Re: Kindling

It has been two weeks or so since I uploaded the digital replica of my first book Britain: What a State to the Kindle store. I’ve done a few social posts, I wrote about it on here, and have flapped around like a wallflower at the absolute edge of attention.

Kindle Hot Take

Things have been slow and, in all honesty, I didn’t expect it to be any other way at the outset.

Like most writers, I'm more interested in adding extra content than coming across as someone who is slick about sales funnels and slack with their scruples. I won’t be that guy with more marketing nous than a soap salesman. Which is odd, because I spent the last fifteen years or so writing copy for clients, herding value propositions, branding, company DNA, and the whole kit and caboodle into short documents that were long on promises.

Admittedly, I did all of that filtered through a kind of principles sieve: I’m not touching anything I have qualms about, namely tobacco, booze and iGam(bl)ing. I turned down a campaign for some kind of woo-woo water filter because, in the optimistic opinion of my old course leader in copywriting, advertising is telling the truth well, and there wasn’t an iota of fact, truth or even a shadow of verisimilitude in the brief I was handed. It was a complete crock of shite. The world does not need another grifter, the supply has been too ample for too long.

So the conversation shifts towards some kind of marketing activity. I’m not the stereotypical shy, bearded mumbler with nasal hair that male authors of my age are often depicted as, yet I can be an extrovert when circumstances require me to hide behind the bluster that guards my deep introversion. So here goes.

Of course the first thing I did was create and release another thing that will need marketing. Damn! It’s all a bit like when Dan and I had our own little marketing meeting in the pub for The Myway Code – a parody of the UK’s Highway Code – and ended the meeting with a plan to drive an electric milk float across England at 15 mph. Because I am not quite the marketing numpty I may have led you to believe, here is the Amazon link for Three Men in a Float. The point remains, however:

I’m more interested in adding extra content than coming across as someone who is slick about sales funnels

In my defence, the book I released was very small – just 12 pages of full colour A4 – but definitely from the same comic universe as Britain: What a State. All of which gave me the idea of making it part of a series. Amazon lets you group together your publications in a series list.

Series are useful for cast and character-centred detective novels, sci-fi and fantasy sagas and heroic-length space operas because the order of reading serves as an easy call to action for dedicated fans. Meanwhile, the series page that Amazon generates is not only a valuable sales tool, but also shows the breadth of your vision and the span of your literary universe, giving you another opportunity to wow potential readers. Even a loosely associated group of books means that each book can feed off the attention that the others receive in the series. On Amazon, more always seems to be better.

It turns out that marketing is not only a creative activity in its own right, but can also be a creative way to add detail and layers to your primary creations. In space opera terms, my re-published 20th Anniversary edition of Britain: What a State is now the Death Star mothership launching specialised satellites into its orbit.

Go forth and multiply.