Be Seen #2 - Building the anticipation

Once you've got your first book turned in you need to start thinking two things, the next book and getting the word out about the one to be published. This post will be about getting the word out about your first published book.

There are a number of ways to build interest and intrigue about your book:

• The cover reveal - pretty simple, you post up your cover art on your website, Twitter and Facebook feed
• Snippets - these are a couple of sentences from your book that are a tease
• Teasers - these are slightly longer glimpse into your book than a snippet but shorter than an excerpt
• Excerpts - these are a couple paragraphs or around 100 - 150 words of your story

When you get your cover ensure you let people see it by posting it up on your sites. Give a brief, very short, synopsis of the book and give the artist you used for the cover, or was provided to you by your publisher, their due as well. You have to thank those that help you out. In the days to come do little snippets of the book, this will help build interest in the book and the story you've written.

Save the teasers and excerpts until at least your first round of edits have been completed. The fewer spelling mistakes and grammar troubles in these that you put up on your sites the better. The Facebook grammar Nazi's are brutal, don't give them any more fuel than they already have on that site. But if you do decide to post a teaser before you've done the edits, make sure you put up a disclaimer letting everyone know that the post is pre-edits and to excuse any mistakes or something to that effect. Most of your readers won't care if a comma is in the wrong place or if you misspelled something - they are just excited to see something more than those three sentence snippets that have been driving them insane with want and need.

As soon as your publisher gives you a date of release for you book, post it. If your publisher says the date is tentative, make sure you mention that as well. Readers, especially loyal ones, can be raving lunatics when you say a book is to be out on such and such a date but it gets bumped and you don't tell them. Trust us, we've had messages from fans before because we forgot to have our calendar updated by our web person when a book ended up delayed and our schedule rearranged at the whim of our publisher.

Publishers often have hundreds of authors they are all trying to keep happy and give spots to for releases. It can be a very complicated process to keep that all straight so keep on top of what they are telling you but do not harass them about it. They will usually tell you the official date of release when you get your first batch of edits if it's changed at all from the date in your contract. If not, when you turn in your first round of edits you can ask for confirmation of the release date, especially on your first book. They will understand you are nervous and have never been through this before so they will be willing to bend and help out more at this point. Just know that this love fest won't always continue.

But that, and more on publisher's - the good, the bad and the ugly - will be another post down the line.

The Moderator