Timing is Everything

Things happen.

A few weeks ago, I wrote about my experience with publishing a novella on the Kindle, called Faery Merry Christmas. Publishing is one thing–selling books is something else altogether.  It requires time, effort, a little (lot of)  money, and a boatload of luck (which you get only if you invest the time, effort and money so luck can come around). That’s how it works.

But sometimes it’s not to be.  I haven’t had any chance at all to publicize this book. There are about three of us who know it exists and only one of us owns a Kindle.

Like I said, things happen. My father-in-law passed away two weeks ago (not unexpected, but death is always a shock), and his funeral was last Monday. My husband and I had to travel out of state, and of course several things needed to be handled before we could return. Why am I mentioning my personal affairs in a writing column? Because we’re writers, and things do happen that sometimes puts the kibosh on our best-laid plans.

Faery Merry Christmas is a Christmas story (of course). When do you sell Christmas stories? You’ve got it–Halloween!!! Yep, all marketing for Christmas publications need to have the reviews done, the web pages finished, the book video done, and probably a contest laid out, ready to roll the first of November.

Faery Merry Christmas

Not going to happen. But since my novella is set in 1956, it can be sold next year just as well. I’ll prepare a marketing campaign for autumn of 2010, but meantime I’ll do what I can this year.

I guess the moral of the story is to not procrastinate — get everything done before you think it’s necessary. In this case, I hadn’t decided to publish the book until a friend urged me to, and it seemed like a good idea at the time. Yes, I knew it was late to start publicity,  then Kindle took 3 days to go live so I was late to start with.  So the timing went awry in a major way right from the get-go.

I fully intend to carry on, pretending as if I didn’t lose the prime two weeks of promo and writing time–after all, being with family was time well-spent.  First priority is to get some writing done.  My critique partner and I are heading to her resort condo for a five-day writing retreat.  My AlphaSmart has eight empty files and my goal is to fill all eight of them by the time I return home on Friday evening.

While this article is about promotion and the timing gone south, it’s always good to remember that if you don’t finish new stories, you have nothing else to sell.

Speaking of which, who’s doing NaNoWriMo? Again, the timing is terrible for me, but I can still give it a whirl. November is the month where we can put our heads down and write, write, write!

And you know, things don’t always go the way we wrote it down in our Daily Planners. Sometimes we just have to go with the flow.

Next week, I’ll let you know all about the writers’ retreat I’m attending this week.  I’m really excited to spend five days doing nothing but brainstorming, writing, or drinking wine.  Oh, did I say that?  No wine.  Okay, not much wine.  Or cheese.  I’ll have brie, please.

Jacquie

Down Home Ever Lovin’ Mule Blues (See the Book Video featuring Justin Saragueta)
Jacquie’s Website * 1st Turning Point * Myspace * Twitter * Facebook
Faery Special Romances * Book Video Royalties go to Children’s Tumor Foundation, ending Neurofibromatosis through Research

Tags: faery merry christmas, marketing, merchandising, NaNoWriMo, planning