KA Hitchins

Author

Who is your ideal reader?

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It’s a sad fact of life that authors can no longer sit in their ivory towers reading books and writing unputdownable stories of indescribable beauty and profound insight.

 

 

Self-published authors have known for years that if they don’t promote their books then no one is going to buy them. But even traditionally published authors are expected to dip their toes (or tweeting fingers) into the overcrowded and murky swamp of book promotion.

But before you begin signing up for every social media platform available, do something low tech first. Take a moment to think about who your ideal reader might be. You might save yourself an enormous amount of time and energy if you tailor your promotional activities to the types of people you think might enjoy your book.

Your idea readers might be

  • Male, female or both
  • A child, teen, parent, other adults in a variety of age ranges (e.g. young adult, middle-aged, retired)
  • Married, single, widowed, divorced
  • A person from a particular demographic, ethnic group, culture or geographical area
  • A person of a particular political or religious persuasion
  • A person facing particular difficulties
  • A person with particular interests or hobbies
  • A person who loves fiction or who prefers biography, memoir, non-fiction or a how-to book.
  • A person in a particular income bracket or who is struggling financially
  • A person with a particular occupation or no occupation – student, homemaker, self-employed, employed, unemployed, retired

 

 

 

Back of an Envelope Stuff

The first thing I do when  trying to find the audience for my books is to mind map some of the themes and issues covered. From this, I concluded that the people most interested in reading my debut novel, The Girl at the End of the Road, would be

  • Readers of contemporary commercial fiction
  • Men and women, probably over the age of 30
  • People who had family members with special needs or needing care
  • People who live in Suffolk
  • Christians
  • Dog lovers

 

Tailoring your Promotional Activities to your Audience

Once I had a better idea of who my book would appeal to, I tailored my promotional energy in that direction.

For example, I contacted a Suffolk Arts Magazine, who were kind enough to review the book. I also drafted an article for a dog magazine. I sent review copies to special needs bloggers and talked about the book in various autism forums online. I had a book signing in Bury St Edmunds Cathedral bookshop because I have a scene in the Cathedral. I was also able to write articles for a couple of magazines to help raise awareness of autism.

As well as looking at the content of your book here are some other things you might like to consider.

  • If you are writing a children’s book, you need to target parents and schools. Your local primary school might appreciate a visit from a local author, particularly if they can link the topic of your book into the National Curriculum and you can offer an author visit/talk/assembly. There are loads of possibilities on social media, e.g. Mumsnet, local online parenting groups etc, and literally thousands of mums blogging about different parenting issues. See if you can find any that review children’s books and offer to send them a free copy or the ebook.
  • If you are writing a biography/memoir, this is the kind of material that might be shared with Women’s Institutes, U3A meetings etc. These kinds of groups are always looking for good speakers (check out the National Association of Women’s Clubs at http://www.nawc.org.uk/speakers.php).
  • If you are writing a ‘how to’ book, you could offer to run a course at a local school, college, church, library or village hall, as well as giving talks to WI meetings and women’s clubs (see above).
  • If you are writing general fiction, you could connect with local book groups, independent bookshops, book bloggers and virtual book groups and reviewers on Facebook.
  • If you are writing a theological or political book you will probably be receiving invitations to preach or speak at churches, or talk at political gatherings or conventions.
  • If your book is historical, or touches on local geographical features, you might like to contact your local library, historical society or environmental group.

 

 

Spread Your Nets Wide

Ideally before publication (but this can be done at any time you want to give your book a boost) draw up a list of all the possible people you could tell about your book. These include:

  • Friends and family
  • Local newspapers
  • Local radio
  • Your local library
  • Your Parish/Church Magazine or website
  • Local or special interest bloggers
  • Relevant special interest magazines
  • Groups you belong to and would be willing to support you (mine were dog walkers, my writing group, parents from school)
  • People on your Christmas card list
  • High profile names relating to your area of expertise or the type of book you are writing
  • Facebook groups – search for book groups, groups interested in topics covered in your book, and Facebook groups in your home town who would be interested to hear news of a local author
  • Use Twitter hashtags. It’s a bit like tagging a person but relates to a topic. It’s a good way of connecting yourself to other people with similar interests, e.g. in promoting The Girl at the End of the Road I sometimes used the hashtags #autism, #aspergers and #walking the dog. Other useful hashtags for writers inclue:-

#AmWriting

#AmEditing

#WordCount

#WritersLife

#WritingTip

#WriteTip

#PromoTip

#Publishing

#EBooks

#BookMarketing

#PubTip

#WIP (work in progress)

#FridayReads

#BookGiveaway

#MustRead

#LitChat

#Kindle

#Review

#Blog

#CoverReveal

 

Ways to get the message out

As well as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram etc, there are many other ways to get the message out, depending on who you are contacting, e.g.

