Previously, I mentioned the success of my latest release, and how I may have recognized some factors that moved the needle, as it were.
The success is noticeable — markedly so. While I already mentioned I can’t say exact numbers due to contract obligations, there are outside indicators that I can point to, that anyone could look at.
I can also discuss the factors that made a difference that I contributed to.
Keep in mind: I’m not a scientist or a statistician. This is going to be the least scientific study in the history of studies, I’m afraid! But I’ve been in the business enough to at least have some theories, ones I’m hoping to test. Ones I’m happy to share, with the hope that you’ll be able to use them to your advantage.
With that in mind, let’s dive in.
The moment something changed.
My latest book, ROLE PLAYING, is a rom com published by Montlake Romance. This is an imprint of Amazon’s publishing arm. As such, it was always going to have some advantages. I was fortunate enough to be placed in the Amazon First Reads program, which allows Prime readers to get free Kindle copies, and for others to purchase early Kindle copies at a discount. Obviously, from an exposure standpoint, this will drive more reviews, which will goose the algorithm. (While I will not discuss Amazon’s marketing measures, I can promise that, even for in house authors, they don’t put their thumb on the scale when it comes to the algorithm.)
The thing is: I had previously been in this position.
My first book with Montlake was the beginning of a trilogy. Same word count. Same genre, rom com. Even launched with an Amazon First Reads.
It was as close as a replicable lab experiment as I was going to get.
But something had changed… and it wasn’t my previous titles building up to it. (Especially as many of the good reviews said “how I have I not heard of her?” which, while gratifying, was also unsettling!)
The performance of ROLE PLAYING in its first two months easily outperformed that first book by nearly 400%.
I got as many reviews for ROLE PLAYING in its first two months as that first book has received in nearly two years.
The Goodreads “Want to read” number has already blown past that first book — again, two months vs. two years.
It’s a success, in other words. One I am thrilled with and grateful for.
That said, I can’t help but question: why? What happened to make that difference?
The trifecta: luck, timing, and work.
My theory: a few different things worked together to push ROLE PLAYING onto a higher level.
First: luck… but a specific kind of luck. The luck I was ready for, that I’d prepared for.
Next, timing. Not just when the book released, but when I tackled promotion. Also the timing in the market, (which falls a bit in luck, but we’ll discuss that in a second.)
Finally, the work itself. Starting with the writing, the choice of project. Then the marketing.
Every decision lead to a perfect storm where luck could be leveraged with effort.
Luck.
As I mentioned in a previous newsletter, you can’t create luck, but you can prepare for it. And you’ll find the more you prepare, the luckier you get.
This was the case for ROLE PLAYING.
After a bad case of burnout between contracts, I decided to write the book I’d conceived in a pandemic-induced dream. It was the antithesis of everything I’d been “trained” to write in the trenches of Harlequin, when I started. It was still a romance, still everything I loved about the genre… but it was also gloriously weird. Older protagonists. LGBTQA+ representation (and a surprise, at that.) Atypical small town representation — no Hallmark cuteness here.
I turned in the manuscript with nervous, hysterical giggling, wondering if this was the book that finally booted me out of this industry. (Traditionally, anyway!)
Instead, my editor adored it. More importantly: she got it.
Also, unbeknownst to me, I was about to hit the wave of interest in “later in life” or older protagonist romance just in time. There were signs: it was reported as a subgenre with both increased searches and severely under-cataloged offerings/ There was a plan for The Bachelor with older contestants. All signs pointed to older protagonists having a growing if still underground audience.
To cap it all off, the cover gods smiled on me. ROLE PLAYING is, without question, the most stunning cover I’ve ever received… and readers agreed with me.
But I’d also laid the foundation.
First: I’d developed trust with my editor. As “weird” as this story was, she knew the bare bones. She’d approved the older protagonists. She’d approved the general arc. I’d spent three books developing that relationship, improving my craft, and working with their team.
Second: it involved elements of my “brand” despite the unorthodox pieces. It’s heavily geeky, which tends to be my stock-in-trade. It’s still comedy, although most of it is banter, not in set pieces. (There are a few, but this is hardly “zany.”) Also my brand. Finally, it has diverse characters, which I have been able to write as the publishing world has grown more interested in those stories.
As to the cover: yes, I was lucky in how it turned out. But I’d begged to work with Leni Kauffman, the cover artist, because i knew how incredible she was… and what kind of a following she has with the romance community.
When luck showed up, I hit the ground running.
Timing.
Originally, the book was slated for an April release, but for a variety of reasons, it got pushed to July.
Considering I’d already started promoting it in October/November the previous year, this felt a tiny bit awkward, but proved to be a gift. Why?
Because I had more time.
With the long lead time, starting with the cover reveal (of, again, a frankly stunning cover) I was able to start generating buzz. Encouraging people to add ROLE PLAYING to their GoodReads “want to read” selections. Doing all the behind-the-scenes stuff that built up to the actual release date.
That lead time turned out to be crucial.
Work.
The bottom line for this was an enormous amount of work.
