I'm getting into a flap thinking that there must be things (what things?) I should be doing (or should have already done) to help with publicity of The Dark Threads. It's due out on 23rd February. Only now am I realising that date is not far away!
The proofreading still needs finishing. I should receive the manuscript back from my publishers this Friday for me to do my final check before it goes for typesetting in January. January? I wonder how that leaves enough time for review copies to be sent out.
I'm naive about all this and I hope I'm worrying unnecessarily, but something is pushing my panic button.
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About Me
- Jean
- Hi, I'm Jean. I'm fifty-something, married to Ian, and live in West Yorkshire. I'm a writer, and part-time mental health worker. My memoir 'The Dark Threads' is published by Accent Press. As a mixed-up, depressed teenager in 1968 I was heavily drugged, given electric shock treatment, reduced to a zombie and, by age 20, 'written off' as suffering from chronic schizophrenia (a misdiagnosis, evidence suggests). I managed to jump out of the net in 1974 and went on to build up a life for myself. Today life is good, good, good. I have a first-class BA (Hons) degree in Combined Studies (literature and psychology), and qualifications in counselling skills. 'The Dark Threads' is my first book. http://www.amazon.co.uk/Dark-Threads-Jean-Davison/dp/1906373590
3 comments:
I don't know enough about this side of things to be any help, I'm afraid. Is there anyone in charge you can email, just to double-check?
It's not good when the panic-button goes off!
Hi Karen, my publishers have told me I've no need to worry. So I've switched off the panic button and am now busy doing the final proofreading.
Jean, I don't want to worry you but in my experience publishers don't always deliver on their promises. You have a very small window on publication to gain attention - so you need to think proactively and as early as possible. Did your publisher ask you to let them know about local newspapers, bookshops, radio where you can promote your book? If so, have they been in touch with those outlets and sent proof copies? Also, think of articles you could offer in local and special-interest magazines. When I wrote The Chase, because it's set in the Dordogne, we targeted the ex-pat community in France and I managed to get an article published in Living France about the house we owned and the two major burglaries we'd had there, as a way of getting publicity for the novel. I had to approach Living France myself after faffing and delays by my publisher. I discovered that you have to be quite pushy and pin a confident grin on your face as you ring up editors and go into bookshops offering to sign copies or give a reading. You get turned down a lot - but any promotional success helps - and these days with the internet it's much easier. Have you thought of setting up a website for the book itself? The main thing is to have a lot of brass neck - as the agent Jonny Geller says, nobody but nobody will care about your book as much as you do. Good luck with it all! I wishe you all the best for 2009 :)
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