Slay Your Fears with E.L. Wicker

So glad to welcome a brand new face to my guest blogs, E.L. Wicker! She's the author of Fractured Immortal, and an all-around Twitter queen! I hope this is the first of many guest posts for her on the ol' ramblin' blog. Check it out after the jump!




When I was asked to write about my fears, I honestly didn’t know where to start. It’s not because I’m a scaredy cat or anything –although admittedly horror films give me nightmares so I avoid at all costs. It’s because, in this huge publishing world I’ve stepped into, there are so many things to be frightened of. Questions constantly revolve around in my head. Will readers like my book? Will they think it’s rubbish? Will anyone even buy it? Am I even any good at writing or do I totally suck?

As each fear alleviates, it does begin to get a little better. I know now that people do like my book. Not everyone, but that’s cool. I also know that people would indeed buy it, as they have—excellent.
But as each fear is squashed, new ones arise. The ongoing fear is, of course, am I any good? Because that one will always be in the back of my mind, no matter what.

From the very beginning of the process I ran into more and more things that scared the pants off me. From procuring a cover to preparing my manuscript for publications, there are always walls to smash through. Some are easier than others, some are very difficult.

My current fear is marketing. Ugh, I even hate typing it. Marketing. Let me be clear about something—I suck at marketing. I very much dislike tweeting about my own book, so I don’t do it very often at all. I’m not sure Twitter is really the place to market anyway, but I do throw out a tweet every now and then with a link to my book on amazon.

A friend has provided me with an invaluable list of places to advertise and from this, my book rocketed into the top ten in many subgenre categories on Amazon. Awesome. But how to keep this up? Advertisers featured me for a day, maybe two in cases, but once that advertisement goes away, the sales begin to fall. I only have one book out at the moment so keeping the momentum going is difficult and it really does scare me. I love my book, I don’t want it to fall into oblivion. I want people to read it. I want people to love it. I want it out there. But how?

I’m still figuring it out, but once I know, I’ll let everyone else know. I think marketing will always scare me, because I’m just no good at it. Perhaps I’ll get better. I can hope!

Born in Dublin Ireland, E.L. Wicker moved to England when she was nine years old. There she attended Coombe Girls School and her love of writing developed as she began to win literary competitions. A graduate of the Social Science's at University of Essex, E.L. Wicker uses her knowledge of human nature to craft interesting characters and emotional relationships. Fractured Immortal is her first publication and the first in The Bearwood series.

Twitter: @ELWicker
Website: ELWicker.com