  • Sending out a press release to all appropriate newspapers and magazines with a personalised covering letter/email from yourself.
  • Producing tailor-made articles in advance for local newspapers and magazines, together with a good photograph of yourself and the cover art of the book. They might not choose to publish, but they are much more likely to include a piece on you as a local author if you have done all the donkey work for them and written an article which all they have to do is edit.
  • Give a free copy of your book to your local library, and have some bookmarks printed advertising your book to go on the front desk.
  • Get some flyers/posters printed and ask if your local shops, community centres, church or school would be willing to display them for you.
  • Send out invitations to your book launch to as many people as you can, in particular Facebook groups sharing things to do in your home town.
  • Photocopy a small flyer for inclusion with your Christmas cards – this can be done even if your book is going to be published in the Spring. (The run up to Christmas is the busiest time for bookshops. If you include a small flyer with your Christmas cards and send them out on 1 December it will remind people that they still have time to buy your book to give as a present.)
  • Contact local radio stations to ask if they would be willing to interview you.
  • Ask your friends if they know any bloggers, book reviewers or journalists you can contact about your book.
  • Ask local shops if they would be willing to stock and sell your books. It doesn’t have to be a bookshop. You might have a small gift shop or newsagents that would be willing to take copies direct from you as a local author at a reduced price so that they can sell them on.
  • Create an author page on Facebook, if you haven’t already done so. Here you can share every step of your journey to publication, build a sense of anticipation among your followers and generate online pre-orders.
  • You could organise a blog tour. If you want to see how you could do this, check out my blog here: http://www.kahitchins.co.uk/how-i-organised-an-author-blog-tour/

 

Tips

  • Try and always have a copy of your book with you in case you bump into someone who wants to buy one.
  • Have a card or bookmark to give away or place in each copy of your book so people know how to contact you or follow you on social media.
  • Ask people to give you feedback. Tell them they can always leave a review on Amazon. They don’t have to have bought the book on Amazon to leave a review.
  • Never ask to do a review swop – this goes against Amazon’s review policy.
  • Never pay for a review – this goes against Amazon’s review policy and if they find out they will remove all the reviews from your page. However, you can give a free copy of your book to someone and ask for honest feedback.
  • Always have a visitors’ book or sign-up sheet with you when you give book talks or signings. Encourage people to leave their email address to sign up for your newsletter. This means you can contact interested parties about any price reductions, events or future book releases. Don’t send newsletters too often, and only send them if you have something meaningful to say.
  • Actively encourage people to follow you on social media.
  • Personal recommendation is still the best way to sell books, so ask people to recommend your book to a friend if they enjoyed it.
  • One of the best ways of promoting your book is to find other people who will promote your book for you. Try and encourage your friends and family to leave Amazon and Goodreads reviews. If you know any bloggers, ask if they would interview you or review your book on their blog. Once you have received reviews or been mentioned in blogs, you can share these on Facebook and Twitter. Lots of activity on your social media about the feedback you are getting increases the credibility you have as a writer.

 

Instead of focusing all your energy on your book, spend a little time thinking about your readers – where they hang out, what they enjoy doing and how you might be able to connect with them in a meaningful way. After all:

 

The Power of Stories

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27 March – 2 April 2017 is World Autism Awareness Week.

According to the National Autistic Society, there are more than 700,000 people in the UK on the autistic spectrum. People don’t grow out of autism. Autistic children become autistic adults. At one end of the spectrum, there are those with severe learning and communication difficulties. At the other end, people with Asperger’s Syndrome suffer from high anxiety and sensory overload triggered by social situations.

It’s encouraging that autism is more widely understood than it used to be. One sign of this is that writers and programme makers are recognising the unique outlook and experiences of autistic people and think these are worth portraying and celebrating.

