Tags
Author, conference, love, swag
The author world is full of love. No joke. You sit at your computer all day, alone, yet the second you get another contract you would be amazed at how many other authors jump on it and offer to help you promote yourself and your book. We will tweet it, blog it, facebook it, heck we will even walk around wearing a badge with your book cover on it. Why? Well, no idea haha. But seriously, i have not heard of a single other industry where competition is so fierce yet we will still help each other get that top spot. A bit of a, one of us should have it, if it cant be me, it may as well be you, mentality.
A friend recently got her first contract, she had no less than 28 offers to guest blog within an hour of announcing the news! Your book sales are down, here I’ll tweet it and my 500 readers will become your 500 readers. Need a review, I’ll pimp it on my blog until you get at least 5 reviews! No bites on your website, here ill give you a signed book to add as a giveaway and link to your site. It doesn’t matter what publisher we are with, if we hear that someone is struggling to find a home for their story we will name drop until a contract is offered.
Which brings me to the point of swag. What is swag? Well its giveaways basically. We often offer swag in competitions or as incentive to join our mailing lists. It can be signed books, bookmarks, pens, gift vouchers, chocolates, handcuffs. What ever we think you will love, we will offer up as swag. Then we can share swag. If I write in a similar genre to someone else we can combine our efforts and get twice as much interest in our giant swag bag with 5 authors pitching freebies into it. Again, sharing the love. And you know what, if you as a reader are crafty and dedicated enough you will never have to buy another book again. I went an entire year just entering giveaways on my fave authors sites, and won 5/10 of them. I was set for books for the year! Not to mention I now keep in regular contact with several of them through facebook ready for their next book to emerge. Authors aren’t as distant and scary as you might think. You should see us at conferences! You may rub shoulders with someone you absolutely love, and you know what, they would love to have their picture with you as much as you want your picture with them. They will even invite you back to their room for midnight cocktails with the other half dozen people they met that day to discuss a bad review they got last week on Twitter. Because you know what, we were all at the bottom at one point, and the only way to get up that ladder is for someone to reach down and help you up behind them, one rung at a time.
And you know what, its swag time!!!!
I will pick one commenter to receive my upcoming book, Bound by the Help, free!