Thursday, October 11, 2007

Visibility Quotient

While a rose by any other name would smell as sweet, sometimes calling something by a new name can help it smell a whole lot sweeter. And help us find a whole new way of looking at things.

Visibility quotient, for example.

I first heard this term used by Roxyanne Young of Smart Writers at the SCBWI National Conference this summer. Instead of talking about promoting, she talked about upping one’s visibility quotient. Basically, just get your name and the title of your book out there, even if it’s not in an active selling way. Just getting your name in front of people increases your visibility. And the more often you are visible, the better chance you have of someone becoming curious about you or your books.

Raising one’s visibility quotient can be as simple as being sure to have a signature line featuring your name and the title of your book, and using it every time you post on a listserv, forum, bulletin board, or send an email.

Roxyanne had a lot of other great ideas for upping your visibility quotient, and we're going to see if we can get her over here to talk about some more of them. But for now, I wanted to just introduce the concept to you because it's a very gentle way to help make people aware of you and your book.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...
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R.L. LaFevers said...
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Anonymous said...
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R.L. LaFevers said...

Just in case anyone's wondering...that was me who removed all the comments. A very astute, very early-rising (anonymous) Violet caught an error of mine, for which I thanked them. Then, after my second cup of coffee, I realized there really was no need for me to leave a trail of my erroneous ways up here for everyone to see, so I removed the conversation.

So that's what happened...Thanks again, Anon!

Anonymous said...

I MUCH prefer "visibility quotient" versus the dreaded PROMOTION (even though it initially reminded me of high school math (ack!). "VQ" is more soothing and approachable. I do hope you will persuade Roxyanne to stop on the site and share some more of her tips...

Linnea said...

Just found this blog and I think it's my new home! My name is Linnea and I'm an introvert. There. I said it. My first novel was published in 2005 by a small literary press with a limited marketing budget. Fortunately for me the novel caught the eye of the Ontario Library Association and it was nominated for a young readers choice award last year, which puts it in a lot of high schools. I finally broke down and got a rather static website for the book and am nervously toying with the idea of a blog. I hope this site will help me promote my published novel and encourage me to find creative ways to promote my next novel. Thanks for being here!

Mary Hershey said...

Hi, Linnea, and welcome to our world here. Glad you felt at home-- that means a lot to us. When you feel like it, we'd love to have you tell us the name of your book!

Best,
Mary Hershey

Linnea said...

Thanks for the welcome, Mary. My book is called "The First Vial". It's historical and set in the 14th century during the Black Plague. The story revolves around a young widow who has to fight to keep her castle from falling into the hands of an enemy as well as save the lives of her household when the plague hits their village.