Welcome to Entangled Publishing’s new Quick Question series!
If you have a burning question for Entangled Publishing and would like that question answered on the blog, email us at marketing(at)entangledpublishing(dot)com.
To kick things off, we’re asking Misa Ramirez three quick questions about Entangled’s marketing strategy and how an author can maximize his or her marketability.
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Where will Entangled focus their marketing campaign? Can you tell us where and what type of advertising we’ll see?
One of the things that is really setting Entangled Publishing apart from other small publishers, as well as from the big guys, is the concentrated marketing efforts of our whole team. We have a very fleshed out strategic plan which identifies our two main goals:
- Attracting top-notch authors with top quality properties
- Attracting readers
We also have a tactical plan which lays out the specifics of how we are going to reach each of our audiences.
In a nutshell (because the plans are quite comprehensive and detailed), we are all about relationship-building. Each author has a publicist who will be working closely with him/her to develop a doable plan based on the author’s strengths. This includes setting up blog tours, interviews (in all media outlets), reviews, reaching niche markets, outreach via sites likeBooks on the House, social networking, and leveraging the author’s current platforms via a tribe-building ‘it takes a village’ concept.
We are working on finalizing the members of our Advisory Board, a group of people representing all the different segments of the publishing industry. They will serve in an advisory capacity, better allowing us to make solid decisions on our acquisitions and marketing.
We will be advertising our books in a variety of venues, including in print publications like RT Book Reviews (submitting our books for review to them, as well), targeted blogs like Bitten By Books and The Book Blast (among others), and Fresh Fiction.
Our books will be submitted for reviews to Library Journal, Publisher’s Weekly, Midwest Book Review, RT Book Reviews, as well as smaller review sites. We will also offer ARCs through NetGalley, are working closely with the library and indie bookstore markets, and will be working to shelve our titles in the corporate-run bookstores.
Again, we are all about building a community of readers.
What can an author expect from their publicist? What will the publicist expect from her authors?
The publicists and authors work very close together. Although we don’t launch with our initial titles until August, our team is already hard at work building specialized plans playing to each authors’ strengths. Targeted blog tours to reach specific audiences, website and author branding, and social networking strategies are just a few of the elements each publicist will be working on with their authors.
Our expectations from our authors, in turn, is that they are professional, enthusiastic, responsive, and part of the Entangled community, both with the other authors and our team, but also on a larger scale, with the Entangled reading community, as it grows.
Mainly, we want our authors to be able to continue to write, hence our business strategy of taking a good part of the marketing burden from their shoulders. We are all invested in producing top-quality books, and selling them! The best thing our authors can do is to keep writing.
What is the single most important thing an author can do to enhance their marketability?
I don’t know if there is a single best thing anyone can do. It all comes down to their PR personality, which is something I talk about in my promotion and marketing book, The Tricked-out Toolbox: Promotion and Marketing Tools Every Writer Needs. Being successful is dependent upon knowing and playing to your strengths.
One thing every author can and should do is be true to their brand. This means their website and blog should reflect the tone and mood of their books. The way they present themselves to readers should be consistent with this. Selling books and reader satisfaction is all about expectation. A reader wants to experience certain things when reading a book. It’s the author’s job to deliver, on all levels.
Melissa Bourbon, who sometimes answers to her Latina-by-marriage name Misa Ramirez, is the marketing director with Entangled Publishing. She is the founder of Books on the House, the co-founder of The Naked Hero and The Writer’s Guide to ePulblishing, and is the author of the Lola Cruz Mystery series with St. Martin’s Minotaur, A Magical Dressmaking Mystery series with NAL, two indie published romantic suspense novels, and is the co-author of The Tricked-out Toolbox.
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