Guest post by best selling author Laurence O'Bryan - Marketing for writers

I am delighted to showcase a guest blog from the best selling author Laurence O'Bryan for:

 

Operation Author - 

365 Actions to Succeed as an Author

Some of my actions this week have been to follow up my shout out for guest blogs and to share the work of fellow writers.

I write in the same genre as Laurence and am a big fan of his work, so I feel really privileged that he agreed to do this post for me on marketing for writers - Hand Selling Books with Social Media.  

Enjoy...

Hand Selling Books with Social Media

by Laurence O'Bryan #1 Best Selling Author on Amazon, translated into 10 languages.

Have you noticed how fast the publishing industry is changing? The signs, lower advances, the rise of independent publishing (please don't call it self publishing) and the pressure on all authors to promote themselves are just some of the signs of seismic change the industry is experiencing.

This is also a new age of hand selling books online. 

I have heard it said that one of the main benefits of a good bookstore is that you can have good books recommended to you. You can also meet authors when they come to the shop to sign their books.

But social media allows me to meet and greet individual buyers and answer their questions too, at a lower cost than running a bookstore. I get about 1000 hits a day between my social media for writers site and my book site  http://www.lpobryan.com. That is mainly because I have 200,000 followers on my social media accounts.

It's taken me three years to build up that total, but I am determined to use the resource to sell books, and not just my own either.

The main benefits of hand selling online are, in my opinion:

• That you can meet people from all over the world and communicate with them individually. Google Translate means you can even talk to people in languages you don't understand.

• You can engage long term with readers, answering different questions over time and building up relationships.

• You can keep a track of people’s names or identities so you can tell them when your new book comes out or a book from someone you recommend.

• You don’t have to waste time and money travelling around and you won’t get wet if it’s raining.

The downsides are:

• You mightn’t make make strong connections with people, as you don’t get to meet people personally. However I believe it takes more than one physical meeting to make friends with people. How well do book shop owners know most of their customers anyway? Multiple meetings and shared interests are just the start. Long term social media friendships can be as meaningful as relationships with people you meet in a retail environment.

• You don’t get to see people smile. But sometimes people will be more honest with you online, which sort of makes up for this.

And that’s it. There are downsides, for sure, but the upsides, the ability to sell 24/7 x 365 days of the year, with limited cost, are too great to ignore this way of selling books.

So, here’s your challenge.

Can you tell me your experience of hand selling books with social media? Is it better or worse to get a recommendation online? What do you think about the way book selling is going?

Laurence O'Bryan is the author of three mystery noevels published by Harper Collins and is available in 11 languages. His latest title, The Manhattan Puzzle will be in US book stores August 26 2014.

He sells his own books and recommends other writer's novels at his site BooksGoSocial.com. Come along and look at what's available. 

 
 The Istanbul Puzzle





The Jerusalem Puzzle

The Manhattan Puzzle

If you like Laurence's books, you should like this:

The Bronze Box, by Amy C Fitzjohn

 

Archived Inspiration

Before I wrote and published The Bronze Box (http://amzn.to/18C5gub) I wrote three books in a series I called The Chronicles of The Colony. Fantasy adventure stories set in the fictional world of The Colony.

I needed to write these books so that I could learn how to write books.

They are now archived away in a gloomy and dusty corner of my hard drive.

The first book, Running Free, evolved from a story that I started forming back when I was a teenager and it wasn't until a few years ago that I finally got around to writing it.

So here goes, here is an unreleased chapter from an unpublished book (what do you think?): 

 

My dear friend Hero,

        An absent friend is no less dear. 

I beseech you, go.  Return to The Kingdom for our enemy comes for us.

I have been in league with Houdini, and he warns me that Tornty intends to come for us, both of us. 

She wishes to deal for us - Our lives, for Scarroh’s.

Protect your family, protect yourself.  But for the love of Mother Earth do not let Tornty’s forces capture you, for it will only end in pain and humiliation. 

Carlton and Rascal will never give up the traitor Scarroh, even for us.  This is my only warning. 

I love you brother, flee, go now while there is time and may we be reunited in the home we love so dearly and fight side by side to defend it.

     Your loyal friend

        Myrchen

Hero

“Go, please.  Never look back.”

“No.  Please Hero no,” she pleaded, clutching to me desperately, falling to her knees as she begged me not to do it.

“You must!”  I insisted, though it broke my heart.

“Could we not come with you?  Surely we can find a home in Turnbaer.”

