You have to be creative and think outside the box (or, er, inside the tub) a lot when you’re a little-known author with a small, independent, Canadian publisher. As hard as it is to get new people to discover your work, you can’t give up. One technique not working? Try something new. Something different. You have to try things that you haven’t seen others doing yet.
When I self-published Three Spaces (2013), people were just getting into e-reading, but I wanted to encourage paperback sales, too. I was looking over my own book in the bath one night (I rarely re-read my own stuff but our daughter had handed me a copy, ‘Here Mommy, you should relax and read this!’ ) when hubby decided to take photos of me to be funny. I told him to delete them but he didn’t. So as much as you think it was an ingenious idea, it was rather accidental. When I looked at the photos later, I realized that in all except a few photos you’ll never see ;), everything that should be covered up was covered up in suds. I then had the idea that one or two of those photos would be perfect to share to encourage paperback sales ( ‘No ereaders in the tub’ was the slogan). The rest is literary history! (ha! not quite. but such a fun little campaign).
It worked well, and made such a fun business card; one that started many interesting! conversations with new readers. So, with the OK from my publisher Morning Rain Publishing, we decided to do a similar ‘bathtub shoot’ for Strangely Incredibly Good. This time around, I knew the photos would be posted, so I was much more shy. “Bill, am I all covered up? You sure?” He’d smirk and throw lots more suds at me, then shoot the photo. It was a lot of fun!
Since most of you have been following my blog for over five years now (Wow! Thanks!) I thought I’d present BOTH final photos (the one with the beer, and the one with the wine – told you I had fun shooting these photos!) here as well as one that had an Instagram filter added to it. Feel free to share them. In fact, I ask that you do!
Oh, and if you’ve read the book, please give it a brief review on Amazon and Goodreads. Even two words will do! Every review helps.
Thanks so much for reading.
Heather
The one with the beer – not photoshopped –
The one with the wine, with Instagram filter (wow! looks like it’s sunny in there now!):
The one with the wine, original unphotoshopped:
Heather Grace Stewart 