A few examples:

  • The A Word, a family drama with autism at its heart, was aired on the BBC last year.
  • The Undateables on Channel 4 often features singletons with Asperger’s or autism.
  • Benedict Cumberbatch’s portrayal of Sherlock highlights the autistic traits of Sir Arthur Conan-Doyle’s detective, and then there’s Saga Noren, the detective with Asperger’s Syndrome from The Bridge.
  • Something of a literary sub-genre is developing, instigated in the public’s mind by the excellent Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time by Mark Haddon.
  • The Reason I Jump by Naoki Higashida, depicts the experiences of a 13 year old autistic boy from Japan. The book includes an introduction by the novelist David Mitchell who has an autistic son himself.
  • Romantic comedies such as The Rosie Project and The Rosie Effect by Graeme Simsion introduce a man with undiagnosed Asperger’s Syndrome into the world of commercial fiction.
  • My personal favourite at the moment is Schtum by Jem Lester. It’s the heart-breaking account of the struggles of a father and grandfather to obtain the right school placement for ten-year-old, non-verbal, Jonah. You can see my book review here:

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1911204667?book_show_action=false&from_review_page=1

 

 

These stories depict in varying ways the lives of autistic people, giving a voice to those who find communication with others fraught with pitfalls and failures.

I’m passionate about the power of stories to transform attitudes. That’s why they’re used by politicians, religious leaders and advertising moguls when trying to influence our choices. But a good book goes much deeper than this. It allows us to immerse ourselves in another person’s reality, inhabiting their mind and their world for a few treasured hours with no intermediary but a piece of paper. They show us the lives of others and enable us to enter into the sufferings and joys of a stranger.

Autism is a hidden disability. You can’t tell by looking at someone whether or not they’re autistic. This in itself can fuel misunderstanding and a lack of compassion. Far more boys than girls are diagnosed, possibly because girls are better at masking their difficulties. They also present differently from boys, and professionals don’t always adjust their diagnostic criteria accordingly. As a result autistic women and girls have a higher mountain to climb to receive a correct diagnosis and support, and often end up with mental health issues as well.

I’ve worked with autistic teenagers and know from personal experience that it’s easier to remain fixed within one’s own limitations and expect the autist to change their behaviour rather than to enter into their world and change yourself as a result. But autistic people can’t enter the neurotypical world without help, and to help them we have to connect on their terms. It’s another step of imagination. It’s no accident that parents and professional use social stories to help teach autistic children the social skills they need to survive in the neurotypical world.

Autism is a horrible disability, but autistic people themselves shouldn’t be demonised or viewed in a negative light. Each one should be recognised as an individual, not lumped together as a collection of deficits. Without their unique take on life, their creativity, personal integrity, focus and intellectual abilities, our world would be a poorer place. Although evidence is inconclusive, certain character traits suggest that Amadeus Mozart, Sir Isaac Newton, Michelangelo, Charles Darwin, Lewis Carroll, Emily Dickinson, Albert Einstein and Andy Warhol might have been on the spectrum.

‘Autism’ literally means ‘selfism’. We live in a culture that values success, appearance, achievements and possessions above all things, a world where the drive for personal fulfilment and individual self-expression can sometimes end up imprisoning us in a self-centred community of one. Let’s not judge those who are socially isolated through no fault of their own. It’s only by opening our minds and our hearts, making ourselves vulnerable to each another and using our imaginations, that we can grow in our relationships and develop truly inclusive communities.

 

 

So if you catch yourself tutting at that flustered mother in the supermarket whose child is having a tantrum, please be kind. She might be an ineffective parent. Her child might be spoilt and disobedient. Or it might be that the child is completely overwhelmed by the sights, sounds, smells and busyness of the shop and screaming is the only way they have to express their pain.

Awareness isn’t enough. We also need a change of heart.

Blogs are like Buses

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Blogs are like buses. Nothing for ages then two come along in quick succession. But it seems important to acknowledge that it’s a year today since the publication of my debut novel. That’s my excuse.

I was expecting to spend 24 March 2016 on social media posting and tweeting about The Girl at the End of the Road, which was being officially released by bookshops and online retailers that day. I should have been enjoying the experience of achieving a lifelong dream, relishing the congratulations from friends and family. I certainly didn’t expect to be rushed into hospital.

