of bad pieces. Take pride in your materials as you would take pride in your writing or work. It is a reflection of you.

3) My target audience is children between ages of 0-18. Yeah good luck on reaching 76 million people. Everyone has more than one target audience and you need to find the smaller audiences (niches). Trust me, age is not the only way to segment your audience. There are tons of others such as by topic, by region as well as looking at the type of media, type of reader (library, bookstore, book club etc). Take some time to think through all of your target audiences and all the ways you can possibly reach them - you should be able to come up with at least 3 audiences and 3 mediums for each. For me -outdoors, North Carolina, and conservation are three additional segments I can target. Find yours. Write down three nouns your book covers - those are probably your segments.

4) I'm just gonna wing it. Everyone needs a business plan and marketing. Whether traditional of indie pubbed. Just like you need a plot for your book before you write, or plan a trip before you leave - you need a marketing plan before you can market. Some people think that winging marketing is effective. Nope! It's a shot in the dark and you spin your wheels for a while lot of nothing. I'm not talking about creating a 100 page word document here. I am talking about a process where you - as the writer - identify your target audiences, key mediums, key timelines, key events - and set up key contacts in advance. Your materials, plans, and contacts should be in place AT LEAST 6 months before your book comes out. Don't wait until your book is out before you think about it. It will be too late. Start now.

5) I don't know computers so I can't do marketing. Um it's time to learn. If you are selling books to kids, you need to learn computers. Nowadays at least 50% of marketing (and I am being generous, I think its more like 60-70%) is online. You need to know how to blog, how to do a basic web site, how to start a myspace or facebook page, and how to text/twitter. You also need to keep up with the youth trends (Ypulse is good for that) If you don't know how to use all these, they all are set up pretty easily to figure out. Some even have tutorials. This cannot be an excuse anymore - unless you don't want to sell anything.


6) No Branding. It drives me nuts to see authors not being consistent in their brand. They have one web site with gophers (which screams nonfiction), then a plain white biz card that screams (boring!) and a twitter background of lollipops. (you know who you are ;) Go can easily find backgrounds for twitter and blog that look the same. You can even use the same colors. But I should be able to recognize you online. Pulling it all together gives off the impression you have it all together - (hey fake it 'til you make it! :)


7) I just want to write. Yeah don't we all. I won't get into this too much. It's simple. Here's what I tell my kids when they ask if they have to brush their teeth. I say: "Only brush the ones you want to keep." That's what I say to authors. "Only market the ones you want to sell." End of story.


8) I don't know how to do marketing. Nope not an excuse. You didn't know how to write either but you learned. marketing can be learned. There are tons of resources, classes, books, etc. You can even pay for consulting to help you. Follow blogs, find webinars
So if you find yourself saying these things, change your mindset. Get out there, play around online, and market yourself. Try things out and have fun.

If you have any questions, post them in a comment and I will be happy to answer. :)

The Amanda Project (Part 2 of 2)

Here is part 2 of the The Amanda Project with Marketing Director, Ariel Aberg-Riger. Y0u can also review Part 1.

Note: This is a 2 part series. Comment on Part 1 or 2 to be entered into a random drawing for one of two books of Invisible 1 (book 1 of The Amanda Project). You must be a follower and in the US to win. The book drawing for both books will be tonight so you must comment by 12 PM EST


What was it like for the author to allow the shaping a story left to the readers? Do you find the storylines completely different or similar?

Well, our authors did what they do best which is create compelling characters and a riveting story. We just created a framework that allows our community to supplement their vision. Each book is written by each author in a fairly traditional manner, and the authors all worked together to establish an overarching plot structure for the eight books (a HUGE hat tip to our amazingly talented editorial director for keeping track of everything!). It is the details of Amanda's world that are flexible, and ever-growing, as our community of readers and writers adds to what the authors have created.


How has The Amanda Project evolved over time?

We're still really young! The site only officially launched last August, and Invisible I came out in October. We've definitely responded to our community's wants (the addition of the Zine section on the site came out of our beta testers' comments), and we are developing some additional features which we hope to launch this summer, but overall we are still in our infancy!


How did you draw in your initial readers? What marketing did you use to get the project started?

We started testing the website in beta about six months before the first book in the series - Invisible I - hit stores. Our initial beta testers came from a call we put out via the Fourth Story Media website, along with a number of teens from HarperCollins/HarperTeen' ARC early reviewers lists. We knew even before we started that our most hardcore members would be girls who loved to read and write, so we went after voracious readers to test the site. We used the beta testing period to really talk to our testers and find out what they loved and what they wanted more of. Before the site went live (last August - about a month before the first book came out), we made a number of changes based on our beta's feedback.

After building and energizing a small core of super Amanda enthusiasts during beta, we then equipped them with the tools to go out and bring their friends onto the site (creating a street team, incentivizing the process, offering them cool ads and buddy icons to post, etc.). In addition we built our social media pages and outreach through targeted ads on Facebook and Myspace, and followed relevant Twitter users who in turn followed us back. In addition, there was of course all of the standard promotion and press surrounding the book launch that drove users to the site, and we've continued to build our base with cool cross promotions like the Modcloth contest I mentioned.


What other creative marketing techniques are you planning on using to promote the book?

Well, we are always looking for collaborations with other websites, publications, retailers, etc. that make sense and are mutually beneficial to all parties involved. For instance, we partnered with I Heart Daily in September to create week-long clue hunt that was a huge success. Every day a puzzle ran in the IHD newsletter, and solving the puzzle led you to a secret URL where you got a word of the day. At the end of the week if you put together all of the words, you unlocked another secret URL where you discovered how the objects were connected, and were rewarded with an exclusive, previously unpublished, piece of Callie's (the narrator of Invisible I) story (as well as a free book and gift certificate to Fred Flare).

