More Really Bad Book Marketing Advice *or* How to Rock A #KindleDeal

So, all right, let's face facts.  Even if you publish traditionally (which I do) with a Big Five publisher (which I do...or is it Big Four, or Three, or the Grand Monolith at this point?), you still have to help your book along marketing and publicity-wise.  Even if you have a lovely and helpful support team at said publisher (which I do).  Even if anything, folks, you still do!

My avowed goal being to offer such bad writing advice that I'm the last writer left standing, I'm here to extend this terrible guidance into the fun realm of Marketing Your Book.  Because I am absolutely convinced that it's possible to market your book into an early grave, and I'm here to tell you how.

Here is the case study, for which I graciously volunteer myself, the Princess of Bad Marketing.

Anyway, my publisher was nice enough to turn Afterparty into a #kindledeal, slashing the price of the Kindle to $1.99 until August 3rd to coincide with an AuthorBuzz Kindle promo.  This was pretty damned amazing! 

And after driving the nice people at AuthorBuzz so crazy I was confident they were on the verge of paying me to go away -- highly recommended; you can invest the pay-off in colorful book-related swag -- I decided to set out on my own. 

1.) Do a Headtalker.  Headtalker is a way to crowd source without having the anxiety of having to harrass a full hundred of your friends to help out or you get nothing.  On Headtalker you can go with, say, three (okay, maybe not three, but some very small number) of people to harass and when that small number signs up, you go live!  On the date of your choice!  It's like magic, and the especially wonderful thing about the small number is that this means you've only harassed and annoyed a small number of your friends so you can hit up the friends you haven't lost next time you have a sudden, insatiable urge to go viral.  (1st Law of Bad Marketing: Lose Friends)

2.) "Boost" (which is a polite word for forking over money to FaceBook) a Facebook post that sends all you fans straight to Amazon.  Then Boost it again.  And again.  And again.  Remember there is no such thing as too much exposure...if you want to lose fans.  (2nd Law of Bad Marketing: Lose Fans)

3.) Spam the shit out of Twitter. You heard me: go for it!  You know all that other really terrible twitter advice out there about how every tweet has to have a hook and a call to action and bombastic self-praise about how people have to buy your book?  Follow it.  Constantly.  Imaginary market research shows that the optimal time period between such tweets in 39 seconds.  Do it! (3rd Law of Bad Marketing: Lose Twitter Folowers)

4.) If you have guest posts on subjects totally unrelated to marketing your book (not that all posts everywhere shouldn't be related to marketing your book in some way or the other), be sure that your #kindledeal is subtly -- or perhaps less than subtly -- thrown in.  So you're supposed to be talking about QuietYA?  Think of it this way:  QuietYA is about books.  Your Kindle thing is about books.  The connection is obvious, right?  (4th Law of Bad Marketing:  Piss off Otherwise Super-Helpful Book Bloggers)

5.) Monetize your blog in the service of Really Bad Promotion.  That's right, come on, don't you secretly admire all those blogs that sell maps to star houses and medical marijuana club memberships in the margins for untold thousands?  Who but the most effete of literary purists doesn't?  This is the moment to use your powers of persuasion to get every single follower to immediately purchase copies of your book for her 400 best friends.  (And if she doesn't have 400 best friends, get her to network.  No excuses, please!)  Be firm.  What do you have to lose?  (5th Law of Bad Marketing: Lose Blog Followers)

There!  In five easy steps, you've practically destroyed all possible good will you ever laid claim to!  Now run out and buy my book for your 400 best friends!  You can thank me later.

New Goodreads Giveaway of Afterparty!!!

I'm so excited about this!  Afterparty was just released in paperback, and to celebrate, the folks at Simon Teen are doing a Goodreads giveaway.  Soooo, if you haven't read the book yet and you'd like to, go win the darned thing!

(Note that this post is very short.  This is because I invoked Dear Clueless.  "Dear Clueless," I said, "so, should I post something brilliant and incisive about the roller coaster that is Goodreads?"  To which she replied, "No."  To which I replied, "But I love my Goodreads giveaway!"  To which she replied, "Still no.")

Here's the link: https://www.goodreads.com/giveaway/show/122904-afterparty

Really Bad Writing Advice: When in Doubt, Stop Writing! (In which I obsess about Afterparty, because that’s why I’m not writing.)

So there you have it, the perfect solution to all that stress, self-doubt and mining the unpleasant recesses of your soul, such as it is: stop writing!

And here I am at the perfect moment to stop writing. Afterparty is about to go to copyediting! Yes, it is! (Yes, I know I said something a lot like this four drafts ago, three drafts ago, two drafts ago etc., but this time I mean it.)

I am obsessed with how many days there are until January 7th, when it comes out.

That would be 236 days, gang!!! (Did you know you could google “How many days until January 7th?” hundreds of times and get the ever-changing correct answer daily? You are open to so many new and exciting learning experiences when you’re not writing.)

Anyway, while ordinarily I have things like deadlines, commitments, and a sense of desperation bordering on chronic panic, now I am obsessed with Afterparty instead. How much I love the characters. How pretty the cover is. How much I long for a blog tour with character interviews with these characters I (quasi) channeled to the point of (quasi) psychosis. The impending ARC’s. How gorgeous the cover is.

I mean, who the hell can write while fondling a book jacket?

The point is, there are many, many things you can do while not writing that are absolutely impossible while writing, such as fondling stuff. Or watching the Sad Cat video every few minutes. Also, you can dig out your house. (This is not a metaphorical use of “dig out.” I have large pieces of furniture I can’t see because they’re obscured by even larger clumps of dog hair.) You can remove the spots where Pilot pens, yellow markers, and snack food have stained the otherwise lovely writing sofa.

You can have conversations with your husband that don’t start with, “Read this!!!”

You can be so obsessed with what you just finished that the prospect of hitting new walls seems a whole lot less attractive than it did back when you were hitting those old walls, given that this new thing is in the shitty first draft (Thank you, Anne Lamott!) stage of development. Whereas the thing you’re obsessing about is finished.

And while it may be true that winners never quit, quitters get (or at least have time to think about getting) manicures. Which you can totally get while obsessing about your finished book, but not while writing. Higher calling. Cuticles. Higher calling. Cuticles? Oh what the hell, just this once, cuticles win.

Afterparty!!!! Heeeeeere's the cover!

What can I say? It's perfect. It's beautiful and it evokes a key scene in the book -- a scene which, by the way, the designer hadn't read yet. (Jessica Handelman, design goddess and all-round purveyor of aesthetic wonders, if you are reading this, I love you!)

And all right, I get the part that revealing the splendor that is the cover of my new book after multiple posts in which I carry on at length about how I didn't outline and this was not an entirely wise choice, followed by days of Really Bad Writing Advice, might not be self-promotionally wise.

But look at this cover! I would kill for this cover, but I don't have to, because it's my damned cover.

And all right, I love the characters in this book. I love Emma, the protagonist, a good girl trying hard to embrace badness, her best friend Siobhan, and Emma's dad's choice for her best friend, the darling Megan Donnelly. And also, not one or two but three guys who are not, ta da, sociopathic louts. I love Dylan and Arif and Joe. I loved writing the Hollywood Hills and I love the kiss at a sidewalk table at The Griddle near the corner of Fairfax and Sunset.

And these characters deserved gorgeousness. Stumbling barefoot, shoes in hand, toward Hollywood Boulevard late at night, Emma deserved a cover that says, "Here I am."

Ta da. Emma Lazar, here you go.