Thursday + Gregory Huffstutter = The Ad Man Answers
Today, we bring you Part 2 of our conversation with Ray Rhamey, author of the writing guide: "Flogging the Quill, Crafting a Novel that Sells.” For Part 1 of our chat, click here.
And if you’re an aspiring writer, be sure to check out the Flogometer Challenge. If you’ve got the cajones to subject your novel’s opening 16 lines to Ray’s sharp pen, you too can dare him to turn to page 2.
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So, Ray, did your publisher-partner (Atlas) provide a budget towards advertising?
No. AtlasBooks is primarily a distributor and printer, and is my route for being available in bookstores and at the big Internet sellers such as Amazon. They do have a sales force, and the hope is that they will spread the word. All promotion I do is on my own. I also paid to print the books through them because, as I said, they’re a distributor and printer.
If $100,000 fell out of the sky for a book marketing budget, how would you spend it?
I think the most productive use would be an ad campaign in the writing magazines (and their websites) that reach my target, i.e. Writer’s Digest, The Writer, and Poets and Writers. If I could think of a suitable video trailer for a nonfiction book on writing, I might gamble on that. There is a benefit in having such a tight target audience. Another audience to target would be librarians.
You've solicited word-of-mouth advertising, and joined social networks like Twitter... have you been able to get any traction with these viral advertising vehicles?
Not so much... yet. Let me qualify that — my campaign to generate reviews for my book on Amazon was successful (gave away free e-books), and that should eventually generate sales. I find tweeting hard to do. I have no interest in sending out what I’m doing for lunch, and want to tweet things that can contribute to my audience. But I haven’t yet figured out how to do that in 140 characters on a daily basis. Also, it’s new to my routine, which includes a day job, so I often forget about it.
As a former creative director, which authors do you admire for their marketing campaigns?
I’ll be honest, no author’s campaign, other than James Patterson, comes to mind. His stuff is adequate TV commercials backed by big bucks, something out of the reach of most authors.
There's an evil rumor circulating the Internet that you're responsible for a first-person novel written from the POV of a vampire kitty. True? If so, what motivated you to take on both the blood-sucker and cat-cozy subcultures at the same time?
True. The motivation (and inspiration) came from a thought exercise. I got to wondering if there were any fresh twists possible in the vampire genre, and had pretty much decided that there weren’t. Then, a couple of days later, the idea of a vampire kitty-cat popped into my mind. Shortly after that, I started hearing my character’s voice in my head, telling his story.
I’m planning a multi-pronged launch of the story, The Vampire Kitty-cat Chronicles.
I’ve had agents love the writing, but none have figured out how to sell it yet. So I’m looking at creating a podcast series of chapters to offer for free, plus an audiobook to offer for sale, an e-book to market (I’m thinking of using Smashwords), and a POD version distributed by Lighting Source. Watch for it in a few months.
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Thanks, Ray! I’ll never pet another kitty-cat again... unless I’m holding a crucifix.
Stay tuned for our next Ad Man column, when we chat with Chris Grabenstein, award-winning author of the John Ceepak series.
Gregory Huffstutter has been punching Ad Agency timecards for the past dozen years, working on accounts like McDonald's, KIA Motors, Suzuki Automotive, and the San Diego Padres. His first mystery, KATZ CRADLE is on submission while he's working on the sequel. The first 100 pages of his novel are linked here. For general advertising questions, leave a comment or send e-mail to katz @ gregoryhuffstutter dot com with 'Ask The Ad Man' in the subject line.
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