Marketing: A Numbers Game?

The theory is that if you have something for sale i.e a book (imagine that) which has had the seal of approval from honest friends and family, been enjoyed by a few people who have no connections to you, and has had investment by those who have a high skill set in the field of whatever product is being sold, then really making sales is a numbers game, right? When I say numbers game this is what I mean: the art of getting the item for sale to be seen by as many people as possible, because amongst all those people there will be those who enjoy it. Funnily enough this is the point I’m at with my book, and obviously why I am writing about it. The question is, how to you gain sufficient exposure to find those people who will like my book?

Well, that would be marketing... ‘sigh.’ I both love and hate marketing. I think marketing can be fun, as it’s another way to be creative, but I also hate it as being an introvert those initial steps of selling yourself and the product are very difficult. I have thought about door to door sales with the book, as I think it could be pretty productive, but due to nearly giving myself a panic attack when I was about to try this I’ve had to come up with a happy medium. So thanks to the help of my good friend Vix I had some posters designed and printed; I’m no good with computer type stuff but having a friend to help to make a poster was awesome, so thank you Vix.

 

The posters were printed yesterday and I put some at the University where I studied and still have friends. Then today I asked a number shops in Stirling’s town center if they would allow me to put one in their windows. A huge thank you to all the shops that did, your support is immensely appreciated. Obviously, some of the shops I picked intentionally as they relate to the target audience of those who like reading and enjoy a fantasy story, but having posters in as many places as I can sticks to the theory this blog update addressed at the start.

I also went into the local newspaper’s offices, the Stirling Observer, to hopefully rely on their kindness and support once again. I left them a copy and my details so I’m hoping they do a review.

Now that I’ve done some marketing it is time to see if the above theory plays out or not. So I guess I’ll keep an eye on sales. If you are reading this because of the posters then thank you for taking the time to see if my story the Book of Prophecy might be something you would like to read. I hope it is and if you haven’t done so feel free to read the first three chapters via the Amazon link on my website and then clicking ‘look inside.’ If you do buy it I hope you enjoy the story and thank you very very much.

I guess the next update will probably be how well putting up posters did, and if it didn’t help what I will try next to help people know the Book of Prophecy exists for their reading delight.   

Happy Book Birthday To Me

Today is the day!! The Book of Prophecy is for sale and published. I can’t express how wonderful it is to be able to write that. It’s been a long journey, but I'm so thankful to all those who have supported me a long the way. I should have paperback copies on Monday and I cannot wait to hold a copy in my hands. To take a look at the book or buy it you can follow the link below. 

UK Amazon

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Book-Prophecy-Steven-J-Guscott-ebook/dp/B00MNUE4OS/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1407927487&sr=8-1&keywords=steven+j+guscott

US Amazon

http://www.amazon.com/The-Book-Prophecy-Steven-Guscott/dp/1909845450/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1408201438&sr=8-1&keywords=steven+j+guscott

Permission Granted

As the titles suggests there has been some good news. Frank Herbert's estate has given permission for my book to have the Dune quote at the front! Words cannot express how super special awesome this is to me so as you can imagine I'm very happy we are able to use it. A big thank you to those involved and for the estate letting us use the quote.
  I'm also very happy because I've just given the Book of Prophecy one last read through. It's looking wonderful and it can't be too long now before everything is sorted and this book is given tangible life.  

Patience!

Well, it's looking likely that today is not the day of publication :( There's still five hours left...maybe it will happen, but it's not looking likely. It's okay though!!! :D I'm always a fan of opportunities to see if I've learned something from my life, and I think I can be proud of myself for being relatively sound minded with having to wait.
  So, what's going on you ask. Well, as always things just happen, but to put it blunt, the book just wasn't up to the standard it should have been. Ultimately, that's my fault, and I really need to up my game with the technical side of my writing. The minor mistakes have now been corrected so I believe we're almost there. There was also an issue with the Blurb and me being an idiot as to which it should be, but thankfully I was proved wrong. Another issue was the wrongly titled prologue (actually a preface) needed improving and after some debate a quote from my favourite book, Frank Herbert's, Dune, actually worked really well to replace the weak preface I had written. So, we're currently waiting to hear back from Frank Herbert's estate if we have permission to use it.
  And that's where we're at with it all. Not ideal, but I'm a believer in order out of chaos (a phrase I didn't know was actually coined by the Masons until recently), and, positives often come from negatives. As always, only time will tell how things turn out, but when the Book of Prophecy does get published in the next few days or so I will be a very very happy person. I just can't wait to share it with everyone!

Twelve Days and Counting

Yep, only twelve days!!! I really thought I would have more news about what's going on, but I don't. That's mainly because I've decided to sit back and watch things unfold until the book is actually out. Once that happens I'll jump into action and hopefully have more to report. I'll update as things unfold, but until then it's kick back and let the publishers do their thing.  

Call me paranoid, but...

About three months ago I got bored and decided to pitch my story, Empiphany, to American agents. I expected rejections on every front, and wasn't disappointed. However, this email came through this morning, and fed the paranoia that almost all who have created something would have when reading it... 'THEY'RE GOING TO STEAL MY IDEAS!!!' (They're not really, well, maybe a one percent chance they are, but I can't help but worry a little).

Here's the email.

'Dear Stephen,

Thank you so much for sending us your query and especially for your patience in waiting for a resoponse. I'm happy to say that I enjoyed reading your first few pages and see a lot of potential in your writing and style. I found however, that your descriptions lack a certain touch of detail that prevented me from connecting or envisioning the sorroundings and connecting with Blair. The story also has aspects that are too similar to another project I'm currently pitching, and so I'm going to have to pass on further consideration. I wish you the best of luck and look forward to the opportunity to read more of your work in the future.

