The HEA Cafe

Archive for the ‘Promotion’ Category

I have three books published in German.  You can see them at Amazon.de, and you can also see the covers at my website.  I was very happy when I saw the covers for Samt & Sabel (Sword and Velvet, aka Captain Sinister’s Lady) and Rache & Rosen (Revenge and Roses, aka Pirate’s Price) because they were so…tasteful.  Swords and flowing fabric and coins and daggers.  Even the titles were euphonious!

Then I got the cover for Im Aufruhr der Gefuhle. At first, I thought it was a mistake.  I used Google translation on the page and it said the title translated to “In the Turmoil of Emotions”.  It started out in life as “Smuggler’s Bride”.  I had a blank moment as I stared at the page.  What happened to my tasteful covers? Why was Julia falling out of her bodice? And most puzzling of all, why was there a killer pink flamingo looming in the background over Julia and Rand?

I contacted my editor in Germany at Random House.  She hemmed and hawed a bit via email, but then she said the first books weren’t selling as well as they’d hoped.  Apparently, with those oh-so-tasteful covers, no one knew they were romance novels.

At first, I wasn’t happy about this change in covers.  But as I stared at the busty babe and the half-naked dude, I began to smile.  Yes, my book is full of turmoiled emotions and passion.  Yes, there are definitely scenes where he’s bare chested and her bodice isn’t fully fastened.  And while there’s not a pink flamingo in this Florida set romance, there are lots of possums.  And I acknowledge it’s hard to get possums to equal passion.

So if this “old school” cover leaps out at my German readers and screams, “I’m a historical romance! Buy me!” then I’m all for it. I’m in the business of writing books.  I want to sell as many of my books as possible, and I want to make it as easy as I can for the reader to get her hands on my publications.  I still like my tasteful books, but if In the Turmoil of Emotions replenishes my 401K, then I guarantee I’ll be smiling all the way to the bank.

Hopefully, I am not going to upset anyone celebrating Thanksgiving — Canada celebrated their in October, probably because our winter comes earlier than yours.  Anyway, yesterday I went shopping for the ingredients for my Christmas Pudding. Yep, to me the Christmas season always starts when I make Christmas pudding.  Stir up Sunday, the day for making Christmas puddings is the last Sunday before Advent, though I may get mine done a bit earlier.

In our family, everyone must stir the pudding before it is cooked, so I have to time it around when I know everyone will be available. And this is what makes it one of life’s simple pleasures, remembering stir up Sundays with my mum, when she remembered the same thing with her mum.
So what does this have to do with my title.  Well, while I was shopping for the stuff, it made me think how wonderful it is still to be part of a tradition that has been going on for so long, just like the American Thanksgiving. And since I write Regency historicals it is kind of nice to know that I am still doing something the same as my characters experienced.
I do wish you all the happiest of Thanksgivings with your families and friends.

And since this is a writers blog, I should mention that The Lady Flees Her Lord, should now be in a store near you.  Seeing your own book in a store is another of life’s pleasures (but not quite to simple).

Nope, nothing about being sick. Nothing about upholstery. This month my topic is book covers and, in my case, the re-issuance of my backlist with new cover art. Cover art specifically designed for romance readers.

I write science fiction romance and initially Bantam shelved me in science fiction. That meant–to their art department–that my covers required someone with a weapon and some kind of spaceship or space station in the background on my covers. When Bantam decided to move me over to the romance aisles, they felt new cover art–”rebranding” is what they called it–was required.

They felt they needed to acheive and/or address three things:

1) The covers had to have a clear image of romance

2) The covers had to have a clear image of science fiction

3) The covers had to be uniform in appearance so as to create a “Linnea Sinclair” brand.

This turned out to be far more difficult than we thought. For one thing, the art department’s idea of romance trended toward erotica (headless women in plunging leather bustiers, fishnet stockings and spike heels being caressed by headless men with naked torsos and very tight pants). I don’t write erotica and my agent and I both held firm in our stand that to put something of that level of enticement on my covers when it’s not also between the pages would inevitably create reader-disconnect. Not to mention reader-annoyance.

No one in any of my books wears spike heels or leather bustiers (I write mostly military settings–those kinds of outfits would be beyond ludicrous on a starship.)

We settled on disembodied heads (all those headless covers create a plethora of leftover heads, I’m guessing) usually against some kind of starfield or planet with a possible spaceship or three thrown in.

For the most part, I think they came out pretty dang good.

As for the branding part, they did two things: they put my name in large font and they used a monochromatic color scheme. (I’m a little concerned we will eventually run out of colors, especially when they tried to hit me up with hot pink for my February 2009 release, Hope’s Folly. I do not write hot pink. Do. Not.)

While I think the colors and font certainly create a brand, I’m also concerned it may create the feel of “series” where not all the books are. Gabriel’s Ghost and Shades of Dark are books #1 and #2 in the Dock Five universe. Hope’s Folly is book #3 but can stand alone. The rest are all stand alones but I fear that is something that may cause confusion.

Not that there’s much I can do about it. And they are eye-catching, which is a huge plus.

You can check them out here in a short promo video or browse them below. (It appears this version of WordPress doesn’t permit video embedding… or I’d have done so.)

 

The re-branded books were supposed to hit the shelves in August but in reality are just now being unpacked at most bookstores and making it to the shelves. So in your wanderings, should you see them, do drop me a note and let me know your opinions. You should be able to find them not only in romance but in end-caps in Borders and B&N.

~Linnea

www.linneasinclair.com

//interstellar adventure infused with romance//

Historicals are my passion. If there’s any one thing that I love the best about romance, it’s a great historical. Some of my favorites include A Kingdom of Dreams by Judith McNaught, Lord Scandalous by Loretta Chase, Whitney My Love by McNaught and the list goes on. One of the things I love the most about historicals is their magical quality. As I’m flying across the country this week, I’ll be revising my latest historical romance in preparation for submission to houses. The resurgence in publisher interest in historical romance is really wonderful for me as I love bringing stories like Mirage and Dangerous to readers.

