MPAX Guest Post - Backworlds Blog Tour

Today it is my privilege to host blogging buddy and fellow scribe M Pax.  She is one of my favorite bloggers and I'm a fan of her writing as well.  :)  M Pax will tell us how to gain and keep the audience we so desperately desire.  Enjoy!

Capturing Your Audience

Thank you to the amazing, Libby, for having me on today. I’m eagerly awaiting her release of Tough Girl this fall, knowing it will be amazing. I’ve certainly enjoyed her short story collections so far.

Well, onto talking about marketing and keeping what we work so hard for ...

Gaining and holding an audience isn’t easy. If it were, we’d all be instant best sellers. It takes time, effort, patience, and tenacity.

Series sell best, and the more product we get out there, the better. These are known main ingredients in authors’ arsenals who make a living at this writing gig. So, that is my emphasis right now: series and producing. Writing, writing, writing.

We can get more notice by offering the first read in a series for free. I know that makes a lot of authors uneasy, but it’s a proven marketing strategy. Get it out there. Get it in people’s hands. Get them hooked, so they come looking for more. Then produce the more.

Great sites for uploading your free work are: Smashwords [will get you into iTunes, Kobo, Diesel, and Barnes & Noble], Feedbooks [I get a ton of downloads off Feedbooks – over 1,000 at this point], and Amazon [quickly catching up to Feedbooks].

You can’t set the price as free on Amazon, but you can get them to price match once your work winds its way onto B&N and iTunes. Tell them about the lower price and have your friends tell them.

Exposure is great and is what we need, but we also need a mechanism to speak to our audience / fans directly. This is why you should have a mailing list. Those names are our money, people who love what we do and want more. If you’re not capturing that, you’ve a big hole in your marketing strategy.

Mailchimp and YMLP offer free versions. I use YMLP. I offer discounts to those who sign up as an incentive. So, when Stopover rolls out in July — the sequel to The Backworlds — those on my list will get a coupon to buy it cheaper. Whether they use it or not doesn’t matter. What matters is those are people eager for more, and I can communicate with them directly.

Keeping people updated between releases is a great way to keep my name and my books in their minds, helping me maintain the momentum I built.

The Backworlds After the war with Earth, bioengineered humans scatter across the Backworlds. Competition is fierce and pickings are scant. Scant enough that Craze’s father decides to hoard his fortune by destroying his son. Cut off from family and friends, with little money, and even less knowledge of the worlds beyond his own, Craze heads into an uncertain future. Boarding the transport to Elstwhere, he vows to make his father regret this day.

Available as a FREE ebook: Amazon / AmazonUK / Smashwords / Barnes & Noble For other outlets such as iTunes and Kobo, see M. Pax’s Backworls Page

Sign up for M. Pax’s newsletter for discounts on sequels in the series, updates, and more.

About the author:

M. Pax’s inspiration comes from the wilds of Oregon, especially the high desert where she shares her home with two cats and a husband unit. Creative sparks also come from Pine Mountain Observatory where she spend her summers working as a star guide. She writes mostly science fiction and fantasy, but confesses to an obsession with Jane Austen. She blogs at her website, www.mpaxauthor.com and at Wistful Nebuae. You’ll find links there to connect on Twitter, Goodread, FB and other sites.

In case the links don’t hold:

Wistful Nebulae: http://mpaxauthor.blogspot.com

Newsletter: http://mpaxauthor.com/newsletter/

Smashwords - http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/150519

Barnes & Noble - http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-backworlds-m-pax/1110498771?ean=2940033159109

Amazon – http://www.amazon.com/dp/B007Y6LHAA

AmazonUK - https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B007Y6LHAA