Tuesday, January 18, 2011

Demographics

So the other day, my sweetie was watching a Buffy rerun. He's a big Joss Whedon fan and, bless his heart, thinks strong smart women are sexy. I happened to walk in the kitchen as he was watching and that's when the ad came on. It was for Ru Paul's Drag Race. That's cuz Buffy reruns air on Logo, apparently. 

My first thought was, "Babe, you are SO not their demographic." 

Last night, we were watching the premier of Being Human. An ad came on for Life Alert. You know, the "Help me. I've fallen and I can't get up." thingie? My sweetheart wondered out loud why Life Alert would be buying ad time on SyFy on a show about a vampire, a werewolf and a ghost trying to live normal human lives. He thought it was probably a waste of their money.

I've got a book coming out in a few weeks and am trying to decide what to do to promote it. How do I reach my demographic?

RWA does all kinds of surveys about who reads romance and I know that my demographic is probably married, college-educated women between the ages of 31 and 49. So how do I find them? RWA says that most romance readers pick books based on ads in other romance novels. Ain't nothin' I can do about that. 

What about social networking? I played around with Facebook and Twitter, but I feel like I'm preaching to the choir. A lot of my FB friends are other writers. Ditto with people who were following me on Twitter for the brief time I was willing to tweet. 

Advertising is pricey. I've run ads in RWR. They're wonderfully affordable, but again, who am I reaching? Other writers. Romance writers and definitely romance readers, too, but I still feel like I'm preaching to the choir. There's RT, but their rates are a little our of my price range. 

So I'll probably do what I always do. Blog here and there. Send out some press releases. Have a book release party. Wish me luck.

12 comments:

Stephanie Doyle said...

Eileen - I don't know what the "rates" are but have you considered advertising on popular romance review blogs?

Maybe it's just me - but I REALLY rely on blogs like Dear Author to find new authors.

If more than one of the bloggers says it's excellent I'm going to check it out. Sometime I agree - sometimes I don't. But it's certainly a place I go.

Not so much to Smart Bitches anymore - but they don't do as many reviews.

All About Romance is another - but they've basically hated everything I've written... so I'm not so sure I agree with their taste :)

And finally word of mouth is just something that can't be stopped. I had no sooner read the review of the Iron Duke, then was hearing about it on this blog, then suddenly it felt like everyone was talking about it... that's how a book cathes fire.

I also think we owe a lot to Amazon and the "recommended" reads. All it's going to take is for someone to buy JR Ward for your book to come up on someone's view as a recomended read.

Now - if they figured out a way to send advertising to Kindles... hmmm...that could be the evolution.

Molly O'Keefe said...

I agree with the review sites - they're actually pretty cheap, but you have to get in line pretty far in advance.

this is what I've been thinking about - blogs/websites that aren't writing or book related - but are still women focused. Mom blogs - recipie blogs, family blogs etc...

but in the end - you have to do what you can afford and what you like.

Stephanie Doyle said...

Also too Eileen - I know sometimes it feels like you're preaching to choir when you're targeting writers... but every writer I know is a reader. So if you do something like RWR you're basically reaching out to what are we up to now....10,000 something hardcore readers.

Not a bad number.

Maureen McGowan said...

I have no freaking idea. This is the kind of thing I thought I knew about, and had strong opinions about before I had a book coming out. Now, I have no clue.

But I agree that social networking is more than straight advertising/promo. People are more likely to buy something by someone they know.

Book release party!!! I'm getting excited already. :) Feb is going to be a big month at DWT!

Eileen said...

I like the idea of advertising on the review sites. I might take a look at that. You guys are so smart! And I bet you haven't even started drinking yet today!

Anonymous said...

No, I'be started drinking....

Promotion is impossible and no one has any definite of specific answers, but I do think, if you can even impress your publisher with your efforts, they might be willing to throw more promotion at the following book... or am I being pollyanna about it?

Stephanie Doyle said...

Sinead... I've always heard that. You have to make it look like you're trying. Or maybe there are things you can do that your publishers will "work with on" kind of thing...

But I don't know how much I buy that.

If your publisher wants to support you - they give you a co-op space and a flip back cover.

Other than that whatever other efforts... not sure how much of a difference that makes. And the covers have never done anything for me.

Put a book on the end of an aisle or in a special rack though... and I'm all over it.

Molly O'Keefe said...

So - just to see how it works, I decided to get an ad on Good Reads and do a book giveaway there - I will let you know how that goes, but honestly, it seems so simple and the very basic basic ad - was $150.00. I'll let you know what comes of it...

Stephanie Doyle said...

Molly - that awesome. And even better you've given me another website to go to at work when I'm bored!

Kristina Mathews said...

I'm going to chime in and let you know that I have discovered some great new-to-me authors through blogs like this one. The only bookstore in my town is used, and I find it frustrating that other places often have ten or more books by super famous authors but if I'm looking for something different I have to do some research.

Maureen McGowan said...

Thanks for sharing that with us, Kristina! It's nice to know you've found some authors through reading blogs. :)

Eileen said...

Kristina, that was music to my ears!

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