Emily L. Byrne is an erotica and erotic romance writer from the scenic Midwest. Her stories have appeared in such venues as FORBIDDEN FRUIT, BLOOD IN THE RAIN V.3, FIRST, YEAR'S BEST LESBIAN EROTICA: 20th ANNIVERSARY ED. and WITCHES, PRINCESSES AND WOMEN AT ARMS. Her books MEDUSA'S TOUCH, KNIFE'S EDGE and DESIRE are all available from Queen of Swords Press.
Saturday, May 28, 2016
"Planet 10" is featured on the Nobilis Erotica Podcast!
Happy news for today - my lesbian science fiction erotica story, "Planet 10" is featured on the Nobikis Erotica Podcast. "Planet 10" is about aliens and fetishes and submission and transformation and is, I hope, still pretty hot. It originally appeared in the Best Lesbian Erotica series, as well as in a collection of my earlier work. happy listening!
Monday, May 23, 2016
“The Highs and Lows of Promoting Lesbian Fiction”
I'm going to start reposting some of my blogs from other sites which I think might still be useful to folks reading this blog... Today's adventure: Promotion and writing
“The Highs and Lows
of Promoting Lesbian Fiction”
If you’re an author these days, whether traditionally or
indie published, finding ways to get the word out about your work is critical
to the success of your book. Publishers are slashing budgets and staff for
promotion, which means that even authors published by large publishers are
looking for newer and more creative ways to publicize their books. At the same
time, the review and other traditional publicity options for indie published
books haven’t caught up with the vast number of new titles.
When you’re an author who writes for a smaller niche market,
things get even tougher. I write lesbian fiction: science fiction and fantasy,
erotica, and some romance. Small press lesbian fiction that isn’t primarily a
romance is a challenge to promote, to put it mildly. There are few options for
getting your book reviewed: fewer specialized websites, fewer book
bloggers. There can be fewer
options for guest blogging or podcasting or doing bookstore readings. There is
one major conference (other than publisher-specific gatherings) for lesbian
fiction (the annual Golden Crown Literary Conference).
It’s considered a truism that as compared to gay fiction,
lesbian fiction doesn’t sell that well (someone helpfully pointed this out on
my Twitter feed just this morning). This looks particularly overwhelming when
sales for m/m (written for a primarily female audience) is rolled in with other
forms of gay fiction (written for a primarily male audience). The larger the target audience, the
bigger the sales, at least in theory.
That said, harder is not the same as impossible. Genre plays
a big part in how easy it is to promote something: romance sells better than
other genres, followed by mystery. But even that’s not a stroll in the park:
big genre authors needs to find their audiences just as smaller genre or
subgenre authors do. Access to more opportunities makes it easier but that’s
not necessarily the same as “easy.”
What that leaves is the need to get creative about marketing
our books. We have to get our books out there to build an audience, then find
ways to consistently maintain and grow that audience. I don’t have any easy
answers that will apply to all books and all writers but my initial publicity
efforts for my first novel are laid out in
this guest blog post to give you an idea of some of the things I’ve tried.
I’ve been building on my experiences with each of my books and I make a new
list of things to try whenever I have a new book coming out.
Do they all work, in the sense of selling more books? Alas,
no. Nor can I tell you definitively what drove someone to buy one of my books
(unless they told me) after any particular promotional push. And, furthermore,
I will be honest and say that the most money I’ve ever made from an individual
fiction sale was from my only m/m story. But, and this is an important “but,”
I’m picking up a larger audience with each book and it’s not limited by genre
or sexual orientation. People who
read my novel are also reading some of my short story collections and the
anthologies I’ve edited. I also have many more promotional opportunities than I
had when my first short fiction collection came out in 2005.
Where did those opportunities come from? Some came from
practice: I did it once and it worked so I did it again. Some came from
accumulated name recognition over the course of several years and books. Some
came because I pushed myself to ask and to follow up on them. This last one is
important. Don’t assume that a blogger won’t review your book or that you can’t
get on a writer panel or that there isn’t an email list out there where you can
promote your work. Ask or create your own. Audiences are built over time and
lesbian fiction writers have more of any opportunity to build those audiences
than ever before.
Some tips:
1. Look
at what other writers in your genre and style are doing to promote themselves.
Learn from the good and the bad, so you don’t repeat their mistakes as well as
their successes.
2. Think
outside the proverbial box. What would you like to do to sell your books that
you haven’t done before? What do you need to do to make it happen?
3. Think
past your current book. What’s your next book going to be? How are you planning
to promote it?
4. Build
relationships with other authors, book bloggers, reviewers, bookstores and
people in your social networks. Networking should involve give and take to keep
it stable and make it effective.
5. Don’t
give up on writing what you want to write.
Some resources:
Author K.T. Grant, blog post – “Lesbian
Fiction/Romance Does Sell Well and Here’s How I Know…”
Golden Crown Literary
Society – organization for writers of lesbian fiction in all genres.
Booklife: Strategies
and Survival Tips for the 21st Century Writer by Jeff VanderMeer
(Tachyon Publications, 2009). Excellent resource for strategizing how and why
you do publicity for your books.
Tuesday, May 3, 2016
Where to find me on social media
In addition to blogging here, I can be found on Twitter as @EmilyLByrne, on Facebook and on my new Favebook author page as https://www.facebook.com/Writer-Emily-L-Byrne-838988202911365/
and on Google+ as Emily Byrne+
Please feel free to link, like and so forth!
I'm also happy to host guest blogs from lesfic and f/f erotica and erotic romance writers - drop me a line at writeremilylbyrne(at)gmail.com if you're interested.
and on Google+ as Emily Byrne+
Please feel free to link, like and so forth!
I'm also happy to host guest blogs from lesfic and f/f erotica and erotic romance writers - drop me a line at writeremilylbyrne(at)gmail.com if you're interested.
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