 

The previous night I’d gone to bed with some unpleasant blood blisters in my mouth. I must be really run down, I thought, with the pressure of editing my first book, organising a mini book tour for the following months, and beginning my next novel. When I awoke on launch day, I noticed a rash of red spots on my throat and arms which didn’t blanch when pressed. I was queuing at the receptionist’s desk at my local surgery at nine o’clock sharp and was shown straight in.

As soon as the doctor saw me, he telephoned the hospital and told them to be ready to receive me. Once in Accident and Emergency, I was fast-tracked through the system. When asked to change into a hospital gown, I was shocked to see that my legs were covered in a livid non-blanching rash and purple bruises. I must be very ill indeed!

I’ve often speculated what it would be like if I was suddenly faced with a potentially life threatening condition. I’d seen my own father die from cancer a few years previously, and had sat by his side as he slowly slipped away. I’d wondered if he’d been able to hear me, and whether he was afraid or peaceful as he faced the end.

With doctors coming and going from my little cubicle, I felt surprisingly calm. When a registrar from the Haematology Department sat next to my bed about three hours later, I knew from his face that he had discovered what was wrong. He explained that normal platelet readings were between 150 – 400 per microliter of blood. A life threatening reading was anything below 20. My platelet levels were 3. My immune system was destroying my platelets and my blood could no longer clot.

 

 

I was given clotting medication and taken to the Critical Dependency Unit to be observed overnight in case I was bleeding internally or into my brain.  I was told I probably wouldn’t sleep because of the drugs I’d been given. I lay in the dark listening to the sounds of the hospital, and the cries of the elderly lady opposite who kept asking where she was and if anyone was there.

The irony of my situation didn’t escape me. I was half way through the first draft of my second  novel, a book about a woman in a critical condition in hospital. As she lies in bed, she desperately tries to remember what happened to her and questions the beliefs she’s built her life upon. Now I was lying in a hospital bed thinking about the meaning and purpose of my own life.

By the next morning the ulcers in my mouth had stopped bleeding. My blood pressure was stable and I was sent home with high dosage steroids to switch off my faulty immune system. During the days that followed I spent most of my time in bed. But sleep eluded me. Although physically exhausted, my mind was wide-awake. I decided to continue writing my manuscript, tapping away on my laptop during the night while everyone else was asleep. Having just experienced my own life-threatening moment and spell in hospital, ideas poured out of me. Within a week I’d completed 30,000 words and finished the first draft of The Key of All Unknown.

We have to use our imaginations to understand the lives of others. While writing this book, I was imaginatively lying in my heroine’s sick bed, whilst lying in my own. Without that personal experience of hospitalisation and vulnerability, I believe the book would be a poorer version of itself. Things happen for a reason.

I’m delighted to say that I’ve made an amazing recovering. There’s a one in three chance that the idiopathic thrombocytopenia could return, and like all of us I walk the fragile path between life and death. Nothing externally has changed, but I’ve become more aware of my own mortality. I’ve also learned that it’s not the strength of one’s faith that counts, but the strength of the One in whom you put your faith that’s important.

 

 

 

I Dreamed a Dream

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It’s just over a year since I set up this website. I was clear at the start that I didn’t want a blog page. I would have a news page instead. The main reason was that I enjoy writing at length and in great detail – exactly the opposite skills required for a blogger!  Also, I wasn’t sure what to blog about. But I think perhaps the thing that’s been holding me back is that it’s much easier to inhabit a character and hide behind them than to speak directly as myself. As you might have gathered, I’m an introvert.

So what’s changed? Suddenly I find I have lots of ideas to blog about. I want to review other people’s books. I want to share what I’ve learnt about publishing. And if I can overcome my fear of public speaking – as I’ve had to do since having two books published – then surely I can overcome my fear of blogging.

So I’m going to start right at the beginning. How I became an author.

I dreamed of being a writer throughout my childhood and teens.  When I realised stories were created by people and weren’t magically ‘just there’ to be plucked from the library shelves, I knew I wanted to create these worlds for myself and for other people.

 

 

I’ve always made up stories in my head. I do it unconsciously, imagining other people’s lives and setting myself in different situations and dreaming impossible dreams about the future. As I grew up and began to tell people I wanted to be a writer, there were the usual negative comments.

“It’s so hard to get published.”

