Guest Post with Julia Goldhirsh

Introduction

Hello everyone! Today I’m co-authoring a blog post with Julia Goldhirsh, a YA fantasy & fairytale writer. We met on Twitter and decided to combine our collective efforts for a bit. Enjoy! Oh, and make sure to check out our respective blogs: Julia Goldhirsh and Alex Stargazer.

How to pitch your book as the right genre

1. See what types of people are interested in your book. Who wants to review the book, how old are they etc?
2. Make a list of the types of tropes you have in your book.
3. Search on Amazon to see what other books have those tropes
4. Ask your readers how they would define the book. See what readers say about it during beta reading.
5. Use the template below to help get started
6. Look for novels that seem similar to yours and that have similar tropes. How do those writers classify their books?

Age of characters: 12-18 (Typically YA or MG) Time Period: Modern (Urban), Past (Possibly historical) Genre: Science focused, magic and sorcery focused, end of the world focused, love focused, etc.

You can see a further breakdown of genres here.

To craft your pitch

Grab them with the first line- A dark fairy tale with a twist. Introduce an enticing trope- At the turn of the 20th century, a Rapunzel in a greenhouse battles an evil nymph Leave them with something that makes them want to know more- with help from a messenger with a mysterious past.

Here is another hook that I’ve used- An enchanted Rose spellbound to a greenhouse prison.

How to sell books to bookstores

Some of the main things bookstores want when looking for books are retail discounts, ISBNs, and a price on the barcode. This makes selling your book easier for them and will make your book an easier sell in the long run. Here’s what I’d recommend so you can have those things for the bookstores.

1. Ingram Sparks- Get on Ingram sparks. No seriously. Do it. It will make you a lot more palatable when you approach bookstores.
2. Bowker- Purchase a barcode from Bowker and have your cover artist put the barcode on there for you. You can get your ISBN there too.

Alright, so now that you have that out of the way, here’s what you can do to reach out to bookstores. Note that this is not a one size fits all approach, but this worked for me.

1. Library- Submit to your local library.
2. Bookmarks and business cards-Have some bookmarks made and ask your local bookstores if you can give them bookmarks
3. Barnes and Noble- Fill out the forms they provide on their website. They even offer the option to get your book reviewed through their website.
4. Books a Million- Fill out the forms on their website. (They do not accept Print on Demand titles).

One thing I did was that I had some bookmarks designed and printed through Vistaprint. I contacted some local bookstores and cafes to see if they’d be interested in taking the bookmarks. Often when I went in a customer or two would ask about the book, I’d give them a short pitch and the customer would express some interest. This resulted often times in the buyer purchasing the book off Ingram.

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Below are some pictures of my book in the library and on the bookstore shelves.

Alex’s Suggestions for Getting into Bookstores

To begin with, I second Julia’s suggestion regarding bookmarks, and this is something I will be doing myself. Bookmarks give you physical presence, author branding, and credibility. But let’s not forget the most important element: pitching your physical book to the manager. This is exactly what I did at WHSmiths, and it immediately grabbed the attention of the manager. At Waterstones, I was unable to meet the manager in person—and when I pitched him via email, it didn’t work.

Another suggestion, which won’t work for everyone, is Kickstarter. I have been able to successfully meet my funding goal thanks to the awesome folks at Kickstarter. What does this have to do with bookstores, you wonder? Again: credibility. It’s easier to convince a manager to buy your book if you can prove that you raised $1000 (say) for your crowdfunding campaign.

Your author branding should work to support your message—I intend to display the Kickstarter logo along with Fallen Love imagery in my bookmarks, for example.

Regarding which company you use to print your books (Amazon, Lulu or Ingram) this is a tricky question and one which I haven’t figured out yet. Julia thinks you should use Ingram, which is the traditional choice for getting into bookstores. But combining Bowker + Ingram has an entry cost in the hundreds of dollars, and that’s money that can certainly be better spent. Amazon has the best prices—but branding might be an issue. Lulu’s prices are too high, for paperbacks at least, to be realistic. Personally, I’ll plump for Amazon.

How About Genre?

This is easy if you’re publishing something in an already well-defined genre—epic fantasy, for example; thriller; or cozy mystery. Things get harder if you’re writing something a bit more unconventional like what me and Julia are writing. The general advice—shelve your book in the sub-genre of the main genre, so on Amazon that might be fantasy and then “LGBT Fantasy”—works if you know what your main genre is. It may be that you need to categorise your book in more than one genre. This is a case of experiment-and-see-what-works.

