Lou Aronica is the author of several novels and works of nonfiction, including the New York Times bestseller, The Element (written with Ken Robinson) and the national bestseller, The Culture Code (written with Clotaire Rapaille). He lives in Southern Connecticut with his wife and four children.
To find out more about Lou or to learn more about Blue visit The Fiction Studio
Welcome to Book Marketing Buzz, Lou. Can we begin by having you tell us a little about your book?
Blue is a contemporary fantasy novel about three people facing life-changing challenges. Chris Astor is a man in his early forties who is going through the toughest stretch of his life, feeling disconnected from both his home and work life. Becky is Chris’s fourteen-year-old daughter, a girl who overcame enormous obstacles to become a vibrant, vital young woman but now faces her greatest obstacle yet. Miea is the young queen of a fantasy land that Becky and Chris created when Becky was little, a fantasy land that has developed a life of its own and now finds itself in terrible, and maybe fatal trouble.
Together, Chris, Becky, and Miea need to uncover the secret to why their worlds have joined at this moment. The answer will reshape their worlds.
What is the first thing you did to promote your book once your publisher accepted your manuscript?
For a number of reasons, I decided not to sell Blue to a traditional publisher. Instead, I set up an entire publishing program through which to publish it. That program will publish eight titles in the first half of 2011 (none of the others are mine, by the way). So I guess you could say the first thing I did was set up an entire publishing house. The key to this was working with a distributor (National Book Network) that I respected and that I knew would support my publishing efforts.
If you had to pick just one book marketing tool that you’ve used to promote your book, which would you say has been the most effective?
Since Blue has only recently gone on sale, I can’t really say which promotional tool has been most effective for it. However, my recent experience as Publisher of The Story Plant has shown me that the most effective promotion is getting as much blogger review attention as possible. Because of the decline of the independent bookseller (a trend that is actually reversing slightly) and the decline of the traditional print book reviewer (a trend that is nearly complete), readers have had fewer ways of discovering books they might enjoy. This has led to a situation where more and more people are reading the same books. In 2006, the top 200 bestsellers represented eight percent of overall sales. As of late this year, the top 200 bestsellers represented twelve percent of overall sales. That’s a huge change.
Bloggers fill the void created by the loss of independent booksellers and print reviewers. They become the people that readers go to when they want to discover books they wouldn’t find otherwise. As more and more readers buy their books – either print or digital – online, the attention of bloggers becomes much more important. Online retailers aren’t nearly as easy to browse as brick-and-mortar retailers. Therefore, readers more often go to these sites with specific books in mind. A series of positive blog reviews can lead readers to specifically seek out a writer’s work.
Do you do more promoting online or offline and which do you prefer?
I’ve dedicated all of my promotion efforts to online promotion. In my opinion, it’s the only cost-effective promotion that sells books.
Do you use social networks such as Twitter and Facebook to promote your books and have you had any success with it?
I have yet to understand the value Twitter has for book promotion. I can see the value of Facebook, and I do promote there. In both cases, though, I think the overload of posts makes it nearly impossible for your message to be heard. When I log on to Facebook in the morning, I have hundreds of new posts. I definitely don’t go through most of them. I’m sure most people are in the same position, so the odds of anyone seeing my posts unless they happen to be on Facebook when the post goes up are minimal.
Do you own a blog and how often do you update it? Did you set up your blog solely to promote your book and what is its effectiveness?
I’ve found that guest blogging works more effectively. I haven’t been dedicating the time to build an audience for blogs on my site, so I can reach more people by going to the sites of others.
Do you recommend authors getting publicists to help them promote their books? Do you have one?
There are some excellent publicists out there and I’ve gotten very good results from them over the years. The issue is time vs. money. Promoting oneself is a hugely time consuming thing. The best publicists can get the word out for you much more efficiently, but they’re expensive. What I always tell writers is that they can do a great job of promotion if they have a good deal of either time or money. If they have both, they’re in great shape. If they have neither, I’m not sure how anyone ever finds out about their work.
If an author prefers to do it alone rather than hire a publicist, where should they start?
Plan to put a tremendous amount of effort into research. Find out who’s writing online about the things that you write about. Develop a first-rate, hype-free pitch letter, and reach out to as many of these sites as you can.
Thank you for coming, Lou! We wish you much success!
Thanks for having me.
CONTEST!!!
How often do you hear about something that sounds too good to be true? Well, I am here to offer 10 lucky winners the opportunity of a lifetime.
New York Times bestselling co-author, novelist, and former Publisher of Avon Books and Berkley Books, Lou Aronica has created a unique and exciting offer to anyone that is going to follow his upcoming book tour with Pump Up Your Book. His extensive experience in the publishing and editing fields has given him insight into an industry that continues to grow and change daily. Once again, that insight has led him to offer a contest that is truly special in so many ways. Lou will be accepting story pitches from followers of his blog tour. These story pitches must be for short stories pertaining to the fantasy world of his novel, “Blue.” This contest will allow 10 lucky people the opportunity of a lifetime, the chance to have their story published in an upcoming companion anthology to “Blue.” Lou will hand pick the winners, edit their stories, include them in the anthology and give them a pro-rated share of the royalties. How can you pass up an opportunity like this?
Now for the details:
The pitch should include a synopsis of the proposed story and a sample of the submitting author’s fiction writing. Specify the expected length of the story.
The pitch needs to be submitted by April 16, 2011
Please email your submission to Lou at laronica@fictionstudio.com
All winners will be notified by email by May 27, 2011.
