The Inmate's Guide to Success as an Author: How to Win at the Marketing Game From Prison

By Francis Raemond

Writing a book is hard... but if you want people to actually read it, the REALLY hard part comes after it's on the market. This book will take you through all the author's best tips and tricks for getting your book noticed and selling. What's more, he does it specifically with the limitations of the imprisoned author in mind! Discarding things t

• Language: English
• Publisher: Cadmus Publishing
• Release date: Nov 29, 2022
• ISBN: 9781637513613

Francis Raemond

Frank Raemond has been in the book industry for literally decades. Much of his time has been spent working with incarcerated authors directly both pre- and post-publishing. He prefers reading (and writing) fiction over non-fiction, but sometimes a book just screams inside your head to be written. He lives with his wife in the beautiful Pacific Northwest where - literally - the mountains meet the ocean.

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The Inmate’s Guide to Success As an Author

How to Win at the Marketing Game from Prison

Francis Raemond

Cadmus Publishing

www.cadmuspublishing.com

Copyright © 2022 Francis Raemond

Cover art by Sean McCord

Published by Cadmus Publishing

www.cadmuspublishing.com

Port Angeles, WA

ISBN: 978-1-63751-361-3

All rights reserved. Copyright under Berne Copyright Convention, Universal Copyright Convention, and Pan-American Copyright Convention. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior permission of the author.

Table of Contents

Introduction1

Disclaimer3

Part I: The Basics5

Chapter 1: Do I Really Need To Do This?6

Chapter 2: Who The Hell Am I To Tell You How To Market Your Book?10

Chapter 3: Understanding Some Basic Ideas15

Chapter 4: Where To Start? 19

Chapter 5: Who Are You Writing For?21

Chapter 6: Read More Books24

Chapter 7: Read Even More Books26

Part II: Before You Publish…28

Chapter 8: Revise!29

Chapter 9: Beta Readers!31

Chapter 10: Professional Edit34

Chapter 11: Cover!38

Chapter 12: Title!41

Chapter 13: Layout43

Chapter 14: Pricing!45

Chapter 15: Metadata48

Part III: Actual Marketing Stuff54

Chapter 16: Introduction: Reprise55

Chapter 17: Letter Writing57

Chapter 18: Word Of Mouth63

Chapter 19: Submitting Articles65

Chapter 20: Interviews68

Chapter 21: Brick & Mortar71

Chapter 22: Keep Copies Handy74

Chapter 23: Magazine/Newspaper Ads76

Chapter 24: Online Advertising79

Chapter 25: Press Release83

Chapter 26: Leveraging The Fact Of Your Incarceration; Also, Son Of Sam Laws85

Chapter 27: Social Media88

Chapter 28: Author Webpage92

Chapter 29: Write More Books94

Chapter 30: Audiobooks97

Chapter 31: Book Reviews99

Afterward103

Appendix A: Resources105

Appendix B: Sample Press Releases110

Appendix C: About the Author114

Introduction

So, you wrote a book. It took some time, a lot of work, and you figured out how to get it published, which was probably not easy either. Now it’s time to sit back, and let those sweet, sweet royalties roll in.

Ha! You WISH you had the hard part behind you! The truth is most authors find that marketing their book is as hard or harder than writing it. At least with writing the book, it is something that comes from you. It’s your creation, your rules. It is done how you want it to be done. But with marketing… well, some things will work and some won’t, and it isn’t up to you which ones will or won’t. In fact, what even ARE your options for how to market the book?

And let’s add to the difficulty. Let’s do it all while locked up. Where you really can’t rely on anything, or anyone. Well, you have one thing you can rely on, friend – and that’s me. I’m here to guide you through some of the most popular and successful options you have available to you for marketing your book. And you better believe you need to market it: If people don’t know it exists, they can’t buy it.

But it’s not all doom and gloom. There is a light at the end of the tunnel. A pot of gold at the end of the rainbow: You CAN do it. With the tools you have at your disposal – and this book in your hand – it is possible to make incredible sales numbers: high enough even to rival national best sellers. It won’t happen for everybody, and there are a lot of factors that will contribute to how successful you are, but it CAN be you. Nobody but yourself can stop you from making a comfortable income from your writing.

And think of this: you have an advantage. People on the outside have to deal with 9 to 5 jobs, bills, groceries, shopping, vacation, family… all that stuff that you miss out on. But what they don’t have, because of all these things, is a lot of time on their hands. This is where your advantage lies. With all the time you have right now, you can be building a successful library of your own works. And here’s lesson number one (which we’ll dive into more, later in the book): The more you write, the more you’ll sell. But let’s get started!

Disclaimer

This book is for educational purposes. While not presented as a comprehensive course in marketing, it is written in good faith and with many years of experience – both personal and observational. However, as is stated later, no marketing plan is a sure thing. It is up to the reader to perform any additional research they deem necessary before taking any steps and spending any money in the marketing of their book. The ideas, opinions, and options included herein do not guarantee high sales and success – indeed, there is nothing in life that can truly carry that guarantee. Neither the author nor the publisher are liable for any losses suffered through your marketing tactics. We are also not liable for any successes, but would love to hear about them from you!

In short: read, learn, further your education as you see fit, and do what works best for you based on your own decisions. Keep this book handy and reference back to it as you continue to work through your own marketing strategy; with your knowledge of what you want and what resources you have, this work will help guide you towards the success of your own book.

Part I

The Basics

Chapter 1

Do I Really Need To Do This?

The short answer is, Yes.

The long answer is still Yes, just with a lot more words.

As I stated in the Introduction (right near the middle of it – you did read that, right?), people can’t buy your book if they don’t know it exists. That one sentence is very important, so let’s try it again, with feeling:

PEOPLE CAN’T BUY YOUR BOOK IF THEY DON’T KNOW IT EXISTS!

I mean, it’s simple logic, right? But it seems that too many authors forget this basic fact. Well, the book is on Amazon. It’s got its genres listed, so when people look for [my genre] they’ll find my book! Or maybe even, I have an author webpage, so when people see that, they’ll find the book from there.

I’m sorry, but neither of those things are just going to happen. There are literally millions of books out there, and likely hundreds of thousands in your genre alone. The odds of just stumbling onto yours are so slim as to be hardly worth mentioning. The same, of course, goes for any website you may have, or whatever social media presence you’ve set up to promote yourself and/or your book.

That’s not to say that you should just give up hope, or even that you should forego having a social media presence or a website – those are both excellent assets which we will be addressing later.

But you need more. And you do have options, even in your position. Your options will vary widely based on the resources you have available