I learned this the hard way for Fallen Love. I always knew that, at heart, the story is urban fantasy: the young adult characters, the worldbuilding, the tropes—it’s the stuff of Cassandra Clare or Lauren Kate or (heck!) even Twilight. Yet I hoped it would also appeal to LGBT and Sci Fi readers. The jury is still out on the SciFi part (I don’t have a large enough sample of Sci Fi readers yet) but my experience with LGBT readers is that it’s more often miss than hit. As much as I love the relationship between Mark and Conall, the book has too much complex worldbuilding to appeal to M/M romance readers. For a reader who diets on contemporary gay romance, demons, witches and 26th century Europe are just too much.

You can guess I’ll be heavily promoting Fallen Love as an urban fantasy book before anything else.

Conclusion

So how does the intrepid author go about getting their book into a bookstore, and hopefully selling a bunch of copies? Both me and Julia agree on the business fundamentals: you need a good price and discount for your book; a well-chosen target market; and you should a physical product that communicates your brand. The author’s personal presence is often important as well.

If you have raised money in a crowdfunding campaign, or have already sold a decent number of books online, this is something to emphasise.

Julia Goldhirsh is the author of Spellbound, a fairytale spin on the classic young adult fantasy story. You should follow her on Twitter and Facebook or her mailing list to get the latest on her new books, special offers, and cover reveals.

Alex is an author of some excellent LGBT Urban fantasy books with hints of romance. His second novel is called Fallen Love and he has a scheduled publication date of February 1st 2020. You can check him out on www.alexstargazer.com and follow him on Twitter or Facebook to be the first to get updates on cover reveals, new books, and promotions.

Guest Post: A Book Review by Molly

Hello readers! Alex has been mighty busy these past days (weeks?) for the reasons he has already mentioned: university, journalism, essay writing, and of course, Fallen Love. He will update you on the latest events soon. Until then, why not read this guest post by Molly Fennig—the second guest post ever published here on the Magical Realm—and also my own review on her website. Happy reading!

Guest post by Molly Fennig, teen author of the YA thriller INSOMNUS and blogger for mollyfennig.com.

I picked up Tess Wakefield’s debut novel Purple Hearts in a bookstore in Wisconsin, in part because she was a Minnesota author, just like I am, and in part because I loved the cover with the converse shoes and work boots underneath a teal background with a white title (as much as it is frowned upon to judge books by covers as a metaphor, I firmly believe there’s a reason the metaphor exists, especially when there’s not much else that can be considered when choosing a book).

The other reason I bought Purple Hearts was because I was intrigued by the blurb. I spend a long time picking up book after book, carefully setting it back because the backs promised a Girl who meets A Boy who is Not Like Any Other Boy or stories that seemed similarly cliché. Purple Hearts, on the other hand, is about a girl, Cassie, who marries a soldier for his health insurance and they must “set aside their differences to make it look like a real marriage… unless, somewhere along the way, it becomes one…”

Although it’s easy to see where the story might go, the way in which the story unfolds and the choices the characters make are not cut-and-dry, creating a book that is hard to put down. The dilemmas are realistic, as are the solutions, and the plot is character-driven, as it should be.

One of the first things that pulled me into this book was the writing style. Part of me kept reading because the plot was compelling for sure, but an equally large part of me kept reading because I wanted to keep experiencing the wonder that is Tess Wakefield’s writing. The dialogue is realistic. The characters are complex. The figurative language is beautiful. If her writing contained nutritional value, I would happily eat it for breakfast, lunch, and dinner every day of the week.

This was also a book with one of the most successful uses of multiple points of view, where the narrator switches each chapter. Part of this is due to Wakefield having created strong characters that are not too much alike and both have similar, although maybe not exactly equal, narrating power. The chapters are short, keeping the pace of the book fast, and the switch between the points of view is amazingly effortless for the reader.

(Spoilers): In terms of what I would have changed in the book, I had a little trouble believing Luke wouldn’t have any more problems with his drug dealer just having beaten him up, especially since I’m sure Johnno has other people he could recruit to help get back at Luke. I’m okay with it, especially since I can’t think of a better solution except maybe calling the cops, but it made me have less faith in his decision-making abilities.

Also, I loved the ending, but I also think it could’ve been longer, at least so I (selfishly) could’ve experienced just a little more of Wakefield’s writing. It did feel make the story feel complete and cohesive, which I loved. Also, the ending was realistic and fitting without being too predictable, a feat for which I thoroughly commend Wakefield.

All in all, I think adults and young adults alike would love this book, especially those who like romance that isn’t too cliché or cheesy and who like rounded characters, great writing, and a unique premise. I can’t wait to read what Wakefield writes next.

If you liked this post, check out my blog for writing tips, book reviews and more, mollyfennig.com, and check out my book, INSOMNUS, on Amazon and Barnes and Noble.