For anyone who has read earlier posts of this blog, you will have seen that I wanted to create a blog for new writers. It stemmed from the fact that when I first started out I felt so overwhelmed by the amount of information I needed to consume to fully understand this craft. There are so many pieces to a very large puzzle that makes up the writing and publishing of a book. And for those who wish to take the indie route, there’s even more to worry about.

You’re in charge of every single piece of that puzzle. You decide whether you’re going to find the perfect spot for every single piece or if you’re going to take a hammer to it and force it to fit. You’re in charge of the financial side, the artistic side, the marketing side, and of course, the writing side.

It’s daunting! And that’s honestly an understatement. I remember feeling like there was no possible way I could do this when I first started down this path. I convinced myself so many times that it would be too hard, that there was no way I could manage every single faucet of what IS a business, that it would leave me in a state of static movement. Sure I was writing but I sorely lacked direction.

There’s really no easy way to get over that hump in my opinion. It’s just persistence, consistency, resilience, and a desperate passion that takes over often and with ferocity.

So, with that being said, let’s start with lesson one. It’s a random one but it has to do with marketing and readers engagement.

Keeping a Reader Engaged is Integral to the Finishing of Your Book

If you have never listened to writing excuses hosted by Brandon Sanderson, Dan Wells, and Howard Tayler (now hosted by Howard Tayler but there’s many seasons of the podcast with Brandon and Dan) then maybe this isn’t something you’ve heard before but it really should go without saying. The entire point is for a reader to finish your book and if you’ve done it right, they finish it quickly and are itching for more of your work by the end of it. This is how successful authors are made. Yes, we can get into the semantics of whether some popular authors wrote books that were well written but I have always argued that it takes immense talent to write something that is consumable by a wide audience (and is entertaining enough to get a cult-like following).

A tactic that I am using is chapter titles. My current project is a comedy/fantasy centered around a 34-year-old man who finds out he’s the chosen and has to save all of the storylands. This gave me the opportunity to not only make the chapters a bunch of different genres, but I got to come up with some absurd chapter titles that will intrigue a reader to want to know what the heck it means.

For example, in this first draft there is currently a chapter titled “All The Children Have Weapons and I’m Scared”. This could mean SO many things and it makes you want to know

1. Why do all the children have weapons?

2. Why is the protagonist so afraid of a bunch of kids. Aren’t the children bad at using weapons? Are they trained?

So many questions come up from that chapter title. And that’s the whole point. I want the reader engaged from the very start. I want them to read that chapter title and go, “well I was going to go to bed like a responsible adult but now I just HAVE to know what that means…sorry boss, I’m going to take a nap at my desk tomorrow.”

Where Does This Come In Handy?

Well, I have a couple different ideas for how I plan on building an audience before the launch of my book at the end of the year.

1. By sharing titles within this blog I will (hopefully) rile up some excitement around what this book will be.
2. I plan on releasing chapters prior to the full book’s launch on royal road and my patreon. The chapter titles will (again, hopefully) work in my favour to make people want to click on it.
3. Chapter title releases through social media to again rile up excitement but also build my brand as a comedic fantasy author.

Why shouldn’t you use every faucet of your book to sell it? Sure, you can put out a blurb. And yeah, a cover reveal is always a good thing. But why not use everything in the book to sell it?

That’s my idea anways…I’ll keep you updated on how that goes for me.

As always, stay writing cause it’s actually the only TRUE way to keep the boogey man away.

Oh! And you can follow me on IG & Threads and you can support me and my work on Patreon! ❤