Belvedere Crescent by Misha Herwin

My new book “Belvedere Crescent” is out in February. At least that is the official publication date. In the meantime paperback copies have already arrived and obviously if anyone asks to buy one, I won’t be saying no.

So although the Kindle, Apple, Kobo etc. copies won’t be available until the middle of next month, if you want a copy from me you can have one. You can also pre-order. 

In the meantime, I am working hard on promoting the novel. I post on Facebook, Tweet every other day and blog, both here and on my own blog https://mishaherwin.wordpress.com/ It’s all part and parcel of building up the buzz, but what I’d like to know is how effective are these strategies? 

Speaking personally, I find too many mentions by other writers of their new/forthcoming books, puts me off. I feel bombarded, pressured and yet unless you tell me what you have written how will I know?  Analysing my own behaviour I have to admit that in some cases, in spite of my initial reaction, I will end up downloading an eBook. The tactic however doesn’t seem to work with hard copies. 

Really successful writers appear not to go down this path of constant exposure. A few mentions of an upcoming “best seller” and that is that. No doubt their legions of fans have been eagerly awaiting the next book and that is enough to spur them into pre-ordering on Amazon. 

Not have reached the ranks of automatic best sellerdom, I’m still at the stage of trying to work out what works best. 

Reviews, I think, do matter and I’m very grateful to the book bloggers who are poised to post their review of “Belvedere Crescent” in February. It is, however, getting harder and harder to find bloggers with time in their schedules to review and this is where gently nudging family and friends comes in.  The trick here is how to request and remind without appearing to nag. This is a path that has to be very carefully negotiated. Too much is off putting, too little and people forget to do what they promised. In spite of their good intentions non-writers forget how important a review can be, how much it means to the writer. 

And so we come to the newsletter, which I’m still trying to grow. I know this is seen to be a good way of making contact, but as yet I’m not sure how many books I’ve sold this way. If any of you fellow writers, or readers have more ideas of how to go about marketing your work successfully, I’d love to know. In the meantime, if there is anyone who’d like to read and review a time slip novel aimed at the women’s fiction market, I’d be happy to send you an ARC.