Introduction: I realized that I need to introduce this blog a little. I wrote the novel Aksinya: Enchantment and the Daemon. The working title was Daemon, and this was my 21st novel. Over the last year, I gave you the entire novel in installments that included commentary on the writing. In the commentary, in addition to other general information on writing, I explained, how the novel was constructed, the metaphors and symbols in it, the writing techniques and tricks I used, and the way I built the scenes. You can look back through this blog and read the entire novel.
I'm using this novel as an example of how I produce, market, and eventually (we hope) get a novel published. I'll keep you informed along the way.
Today's Blog: To see the steps in the publication process, go to my writing website http://www.ldalford.com/ and select "production schedule," you will be sent to http://www.sisteroflight.com/.
Here is the list of ideas for advertising--there are more and I'll add to the list as we go along. I'm certainly not an expert in all these, but I've dabbled in all of them. I'll try to relate my experience and the degree of that experience to you.
1. Have a website for your novel.
2. Write a blog.
3. Advertise.
4. Literary awards.
5. Book cards.
6. Contests.
7. Interviews.
8. Blog tours.
9. Press releases.
10. Speaking and teaching.
11. e-mailing.
12. Gifts.
13. Book signings.
14. Book trailers
15. ...
You can be interviewed for print media, for radio, for TV, on blogs, Internet general, character interviews, trailers just to name a few.
With blog interviews we are moving to a more controllable media (by the author). In general, many blogs wish to interview authors--the opportunities are almost endless. To get together with those opportunities, you need to connect with blogs on books and writing. You also can usually find authors with your publisher who want to do blog interviews. These work one of two ways. The easiest is that the blogger simply asks you to answer a very simple question (or two). Usually the questions are: describe why you wrote your novel and how did it get published. These are the most common types of questions. I did a blog interview like this about a year ago on my novel Centurion for Lynnette Bonner. You can see it at http://lynnettebonner.blogspot.com/2010/08/lionel-alford-talks-about-his-book.html. I should do many more of these, but I just haven't taken the time.
The other type of blog interview is where the interviewer gives you a list of questions to answer for the blog post. This is simple too, just answer the questions. In each case, the less structured or the more structured interview, just answer the questions and send them back to the blogger. You might want to send some pictures illustrating your novel and your picture. If you don't, the blogger will usually get your picture and novel cover picture from one of your sites (or amazon).
Let's move on to the content of blog interviews, tomorrow.
I'll repeat my published novel websites so you can see more examples: http://www.ldalford.com/, and the individual novel websites: http://www.aegyptnovel.com/, http://www.centurionnovel.com/, http://www.thesecondmission.com/, http://www.theendofhonor.com/, http://www.thefoxshonor.com/, and http://www.aseasonofhonor.com/.
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