Can you provide an example of a romance novelist who is particularly good at book promotion? What do you like about what she does?

I love Jennifer Crusie and Suzanne Brockmann, and for different reasons. Jennifer Crusie is all about sharing all the crazy details of her life and drawing on her fans for support. She has them act as beta readers, she asks them for ideas, she wants their input on plot problems. She blogs about wanting to kill her coauthor – she is just out there. She talks about how she comes up with story ideas, she posts outtakes from her novels (scenes that were cut from the final), she treats her characters as if they were real people. Love her.

Suzanne Brockmann takes a different approach, what you might call a more professional approach. She has an extremely straightforward website, not a lot of bells and whistles, and a newsletter that keeps readers informed about what’s going on, but I don’t really get the sense that I know much about her as a person. And that’s okay! They’re both best-selling authors, and they both focus on writing fantastic novels.

I think these two demonstrate that your approach to promotion needs to be *your* approach – what works for you, what you can sustain, what resonates with you.

What’s the one thing you will encourage your authors to do to promote their books – if they do nothing else, what do you think they must do to get the word out?

They have to have a website/blog – a landing page for readers. That’s the bare minimum. A huge number of romance readers report visiting romance authors’ websites – by far outstripping other related activities they do like following authors on Facebook.

Beyond having a website, authors just have to tell people! I can’t believe the number of writers who are shy about sharing any publishing news on their FB page. It’s a big deal to get a publishing contract! It’s okay to share.

How will you partner with your authors on book promotion – what will Crimson Romance do to help promote its books, and what will you expect from your authors?

The publisher can do a lot to generate sales – get media coverage (especially reviews) for titles, partner strategically with other companies and organizations, distribute to the right places, create a community (and we plan all of these things). Our authors will be given guidance for author promotion, and through their editor they will have access to our publicity department. This partnership ensures that any special ideas the author has are heard and supported.

We do expect our authors to be generally available for promotional opportunities that we develop – that’s just our basic expectation. Beyond that, we encourage authors to devote some time to promotion of their own devising (with our guidance) because there are many things that only an author can realistically do (see above about readers connecting with authors, not with imprints). But we want authors to find what works for them and use that, not try to follow some prescribed ten-step plan. You like Facebook? Then that’s a great place to start promotion. You prefer to blog? Then that’s what you should do.

I think that with fiction, in particular, it helps to let readers sample the author’s work – even if it’s a sample chapter on the author’s website. Some publishers are making novels available on Kindle for free, or for just $.99, for a very short period of time to generate “sampling.” What do you think about this tactic?

Samples do sell books, and I firmly believe that a sample chapter on an author’s website is a great tool. We will also be doing this type of thing on our dedicated website. I’ve seen studies that show that free downloads of entire manuscripts can convert lookers into buyers, in large enough numbers that this is clearly a tactic that can work, but this type of decision is not one I would make unilaterally – I would only do it if an author is enthusiastic about giving it a try.

Would you like to add anything else related to promoting romance novels or your new imprint?

Publishing has changed so much in the last five years that it can feel so strange and threatening to writers. But a good story never goes out of style. That’s why I always come back to. You have to learn to tell the story first. That’ll take half your life. The rest will take a lot less time to figure out and it will change tomorrow anyway. So focus on the craft.

Remember to read the first post in this three-part series on romance novel promotion here and Part 2 here. What other suggestions for romance novel promotion can you offer?

Let’s discuss promotion. I talk to a lot of romance writers who think that paid advertising is the only option. What do you think is the most effective way to promote romance books?

Paid advertisement appears to work best for authors who are already well-established – as a way to announce that a new title is available or forthcoming. And it may also be useful to promote awareness of an imprint or publisher to a targeted audience.

But I have never seen convicing evidence that it leads directly to sales for authors who are not already established. So your money would be better spent elsewhere – or you can even put your wallet away and just spend time on other types of promotion to get the best results.

Book sales are still mostly driven by word-of-mouth and reviews. So, you have to think about what you can do to get that word-of-mouth and those reviews. This is why social media is so useful for writers – these tools are great ways to spread the word about your book.

Of course your publisher is already pursuing the obvious avenues for this – for example, at Crimson Romance, we know who the big-name romance bloggers are, so of course we’ll be asking them to review our books. But as the author, you may have friends and colleagues who could also review the book – maybe for a smaller blog they run, or maybe for the alumni magazine, or the like. These are not going to be obvious to the publisher.

Word-of-mouth is also important, and I’ve read studies that show that weak connections (e.g., people who follow you on Twitter but don’t necessarily interact with you) can be key to getting the type of snowball effect you need to have big sales of your books. So although for a long time I felt that quality connections were important (and they are!) I’m less inclined to pooh-pooh the idea of getting large numbers of followers than I used to be. I wouldn’t spend a year getting a million followers, but an hour or two a week focusing on this? It would almost certainly be worth your time.

That isn’t to say the quality of your interactions isn’t also important. But to some extent it does just come down to numbers.

I’ve seen a lot of surveys that show that romance readers in particular want to read samples from writers unfamiliar to them, so having your first five pages or your first chapter available on your website is a great idea (make sure you okay this with your publisher first).

