Wishing you all a safe and happy Month!
We had a blast at WisCon and are really looking forward to this month’s events.
Added Events: SciFi Family Fun Day as well as a QuadCon in Burlington.
On July 1st a second edition of The Warning Signs: Tales Of Horror and Dark Fantasy (Ebook ISBN 978-1-0879-3868-4) will become available in epub format and can be pre-ordered from some booksellers such as Barnes&Noble.
As a bonus, this new edition includes my post apocalyptic short story titled –The Three Percent(©M.Ainihi 2020) the story was previously included in a collection of lock-down Tales – Titled: Goodreads Best Short Stories 2021 by Collected Works, which was published on January1st by the Goodreads author group.
The first edition of The Warning Signs: Tales Of Horror and Dark Fantasy was published in ebook format for kindle unlimited as an amazon exclusive and will remain available there unchanged. (Mobi ISBN: 978-1-7345618-2-1)
During the month of June there will be a limited time sale on The Blood Inheritance Novels Series Two-Book Set (For Kindle). This countdown deal is available through Amazon.co.uk and Amazon.com. It is set to begin on the 23rd and end on the 30th
Also:
readersfavorite.com will have all four of my available books listed as prizes in the monthly book giveaway. If you are interested in winning some amazing books by great authors you can check out the monthly giveaway here: book giveaway /Rise or/and here: book-giveaway/lost and here: book-giveaway/endow and here for The Warning Signs: giveaway/the-warning-signs/1.
Upcoming Event Reminders:
2022
We are scheduled to participate at the ST. LOUIS MIGHTY CON. The event will take place June 18th and 19th at the St. Charles Convention Center in Saint Charles, MO.
Concealed Realms plans to participate at Planet Funk Con, June 24th – 26th. The event will take place at the RiverCenter in Davenport, IA.
Concealed Realms plans to participate at Midwest Monster Fest on September 16th ,17th , and 18th. This event is scheduled to take place in East Moline, IL at The Rust Belt: mwmonsterfest
We plan to return Milwaukee, WI for Sci-Fi Family Day at Discovery World! This years event is scheduled to take place on October 1st.
Concealed Realms will be at OddMall:Hallowondrous in Akron, Ohio. The event is set to take place on October 21st and 22nd.
We plan on returning to Burlington, IA QuadCon! This event is set to takes place on November 19th and 20th at the Westland Mall.
2023
We are scheduled to participate at the Hall of Heroes Comic Con on March 4th and 5th. This event takes place at the Northern Indiana Event Center, located in Elkhart, IN.
Quotes on creativity, the arts, and motivation:
“Never let the odds keep you from doing what
you know in your heart you were meant to do.” – H. Jackson Brown Jr.
“Don’t wait. The time will never be just right.” – Napoleon Hill
“No one is perfect—that’s why pencils have erasers.” – Wolfgang Rieb
“Do not anticipate trouble or worry about what may never happen.
Keep in the sunlight.” – Benjamin Franklin
“Winning doesn’t always mean being first.
Winning means you’re doing better than you’ve done before.” – Bonnie Blair
“Believe you can and you’re halfway there.” – Theodore Roosevelt
“When the sun is shining I can do anything;
no mountain is too high, no trouble too difficult to overcome.” – Wilma Rudolph
“Let us make our future now,
and let us make our dreams tomorrow’s reality.” – Malala Yousafzai
“Always keep your eyes open. Keep watching.
Because whatever you see can inspire you.” – Grace Coddington
“Get it down. Take chances. It may be bad,
but it’s the only way you can do anything really good.” – William Faulkner
Definition of promotion:
Dictionary.com
Noun “something devised to publicize or advertise a product, cause, institution, etc.,.“– www.dictionary.com
Merriam Webster.com
Noun “the act of furthering the growth or development of something especially : the furtherance of the acceptance and sale of merchandise through advertising, publicity, or discounting” – merriamwebster.com
Fun Promotion?
Marketing is defiantly not one of my strong suits in general, but whether you are an author, blogger, or artist, you have to promote your work in one way or another if you want anyone l know that it exists. The truth is, even creatives that are traditionally published are expected to handle some aspects of promoting their brand, so finding ways to market your masterpieces can be just as important as the process of creating them.
Promoting and marketing can be a lot of work, and probably wont be your favorite things to do, in fact just a few years ago, I would have struggled to find fun promotional opportunities myself. At first, those two words did not seem to go together… but I have since learned that there are some interesting and enjoyable ways to get the word out.
In this creativity post I will share eight of the fun promotional ideas and activities that I really enjoy, and perhaps you will find one or two that you can have fun with as well.
Eight Ideas To Help Promote Your Creative Endeavors That Can Actually Be Fun
1.) Conventions
Participating at conventions is one of my favorite promotional activities. At comic cons, fantasy, Sci-Fi, and horror conventions, you will usually find my booth located in artist alley. Artist Alley is an area at the exhibit hall where independent and mainstream artists can display, promote, and sell their work. The space usually includes a variety of up and coming, amateur, and famous creatives such as: writers, actors, and illustrators.
Taking part in these events offers you opportunities to get to know other awesome creatives, chat with existing fans, and meet new readers, in what I find to be pretty laid back setting.
To search for upcoming events in your area you could try visiting a site such as: upcomingcons.com or conventionscene.com. Each event has different requirements and application processes, but instructions are generally straight forward.