We also did a really fun partnership with Modcloth recently where we invited girls to create collages of Amanda's perfect outfit using Modcloth clothing on the fashion site Polyvore. The girls LOVED it, and were amazingly creative as always.

Currently, we're working on a week-long clue hunt with Just So You Know (JSYK) (AOL’s teen site) and a six-week long puzzle hunt with What If? a Canadian magazine that features teen writing and artwork.


What are the top 3 reasons The Amanda Project interactive model works for readers?

1. Most importantly, it's an amazing, well-written story. We have fantastic, bestselling YA authors like Melissa Kantor and Laurie Stolarz working collaboratively to create a rich narrative core and to build Amanda's world. It's only with such a strong base that we are able to extend the story and invite our readers in to collaborate and interact as well. If they weren't hooked in the first place, they wouldn't care!)
2. It's a structured creative environment. We find that although the sky really is the limit in terms of what you can invent and who you can be on The Amanda Project, our readers and writers create most readily when we actually impose certain constraints. For example, every Friday we publish a new story on the site, and each week's story ends with a call to action that asks a very specific question (e.g. Have you ever lied to make people like you? Is this Amanda's purple ink?) which we find both lowers the barrier to entry for participation (aka the blank page effect), as well as creates a much more cohesive direction for the continuation of the story.
3. It's universal. The Amanda Project deals with issues all teen girls (and anyone, really) can relate to - identity, friendship, difficult decisions, loyalties, secrets, the drama of high school life - so it's easy to lose yourself in the character you create, and really immerse yourself in Amanda's world.

Thank you Ariel for taking the time to answer (in a wonderful amount of detail) all these questions!

Thanks Shelli!

The Amanda Project - Marketing an Interactive Story (Part 1)

Note: This will be a 2 part series. Comment on Part 1 or 2 to be entered into a random drawing for one of two books of Invisible 1 (book 1 of The Amanda Project). You must be a follower and in the US to win.

Today, we have Ariel Aberg-Riger, the Creative Development & Marketing Director at Fourth Story Media to discuss The Amanda Project.

The Amanda Project is the first collaborative, interactive fiction series for girls aged 13 and up. The story unfolds across an interactive website and is the story of Amanda Valentino, told through an interactive website and book series for readers aged 13 & up. On the website, readers are invited to become a part of the story as they help the main characters search for Amanda.


Hi Ariel. Will you tell us idea for an online story series come to play?

The Amanda Project came out of a bunch of different, seemingly disparate threads. We were interested in inviting talented authors to collaborate on an ongoing narrative; we wanted to see if we could publish a story that would allow interactivity and reader participation, and we were thinking about how girls use technology to express themselves.


How did the idea of creating an online interactive story start?

Well, we all know that the publishing landscape is changing. It’s evolving to incorporate aspects of the inevitable move to new forms of media, and we wanted to embrace that by giving our readers a way to harness all of the resources and possibilities that are offered by the Internet, ever-increasing connectivity, social networks, etc. The Amanda Project appeals to all different kinds of readers. It's, at heart, a fantastic story with appealing narrators, mystery, suspense–even some romance. So, it was our hope that any girl or boy who loves to read would devour it. At the same time, we know that our core audience is online all the time, and there is also the draw of the interactive nature of the project - we don't just create a story and tell it, we invite our readers to come in and create the story with us.


What was the most fun and most challenging aspect of doing interactive books online?

Some of the most fun aspects of working on The Amanda Project are also some of the greatest challenges. The creative process of working on an ongoing, transmedia narrative is an amazing experience because it is ever evolving. Each week we get to unravel more of the story bit by bit, and there is always something to explore - building off of their responses, digging deeper into the text of the book, learning what they are most drawn to and what they find less engaging.

The most challenging part was building a structure that would allow a fantastic story to be both told by our gifted authors, and be flexible enough to be reactive to the incredibly creative ideas and directions our readers developed. We spent a lot of time exploring various frameworks that would allow such interaction to take place. As we said before, the story itself is every evolving, but we're confident now that we have a model in place that can handle the deep, layered creation.


Readers are invited to become a part of the story as they help the main characters search for Amanda. How does that work?

Well, after a user creates their account, they are encouraged to start filling out their profile as a character - the barista at the downtown Orion coffee shop Just Desserts, a kid that sat behind Amanda in trig class, etc. We assign each new member a "guide" (much as Amanda asks Hal, Callie, and Nia to be her Guides when she comes to Endeavor High) - someone they can email with any questions they have about the story, or how the site works, or anything at all. We emphasize that although the site operates in the framework of the story (the main characters "build" it at the end of Invisible I), it is all fictional, and we encourage them to think creatively about their “experiences” with Amanda.

There are a number of places and ways that members can interact on the site. The core of the site is the Our Stories section where we post weekly stories written by the main characters. The stories are structured as mini mystery arcs - each anywhere from 2-5 weeks long - and each story ends in a specific question. We've found this specific call to action is an extremely important part in both encouraging and focusing the conversation in a way that is most conducive to moving the story forward. We are highly reactive and responsive in Our Stories - constantly following leads and details the girls submit, and using their ideas to build the next week's story.

In addition to Our Stories, there are the individual member profiles (where everything they contribute on the site is aggregated and linked so they can watch their character develop in real time), the Debate Club (where readers are invited to participate in discussing everything from which classes they had with Amanda, to what her favorite outfits were, to picking apart various details in Invisible I), to the Zine where they can submit their own original fiction, to the Gallery where they can upload photography and artwork. Like any community, we have some incredibly active members who write intricate fictional accounts every week. Others are quieter, but as we look at the analytics of the site, we can see that they’re there reading and observing.

Come back tomorrow for Part 2 and learn why The Amanda Project is so successful with teens.