KATE HANNEY - Author
  • Home
  • About the Books
  • About The Author
  • Contact Me
  • Buy the Books
  • New Teenage Fiction Blog
  • Links/Permissions
  • Information for Schools/Colleges
    • Teaching Resources
  • Read Opening Chapters
    • WATERMELON
    • HEARTS AND ARROWS
    • SOMEONE DIFFERENT
    • SAFE

The Importance of Target Setting in Publishing

11/21/2012

3 Comments

 
Picture
Well, 'tis done! On the 10th of November I uploaded my new, 'compelling' novels, SOMEONE DIFFERENT and WATERMELON, on to the Amazon website. They are proudly published by Applecore Books, an independent writing co-operative founded by myself and my brilliant author friend, Wendy Storer. Currently, they can be read on Kindle, Ipad, Android, PCs etc, and within the next few weeks they will also be available to buy as paperbacks.

So what now? 

I've probably spent hundreds or even thousands of hours writing them, loving them, nurturing them. I've formatted them, I've finalised the covers, I've settled on the exact wording for the blurbs. I've got to the end of that process and clicked 'Save and Publish'. 

Finito! 
 
Well, not quite, because now I need to let everyone know they are out there. Mmm, what to do?

Coming from a teaching background, I am well versed in the world of target setting, monitoring and assessment and I got to wondering; what's the place for this in publishing? And more specifically, marketing?
  
So far, I've dabbled. There's the obvious Facebook and Twitter campaigns, and people have been so great in supporting me in those, but what's needed now, I think, is to reach a wider audience. And to do this, I need a plan, and that plan, needs targets.  So to keep me a) motivated b) on track c) focussed d) awake late into the night, I'm going to make my targets public, then there's no getting away from them; they're here, on the world wide web, nudging me in the ribs constantly. 

 And so, in the near future I AM going to:

 - Ensure that at least one of my books is featured on an online review website

 - Notify my local press and convince them my books are worthy of a mention (at the very least, a mention)

 - Be guest blogger  for other well-respected literary websites/organisations

 - Respond to every review I receive on Amazon

 - Organise a competition as soon as the books are out in paperback

 - Persuade at least one of my local Waterstones to host an 'event'

- Triple (minimum) my following on Facebook and Twitter

Is there anything I've missed? 

Well, I will be sure to keep you up to date as I tick off the targets that are met, but if any more experienced marketeers can suggest additional targets, I would love to hear from you; always up for a challenge, that's me! 


3 Comments
Terry Tyler
11/23/2012 06:00:45 am

Just skimmed through this as I'm kinda tired! Just wanted to say that the general consensus of opinion seems to be that it's a bit unprofessional to respond to reviews, apart from to thank the person if you know who it's from - I mean, don't argue the toss with negative ones, should you receive any! Obviously it's impossible to thank everyone who leaves a review on Amazon because very often you don't know who the person is - which is why Goodreads is so great, because people's profiles are usually set so that you can send them a message to say thank you. You haven't mentioned Goodreads - that's another essential.

To be truthful I do very few of the things you've outlined above - I sell mostly via Twitter, Amazon recommendations and word of mouth. I know what works for one doesn't always work for another, but I'd say a very important thing is to get your Twitter followers up as much as possible (it's taken me a year to get to 8K, but I haven't been as proactive about it as I might have been), and to tweet and retweet every day.

Do you have a Facebook page anyway? Best to get yourself an author page, so that you don't bore all your non-book friends with constant book talk - a decision I made quite early on!

There are probably many other things I could do as well - I don't blog very much as I find all this constant guest blogging and blog hopping and all the rest of it a bit tedious and I tend to stay out of it, though I do do interviews. You have to leave time for writing, too!

I've only been 'in this game' for a year, but have developed a fair readership; I'm happy to help with anything of a practical nature, though I am far from knowing it all, indeed!

Good luck! :)

Reply
Kate
11/23/2012 08:03:41 pm

Hey, Terry

Thank you so much for taking the time to read and comment. I absolutely agree, it's definitely not advisable to get into negative discussions with critical reviewers, and I was thinking more along the lines of simply thanking anyone who does make the effort to post a review. I would do this through the 'comment' facility that appears under each review.

Thank you also for pointing out the importance of Goodreads. I am on there, but haven't got around to making the most of it yet, so certainly that will be one to add to my list!

I'm not sure if your books are available in print, or just as ebooks? And I wonder if this makes a difference to marketing strategies? The other thing I got to thinking about of course, is audience - my books are for the YA market, so possibly that demands a different approach?

Anyway, all very useful food for thought. Thanks again for passing on your experience and huge congratulations on the success you've achieved.

All the best for now, Kate

Reply
Mary link
8/5/2023 09:53:26 am

Greatt blog you have here

Reply



Leave a Reply.

    Author

    Kate Hanney - author of gritty, contemporary fiction for Young Adults. Current titles:
    SAFE
    WATERMELON
    SOMEONE DIFFERENT

    Archives

    April 2014
    August 2013
    April 2013
    January 2013
    November 2012
    September 2012
    June 2009

    Categories

    All
    Book Cover Designs
    Self-publishing
    Teenage/Young Adult Fiction

    RSS Feed


Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.