publicity – Page 3 – Phil Slattery, Writer, Publisher

Seeking Opinions: New Collected Works Project Les Danses Macabres

Having dinner with my wife at Ray's Italian Bistro, Midland, TX, May, 2019 — Having dinner with my wife at Ray’s Italian Bistro, Midland, TX, May, 2019

I would like your opinions on an idea I had last week.

I am considering collecting all my short fiction published to date into one volume. This would include all the works in A Tale of Hell and Other Works of Horror, The Scent and Other Stories, and Click (Alien Embrace and Diablolical are already included in A Tale of Hell and Other Works).

The working title for this collection is Les Danses Macabres. According to The Dictionary of Literary Terms and Literary Theory (J.A. Cuddon, Penguin Books, 1991) the danse Macabre is:

Also known as the Dance of Death…The Dance of Death (in art and literature) depicted a procession or dance in which the dead lead the living to the grave. It was a reminder of mortality, the ubiquity of death and of the equality of all men in that state. It was also a reminder of the need for repentance. Apart from its moral and allegorical elements, it was very often satirical in tone…Death is, as it were, presented as a kind of sardonic joke.

Notice that the title of my planned work is Les Danses Macabres, which is the plural of danse macabre. I chose this variation for two reasons:

To distinguish my book from other books and other works which have the name Danse Macabre, which is not an uncommon name. In fact, there is even a tone poem for orchestra by Camille Saint-Saens called Danse Macabre (Opus 40, 1874) and a non-fiction book by Stephen King entitled Danse Macabre.
“Danse Macabre” is a single way to death . By using the plural, I am intimating that there are several ways to death (or to hell, if you prefer). I think the stories in the collection illustrate that.

I have rearranged the stories, somewhat, to start with “The Scent”, which is a very pleasant, poignant, but a little spooky story. From there the stories gradually increase in intensity until the collection ends with the intense, violent microfiction at the end of A Tale of Hell….

The total word count of the collection is over 87,300, which puts it into the same size range as a novel. This should make it more marketable as people like to buy longer works. In fact, I have read that Stephen King likes to write long works, so that his readers get something for their money. This seems to bear out in my sales, as my longest work (A Tale of Hell…) has accounted for 43% of my sales since January, 2018. it is 62,054 words in length, which puts it in the range of shorter novel. According to my research on Duotrope, most small publishers are looking for novels to be about 40,000 to 100,000 words in length with the majority being around 40,000 to 50,000.

I am designing this work initially to be marketed on Amazon Kindle, but I am also keeping it simple to make it easily converted into a hard copy book.

This planned work will include only prose. Nocturne, therefore, will not be included in this collection. However, I am planning a second edition of it that will include poems that were not included in the current edition.

.I have started designing covers for Les Danses Macabres. Here are the possibilities I have come up with so far. Let me which one you think most suitable. For easy reference, I have put a name below each. Let me know your thoughts on my other plans too as well, if you will.

Hasta luego.

Seeking Opinions: New Collected Works Project Les Danses Macabres

The working title for this collection is Les Danses Macabres. According to The Dictionary of Literary Terms and Literary Theory (J.A. Cuddon, Penguin Books, 1991) the danse Macabre is:

Notice that the title of my planned work is Les Danses Macabres, which is the plural of danse macabre. I chose this variation for two reasons:

To distinguish my book from other books and other works which have the name Danse Macabre, which is not an uncommon name. In fact, there is even a tone poem for orchestra by Camille Saint-Saens called Danse Macabre (Opus 40, 1874) and a non-fiction book by Stephen King entitled Danse Macabre.
“Danse Macabre” is a single way to death . By using the plural, I am intimating that there are several ways to death (or to hell, if you prefer). I think the stories in the collection illustrate that.

I am designing this work initially to be marketed on Amazon Kindle, but I am also keeping it simple to make it easily converted into a hard copy book.

Hasta luego.

Update: November 18, 2019, Letter on My Marketing Strategy

Yesterday, I received an e-mail from a gentleman in Spain. In my response, I discussed my marketing strategy a bit. I thought that it might be of interests to others, so I am posting it here, with the gentleman’s name and other data omitted, because I do not know what personal information of his I can share.

