Finishing Up With the Proposal for My Fast Track Thriller Series

 Yes, I'm still working on the proposal for my Fast Track Thriller series. I've been saying I'm almost done for weeks, but I keep finding something else I forgot, or something that needs to be done before I can do whatever I need for the proposal. Throw in an anniversary and a couple of birthdays to celebrate, and it all the delays accumulate. 

Once past all of that, I got into a groove. The comparable books section is done. The market analysis is done. The synopses are done. The one-sheet had already been completed before the Realm Makers Convention. I've reviewed everything except the first three chapters of Book 3: Revenge. But that's a story for another blog post. 

Today I did some research on marketing ideas for authors. I had a good start for the Marketing Strategies section of the proposal, but I really needed to beef it up. So I looked online for creative ideas other authors have used and that marketers suggest, so I can add to the list of marketing techniques I'm willing to use in the promotion of my Fast Track Thriller series.

I found quite a treasure trove of ideas online. Some I have already done, others I plan on doing, still others would require the permission of my publisher when I get one. I found that ideas seemed to center around these main topics:

- Find your target audience

- Build your platform

- Book promotions (including pre-order campaigns)

- Getting book reviews

- Getting ready for your book launch

- Promotions and Freebies

- Working with other authors to cross-promote

I found the following websites to be the most informative:

119 Book Marketing Ideas

70+ Book Marketing Ideas to Rocket-Boost Your Sales

50 Free Book Marketing Ideas for Writers and Authors

If you've done some unusual or unique marketing, please share in a comment!

Suzanne Hartman

Author of the Fast Track Thriller series:

An Unexpected Snag

 Well, I've run into a snag I should have expected, but had forgotten about. After I decided to start Revenge in a different place, I had to do a Chinese fire drill, or 52-pick-up, if you will, with my chapters. I had finished the first half of the first chapter enough to pass it around to a number of people to get a feel for how it came across. Then I apparently got distracted with something else--not uncommon--and when I came back to working on the proposal, I moved on to a different section.

So that left the second half of chapter one and all of chapter two to be reviewed. Not really a big deal, since I had already reviewed them before I switched up the order of the chapters. Chapter hree, on the other hand, left me with some decisions to be made. I had played with what the new order of chapters should be, but hadn't set them in stone yet, so I wasn't quite sure where I was going with chapter three.

I dove into the problem, but came up coughing and sputtering. I had been putting so much stress on myself to get the proposal done as fast as I could that whenever I faced this setback, I just dove in and dealt with it. For some reason, however, when I dove into this issue, it felt more like cliff diving than jumping into a swimming pool. 

I know it was Satan trying to take advantage of a weak moment, but I felt like I was setting myself up for failure. Suddenly, I saw failure all around me. The devotional I did that evening was about failure. The next day, when I met with my Bible study ladies, the bookmark one of them had in the book we're starting to study had the word "failure" written on the back. I began to ask myself if God was preparing me to to receive a rejection letter from the publisher I was preparing the proposal for.

I spent some time in prayer and felt like God was telling me that the publisher was interested in The Fast Track Thriller series when he saw it at Realm Makers, and he will be interested in it whenever he receives the proposal. Now, I don't think that was a guarantee from God that this publisher would offer me a contract, simply a reminder that there was interest there before and it would still be there. 

After days of considering God's response, I feel like I have been putting too much emphasis on this particular publishing house. Before I went to Realm Makers, I felt like this publishing house offered my last chance to be published traditionally. When I had my publisher appointments, however, neither of them were turned off by the fact that two of the three books had already been published. Maybe because both of the circumstances that surrounded the need to get my rights back, I don't know. 

That should have opened my eyes, but I've been so concentrated on getting this proposal done (and it didn't help that I had Covid, we had birthdays and an anniversary to celebrate, and my mom was in the hospital for two weeks) that it's taken this long for it to sink in. Once I get this proposal done, I've got all he building blocks I need for preparing proposals for other publishing houses. So maybe God is preparing me for failure with the publishing house I'm preparing the proposal for now, only so I can be offered a contract with a different--maybe bigger--publisher. With God, you never know. He is so much bigger than us, and His plans are so much deeper and wider than we can even imagine. But either way, I can know that He is with me and has a plan for me.

Suzanne Hartman

Author of the Fast Track Thriller series: