Writing and marketing

[Pauline Rowson]

An important task for many writers is marketing themselves and their books. This cannot be left solely to the publisher who has a whole range of books to promote and usually across many genres. In the larger publishing houses there are publicists whose responsibility it is to help promote certain authors, who are usually the 'bigger named' authors, (the A list) or those who have been given a huge advance that needs to be 'earned out' leaving great swathes of writers and books to their own devices. Many authors therefore need to take responsibility for their own marketing. For me this is a pleasure because my professional career until now has been spent in marketing and PR, helping many businesses and charities to raise their profile and market their services and products. I have always loved the challenge of marketing and this applies to my books. There is a saying in business: people can't buy from you unless they know about you and the same applies to books.

One of the many ways authors are able to raise their profile and alert potential readers about their books is by giving talks. I give many talks to libraries, retirement associations, reading groups, for charities and many others and love doing it. ( Being a professional conference speaker also helps). And I enjoy meeting readers and entertaining them with tales of my life as a writer, listening to their views, getting feedback and just talking about books.

Another way of marketing is via the Internet, a great boon to an author. Social networking and book sites are all helpful in introducing your books to readers. I've now got an Author Page on www.amazon.com where my novels are not only available in print form but on the Kindle. You can also find my author pages on some great sites for book lovers: Redroom, Goodreads, and of course here at Crimespace, and others, some I'm probably not even aware of! Not to mention my web site, Linkedin, Facebook and Twitter.

With all this going on it's a wonder I find the time to write the novels at all! But I do and I always will. Writing for me is a business, and a pleasurable one. I am in the entertainment business (novels) and the information business (non fiction books) and part of that involves marketing, promotion, planning, meeting people, listening and entertaining or helping them, meeting deadlines, keeping up to date with events in the book industry, making contacts and oh, having fun!