“I try to post most important articles at 0800 EST. I researched the time zones where the most people read in the US and, unsurprisingly it is the Eastern Time Zone. The Eastern Time Zone has the most universities, major cities, publishers, and greatest concentration of population. So I post things at 0800 so people will see them when they rise,arrive at work, etc, I also post things to hit other time zones across the world. A few of my posts are on this. One thing I do is what I did with offering the four books as free on the same day, which I am doing this week and next. It’s my most recent article. I post an advertisement or announcement one hour later each day for 24 days, so that I can hit all the time zones. This seems to be gradually gaining me a larger audience. For example, on November 2, I had views from the US, UK, Canada, Austria, Jamaica, the Czech Republic, Italy, Jordan, Spain, and Romania. Recently, I had views from Uruguay and Nigeria.

“The thing about posting to the Eastern Time Zone is that because that is the seat of US government and major metropolitan areas, that’s when the rest of the world will be watching to see what is up with the US. Also, posting around the clock means that the article hits the US around the clock as one, So one day it hits New York at 0800, the next day Chicago at 0800 and New York at 0900, the following day Denver at 0800, Chicago at 0900, and New York at 1000, etc. With WordPress, I can schedule posts ahead of time, so this is easy. I often post advertising and articles weeks or months in advance.”

Hasta luego.

Arkansas County Writers Circle

I am considering starting a Writers Circle for Arkansas County in Arkansas just as I did in Farmington, NM. That group is still thriving. Here is a link to the Farmington Writers Circle, so you can see how it is doing.

Just as in Farmington, the Arkansas County Writers Circle would focus on publicity and marketing of the participants’ works. Anyone involved in writing as an art or profession or as a hobby is invited. We would welcome writers of all genres and styles from non-fiction to horror fiction to science fiction to young adult to authors of children’s books to romances to poetry to comics to journalism to whatever you can imagine.

Most writers circles focus on the art of writing, This group is for writers who are interested in marketing or publicizing their works. Each meeting would be a round table discussion preceded by a reading of 30 minutes or less from one of the members. The group would then offer their constructive criticism on the work read. The meetings would last however long they last, but in general they may last up to an hour or longer depending on how many people attend.

I have not decided upon a meeting location yet, though it would probably be in Stuttgart at a coffee shop or at the Arts Center or maybe in DeWitt. The meeting times and dates would be set at the first meeting. In New Mexico, we met on the second Thursday of each month at 6:30 pm for the reading followed by the discussion at 7:00.

There would be no dues or cost to participate. All you need to do is show up and join the discussion.

The group might even develop their own networking events and participate as a group in local events such as readings, book signings, etc. We did this in Farmington and it worked well. During one Art Walk in Farmington, our members participated with a local art gallery and read from their works, sold some of their books, signed several books and made contacts with other writers, both amateur and professional.

If you live in Arkansas County or its environs, please let me know if you would be interested in participating.

Update: June 8, 2019, 7:27 p.m. Marketing for The Man Who…

Working on “Shadows and Stars Lying Down” with hair thinning. May 24 or 25, 2019, in IHOP, Midland, TX

One issue I have struggled with is whether to publish The Man Who Escaped from Hell as one volume with two parts or as two volumes because of a distinct story line break. Part I is where the protagonist, Jake Brody, is in Hell remembering the past and then escapes, and the second part, Jake is on Earth again with new problems to face.

Looking at word count, part I has 54,000+ words. Therefore, I am now strongly considering publishing it as the first volume to be followed at some point soon by the second part, which currently has 30,000+ words.

The advantage of the two volume strategy is that it builds suspense for the release of the second volume and will hopefully increase sales. The disadvantage, of course, is that the second volume has to be superb in order to avoid being a disappointment and damaging my long range goals.

Update: June 8, 2019, 5:59 p.m. Publicity/Marketing

The post immediately before this one, gave me an idea/revelation (remember that I am still a novice at marketing).

Advertising my upcoming novels by updating the progress on them is like a TV mystery series with a definite but unpredictable conclusion somewhere in the future. Hopefully, it will likewise draw an ever-increasing audience as a TV mystery would.