Regards,
Marisa

Marisa Corvisiero
Literary Agent
Corvisiero Literary Agency'

I know I'm over reacting, as of course someone else in the would could have had the same or very similar ideas as me, I'm not that unique, and why would the agent bother to reply if they were stealing my ideas, but there's a part of me that will always get irrationally protective of my work. When you spend thousands of hours on something you can't help but be a little paranoid at times like these.

Ultimately, there's no way of knowing what the circumstance are around this situation, and I'll just have to forget about it. However, I wanted to do a little blog about this just for the fun of it as it's another experience on the journey.

Review Time: In Search of Gods and Heroes, by Sammy HK Smith

As always I've used the review set up that I've adopted. This is me giving my thoughts and opinions on the Pace, World/Environment, Themes, Characters and Originality of a story. I've decided to change this set up a little and put the Characters section first as it feels better that way.

Intro:

In Search of Gods and Heroes is a story that I'm honoured to finally review. A few years ago I stumbled across the writer’s forum called Authonomy. There I became friends with Sammy HK Smith and we shared our stories. This was when I first had the chance to read this story and enjoyed it from the start. I am so glad to see In search of Gods and Heroes finally published and have the opportunity to share my thoughts on it.
Below is my review and please feel free to take a look at the description of this story, and if it appeals to you buy it- How else will you enjoy the creativity, the epic scale and scope, and the vast number of unique characters that In Search of Gods and Heroes has to offer? Okay, enough jibber jabber- on with the review!!!

Characters:

I.S.O.G.A.H. follows Chaeli as her life is thrown into chaos. Chaeli lives in a medieval style world where a number of Gods, aka Immortal deity's, are worshiped (not unlike the Ancient Greek Gods).The catalyst for her journey is the appearance of a demon who attacks Chaeli. She manages to flee but this revelation that the forces of the underworld are after her turns her world upside down. As things unfold we quickly see that the forces of good are trying to help her, but because of their rules of minimal intervention they struggle to do so. Chaeli then begins an epic journey that balances between good and evil as she tries to discover her role in the events that are happening around her.
Chaeli is certainly an interesting character with many strengths and flaws that make her interesting to follow and share this journey with. She is not one I personally had complete empathetic attachment too, but as always this is subjective. Being a man does put me at a disadvantage from the start because Chaeli’s character and the events that happen to her do make her more suited to female readers. This, however, does not make the story any less enjoyable for male readers as Chaeli is interesting to follow and there are so many reasons this story is enjoyable, i.e. the concepts, the epicness, and the fact there are male characters to become attached to, such as Nathan, Adely, Daro and Eli.
  There are so many other unique characters, which would fill up several pages to write about, so I’ll just say I believe most female readers will be able to relate to some of Chaeli’s struggles and other reader’s will still be able to find at least one of those character’s to side with. For a story to be able to do that is very impressive, as so many characters could make the story a bit to chaotic but I didn't feel that at all with I.S.O.G.A.H.

Pace:

Although this story is reasonably long it does not feel so. The pace of the overall story, the character development, and the action is well balanced and structured so I never became bored, which can happen easily if, like me, you have the attention span of a four year old. The wide selection of character perspectives that are followed in this story also helps the pace as it gives an ever changing and fresh feel to the story.

World/Environment:

Out of all the reviews I’ve done so far this certainly has the most scope and grandness to the plot and world. The world focuses on the land of Ibea, which itself is well detailed to make it believable, but we also get to see and visit the underworld and divine home of the gods, which adds to the flavour of the environment in this story.

Themes:

Good versus Evil: This comes in the familiar form of the mortal struggle between the two opposing forces. This intertwines with the other obvious theme of Choice, Inaction and Consequence, which I’ll touch on in a second. The contrasting philosophies of good and evil are developed well by using the formula of the evil side trying to force situations and take control, while the good being inclined to sit back and give choice to the mortals so they have a chance to prove themselves. The interesting element to this is that the immortals are fallible and subject to choice too and this adds an interesting layer to the story.

Choice: As mentioned choice is a common theme. ISOGAH explores the nature of choice making, doing nothing, and being overly controlling. This is done in way that is thought provoking but easy on the brain-cells too.

Love/Lust: This theme is tackled in a very interesting way as there are often blurred lines between love and lust in this story. These blurred lines are good to explore as often what is lust, and what is love, isn’t always clear, and sometimes it is. (The way it is explored isn’t explicit by any means, but some more conservative readers may not find this theme to their taste).
  There is also a love triangle, which I think Twilight  has killed, but I have it on good authority that the reason love triangles are so popular to female readers is because they are a frequent dilemma for the fairer sex. I personally hate them (love triangles, not the fairer sex) and am bored of them, but I acknowledge the appeal. If I put my own feelings aside on this matter then the love/lust triangle in ISOGAH is an interesting one as each individual’s feelings and desires are explored in detail. This gives the reader a good insight into the characters motives and personalities. Some of the circumstances that do unfold are enjoyable because it is always good to have complex subjects explored.    

There are obviously other themes but these are the three main ones that stood out to me.

Originality:

This is subjective, as I’ve clearly not read every story this world has to offer, but I like to give my little opinion on whether I felt the story was original, especially as originality is something I crave. I am happy to say that ISOGAH was very original to me. Yes, it follows some very familiar themes as all books do, but if a story can weave them in a new way it makes me a very happy reader. I love the original feel to the world and scale of this story; and along with the unique characters and verity of perspectives, ISOGAH has a very fresh and new feel.

Last Thoughts:

As you can tell I’m a fan of In Search Of Gods and Heroes and anyone looking for something that is a quick paced adventure and layered deeply to provoke thought then this is the book for you.