“It pays so badly.”

“You have to study the great works of English Literature.”

“You must stick to the grammatical rules.”

“You must write about what you know” – not what you love or what excites you or what obsesses you.

“Why not go to secretarial college and learn to type? You’ll always be able to get a job.”

 

 

I left school at sixteen, went to secretarial college and began working  in London from the age of 17. I kept writing in the evenings and enrolled for writing classes and residential weeks.  Finally I listened to the advice I was receiving and signed myself up to do an English A’Level in evening classes, eventually managing to secure a place at Lancaster University when I was 21.

I read solidly for three years, writing essays about other people’s stories, feeling intimidated that I would never be able to write as well as them. After graduating it was easy to slip back to being a secretary in London, though I continued to write in the evenings.

But at the age of 28 I gave up. Blame a heart break which made me feel I had failed as a human being. The rejection silenced my voice. I no longer believed I had anything to say that was worth listening to. I lost faith in the magic of fiction and the happy ever after. It was time to knuckle down, put my dreams aside and concentrate on the real world, which meant having a better career and earning enough to pay the bills.

 

 

When I married my husband in my thirties, he knew I’d once dreamed of being a writer and encouraged me to take it up again. I refused to countenance the idea. I was a different person now. Older, wiser. I couldn’t bear the hurt of facing my broken dreams. Besides I was busy bringing up our two children and working part time as a Learning Support Assistant.

Then I had another heartbreak: the loss of my beloved father from cancer. With two young children, a job, a widowed mother and all the tasks in the house and garden that needed to be attended to, I didn’t have time to process the grief properly and pushed on through the pain.

As months turned to years, I became conscious of the most tremendous mental and emotional pressure. At the beginning of 2012 I started jotting down my feelings at odd moments in the day to try and put things into perspective. At first this made me more unhappy. I read back my personal rants at how miserable I was and they sounded petty and ungrateful. There were so many others in the world suffering more than I was. To them, my life must appear unimaginably comfortable and blessed.

 

In order to gain some emotional distance, I projected my grief onto a fictional character of the opposite sex. He was in a different situation from me, grieving the loss of his job in the financial crash, but experiencing similar emotions. Thus the shallow, materialistic character of Vincent Stevens was born.

I didn’t tell anyone I was writing. I didn’t know if I would be able to finish a complete novel, and didn’t want to have to answer the question, “How’s the book going?” only to have to tell people that I’d given up. If I was going to fail, I was going to keep it to myself.

I planned what I was going to write when walking the dog. I scribbled the ideas down whenever I could, particularly when sitting in the car waiting to pick up the children from school. Within two months the first draft of ‘The Girl at the End of the Road’ was finished and I plucked up the courage to tell my family. My husband, sister and a couple of friends heroically read it and made encouraging sounds.

The difficulty of writing a book is nothing compared to the difficulty of trying to get one published. I sent off my manuscript to agents and publishers and the rejections started to trickle back. I edited and revised and sent out another batch of submissions. Strangely I found that the pile of rejections toughened me up. My crippling fear of failure and rejection stemming from the broken romance in my twenties was disappearing.

I’d given up writing after my first real experience of loss. I’d taken it up again two decades later during another period of devastation. Older and wiser, I now knew that pain, failure and rejection were inevitable aspects  of life. Although they make you vulnerable, giving up on something I’d loved because I didn’t want to be a failure at it was not the answer. I learned that doing nothing is much more undermining of a person’s confidence than doing something and falling flat on one’s face. It’s better to be a failure at the thing you love than to be a success at something you hate.

 

In May 2015 I heard back from a small Independent Publisher called Instant Apostle. They liked the sample I’d sent in and wanted to see the full manuscript. I emailed it to them on a Friday morning, and by the following Monday I receives a phone call offering me a contract.

Reading and writing are transformational processes. We have to use our imaginations to understand the lives of others and to enter into their experiences. Stories offer the possibility of going inside the Other – the princess, the superhero, the detective, the murderer – to experience vicariously a little of the strange and wonderful and terrible thing it is to be human. And that’s a miracle.

I hope that if you are grappling with a sense of failure or loss and are tempted to give up on something, you’ll be encouraged to continue with that thing you love but which seems so fraught with risk.

As the saying goes, ‘If you want to walk on water, you have to get out of the boat’.

 

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