At the moment, we are watching “Good Omens” (very entertaining) on Amazon, which stars Michael Sheen and David Tennant of “Broadchurch” and “Dr. Who”. The connection with the preceding paragraph is that the first season (at least) of “Broadchuch” is a good example of at TV mystery that intrigues the audience and draws them toward a inevitable but unpredictable conclusion.

There was another revelation associated with this, but I can’t recall it offhand. I have had little sleep over the past few days and my mind (or what’s left of it) isn’t functioning at full capacity..

Update: May 11, 2019 Using Facebook for Publicity

For some time, I have been tinkering with a way to generate publicity for my posts on Facebook personal page. When deciding who to request to be a friend, I look at two criteria.

First, I look at how many friends we have in common.

I select people with whom we share at least one hundred friends (this is a purely subjective and arbitrary number). This tells me that he/she is not a creep. It is essentially like having a hundred references. The closer to having zero friends in common, the better the odds that person many not be someone I want to deal with regularly. At least, that’s my experience. In the past, when I have decided to befriend someone with whom I share no friends, I sometimes regret the decision.

This also helps build a solid network. If I befriend someone who shares one hundred friends with me, when I post something that goes out to my, let’s say, two hundred friends, and then my new friend reposts it, that posts goes out to our one hundred friends in common twice, plus to all his friends that we don’t have in common. If he has one hundred friends in common with me alone, the odds are good that he has a lot more friends which we don’t have in common.

Now imagine how many people your posts will go out to if you have 500 friends with whom you have 100 friends in common with each of them. If only two or three people share one of your posts, the word about that post will start to spread among all those friends in common plus all those friends you don’t have in common. Hopefully, it will create something of a snowball effect.

Second, I seek out friends with whom I have an interest in writing and being an author in common. I decide this very superficially, but I think effectively. I look for people who have a book they wrote as their avatar or have the title “author” or “writer” in their name (e.g. John Doe, Author). This tells me they are serious about their writing as it take a high priority in their lives.

Now, I am developing an overlapping network of authors and writers that will probably be interested in anything I write about writing my works or writing in general.

I also post a lot of humor, about writing and otherwise, to keep my posts fun and entertaining. No one will want to keep up with someone boring.

I welcome any thoughts or ideas you have.

World Book Day and Other Holidays

If you want to expand your book sales, one way is to increase your online audience by expanding your promotions to overseas.

In a previous post, I talked about timing your posts to reach overseas audiences by posting them at times appropriate for your target overseas audience. For example, I live in New Mexico, which is Mountain Standard Time (MST). If I want to time my posts, so that they post on the most populous part of Australia (the east coast), I have to first consider, when the most likely time Australians might be up, moving about, and looking for something to read. On social media, a common hashtag for book promotions is #FictionFriday. This is when a lot of people look for books to read over the weekend. Therefore, I might want to time my posts when everyone on Australia’s east coast, which is Australian Eastern Daylight Time is rising and getting ready for their day. Assuming they have to be at work at 8:00 a.m, I may want to time my posts to hit there at 7:00 a.m. 7:00 a.m. Friday in Sydney is 6:30 p.m. in Albuquerque. So, I post at 6:30 p.m. Albuquerque time. You can find lots of articles and maps on the Internet to calculate the time difference, but iPhones and other gadgets enable you to monitor the time in several locations at once.

However, now I want to discuss promoting your books/posts by using holidays, international and national.

There are lots of international holidays with which to time posts or promotions: Christmas, Easter, Good Friday, New Year’s Day, etc. Everyone knows these. Many of these are religious holidays.

There are also a lot of lesser known holidays that you can use to target an audience depending on its topic, of course. One example is World Book Day, which is generally celebrated on April 23rd. Calendarlabs.com provides a good list of international holidays such as these.

