Ask the Publisher: Getting Started
Hello, everyone. Happy Monday!
As publisher of Common Deer Press, I receive a lot of questions from authors and authors-in-waiting (that’s everyone who does not yet have a book released). Most of these revolve around marketing and publicity and there are many questions, misconceptions and beliefs in common. From the macro "I don’t even know where to start," or "when I think of book marketing I get overwhelmed and panic," to the micro "can you tell me how to organize my book launch?" Many concern other worries like "book marketing is expensive⎯how can I make sure I’m not just wasting my money" or "I don’t know anything about marketing" (you do, you just don’t realize it yet⎯more about this in a future post).
I also receive questions around financial matters (record keeping, tax forms etc.), the editing process, production and design (illustrations are a big one here).
Since you have the questions and I love to research and teach (plus I have a crack team who can help me out when I hit an area that is not in my areas of expertise) writing an Ask the Publisher blog for us to have an ongoing conversation about these and other issues seems a useful idea.
It will work as follows: Mondays will be a longer single-topic post and, wherever possible, I will include additional resources.
Thursday’s post will be more of a Q&A. In the absence of any questions, another regular blog post will go up. Questions are welcome in the comments below. If anyone is uncomfortable posting publicly, you can shoot your questions to me directly at kirsten@commondeerpress.com It’s likely your question will be of interest to all of our readers but it will be posted in the Q&A as "Name Withheld on Request" or something snappy like that.
In the absence of any burning questions this week, Thursday’s post will be, "The author, book marketing & the white-noise of panic."
Onward!
Kirsten Marion Publisher, Common Deer Press.
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