The Romance Writers of America (RWA) has done extensive studies of readers, and this information can be very helpful for romance writers to consider when promoting. For example, romance readers are most likely to buy books based on the author, best-seller lists, a friend’s recommendation, or what the cover copy says.

So if you’re not already established, you need to work on that word-of-mouth – and also make sure the cover copy isn’t lame! The editor usually devises this, and you may not feel like you have any input, but do speak up if you feel the cover copy doesn’t do your book justice. Better yet, supply the cover copy to your editor. She may not use it but it will help get her started in the right direction.

The RWA has also found that readers buy online based on seeing the book available (so you need to be sure that it’s distributed to many third-party retailers, not just BN.com or Amazon.com), reading about it online (which is why you should connect with bloggers, readers, writers – spread the word!), and the author website (so you need an author website).

Romance readers follow author blogs, engage in Facebook in large numbers, and also enjoy YouTube (so come up with a fun book trailer for your book and post it there!).

But here’s the key. For romance readers, the story is the number one reason why they’ll buy a book. If you don’t have a great story, you’re not going to have great sales.

Do you think romance authors should work with book clubs (reading groups)? Why or why not? 

As with most promotional efforts, the answer is “it depends.” It can be very time-consuming to reach out to book clubs and perhaps not end up with a lot to show for your efforts. Also, some books are simply less likely than others to be book-club material. But I think it’s a great idea to offer a reading guide on your website for book clubs to use, and if you happen to have any connections with book clubs, there’s no reason not to use them.

Because yours will be primarily e-books, a virtual book tour for each title makes sense. What do you think of that option for romance novels? Also, will you provide any support to your authors, perhaps by negotiating a discount with a tour package provider or by providing assistance?

We are planning to work with romance bloggers and others to make this type of book tour possible, but a great deal depends on how much time and effort the author wants to put into it. These can be very time-consuming to arrange and execute, and the reward has to be there for it to make sense – both from the publisher’s perspective and from the author’s perspective. These can be just as exhausting as real book tours – and they can be just as disappointing as real book tours (where you’re speaking to an audience of three people, two of whom are waiting on their spouses to finish shopping).

On the other hand, a well-planned virtual tour, especially one that takes advantage of a particular slant or expertise the author has, can do great things for a book.

Be sure to come back on March 13 for Part 3, when Jennifer talks about romance novelists who do a great job of promoting their books.

Tell us about Crimson Romance, first. What is it, and what is your goal with the imprint?

Crimson Romance is what I like to call an eBook-mostly romance imprint. We’re publishing heartfelt, smart romances for contemporary readers in eBook format but with a print-on-demand option for all titles. Some readers still prefer print, and we want to make our titles available to them.

We’re an imprint of Adams Media, a midsize publisher known for its nonfiction self-help, how-to, and humor titles. Because many readers of Adams Media books are of the same demographic profile as readers of romance, when we decided to expand our publishing efforts, romance seemed like a perfect fit.

My goal is to publish the kind of books that even a non-romance reader won’t be able to put down. But this is still romance: everyone lives happily ever after! Romance readers will find some of their favorite romance themes and plots but with a fresh, smart take. That is to say, classic plot lines, like marriages of convenience, get a new look at Crimson Romance.

In our titles, conflict between the two main characters arises from differing goals or perspectives, not from the hero being a domineering jerk. I want readers to like and empathize with our heroines, not think they’re TSTL (“too stupid to live”).

What makes it different from other romance imprints?

We have a very contemporary feel. We deal head-on with issues that our readers confront – everything from surrogacy to adolescent rebellion to divorce to death. We validate their experiences in a complex, confusing world. Yet our books don’t lose that magical feel of hopefulness — the reason readers love romance.

Our readers are smart, savvy women who want to read about smart, savvy women – and their smart, sexy men! Our readers are looking for that special emotional payoff you get from reading a great romance – and that’s what we aim to deliver.

We have a very aggressive release schedule, which means readers will always find something new to read just as soon as they finish the last book! We’re also very open to all kinds of writing, all kinds of heroes and heroines, all kinds of plots – we don’t have a preconceived idea of what we want, other than it has to be a great story – with that satisfying happily-ever-after readers expect of romances.

What’s your stand on author platforms for the new line? Will you require authors to come to you with a strong platform in place, or are you looking for talent and good stories more than you’re looking for an existing fan base?

We have an exciting plan for promoting the line and individual titles within it, so we don’t depend on our authors to have an already established platform in place. Like any publisher, sure, we like it when an author comes to us with an existing platform, but it’s not required – and even if you have one, that doesn’t mean you’re going to get an offer. What we care about is the story.

One thing that sets us apart from other publishers is that if we think you have potential, we’ll work with you instead of just sending a “close, but not quite” rejection. In other words, if we spot talent, we will try to help the writer nurture it.

Which is not to say author promotion isn’t crucial; promotion leads to sales and sales keep the publisher in business and the author from getting evicted! In the end, the reader is connecting with an author, not with an imprint. That’s why author involvement is so crucial. People buy Jennifer Crusie books, not St. Martin’s books.

That said, we want Crimson Romance to become known as the place to go to get your fix for romance!

Remember, Part 2 will run here on March 8. Be sure to come back for Jennifer’s thoughts on what does and doesn’t work when promoting romance novels.