Then there are the national holidays celebrated by your target country. Assuming you want to promote your book to English-speaking countries, the five major English-speaking countries are the UK, the US, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. English is spoken world-wide, so if you target these countries primarily, you will probably reach the vast majority of the English-speakers as well, though you may be a time zone off here and there. Of course, you can find exhaustive lists of holidays for each of these countries scattered around the Internet, but here are a few you may want to consider (the links are to a list of each country’s holidays):

United Kingdom

Spring Bank Holiday, May 28, 2018

Boxing Day (in most English-speaking nations), December 26, 2018

Canada

Victoria Day, May 21, 2018

Canada Day, July 2, 2018

Labour Day, September 3, 2018

Remembrance Day, November 11, 2018

Australia

Australia Day, January 26, 2018

ANZAC Day, April 25, 2018

Queen’s Birthday, June 11, 2018

Boxing Day, December 26, 2018

New Zealand

Waitangi Day, February 6, 2018

ANZAC Day, April 25, 2018

Labour Day, October 22, 2018

Boxing Day, December 26, 2018

Remember that the UK consists of England, Wales, Northern Ireland, and Scotland, so you may have to consider the holidays in each of these separately. Also, some states and provinces may or may not celebrate national holidays in the same way or on the same date as the rest of the nation as well as having their own holidays.

As mentioned, these are only a few, actually a very few of the holidays celebrated in English-speaking countries, but I hope it gives you an idea of what is out there that you may want to incorporate into you posting and planning.

Thoughts on the Value of Short Stories to the Author

Reprinted from Farmington Writers Circle, April 25, 2019.

I have seen several comments on television shows that no one has made money on publishing short stories since probably the days of Hemingway. I don’t know how true this is, but I know that, except for the most professional and most competitive, very few markets pay very much for a short story. You can find this out by researching pay in the Writers Market or using Duotrope. One would have to write short stories constantly and have them published constantly in order to make a living from them.

However, for me the value of a short story is not in the money it brings. The value is in the publicity and “face time” (an old Navy expression about the time one has in the boss’s full view or with his attention focused on you) in front of the public. “Face time” equals exposure to people critical to you career.

If then, face time is the primary reward one has from a short story, then it would behoove an author to have as many of his stories in front of public (i.e. published) as possible. But creating a short story is time and labor intensive. As in most endeavors, it is important to reap as many rewards for as few products in as short a time as possible. This is simply being efficient and the more efficient, the better in any endeavor. The next question then is how to do this with a short story?

Once you have a story published, many, if not most, magazines will not touch it because they want first rights. There are many that will publish it, but by far the majority will not pay or will pay only a fraction of what they pay for first rights. However, you still have face time with its publication.

Therefore, the trick with a short story is to have it continually reprinted while keeping as many stories in front of the public as possible, whether they are traditional short stories, flash fiction, micro-fiction, or whatever. One advantage of the web is that usually the publishing website will let you link your byline or bio to your website, drawing more traffic to you and to your works. Once that story is on the Internet, it is often up there forever. So why not have as many links as possible to your website for all eternity?

The submission process is usually fairly simple and straightforward, if you have some experience with submissions, but may be challenging if you don’t. There are some key points to remember about reprinting a short story:

If possible check the circulation or readership of the magazine where you will be submitting your work. As with stories being printed for the first time, the best approach is to publish with a publisher that has the largest circulation possible. It’s better to have your work published on a website that has 20,000 visitors/month versus 1,000/month. This is more face time with less effort. For that matter, depending on your viewpoint, it may be more worthwhile to have a story published for no pay in front of a readership of 20,000 versus being paid $10 to have it published to a readership of 1,000. With reprinting, it is possible to do both.
Keep a history of where and when your work has been published. Some publishers will want to know where and when it has been previously published. Use any method you want, but I suggest using Excel or a submissions engine like Duotrope to keep things organized. Duotrope has a lot of advantages. It is worth the $5/month charge to take a lot of administrative tasks off you shoulders.
Read the submissions guidelines and restrictions on post-publication as well, whenever you submit a story to a publisher. Adhere to them. Some publishers will return the rights to you as soon as the work is published. With some, you may have to wait several months before resubmitting elsewhere. Some publishers won’t reprint your story without knowing that you have full rights to reprint the story. Be ethical; follow their guidance. It may save you some heartache later. All a publisher can do it to blacklist you, but why be blacklisted anywhere?
Study literary rights. Know the difference between first rights, reprint rights, and any other rights out there. Don’t get yourself blacklisted or in bigger trouble. This is simply being professional.

Take care, and I wish you much success with your writing.

World Book Day and Other Holidays

If you want to expand your book sales, one way is to increase your online audience by expanding your promotions to overseas.

