The Game Plan

This might be very stupid. It might be a stroke of genius. It might make me giggle and laugh at how naïve and simple I was at the beginning of my journey.

Whatever the outcome is, we’re going to document it.

So, today we begin our next steps in trying to market my book. Let’s break down the base goals. I want to try to sell 100 copies of Daughter of Or by the end of the year. That’s 85 more copies. No, okay, it’s 88. I have a bad habit of slightly rounding to fives when I want to feel better about something. But we’re being real. We have 88 copies to go in 6 months. I think we can probably do it. But how do we plan to do it?

We’ve hit some road blocks with talking to book sellers. Some will definitely work, but others have requirements I simply don’t have. So, we might do bare minimum there while swinging our overall efforts in slightly different directions.

Let’s talk about those.

So step one. It’s pride month and I wrote a gay book! So I was thinking maybe for the in person bit, we go a little Babysitter’s Club and just start tossing flyers at the gay-friendly establishments around my town. Then, also, of course using that to help market my book. One of the notable things about it is the fact it made a little splash for itself in the gay horror genre, so lean into being gay horror. Make videos and posts about that being the case.

Then, we need to look into reviews. The more I’ve researched it, online, reviews are everything. I luckily, without asking anyone to do it, do have a couple of ratings. However, getting more real reviews with real words will help get people to read, buy, and enjoy. So, we now have a secret subcategory of our 100 copies sold goal: we want to get a handful of review (maybe 10? Stretch goal, 20?) to give our book a little more energy. I’ll be checking our Book Funnel and other ways to get ARCs in reviewers hands. But not really ARCs because out book is already out. But you get the point.

And that definitely will not be the last time I accidentally say “our” book. But that feels good and right, so allow me this narcissism that we give a shit enough about this book that we’re all claiming it as a group.

Now, to our final big focus: social media. Duh. We’ve been here for awhile, huh? Well, the big “new” point is I need to find balance in social media. I get wildly focused on having fun, then being a strictly business. I gotta find my way to have a good little giggle and enjoy things, while also still making progress as a person on the internet trying to sell my books. Yes, sounds corporate and awful. Such is capitalism, eh?

But if I get okay at capitalism, more people read the books. So that matters.

Ultimately, that means more fun blog concepts. Some marketing intensity, some goof offs on tiktok. And also getting involved in my fandom communities on Tumblr again. Balance is good.

And we’ll be figuring it all out together!

Part of that fun hopefully means we’ll stop talking about only marketing here, because that’s a bummer. I’m thinking instead maybe we go on more fun little tangents about white feminism or anime. I love writing a blog where I get to combo those two together like that’s normal.

See you soon for bug facts and booktok. ❤