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What's Your Biggest Challenge with Your Book?

I'd be interested to learn what authors/publishers on this network think their biggest challenges are with their book. I wonder if there's any common, pervasive challenge we all face.

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My biggest challenge is finding people who love to read young adult fiction. I know they're out there because I read quite a bit of young adult fiction and when I buy a book on Amazon I can see that a lot of these authors books are selling well. Maybe I just haven't advertised in the right places. So how long does it take to build a readership?
Katrina,

It does take a while to build a readership. I went to your website to see what you were doing there but unfortunately there seems to be an error and there was no way to "enter" the site. You might want to look at that.

Also, you might think about blogging about your book and the issues it raises, since you are quite invested in those issues. Put some selections from the book on your website for download so people can get an idea of what the book and your writing are like. Enough of these initiatives can help to build your profile, and your readership. Good luck!
I can enter my site just fine, Joel - sorry, you had a problem. I do have an excerpt on my site for visitors and also Search Inside This Book on Amazon and I have a blog http://www.emotionalreads.blogspot.com. Sometimes I blog about my thoughts and sometimes I blog about Choices. I guess I just have to figure out how to get more traffic.
Thanks :)
Katrina,

I've found difficulty trying to "gather a following" around my blogs. It's also very time consuming to say something significant regularly. Although I'll continue my blogs, I'm taking more of the tactic of "go where people are already gathered."

So I go to Technorati.com (either search or use their index) to find the top blogs on the topic of my books. Then either comment on blog posts and put my book with my signature and a link to my press page, or (better) ask the administrator if he/she would like a free copy of my book for review.

In general, I think it's more effective to get others, who already have the respect of their followers, commenting on my books, than trying to gather a following myself and sell them on my books.

Just a thought I've been experimenting with. What's others' experience?
Steve,

Your approach makes good sense to me, partly because of the niche you are in, which is crowded to say the least. It would be a major undertaking to establish any kind of "authority blog" in the personal finance area, and your tactic seems like it would be much more productive.

In my niche, which seems underserved to me, my thrust has been to create that authority blog, which I expect to take as long as a year of solid work to accomplish. Different niches, different approaches. Thanks for sharing, Steve.
Let us know how your blog works out. Your approach makes sense to me. I hear lots of authoritative pronouncements in using social networking, but would love to hear more real stories of how it's working for specific people in specific subject areas.
I agree that getting someone who already has a following is much easier than starting out fresh.

I do the same thing as Steve, I go to blogs and make comments, and I leave my signature along with the name of my book at the end of the comment. Then if I can find contact info I send a personal message to the owner of the blog.

Things seem to be going well for me, although I would still like a bigger following. I have had some success on facebook, but am thinking about getting off of twitter, no responses at all there. I do have my own blog at www.philipnork.com which I attempt to post at least once a week, but always seem to have difficulty in finding out what to say.

My biggest issue right now is that I can't find a niche--my book "Sensitivity 101 for the Heterosexual Male' is a narrative non-fiction story about a young boy's journey of self discovery after his parents get a divorce. Some readers see it as a memoir, some see it as a fiction work and others just read it. Luckily, they are reading it...and I am getting good reviews, but I still don't really know where to market it or who to.

So I will continue to "make a name" for myself by letting others talk about it for me, and someday I will know which way to turn.

Love reading all the responses here, eye-opening things and it's nice to know we are not alone! Thanks to everyone that responds.
Philip, do you think it's the type book that would help all these divorced women who are trying to raise their boys and to understand what's going on inside their boys? Are there lots of single mom blogs out there where they share resources and share ideas?
I am getting many responses of this sort, so I have started following women blogs or mom blogs, but many don't talk about this situation. I have sent a few copies of my book to doctors and child physcologists (?) hoping they may see the benefit in the first 10 lessons I talk about. The rest of the book is how my main character choose to use these lessons which leads to even more interesting stories. I haven't been able to find many "how divorce affects children" blogs...anyone know of any?
I don't know at this point what will be my biggest challenge since my book doesn't come out until March 2010. I'm enjoying reading the rest of this exchange. Great topic, thanks!
I'm glad so many people are active in this discussion forum. People are really sharing and providing user-experience. That makes it possible to gauge how the same promotion might work for you.

This discussion forum is why I started this Book Marketing Network.

John Kremer, founder
http://www.bookmarket.com
I am not new to the internet, and I am a web designer, but my challenge is how to think of the audience market, and why they would be attracted to my book--which isn't published yet. So I guess my primary challenge is getting published, but I want to start the marketing process now.

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