Last week I told you about the mastermind group I joined. A week ago today was the first zoom meeting - just the coach, his assistant, and nine slightly nervous writers.
After some preliminary chat and an explanation of what was coming, he went over the goals section in each of our applications and gave us his thoughts on them. (The application was long - longer than most job applications I've ever filled out).
When he got to mine, he read out, "I'm confident in my books, my sales are decent, and I have a lot of good reviews, so what I'd like to learn is how to market them bettter and get them in front of a wider audience."
That seems reasonable, right?
Right?
"Well...." he starts, and gives me an apologetic smile. "Your blurbs are doing a lot of the heavy lifting. Those covers, though, they aren't doing you any favors."
What?
The five stages of grief are denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance.
"No!"
"#%&@*$!!!"
"Can I keep the cool font?"
"This is the worst thing that's ever happened to me."
"Hmm. I wonder if that cover designer I talked to a while ago - the one who did the covers on books I bought, but whose covers I didn't want to be like - has any availability?"
So that's where I am. It's the Tudor books he's talking about, and while I do LOVE those covers, and always will, thtey don't sell the books the way they should. And I've paid a significant chunk of money for this coaching, and he warned in the application that there would be hard truths and apologetic smiles.
I just didn't think it would happen in the first week.
2 comments:
Karen, what did he suggest?
Nancy, he suggested something that "reads" more clearly as historical fiction. I love my covers, and their historic ceilings (which mean something from the books but certainly aren't clear to the average buyer browsing Amazon). I'm exploring those "blended" covers with a character and a historic location/scene together. We'll see what happens.
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