Supporting a fellow poetess at the Atlanta African American Book Festival, 2019.
In my years of consulting with authors and working with them on their books, I’ve discovered that the most difficult challenge for many is not writing the book (many of them have been writing their entire lives) but finding innovative ways to market and promote it.
With so many hats to wear, the last thing an Indie Author wants to do is strategize about how to promote their book day in and day out.
And you know what? We don’t have to!
Everything does not have to be part of some grand strategy that only a rocket scientist could understand. The secret to wisdom is often in its simplicity.
Considering it as relationship-building and connection-making rather than marketing and promotion could help you focus on the reasons behind your book. It involves thinking up creative ways to draw in and hold the interest of those who are already searching for solutions to the problems your books address.
Not only can these connections help you meet new people who buy books, but you might also find a business partner or lifelong friend.
Since your identity as an author is heavily influenced by who you are personally, it might be beneficial to present your individuality and draw on real-world experiences to engage readers on a deeper level.
Dr. Jackie Walters does this well.
Award-winning OB/GYN and star of the hit TV show Married to Medicine on Bravo, I reviewed her book a few years ago. The Queen V: Everything You Need to Know About Sex, Intimacy, and Down There Health Care goes into detail about our precious lady parts and all the ways to stay healthy. She has these videos where she reveals something informative about the vulva, sex, and intimacy.
Here’s the important part: She only sometimes mentions her book in these videos! Sometimes, she’ll just have it sitting to the side, or it won’t be in the shot at all.
Dr. Jackie understands her expertise, and by educating her people and entertaining them with her props (she uses fruits and everything, chile), people are increasingly interested in her topic and her book without her mentioning it in every post.
She just shows up as herself.
In the end, we must show people why they should buy our book, not just that they should. This builds genuine connections and strong relationships that help our books to sell without stressing us out.
“I give a holler to my sisters on welfare Tupac cares, if don’t nobody else care”
You know, it’s funny when it rains it pours They got money for wars, but can’t feed the poor.”
-Tupac, Keep Ya Head Up
Even though life tried to take me out in a toilet, I got here healthy, drug-free, and a head full of hair.
After two weeks in the hospital, Mama was allowed to take me home, if that’s what you wanna call it. Our building had been built in the 60s, but it wasn’t much of a building by the late 80s and into the early 90s.
Rats and roaches plagued our apartments, and the housing authorities couldn’t care less. Brand-new babies like me were brought home to nothing but drug dealers and addicts, children sprawled about like clothes somebody left on the floor and forgot to wash, so it wasn’t no surprise when The White Lady came.
That’s what people said when the social workers came to inspect the low-income apartments, “The White Lady.” They ain’t never have a name.
The woman stood in the kitchen, talking to Mama, and looking around our place with distaste. She gazed at the Crisco on top of the stove, as well as the dish rack, which was piled high with plates, bowls, cups, and cutlery. It wasn’t cute, but it was clean.
Her gaze moved to my brother and me, who were playing on the thick blanket on the floor we called a pallet. Well, he was playing, and I was doing whatever it was babies do.
My Uncle Rome hid in the closet next to the bathroom cause he wasn’t on the lease. Black women weren’t allowed to have a man in the house in those days if they wanted to get the Welfare. We also had to hide the new toaster, dish rack, and telephone so they wouldn’t take away any money.
“Mrs. House, your son is developing slowly for his age…”
The short, green-eyed blonde balanced a clipboard in her arms and scratched her nose with the tip of her writing pen. The hoop ring in her right nostril and the sunflower tattoo on her exposed arm caught my Uncle Jerome’s eye.
My favorite uncle and unofficial babysitter, we called my mother’s little brother Rome for short. He thought he was Romeo to every woman’s Juliet. His dark chocolate skin tone and thick lips drove them crazy. Mama said if he took the time to read Romeo and Juliet’s story, he might want to be somebody else.
“Ain’t nothing romantic about no Romeo and Juliet,” she’d lecture him when he bragged about his latest escapades.
“Why is that?”
“They both died fool.”
Uncle Rome said he wasn’t into white women like that, but this one was “sho-nuff fine.” Unk was lying. He loved him some white women. He just wanted to know why she was so young and how long she’d been working with social services to where she could take his sister’s kids.
“…and your 2-month-old is malnourished,” said the White Lady.
