I’ve been treading water on Tuesdays for a while because I haven’t had any really good ideas. Not having a release coming up, I can’t do any promotional teasers. It’s hard to find new teasers in the old books too. Mostly because it’s been so long that I don’t remember all of the juicy parts that would work. I wish I had a book I had no intention of publishing in order to post it here. Sadly, I only have Darwin’s adventures and those are to be published one day.
I can’t ask what characters people want to see teasers about. The same names always come up, so nothing new gets added to the blog. The same problem goes for the books because there are a handful of favorites among my small audience. For example, Ichabod Brook gets mentioned a lot even though his story collection barely sold when it was a big debut. So, what exactly can I do?
What do other people do on their blogs when they want to post? Are there any interesting new ways to promote books? I’ve used teasers, basic ‘buy it now’ posts, character interviews, and behind-the-scenes. Figure there has to be something I haven’t tried yet.
Potential ideas:
- Future story ideas such as Phi Beta Files, a necrocaster concept, etc.
- Promote books for other authors or myself if nobody submits.
- Keep grabbing older teasers and posting them until I figure something else out.
- Questions 3 that relate to my books.
- Cry in the corner until an idea comes up.
- Use holidays to promote my books?
Before anybody says it, telling me to just keep the day blank and that I don’t have to post every day isn’t going to help. Honestly, maintaining this blog’s posting streak is turning out to be one of the few things that give me a sense of accomplishment. Is there anything fun I can do with Tuesdays?
Legends of Windemere 
Maybe a variation on Taco Tuesdays? TACO: Teasers (your story ideas and excerpts), Art/Cover reveals, and Other Options (like guest posts, questions 3 or the other items on your list).
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Maybe. Though I don’t think I can do much with the first 3 letters until I have a book coming out.
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I’m sure you’ll do great no matter what you decide to do. I enjoy the questions and the worldbuilding tips you provide also.
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I usually save the worldbuilding tips for the bigger M/W/F posts. Tuesday was always for book promos. Maybe I can do a Questions 3 for each of my books? It’s really hard to figure anything out because I’d like the posts to garner some type of activity on my sales page.
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I think the questions would work for that! And yes, totally understand the desire to generate sales.
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I’d get 4 months on Legends of Windemere alone.
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As long Á you want to tie into something that you hope will generate sales, you have to keep doing your book stuff. (Like three questions) The question remains do your posts generate sales? If they do then protect that. If not, you could do a short story using any one of the prompts that are around. That will allow your blog readers to get a taste of your writing.
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I’ve looked at the prompts. Unfortunately, writing a short story requires time, inspiration, and energy. I’ve been severely lacking in all three for the last year or two. 2024 doesn’t look any better. It’ll take all I’ve got just get the first Darwin book ready for publishing and write another volume b
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I think you could do repeat posts about the books in your main series. Just to keep it up in people’s minds. Maybe reflect a little on how the particular volume fit into the over all arc.
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I feel like I’ve done that before. Maybe I’m mixing it up with reflecting on the characters. I could try to combine reflection of a volume with the Questions 3 thing. Does interaction still help or am I showing my age?
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Someone suggested reposting old posts. That’s an idea that could be a good one. There will be people who haven’t seen them before, and also people forget.
Interviews with other authors are a good idea, too. Maybe they won’t directly impact your sales, but they might introduce you to new fans who come because they like your interviewee, and go on to become fans of yours.
I have a list of 30 questions I send out for people to choose 10 to answer.
Character interviews are also popular. You’ve done origins, but they were in your voice. Let your characters speak for themselves.
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I’ve been posting older posts for a while now and it feels like I’m treading water. Usually the same people commenting on those too. That’s the same problem I had with the character interviews. I’ve tried that several times in the past and it really only worked at the beginning. Now, I get maybe 2-3 questions from people and they tend to be the same ones. This is why I’m having so much trouble. I’ve tried a lot and nothing seems to stick.
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I’d suggest slice of life stuff, but you already do some of that. Tips and tricks could promote Do I Have to use a Dragon.
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Slice of life tends to be Saturday, Not that my life has any interesting slices. I’m leaning towards the Questions 3/looking back at each volume idea. I can only do so many ‘tips and tricks’ for ‘Do I Have to Use a Dragon?’ before I release the whole book on my blog. I was seeing that those posts were losing steam too. Feels like everything putters out fairly quickly these days.
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I get it. Maybe a couple of Olde Shoppe posts. I loved those and know they were pretty popular.
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I’ve got a few scattered about in the future. They don’t really work for book promos.
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Maybe a book shoppe?
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I could try it. That would be hard to pull off with the way I’m doing them now. Possibly by genres. Why do I think I’ve done something similar to that in the past?
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