>I need help. Here’s the deal:
Prey, the fourth book in my Shifters series comes out on July 1, less than three months from now, and My Soul to Take, the first in my (young adult) Soul Screamers series comes out a scant month later, on August 1.
Awesome, right? Back to back releases.
Well, not quite.
The problem is that I have no idea at all how to properly promote two releases so close together. Especially in this case, because they’re not in the same series, so I can’t really push them both with the same effort. I’m not even really reaching out to the same audience, though I’d be thrilled if my adult readers like Kaylee and her stories as well as my werecat world.
I want to be able to devote all of my time, energy, and promotional budget to each of them, but I’m finally starting to understand how truly impossible that is.
I don’t even know which cover to use as my profile picture on LJ, My Space, Facebook, etc… Okay, right now that’s a no-brainer, because I don’t actually have the YA cover yet. But I’m told that it’s coming. Very, very soon. On My Space, I can rotate covers, as I’m doing now with a couple of others. But that only solves a very small part of my problem.
So, I turn to you, my dear blog readers. Ideas? Any- and everything. I’m listening, and hoping for suggestions from both writers and readers. Anyone been in this situation, with back-to-back non-related releases? Anyone been in a similar situation? Anyone just inspired by the very idea? 
Oh, and while I’m on the subject, if you’re a reviewer, and you would like to do an interview, Q&A, review, contest, or host a guest blog in association with either of my summer releases, drop me a line. I’m making out my on-line schedule.
>I’m on a couple street teams. For Jeri Smith-Ready and Adrian Phoenix.Handing out bookmarks, writing reviews, posting about the books, hosting iterviews/guest blogs/giveaways. You could get a nice group of YA bloggers (there are a ton of them) to help promote the new series. I would also love to review either! Here’s my blog: http://reviewsbybrooke.blogspot.com/Can't wait to read both!Brookebacarleton at gmail dot com
>I would love to do a review, guest blog and contest on my blog:http://purplg8r-somanybooks.blogspot.com/Andreapurplg8r@aol.com
>Hmmmm…definitely a guest post at Richelle Mead’s blog, seeing as so many teens who loved the Twilight Saga are now checking out her Vampire Academy series. Kelley Armstrong’s The Summoning Series is somewhat in the same vein as Soul Screamers–her character is a necromancer–so maybe guest posting at her blog?I review for a teen site called TeensReadToo.com and I'm sure someone there would be thrilled to r&r My Soul to Take. TeenReads, Teen Libris, The YA YA YAs, YA Authors Cafe, YA Books Central, and YA Fresh are all popular site for teenagers. Not sure how to handle the double promoting issue. Will have to chew on that one a bit…
>I’m up for Amazon reviews. For both. In case you were looking for an adult-ish perspective on the YA book.Can you alternate blogging topics here? One day for PREY and the next for MSTT?The only YA reader who is of YA demographic I know is Maria (stormywriting on LJ.) Would you like me to ask her if she’s available to review?
>you could create a street team for either book, most bloggers love doing this kind of thing. and you could do Mondays and Wednesdays for one book and Tuesdays and Thursdays for the other on your blog. the best promotion is what others are saying anyway so getting bloggers on board is the best suggestion I have. and I would love to be one of them. I would love to do reviews/interviews/anything for the new series. Do you have review copies available? check out my blog.kissmybook.blogspot.com
>Also, if you’d like a list of YA bloggers/reviewers, or would like me to contact some to get in touch with you. I’d be happy to help!
