Publishers and Promotion

When it comes to publishers, one of the best things a publisher can offer is its promotional efforts. And I think it's well known that the publishers who promote their books the most are the ones commonly referred to as "the Big Six."

That's not to say the other publishers, commonly known as "Independent Publishers" don't promote their books. But some of them actually don't. Independent publishers probably promote their books to varying degrees, and perhaps some of them promote some books even more than the Big Six will promote some of theirs. I say that because I've heard of some books not promoted well by Big Six publishers.

But a lack of promotion has been the knock on Independent Publishers. I don't know to what extent Melange promotes their books. I do know that most Independent Publishers rely on their website and beyond that, authors are left to promote their own books.

I read that Amanda Hocking was big on promoting her self-published books. And she sure did a good job. So good, in fact, that she sold an awful lot of them and caught the attention of a Big Six publisher. And then signed on with them. I wonder if she did that just for the prestige of being a Big Six author. Her reasons, she said, was so that she won't have to spend as much time promoting that she had been doing. And maybe that is true, but it seems to me that she had already got the hard part done. She was already a name and that was the hurdle. Imo, she didn't need a Big Sixer anymore, or any publisher, really.

But whatever. I suppose having a publisher, even if you're established, is better than not having one. It's probably a personal call. Maybe she got a great contract. And if she did, all the better for her.

When it comes to promoting my debut novel, KILLER OF KILLERS, I'm not sure just how I'll proceed. Yeah, there's this blog. I've got Facebook. But beyond that, I don't think I'll be doing any more online promotions. It will be about bookstores and radio stations, I suppose. I'll try to get my book into bookstores and see what happens. One thing I think I have going for me is a great cover. Thanks to Caroline at Melange, I think I have a cover that will sell. And from personal experience, I know it works because I bought books because of the cover. And my students tell me when I show them the cover to KILLER OF KILLERS that they would buy it for that cover.

But that's when I tell them they have to wait until they're eighteen. Again, it's not an MG or YA book. But they have parents and older relatives, right? You bet.