{"id":2584,"date":"2020-02-19T09:00:09","date_gmt":"2020-02-19T14:00:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shanafigueroa.com\/blog\/?p=2584"},"modified":"2020-02-18T21:37:50","modified_gmt":"2020-02-19T02:37:50","slug":"13-nuggets-of-advice-on-marketing-your-novel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shanafigueroa.com\/blog\/13-nuggets-of-advice-on-marketing-your-novel\/","title":{"rendered":"13 Nuggets of Advice on Marketing Your Novel"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"700\" height=\"466\" src=\"http:\/\/www.shanafigueroa.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/marketing-frustration.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-2585\" srcset=\"http:\/\/www.shanafigueroa.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/marketing-frustration.jpg 700w, http:\/\/www.shanafigueroa.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/marketing-frustration-300x200.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 700px) 100vw, 700px\" \/><figcaption>It&#8217;s me when I&#8217;m trying to market my latest novel! &#8230;but without the man-hands.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>I\u2019m\ngonna be honest up front: I have yet to find a marketing strategy that\u2019s worked\nwell for me. I\u2019ve published six novels so far, traditional and self-published,\nand hustled to market each one. I\u2019ve read a bunch of books and blogs about\nmarketing and tried lots of different tactics. Money was never a limiting\nfactor for me (I make decent dough at my day job, though I\u2019m not\nrich\u2014#middleclassbabe), so lack of spending was definitely not the problem. I\neven tried hiring a company to do it for me, and the results were the same: somehow,\nI\u2019m still not a bestselling author.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So,\nI can\u2019t offer steps to success like my other blogs\u2026BUT I can offer some\nhard-earned wisdom and advice. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<!--more-->\n\n\n\n<p>Marketing\nrequires spending money\u2014there\u2019s no way around it\u2014so it\u2019s crucial you spend your\nmoney as wisely as you can. I <em>try<\/em> to\nspend my money wisely, but I can afford to take some moderate risks to see what\nworks and what doesn\u2019t\u2026and then report the results back to you!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li><strong>Advice\nNugget #1: Most marketing doesn\u2019t work<\/strong><\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>It\u2019s\nthe cold hard truth, so just accept it now. People see ads for stuff all the\ntime, but rarely is their interest piqued, and even more rarely do they\nactually buy the thing being advertised. Concerning the literary world in\nparticular, hundreds of books are published <em>every\nday<\/em>, making it nearly impossible to stand out in the crowd. You can\nincrease your odds of success by targeting places your potential audience hangs\nout\u2014like romance-specific websites, for instance, if you write romance\u2014but\nthere will still be an overwhelming amount of competition no matter where you\ngo.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I\u2019m\nnot saying <em>all<\/em> marketing doesn\u2019t\nwork, just <em>most<\/em> of it. And therein\nlies the rub: if you do no marketing, you\u2019ve committed to selling few to no\nbooks\u2026with some rare exceptions of course, because there are always\nexceptions\u2026rest assured you will never be one of them. But if you do <em>a lot<\/em> of marketing, you could <em>still<\/em> sell few to no books. What this\nmeans is that you need to keep close track of what works and what doesn\u2019t, so\nyou can cut or adjust the stuff that doesn\u2019t work and expand on the stuff that\ndoes work. This way, you can keep your losses to a minimum while still making a\ngenuine effort to get your book out there and connect with readers. Which\nbrings me to my second nugget\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li><strong>Advice\nNugget #2: Piecing together a successful marketing strategy is mostly\ntrial-and-error<\/strong><\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>You\ncan listen to \u201cexperts\u201d talk about successful marketing tactics until the cows\ncome home, but the truth is there\u2019s no one fail-proof way to successfully\nmarket your book. Successful marketing depends on the standards of your genre,\nwhat\u2019s hot at the moment, luck, your own media and marketing savvy, market\nsaturation, the time of year, and a bunch of other stuff you can\u2019t control. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Your\nbest strategy is to treat marketing like an investment portfolio. You want to\nmake small to moderate investments in a bunch of different options (i.e. start\nout with a broad portfolio), then cull out the stuff that\u2019s not returning a\npositive investment and expand on the stuff that is. Avoid putting a lot of\nmoney into any single marketing option, because it\u2019s unlikely to work (simply\nbecause most ads don\u2019t work).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I keep an Excel spreadsheet of exactly how much I pay for an ad and when it\u2019s supposed to drop (this is also helpful for claiming on your taxes), then I track the sales of my book for that time period and see if there\u2019s any correlation between the ad and a bump in book sales. There\u2019s obviously some guess work here, since a bump doesn\u2019t necessarily correlate to an ad (especially on the day of publication, aka launch day), sales don\u2019t always post on the day they were made, and if you\u2019ve bought several ads to go live on the same day you can\u2019t always tell which was responsible for the bump, but ANY bump is a clue that something might have worked, and is worth investigating.