The question new authors ask; is my book marketable. The short answer is, yes. If I am asked if it will make money I do not know. If anyone tells you it will be a runaway success they are either liars or they have an aptitude for fortune telling. The reading public is fickle. Who would have thought mummy-porn would have revitalised Mills and Boon. Every day new books break through the glass ceiling and authors retire.
With a little imagination you can draw attention and media interest to your story. ‘My mother was a nun,’ ‘my dog helped me to write it’; ‘a neighbour freaked out when she recognised herself’; ‘daughter sues mum after mum pens novel.’ ‘Convent denies nuns make out with window cleaners.’ You know the sort of thing.
Something new perhaps; like the hotel worker who wrote a book about the things guests get up to and how hotel staff retaliate. I had an enquiry from the owner of a long established sex shop; imagine the tales he can tell. Be controversial; it helps. I ghosted a dog’s biography.
If your book is special interest it will help to market it. I often write on matters relating to the Third Reich. I send my book's Press Release to the armed forces periodicals, men’s, militaria and battle re-enactment magazines; media in parts of the world where that epoch holds a fascination. If writing about police, health, keep fit, gay, sailing, alternative, fashion, childcare, sport, travel; presume there are hundreds of periodicals with an insatiable appetite for stories and book reviews on your topic.
As a poet I penned verse about Liverpool; I sold out of 3,000 anthologies. Perhaps you were a hotshot salesman; a successful business person; show others how it is done. One book I ghosted was about the tricks used by the Mediterranean’s must successful conmen. Don’t worry if it is trivia; the soaps are trivia; much of what we read in magazines is trivia; trivia is escapism.
There is often an odd hour of the day when settling down at my laptop I Google magazines; I then click and paste my book review to those I feel are appropriate. I can send as many as 50 in a day all over the world. If just one publishes it then it is massive free publicity.
If you have your own website, which my clients get for €100, you can send the link to hundreds of conventional publishers whose interest is shared by your book’s contents. All it has cost you is a few hours typing.
Apart from your time there are just the ghost-writer’s fees (mine, not those of others) paid in instalments. Come on; I see cameras, holidays and cruises, wedding albums that cost more. Returns! You’re in with a blockbuster chance. There will be sales so you get some back. You have the status of author, which can be a meal ticket. You get your name in the newspapers. Your family and friends think you are a miracle, which you are. You have created a book, a biography perhaps that will be as priceless as a posh work of art on a gallery wall. I don’t see how you can lose. Good luck, writers.