I’ve set up the crucial accounts (MailChimp and BookFunnel), elicited some lovely beta-testers to assess the service, finessed and titivated the taster to create the best ‘come-hither’ reading experience I can manage, and now, a week hence, I expect to launch the free offering of Fragments of a Song out to the wider local region.
This will be the beginning of the promotions and marketing exercise for the Biome NE47 series of novels. On the one hand, it’s intoxicatingly exciting to think that the real launch is almost upon us. On the other, it’s incredibly daunting — do I really have the confidence in my work to present it to the public?
Will folks laugh at it, at me the struggling author, or worse, sniff in disdain at my attempts? Will people walk across the street to avoid saying hello? Or, more prosaically, will my efforts just be ignored? That, to be honest, seems much the more likely scenario, and that’s just as daunting.
A writer doesn’t really write in a vacuum, but to be read, at some point. I think the audience is always in mind, but if the story isn’t compelling, the characters wooden, the descriptions flat and boring, the similes poverty-struck and hackneyed, the metaphors laboured, what audience is going to persevere to the golden end? Yikes! I could wind myself into a self-flagellation mode sooner than I realise!
What if, however, the story is energising, a page-turner, and the characters are believable, acting out their parts in a recognisable manner, the individual parts coalescing into a effervescent whole that fizzes with life? What if? What sort of an epiphany for the writer would that be!
You’ll never know until you try, and so my try starts its public odyssey on the 1st of May, when I start to crank up the publicity machine, locally and region-wide.
And then, though with encouragement I’ll be that much more eager to work on the audiobook versions, I’ll also be trying to put my shoulder to the grindstone again as I commence writing Sequel. I’ve been surprised to discover the joy in every part of this writing process, from inception to the daily writing grind, from editing to the delivery to the marketing platforms and now I’m ready to embark on the promotions. All very exciting, and a privilege to attempt.
Biome NE47 