Chatterday: Market hard or "Feed the Beast"?

One of my groups on Linked In is discussing whether it's wiser to market your books hard or keep "Feeding the Beast" by putting your time into writing. I've seen arguments for both, and sometimes it depends on the situation. Traditionally published authors, like Dean Wesley Smith, say "Marketing is not my job." Self-publishers, of course, have no choice but to market themselves and hard. But what about us small press authors?

I'll be honest: I'm entering the "feed the beast" camp. I've been marketing hard for years now, but while I have a few loyal fans, my results in no way justify the amount of time and effort I put into it. Meanwhile, I have stories languishing because I'm putting so much time and mental energy into marketing. I burned myself out in April, and near as I can tell the results are on par with having done nothing.

I won't give up promotions altogether. I can't. However, I feel it's time to put it in its proper perspective. I also need to do some research and reflection on what will be most effective for me. Most of you know me well enough to realize that I know WHAT to do, but somewhere, my execution falls short.

So, what about you? Share your frustrations, your successes, your opinions. Come on! Let's help each other out.

Chatterday: Anybody reading this?

I missed Thursday, but I'm making progress on my goal of building up to 3000 words a day. In the meantime, I have to wonder--does anyone read this? Or better yet, what would make you read this more often?

So far, chatterday has been kind of a flop. I'm willing to take topics for discussion.

Chatterday: Do you pay attention to blog reviews

This week's questions are pretty simple: Do you read book reviews on blogs? If so, when do they influence you? If not, why not?

I'm asking because I send out a lot of copies of my books to blogger for review, but I wonder if they are effective.

Chatterday: Can you cut your manuscript?

Thursday, I talked about cutting manuscripts and gave some tips. Today, I want to know..

How do you cut your manuscript? Can you do it? Is it hard? Share with us a story about your best editing victory or worse editing nightmare.

Chatterday: How do you market?

I've been marketing books for years now, and while I'm pretty good at getting the word out, I'm not so good at "closing the sale." I'm thinking that my approach is too shallow, and that I need to #1 reach the people who are really interested in my books and #2 give them enough information to make them want to buy the book or recommend it to someone who will buy. Let's face it: much as we want to say online sales are the wave of the future, it's still the brick-and-mortar books that sell better, easier.

Of course, the more books I have out and the more genres I write in, the more difficult it gets to research and reach a target audience.

So, I'm starting a newsletter, as most of you know. (If you missed that, scroll down, please). But I'd love to hear your ideas as well.

What do you do to really get the word out about your books? How do you handle multiple genres?

Announcing Chaterday! Topic: Writers' Conferences

At the CWCO, I attended a wonderful chat by blogger Sarah Reinhard, and one of the topics was, "How do I get people to comment?" After all, we love comments, right? Well, she rather astutely noted that if we don't blog so as to invite conversation, most people won't comment.

Another thing I loved at this conference was how people learned from each other as well as from presenters. There's such a wealth of wisdom out there.

So I'm instituting Chatterday. Here's how it works: Each Saturday, I'll talk a very little bit on a topic and ask you for your wisdom and opinion. Let's share!

This week's topic: Do you attend writers' conferences? What do you like most about them? When do you get the most out of a conference and why?