Hello, folks!
Today I'm pleased to welcome author Manning Wolfe, who will talk to us about book launches. Ms. Wolfe is the author of DOLLAR SIGNS: TEXAS LADY LAWYER VS. BOOTS KING.
"Dollar Signs" is the first installment in a new female-driven legal thriller/suspense series, and while Manning's stories are fiction, they are largely inspired by her work as an attorney in Texas. She describes her book as a cross between John Grisham and Janet Evanovich with a salting of Candace Bushnell.
Here's a bit about it!
Merit
Bridges, an attorney and widowed mother in Austin, Texas, works hard,
drinks too much wine, and sleeps with younger men. When Merit goes after
a shady corporation threatening her client, she encounters hired gun
Boots King. His charge is simple, “Stop her!” Merit and her team –
including Betty, a mothering office manager with a bad-ass attitude –
struggle to stay alive, while they navigate a labyrinth of legal issues,
and prove once again that you don’t mess with a Texas lady lawyer.
And now, without further ado, please welcome Ms. Wolfe to MB4. We love to spark discussions from writers and readers, so please feel free to comment on this piece in the section below. Enjoy!
Aaron Paul Lazar
www.lazarbooks.com
Publishing is Personal - by Manning Wolfe
I was recently at a
conference where one of the other speakers, an author with her first book out,
said she doesn’t blog. She said she put out a monthly newsletter, but she didn’t
like blogging so she doesn’t do it. OMG,
radical rebellion – she doesn’t blog! What happened to the rules? One must
blog, one must run Facebook ads, one must Tweet!
I am well into the process
of launching my first legal thriller, and as any newly published author knows,
there is more to do than can be done. No matter how large the staff or how many
contract vendors one engages, every opportunity cannot be mined. There is also
more available than most can pay for. How does a newbie in the publishing world
decide which avenues to explore and which to leave for the next author or the
next book? How does a writer new or experienced select the marketing items
where they can wisely spend their time and money?
I went through my
process by trial and error, at first slinging mud to see what would stick.
Early on, I realized that I was going to drop from exhaustion and never have
time to finish the next book. Two major things came to the fore that helped me
to narrow my focus and discover my personal path to publishing.
First, I hired an expert
who kept up with the latest trends, and second, I started paying attention to
what I enjoyed in the process. This sounds simplistic, just hire an expert and
do what you like – but it’s not that easy.
With regard to the
expert, I began my pre-launch process with an enthusiastic, but inexperienced
advisor who cost a third as much as my current advisors, but who thought that
every idea was a great idea. I followed this enthusiasm for a time, ordering
promotional items, buying advertising, and wasting time on things that sold no
books, got me little exposure, and drained my energy and my bank account. When
I began working with a new publicist, I found that just by nature of the
contract process, we explored what was important to me, what would be
emphasized, and the strengths that both the advisor and I had that supported my
launch. When we executed the contract, we followed a plan we had laid out in
advance, without adding new tasks every time we saw a shiny new distraction.
Ok, you may say, “I’m on
a budget or I’ve decided to do everything myself.” Same here for part of my
campaign. Next, I evaluated each of my virtual staff members and re-assessed my
ability to monitor and manage them. For
the things I was keeping in house, I broke the plan into parts and looked at
each one individually. I had a mental talk with the part of me that wears the
publicist hat, then put on the social media hat, etc. until I went through each
member of my internal and virtual team to assess what was working and what was
not. I thought about what I or the consultant was good at in each department
and set limits based on my honest response to that assessment.
Second, I looked at the
tasks I hated doing and either delegated them to someone else or eliminated
them from the publishing plan. My personal process brought me to a few
conclusions. For example, I love to cook and have a recipe included as part of
the story in each of the Texas Lady Lawyer novels, so I did a free Cookbook of
Southern Recipes that I give to readers in exchange for subscribing to my
mailing list. I also included wine in DOLLAR SIGNS as a part of the plot, so I
partnered with wineries for book signings and paired books and wine in my
newsletter to promote other authors. These items might be time consuming and
feel like work to others, for me it’s play. Next, I looked at social media. I
originally thought that Twitter was the place for me, but through the process,
I realized I could make a more personal connection on Facebook and chose that
method to interact. I designed memes of the best quotes about my book and put
those up in a rotation so that I always had someone else praising my novel.
These realizations led
me to the point of doing the things that fit my personality best. I began to
make genuine connections with winery owners, other authors, and readers with
similar interests. I found that when I signed books in another town, I found
readers through these mutual interests in addition to reading.
I prepared a
presentation entitled Legal Issues For
Authors that I use to give a free talk to any writer’s groups that request
it. (A similar talk could be given on lighthouses, childcare, ghosts, etc.) The
presentation allows me to talk about a subject in which I specialize – law, and
combine it with an area that I love – writing. It allows me to make a personal
connection with other authors who are also readers, and allows me to feel I am
giving something to my community.
All of these time
consuming activities, and many others too numerous to mention here, feel less
like chores and more like play because they suit my personality and allow me to
show my strengths. They also eliminate the black box syndrome where all the
information goes in mixes around and comes out the other end in a mysterious
fashion. I can actually see the target with this new method and assess whether
I hit the bullseye or fall short.
And, to answer your inevitable
question, yes, I do blog. But, I blog
about things that interest me – travel, photography, cooking, what’s going on
in my real life. Not only does it follow my internal compass, but it provides a
more organic and satisfying way to move through the publishing day.
Manning
Wolfe is an author and attorney residing in Austin, Texas. She writes
cinematic-style, smart, fast-paced thrillers with a salting of Texas bullshit. The first book in
her series featuring Austin
Lawyer Merit Bridges, is “Dollar
Signs: Texas Lady Lawyer vs Boots King.” A
graduate of Rice University and the University of Texas School of Law,
Manning’s experience has given her a voyeur’s peek into some shady characters’
lives and a front row seat to watch the good people who stand against
them.
- Website - http://manningwolfe.com/
- Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/manning.wolfe
- Twitter - https://twitter.com/ManningWolfe
- GoodReads - https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/27866748-dollar-signs
- Amazon - http://www.amazon.com/Dollar-Signs-Texas-Lawyer-Boots/dp/1944225005
- IndieBound - http://www.indiebound.org/book/9781944225001
- Barnes and Noble - http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/dollar-signs-manning-wolfe/1123379323