“It’s Miss House,” said Mama, taking a drag of her cigarette, inhaling smoke, and blowing it out of her nose. “Since you know so damn much.”
Uncle Rome did one of those fake coughs you do to cover up a laugh.
The lady ignored my mother. “Miss House, have you been using the Food Stamps?”
Unk said Mama frowned, “Yes, I use my stamps. Fuck I look like not to use Food Stamps?”
“I just wanna make sure you didn’t sell them, is all,” said the white lady.
“Oh, so you my judge now? I look incompetent to you?”
See, that’s what I loved about Mama. Yeah, she was a heroin addict, but she wasn’t no fool. A wordsmith with a mouth like a two-edged sword, she’ll curse you out every which way but loose and diversify her vocabulary while at it so you can know she’s cursing because she wants to, not because she doesn’t have the words to say what’s on her mind.
Mama used to write poems and stories before she got pregnant with Aaron. She also went to school to do hair. There wasn’t nothing my Mama couldn’t do. I wished she would get back to her art. Maybe that would help keep her away from the drugs.
“Look, are you done? Cause, as you can see, I have kids to look after.”
The woman scanned the apartment once more, frowning at a roach crawling on the wall. “Let’s just hope you are taking care of these children. This is your final warning, Miss House. If I have to come back here again…”
“Yeah, I know,” interrupted Mama, blowing out more smoke. “Are we done?”
The woman nodded, “We are.”
As she walked toward the door, she stopped to look once more at us and then back at my mother. “Probably not a good idea for you to smoke in front of the children.”
Mama rolled her eyes, dropped the cigarette on the floor, stomped it with her foot, and waved the woman off.
According to my uncle’s story, the woman left us alone after that. But, in my fifth month, someone new came to visit, and I was taken away from Mama and placed in foster care, where I would stay for the next five years.
“Did you hear about the rose that grew from a crack in the concrete? It learned to walk without having feet. Funny, it seems, but by keeping its dreams, it learned to breathe fresh air. Long live the rose that grew from concrete when no one else cared.”
– Tupac Amaru Shakur
I was almost born in the toilet.
My brother, Aaron, had just turned two, and Mama was only five months pregnant when Theresa (we call her Reese) caught her shooting up in the bathroom. That’s when she felt my head. “I think I feel my baby,” she slurred.
People around my way love to quote Tupac’s Rose That Grew from Concrete, but they don’t really know what it means. They don’t know nothing about coming up from the hardest part of the earth, snuggled between nothing but weeds, dirt, and the butts of cigarettes.
Then, the sun is so hot sometimes, the poor flowers (that are not really flowers cause they ain’t get the nutrients they need) just wither up and die. That’s what we really fight against here in these slums, in this place they want us to call home, but it ain’t never feel like it. Never felt like a hug or Big Mama’s greens.
That’s how the bathroom was almost my birthplace. Right there at 4840 South State Street, apartment 602. I feel sorry for Reese having to see her auntie slumped over like that and her own mother high as a kite in the other room. How is somebody supposed to get ready for school in this mess?
Reese was strong, though. She banged her fist against the door real hard like the police when they raided the sniper apartments. What is a sniper apartment? It’s just what it says: Empty flats on the top floors drug dealers used to shoot their enemies down below, like snipers on the battlefield.
Photo Cred: Williams Humbles
“Aunt Helen! Auntie, I gotta get ready for school!”
Frustrated, my mother, belly hanging over blue jeans now too small to zip up all the way and a dingy white t-shirt, finally opened the door.
“Come on, girl, shit,” she said, pointing to the tub. “Hurry up,” she rushed as Reese undressed and ran the water.
Mama sat back on the toilet and wrapped the belt tight around her forearm, a burned spoon dangling on the edge of the sink like it was supposed to be there. Like it was a toothbrush waiting to be used. Reese said she remembers praying Aunt Helen wouldn’t ask her to help tie her off like the other times.
“Close that curtain. Hurry up!”
After Mama said she could feel my head, Reese ran out of the bathroom, butt naked, and into her mother’s room. Dazed from her own high, Auntie Lorraine jumped up nevertheless. She knew her sister was pregnant and hurried to the bathroom, except she didn’t use her fist like her daughter. Auntie Lorraine, big-boned and shaped like Sara Baartman, used the back of her foot, slamming it against the door.
“Helen!” she screamed, but Mama wasn’t opening the door, so Auntie Lorraine had to kick it in, the needle falling from my mother’s long, skinny fingers like a witness eager to expose her secrets.