However, now I want to discuss promoting your books/posts by using holidays, international and national.

There are lots of international holidays with which to time posts or promotions: Christmas, Easter, Good Friday, New Year’s Day, etc. Everyone knows these. Many of these are religious holidays.

United Kingdom

Spring Bank Holiday, May 28, 2018

Boxing Day (in most English-speaking nations), December 26, 2018

Canada

Victoria Day, May 21, 2018

Canada Day, July 2, 2018

Labour Day, September 3, 2018

Remembrance Day, November 11, 2018

Australia

Australia Day, January 26, 2018

ANZAC Day, April 25, 2018

Queen’s Birthday, June 11, 2018

Boxing Day, December 26, 2018

New Zealand

Waitangi Day, February 6, 2018

ANZAC Day, April 25, 2018

Labour Day, October 22, 2018

Boxing Day, December 26, 2018

This article also appears at farmingtonwriterscircle.wordpress.com.

I try to publicize my works as much as possible using social media, because it is very inexpensive (often free) and it has the potential of connecting with people around the world. My personal WordPress account shows that my viewers come from around globe from such diverse locales as Ireland, Russia, India, Singapore, Australia and Brazil among many others.

I became curious about what would be the best time to post to reach the largest audience. I did a little research on the Internet and made a few calculations and came up with some interesting results.

According to study by Fictionophile, the most “literate” of the United States is the East Coast, where most major cities are concentrated along with most major universities and Ivy League Schools. Therefore, to gain the most exposure to this audience, you have to time your posts with the eastern time zone. How you want to do that, of course, is up to you. I try to post at 7:00 a.m. EST, when most people are rising for the and reading their e-mail or newspaper. But you might want to post at 5:00 or 6:00 p.m. when most people are coming back from work and settling in for the evening. You might also want to post on Fridays, often advertised as #FictionFriday, when people start to seek out reading for the weekend. There are a lot of other possible strategies as well. Fortunately, WordPress allows its users to schedule their posts, so this is easy to do for me.

Here are a few notes I took during my research. Being a former Naval officer, I still find military time easiest to use, so most of my time references are based on the 24-hour clock. I live in New Mexico, thus the references to Mountain Standard Time (MST). UTC is “Universal Time Coordinated, the successor to Greenwich Mean Time, which is the time in London, England. More on UTC can be found at https://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/timezone/utc.

To time European English-speaking countries for publicity, use Central European Time (CET) which is eight hours ahead of MST. (2030 MST Monday = 0430 CET Tuesday). Ergo, 0001 MST = 2001 CET.
India Standard Time (IST) is UTC + 5:30 or CET + 4:30. Ergo, 2030 MST Monday = 0930 IST Tuesday
Australian Eastern Daylight Time (AEDT: Sydney, Canberra) = UTC + 11/CET + 10
Staggering release times of announcements would seem to be best to catch a world audience. Ergo, for a three day free promotion, Release as follows:
- 0801 Mon. MST = 0001 Tuesday CET = 0431 IST
- 0001 Mon. MST = 0801 Monday CET = 1231 IST = 1701 AEDT
- 1931 Mon. MST = 0331 Tuesday CET = 0801 IST
- 1500 MST Monday = 2300 Monday CET = 0801 Tuesday AEDT

To make this easier for me to track, I use the World Clock feature on my iPhone clock, which allows me to track the time in several time zones at once. Currently, I am tracking the time in Washington, DC; Brussels, Belgium; New Delhi, India; Singapore; Perth, Australia; Sydney, Australia; and Honolulu. By targeting these time zones, I believe I can reach the majority of the English-speaking world.

Note that, if you are interested in targeting an Australian audience, they are about fifteen hours ahead of us (MST), so promoting book giveaways or announcements for a specific day is tricky. For example, if you have a book giveaway that starts at 8:00 a.m. MST on February 25, it won’t start for the folks in Sydney until 11:00 p.m. February 25. Here’s a screenshot from my iPhone to show the intricacies involved. Still, I believe that proper timing of your posts with the audience you want to reach will eventually be worthwhile.

Examples of the time zones with the majority of English-speakers

Reminder: The Farmington Writers Meet and Greet Will Be Held Today, Friday, June 9, from 5:00-9:00 pm.

