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Inspirational Moments

Published 7 months ago

There have been some big changes in the publishing industry over the past five years, not least the fact that company budget for author publicity has been cut to almost nothing. There was a time when an author could rely on some sort of launch, or at least a contribution towards a launch, but that doesn’t really happen anymore. And publicity in national broadsheets is impossible unless you happen to have stolen the plot from someone else or you’ve been found doing something slightly illegal.

So, let’s say you’ve just had your new novel published (I was going to write ‘first’, but then thought that it doesn’t really matter what number it is you’re publishing, because every new novel is like publishing the first. It’s like you’ve never been around before!) Okay, so what do you do? Try to get in to a book festival? Nigh on impossible – they’re all over-subscribed and the organizers are well aware of it, and many have great delight in telling you that in no uncertain terms. Get your local bookshop to do a book-signing? Bit of a waste of time – nobody likes approaching a strange person sitting behind a table laden with books with a “please speak to me” look on his or her face. (Much better if you’re not there at all, so just sign fifteen or so books and just leave the store.) Hire a PR agent? It’ll cost you, and you won’t get that money back from the sale of books.

So what we’re doing is introducing a new slot called Inspirational Moments. We are talking with small companies who have spread the word of their products in different ways, and hoping that you might be able to draw something from these short statements to help formulate some sort of direction for your own marketing strategies. And to make it a bit of fun as well, we are turning it all into a bit of a competition. We’ll put up an image from the featured company and ask you to write a short story inspired by it. And the winner will not only get his or her story audio-ed, but it will go up both on Shortbread and on the featured company’s website as well.

One story being accessed on two sites – now, that’s pretty good marketing!

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