I’ve got the basic, initial components of the “media kit” done. I don’t have a review yet, so I wrote a book synopsis. There’s an author bio. There’s a media release, which I will be putting out on the wires (Thursday, probably–everyone seems to say that Thursday is a good day to issue media/news releases…provided there’s not some huge piece of breaking news like a terrorist attack or 31 people being gunned down on a college campus 🙁 ). There’s a “review sheet.” I wrote a cover letter–the same one for each of the review copies (except that for Booklist and Library Journal, I mention the marketing plan to urge readers to have their libraries buy the book), I just need to do the book club ones. SciFi Book Club seems like a strong possibility, vampire books are very popular with their members. They’re currently offering 35 of them and vampires have their own category heading. OneSpirit offers a few, and I’m a member of OneSpirit, and I can sell Mortal Touch to them on the psychic angle, too.
I went up to Staples today and got glossy laminated blue folders for the media kit and ARC’s. Those should look nice.
Everything’s going out Priority Mail with tracking.
And I just got the e-mail from Lulu saying the ARC’s have been shipped. I paid for 2-day UPS shipping so I hope they’ll be here Wednesday. If it’s early enough, they’ll go out Wednesday. I’ll have the packets entirely ready to go, they’ll just need the books.
I’m aiming to be professional and concise. I didn’t want to be cutesy-pie to attract attention. I tried to put myself in the position of, “I am a review editor at [Library Journal, Kirkus Reviews, Booklist…etc] and I’m opening up the 200th review copy to hit my desk today. It’s a small press, right on the deadline, never heard of them before, and they obviously didn’t have $500 to spend on this media kit. And it’s ho-hum, another vampire novel…” How do I keep that person from chucking my book into the wastebasket? The best I could do was get straight to the point and state right out why the fiction I’m publishing isn’t the same as all the other vampire fiction that’s out there…which it isn’t.
I’m also doing everything I can while staying truthful to present myself right out of the gate as a “small press” publishing material by multiple authors, not just one person self-publishing their own books. Most of the pre-pub reviewers say they won’t review “self-published” books, although it’s not always clear what they think they mean by that.
I need to get the media kit items up on the website.
To quote a button I have: “It’s been lovely, but I have to scream now…”