Daisy finds her smile
In February 2018 I was halfway through my sh*tty first draft of Feel it as a Man: a fool’s guide to relationships which was published that September by Panoma Press.
In the first week of every month Mindy Gibbins-Klein (aka The Book Midwife) holds a 1-hour webinar for her published writers.
Mindy is my publishing guru, as I have often said and written. Her methodology for writing non-fiction is idiot-proof – to achieve your first draft you write for 1-2 hours a day, 5 days a week, without looking back or reviewing what you have written (leaving notes where you need to check, amplify or rewrite sections).
That worked perfectly for me, although the inner critic never gave up, hounding me with doubts about my worth as a writer and the value of my book. With Mindy’s help as a mentor I pulled through, sometimes with an effort. My sh*tty first draft was followed by several redrafts before delivery on time to Panoma on 23 April 2018.
Four years later, on 8 February 2022, a dozen of us Panoma authors gathered online. There was an excellent cross-section and we all talked briefly about our books, where they were in terms of sales and what they needed. I have bought several books, including one which I will give to my three-year-old granddaughter, Hermione. Daisy finds her smile*, by Melanie Broughton and illustrated by Sarah |Alicia Smith, is about a little, disabled duck learning to cope with bullies. Lovely, and it has 90% reviews / ratings at five-star status.
We all need reviews on Amazon as well as sales. The more reviews the better. If you achieve 100, that’s excellent, Mindy says, and from that point numbers can spiral up quickly. Some of her authors have had more than 500 reviews.
The lesson is that an author never gives up marketing. Now in my fifth year, my marketing has been fitful. However I am reinvigorated. I was reassured that the theme of “Feel it as a Man…” – the difficulty I as a man, and other men, have in expressing their emotions, and how to tackle those issues – is in tune with the times. Men’s mental health is in the spotlight. Hurrah.
Now I am tasked with connecting with men’s health supporters and influencers on social media, sending them my book and seeking a review – and, if it is traditional media, an interview. I also seek someone to share a podcast with. So, if you know anyone, please let me know.
By the way, I hear from Mindy and others on the webinar that LinkedIn and Instagram are now the favoured social media portals – publishing folk are moving away from Twitter and Facebook.
Side by side with this 2022 marketing campaign for “Feel it as a Man”, I am laying the foundation stones for my co-authored crime thriller. We are working on a synopsis and our main characters.
On Friday 11 February I have the first episode in my six-week crime fiction course run by The Times.
The organisers have sent me links to a video to see what to expect and also to Zoom for the first talk by Jill Dawson. She looks interesting and I’m reading her novel The Crime Writer, an apt title and an engaging novel so far.