Challenge Accepted!

Blog tour!

I kind of buried the lede, but: I’m hosting my first official blog tour for Immortal!  And I need your help!  See the bottom for details. But first…

Planning the future

I had the opportunity on Saturday to sit down with a couple of New York-based editors.  I was at a convention called Boskone at the time, and the reason I was able to sit down with these editors was partly that nobody else was.  They had these things called “Kaffeklatch” at which one could sit down for a scheduled hour with a professional… something.  Mostly writers.  And since most of the people at the convention were there to meet writers, those were the Kaffeklatches that filled up.

I was there to meet writers too, but since I am a writer, my highest priority was to find readers and to network with people and maybe to see what a convention is actually like. (This was my first.)

So anyway. I sat down at a table with two editors, and they asked me what I wanted to talk about.  And the long and sordid tale of the life of Immortal came out, ending with the triumphant publication of said product.  None of which was a question: more like a speech.  The question, at the end of all that, was: “now what?”

Now what

The answer was: put together the positive reviews and blurbs– I have quite a lot— and show them to an agent or seventeen.  And then the agent–we’re assuming here that one signs me, which is a specious assumption but it’s where we are– can go out and hopefully sell the mass market edition.

I thought this was a stunning idea, largely because it never even occurred to me that the rights to the mass market edition of Immortal was something I could market.

I gave them my rough sales numbers, with a number of caveats (no distributor other than Amazon for the print edition, no ebooks before mid-December) and found that these weren’t actually bad numbers at all.

Then again…

Earlier this week, I traded some emails with an agent I knew before this mad scheme was cooked up, gave him the same information I gave to the kind editors at Boskone and heard something slightly different: the sales numbers need to be much higher, “and soon” for an agent (well, for him) to seriously consider it.  A figure was provided, and that figure was the same as the rough number I’d already sold, times ten.

Challenge Accepted!

If I keep promoting as I have been so far, and if nothing else changes, I’ll probably end up needing at least another 1,000 sales to get in the neighborhood of the right number.  Now, there are other factors that could play into this.  For instance: a distribution deal would make an enormous difference, but I don’t have any control over that; the e-book sales numbers from every resource other than the Kindle have not been reported yet; there are P.R. avenues that have not yet been explored by the publisher.

Still, 1,000 extra seems about right.  So how do I get those sales?

I HAVE NO IDEA.

However, since that doesn’t do me any good, I’m going to declare “challenge accepted!” anyway.

Oh; and throw together a blog tour.

BLOG TOUR!

I need 20-30 bloggers who are interested in hosting one or all of the following:

  • a summary of Immortal
  • an interview with me
  • an interview with my narrator, Adam
  • an interview of me interviewing Adam
  • an interview of Adam interviewing me
  • a book review
  • excerpts from other reviews
  • blurbs
  • excerpts from the novel

(Interviews would either involve questions from the blogger or a set of Q&A’s provided by me.  It’s up to the blogger.)

I’m planning for a 30 day tour.  If it goes well, I may be convinced to release a little treat: a chapter from Hellenic Immortal.

If you are interested

The best place to contact me if you are interested in participating is on Twitter, @genedoucette.  I’m also known to respond to emails, at GeneDoucette (at) me.com.

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No Comments

  1. Jacqui on March 1, 2011 at 11:53 pm

    OK, I’m game. What’s involved? Oh–first check out my blog at worddreams.wordpress.com.I’m a thriller writer, geek, and my blog’s pretty mainstream.

    Let me know!

    • genedoucette on March 2, 2011 at 12:04 am

      Awesome! Drop me an email or (better) a note in Twitter and I’ll add you to the list!

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