SPA Girls Podcast – EP52 – Interview with Kelly McClymer

SPA GirlsThis week we’re joined by the lovely Kelly McClymer, an indie author who writes in multiple genres, including historical romance, fantasy and cosy mystery. She tells us the story of how she got into self publishing, the kind of marketing and promotion she does for her books, and talks about what she’s been doing in the last week or so in an attempt to get her book onto the USA Today Bestseller list, for her historical romance book, The Next Best Bride. This is a fantastic interview with another smart, savvy indie author!

Kelly has been writing for a very long time. In the beginning, she was writing short science fiction, but couldn’t sell them and feels that she didn’t understand marketing at the time. So, she moved on to Romance with Kensington and when this finished Kelly asked for her rights back. Eventually this happened for 7 books and in 2010 she self-published.

There’s a lot of fun to have control over your own books, but she only had paper copies (digital wasn’t around then) so she had to scan paper copies and clean them up before she could publish. It was an adventure which took some time. She did not rebrand at that time.

It took a year to get them out and Kelly still hadn’t figured on a strategy. She loved that so many others had decided on theirs and followed some of it. She feels like there is no good answer on how or when you publish because it depends on how impatient you are.

Kelly worked casually, when she needed money, in interesting jobs but didn’t choose things that paid well so she didn’t get lured into not writing.

Now Kelly writes Historical, Cozy Mysteries and Fantasy and likes to read and write different things. She also needs more than one project on the go.

For her cozy mysteries she takes note of place and people in towns but never uses people in the town or specific places rather a whole lot of these things put together.

Fantasy series – a series of serializations based on fairy tales, myths and pre-history. Finding it difficult to Doesn’t build a tribe but is talking to people to do this for her.

After 10 years, has Kelly has found a co-writer for her 8th historical romance as she’s not good at love scenes.

Uses her own name in all genres – easier to market and keep up to date on social media and good for branding. Keeps lists separate for different genres. Loves technology and automation.

Loves Vellum – worth the cost and prettier than word.

Would prefer to do no marketing but understands that she must do it. Kelly stumbled looking for readers, doesn’t like twitter as she only shares and read things that are cool and interesting.

Facebook is hard for her too, but is starting a Facebook group so that she can make it easy to talk to people. They can also talk to each other and have a sense of community.

Formed an LLC to do their own marketing, via newsletter, website, put out anthologies together to see what works and doesn’t work.

Kelly reads marketing strategies to keep up. Smart people tell her what to do, and she knows she should use their advice, and plans to with her next book promotion.

She’s had a couple of booboo ads already, but they were for free books and she doesn’t recommend doing bookbub for box sets because you can’t do more promotions on those books for 6 months.

Kelly McClymer to do list to get to the best seller list:

Get as many sales on that reporting week.

Advertise – put price down the week before

Try to get a couple of reviews.

Get the biggest ads you can get.

Be specific in asking people for help. Comment on Facebook, buy my book, send to friends who may like my work.

Run a contest for your list.

Try to get I-books, Barnes and Noble to help.

Create a template letter.

To try to achieve a Best Seller list Kelly has just hired an assistant.

Kelly’s advice to newbies:

Don’t give up on your older work. Give your readers a chance to find your older books. Give them a new life with a new cover and freshen up.

Be patient. It may take time to hit a list or have a large fan base, but it can happen.

Recognize that it’s a business and if you do the marketing the right way it can be fun but readers will not stumble over it. Be proud of your own books and put money into it.

Don’t be surprised when something you have been doing suddenly stops working.

The Next Best Bride is Kelly’s latest book, and the one she hopes to hit the USA Today Bestseller list.

http://kellymcclymerbooks.com/

If you want to help Kelly with her attempt to get her book into the bestseller list, please follow this link and buy her book! Thanks in advance for your help. 🙂

Author: SPA Girls

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