2.) Book Trailers
You can create a teaser trailer for your campaign. To do this, you can use illustrations that you have had created for your books or a site like pixabay.com to find pictures, videos, and sound files that reflect the content of your work, then add in excepts to tantalize your audience.
If you don’t feel qualified for the task, a good alternative is to find someone to help you set up your trailer in an online marketplace that offers freelance services, such as fiverr. Hiring a freelancer to create your video can offer you a range of options. You will find pre-made trailers that you only need to supply excerpts for, others will offer to add artwork or graphics, while others still will offer to create a completely unique trailer for you.
Once you have your trailer, you can upload it to youtube, add it to your website, and share it on various social media platforms. When participating in conventions, if possible I like to have a tablet on my table that plays my trailers in a loop.
3.) Design Interesting Marketing Materials
Another fun way to promote your work is to design interesting marketing materials, such as bookmarks, stickers, t-shirts, etc. When possible, be sure to have them include your website and email whether your giving the item away or selling it.
Coming up with ideas can be a good way to flex your creative muscles, but if your having a hard time getting inspired to create something unique from scratch, or lack the tools needed to complete a job, company’s like Vista Print and Printrunner offer a variety of items that you can personalize for your business endeavors.
I create my book mark charms at home, but generally order things like bookmarks and t-shirts from company’s such as Valley Custom Printing, Vista Print, and Printrunner, where I can easily incorporate my own illustrations and images into a product. Once you decide what type of item you want to create, be sure to shop around. You can often find a good price by doing a little homework and checking for promos.
4.) Social Media
Social media can both be a great way to get to know many insightful creatives from around the world and talk to fans, but you most likely wont have time to have an active presence on every platform. My advice would be to test some out to determine which you enjoy most, then pick two or three. It can be easy to spend more time social networking than creating, so you may also find it beneficial to schedule a dedicated amount of time each week for updating and interacting on them.
5.) Create A Website
I believe most authors would benefit from having a website as a home for their work. It doesn’t necessarily need to be fancy and elaborate, but should be a place where people can easily find out more about you and your books.
If you want to go beyond creating pages of your published materials, you could add a blog to update fans with information as you plan events or release dates, or even to share advice and interests.
I enjoy writing blog articles related to my work which I post along with my updates, but it can be time consuming if you have deadlines. That is part of the reason that I usually only publish one per month, alternating between creativity and mythology posts.
Other things you can do on your website include, posting excerpts, adding reviews, providing contact information, and even selling your products.
I use wordpress, but there are many others, and each have different options available. If you are interested in creating a website, do your homework before deciding on what services are best for you. A few places to start can be found here: tooltester.com, top10.com, Janefriedman.com, thewritepractice.com
6.) Giveaways
Give your work away for free? I know you have put weeks, month’s, and possibly years into your endeavors, so the thought of giving your creations away for free, even for a limited time, may not sound very appealing, but for a lesser known creative, it is a good way to spread the word about your work, get general feedback, and it may even get you some reviews.
Probably the simplest and least costly way to set up a giveaway for books is in ebook format. You can do this directly from your own website or through other site that will host a giveaway for you, such as goodreads, readersfavorite.com, ect… there are hundreds of options available.
If you do decide to give content away for free, make sure everyone knows it! Let your followers in on the event through your social media and add information about the giveaway to your website. Beyond that, there are plenty of sites on the Internet that promote free ebooks, and in many cases you wont have to pay to have your giveaway listed. You can learn about some of them here: katetilton.com
7.) Do An Interview
Participating in an interview about your creative work can be a fun experience! I have participated in several author interviews and few were done entirely the same way, but the instructions provided from the interviewer are generally pretty clear.
There are several different groups of people that offer to set up interviews for creatives. . . For example, book bloggers sometimes suggest interviews to accompany book spotlights or guest posts, professional/editorial reviewers may ask you to participate in interviews to accompany their book review, and other authors may offer to interview you for one of their blog posts. Here are a few interviews that I have participated in: wordrefiner.com, allauthor.com, magicalworldweb.wordpress.com
8.) Share Review Quotes Or Testimonials
Sharing review quotes in creative ways can be a fun and useful idea for promotion. The quote may entice someone to read the full review or to learn more about your work. This may be one of the reasons that some author like to add them into their book cover designs.
If you want to take it a step further but still keep it simple, you could can add short quotes to your blog posts, create a page on your website just for sharing snippets of reviews, or you would post short review quotes to social media.
If your feeling up to a more creative endeavor, you could use a tool such as Canva to incorporate images, adjust colors, and find interesting fonts before sharing the quotes. And you don’t have to stop there. I have used review quotes on display banners and incorporated them into designs for marketing materials as well.
Final thoughts
Promoting your work doesn’t always have to feel like work!
I hope that some of these ideas have inspired you to you find a fun way to help spread the word about your wonderful creations. When deciding which ones are right for you, remember not to take on too much at once. You don’t want to get overwhelmed, you want to have fun!
Stay safe and keep being awesome!
Want to Learn more about promotion and marketing?
Check out these other sites:
selfpublishingadvice.org, allianceindependentauthors.org, thewritersally.com
Check out these sites: (update)
literarytitan.com
QuadCon
getinspiredwithlaban
sewquiltable.com
kingdomcomicsonline
iowa-icon.com
danegeorges
wiscon
hohcomiccon
Peoriacon
Jump to:
Rise
Reviews
Lost
Contact
Book Trailers
Illustrations
Acknowledgements
About The Author
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