And as they say, the rest is history.
My name is Rosalind House, but everybody calls me Rose for short. I was born two months later, on June 21, 1987, premature and weighing a whopping 3 lbs and screaming at the top of my lungs. They say that’s why my voice is so high-pitched and sweet. They say it’s like something the Lord made. Say, I’m gone use it to shout my way out of this place.
And I did.
Let me tell you how it happened.
I missed writing fiction, so I started a new story!
I am calling it Concrete Rose (for now). I’ll be sharing the first few chapters based on response, so if you wanna read more, let me know! 🙂
I was listening to a podcast with Myron Golden (he’s brilliant) about high-ticket coaching and sales, and I realized something: It’s hard to sell books because people don’t buy books.
They buy into the message behind the book, and its perceived value.
It’s not even about the book’s quality because people don’t buy quality either. They expect it.
I call this series Indie Author Basics because it focuses on the fundamentals of creating high-quality books. Every reader wants the book they buy to be well-produced. At the most basic level, we want to produce a high-quality book that meets that expectation.
But to go deeper, even more than quality, is what people feel. People will pay you when something is worth more than the money to them, and that’s the perceived value and the message.
This is why, as authors, we do interviews and podcasts, book signings, and meet and greets. It is why we write blog posts, post to social media, collaborate with other authors, and build relationships: to create an environment that helps us amplify our voices.
“Dig your well before you’re thirsty.”
– Harvey MacKay
Before I published Black History Facts, I published over fifty articles on Black History Fun Fact Friday. I then headed to IG and TikTok, turning those fun facts into posts and videos. It did better than I expected. In fact, it did so well that people asked me about the book, which wasn’t published yet.
I created an appetite for the book before I wrote the book.
I also set my preorder price for the ebook to $9.99 on Amazon and sold the hardcovers for $34. I also offered a bundle package which I sold for $97. From this, I learned two things:
To quote Golden, “Your price is part of your branding.” It tells people how valuable you are.
I knew I needed to upgrade my mindset and prices for this kind of book. People who buy premium-value products will buy something just because it’s expensive. Their own sense of intrinsic value will cause them to pay more because it reminds them that they are worth it.
A person who purchases a Rolex probably didn’t do it because they wanted to wear a watch. They could buy any watch if they just wanted to tell time. But what they want is the prestige that comes with wearing an expensive watch.
This means that people also buy status.
SN: This does not mean throwing something together and then charging people up the ass for it. Remember, a good quality product is basic.
People will pay you when the perceived value is worth more than their money.
People buy belonging, confidence, safety, knowledge, and solutions to their problems.
They buy reassurance and peace of mind.
So, I will not try to sell books because I now know that people don’t buy books.
Instead, I will continue to share my message (restoring black historical truth) and create an appetite for it by delivering value!
The reviews are coming in! Here’s what Jeremy had to say!
“This book is full of the kind of history that should be taught in school but instead, is relatively unknown. The author did an outstanding job putting this material together, which took ten years and tons of research. It’s a must-read for anyone who’s into history.
The author focuses on people and groups who have been pivotal in black history. She gives a voice to the marginalized and makes us aware of the contributions of the family of historical figures like Frederick Douglas and Martin Luther King Jr. Each chapter gets the dirt on whitewashed or forgotten pieces of history.
Read this book to learn about the aftermath of the Civil War and how slavery was reconstructed in the form of criminal justice. The book is compelling and hard to put down as you discover a series of horrific truths about history.
This book contributed significantly to my view of American history, as it has put a lot of things in perspective. I see how slavery was reworked into other forms of slavery and evolved in complexity into the Bernaysian economic system based on Freud’s fear of human nature.
Reading this, a lot of light bulbs went off for me. It dawned on me that nothing that ever happened is ever really over, like slavery and public relations. I can’t recommend this book enough!”
Jeremy Lamkin, Amazon Customer Review
Thanks so much Jeremy!
If you read this book, please be sure to leave a review on Amazon and Goodreads! The book is also on Barnes and Noble; reviews are welcome there as well!
Scroll down until you see Review this Product. Click on Write a Customer Review.
Give it the number of stars you think it deserves, and write your review.
Facts to Know:
You don’t have to like a book to review it. All reviews help the author!
If you don’t have the book, it is currently 99 cents for Women’s History Month (all March) and free with Kindle Unlimited. After march, the ebook goes back to its original price of $9.99.