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Give yourself a budget you can afford, and stick to it. Personally I\u2019ve never come close to going over my budget (with the exception of the time I hired a marketing company; more on that below). The real limit to my spending is finding ad venues that are worth the money. Don\u2019t expect to recoup your money with book sales; you\u2019re lucky if you break even, even if your goal <em>should<\/em> be to make money\u2026 <\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li><strong>Advice\nNugget #3: Your goal should always be a positive return-on-investment<\/strong><\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>A\npositive return on investment (ROI) is when you make more money than you spend\non something. This means that you should judge the effectiveness of an ad based\non how much it cost versus how many book sales you got from it. You can price\nyour book to be competitively cheap, ex: 99cents, but then you\u2019ll need to move\nmore copies to break even. Conversely, you can increase the price of your book\nto earn more royalties, but then you\u2019ll move fewer copies because people are\ncheapskates. How you price your book depends on the market for your genre\u2014for\ninstance, many (\u2026most) romance readers will only buy 99cents or free books\nbecause they read them like a couch potato eats chips, while a sci-fi reader might\nbe willing to spend more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The bottom line is that the money you put into an ad should be proportional to the money you earn in royalties; the more expensive an ad is, the more fruitful it should be. That should be your goal anyway, though most of the time you\u2019ll lose money. Therefore, think long and hard about spending <em>significant<\/em> money on a single ad (more than $100 is &#8220;significant&#8221;; most ads will run you ~$10 &#8211; $50 a pop) because the more you spend, the harder it is to earn your money back.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I\nuse the Excel spreadsheet method I described above to determine if an ad was\nworth the money.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li><strong>Advice\nNugget #4: Think <em>very<\/em> hard about hiring\na company to do the marketing for you\u2026and then probably don\u2019t do it<\/strong><\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>It\nmakes sense to hire professionals to do something for you that you\u2019re not\nparticularly good at, right? <em>Right??<\/em>\nWell in this case you\u2019d be wrong! <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In\nany kind of business pursuit, value should always flow to the investor;\notherwise, the business runs out of money and goes bust. In the literary world,\nhowever, there\u2019s an entire cottage industry set up to make money off authors\nlooking for help. Some are straight-up scams, while most are simply\nineffective. Whether it comes to editing, formatting, cover illustrating,\nlife-coaching, or marketing, the value of a professional\u2019s work <em>always<\/em> comes down to their ROI in\nregards to royalties made from books sold. The fact that authors get so few\nroyalties whether they self-publish or traditionally publish should make the\nvalue of any professional\u2019s help a tough sell to an author.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I\u2019ve\nworked with two literary marketing companies in my day. Both were supposedly\n\u201clegit\u201d and recommended by my agent at the time. I was negotiating terms with\none when they suddenly decided they \u201cdidn\u2019t represent books like mine\u201d (no\nother explanation) and cut off negotiations. So I reached a deal with another\nmarketing company for a flat fee (a LARGE fee, like several thousand dollars),\nwhich they told me included an extensive online marketing campaign as well as a\nsocial media marketing tutorial I could learn from. What they actually did was\nspammed my own social media accounts with ads for my own book, then sent me a\ntutorial\u2026on how to use Facebook. Not how to use Facebook for marketing, just a\nhow-to guide to Facebook in general (\u201cIf you like a post, click on the\nthumbs-up icon!\u201d). <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I\ndid not see any significant increase in sales. And then my agent dumped me\nbecause I hadn\u2019t sold enough books. That\u2019s the literary world for you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So\u2026using a literary marketing company turned out to be a major waste of my time and money. I thought about fighting to get my money back, but decided to consider the experience a painful lesson learned rather than waste even more time and money wrangling with the legal system. This doesn\u2019t mean <em>all<\/em> marketing companies are incompetent, only that you\u2019re probably better off just doing the marketing yourself. I certainly won\u2019t be using another marketing company again without a very good reason to believe the results will be different.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li><strong>Advice\nNugget #5: Your time is worth something too, so don\u2019t waste that either<\/strong><\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Putting\ntogether a marketing campaign isn\u2019t just about paying for ads. You also need to\nfill out a bunch of forms, solicit reviews so you can reach some review\nthreshold required by many advertisers, and track all these ads. You\u2019ll also be\nrunning giveaways, sending out advance reader copies (ARCs), signing people up\nfor your newsletter, writing guest posts for any book websites you\u2019ve agreed to\nblog for, and prepping for your launch day activities. All this crap will eat\nup a HUGE amount of your time. Unless you have nothing else to do all day, your\ntime is arguably worth even more than your money.