You might have noticed that one of the themes of this blog is “Get out there and do it yourself!”
Take control of your own writing destiny. Don’t wait for someone to give you permission, don’t think someone else will market you, don’t take rejection as a lifetime No. Just get up and do it, whatever it takes to achieve your dream!
DReam Raider authors Kev and Ant
I met up with these guys, Anthony Puttee and Kev Webb, at the Brisbane Writers Festival. They are the authors of ‘Dream Raider: A Johnny Marsh Adventure’. Check out the brilliant cover!
I met them on Twitter @JohnnyMarshNet and discovered they are local, so we met up and did a video about the book and what they are doing to market it.
Highlights in text are below the video.
What you can learn from ‘Dream Raider’:
- Have a striking cover aimed at your market. The green monster is brilliant and these large banners had people stopping and looking, including a little boy who was just fascinated. This will stand out in bookshops with the almost luminous green.
- Plan a series. By sub-titling the book ‘A Johnny Marsh adventure’, they are establishing a brand over multiple books which will last longer than just one title.
- Get started on your marketing earlier. They started 4 months prior to launch, but starting as early as possible is better. Also, go multi-media to reach your audience. Kev and Ant have done a podcast and will do more, as well as giving away free merchandise and online extras at the site. All this takes time to build, but it is worth it for people to find you online.
- Have fun! The guys are enjoying their journey and having a laugh, as well as trying to sell the book. Their book launch recreated Hollywood with special effects and their energy to succeed is infectious. After all, what’s the point if you’re not having fun!
- Keep your day job and work nights on your book. The guys have spent many hours with the book and also the website as well as working fulltime. The book is a labour of love but they are fulfilling a dream!
- Persistence. It’s not in the video, but Kev and Ant have been working on this for 13 years and after a lot of rejection, they went with “partnership publishing”, which is a form of self-publishing with a small press. From what they have learnt, they may go with a print-on-demand model depending on where their sales come from.
You can find Kev and Ant at JohnnyMarsh.net where they have a podcast, a blog, free downloads and competitions.
If you have kids, you might like to read more about or Buy the Book here!
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Some great tips there – especially love the ‘don’t give up your day job’ one. I think most writers do this and it can be a hard slog… just shows the dedication, passion and determination of the writer breed. Thanks for the tweet link Joanna; I am now following the guys.
cheers,
Pam
http://blog.writesmart.com.au
It has been a 13 year journey but one full of heartache and rewards. I used to get upset and frustrated feeling that we weren’t getting anywhere. I know now it was all part of the big picture. What we went through to get this far was preparing us, if we had been published earlier then we probably would have found it all too difficult to deal with. Today we are ready, we have some hard knocks behind us and a few more to come I expect, as life is very much like that. Our passion is the world of Johnny Marsh.
Hi Joanna,
A BIG thank you for a great interview at the Writers Festival here in Brisbane. It would be fantastic, if this post can help some of your readers keep inspired as they are hard at work on their own journey to publication.
This has been a great opportunity for us to share some of what we’ve learned over the years with other authors and we’re excited about the tips we have to offer coming up soon on our website.
Your website Joanna I find is very accessible and rich with information for other authors like ourselves. I’ve picked up some useful tips from your site myself and I encourage all the authors out there to make use of Joanna’s site and consider investing in her author 2.0 program.
Best of luck everyone
Thanks again Joanna.
Joanna, great post, thanks. It’s helpful when giving writers a list of what they need to do, to do so with case studies like Dream Raider.
I’m currently in Brisbane (for a school reunion) and managed to pick up a copy of Dream Raider. I showed it to my 70-year-old mother who reads two books every week and her immediate response was, “Kids will love that cover.” The cover is critical, so I have no doubt Dream Raider will be a huge success, as you say – not only does the cover attract but all the essential complimentary marketing material will pop as well.
Make that “complementary” not “complimentary”
Regards
Leigh
Good interview. You just keep getting better.
Your post is so interesting to me. Actually, I was looking for something like that.
oh my god where has this book come from
you have got to be kidding
the evil manjucus, max the dog , john ,wrongy
this book can take you everywere
Wonderful tips …. posted about your site from my new blog for new writers. Thanks for all you offer. It is tough out there for new writers and any information we can get to improve our skills and our chances of getting published are a blessing.