>Ohh Rachel there are many good sites to promote your YA. I am going to put together a little list for you of sites and blogs that might help. I will send it in an email since it has other peoples email addy’s in it. Hope it will helpHugs Linda~
>I would absolutely, positively love to do a review of your book! I’m interested in hosting a giveaway as well. http://bridget3420.blogspot.com
>Hello Rachel,I adore your werecat series and when I heard that you had a YA series I knew that I had to help any way possible to promote it. The YA blogging community is big, influentional and friendly. I have contacted you already for an interview and you said yes. I am very excited about this and if I could have an ARC to read ahead of time to better promote MSTT..then even better. It may even work out to have an extra copy for a giveaway..(just a suggestion) but YA bloggers eat that stuff up. (i would not even mind an ARC of Prey…cut i just love Faythe’s world and your werecats are good for 14-15+) AS for YA, Some bloggerss host blog tours, others will have Author interviews and contests. It is really quite amazing. I believe that blogging is one of the main area’s for YA readers to get information on books. There is a post WOW (Waiting on Wednesday) that promotes novels that are up and coming that we cannot wait to get our hands on, like My Soul to Take
(which I have posted in the past and got a good response)I have also noticed that there are several paranormal romance/urban fantasy writers with YA novels coming out this year. Such as Michelle Rowen, Gena Showalter and Kim Harrison. Maybe all of you can get together to promote this fact. I believe that your novels are coming out around the same time, exept for Kim’s. It is an idea.I hope that I have helped and I cannot wait to interview you in the next coming months.btw..a great YA blogger The Story Siren…she really rocks, besides me that is 
Also…Widgets, people love love love those things and it would stay on the blog as on online promotion..
>I’d be happy to do any combination of reviews/interviews/giveaways for both books. My blog already specializes in urban fantasy reviews and I cover YA urban fantasy as well. As for promotion strategy is this any different really from two books in a series coming out back to back a month apart? We see that increasingly. I think a lot of adult readers read YA as well especially when it is a familiar author. They would want to read both. No reason not to talk about them together except when you are targeting a specific age demographic (such as TeensReadToo.com) which was mentioned above.
>I love the series and I know the Soul Screamers series will be just as good.Blog Tours for both books. That would be my suggestion. Have a tour for Prey during the month it releases, get a bunch of us UF/PF book reviewers (btw, would love to review the book) to post our reviews or interviews, etc etc (If you would be willing, I would love to have you visit LE with a guest post and a contest if you’re willing) and then do the exact same thing with My Soul to Take. If you’re looking for blog sites (Literary Escapism – http://www.literaryescapism.com), a great place to start is the BBAW Directory.I would be more than willing to join any street team you put together. If you need reviewers for either book, I’m there as well.Jackie (myjaxon AT gmail)
>Rachel!I’m willing to help in any way possible.My suggestion on the YA and adult issue is to have 2 blogs. I’d create another blog called yaurbanfantasy or something of that nature that you’d prefer. You can link to the new blog on your adult blog and vice versa. You can always make a second MySpace/Facebook too, right?That’s my suggestion. That way you can stay organized and don’t have to worry about switching it up on this blog. You can cross blog posts but more important your new blog can have its own look and feel to it, more fitting for a YA audience.Looking forward to see what you decide to do!
>Erika, what exactly is a street team?
>Maybe you could give yourself a month of promos for each book, two weeks either side of the release date. Plug, plug those books like you’ve never plugged before!
Having online reviews for dedicated YA fans will be a good to get your name out there for the ‘young-uns’. Those of us grown-ups (by age only, I have to point out) who already love your work will buy MSTT anyway. Blog tours and reviews, as have been previously mentioned, would help a lot.Give aways (if you can manage it) are always a way to get your name out there – offer someone a thing for free and the attention is amazing. A bit cynical, sure, but true.Maybe your regular readers could volunteer to pimp your books for you in a ‘This is a really cool author and these books of hers are coming out and I’m so excited I can hardly breathe’ kind of a way. You know, like I’m about to…
>Well, younger people (typically) are on Myspace.. So I would MSTT on that.. Face book has turned to an “older” crowd, so I would use Prey on there… I dont really know what LJ is.. so cant suggest anything on it.. Good Luck. I know promo’s are HARD!!!!
>I included my fiction press profile link because… I’m going to do some advertising for you!
I get at least 30 hits to my profile every month. So that might help. And I have profile on booksie and webook. So I’ll also advertise there. I think I’ll write this:1st of July: “Prey”, the fourth book in the Shifter series, by Rachel Vincent comes out.The Shifter series is about a tabby — a female werecat — Faythe. “Stray”, “Rogue” and “Pride” are available on Amazon. (This isn’t actually a YA series, but mature readers will love it.)1st of August: “My soul to Take”, also by Rachel Vincent, is the first in the Soul Screamers series.This is a YA series about a teenager bean sidh, a banshee, Kaylee. (Because it’s the first in the series, I don’t know much else about it yet.)What do you think, Rachel? I’ll also include a link to this blog and your official website. And if you don’t want me to do this — though I doubt a writer would turn down free advertising 
– I won’t.-Kayleigh (Yeah, same name as Kaylee! 
