ANNA STANISEWSKI ON PROMOTING SEQUELS AND MY EPIC FAIRY TALE FAIL AND MY VERY UNFAIRY TALE LIFE GIVEAWAY

Happy March Everyone! I so hope the start of March means warmer weather--even in the 30's--so I can get back outside and walk again. I'm really missing it.

First I have a few winners to announce.

The winner of CREATE YOUR WRITER PLATFORM is THE WICKED WRITER!

The winner of THE CADET OF TILDOR is BRENDA!

The winner of THE OBSIDIAN MIRROR is HANNAH SCHWAB!

The winner of BITOPIA is DIANNE SALERNI!

Congrats! E-mail me your addresses so I can have your books sent to you. Please e-mail me by the end of Wednesday or I'll have to pick another winner.

Today I'm thrilled to have Anna Staniewski back to celebrate the release of her new book, MY EPIC FAIRY TALE FAIL, which released on March 1, 2013. I interviewed Anna when her first book was released and you can read my interview HERE. One of the things I loved about MY VERY UNFAIRY TALE LIFE was that it was not only a fantasy, which you know I love, but it was also funny. You get the sense it’s going to make you laugh right away from the cover. Anna continues what made her first book great in her new book.

Here's a description of MY EPIC FAIRY TALE FAIL from Goodreads:

Fairy tales do come true. Unfortunately.

Jenny the Adventurer is back, and this time she's off to the Land of Tales: the crazy place that all fairy tales come from. If she can defeat an evil witch and complete three impossible tasks--all without getting eaten by blood-thirsty monsters--Jenny might finally get some answers about what happened to her parents.

This is one adventure Jenny can't afford to fail.

Doesn't it sound fun?

Anna's here today to share about promoting a sequel. So here's Anna.

Three Ways to Promote a Sequel

You’ve done it! You’ve sold a series to a publisher. Take a minute to celebrate with an ice cream sundae. Okay, your first book came out, and you did every type of promo you could think of. Now it’s time to promote the sequel. What do you do? Here’s what I recommend:

1. Create Bonus Content

Readers love extras, and bonus content can be a great way to create excitement for your upcoming book.

For the UnFairy Tale Life series, I wrote a short e-prequel about my character’s first magical adventure. Then I published the short story via Smashwords so that it would be available, for FREE, on B&N, iTunes, Kobo, etc. (Everyone likes free, right?)

Also, in case readers wanted to try their hands at being magical adventurers, I created a downloadable and printable Official Adventurer Contract.

2. Make a Book Trailer

I got a good response from the book trailer for my first book, so I decided to do it again. I wanted to make it a teaser trailer in order to pique people’s interest and give them a taste of the humor in the story.

Remember that a trailer doesn’t need to be fancy or expensive. It just needs to hook readers and make them curious about your book.

3. Connect with New Readers

Reaching out to teachers and schools is a great way to find new readers—plus, you get to talk to kids about writing! If you’re not able to do in-person events, Skype visits are becoming more and more popular for schools, book clubs, etc.

The bottom line is, promotion shouldn’t be a chore. If you hate book trailers, don’t make one, but find your own creative way to get some excitement going for your book. None of these techniques are guaranteed to sell books, but as long as you’re having fun with promotion, I think it pays off either way.

Bio:

Born in Poland and raised in the United States, Anna Staniszewski grew up loving stories in both Polish and English. She was named the 2006-2007 Writer-in-Residence at the Boston Public Library and a winner of the 2009 PEN New England Susan P. Bloom Discovery Award. Currently, Anna lives outside of Boston, Mass. with her husband and their adopted black Labrador, Emma. When she's not writing, Anna spends her time teaching, reading, and challenging unicorns to games of hopscotch. You can visit her at her Website.

Thanks for sharing your advice, Anna.

Anna's publisher has generously offered a giveaway of MY VERY UNFAIRY TALE LIFE and MY EPIC FAIRY TALE FAIL. This giveaway is for U.S. and Canada only. To enter, all you need to do is be a follower (just click the follow button if you’re not a follower) and leave a comment and tell me which book you’d like by midnight on March 16th. I’ll announce the winner on March 18th. I’ll try to match the book to the winner.

If you mention this contest on Twitter, Facebook, or your blog, mention this in the comments and I'll give you an extra entry.

Here's what's coming up:

On Wednesday, I have a guest post with debut author Liesel Hill and a giveaway of her new adult dystopian, PERSISTENCE OF VISION, which sounds like a fantastic page turner.

Next Monday I’m interviewing debut author Steven dos Santos and giving away an ARC of THE CULLING. It’s an action packed dystopian and trust me, Steven has no problem being hard on his characters.
 

Next Wednesday I’m super excited to share THE RUNAWAY KING by Jennifer Nielsen with you. I’ve been dying to read this since I read THE FALSE PRINCE last year, which just made the New York Bestseller list and won the Cybils. THE FALSE PRINCE is one of my all-time favorite books. THE RUNAWAY KING is fantastic and I’ll be doing a giveaway.


The following Monday I'm interviewing debut author Mindee Arnett and giving away a copy of her urban fantasy THE NIGHTMARE AFFAIR. I loved the magical world Mindee created that was also grounded in our world. And there's a mystery to be solved, something I always love.

And don't forget our Tuesday Tips and Casey's Thursday agent spotlights.

Hope to see you on Wednesday!