The book. In a lot of ways, this was an easier book to write, because I felt it. It was my weird, wonky, bananapants passion project. But because of that, I also pulled out the stops as far as craft. I knew I wanted it to be quiet and slow, burn, because of the characters and their journey yet still keep you up till 2:30 cursing me because you wanted to find out what happened.I have an enormous prewriting document and several versions of outlines. The work resulted in great reviews, several starred.
The package. By this, I mean that fantastic cover, but also the hook of the blurb. I was able to leverage the tropes that would attract a certain audience (for example, the female main character is grumpy, the male is a “cinnamon roll” — sweet, gentle, a foil to her.) I also had a very brief, punchy, one-paragraph hook. (See first graphic, below.)
The promotion. I had worked with publicists on previous books. Unfortunately, they had largely been an exercise in futility and wasted money, in my experience. (Your results may vary.)
I also knew that advertising would never make financial sense for a traditionally published book, because no matter how effective it was, you’d never make it back. (Well, maybe in sell-through, but generally speaking, not even then.) If you’re indie, the math may be different here.
To start, I reached out to a number of big name authors that I knew fit my audience. I asked them for blurbs recommending my book. I went way outside my comfort zone, wondering at my own audacity. The majority didn’t answer, or turned me down. Some agreed but did not provide anything. But to my shock, I actually got several fantastic ones. This not only gave me “cred” with readers, it gives me something to use for marketing, portioning it out as needed.
Then, with the help of a truly rock star PA, I had a brute strength, shock-and-awe program: cold outreach to book Instagram influencers (a.k.a. Bookstagrammers.) Like, a ridiculous amount of “would you like to read this book?”
The key there was to not simply target the biggest and brightest. They are already inundated. While we approached them, some of the key was approaching smaller Bookstagrammers. For my genre especially, it’s a close knit community: they follow each other, they interact, commenting on various reviews. So if you’re noticed (favorably!) by several smaller ones, it increases your odds that you’ll be noticed by a larger one.
Also, every small mention is a thing you can potentially share. A thing to interact with. Another blip on the subconscious of your reader. You want more exposures… every chance you can get. You want to be ubiquitous leading up to your launch. (At least, with readers in your genre, however they are connecting. And trust me, they’re connecting somewhere.)
But that’s so gross!
Yeah, I thought that too. Before.
I thought that being pushy was just going to turn readers off. That telling people “buy my book!” was gauche and would actually hurt my sales.
WOW, WAS I WRONG.
If you take nothing else away from this… it’s ask for the damned sale already!
It shouldn’t be the only purpose of your social media. But you’ve got to ask.
Just like you’ve got to ask for the blurb. Ask for the review. Ask for the share, the Goodreads add, the vote in a poll.
ASK FOR THE BUY.
I know when I did, I saw results. Post something every two days at least. (I liked giving myself a break.) The thing is, especially for something like Twitter (or I imagine Threads or BlueSky) the same people aren’t going to be seeing the image or post at the same time. Even if you posted it every day, they’d see it maybe once a week. Maybe.
So you need to think in terms of gentle saturation, and don’t worry about people being irritated.
In the first place, if they hate you for advertising your book, they’re probably not a good fit for it anyway (and you don’t want a review from them.)
Besides… if they do like you, or your book, then they’ll either buy it, or if they’ve already bought it, they’ll share. At worst, they’ll ignore it, because the world is full of ads and pitches, and unless yours is somehow offensive, it will be water off a duck’s back.
Work a plan.
I had a set of goals that led into a number goal. I wanted x number of books sold in the first month of wide release. This was, frankly, a bit terrifying. But I swung for the fence.
From there, I drew up a set of sub-goals to pursue as far as marketing. I wanted to get a specific number of Instagram mentions, a specific number of Goodreads reviews, a specific number of Amazon reviews. Assuming that only a small percentage of the ARCs we were sending out would actually land, I sent out a frankly obscene amount of ARCs.
I also tracked sales more closely. What happened when I posted something? What happened when a review hit with a bigger Bookstagrammer? (Note: sales almost always went up a bit when I posted.)
From a sheerly technical standpoint, I can strongly recommend Canva as a quick and relatively painless graphic generator. It has templates for the major social media (Instagram, Facebook, what have you) and also things to create graphics for your newsletter.
The key is to use different graphics lately. (Ideally, video… but I’ll be honest, I am not a fan of TikTok and have been dragging my feet on this! That said, it also means I will be able to approach this audience fresh in coming months… an audience that may not be familiar with the work. I may do a separate newsletter on TikTok later!)
Here are a few examples of the graphics, just to give you an idea:
No guarantees, but a solid theory.
Does this mean you can automatically transfer these techniques and succeed? As always, there are no guarantees, but this is my lived experience.
I feel like there are a lot of possible tricks, techniques, and bedrock approaches for any writer. It’s just as much the mental game as the actual craft: confidence is key. You need it before the success.
Focus on where the mission (your passion) meets the margin (the market.)
Create the most appealing package: cover and blurb.
Then get out of your comfort zone and sell.
I hope this helps!