A Sound Decision

Everyone knows that audio products are effective for getting people’s attention. The question is, do they sell books? Well, we’re going to try to find out.

Sandra Bowman, Marketing Director for Intrigue Publishing has asked each of our authors to produce a short Christmas commercial to run on Facebook. After about a half-second of consideration I realized it was not only a great idea, but a wonderful first step to see how effective audio could be.

I decided that, while I’m doing that, I’ll just voice a book excerpt. I’ll just do a reading from my newest book, BeyondBlue, and post it on my website. I've noticed that some other authors have an audio file on their sites that loads as soon as you get there. It’s usually more of a “Hi there!  Welcome to my world” type of thing than a sales pitch. I don’t mind encountering such a thing, and it might be a cool idea for you, but I don’t think it’s quite my style.

Years ago I did a weekly podcast, but that doesn’t fit into my time budget these days. I must admit it was a great way to get attention for my latest novel. These days there’s no need to download software and record a podcast yourself. It’s pretty easy to do through BlogTalk radio and other platforms. And if you have the personality, why not engage other authors in interviews? Urban drama author B. Swangin Webster does a weekly show on Listen Vision Live and now draws an international audience. In fact, this afternoon Intrigue authors Penny Clover Petersen and Jeff Markowitz will be guests on what she calls the We B Swangin show at 4pm Eastern time. If you tune in you’ll get a good idea of how this medium can be used well. 

It might take you some time to build up an audience the way the We B Swangin show has, but in the meantime don’t overlook other people’s shows. I definitely saw a spike in sales when I was interviewed on Conversations Live with Cyrus Webb. Cyrus has been doing this a while so he gets the big names on his show (from Oprah to the cast of The Walking Dead) so being on his show puts you in great company!

Of course, there’s commercial radio too, but there you’re more likely to get a three minute interview, not the 30 minutes you usually get on computer broadcast shows. So you need to prepare differently, with bullet points and short but hard-hitting answers to questions. Quick, pithy comments can drive listeners to the bookstores looking for your book.

So think about how audio can help your book sales and do your research. Of course, I've offered some easy research steps above, so be listening for Intrigue Publishing authors audio spots on Facebook, check my web site in the next couple of days for an audio excerpt, and be sure to tune in to the We B Swangin show today (Wednesday) at 4pm for an example of online broadcasting.

And let me know how it works for you!

Six Days from the Big Game!

I had planned to discuss more mistakes writers make today, but I’m too distracted. We are less than a week away from the Creatures, Crimes &Creativity Con and we are hip deep in last minute details.

It all starts with making sure we have registration set up. We’re making sure we have name tags for all the attendees and tent cards for everyone who will sit on a panel. That means checking and re-checking the list of attendees.  We’ve got to make sure the right people are on each panel, and that the writers know which panels they’re on. And we’ve got to be sure our head count is 100% accurate, so there are enough meals for everybody.

We are verifying all the gifts our sponsors have given us, starting with the goody-bags donated by Intrigue Publishing author Jeff Markowitz. We have to fill those bags with the different books, magazines, pens, hand sanitizers, water bottles, etc, that our generous supporters have donated.  Of course each bag has to have a copy of our exclusive C3 anthology.

We have to set up the C3 website so that during the Con attendees can register for next year’s Con at a big discount. We need to total all the tweets that have used our hashtag (#MdC3Con) to determine who will win the Kindle Fire. And we have to finalize the details of the scavenger hunt so we can fairly judge who will win the $50 Amazon gift card.

We need to verify that each of our volunteers knows their schedule and understands their duties, in order for panel shifts and other scheduled events go smoothly.

We’re setting up schedules and sign-up sheets for our literary agents, so they will know who they are meeting with when. We’re also creating a sign-up sheet for the “Buzz Your Book” session, so every participant will know when to step up and share their elevator pitch with the group.

And we’re verifying that our on-site bookstore, run by Novel Books, has copies of novels by each of our attending authors. We want them all to be able to participate in the big book signings Friday and Saturday night.

Running the Creatures, Crimes & Creativity Con is a great joy for all of us involved, but it’s also a huge responsibility and we are determined to get it right. If you’re going to be there, make sure you let us know if we did.