I first met Adriana Ryan when her title, The World of Shell and Bone popped up under The Breeders on Amazon. Once I read her book, I knew we were kindred souls. She will have a new release out soon that I am very excited about. The premise is one that makes you think, "Gee, I wish I'd thought of that." Today she is revealing the cover of her much anticipated book, Secret for a Song. Check it out. 

Saylor Grayson makes herself sick. Literally.

She  ate her first needle when she was seven. Now, at nineteen, she’s been kicked out of college for poisoning herself with laxatives. The shrinks call it Munchausen Syndrome. All Saylor knows is that when she’s ill, her normally distant mother pays attention and the doctors and nurses make her feel special.

Then she meets Drew Dean, the leader of a local support group for those with terminal diseases. When he mistakes her for a new member, Saylor knows she should correct him. But she can’t bring herself to, not after she’s welcomed into a new circle of friends. Friends who, like Drew, all have illnesses ready to claim their independence or their lives  

For the first time, Saylor finds out what it feels like to be in love, to have friends who genuinely care about her.  But secrets have a way of revealing themselves. What will happen when Saylor’s is out?


Can't wait? Me neither. The book is due out in June and in the meantime check out The World of Shell and Bone. 

A huge fan of spooky stuff and shoes, Adriana Ryan enjoys alternately hitting up the outlet malls and historic graveyards in Charleston, SC where she lives and imbibes coffee. Her husband and two small children seem not to mind when she hastily scribbles novel lines on stray limbs in the absence of notepads.

Website: http://www.adrianaryan.com
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/AuthorAdrianaRyan
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/adrianaryansc
                                                              Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/adrianaryan

On Wednesday I began this post on what works and what doesn't in self-promotion and marketing for authors. You can find part one here. The next five strategies are those that I have found most effective. Again, these are just my own personal experiences and not an exhaustive list. 

5. Sequel Notification List or Newsletter
I saw my good friend and awesome writer A.G. Henley use this and picked it up immediately. She had a sequel notification sign-up on her blog and mentioned it in the back material of her book, The Scourge (seriously, if you haven't read it, you need to). I have found this to be exceedingly helpful. I used Feedburner to create the widget on my website. It took a little bit of reading and tinkering, but for a girl who isn't particularly tech savvy, I was able to pull it off. 

The Result- I have a sequel notification list about fifty readers long so far. This is an invaluable tool and once it is set up, it runs itself. DO IT. 

4. Kismet Review Blog Tour
This one is hard to recommend because I haven't actually participated in it yet. I am signed up for a Kismet Review Blog Tour in March. Kismet is a top notch review site that puts on blog tours, review tours and the like. A.G. Henley introduced this one to me, as well. She said she really enjoyed it and got over twenty great reviews (remember, review numbers count) and had a lot to tweet about. The price isn't for the faint of heart, however, so if I don't see a lot of increase in sales this will definitely be a bust. 

The Result - Hard to say, but this one is a gamble because of the high price. I'll have to follow up to let you know if I think it was worth it or not. 

3. Blogging
This goes without saying, but blogging is huge. It draws people to your content, your website and your books. I maintain two blogs (scary, I know). The first blog is a review site dedicated to Indie Publishing. We get a ton of hits every day (upwards of 1500) from writers just like you and I who want reviews. How many of those readers go on to buy my book? Again, it is hard to say, but it is definitely nice to be able to do an announcement post and know that at least one thousand people are likely to stumble on it that day. 

My blog gets far less traffic and it is much newer. The nice thing about having my own blog is I can post whatever I want. I can do giveaways, host guest and ramble. The drawback is writing content. It is not easy to find time. 

The Result - Every writer needs a blog. Not an option. DO IT. 

2. Social Media
I was already on Facebook before I became an author, so I decided it would be easy to create an author Facebook page. I like having a separate profile for my writing so I am not inundating my friends and family who aren't interested in hearing about my book twenty-four/seven. It may be a bit more work to maintain both, but not much. I check in on Facebook a few times a day to post, respond to a few comments and get out of there. It can be a time-suck, so I keep one eye on the clock. So far I have 340 fans. It's nice to have numbers like that when you are releasing something new. 

Twitter is newer for me, and not as user-friendly in my opinion. I am using it, though. I know many people prefer it as their new method of online interaction and I need to be where they are. It doesn't come as easily, but a post once a day is fine and easy to fit into my schedule. 

The Result - Having 340 Facebook fans and 70 Twitter followers is better than having none. I am sure the more I'm on there, the more people I will reach. 

1. Writing New Content
Nothing drives people to your work better than liking something else you wrote. I am sure you've heard the more you can publish the better. I'd like to think that the more WELL-WRITTEN work you can publish the better. Sure, you can churn out content like a madman, but all these suggestions cannot make a bad book into a good one. Marketing a bad book will only make it fail faster. So, write good content and write it fast. (Ha! That's like saying, just don't eat cake to someone who wants to lose weight.) 