“It’s not safe.  For even now I hear rumours of the new King expelling all Bale-Orreans and Kharr-Attens.  It’s not safe for you,” I said, allowing the terror in my heart to embellish my words.  I asked so little of her, in all our years together, but this, needed her to do.

“But you serve the Kings brother, surely he would help us find sanctuary?  Please Hero, no.  Don’t do this to us.”

Angered now I shook her away from me.  Why could she not understand it?

“I must go!  It is my sworn duty.  I must fight with my kin,” feeling the burn of my honour and loyalty scorching my soul.  This was the hardest thing I would ever face and she was making it harder.  I wanted to shake her, I wanted to wail and cry, anything to convince her of the danger we were facing.

She was angry now, I could see the pulse of it in her eyes, as if her heart had surged into flame - she shouted her defiance.

“Duty?”  I’d never seen her beautiful face so twisted with wrath, “You speak of duty!  What about your duty to your family?”

“Rascal is my family.  Turnbaer is my home?”

“And me?  Your Children?  What are we?  Are we nothing to you?  Damn you Hero and your foolish pride!”  she spat the tirade.  Her fear, her desperation, her love for me, a noxious concoction that boiled and frothed in malice.  I know her well enough to realise that she felt betrayed by me.  I was killing her, but it was the only way I could save her precious life.

“Enough Martha!” I raised my hand to her, she cowered back, afraid I may strike her.  In my life I had never been so close to doing it.  Yet it was not her I wished to hurt for tearing this family to shreds.  She was not my enemy.

I softened, soothed my tone and stilled my fervour.

“Understand me.  Please,”  now it was I that begged.  I reached for her, but she backed away.

“I won’t hurt you!”  I was wounded that she may think me capable of hitting her in anger.

“You already have!”

She turned her back to me, and gazed out of the window into the flowing rains.  They pattered on the glass relentlessly, drumming out their misery, darkening our once happy home.

“Martha I…”  I walked to her, raised my hands to hold her and hesitated.

“You need to go,” I repeated.  “Go anywhere, you know where I keep the cash.  Take it, take it all, but just go.  Take the children and save yourselves.  I beg you.  Darling, please.”

“You cannot buy my submission with cash,” she responded defiantly.

“That’s not what I’m doing and you know it!”

She continued to face away from me.  My heart was tearing itself apart.  She must know that this was the last thing I could ever want?  To leave her and young daughters? 

If only the girls were here, but they were at Martha’s mothers house.  I wouldn’t have time to go and say goodbye, I would have to find another way to tell them how much their father loved them.  And I would pray to Mother Earth that I would see them again.

Martha was closing herself off now.  Refusing to argue any more and refusing to obey me. 

A crash of thunder, and seconds later a spear of lighting lit up her silhouette with a silver shimmer.  I saw her shuddering with sorrow.  Knowing she was silently sobbing, but unable to soothe her.  For the agony was too much to bear.  I longed to pull her into my arms and stay with her, to do my duty as a father and husband to protect her, but there was no escaping the fact that I was the biggest threat to them.  A wanted man who our enemies would never stop searching for.  I couldn’t risk Martha and the girls falling in the firing line.  Why did she not understand this? 

“I must go,” I sighed, grabbing my knapsack and dragging it wearily onto my shoulder, “Take only what you can carry and take the girls far away from here.  Promise me!” 

She nodded solemnly but still refused to look at me.

“Goodbye Martha,” I began to leave the room.  As I reached the door I paused, I glanced back at her perfect outline, shadowed against the window.

“I love you.” 

I turned, and left.

The rain was thankfully easing off as I stepped into the sneering night.  It dappled my hat, and I pulled the collar of my coat up and hunched my neck into it, trudging wretchedly down the path.

“Wait!”

I stopped and turned to see her chasing me down the path, the mud spattered up her skirt as she plunged towards me.

I let my knapsack slide down my arm and splat into the mud, and met her with my arms as she leapt into them.

She wrapped her arms around my neck and kissed me over and over on the cheeks. 

“I can’t bare to part on sour words,” she sobbed.

I clutched her tightly to me, folding her into my heart.  Nuzzling my face into her sweet neck, fragrant with her familiar scent.

“Promise me something Hero.”

“Anything.”

She tilted her head away and looked me hard in the eyes,

“You’ll be careful?  Come back to us.”

“I promise you.  I will do all I can.”

“I love you.” 

And with that, she squashed her lips into mine passionately and we enjoyed that final kiss goodbye.