The 4 Phases of Book Promotion

My debut YA novel, Zombies Don’t Cry, was accepted for publication in the fall of 2010, slated to come out in Spring of the following year. Almost from the day I signed the contract with Medallion Press, I’ve been promoting; daily. That’s three years and counting of straight up, daily, book promotion. Day in, day out, weekends, holidays, evenings, mornings, lunch breaks, whatever, whenever, sometimes it seems like it never stops.

Now, all those years later and as the sequel to Zombies Don’t Forgive is scheduled to come out next month, I’ve kind of hit the pause button, sat back, reflected and realized that my promotional journey ran the gamut of four distinct phases. Here they are:

The First Phase: Petrified

“Oh my God, I have to do what?”

“How often?”

“A blog? The bleep is that?”

“I should have already started??? But the book doesn’t come out for 9 months!!!”

When you first start promoting your new book, you are petrified, overwhelmed, anxious, intimidated, uncertain… it runs the whole gamut. It’s like starting junior high all over again and trying to remember your locker combination, where your History book is and how to get to the gym all before Homeroom.

Everything, it seems, is new. New blog. New screen names. New profile pics to choose for Facebook and Goodreads. What background to use on your Twitter home page. How do I retweet? What the heck is a hashtag???

But from Petrified, you quickly move to Phase 2:

The Second Phase: Psychotic

“OMG I’m on vacation and today’s blog didn’t auto post. Stop the Monorail!!! I need to contact Blogger.com HQ!!!”

“Honey, I know it’s our anniversary but I got a 1-star review on Goodreads this morning. Can I get a rain check while I hide out in my room under the covers and eat this pint of ice cream??!?!”

“Holy crap, only 199 people visited the blog today. That’s down half of a percent from yesterday!!!”

Once Phase One passes and you enter into Phase Two, you feel kind of like an old hand. You may have a few hundred Facebook fans and Twitter followers, but you want a few thousand! You’ve gone from being Petrified to being Psychotic, stressing over how much you tweet, what you tweet, when you post on Facebook, etc.

I’m not gonna lie, this phase can last awhile. I believe it pretty much lasted throughout Zombies Don’t Cry’s second year in print! But then it ends, thankfully, only to blend into Phase Three, which is almost as bad:

The Third Phase: Paranoid

“Am I Posting too much?”

“I’m posting too much!”

“Wait, what??? I’m not posting enough!!!!”

“That Twitter guru says I’m doing this all wrong.”

“I shouldn’t have posted that.”

“I knew I shouldn’t have posted that.”

“What if the leprechauns get offended?”

“What if somebody doesn’t celebrate Easter?!?!”

“What if the wiccans get up in arms?!?!?”
The Third Phase of author publicity is generally marked by an intense feeling of paranoia. It’s best described by that Rockwell song, “Somebody’s Watching Me!” You feel like the whole world is waiting with bated breath for your next tweet, Facebook share, blog post or Tumbler photo.

Guess what? They’re not. I’m not saying nobody’s paying attention, maybe millions are, but they’re not paying as much attention to all of this as you are… and they never will.

You start to worry about everything, and everyone. You will think you’re posting too much, because one pundit says to only tweet four times a day. Then you’ll think you’re not posting enough, because another pundit says to be on Facebook six times a day!

You’ll watch some blogger or reviewer or other author get in a flame war with a fan or reader or other blogger over some word they used, or phrase, and you’ll be forever scarred, never wanting to use that phrase again!

You’ll trouble over every post, not wanting to offend. You’ll trouble over ever bad review, every “unfollow” and “unfriend.” You’ll take it personally, but not in the right way. No, that comes in the fourth and final Phase:

The Fourth Phase: Personalized

“SCA. REW. THAT!!!”

“I’m so over this crap!”

“Yeah, I feel like saying this today.”

“Nobody’s listening anyway, why not?”

“If I’m going to spend every day doing this, I’m going to make it fun; for ME!”

“If folks don’t want to hear what I have to say, what I really have to say, they can always unfollow or unfriend me!!!”

When you’ve had enough of being Petrified, Psychotic and Paranoid, you will finally settle into the best phase of author promotion: Personalized. This is where you stay professional but get more personal. You start to relax a little, let your hair loose, have more fun, make more connections and actually see your followers, fans and “friends” as actual… friends.

And when it comes to book promotion, it’s another P: Priceless. I’ve only been in this phase for a few months, but man… it’s been great. I’m tweeting what I want, when I’m want, cracking jokes, some good, most bad, but enjoying it. I’m being random and riffing and interacting and actually communicating, rather than all rigid and following some playbook that I probably wrote myself back in the first month this all started.

And I can only hope you get here and join me as soon as possible!!!

Now, I’m no expert; this is MY experience promoting my own books, and generally watching as others promoted theirs. There could be six more P’s beyond my fourth, or two less, who knows.

My point is, this is what I’ve experienced and I think it’s generally what a lot of other authors experience as well. It’s also a journey you kind of have to take for yourself. No one could tell me, for instance, in the middle of the “Psychotic” phase that I wasn’t absolutely where I was supposed to be along my own promotional arc. Heck, maybe that’s where you are right now!!!

But of all the P’s, I feel the most comfortable now, in the Personalized era. I’m not stressing every tweet, worried someone’s going to be offended by my “leprechaun” picture on Facebook or take issue with one of my blog posts; let them. It’s a little like writing yourself; you can’t please everybody, and honestly the more people I try to please with my writing, the less creative -- and personal -- it is.

Only when I really let my freak flag fly and have fun with it am I proud of how something I’ve written turns out. And having tried all four phases, I believe that my most effective book promotion is also my most personal.

So wherever you are along your own promotional journey, enjoy the ride and know that, at some point, you will feel more comfortable for having gone through the process. And that’s when you can really be you, and watch the fans come flocking!!!

Yours in YA,

Rusty