Writing Ideas - New Novel, part 287, Market Focus, Marketing Materials

22 January 2015, Writing Ideas - New Novel, part 287, Market Focus, Marketing Materials

Announcement: My new novels should be available from any webseller or can be ordered from any brick and mortar bookstore.  Information can be found at www.ancientlight.com.  Check out my novels--I think you'll really enjoy them.

Introduction: I wrote the novel Aksinya: Enchantment and the Daemon. This was my 21st novel and through this blog, 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 beginning with http://www.pilotlion.blogspot.com/2010/10/new-novel-part-3-girl-and-demon.html.

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, visit my writing website http://www.ldalford.com/ and select "production schedule," you will be sent to http://www.sisteroflight.com/.

The four plus one basic rules I employ when writing:

1. Don't confuse your readers.
2. Entertain your readers.
3. Ground your readers in the writing.
4. Don't show (or tell) everything.
5. Immerse yourself in the world of your writing.

All novels have five discrete parts:
1.  The initial scene (the beginning)
2.  The rising action
3.  The climax
4.  The falling action
5.  The dénouement

The theme statement of my 25th novel, working title, Escape, is this: a girl in a fascist island nation will do anything to escape--a young cargo ferry pilot not following the rules crashes on the island.

I'll make a slight digression because I'm developing advertising and publisher materials for my newest completed novel, Lilly.  Here is the cover proposal for Lilly: Enchantment and the Computer. 

Cover Propsal

Before you can market a novel to the public, you have to market it to publishers or potential publishes.  This means you need to develop materials to market your novel.  These marketing materials can be used when the book is published.  We've already looked at two main pieces used in marketing: the title and the book cover proposal.  These are necessary for a web design, and they are also necessary for a publisher.  You can live without a cover proposal for a while, but you need a title right away.

The next step is to build the marketing information you will use to present your novel to publishers and to the public. Here is an outline:

Title of Work:

Lilly: Enchantment and the Computer

Author(s) Name:

L. D. Alford

Type: Either Screenplay or Book

Book

Length: Either # of words for books, or # of pages for screenplays

105,300 words

Keywords and Market Focus:

Fiction, Washington State, Tacoma, Spanaway, Seattle, Computer, Pacific Lutheran University, Hacker, goddess, sushi, Redemption, kami, Japan, Shinto, torii, Shrine, engineering, math; will fascinate anyone interested in the spiritual, mystery, and suspense—will appeal particularly to those who enjoy historical mystery and suspense novels.

Genre:

Fiction Suspense

 

Author Bio: Approximately 120 words

Synopsis:  Approximately 500 Words

Concept of the Work:  Approximately 250 Words

Registration: WGA, ISBN, or Library of Congress, Write the number.

Other Information:  If you have more work, a website, anything interesting and professional, especially any awards or recognition.

 

Reviewer’s quotes.

Market focus is your idea of who might want to read your novel.  For example, if you wrote a Christian inspirational novel, you might write: will appeal to a Christian audience.  If you wrote a homoerotic novel, you might write: will appeal to readers with a sexually energized gay perspective.  The point isn't to hide your perspective or your audience.  Publishers usually focus on specific audiences of readers and specific types or genre of literature.  The point is to match the two 

In general, you don't apply to publishers who don't publish the type of literature you are writing.  Putting on paper the audience and the focus will help you to know your audience, and your perspective publisher to know your novel meets their most basic publishing audience.  In the example above, you wouldn't usually present your Christian inspirational novel to an erotic literature publisher, and you wouldn't present a homoerotic novel to a Christian inspirational publisher.  Because of their audience and their publishing focus, they will not be interested in publishing your novel.  Publishers, especially smaller publishers, are very specialized about the literature they publish, and their audiences are pretty fixed.  You need to understand your audience--that's the only way you can appropriately target the correct publishers for your writing.

The second point is the focus.  A focus isn't an audience, but is related to the audience.  A focus is closer to a genre.  Here is the example from Lilly:  will fascinate anyone interested in the spiritual, mystery, and suspense—will appeal particularly to those who enjoy historical mystery and suspense novels.  The audience is general, but the novel is specifically targeted to spiritual, mystery, and suspense.  Lilly isn't a criminal mystery, but a person who enjoys a mystery novel might enjoy it.  The second statement clarifies the novel genre as historical mystery and suspense.  This places it in an audience and a genre and is the basis for the genre listed below. 

