Into The Unknown

If you’ve ever walked along a street smiling and looking happy, you’ll often find people do one of two things. They either avoid you because you’re grinning like a Cheshire cat, or they smile back. Like a cold, our enthusiasm can be catching.

When we are passionate about a project or idea and we share that with those who care about us, we ignite that enthusiasm within them. That was exactly what happened when I declared that I was finally going to publish Bear’s books.

Bear was such a huge part of my life. He was an incredibly funny, naughty, and majestic creature whose presence was a blessing. My family and friends know how hard it was when it became apparent that his treatment wasn’t working. They knew that I had to face the hardest thing of all, and they saw first-hand just how painful that was. Therefore, they also knew what completing the first of his books meant to me.

Of course, those close to me bought a book [if you haven’t and you’re reading this, you know what you must do!] But the question is what happens after your inner circle have given their support, how do you reach out beyond them into the world?

Yes, there are many marketing companies, apps and advertisements claiming that they can showcase your product to the world…. If you pay them. Wonderful if you can be sure that you’ll pull that money back from sales, but as this was my first venture into self-publishing, could I justify spending that? The simple answer was no, I couldn’t. What I could do however, was focus on the simple [cheaper] things.

Website confusion. I kept reading that having your very own website was a must, and of course that made sense, but which one? There are a lot on offer, all telling you that you should go with them but as we use WordPress at work, it was a platform I was a bit more familiar with. In addition to that, many writers out there had it in their top 3 due to it’s ease of use, especially if you want a blog. It’s recognised as a real site rather than a spam special and it has good reviews. It also promised it was easy to set up……

Well, after having flu, I’m not sure I was really in the right place to set it up but being very impatient, of course I went ahead…. At 4am, eyes still puffy and nose still dripping, I entered the world of website set up.

It was perhaps not the wisest move that I have ever made but after a few swears, I did manage to get the basics down and then came the ‘about me’ section.

Writing a biography is awkward and uncomfortable for me, I’m not great at self-promotion. I’ve achieved many things so far in my life, but they tend to be things that I happily keep under the radar. I don’t live my life through social media and have never really understood why people post every meal or every doctor’s check-in but hey, if that’s what they want to do, great. It’s just not something that I do.

So, the ‘About me’ bit took some time and many coffees. Luckily, a friend is also a very early riser too and I was able to ask her ‘erm, help….. what do I put?’.

As you’ve found this page, you know that I managed to set the website up, there are some tweaks being made [not by me, by someone who actually knows what they are doing and who also loves dogs – a win win!] A couple of things will be corrected, and a couple of things will change but the basics will remain.

The next thing I did was set up a Facebook page, https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61553217608881

I used the same image from the website for the page so that it would be visually linked and then I set about inviting my friends to follow the page. The problem with sending invitations is that in a stream of notifications, yours can get lost. A gentle prompt to those who rudely ignored your plea is sometimes in order [again, you know who you are, people!]

Another annoying thing is Facebook’s fabulous way of keeping things locked down until you have so many followers, starting at 100. Hard to do if you can’t push it out there until you have at least 100. Between a rock and a hard place comes to mind! But all is not lost, you can buy 1000 followers…… Gee, thanks Facebook.

Why would I want to ‘buy’ fake followers? I’m not a politician, I would rather have people following me because they are interested in what I do, in the book and in the books that are to come next. Perhaps I am being incredibly naïve and buying your followers is the norm, it just feels very wrong to me.

Instagram was [and is] another mystery to me. A friend from work had to help guide me through that one, it’s just one of the benefits of working with younger people! I did manage to get it linked to the website though……something I failed miserably with on the Facebook page.

Promotional material seemed a logical next step to help me get the book beyond the inner circle. I decided on bookmarks, after all, I’d written a book so naturally a bookmark was the ideal accompaniment to it. They go perfectly together, a bit like chips and mayonnaise [yes, I am that classy]

I went with Vistaprint for the bookmarks. At just over £20 for 250 I figured they wouldn’t break the bank if they were rubbish. An attractive bookmark could encourage children to pick up a book, any book, and get reading.

There is no point in creating a bookmark that has nothing to do with the book that you are promoting, so mine use the image from the front and back cover of Bear’s book. Its an easy link back to it and I’ve put my website on the bottom of it.

Beyond the bookmarks. I had a nosy around on Vistaprint for postcards next. They can be a great little information notices and are far sturdier than paper fliers. A postcard can be put in a child’s bookbag at school and will survive the journey home, unlike a piece of paper. My own children tend to hand me things if they are on card, whereas fliers are crumpled messes that I find weeks later under the car seat or at the back of the shoe rack.

There were some essential things to include on the postcard. Firstly, they also had to tie directly back to the book, so the images on the back and front match the book.

They needed to have a little hook into the book but not too much otherwise all that text on a small space becomes hard to read. They needed to inform readers where they could go to find out more and where they could buy the book. Wording that without rudely shouting ‘Hey, buy this’ was important to me.

I used kinder wording of ‘Now available in paperback and eBook on Amazon’. I’m still signposting the reader to where the book is available but I’m not demanding that they buy it NOW! I’ve kept the design simple and uncluttered; it contains enough information without overwhelming the reader.

The postcards and bookmarks have both come out so well. I’ll be using the bookmarks as little giveaways to children when I do readings of my book for them …..more on that next time!