Two years have past and I was not successful in getting a book deal yet.
It’s perfectly normal.
Discouraging. Yes.
But normal.
I gave myself 10 years (yep!) to get a book deal the traditional way. I have 8 years left to make it happen (and if I don’t, I’ll probably keep trying anyway, heehee).
Meanwhile, I’ve decided to join the fun club and give the whole self-publishing a try.
I’ve been looking into it the past year. It’s not an easy task to self-publishing a novel.
So many books are published every single day, on so many platforms.
Plus, I write in French, for the Francophone market, which is quite different from the US, UK or event the Australian market.
The genre of the novel, the format of the book, it’s length, it’s prose, everything must be thought of with as much care as one writer on a quest can muster!
Here’s my plan: create a rom-com author brand, using a different pen name, but the same website and social.
Why?
It’s very hard to build an online presence from scratch, in an era where every sphere of the book world is saturated, due to the incredible amount of books.
This little slice of the universe alone gathers less than a 100 persons. When any of my posts gets more than 10 views, I’m like : oh wow, I’m so lucky.
To sale the rom-com novel, I’ll have to go heavy on marketing and getting the word of mouth running… in French, for a francophone market that still buys a lot of physical books.
What may apply for a good book marketing strategy in the US will simply not work for the francophone market with the means to buy books online, such as France, the French Communitymunity of Belgium or the French community of Canada.
Like I said, the book approach for the US is quite different from the francophone’s approach. Cultural differences are to be considered, of course, but what actually sales in each book market.
I choose to write a rom-com because a) I love rom-com, but haven’t been able to find a novel recently that just does the trick for me b) it’s a challenge because its a genre of literary fiction for adults, and I haven’t written anything for grown-ups in a very long while and c) according to my research, rom-com sales in the francophone book market.
Like Alexa Donne often says: « Write what you love, but learn to love a lot of things. »
With that in mind, I will learn to, at least like a little bit, the only option for self-publishing that makes sense for my situation and the market I write in: Amazon (I wish I could have that word written in shaky spooky letters).
I’ve plan the next Writing Quest update for the end of March 2020.
Wish me good writing vibes, writer friends! The same to you!
Marie Alice Writes & Reads 