Marketing & #Pit2Pub Q&A with Curiosity Quills Press
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When do you start planning an upcoming release’s marketing?
The first step always happens at acquisition. We would not accept the manuscript, no matter how much we may personally like the manuscript, if we did not have a reasonable hope of selling it to our network of readers, reviewers, and booksellers.
Next revolution occurs at signing, when our director of marketing jumps in to prepare the author on their pre-marketing efforts.
And then, once the 2nd editing pass is done, we jump headlong into cover creation brainstorming. Once we have the cover on hand, we can begin actually planning out and unrolling the release.
Giveaways are a popular method of marketing books. Do you find them successful?
Eh. I have also heard that they are a good way to market, and we do take advantage of them, but in my opinion, they are becoming progressively less useful as people get desensitized to free books and / or swag. Still, the more interesting a giveaway, the more attention it will garner on social media.
How valuable are book reviews for your authors? How do you leverage them?
Once you get to 20 reviews, Amazon starts recommending the title to other readers of the same genre. Bookbub is much more open to featuring the book on its massive lists, and the bookstores (not to mention the readers) would be far more interested in selling / buying the title and inviting the author to stop by for a reading or signing.
Overall, I have to say it is one of the more useful tools at our disposal, and one we use heavily in our marketing strategy.
Is there a particular genre or sub-genre you will be looking for during #Pit2Pub 2016?
I am always personally interested in alternate history (i.e. Thomas Harlan’s Shadow of Ararat or Ian Tregillis’s The Mechanical), historical novels (Katie Teller’s Kiya novels), upmarket action fantasy (NK Jamisin’s The Fifth Season, and Nathan Croft’s Homunculus and The Cat), and unique crossover YA (Libba Bray’s The Diviners).
Additionally, we are looking for contemporary, sci-fi/fantasy, and historical romance of any heat level, as well as romantic suspense (Janet Evanovich’s Stephanie Plum series, Rebecca Strong’s Where Is Mr. Plutin?, and JD Everly’s Havelock).
Looking forward to seeing what is out there – now and at the next pitch event.
How do you know you have found a special #Pit2Pub pitch? What makes you want to learn more?
I always try to judge if I will love the query voice by that of the pitch. While it makes an already difficult task of relaying the story in 140 characters or less even more complicated, I know I appreciate when the tweet also lets me see if the tone is what I am looking for as well. And then, of course, there is the storyline itself – which hopefully lines up perfectly with mine, and in general, Curiosity Quills’, wish list.
What is #Pit2Pub?
A Twitter Pitch Party (“TPP”) is an opportunity for writers to tweet a 140-character pitch for their completed and polished manuscript(s) directly to publishers. Make sure to leave enough room to include the hashtag #Pit2Pub and the category (#YA, #MG, #A, #SFF, #W, etc.) in the tweet. The next event is scheduled for February 3, 2016.
Keep up to date on #Pit2Pub information by visiting Kristin’s Blog and Ann’s Blog.
Curiosity Quills Press (CQ) publishes the best in fiction under a slew of genres and themes, with a tip of the hat toward more unique and edgy stories of a high caliber. Curiosity Quills has successfully tripled their business inside of 2 years, going from writer-advice blog to full-service publishing press offering editing, proofing, marketing, and cover design. They specialize in genre fiction, ranging from Children’s all the way up to General Adult.
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