Just different spelling.)
>Im a young teen and my friend and i love the shifter books. And i will read the MSTT when it comes out so i kinda think you will have the same audience.
>As for your profile picture, you could make a .gif animated image that flashes between the two. That way, you would be promoting both books and the animation would probably draw people’s attention to the covers.I’ve made similar type files for signatures on forums and would be happy to make you one if you sent me images and let me know what the maximum size your avatar could be on those websites. bkilbarger [at] gmail [dot] comGood luck and congratulations on the double releases!
>An author friend of mine has her covers alternate on her web site and on her forum, with a quote from each book showing next to it or when she has a new one coming out the release date.I'd love to do a review, but the only places I post reviews are Amazon, B&N, RBL, Library thing, and a private forum.
>I am not an experienced blogger or anything but I would do a review on one of your books. I did one for Pride for the cotnest you held. I’m a total rookie!Ideas hmm…bookmarks and other little freebies that may relate to one your books would be cool. I can’t think of what off the top of my head becuase I have a class in 7minutes. But if there is something Faythe of Kaylee wears that can be made into a promo item cheaply that would be awesome.Stickers are cool too. I mean come on, who doesn’t love stickers? Keychains are sweet. Although now we’re getting a little pricy. Maybe bookmarks and stckers or again some item that relates to one or both of the characters. Class awaits. Gotta go! Sorry I can’t be more helpful!
>A street team would be a like a group of blogger who do promo work for you. Posting about the books on their blog and maybe running contests for you. Lucienne Diver is doing one for her upcoming release Vamped. That is where I got the idea from.
>I don’t have any suggestions for you, but I’d be curious about what a street team is, too.For what it’s worth, your books are great. I think you make great business choices. I have great confidence you’ll get it figured out.
>I’ve love to do reviews and get a guest blog from you. Author Interview would also go down nicely. I’m at http://www.realitybypassbooks.comMuch thanks. Looking forward to your releases!Thanks,Jana
>Like others have mentioned…The YA book crowd appears to be really active and supportive online right now promoting and reviewing YA books. Giveaways are always huge attention getters whether it’s books, ARCs, promotional bookmarks or any type of book-related SWAG. Also, I agree with Jessica Kennedy. Since you’ve got both a YA and Adult series, have two separate(but linked) LJs or MySpace or pages branching off on your website or whatever. A lot of people will visit both but by having separate ones per series, you can keep things organised and you set them up with different themes/colours/pictures/designs, etc. etc. thereby creating two distinct impressions in people’s minds as opposed to having both of them lumped together.Just my two cents.
>Hey rachel I think the rotating covers is a great Idea it will definitely bring your current readers up to speed. Because of the shortage of time I think a devoted sreet team at several conventions might help, I’m going to comi-con this year in sandiego and they have a great freebies table, I’d be willing to hand out stuff if your if you have any promotional items ready. I met so many people of all ages last year and always ended up talking about books and authors in line. Your books were also on display at the really huge Del rey booths(they had a whole aisle). Let me know if your interested Kai.
>I have just found your blog via another blogger. I’m a new YA lover. I am also a book blogger/reviewer and would love a chance to do some reviews for you. My blog is http://www.writeforareader.blogspot.comLooking forward to your work!Shellyshelcows AT gmail DOT com
>I don’t know if this would be something you’re interested in, but Sherrilyn Kenyon has set up MySpace pages for her main characters (Simi and Acheron both have them, I’m not sure but what a few of her other characters do, too, like Stryker). You could set up a page for Faythe and the main character from your YA series, and go from there.
It definitely draws attention to the series and the books.
>Hi Rachael!I believe street teams are like the mass marketing through the internet like blogs, emails, etc. and also using promotional materials, ARCs, bookmarks, I’ve even seen some character cards. Find blogs, reviewer sites that have similar postings to your genre. You can build up a huge fan base in this way before the release of the book.Dottie(I would be happy to review as well)