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Therefore,\nmake sure you get a decent ROI for your time as well. If an advertising venue\nhas a cumbersome or convoluted application process, then simply don\u2019t use them.\nDon\u2019t write custom guest blogs for websites with little traffic (in fact I\nrecommend not writing guest blogs at all; see below for more details about\nthat). Don\u2019t make labor-intensive videos or graphics if you don\u2019t enjoy it. Don\u2019t\nrun complicated giveaways that you need to babysit. Set up your marketing\nefforts so you can do things as simply and quickly as possible, whenever\npossible; prioritize the ones you can automate. If one effort is sucking up a\nlot of your time, wrap it up or drop it and move on (don\u2019t forget nugget\n#1\u2014most marketing doesn\u2019t work, so never spend a ton of time on any one thing).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li><strong>Advice\nNugget #6: Giveaways <em>can<\/em> be\neffective, but stick to your own books and products rather than something\nunrelated, like a gift card<\/strong><\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>It\u2019s\ngood to have something you can give away to people to entice them to buy other\nthings. Your own books are the ideal giveaway. For instance, a novella prequel\nto one of your books, or the first book in a series, are always good freebies\nbecause they invite a reader to learn more about you and your fictional world,\nand hopefully convince them to want to pick up more of what you\u2019re puttin\u2019 down.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>There\nare two main reasons you give away freebies: either as an incentive to convince\npeople to sign up for your author newsletter, or to promote a new release.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The\nnice thing about newsletters (which I\u2019ll explain more in a future post) is they\nprovide \u201cfree\u201d advertising to a core base of readers who\u2019ve already expressed\ninterest in your work. So you need to treat these people like royalty and give\nthem free stuff as much as possible. In theory, this incentivizes them to <em>buy<\/em> your stuff when it matters (like a\nnew release).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>To promote a new release, you can either offer your new book for free in exchange for an honest review (more on that below), or offer the first book in a series or a prequel for free if they buy your new release. This can be difficult to do if you\u2019re traditionally published, because you won\u2019t have the rights to give away your books for free\u2014this is a big drawback of traditional publishing over self-publishing, where you have the rights to do whatever you want with your work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>You\ncan also have a giveaway for your new release, where the first five or so\npeople to sign up for your newsletter on a certain day will receive a signed\nhardcopy of your book as a prize. The key is they still have to give you\nsomething of value\u2014their e-mail addresses for your newsletter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I\ndon\u2019t recommend giving away something that\u2019s not your own work, such as a gift\ncard or a tablet or whatever. You\u2019ll mostly get people who only want the thing\nyou\u2019re giving away and don\u2019t care about your work. They\u2019ll subscribe to your\nnewsletter for a chance to win the thing, then immediately unsubscribe when the\ngiveaway is over. I gave away an Amazon gift card once, and that\u2019s what\nhappened\u2026other authors report the same thing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li><strong>Advice\nNugget #7: The jury\u2019s still out on whether it\u2019s better to splurge on\nadvertising that drops on the day of or right after your book launch, or spread\nit out over several weeks\u2026but the former is probably better<\/strong><\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Some\nauthors swear by a big launch, because in theory that\u2019ll catapult you into the\ntop Amazon rankings for your specific category for at least a short period of\ntime, giving you much needed visibility for potential readers who otherwise\nwouldn\u2019t know your book existed. Meanwhile, other authors claim the opposite:\nthat blowing all your marketing budget on a big burst of activity on launch day\nwill diminish the momentum that could carry you into more sales over a longer\nperiod of time, and you should therefore spread it out. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The\nbig-launch rationale makes more sense to me, but there\u2019s no reason you can\u2019t do\nboth. Many ad venues require a minimum number of positive reviews anyway, so\nyou\u2019ll need to wait for readers to post their reviews before you can even buy\nan ad, which will put you at least a few days past your launch date (for\nAmazon\u2014and I think most self-publishing platforms\u2014people can\u2019t post their\nreviews until the day of publication\u2026there used to be some ways around this but\nAmazon keeps changing their terms of service, and I think they closed that\nloophole). Also, you often won\u2019t be able to buy an ad for your specific launch\nday because the slots are full, so that\u2019ll force you to pick a date farther\nout.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In\na nutshell, it\u2019s <em>probably<\/em> best to\ncluster your ads to as close to your launch date as possible, but availability\nand review thresholds will force you to spread some of it out anyway.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li><strong>Advice\nNugget #8: It\u2019s a lot easier to do your own marketing if you self-publish<\/strong><\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Traditional publishing and self-publishing each have their advantages and drawbacks. As I mentioned earlier, one big advantage of self-publishing is that you own all the rights to your work, which will make your marketing efforts a lot easier. When you self-publish, you can send out your work to whoever you want whenever you want, as opposed to having to go through your publisher for a trad-pub book. You can also give out any books from your backlist for free if you\u2019ve self-published, which make for great freebies and giveaways. If you\u2019ve traditionally published, you\u2019ll need to buy your own books from the publisher and then give those out \u201cfor free.\u201d It\u2019s a major pain; trust me, I&#8217;ve done it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This\nis a huge reason why I highly recommend if you\u2019re going the traditional\npublishing route, you insist your publisher commits to putting a decent effort\ninto marketing your book before you sign your rights away. Because if they\u2019re\nnot (and most don\u2019t), <em>and<\/em> they\u2019re not\noffering some significant advance (most don\u2019t), then you might as well\nself-publish. In this case (which is most cases), you gain nothing going the\ntrad-pub route.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li><strong>Advice\nNugget #9: Reviews aren\u2019t as important as some people think; you only really\nneed a minimum of about ten positive reviews either at or shortly after your\nbook launch<\/strong><\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Reviews\nare important, but they\u2019re not going to make or break a book. A ton of reviews\nare usually the <em>result<\/em> of a lot of\nsales, not the <em>cause<\/em> of sales (ditto\nfor social media engagement\u2026but that\u2019s for another post). <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The\nreal purpose of reviews on launch day are to signal to a potential reader that\nyour book is worth their time and money, and to reach a threshold required by\nsome ad venues (which is usually five to ten four-to-five star aggregate\nreviews). <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>There\nare three ways to get early reviews: organically (a reader reads your book and\nwrites a review about it unprompted), through an ARC list you\u2019ve built, and\nfrom a review service that provides you with a list of people to send ARCs to. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Organic\nreviews are the best ones because they\u2019re genuine and require zero effort on\nyour part, but they\u2019re also rare; you can anticipate maybe one review for every\n100 organic readers. An ARC list\u2014which is a list you\u2019ve built of people who\nhave said they\u2019re willing to review your future books (I\u2019ll expand on this in a\nfuture post\u2026<em>damn<\/em> I\u2019ve got a lot of\nfuture posts to write)\u2014is the next best thing, because they\u2019re people who\nalready like your work and are willing to do you a solid. Finally, a review\nservice is the last option (and the only one that costs money), but perhaps the\nmost fruitful due to sheer bulk. A review service\u2019s job is to either put you in\ntouch with potential reviewers who\u2019ve expressed interest in your work or genre\n(via their newsletter or something), or they\u2019ll send your ARC to potential\nreviewers for you. You usually pay a fee based on the number of reviewers they\nsend your ARC to; this can be dozens to hundreds of people, usually depending\non how popular your genre is. You can expect maybe one review for every ten\nreviewers (the return rate is higher because people who sign up for this\nservice will often feel obligated to do a review, which is good for you). <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Note that you\u2019re paying for <em>the opportunity to<\/em> <em>ask people to<\/em> <em>consider<\/em> reviewing your novel, <em>not<\/em> for an actual review (so this doesn\u2019t contradict my next nugget of advice). The only thing you actually give to the reviewer is a free copy of your book for their review.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>These\nreview sources combined are almost certainly enough to get you to the\nten-review threshold. Don\u2019t worry about getting more; the extra effort won\u2019t\ntranslate into more sales.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I\nrecommend not asking blogs and websites to review your book, or at least being\nselective about which you ask, because it\u2019ll mostly be a waste of time. The\npopular ones will only review books from well-known authors, and the smaller\nones don\u2019t have enough traffic to make a difference. They also often have\ncumbersome review request forms, and even sometimes charge a fee; neither is\nworth it. The only good reason to ask a blog or website for a review is so you\ncan use one of their (positive) quotes for your own advertising efforts or on\nyour book jacket, but that\u2019s about it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li><strong>Advice\nNugget #10: NEVER pay for reviews!!<\/strong><\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Never\npay for someone to review your book, period. It\u2019s usually very expensive (the\nbook review website Kirkus, for instance, charges around $500 (!!) for a\nreview), won\u2019t result in a big increase in sales, and readers could consider the\nreview biased toward the positive even if the paid reviewer claims they\u2019re\nbeing \u201chonest.\u201d You\u2019ll get the same benefit from the review solicitation\nmethods I mentioned above, and for a fraction of the cost. