It used to be said that everyone has a novel sitting in a drawer, waiting to be published. Well not any more. These days everyone has a novel, or three or five, sitting in Amazon’s Kindle Store or on Smashwords. Which is great for all those with literary pretensions. Unless they want people to notice their novel.

New independent authors can hardly contain their excitement. Suddenly they can publish what they want, when they want, without fear of rejection or criticism. They dream of hitting the best seller lists, of giving acceptance speeches at major prize givings, they are liberated by the thought of being able to spend the rest of their lives writing for a living. We live to write as my friend O.G. Tomes reminds me.

Then the awful realisation sets in. Books do not sell themselves. To write for a living means having to sell one’s books. To compete with everyone else who is doing the same thing. The dream starts to fade. The enthusiastic writer rapidly turns into jaded marketeer.

But writers, particularly writers of fiction, are creative. They have ideas. And soon they start to apply that creativity, which they’d hoped to confine to their writing, to their new careers as marketeers.

One of the most powerful marketing techniques is cross-selling. Alliances of different brands, all promoting each other’s products to their different audiences. Cross selling is starting to take off in the independent publishing world. Authors are banding together to promote their book collectively. It’s a powerful strategy for getting noticed. Authors who join alliances are no longer mere twigs in the Amazon rain forest. They’re not big enough to be trees yet, but they are certainly sticks and some of them are becoming branches.

I recently joined the Alliance of Authors, a cross-marketing group set up by Colin Chadwick. As well as our own independent promotional activities, every author features on the Alliance’s website. We fire tweets and posts about each others books into the social ether. We even blog about the Alliance. It’s all about cross-promotion.

Jon Reisfeld has come up with a variation on the Alliance theme. He describes his Indie Author Showcase as a book marketing experiment. Sixty indie authors representing six different genres will head ‘into uncharted waters’ on a book tour- cross promoting each other on book blogger sites, participating in free giveaways, offering free sweepstake prizes.

2011 was the year when independent authors developed their e-book formatting and publishing skills. 2012 will be the year when they mature their marketing talents. The independent book market is still young, and developing rapidly. It’s an exciting time to be an enthusiastic writer- and perhaps a not quite so jaded marketeer.

4 thoughts on “The Alliance of Authors”

Well, said, Harry. Now, the “experiment” begins!

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The time has arrived for every writer to be capable of and to acknowledge their dream of, being a published author. It is also the time for each writer to realize the expense and cost of that dream. The time it will take for the marketing, self promotion and yes, the strategy. Decades of waiting for the time when my life’s responsibilities would allow its realization has arrived. I researched. I studied. And yet I researched it again. The tide has turned against traditional publishing where you wait for some times years for your work to be noticed. Yet, I still waited to see.
The waiting then became a bane for this writer. It was coupled too closely to the ‘traditional’ avenue I had been waiting so long to travel while wanting to chuck the system already in place out the window. Or to be fair, I wanted to leave it in a stack to gather dust. Yes, years ago when my life was its busiest I submitted a manuscript and I am still checking the mail for my rejection slip. I chose e-publishing / self- publishing because as I watched the tide turn I realized there were a multitude of chances that did not include the waiting of the ‘traditional method’ to take notice of my creative work. The shocker of it all is the marketing strategies I see others utilizing. Relatively new to the whole techno arena being my admitted disadvantage, it has also become my advantage.
Seeing the picture with fresh eyes as opposed to being neck deep in the shark filled waters has allowed me to see past the norm, the usual and the expected. The Alliance of Authors has a definite “going to make a difference” feel to it. It takes the ‘cross market’ theme to a whole new level, which I like. It enables one person to easily announce the work of its members collectively.
“Collectively, authors appear to be a force to be reckoned with considering the proof as witnessed by the e-publishing trends of today!”
“Kudos, Colin Chadwick! I do believe you have hit upon something amazing!”
I pulled my self away from my current book in progress because I had liked the sound of this ‘Alliance of Authors’ and Harry, your post had stayed lingering while the gears turned over its content. While marketing your ‘works’ you must always check and re-check each touted way to present your works to the public. The manner in which you present them can say alot more than the words you write intending to publish as a book. I visited the site on several occasions, watching and waiting then visited for an extended amount of time this evening. I made my decision and then my ‘disadvantage’ reared its ‘wire-connected’ head. Could you tell me where the join button is? Oh! Bless, is it one of those ‘by invitation only’ sites? I would like to know before I start sending out the recommendations for fellow authors to join. “Hark, who goes there?” …. It is another author who feels strongly about turning the tide for all authors! “Make a difference in this world of ours, E-PUBLISH!”
O.G. TOMES

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