EP 383 - 20 Haunting Years

Stark Reflections on Writing and Publishing

In this solo episode Mark talks through the logic and reasoning behind a recent book launch by sharing a little of his own experience and publication history.

This episode is sponsored by the patrons who support this podcast at https://patreon.com/starkreflections and https://buymeacoffee.com/markleslie.

Mark shares the behind-the-scenes story of:

• Why he first self-published the book One Hand Screaming in 2004
• The logistics and strategy behind making it fully returnable and why he was trying to push the envelope of publishing so early in the digital publishing revolution
• A little bit of his experience as a writer in those manual "mail out submissions" days
• The reasoning behind wanting to celebrate the 20th Anniversary of this first published book by launching One Hand Screaming: 20 Haunting Years
• Why he invested into getting this self-published book into a traditional distribution warehouse in Canada with a sales team -- and what that means
• Collaborating with a local brewery to create a tie-in beer One Hop Screaming

• Some of the marketing and branding logistics, reasoning, and strategies being used for the book launch
• Products and marketing swag that Mark is leveraging, including a bonus "haunted beer" story to go along with the beer (QR code printed on the beer cans and the double-sided coasters

Mark also shares a couple of new marketing tools that he has come across and been experimenting with that are designed to help an author maximize their ability to create sales copy, draft up press releases, provide comp author/comp title information, and more.

Links of Interest:

• One Hand Screaming: 20 Haunting Years
  • Books2Read Link
• Counterpoint Brewing
  • One Hop Screaming (Beer - online order)
  • One Hop Screaming and One Hand Screaming (Online order)
• "As One Hop Screams" (Haunted beer story)
• Mark's 2006 to 2011 Podcast: Prelude to a Scream
• Shop Local (Canadian Indie Bookstore Lookup)
• Marketing Tools Mentioned
  • NoteBookLM (Google)
  • ManuscriptReport.com (Manuscript Marketing Report)
  • Social Media Content Generator
• Mark's Stark Reflections on Writing & Publishing Newsletter (Signup)
• Buy Mark a Coffee
• Patreon for Stark Reflections
  • How to Access Patreon RSS Feeds
• An Author's Guide to Working With Bookstores and Libraries
• The Relaxed Author
  • Buy eBook Direct
  • Buy Audiobook Direct
• Publishing Pitfalls for Authors
• An Author's Guide to Working with Libraries & Bookstores
• Wide for the Win
• Mark's Canadian Werewolf Books
  • This Time Around (Short Story)
  • A Canadian Werewolf in New York
  • Stowe Away (Novella)
  • Fear and Longing in Los Angeles
  • Fright Nights, Big City
  • Lover's Moon
  • Hex and the City
  • Only Monsters in the Building
• The Canadian Mounted: A Trivia Guide to Planes, Trains and Automobiles
• Yippee Ki-Yay Motherf*cker: A Trivia Guide to Die Hard

The introductory, end, and bumper music for this podcast (“Laser Groove”) was composed and produced by Kevin MacLeod of www.incompetech.com and is Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0