Paying Attention...

Keeping your feet in a squall on the deck of a small boat Like everything in this life, the rules of marketing and design change almost daily. They change so much that just remaining in the middle is similar to the motion of a small boat in a storm. You just never know which way the floor under your feet is going to slide. In that situation, you remember to pay attention to what is happening right around you, and what is coming. It means that for those of us trying to market a product in this age of instant communication through a myriad of devices, focus is the key. You can't expect yourself to keep track of the complete picture, so hanging onto your focus of the smaller slice of things is as good as it gets.

But through it all, you learn the rhythm of the waves as they roll beneath. The key is to be able to shift your stance when a different stance will work better and not to get all locked up with only one way of presenting your books. I had the experience recently when a client found a new, focused online group that reflected the current state of the deck in his specific genre. As a result, he opted to revise series covers that had been established for a couple of years, so that they would more closely follow what the readers in that genre expected to see.

Of course, that also meant changes to the presentation images used in online advertising and blog postings, etc. This is an adventure we've ventured into that we'll never learn everything we need to in every situation. We can pay attention, though, and learn what we need to learn to create solutions that will work until new ones will be needed. Join in-genre, online writing groups, especially if they have a lot of Indie Authors as members. Pick their brains. Find out what worked and if it still does, find out why. Same for what doesn't work. Share your own experiences. Join Reader groups online as well, but there, keep your writer credentials to yourself. Generally reader groups resent being marketed to, even if you're not doing that intentionally. Over the years, I've also learned what troll-gardens many of these are, so keep a lower profile. Funny thing is that if books weren't marketed, readers would never find out about them, but that's a different discussion.

Styles of cover illustration, the kinds of subjects presented on a cover, the typography styles, fonts, all change frequently; but generally, the best selling titles stay within a visual range. The boundaries of that range are very important to recognize. IT helps to think of it like a compass course. You steer your boat along a course to reach a destination, but there are always things that come up forcing side trips, short corrections, etc. Same thing with marketing. For most of us, the main thing is to do the best we can do with the budget we've got to stick to. Doing each and everything that pops up in your email in-box, once you're known to be an Indie Author, won't just spend your money for you. It will also spin your wheels until the exact right combination is struck. Paying attention to what's happening in your genre and among other writers whose books would be attractive to the same readers yours would will keep the wheel spinning and pocket emptying to a minimum.

The most effective graphics put to work in a book cover may be a wonderful marketing tool, but unless it is directed into a carefully conceived plan and given the right exposure, it won't matter much. Targeting the biggest potential reader market you can might seem exciting, but the reality is that a narrowly targeted plan usually produces better returns on the investment. Readers are fickle. They need to be persuaded, then reminded more than once. Easy communications means there is a LOT of marketing out there going on constantly. Taking the time to really get to know your EXACT reader's interests and attitudes can pay off, since their time is divided into minuscule pieces and their retention of what they've been exposed to can be pretty poor. To get to know them, do searches on book groups that read books you think are similar enough to yours that their opinions matter. Find out what else they connect with then mold it all into a recognizable plan. It takes time. Of course, if you have any media recognized celebrity, or are connected with someone who does, or have an unlimited budget, then by all means move forward along those lines. But always pay attention.