Giving a Boost To Your Visibility as an Author with Shiela Stewart
Welcome to the first blog post here at Flynn Media.
Instead of penning something on a specific topic I thought I’d share with you a real-life example of what you can do to help get the word out about you and your books and hopefully, boost your book sales.
Author Shiela Stewart kindly volunteered to be my first guest on the blog. Please support this author by checking out her site, her blog and most of all, purchasing her books.
Here we go with the questions I asked, Shiela’s responses, and my feedback and suggestions about what I think she can do to market herself and hopefully boost her book sales.
Could you tell us about yourself and your books?
Absolutely. I’ve been married for 39 years to a wonderful crazy man. We have three adult children and 4 of the best grandkids a grandmother could want. I love to garden and crochet. When I’m not doing that I write. To date I have 16 published books. My preference is Paranormal romance, though I have written a comedy before. All of my books are sequels.
My Darkness series is about Vampires blotting out the sun and taking over the small city of Jacobs Cove. Book 1 starts with a Trinity Ford, a female vampire, scorned by her lover, Basil Hawthorne, working to stop the vampires from taking over. Each book begins where the previous left off. They have been compiled into 3 book collections.
My Demon series starts with a Missy Green running from an abusive husband only to wind up taking refuge in a billionaire Draco Starrs home who happens to be a demon. What she doesn’t know is that she isn’t who she thought she was.
Book 2 is about the Aurora, the daughter of the couple in book one, finding love while being made to collect souls for Satan. When she chooses love over duty there are dire consequences.
Book 3 is the adult child of the couple in book 2. Mick Monroe is a gorgeous bad boy rocker who falls in love with a cop while struggling to do his job for Satan.
My Lost Soul series begins with book one with C.J. Dowling being able to communicate with the dead and tries to rid a house of the spirits threatening the family. What he doesn’t expect is to fall in love with Jessica Coltrain a die-hard skeptic wanting to debunk the myth of the haunted house. As they work together to find out the secrets of the house, the spirit becomes angry and takes revenge.
Books two and three are about the daughter of the first books couple who also can communicate with the dead but hates it.
In book 2 Sam tries to find the reason behind a spirit’s unrest and falls in love with Ethan Montgomery, a married man, who she desperately tries to keep her ability a secret from. When she’s abducted by a killer, she fears her life may come to an end.
In book 3, she discovers Ethans son-to-be ex-wife has been murdered and her he is the major suspect. While Sam fights with the spirit of his late wife to prove Ethan’s innocence, Sam realizes she can no longer keep her secrets from Ethan.
I have two short stories in the 1 Nightstand Series. A Taste of Humanity is about a Cade O’Donnel wanting to rid himself of his virginity to a woman who was set up with him by Madam Eve’s 1 Nightstand service. While wining and dining Penny Parker, Cade seduces Penny to bed. The only problem is, he isn’t who she thought he was.
The Naughty Angel is about an Angel, Ariel Raine wanting a 1 Nightstand and find the man Madam Eve has set her up with is a demon. At first the two clash, but arousal takes over and the two engage in a wild night of passion.
One thing I always tell my clients is not to just focus on you as an author. You are someone outside of writing and and something that jumps out straight away about you is you’re a grandmother and your hobbies include gardening and crochet.
Don’t always think I need to promote my books but rather I need to promote myself. People will only buy books (and everything else), from people they trust and know even if it’s online. My advice would be for you to either start a gardening or crochet blog, share a project and some photos and on the about me section she can tell followers about the fact that you also write. Maybe you get inspiration from gardening for your stories etc.
You can also mention that you’re a grandmother and maybe share some funny stories etc.
Always introduce yourself before you go into a hard sell like these are my books and I need you to buy them etc.
Another thing is that you write in the paranormal genre. Lots of authors think they should be promoting to every reader out there and that’s where you run into trouble because not every reader wants to buy a paranormal book. The same way readers who read sweet romances aren’t candidates to buy ones with a spicier storyline.
It’s time to key in on just that sub-genre, even niche down some more and go with vampires.
Your first task should be to figure out where people who love vampire stories hang out. Are there groups on Facebook or Good Reads?
One thing I would really recommend is trying to get an email list together…something that you own outside of the social media or Amazon zone. I’d offer a short paranormal story to anyone who signs up.
At what point in your career would you say you’re at? For example, just a few books and sales now and then etc.
After years of published books, I still find marketing a difficult task. MY sales aren’t where I would like them to be.
I’m hearing this more and more and I think it’s because the majority of people now self-publish so just about anyone can be an author and upload a book for sale. Readers are offered more choices and it’s now harder to stand out. I’m also guessing that people have less discretionary money to devote to books and other entertainment which means it’s going to get harder so keying in on your own specific buyer is going to be vital now.
It does mean more work but if you follow some of the tips in my response to the first question that should put you in the right direction.
From a marketing point of view, what’s been your biggest challenge? For example, connecting with readers, getting reviews etc.
Finding the right places to promote my book that gives me a bang for my buck. It’s such a busy field to be in and finding the perfect places to help promote your work while trying not to bankrupt yourself isn’t easy. Getting reviews has become more difficult over the years and I find myself struggling to find reviewers.
I would try to go with the free promotion route first and this ties in with my earlier response. Don’t try to promote to everyone… stick with people who love to read about vampires. It’s better to promote to five people who are good candidates to buy one of your books than 1,000 random souls who will wouldn’t even give a book about vampires a second look.
I’ve also been hearing that getting reviews is a struggle as reviewers seemed to have vanished. My guess is there are just so many books out there and people seem to have short attention spans now.
A suggestion might be to write some short stories and see if that makes a difference. Maybe someone is more willing to put in an hour’s worth of reading rather than spending a week doing it while they juggling other things in their lives.
What’s your number one goal for marketing for 2025?
At this time, I am attempting to enter my books into award contests. It would help build readers. I’ve also placed ads in a few popular magazines.
I think contests are great places to get noticed and another thing I would recommend is trying to get published in anthologies. They are a great place to get readers to discover your work and sometimes you’re placed in the same publication as someone who already has huge following and your name appears beside them.
If there’s anything else you’d like to tell me feel free to share it.
I have many platforms where readers can find me. MY Website is www.shielastewart.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/shiela.stewart
Tiktok: https://www.tiktok.com/@shielastewart
Blog: https://sstewartallthewritestuff.blogspot.com/
Instagram: www.instagram.com/shielasstewart/
Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/shielastewart.bsky.social
It’s great that you have so many places where readers can find you but make sure you’re targeting the right groups on each platform. Do some research and see if they have any groups who read or even review vampire novels.
With Instagram I’d go more for your garden and crochet angle as it’s more of a visual platform. One other piece of advice, don’t spread yourself too thin trying to post to all these sites but maybe for the next three months, pick one and concentrate on building followers and that trust element I mentioned in my first response.
Thank you Shiela for sharing this and allowing me to give my responses. Wishing you lots of success with your promotions.
If anyone else would like to be featured and get some feedback, you can reach me at flynnmedia@protonmail.com