For me, historicals are magical, I mean I know they’re fantasies, but that’s what I love about them. They transport me to another place and time where chivalry and honor are romantic, despite the realities of the time period. And I’m sorry, but tight buckskins covering hard thighs, a white shirt opened to reveal just a hint of a well-muscled chest—well, for me there’s nothing more seductive!

With the RWA convention in San Francisco this week, there will be a number of big name historical authors who will be present. If you’re familiar with Michelle Buonfiglio’s Romance by the Book blog, you know that she’s a huge romance fiction advocate. This Friday at the convention, she’s doing a radio show with several of Avon Books top name historical authors like Sophie Jordan, Lorraine Heath and Elizabeth Boyle and others.

Michelle’s Radio Show is set for Friday, August 1, 3:30 pm PDT If you’re on the East Cost, you can catch the show after work because we’re three hours AHEAD of folks in San Francisco (6:30 pm EDT). Click here link directly to the radio show where they’ve got this COOL reminder feature that you can set so you get an email prompt! Means you won’t forget. How sweet is that?

So dial in and ask some questions about historicals!! Besides, think about how cool it will be to be on Internet radio!

Contests are a catch-22 a lot of times, there are a number of reasons for doing them and a number of reasons for not doing them. If you’re a new author just starting out, a contest might be a way for you to develop an email list of readers for future marketing efforts. If you’re an established author it might be your way of simply thanking the targeted readership who you can be reasonably certain are your fan base.

I’ve learned to moderate my contests in the sense of WHO I market them too. I target my audience. I run about four contests a year. They’re generally under $50 and sometimes less than that. I always do a contest when I have a new book coming out. Entry generally opens a month or two prior to the release. The type of release determines the level of the prize. If it’s an eBook going into print later, then I’m more likely to start out with a medium prize; then for the print book, I do a larger one. I always do the drawing a month or two AFTER the release. This allows me to stretch out the contest, while maintaining interest in the book AND saving me some money.

My larger more expensive prizes are saved for special events like a large romance-oriented book signing, events like RT, RWA, auctions, Brenda Novak’s Auction (Six hours to go on my item) and other sponsored contests. When I do give a prize away I make them as memorable as possible. Since I buy things in bulk, I get really nice things for less money. The one thing I’ve learned in marketing is that you must spend money to make money. If finances are tight, limit your contests and spend the bulk of your budget on print advertising and a constant presence on romance review sites. You’ll get more bang for your buck.

Eye On The Target

I’m at the point in my career where I don’t advertise my contests except by loading up a new contest on my website or announcing it in my newsletter. I’ve a solid readership on my newsletter loop, so the word gets out. I also want people who win my prize to be readers who actually take the time to visit my website off ads that I place. Readers who are actually interested in my work. Readers who might actually buy my books.

However, if you’re a new author and you decide to do a contest, you’ll need to announce your contest. The question is WHERE? Well, you should think about your target audience. Who do you want to reach? Sure you want to reach readers, but think about the subgenre your book is in. Those are the readers you need to target, so you have to figure out where they are and then go announce your contest.

Suppose you’ve written a historical, there are a number of websites that have a strong historical romance reader base, places like AAR, Historical Romance Community hosted by Romance Design, Yahoo historical romance reader groups. It’s one practical way to drive traffic to your website and hopefully the readers will stop to smell the roses. It’s also a way to build an email marketing list because in order to enter they have to give you their email address.

I know a lot of authors promote their contests in author loops. That’s not a bad thing, but I know how busy I am writing my books, and I have to limit my reading time. So, my thinking is there are a lot of other authors in the same boat, and the ROI (return on investment) isn’t enough for me to promote that way as it is when I narrowly define my target audience.

Rule of Seven

There’s an old rule I learned in marketing class called the Rule of Seven. P.T. Barnum came up with it. He was the original developer of what branding really is all about. Barnum said it takes at least SEVEN (7) times for a consumer to see a name/product before they buy. The name/product doesn’t even register with the consumer at the first impression, the 2nd time they see the ad, but don’t bother to read it, 3rd time they’ll read, 4th they’ll look at the product a little more seriously, the 5th time the consumer might talk to someone about it, the 6th time they’re maybe thinking seriously about a purchase. The 7th time they’ll buy if they’ve gotten this far down the road, and not everyone gets this far because some things just don’t appeal to people. Example, I write erotic historicals primarily, most readers who read paranormal are not going to even think twice about reading my work. They just don’t have a taste for anything other than paranormal. The same holds true for most subgenres. It’s not a bad thing; it is what is — readers and personal preference.

I market my prizes to go alone with my brand. I write erotic romance, so I offer prizes that promote romantic moments between the reader and her spouse or significant other. I generally get emails (only three people in the past two years have failed to email their thanks) from my winners saying their anniversary, birthday, special occasion is coming up and the prize will make that even memorable. Some times they even email AFTER they’ve used the prize telling me what a wonderful, romantic evening they had (thankfully I don’t get details!).

The most important thing to remember about giving prizes away is WHY are you giving the prize away? What do you hope to gain? Are you doing it because everyone else is? Think about who your target audience is. Consider what you want to achieve with the contest. Then test one or two options until you hit upon the combination that works for you, because what I do won’t necessarily work for someone else. It’s a trial and error issue when it comes to ANY type of marketing.

Monica

Monica Burns – http://www.monicaburns.com
Dangerous — A pretty good read — Mrs. Giggles> | 4.5 Stars RT BOOKreviews
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