Blog reviews count! Simply link to my blog or let me know you’ve reviewed it and I’ll repost it.
When I decided to write the history book, I was intentional about taking people on that journey with me.
When I visited museums, I shared video clips, took pictures of historical landmarks, and shared screenshots of my writing progress.
I wrote about where I was in my writing, such as when the book was going in for editing, and continued to educate on topics I would cover in the book. I vividly recall how excited I was to finish the first draft and celebrate with my team.
I’d built up so much awareness and excitement about this book that people were searching for it on Amazon before it came out. This was part of the reason I put it on preorder so early. It was in demand. It is what the people wanted.
As a result of taking people on the journey with me, I’ve had more fun writing this book than I’ve had writing any other book. I’ve also sold more preorders for this book since The Stella Trilogy through my website. The level of trust that people who didn’t know me from Adam put in ordering directly from me was humbling.
But it didn’t come cheap.
People trusted me because I put in the work. The work is not done. Far from it, but it has started. With this foundation, I look forward to continuing to build with the people who believe in me and the mission of continuing the work necessary to restore the forgotten heritage to the forgotten people.
What I hope new authors will take from this is the power of taking people on the journey with you and having fun with the process of writing the book.
I met up with some amazing poets in Atlanta (there were more of us, but it was late and several poets had already left) for Modex’s first Poetic Mode feature on Wednesday night. There were three open-mic poets, four features, and the host also did a poem.
I was honored to be one of the features. The difference is the featured poets are paid to perform. *Does happy dance.*
The only downside (which is not a downside in the grand scheme of things) is that I felt out of place, considering I have not done much spoken word lately, let alone in Atlanta, so they were talking about stuff I didn’t know anything about, lol. But I listened humbly and vowed I’d get more involved.
At the end of the sessions, there was a panel where we were asked questions so the audience could learn more about us. I liked this part the most because the questions had us thinking deeply and going inward, and I love a good thought-provoking convo.
I wished it had been longer so that more audience members could have asked their questions, but it was at the end and we were tired and hungry from such a long day. We had been there since six, not counting travel time to the venue, which for me meant leaving the house at 4-ish (because I’m an hour away from the city and Atlanta’s traffic is trash), and it was now approaching 10 pm.
Either way, it was nice to meet poets and talk about poetry stuff outside of the internet. I love ya’ll, but talking to people face-to-face was refreshing.
Now, for today’s exciting book news:
As the reviews start to come in, I want to give more of you a chance to get your hands on this book.
In honor of Women’s History Month, the ebook version of Black History Facts is 99 cents for March.
After March, the price will return to $9.99, so don’t wait!
Take this chance to get your copy, and don’t forget to leave a review on Amazon when you are done!
About.
“Black History Facts You Didn’t Learn in School” is a historical guide on Black Americans’ accomplishments, contributions, and struggles. It includes the experiences of Black individuals who have often been marginalized, overlooked, or omitted from mainstream historical accounts.
From the resilience of women like Anna Douglass, first wife of Frederick Douglass, to the many Black communities that prospered, recognizing and celebrating Black history helps to ensure that these stories are acknowledged and that the achievements and resilience of Black people are valued and appreciated.
Here’s what readers have to say:
“The author has taken the time to identify the importance of black individuals that sacrificed and or gone to the extra mile to contribute. Why these people are often forgotten is unfortunately seen on a regular basis. Over time all those forgotten will be highlighted as this book does. An excellent read.”
Louis Glass
“I remember her sharing these facts that were on her blog weekly and I looked forward to them. The fact that she compiled them and expounded on what was there to give you all this black history atlas is a blessing. Not many people are giving you the history that isn’t washed over and dressed up in a new outfit. It’s commendable and appreciative for someone to provide this level of nuggets that are given.”
Natashia Crawford
“This book provides readers with a thorough examination of lesser-known but incredibly significant facets of the black experience, serving as a monument to the richness and diversity of black history. From African ancient civilizations to the American civil rights movement, each chapter reveals a historical jewel that offers priceless insights into the tenacity, inventiveness, and accomplishments of black people across time.”
SLT
“Black History Facts You Didn’t Learn in School!!! Well-researched and thought-provoking book that sheds light on the powerful but often overlooked contributions of Black Americans. Super informative and educational. Highly recommend it!!”
The PBS Blog 