The Result - My new novelette is selling well and The Breeders continues to sell well (5500 on the Amazon rankings today). I hope to have a new book published in May and hopefully the sequel to The Breeders in August or September. The bottom line is, if you want to make it as an indie author you have to write a lot. No excuses. Then you will see results. 

So, there you have it. Ten marketing strategies and their pros and cons as I see them. I'm always reading, tweaking and revising and I'd love to hear from some of you as to what works and what doesn't in the comments below. So, in regard to marketing, what works for you?

Book Marketing Part Three 
Book Marketing Part Four

The Breeders is over six months old now and in that time I have done my share of trial and error marketing to let people know about my work. If you are like me, marketing sometimes feels like fumbling around in the dark, so I thought I'd take a moment and list the top ten marketing strategies that I have found to be successful in my experience. This is by no means and exhaustive list, but just some observations of someone who's been there. 

10. Google AdSence Advertising 
Ever see those little ads on the sides of your gmail account advertising anything from Mortgage Insurance to Free Copy-Editing? Well, I took twenty-five dollars and made a Google AdSence ad just to see if it might drum up interest. The nice thing about Google (or not so nice depending on your Big Brother view of it) is they read people's email  and tailor ads to fit potential clients. The bad new is that many people don't pay attention to those ads. I know I don't. 

The Result - I'm pretty sure nothing. In my opinion not worth the money. 

9. Blog Begging or "Can you please review my title?"
Every marketing book from here to Kingdom Come says you need reviews. You must get reviews for your book or it will languish and die faster than the plant in my office at work (seriously, I have a black thumb).  However, getting reviews is difficult, nay, nearly impossible. I spent hours sending out query emails to book bloggers for weeks on end. I'd say that 90% of the people ignored me. The bonus, I did get a few reviews and connected with some bloggers, but most blogs either won't read self-published or are swamped up to their pretty little eyeballs and cannot possibly take another book.

The Result - Too much time and energy for only a few reviews. 

8. Begging fans to review your book.
Once my random emails to book bloggers stopped working, I turned to my fan base. I made sure to put a request for reviews at the back of my book. I put a plea or two out on Facebook. I made sure to email everyone who wrote me on my sequel notification list (we'll get to that in a minute) and requested reviews. The upside was many responded and did so. The downside was some still ignored me.

The Result - Totally worth it because it require little energy or time. You may not get many reviews, but every little bit helps. The downside is you may feel a little bit like a pest, but you really have to get over that in today's business. 

7. Giveaways
I have tried two giveaways so far: one for signed copies of my book and one for a free amazon gift card. Both upped my twitter and facebook action and drew people to my blog. Both were pretty easy as I used Rafflecopter and that makes it exceedingly simple. The Amazon gift card raffle corresponded with the release of my new novelette in the hopes of drawing new people from Twitter to my site with the tag #free. Unfortunately there's about a million tweets a day with the tag #free. 

The Result - The blog traffic was nice, but each giveaway was expensive and only had about 30-50 entries a piece, most of which were already fans. I may try this again, but I hear the bigger the item, the more traffic you get. Maybe I'll try it with a fifty dollar gift card or a Kindle paper white. Spending that kind of money is risky, though. You may not get a return on your investment. 

6. Facebook Ads
Facebook offered me fifty dollars in free advertising a couple months back, and I am a sucker for free. At first I tried a straight-forward ad, something like "Katie French's book The Breeders, a Young Adult Dystopian yada yada yada." Nothing happened. No one clicked on it. The money just sat there. So I decided I'd try to be funny (not easy, but I have been known to make people laugh from time to time). I created this ad. "Nine of out ten dentists agree that liking my Author page helps fight gingivitis." Then I sent that puppy out. The amazing thing was people clicked on it. A LOT. I got about one hundred new likes with that fifty dollars.  Now the question is, how did that relate to sales? That's the hard part; I'm not sure. No one can say that any of those people have bought my title. But, the good news is, they hear from me a lot and the more they hear, the more likely they are to buy. 

The Result - I liked this strategy so much I'm trying it again. Funny ad is a must. If you can't be funny, I don't think it is worth it. 


Okay so there you have it. Tune in on Friday for the next five marketing strategies that are a must in self-promotion. So, what works for you? Leave your comments below. 

Book Marketing Part Two
Book Marketing Part Three
Book Marketing Part Four

It's finally here, the release of Nessa: A Breeders Story. I'm so excited for her story to be told and to hear what you think. And it's only 99 cents. To celebrate I'm offering a free Amazon gift card to one lucky winner. Enter below and please pick up your copy Nessa: A Breeders Story today. 

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What's hotter than Alabama quarter back AJ McCarron's girlfriend? Winning a free signed copy The Breeders. Okay, maybe not, but I have to hope that some day these puppies will be worth something. Just think if you were currently in the possession of a first edition signed copy of Stephen King's IT or No Country for Old Men. Am I comparing myself to those great writers? Nah. Do I have hopes? Heck yes, I do. Enter to win below.