forum My Best Friend Has Some Published Fantasy Short-Stories, and... Please Help Me.

Started December 29, 2020 by @King_Cyrus

tune

Hey, guys. Please read this and let me know if you can give me some advice.

My best friend has been writing for years, and she puts a lot of work into what she makes. A lot of what I know about writing came from her, because she literally used to be my English teacher in high-school. She does an incredible job, and I'm so proud of her for all of the work she has poured into this.

Right now, she has two short stories published, and I'm trying to help her become more… well-known, I suppose? I'm looking for advice and tips on how to get her out there for people to read her books. Both of them are mermaid-centered fantasy stories, probably about 20,000 words each. The first one is sort of a retelling of the Little Mermaid, although better in my opinion and with more twists. It's just loosely based off of that, I suppose. The second is completely original, a story about a young girl who ends up having to rescue a merboy from some savage pirates. I'm not sure what the age base is; I'd say the stories are appropriate for children as young as 11 or 12, but I'm a college student and I enjoyed them a lot too. But overall I'd guess our target audience is 11 to 15 year olds, particularly girls (even though I was a huge fan myself aha) who love fantasy. (BTW, Fantasy isn't even my genre; I'm a sci-fi kinda person myself.)

The books are on Amazon, and she's tried sharing herself on Facebook and Instagram. I also helped her create a design for merchandise based off of the main character from one of the books, which she's selling on Redbubble. Plus, she opened a Patreon.

All in all, I'm looking for advice on how to help her strategize her marketing. How would you recommend reaching the kind of readers who would be interested in her work? Even if you aren't within her ideal fanbase, how would you be best reached with a book? Like, if you were on a social media, what would really cause a book to catch your attention? Her work is really good, and I want to think ways to help her get it out there.

If you have any sort of help to offer a fellow writer, I'd be really grateful.

And if you're interested in knowing more about the author and how to view her work, feel free to dm me.

I'm sorry, I've never published anything… My mom did, and the way she did it was that she found writer's conferences and circles where they all kind of supported each other. I think she also used to write daily blogs that drew attention to her writing, or something similar…
Sorry I couldn't help more!

get in touch with your local libraries! donate copies of the book if possible, or plan events through the libraries(right now they'll probably be virtual) for things like read alongs or book clubs. local small bookstores are another really good option, especially if they advertise their new book options.

beyond that, all i can really say is that it sometimes takes time and a stroke of luck to really get your book into the swing of popularity, and she just has to hold it out!

Establish an author Twitter account and post actively with the #writingcommunity tag, and get involved with other authors. I climbed from 0 to 1500 followers in a single month by merely being active in the community, and I found it was great for getting exposure and making writer and reader connections.

Have you heard of scribbler? It’s a subscription box made for writers and they might have some “passports” for sale on their website for publishing. They also have a Facebook community, I’m not sure if you have to subscribe first to enter. But, that group is full of people who are publishing books either the traditional or self publishing route. That might be a better crowd to ask for online marketing strategies.

Good luck!