Artifacts Art Gallery/302 Main Espresso, Farmington, New Mexico

Just a reminder that the Farmington Writers Circle Meet and Greet networking event is today, Friday, June 9, at Artifacts Gallery, 302 East Main, in downtown Farmington (NM) from 5:00 to 9:00 during the city’s Artwalk .

This event is open to everyone with an interest in writing or reading. Its purpose is for local area writers of fiction and non-fiction to socialize and make networking contacts with the public and other writing professionals such as editors, publishers, reporters, bloggers, teachers, and anyone else interested in writing. Novices, amateurs, students, and professionals of all genres, styles, and media are all welcome. Anyone with an interest in reading or teaching any type of writing is definitely welcome. This is an opportunity to meet your favorite local authors.

Bring business cards and any other handouts such as flyers or pamphlets to pass out to your new contacts.

There will also be book-signings and readings by several local authors and writers (a list will be posted soon). Artifacts Gallery will also provide a salsa-tasting. Refreshments will be available.

Check back frequently for updates.

For more information, contact Phil Slattery at phil@philslattery.com.

Reminder: The Farmington Writers Meet and Greet Will Be Held on Friday, June 9, from 5:00-9:00 pm.

Just a brief reminder that the Farmington Writers Circle Meet and Greet networking event is on this coming Friday, June 9, at Artifacts Gallery, 302 East Main, in downtown Farmington (NM) from 5:00 to 9:00 during the city’s Artwalk .

Bring business cards and any other handouts such as flyers or pamphlets to pass out to your new contacts.

There will also be book-signings and readings by several local authors and writers (a list will be posted soon). Artifacts Gallery will also provide a salsa-tasting. Refreshments will be available.

Check back frequently for updates.

For more information, contact Phil Slattery at phil@philslattery.com.

#Marketing Myself as a #Character

For the last few weeks I have been contemplating how to market my works. Of course, I wander through the local bookstore studying how each book markets itself, Also, I analyze everything else I see on line and in person for patterns. I think back on the famous authors of the past and wonder how they achieved their renown: how were they marketed and how has their fame spread since.

It occurs to me that readers are as fascinated by the lives of their favorite authors as they are by the characters in their novels. My favorite author is Hemingway. Hemingway’s life fascinates me at least as much as that of any of characters. His life probably fascinates me more than that of any of his characters, because there is more to learn about it. Frederic Henry (For Whom the Bell Tolls) is interesting, but his life has none of the detail that his author’s does. Henry is shallow by comparison. None of the characters of any of Poe’s works have the same depth and complexity of his own life. When authors of biographies market their works, they have to show how fascinating their subjects are just as novelists have to convince their readers of how fascinating their characters are.

Therefore, I am beginning to believe that to sell my works, I need to sell myself, my story, just the same as I would that of any of my characters. If my readers find my characters interesting, they will naturally want to find out more about me. This is not blatant egotism; it’s simple fact. Readers are as fascinated by the lives of their favorite authors just the same as they are fascinated by the lives of the characters of those authors. Instead of writing the same standard bio notes for readers on my website and elsewhere, I will start writing those bio notes the same as I would the bio of a character: bringing out my own flaws, contradictions, ironies of my life, and so on to demonstrate how complex I really and hopefully attract readers who find my life so compelling that they have to investigate the characters I write. Writing a autobiographical note, then, becomes another chance to show how well I can write and to give potential readers another sample of my work.

The Farmington Writers Circle Meets Tonight at 7:00

T zola_leandre he Farmington Writers Circle meets again tonight, Thursday, March 9, in the Entertainmart (formerly Hardback) Café at 7:00 pm. The topic of the night will be how to grow a twitter presence using hashtags and by following other twitter users.

Everyone is invited. There is no charge and no membership requirements.

Preceding the meeting, starting at 6:30 pm, E. Cluff Elliott will be reading from his upcoming novel From the Mountain. For more information on Mr. Elliott and his works, visit ecluffelliott.com.

The Farmington Writers Circle is a group of local writers who are interested in exploring and developing new means of marketing and publicizing their works.

For more information, contact Phil Slattery at phil@philslattery.com or via @philslattery201 or via this website.