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li><strong>Advice Nugget #11: Book tours,\nwhether physical or online (ex. blog tours), aren\u2019t effective at selling books<\/strong><\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Book\nand blog tours can be fun, but they suck up a lot of time and don\u2019t\nsignificantly increase book sales. Nobody really attends book signings for\nauthors who aren\u2019t already well-known, so if you spend a bunch of time wheeling\nand dealing your way into a book signing at your local bookstore, print out a\nbig sign and produce swag to give away and all that, it\u2019ll be for naught\u2026unless\nyou just want to do it for fun, then go ahead. Hell, do <em>anything<\/em> that\nbrings you joy in this harsh business!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Ditto for blog tours. Blog tours are basically virtual \u201ctours\u201d an author can go on of different websites, where authors can do things like virtual interviews or guest posts. These used to be big a few years ago, but like all new and promising marketing strategies it eventually reached the point of saturation and now offers diminishing returns. If you decide to do some blog touring anyway, I suggest you limit the original content you produce and stick to something that\u2019s mostly a short excerpt of your book.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li><strong>Advice Nugget #12: Prioritize the\nthings that bring you joy<\/strong><\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Marketing\nSUCKS. It sucks a big one. It costs money, takes a lot of time, and is mostly\nineffective. Add to that the fact you\u2019re trying to market something you put\nyour heart and soul into, when you get so little return on your investment it\ncan be crushing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>You\ncan\u2019t control if someone\u2019s going to buy your book. But you CAN control how you\nspend your time. Joy is a real and tangible return on your investment\u2014even more\nso than money, I think\u2014so if you <em>like<\/em> doing something, definitely do\nthat, whether or not it results in book sales.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li><strong>Advice Nugget #13: Consistently\npublishing is ALWAYS your greatest marketing asset<\/strong><\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>The\none thing you can do to consistently raise your odds of getting noticed in a\ncrowded field is to publish regularly. You don\u2019t need to publish multiple books\na year like a romance author, but if your backlist continues to grow, you\u2019ll\nbecome a better writer (\u2026hopefully) and your fan base will grow as well. You\u2019ll\nincrease your odds of finally getting a hit book (if that\u2019s your goal), and\nonce that happens, marketing becomes infinitely easier. Name recognition is\nlike 90% of successful marketing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I\ncould go on and get really nitpicky with my advice\u2014for instance, clicks versus\nimpressions for pay-per-click advertising, the questionable practice of trying\nto combine newsletters with another author, using a pen name to try to reap the\nsupposed debut author boost, etc.\u2014but I\u2019ll end it here for now. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>If\nI stumble onto something that works well, I\u2019ll update this post with that info.\nUntil then, don\u2019t forget the last two nuggets\u2014keep publishing and doing what\nbrings you joy!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I\u2019m gonna be honest up front: I have yet to find a marketing strategy that\u2019s worked well for me. I\u2019ve published six novels so far, traditional and self-published, and hustled to market each one. I\u2019ve read a bunch of books and blogs about marketing and tried lots of different tactics. Money was never a limiting &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.shanafigueroa.com\/blog\/13-nuggets-of-advice-on-marketing-your-novel\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;13 Nuggets of Advice on Marketing Your Novel&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2},"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[496,595],"tags":[605,606,604,608,596,601,600,380,602,607,603],"class_list":["post-2584","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-business","category-marketing","tag-blog-tours","tag-book-signings","tag-joy-is-worth-every-penny","tag-keep-publishing","tag-marketing-frustration","tag-marketing-is-mostly-ineffective","tag-pr-companies","tag-return-on-investment","tag-self-pub-vs-trad-pub-marketing","tag-soliciting-reviews","tag-time-is-a-valuable-resource"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9Vyi8-FG","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shanafigueroa.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2584","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shanafigueroa.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shanafigueroa.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shanafigueroa.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shanafigueroa.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2584"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.shanafigueroa.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2584\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2588,"href":"http:\/\/www.shanafigueroa.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2584\/revisions\/2588"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shanafigueroa.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2584"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shanafigueroa.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2584"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shanafigueroa.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2584"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}