Marketing Materials - A Marketing Website, Contracts

19 September 2011, Marketing Materials - A Marketing Website, Contracts

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.  At this moment, I'm showing you the marketing material I put together for a novel.

Today's Blog:  Your novel's website begins life as a marketing website.  You want to give prospective publishers a place to go to get information on your book and you'd like to begin building a web presence. 

When the novel is placed on contract by a publisher, you can use the marketing website to track the steps through the publication process.  I've done just that for my two novels under contract http://www.sisteroflight.com/ and http://www.sisterofdarkness.com/.  You can see, I've added information to the top of the marketing page.

I put this information up so I could track the publication of the novel and to give other authors an opportunity to see the details and the time involved in getting a novel published by a publisher.  You might find this information useful.  Since I've been through the publication of six novels, I've figured out the steps, but I haven't tracked them in this detail before. 

I mentioned there are secret pages (they really aren't that secret) on each of my novel's websites.  I'll move this information to the secrets pages after the novel is published.  I also put some of the notes I used in writing the novel on the secrets pages and some of the blogs.

I'll talk more about secrets pages tomorrow.