Marketing Fiction

I run into people all the time who want to write a novel, kind of like this recent Doonesbury cartoon…

Doonesbury by Garry Trudeau

The ironic thing is that the vast majority of books published every year are non-fiction. The difference is so stark, that 95% of all income made in the publishing industry is derived from non-fiction books. The reason? Non-fiction books are much easier to market and to parlay into other income. Non-fiction authors can hold seminars on their topic, create ancillary products, do consulting, plus a whole lot more.  It’s hard to adapt fiction to other products other than maybe cinema, and your novel doesn’t likely need any marketing help by that point!

So what’s a budding fiction writer to do?  Recently, Michael Hyatt shared three keys to marketing fiction that I’ve been thinking about:

1. Identity: Definition, Message, and Consistency.  Authors need to focus on a genre and be able to concisely explain what their angle is. I think I’m doing that with my tag line of “a passion for telling imaginative stories resonating with universal truths”.
2. Assets: Access, Connection, and Baselines. This is about how authors connect with their readers. I do this via my blog, facebook, and so on. He goes on to talk about creating as vivid a world online as authors do in their books. I’m not sure I’m doing that.  Yet.
3. Community: Engagement, Development, and Consistency.  This is about how authors champion their offerings to the world and how well and consistently they do it. I feel like I need to step it up a little in this regard.

If I could ask your help, would you please take a look at Hyatt’s post and then give me some feedback on what I could do to take my marketing up a notch? You can respond via email at EDC@EdwardDCasey.com or by commenting on this post.

Thanks! EDC