In Search of Buzz

I am posting this link similtaneously on my Find Your Magic blog and here, because I'd like to get feedback from as many bloggers and blog readers as possible. I plan on making the same offer from both sites, if I go forward with the plan.

It looks like the scheduled on sale date for Farworld is September 5th. Basically, that’s about six months until the first book hits store shelves, give or take a week. Between now and then, my publisher will be busy with things like finishing up the artwork, doing final edits, collecting the blurbs, printing ARCs (advance reader copies), and creating posters and bookmarks.

Shadow Mountain has done a great job of building up a name for themselves in the YA fantasy market with Leven Thumps, Fablehaven, and now The 13th Reality. Leven Thumps has sold hundreds of thousands, Fablehaven hit the NY Times bestseller list for children’s books, and even though The 13th Reality has just been released, it is selling well, and Borders has decided to feature it for the month of April in their “New Voices” section.

Onece Farworld comes out, Shadow Mountain will send me on a two week multi-city tour where I will visit lots of schools and do lots of book signings. In addition, Shadow Mountain will have ARCs of my book at BEA (Book Expo America, the largest book show in the US,) and several other shows. Clearly this is all a dream come true for me. Unless the Earth spins off its axis in the next six months, I should be selling a bunch of books in the fourth quarter of this year.

The question is, what do I do for the next six months? The book is written. Other than final edits of the galleys, I’m not changing the story at all. Of course as an author, you always think of things you’d like to do better. But based on getting a lot of feedback from a lot of readers, I think people will find this book exciting. I’ve spent a lot of time studying reviews of other YA fantasy novels, and the three biggest complaints I see are: “Not enough depth to the characters.” “Too slow.” And, “More suited to younger kids.”

I think I’ve avoided all of those pitfalls. Marcus and Kyja are not cardboard characters. They deal externally and internally with real issues. I’ve had many, many adults tell me they liked the book at least as much as their kids. I’m not going for silly with this series. And if there isn’t enough action in this book, you may need to read it while swimming with killer sharks or something. So the writing will either sink or swim.

But I don’t want to just sit back and wait. I’ve been racking my brain trying to think what I can do to help build up momentum until then. I think the bottom line is that word of mouth is what will sell the book. If I’m right, and my book is good, people will tell other people. Hopefully I’ll get good reviews for some of the biggies like Kirkus and Publisher’s Weekly. But what can I do to get the ball rolling until then? How do you create word of mouth before your book is out?

The first thing I did was to start this blog. If I keep the content fresh and helpful, people should start telling other people and the number of visitors will steadily increase. That seems to be happening. For me, the concept of the internet is fascinating. As I look at the map of who is visiting my site, I see people from all over the world and most of the regions in the US. Is there a way I can use that to start building up what industry people call buzz?

Here’s what I’m thinking, and I want you to brainstorm right along with me. The best way to get the word out is to approach the people who talk to the most people. If I were already a big name or had unlimited time and money, I’d start traveling across the country right now. I don’t have money, but I do have ARCs that will be available in May. Shadow Mountain prints a ton of these. I’m not sure they want me to say exactly how many they send out, but it is quite a few. They will send out copies to all the big book reviewers both on-line and in print.

Again, if my book is as good as I think it is, that should generate some talk. But what about a grass roots effort? What about all the people who have blogs, but aren’t huge reviewers? I think I’ll probably have 100-200 books that I can give out. Let’s say I gave out 200 books to people who have their own blogs. If each of those blogs averaged say thirty unique visitors (some will have many more, some will have less) I could reach 6,000 people before my book even comes out.

Honestly, if you sold 6,000 books your first week, you’d probably hit the NYT. Of course I’m not naïve enough to think all 6,000 people would rush out to buy my book. But it’s definitely better than just sitting back and waiting. So the next question is, how can I reach those people and what can we do to make the blog posts interesting enough to get some attention?

Here’s where I need your help. I’m still pretty new to this blogging stuff (at least on a national level), but I know many of you spend quite a bit of time with your own blogs and reading others. What if I did this?

Let’s say I offer a free ARC to anyone who agrees to read the book and do a review along with a Q&A on their blog between the first of July and the end of August? I think they call this a blog tour or a virtual tour. I send you the book and you send me questions, Whatever questions you want, writing questions, questions about the books, silly questions, serious questions, whatever. I’ll send you back my answers and you agree to post a review and the Q&A on your blog starting July first.

Obviously I expect you to say what you really think about the book. If you love it, great. If you don’t love it so much, then say what you didn’t like. In addition, what if I could get enough extra ARCs so you could give out one free copy to someone who comments on your post? Do a random drawing, best comment, whatever. I’d even have the book drop shipped for you to the person who won it.

It seems to me that if I did this, it would really help get the word out. I honestly don’t know if I’d get tons of bloggers interested or only a handful. What I’m thinking I would do is take a date like the middle of April and announce that I would send out books to the first two hundred people who sent me the name of their blog and their mailing address.

I’d definitely get some overlap on blogs, but maybe we could try to schedule dates so everyone didn’t blog at the same time. And by doing different questions and answers, it could make the blogs unique enough that readers might read more than one post.

Oh, and for those of you who don’t have blogs, I could do some kind of drawing here as well as the chance you’d have to win a book off someone else’s blog. In fact I could do a daily link of everyone who is taking part in the tour so people could go from my blog to their blogs to try and win a book there or just check out the other cool blogs.

So what do you think? Would this work? Why or why not? I’d love to hear your comments, and I’m really looking forward to hearing your thoughts.