Now what?

First things first. Huge thanks to everyone who ordered hard copy or Kindle downloads of “How to Live with a Ghost” when it was released earlier this week. Many of you have listened to me talk about this book for years, and it was your encouragement that kept me going when I felt trying to publish was like hitting myself in the head with a stick and then wondering why I had a headache.

The evening after “Ghost” trotted into the big, wide world on its own two feet, I faced a new reality. The problem with reaching a goal that you’ve dreamed about for years is that once you achieve it, you’re kind of left floating in the ether. The thing that consumed a ridiculous amount of my mental energy since some point in 2022 had been checked off the to-do list. What was next?

Sales and marketing!

 

 

I may have mentioned my publisher, Pearl City Press, is a small operation. I went into this knowing much of the sales would fall on my shoulders because they do not have the people-power to drive a big marketing campaign. Or a small marketing campaign. Or any marketing campaign. If I wanted people to notice “Ghost,” I was going to have to make it happen.

 

Much like the farm wife who wears the hats of cook, meals-on-wheels driver, pickup fetcher, gate watcher, parts runner, weather reporter, cow chaser, fuel dump operator, and wagon hauler, I stepped into the position of publicist, sales executive, and event promoter.

 

I was not cut out to do this. My degree is in journalism. For three and a half decades, I made a living reporting the news, not being the news. However, unicorn dreams and glitter rainbows aside, once you’ve published a book, the goal is to sell the book. Books, annoyingly, do not sell themselves.

 

Speaking of selling things, let’s step back a few years. I grew up selling Girl Scout Cookies door-to-door to our farm neighbors. I sold candy bars to raise money for my 4-H club, candles and jewelry to finance the high school Spanish Club’s trip to Spain, and magazines to support the junior/senior prom. I hated every minute of it. I was a shy kid. I did not want to talk to strangers, let alone try to sell them stuff nobody really wanted. Well. Except the cookies. Everybody wants cookies. Of course, they all bought cookies and candles and magazines because that’s what you did back then. Their kids had sold stuff to my parents, so when I showed up on their doorstep, trying not to vomit, they cheerfully ordered a token box of Thin Mints or renewed their subscription to Field and Stream.

 

This does not seem like a viable marketing strategy for book sales.
But yay, Girl Scouts!

 

Here I am, many years later, trying to capture the attention of book readers, book buyers, booksellers, and the media in a climate filled with thousands of other authors doing the same thing. This would be easier if I’d penned a best-selling, forty-seven-title series because name recognition is everything. You can walk into a bookstore and tell who the big-name authors are without having read any of their work. Their name on the cover will be larger than the title. 

 

But here I am. First-time author. Debut novel. Single book. Not even the promise of a series (more on that another time). Just me, dizzy with relief at this lone achievement and wanting to share it with the world. 

 

Well, look at that, will ya?

 What I’ve learned so far can be summed up in one word: networking.

 

I am calling in favors left and right, relying on contacts from my years in the newspapers, and thanking God in Heaven for a friend with a marketing degree who has given me some excellent ideas. She would cringe if she knew my approach is still more reckless than methodical, but I feel good about the results. 

 

And incredibly nervous because it still involves talking to strangers. Substitute “book” for “cookies” and it’s a flashback to the 1970s, clutching the order form in sweaty palms and trying not to mumble when I ask, “Would you like to buy my book?” Only now I’m holding a press release praising “Ghost” and handing out business cards and smiling in what I hope is a friendly and professional, not deranged, manner.

 

I'm fine. Really. Just fine. Delighted to be here.

Author events an exhilarating and terrifying concept. Some writers are naturally gregarious. I am not one of them. Put me ringside at an obedience trial and I can talk the ear off a total stranger, discussing the judge’s habit of running teams into the gate before calling the turns on heeling or the hysterically obsessive inspection of each exhibitor’s dumbbell. (Yes, I know the regs say the judge will inspect the dumbbell, but I’ve had several that made it look like the ceremonial weighing of the wands in “Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.” But I digress.)

 

But ask me to speak to a room full of people who may or may not be expecting to hear great literary truths or just didn’t have anything better to do with their time that night and, well, it’s hard. I am not good at putting myself out there. I was raised with the belief that you shouldn’t attract attention to yourself. I suppose that’s a good approach if you’re a burglar. Not so much if you’re trying to sell books.

 

Anyway, I venture to say my initial — if slightly feeble — marketing strategy is going . . . maybe . . . kinda . . . sorta . . . well? I’ve got some book talks and signings scheduled in January. I even added a coming events widget to the right side of this blog so if you’re in the eastern Iowa area and there’s no Cyclone or Hawkeye basketball game on TV that night, you can get out of the house and beat that cabin fever. Come listen to me prove that I write better than I speak.

 

Also in the good news report, several local retailers have agreed to add “Ghost” to their inventory, and I’ve started the daunting process of contacting indie booksellers in the area. I say daunting in the bestest way possible. It means I finally have a finished product to share with the world, not just a sparkly dream.

 

One last thing, when you finish “Ghost,” if the spirit moves you, please leave a review on Amazon or Goodreads. This is the stuff authors live for. It helps boost sales and is helpful in marketing the NEXT book (hint-nudge-wink).

 

If I don’t get back to you all before then, I wish you all a merry Christmas and a blessed new year. As always, I invite you to follow me at my author’s page at https://www.facebook.com/melinda.wichmann.author.