{"id":7439,"date":"2012-04-02T19:00:07","date_gmt":"2012-04-02T13:30:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bookbuzzr.com\/blog\/?p=7439"},"modified":"2014-12-23T16:02:31","modified_gmt":"2014-12-23T10:32:31","slug":"experiences-of-a-publishing-virgin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bookbuzzr.com\/blog\/experiences-of-a-publishing-virgin\/","title":{"rendered":"Experiences of a Publishing Virgin"},"content":{"rendered":"

Guest Expert: Karlene Blakemore-Mowle<\/a><\/p>\n

My dream was always to write a book and have it accepted by a publisher. After many years of rejections and the constant learning curve that just didn\u2019t seem to end! my dream finally came true, eleven years after completing my first book.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m not sure if I\u2019m on my own here or not, but after years of fighting just to get my manuscript passed by an editor\u2014I never even thought about what happened next! It came as a huge shock to me that I would be largely responsible for promoting and selling my own book\u2026this is not<\/strong><\/em> what you see in the movies or think about when you see your favourite bestselling author\u2026hello! But, unfortunately the reality is, just because you get your book published does not mean you can just hand it over and merrily go about writing your next book! It was another steep learning curve\u2014one that I\u2019m still trying to figure out.<\/p>\n

I started publishing my romantic suspense line of books with a small American publisher and this was where I had to learn\u2014sink or swim style. I needed a blog\u2014Google \u2018how to<\/em>\u2019 pages became my new best friend! I needed to make social media contacts, a web page, do interviews, write guest blogs and generally take on a whole new career!<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve found social media like Facebook and Twitter invaluable for getting my name and books out into the big wide world. I would have always wondered about the power of social media until I received feedback from numerous people contacting me through twitter when they\u2019ve noticed my book in a shopping centre or in a newspaper review and recognised it only because of the cover I use as my profile picture. To me, this is the only proof I need to see that social media is vital in promoting both you and your book. Those people may never have noticed my book had they not seen my presence on twitter and Facebook.<\/p>\n

My other piece of Holy Grail for promotion is a book I stumbled upon called, \u2018Wannabe a writer we\u2019ve heard of?\u2019<\/a> This is written by Jane Wenham-Jones and has been an invaluable tool for me. Seriously\u2014you need to go out and get this book, it covers everything a wannabe like me ever needed!<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve also had to undertake a lot of other \u2018out of my comfort zone<\/em>\u2019 experiences. I\u2019ve set up stalls at local markets and annual events to sell my book and get my name out there. Both of these things do sell books, although you have to outlay the cash to buy in copies of your book in the first place. However I\u2019ve found that by placing a buy button<\/em> on my website, what I don\u2019t sell at the markets I can sell online. This has the added bonus of readers being able to purchase a signed copy and many people like this aspect.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve also done book launches and book signings in book shops. While the later doesn\u2019t sell many copies on the day\u2014I think it\u2019s great for getting your name recognised, hopefully not because people recall that pathetically hopeful looking woman sitting behind a table<\/em>\u2014but hey, as long as they remember the book or a name I\u2019m happy!<\/p>\n

As I\u2019ve already mentioned\u2014I\u2019m still learning how to do this weird thing we call promotion and marketing and learning more each day. Adding informative contacts like BookBuzzr is also a good idea\u2014you can pick up some handy tips and tricks and trust me\u2014if you\u2019re new to this as I am\u2014you need all the help you can get! You can find me on facebook here- http:\/\/www.facebook.com\/karlybm<\/a> and twitter here- @karlylane<\/a> and the blog for my romantic suspense titles here- http:\/\/karlenebm.blogspot.com.au\/<\/a><\/p>\n

\n

\"\"<\/a>Karlene writes romantic suspense for two American publishers, under the name of Karlene Blakemore-Mowle and has three titles released this year.She lives on the beautiful Mid North Coast of New South Wales with her husband, four children and variety of animals.Karlene also has an ongoing rivalry with her alter ego Karly Lane who writes rural fiction for Allen & Unwin, Australia.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Guest Expert: Karlene Blakemore-Mowle My dream was always to write a book and have it accepted by a publisher. After many years of rejections and the constant learning curve that just didn\u2019t seem to end! my dream finally came true, eleven years after completing my first book. I\u2019m not sure if I\u2019m on my own […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":7500,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[17,3,20,657,658,58],"class_list":["post-7439","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-book-marketing","tag-author-promotion","tag-book-marketing","tag-facebook","tag-jane-wenham-jones","tag-karlene-blakemore-mowle","tag-twitter"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookbuzzr.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7439","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookbuzzr.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookbuzzr.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookbuzzr.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookbuzzr.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7439"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bookbuzzr.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7439\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookbuzzr.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7500"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookbuzzr.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7439"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookbuzzr.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7439"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookbuzzr.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7439"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}