What Must I Afford?

This is not a small question. Writing is a money pit. What are costs you must absorb?

1.  Let's start off simple. Business cards. Carry them with you as a matter of course. Yes, people still use them. I can't tell you how many times I've been in professional situations where I'd have given my right arm for an old-fashioned business card.

2. Any costs associated with a website, including domain name registration and hosting fees. Many hosting companies will provide web design services for a monthly fee. People with some tech savvy use WordPress, and for those who are really tech-challenged, it doesn't get any easier than WIX. I don't think you need a lot of bells and whistles. People don't have a lot of time to be wowed by your brilliant website. A beautiful website might sell one book, but if that book doesn't live up to the promise of a fabulous website, then you've lost a reader forever. My advice: go simple until you can afford the website designer of your choice. There are LOTS of free templates out there for you to experiment with. Again, it doesn't have to be fancy but it should be free of typos and topical. If you're writing a mystery set in the cooking world, do not populate your website with pictures of your adorable Golden Retriever--no matter how cute your dog is, and it's a truth universally acknowledged that my Golden "Bear" is THE most AMAZING dog on the face of this earth. Just sayin'.

Google and YouTube are your friends. You can glean basic web skills in pretty much no time flat. I just taught myself some basic LaTex skills all from YouTube because my job said, hey, do you know LaTex. I said, give one week and I'll have the basics down. Please note that if you do break out and go all crazy and decide to create your own website, understand that different hosting sites will NOT, I REPEAT, will not upload you files if you are using Google as your browser. I wasted something like thirty hours trying to determine why I couldn't upload and see my site on Google Chrome. Because my hosting site abhors Google.

3.  Let's say you Googled your little heart, and with your newly acquired awesome html skills put together a simple but effective web page. What do you do with all those extra $$$ floating around? You get a decent author photograph to put on the back of your books and as a promotional push for your simple but professional looking website. Lots of people feel uncomfortable having their photograph everywhere, but this is an age where readers want to know who you are, not just what you write. I deplore this level of intimacy, but that's another post. I think you need to accept that there is the professional you and the personal you. The professional "me" used to be a pastry chef who became a writer, and the personal me is someone who must confess to having had popcorn for dinner when my husband's out of town and who writes fanfiction. Truth.

What do you we have so far? A decent looking website, and an author's photograph that you can put on your website (and Facebook). I have not used any of the advertising gimmicks offered by Google or Facebook because I don't have the money. I have asked others who did if that worked out for them? Did they get an appreciable bump in sales? All I got were shrugs. I have heard that Instagram is the hot new thing, but that Facebook still works for authors in generating interest. I will say that what I think Facebook does is generate interest in you but not necessarily your books. Authors who use it as a relentless marketing push eventually alienate people. Except that readers now want a much more personal relationship with authors that has nothing to do with the books they write. I know. It doesn't make sense, just go with it. I think the rule of thumb is something like 70% personal stuff and 30% marketing.

Unfortunately, this is a double-edged sword. The more you get to know about people, the less you might want to read them because the veil between author and reader is now mighty thin. I tend to rant on Facebook about the political nightmare that is currently our country, so, yeah, I've alienated a ton of people already, but I made a conscious decision to voice my disgust with the current administration over books sales. I suppose if I had a vibrant career, then it might be different, but anonymity has its pluses. Just be aware that if you do use Facebook as a soapbox then it will be less effective for you as a way of generating interest in your books. I have stopped buying books by authors whom I believe are homophobic and racist, and I'd be a fool to assume that they won't return the favor because I'm a raving socialist.

Next Sunday I'll chat about costs that you might not be able to afford but that you feel you have no choice but to absorb.