As an author, you must understand your audience and determine who might potentially publish your novel.  If you want any real hope of being published, your potential publisher must first read your marketing materials and then your novel examples or the completed novel.  If they don't or won't, you will have no hope of being published.

At this point everything I'm doing with and for this work is about marketing to a publisher and building a website.

More tomorrow.

For more information, you can visit my author site http://www.ldalford.com/, and my individual novel websites:
http://www.aegyptnovel.com/
http://www.centurionnovel.com
http://www.thesecondmission.com/
http://www.theendofhonor.com/
http://www.thefoxshonor.com
http://www.aseasonofhonor.com

Marketing Materials - First Step

31 August 2011, Marketing Materials - First Step

I'm showing you how I prepare marketing material for my novels.  Here is a repeat just to introduce the subject.  Today, I'm working on the first section of the long form information.

Marketing a novel is more difficult in my mind than writing a novel.  I'd like to just spend my time writing, unfortunately, before your novel is published, you have the burden of finding a publisher and after your novel is published, you have the burden of following your publisher's marketing instructions.

Marketing is a very important part of writing a novel.  The first thing after writing your novel is get your marketing stuff together.  Marketing information is critical to your writing and it forms the basis for the inner and outer cover and other future marketing materials.  Here is the outline of what is required.  I'll start with the long form information and continue to the short form.

I put all this information together in the same file.  I do produce a second file, that I will go over with you specifically for my regular publisher.  I put the commentary in italics.

Title of Work:

Aksinya: Enchantment and the Daemon

Remember, I told you you need to set a title on the work.  Go  back and look at how I've written about this.  This may not be the best title, but it is unique and meets the criteria I mentioned for searches and other works with a similar name (there are none).  You have to set a title because you need to call the novel something.

Author(s) Name:

L. D. Alford

This is your nom de plume.  I use L.D. Alford as my professional writing name.  You put your real name on your cover letter or the top of the marketing materials.  By the way, you are producing these materials so you can give a publisher a couple of pages of information that definitively describes your novel.  You are also producing these materials for the future use of your publisher in producing other marketing materials and the front and back covers of your published novel.  These include the teasers for your novel.

Type: Either Screenplay or Book

Book

This matters to some publishers and some agencies (don't ask me why.  Ask them.)

Length: Either # of words for books, or # of pages for screenplays

121,475 words

Novels are measured in the number of words.  This is the only measure that means anything.

Keywords and Market Focus:

Fiction, Russia, Austria, 1918, Wien, Vienna, Daemon, Demon, Aksinya, Asmodeus, Catholic Church, Sorcery, Travel, Orthodox Church, Russian Revolution, WWI, temptation, desire, convent, nobility, Countess, aristocracy, languages, Latin, Greek, German, French, contract, evil, Tobit

Will fascinate anyone interested in sorcery, mystery, and suspense—will appeal particularly to those who enjoy historical mystery and suspense novels.

This is an unbelievably important section.  The most important part is the end where we see the Market Focus.  The keywords themselves allow a publisher or an agency to get a feel of interest for the work.  They also provide the ability to categorize the work.  These are helpful to you in developing your websites and information.  Pick and choose carefully those words that uniquely describe your work.  Try to determine words that will excite and intrigue the publishers and possible readers.  These will become the words that generally describe your work.

Market focus is your real first chance to get the publisher excited about your work.  This will focus their interest and give them the first impression of what audience the work is aimed at.  Plus, this allows you to determine the audience of your work.  You wouldn't send a book like Aksinya to a cooking book publisher.  You wouldn't send this kind of novel to a young adult publisher or to a science fiction publisher.

Genre:

Author Bio: Approximately 120 words

Synopsis:  Approximately 500 Words

         

Registration: WGA, ISBN, or Library of Congress, Write the number.

Other Information:  If you have more work, a website, anything interesting and professional, especially any awards or recognition.

Short form information: 

Reviewer’s quotes.

1.  No more than 3 sentences about the content of your manuscript.

2.  One sentence about successful works similar to yours.

3.  No more than 2 sentences about yourself. (use 3^rd person)

4.  No more than 2 sentences that include “other,” i.e. any reasons, relationships, or other factors that might make your work more attractive.

Tomorrow, we'll look at more information with commentary.