Creating a Buzz for your Novel

What can you do to create a "Buzz" about your novel while you are "assembling" it for the printer?

It's the age of "Social Media"! There is plenty that you can do!

"Leak" Chapters. In the same way that singers/rappers "leak" songs from their upcoming album, you can "leak" chapters from your upcoming novel on any number of sites! Post excerpts (a page or two) from your novel on your Facebook, Google+, or MySpace page for they lend themselves easily to larger posts.

"Tease" Potential Readers. Twitter limits you to 140 characters so post "cliffhanger" questions, along with the title of the novel and it's release date. You can post the cover of your novel with teaser commentary on Instagram and Tumblr.

Design your leaks and teasers to attract the target demographic you had in mind when writing your novel, and if you had a diverse demographic in mind while writing your novel then you will want to create various leaks and teasers with each one designed for a smaller "control group" demographic. For instance, if you are writing a crime suspense romance novel with a target audience of 25 to 55 year old males and females, you would want to leak a romantic scene for the female demographic and an action scene for the male demographic.

As for leaking your cover, you may want to consider "cutting" the cover up into "bite size" pieces instead of leaking the full cover all at once. You could leak one piece a week over several weeks, and then the full cover when you are a week or so away from your release date.

Another way to create a "Buzz" for your novel is to get your audience "attached" to your characters. You can use short descriptions and avatars to depict your characters, and share that information on Social Media sites to get potential readers attached to the characters which will make them want to read the whole novel.

Be sure to use all forms of Social Media when creating a "Buzz" about your novel! I know that may seem overwhelming when you consider how many social media sites there are today, but if you create the "leak" or "teaser" with your Smartphone it will be easy to share without your having to recreate for every site. Applications available for creating these leaks and teasers are Textgram, Justgram, InstaFrame, Photogrid, etc. that have been developed with Instagram in mind, however, if you have set up all of your Social Media sites up on your phone you can share whatever you create in these applications with any of the available sites, as well as, text messaging, email, and instant message applications such as Hangouts and Messenger for Facebook.

Until next time,
Happy Writing/Editing/Leaking/Teasing!
G

One-on-One consultations are available no matter where you are in the process of completing your novel, and it could be just for a specific topic and not the whole process. Also, don't forget that the first 30 minutes are free.