Book Marketing Buzz

Book Marketing Buzz: Book Promotion & Publicity Tips: How to Promote Your Books is a continuing series to help authors learn how to promote their books. If you would like to be a guest blogger for our book promotion and publicity series, click here.

Our guest blogger for today is Molly Dwyer, author of REQUIEM FOR THE AUTHOR OF FRANKENSTEIN.

Requiem for the Author of Frankenstein, my debut novel, was released in the spring of 2008. It was in the bookstores, March 1st, and won an “Indie” Book Award for Best Historical Fiction at the end of May. I’ve been coming at the marketing of Requiem from as many different angles as I possible. First of all, I have a web presence, a website and a blog that I actively keep up. I’m also moving out into the Internet community, looking for blogs where I can post about my novel and sites where I can get a review, an interview, a write-up, or even just advertise. I’ve begun to try my hand at podcasting and am about to launch my video efforts as well. I just put out my first email newsletter and have put up a subscribe button up on my site, hoping to create an email fan base. Did I mention book clubs? I’m beginning to get picked up by a few book clubs, which I’m really happy about.

I’ve been able to use local radio pretty successfully. I’ve gotten a number of interviews, including one just recently with New Dimensions Media, which is national on NPR. It should air before the end of the year. I’ve also followed the traditional route: doing book signings and giving workshops and talks. I live about four hours from the San Francisco Bay Area, so I’ve focused primarily getting visibility in Northern California—trying to make my name as a Bay Area writer. I’m about to head off to Portland, Oregon in September—my first real effort outside of my immediate area. I have a book signing in Portland, a workshop, a trade-show event (PNBA), and a radio interview on the local community station (KBOO). I’ve also been making appearances at Writing Conferences, and have had the great good fortune of being met with enthusiasm as a speaker, both when I talk about my book and when I talk about writing.

Requiem for the Author of Frankenstein has a number of specific selling points. It follows the life story of Mary Shelley and her circle, including the poets, Lord Byron and Percy Bysshe Shelley. I’m finding opportunities on college campuses to speak about Mary Shelley and the Romantic Imagination. For the writing crowd, I’ve found that my talks on using synchronicity as a tool of writing, are met with interest and enthusiasm. I’ve also taken up some of the themes in my book. For example, I have an audience among women, as Requiem speaks directly to issues of women’s equality and creativity. Requiem also uses dream, and moves in more than one time frame— because of that, I’ve found I have an audience among those interested in spiritual matters, or curious about the nature of reality.

In short, I’ve gone about marketing my book by building a fan base and a platform, I’m working on this in as many ways as I can come up with. I’m constantly trying to address the immediate possibilities that are presenting themselves. I work with other authors when I can, and I’m now beginning to reach out to other women artists. The main thing I’ve learned in the last six months is that marketing is a full-time job, and that I’m the only one who I can really count on to get word out about Requiem for the Author of Frankenstein, even when people are excited about reading it, which they are.  I’ve learned to try every angle, and just move on when something doesn’t bear fruit, following those things that do.  Happily, I’m beginning to get a word-of-mouth buzz.

About the Author:

MOLLY DWYER has been a transformational educator for twenty years, facilitating workshops and teaching English composition, creative writing, and literature in community college. Requiem for the Author of Frankenstein, Molly’s award-winning novel, is the fruit of over a decade of research and writing. She’s also co-author of Divine Duality: The Power of Reconciliation between Women and Men with William Keepin and Cynthia Brix. Molly studied creative writing with Seamus Heaney, at Ireland’s Galway University, and with England’s Arvon Project. She’s trained with the National Writing Project and studied literature in an Oxford University summer program. Molly earned her Masters in at Sonoma State University and completed a PhD at the California Institute of Integral Studies in San Francisco. For more information visit www.mollydwyer.com