I've mentioned a number of times here that the thing I hate most about trying to make it as an author is all of the marketing and promotion that you have to do in order to get anywhere. I'm a lousy salesman and always have been, since the whole idea of trying to convince someone to buy something they don't already know they want really goes against the grain for me. I feel like the work I do should stand on its own, and I shouldn't have to manipulate people into wanting it.
Unfortunately, that's the way things are in the publishing world these days. There is a line between twisting somebody's arm and simply informing them about a product, but I never have been very good at seeing exactly where it lies. So usually I err on the side of caution, which probably means that most of the time I could do more or say more without causing offense. I just don't have a good feel for peoples' reactions, and can rarely tell when laying on a sales pitch is the right thing to do.
Still, I have to promote my work somehow, which is one of the reasons I keep Augoeides going. Fortunately, the other reason is that it's fun, since I do really love snarking all over weird news stories and sharing magical lore. I also have an author website dedicated to my published works, but as you can imagine it's not nearly as popular as this one. I haven't been updating it nearly as much either, and mostly I just use it for announcing publications and events.
I've decided that has to change if I'm ever going to increase my traction in the book market and introduce my work to more people. To that effect, I have made a number of changes to the site and registered the domain scottstenwick.com, which now links to it. My author site is built using Wordpress, as its support for pages is slightly more flexible than Blogger, and I've tried to make it look as much like a regular commercial author site as I can without sacrificing too much of the previous look and feel.
So the weird news will be back here tomorrow, but today I invite you to check out my new and updated author website. I also added a link to it on the upper left, in addition to the feed further down on the right, to make it more prominent for casual Augoeides visitors. I'm hoping to get back to posting more material there in the near future that will be of interest to fans of my writing.
As always, thanks in advance for your support!
Unfortunately, that's the way things are in the publishing world these days. There is a line between twisting somebody's arm and simply informing them about a product, but I never have been very good at seeing exactly where it lies. So usually I err on the side of caution, which probably means that most of the time I could do more or say more without causing offense. I just don't have a good feel for peoples' reactions, and can rarely tell when laying on a sales pitch is the right thing to do.
Still, I have to promote my work somehow, which is one of the reasons I keep Augoeides going. Fortunately, the other reason is that it's fun, since I do really love snarking all over weird news stories and sharing magical lore. I also have an author website dedicated to my published works, but as you can imagine it's not nearly as popular as this one. I haven't been updating it nearly as much either, and mostly I just use it for announcing publications and events.
I've decided that has to change if I'm ever going to increase my traction in the book market and introduce my work to more people. To that effect, I have made a number of changes to the site and registered the domain scottstenwick.com, which now links to it. My author site is built using Wordpress, as its support for pages is slightly more flexible than Blogger, and I've tried to make it look as much like a regular commercial author site as I can without sacrificing too much of the previous look and feel.
So the weird news will be back here tomorrow, but today I invite you to check out my new and updated author website. I also added a link to it on the upper left, in addition to the feed further down on the right, to make it more prominent for casual Augoeides visitors. I'm hoping to get back to posting more material there in the near future that will be of interest to fans of my writing.
As always, thanks in advance for your support!
Cool website.
ReplyDeleteIt's a dog eat dog world out there so you might have to push it a little more.
I've advertised your blog and books on enochian magick on forums. Although i haven't read them yet, I imagine how awesome they are, since your articles kick ass! :D
PS: no magick monday? :(
That probably is true. But the thing is, I hate doing sales work WAY more than I hate anything about my regular day job. I like writing itself better, but the promo crap pretty much has to go with it if I ever want to be able to make a decent living at it full time. I also make a lot at my day job, so I would have to be doing pretty phenomenally with my writing to ever replace that income. And so it goes. Odds are, I'll probably never want to take the financial hit it would require for me to write full time.
ReplyDeleteAnd yes, no Magick Monday this week. I spent a bunch of time working on the author website, which really needed it, and there are only so many hours in the day to compose original material. I'm hoping to have something done for next week, though.
I see. No problem regarding magick monday.
ReplyDeleteYou could cast a spell to increase your book sales just for fun, if you hadn't done that already. From what I've seen on forums, not many people know about them. In fact, I found only one mention of your enochian books, along wuth other authors', but the user was saying they found it hard to work with :)) imagine that.
I have tried a number of different variations on that, but so far nothing has been able to push them into bestseller territory. The best I have been able to do so far is a small boost over a short period of time. It's pretty reliable, but nothing that impressive.
ReplyDeletePart of the problem, of course, is that I need to do more sales work and so forth, but I really do truly hate it and have no desire to spend that much time doing it. I'd rather find more fun things like blogging that I enjoy for their own sake and which have the side effect of making more people aware of my books.
If somebody has trouble with the ritual outlines in my books, I really can't think of much else to tell them. You can improvise most of the equipment, which I cover in the books. Then, you follow the outline as written and omit all of the optional pieces. That's it.
Yeah I understand your point. I also dislike doing something that doesn't appeal to me. Hope you don't mind if I spread the word. It's the least I could do, after all the help you've been giving me regarding magick. That's why I also spread the word of a witch friend's store.
ReplyDeleteAs for the forum opinion, forget about it. There are many out there that don't know their left from their right, but have delusions of grandeur when it comes to expertise in any field. That's why I started the FB group in the first place, so that ppl who'd want to practice would have access to simple but concrete information that will set them on the path and help them along the way.
Oh, I never object if folks want to spread the word. Go for it! :)
ReplyDelete