I wanted to open up this blog with a bang. A question I’ve asked myself a million times. Is it really worth it to start the marketing effort before the ROUGH DRAFT is complete?
Obviously my answer is yes. But why?
- I read somewhere that author platforms are a thing.
- 4000+ books are published a day, so standing out is important.
- Marketing is one thing I CAN control.
- Building an audience sounds fun.
That’s it really. There’s thousands and thousands of excellent books being published every single day and yet you’ll probably never hear of let alone read any of them.
You can feel free to stop reading, the rest of this will be a FAQ, but since I don’t actually have any readers it’s just me asking questions to myself.
How do you hear of a book?
Unfortunately, the answer to that is marketing. So I thought I’d start early, try to build some hype by providing some behind-the-scenes action along the way, do some giveaways, get people to sign up for my newsletter, generate some concept art (read my AI content policy here), and just generally have a good time.
Don’t most authors wait until they’ve finished the book to start building hype?
Yes. Are they right to do that? I don’t know. This is my experiment.
Well how far along are you?
Not as far along as I’d like to be, but I have been making consistent, daily progress to the tune of about 1,000 words a day. So from the time of writing this, I expect the rough draft to be complete in under 2 months.
You haven’t written anything have you?
ACTUALLY I HAVE! I’ve written a double-digit percentage of my word count goal, and not just random thoughts and scenes — a real, cohesive story (so far).
How can I know you’ll finish before I get invested with my emotions?
You can’t know that, but it worked for George R. R. Martin and Pat Rothfuss.
Are you comparing yourself to George R. R. Martin and Pat Rothfuss?
Moving on…
Why should I care about some no name debut author with no writing out — not even a novella to look at?
Well, I find people generally like to support people and you sound like a pretty miserable person if you only like people who have something to offer you.