Today marks five days until my comedy novel, “Glitter Buckets & Spades”, hits the shelves. I can’t believe how often I’ve written that title, even though it’s not mentioned in the book! Glitter Buckets is the name of the shop owned by my protagonist, Oscar Ockham. Glitter Buckets sells everything from the magical and clown-related worlds, from buckets of glitter, multi-coloured wigs, to card tricks and magic wands.
I’m writing this blog post like a diary to record my thoughts on the final run-up. I set up the book with a “pre-order period” to give myself some time to create buzz with social media posts. I wanted to do a daily post, but I ran out of steam quickly. I should have been more business-like and made multiple posts, but as with all good ideas my initial keenness waned, and I found days going by without enough push. Next time I’ll give myself a shorter lead-in to the publication date. You live, and you learn, I would suggest.
Even so, I accidentally published the paperback version early. I thought I had read on Amazon’s KDP pages that it would be linked with the eBook and be attached to its publication date. No real harm done, but it’s of note that nobody has bought it in the two weeks it’s been out, which makes me a little sad.
Switching from creative writing to marketing can be a challenge, but I’m proud of this book, and I hope it helps me break through my own barriers. I am no self-marketer, I can tell you that much. It’s been a long month, and despite my social media posts, I don’t have high hopes for sales. But I’ll keep pushing. After the release, I have a BookBub promotion that could boost sales and get me more reviews. Who knows?
When KDP’s Select program’s exclusivity period ends, I need to make sure the book is set up on other platforms, like I did with “Given Time”. I seem to recall setting up on Play Books, and Kobo. Things may have changed in the intervening years.
So — it’ll soon be four days to go, then three. Time will skip over 48 hours just for me, I’m sure, and then it’ll be publication day. I’m excited, and I can’t wait to shout about it!