It's April, and that means my fellow indie author Terri Giuliano Long is sponsoring a little celebration of book bloggers. The celebration only lasts through today, which is why this week's post is a day earlier than usual.
Long-time readers of this blog may recall my post on this subject sometime last year. That is, you may recall it, and I certainly seem to recall writing it, but now I can't find it. Maybe I posted it at the Indie Exchange. Hmm.
Anyway, no harm, no foul. Let's talk about book bloggers, and why they are crucial to the indie author ecosystem.
Traditional publishing wisdom asserts that one of the benefits authors get from signing with a publisher is help with promotion and marketing. (It's not true, by the way, or it's not true of every trad-pubbed author; these days, only the mega-star authors get a marketing budget, and the rest have to bump along, doing their own promotional efforts, just like we indies do. Tell me again about the benefits of being trad-pubbed.... Sorry. Off-topic. Refocusing.)
Indie authors, however, don't even get that much (minimal) help. No, we are stuck with making our own noise. And besides personal appearances and chatting up all and sundry on social media, one of the best ways for us to get noticed is to be featured on someone's blog. The blogger's audience becomes our captive audience, and if we can manage to be charming or entertaining or both, we might sell some books. Those new readers, if we're very lucky, will become fans, and recommend our books to their friends, who may also become fans, and so on. Indie authors are on a slow but steady career trajectory, and a lot of our growth wouldn't happen if it weren't for bloggers featuring us or our books. My thanks must go here to the Cabin Goddess, who twice this year has let me visit with my characters in the Pipe Woman Chronicles in her Fourth-Wall Friday feature; and to Allison Bruning, whose virtual cruise stopped at both Naomi's condo and Swan Island last fall.
Many bloggers also review books, and their reviews can boost an author's visibility. I am particularly grateful this year to my friends at Big Al's Books and Pals, Leanne Herrera, and Love of the Goddess for giving the Pipe Woman Chronicles such glowing reviews.
I'm sure I'm leaving some folks out, and for that, I apologize. Dear blogger buddies, even if I didn't mention you by name, know that I am grateful for your help and support this year. Thanks to all of you -- you rock!
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This week's news is mostly Camp NaNoWriMo-related. The first draft of Annealed is proceeding apace; as of this writing, I am at 20,170 words of my 40,000-word camp goal, and 30,251 words for the whole book. The first drafts for each preceding Pipe Woman Chronicles book have clocked in at somewhere around 52,000 words, so I'm comfortably past the halfway point.
No, I'm not going to tell you what's happening in the book right now. Nice try, though.
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This moment of bloggy gratitude is brought to you, as a public service, by Lynne Cantwell.
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