Monday, July 27, 2009

Book Giveaway is over...shifting gears....

My daughter was so happy when I called her over to draw names for the winners of the books I was giving away (she's six--pulling names from a basket is big fun in her eyes:). I've already emailed everyone individually, so I will only post names on here if I don't hear back from someone. But I felt I needed to post something, so ya'll know the contest is over.

This is probably the last contest I will offer for a while. I've been doing a lot of thinking about this whole thing. A fellow writer told me a while back that book contests are a great way to draw people to your blog. I could see her point, and thought, "Hey, not a bad way to share some of the books I love, too!" I ended up with an extra copy of a favorite book, and off I went...

Well, now I'm looking at the whole writing/publishing/marketing process. It seems like it should be written more like this: writing/marketing/marketing/marketing/maybe-publishing-if-you're-lucky/marketing/marketing/marketing....

Not exactly fairly weighted in my opinion. I understand I need to market. But I don't want my blog, much less my life, overtaken by marketing "tactics." I write because I love it and I want to be a "novelist." I blog because I want people to know who I am! The thing is, I've discovered I'm "meeting" people through my blog and online writers networks that I like just cos I like them. It has nothing to do with marketing or making contacts. They're just cool people. I want to focus on that.

So, hopefully, you''ll keep coming back to my blog because you like my writing, my thoughts, my rantings :). There will probably be a lot of the latter going on soon--still waiting on repsonses to queries. I've been working on revising my query again--it is by far the most frustrating part of the process--trying to hook an agent...bleh!

3 comments:

Hannah Nicole said...

I love your blog, so I'll keep coming back. :)

My six year old brother would love doing something like that. It's the age. :D

Hannah

Dayle James Arceneaux said...

I've decided to go with the philosophy that the only thing I can't fake is being myself.

So I'll do my brand (being myself) of marketing including giving away books in the future because I like to--regardless if it garners me more readers or not.

Kat Heckenbach said...

Good statement, Dayle. You can't fake being yourself--if you are doing something against your nature there will be an uneasiness inside you.

There are books I love and want to share, and will give them away if it strikes me to do so. But, I feel I set a precedent for myself in the beginning, and need to step off for a bit and get back to what got me into this in the first place--writing my books. And get my blog back to what it was in the beginning--me and my ramblings.