The Book Marketing Challenge: a Lucky Coincidence for Authors ;-)

Do you believe in coincidence? Well, I do. I am convinced that when we really need something deep inside, somehow it finds a way to come into our life.

And that’s exactly how the miracle of The Book Marketing Challenge happened in my life: I saw the announcement in a friend’s newsletter when the event was already one-week through. But very fortunately (thank you so much, D’vorah!) all the articles and interviews from the previous week were still available, together with the day-by-day work schedule.

Actually, this schedule that every member was getting daily deserves special attention. (That was my first ‘WOW!’). It is a perfect step-by-step plan not only for the beginning, but also as the book business grows and evolves. Personally, I printed all the daily emails and put them into a separate folder, so that to be able to come back to them later every so often and check my own progress.

During these 30 days, we were given soooo much useful and inspiring information, that I find it hard to squeeze all the great ideas into one blog post 😉 And this is why I will only talk about some points that are turning in my mind right now.

I did particularly appreciate the attention that was given to the fiction writers. For the last couple of years, I have been following a bunch of different book marketing programs for authors, and the vast majority of them only focuses on non-fiction. Don’t get me wrong, all of them are useful and good, but it is way more helpful when all of the participants can discuss and brainstorm different concepts and ideas for both non-fiction and fiction.

The first thing that intrigued me was D’vorah’s article about the Amazon Author Central. The step-by-step guide was great, and it inspired me to look further… Guess what? I found out that you can also create your author pages on Amazon Germany, Amazon France and Amazon Japan! It looks like Canada, Brazil, Mexico, India and others don’t have this service available yet, but soon it will also be there. I had some trouble figuring out the German and Japanese one, so if any of you are facing the similar problem, here is a step-by-step process with screenshots (the URLs are there as well… enjoy!)

The other great idea that was my ‘a-ha moment’ was the suggestion to introduce
my characters.
My book Raven Boy is the first book of adventure and romance y/a fiction series.
It is set in the Viking era with some juicy battles and magic, and even though I do not
claim absolute historical accuracy, that world is fascinating to explore. I think I will
definitely make my characters speak for themselves and create their profiles 😉
Thanks for the advice – it opens up a huge field full of new possibilities.

Also, I am incredibly grateful for all the web sites and resources that were given to us, as well as for all the inspiring real-life examples that the speakers and contributors provide.

I learned a lot and met (virtually) a lot of wonderful people, and I definitely recommend this event to every author 😉

A big THANK YOU to D’vorah, to all the contributors and to all my fellow-participants!

 

Kateryna Kei, Author of Raven Boy, adventure and romance young-adult saga