Marketing funny is hard. If you are a humor writer, you will know exactly what I’m talking about. If you are a humor consumer – it may come as a surprise.
Before I started trying to market my books, I naively assumed that funny should almost sell itself – after all, the biggest blockbusters are usually comedies, and isn’t it a natural for the word of mouth? When it comes to books, however, humor is a tiny category, dominated by autobiographies of famous comedians. In fact, most ebook marketing sites don’t even have a mailing list for it, so I’ve had to slot Shizzle, In into Action&Adventure or YA with mixed results.
I was reminded once again of how few comedy writers are out there when I joined KBoards and saw the invitations for author cross-promotion. They were all either for fantasy, paranormal, or romance. Or the combination of the three. That makes sense, of course – those are the largest categories of ebooks on Amazon. I was sad for all of three minutes, and then I did what I tend to – take some initiative.
I decided to start a humor/chicklit cross-promo. I was a little nervous at first – after all, I’ve been a member for all of five minutes, but the response has been overwhelming – so far a total of 24 authors have signed up! Not only that, one of them made a banner for the event, so we are all legit now:
So what is planned? At the moment, the main emphasis is on gathering numbers, and starting to promote #ComedyBookWeek as an event designed to help readers discover new Indie humor authors. All funny books are welcome, by the way – chick lit, satire, whatever, as long as it makes people laugh.
The rough plan at the moment is that during the event week, participants will post blogs with links to participating books, post interviews, guest blogs, tweets, and whatever else they usually do with their social media platforms. The aim will be to generate buzz with the hashtag #ComedyBookWeek, to help people connect and find new funny reads. We also plan to approach book reviewers and maybe some outrageous ideas as well – suggestions are welcome!
If you want to participate by submitting your book or by offering to host an interview or review, please let me know, or join us on KBoards!
Ana Spoke, author 
Wow!! Way to go girl! This really looks amazing. Best wishes for the event.
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P.S. If there is some place where you think I could be of help, count me in! ☺
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Thank you, Syeda! Would be great if you wanted to post on your blog something about it before or during the event – either an article about humor books in general, a post with links to books, an interview with one or more authors, or a review. If not, reblogging or retweeting of tweets with #ComedyBookWeek would be awesome. Thank you again!
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Of course I would love to do that! I’ll be following the event closely at your site. Let’s do it! 😊
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Too bad I only do blog humor. If I wrote a book, I would join the group!
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Any way you could help would be appreciated, even if it’s just a mention.
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I agree! This is the idea behind the event – promote humor in general.
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If you feel like posting a humorous article about the humorous event, it would be greatly appreciated 🙂
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My book, Naked Alliances, won’t be out before the scheduled dates. It’s a crime thriller with a humorous edge. Not a comedy caper, but just enough humor to make it mildly amusing. Murder is easy, humor is hard. If I was a comedian, I’d likely post funny stuff on my blog to keep folk laughing and interested…but as you say, marketing funny is hard.
Count me in!!! I’d like to help ANY way I can to promote authors on the fringe. I’d also like to connect with authors experiencing the same struggles, so anyone like-minded individuals out here, please drop me a line. sknicholls1@gmail.com
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Thank you very much! Humor is hard to write and hard to sell – I should’ve thought of it, but that’s the only stuff that comes to me naturally 🙂
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oops..this was supposed to go on the reblog, please feel free to delete.
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Reblogged this on S.K. Nicholls and commented:
Ana Spoke has a great event coming up for humor authors and it doesn’t matter which genre you write. Please give a read and see how you can help.
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Thank you so much for sharing!
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My pleasure. Hope this helped and please keep me informed on how I can help.
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It sounds great. I’ll see what I can do.
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That would be awesome, thank you, Olga!
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I’d like to help out, if I can. I’m a humor writer/poet, with a few books in the pipeline but nothing available as yet – am just starting to experience some of these problems too! Let me know 🙂
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That would be great, thank you – would you like to host a review or interview? Have a look at the Dropbox list of authors and books and let me know if anything interests you.
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Happy to help in any way, but interviews fit more with my blog – I’ve been running a series called The Dirty Dozen, with 12 (ish) tongue-in-cheek pop culture-type questions for bloggers/ authors, and giving them a bit of a promotion each week – eg see http://www.alistairlanewrites.com/the-dirty-dozen-with-judy-martin/
Would be happy to feature anyone who fancies the challenge!.
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Great, I will post this on KBoards!
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I’ve heard a couple of people mention KBoards recently… I think I need to sign up! 🙂
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Hi, Al – several people would be happy to participate, how do you want to manage that? I can suggest that they contact you on your website, and you get to choose?
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I’m happy for people to contact me directly via email – alane77AThotmailDOTcoDOTuk and let me know they want to take part – I can then reply with the set of questions and take it from there 🙂 Thanks Ana
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That sounds great! Good for you for taking the intuitive 🙂 I can’t wait to hear/see how it goes!
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Thank you 🙂
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You’re welcome 🙂
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This sounds great. Humor features prominently in my romances and I’d love to join forces with other authors. Will have to check it out. Ana, you’re an idea machine!
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Thank you 🙂 Great to hear – just leave a message on Dropbox or here.
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This sounds like a fantastic idea and I’d LOVE to participate. I write humorous urban fantasy (plus one humorous travel memoir). I can host on my humor/bookreview blog [https://barbtaub.com/], plus provide giveaways, or guest posts.
I’m in!
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Awesome! Please send me your details and I will add you to the Dropbox spreadsheet! I’m also gathering a “Calendar of Events” now.
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Always happy to help. I like funny interviews.
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That would be awesome, thank you! You can pick anybody from Dropbox link author list – do you know whom you’d like to feature? Thanks again 🙂
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Hi, great idea the comedy week. I’ve just started reading Shizzle Inc. Would you want me to post my review during that week or anything else I can do? I’m trying to get more involved with writers and blog tours, weeks, etc.
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I would LOVE for you to post the review during that week, and mention #ComedyBookWeek. If you want to to review any books by other authors, have a look at that Dropbox link and contact them on their social media – they all agreed to provide a free electronic copy for reviewers.
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Thank you I’ll check it out :). I’ll also mention the week on my facebook, I’m not on any other social media yet 🙂
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Thank you again!
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Sounds like fun.Would love to participate in any way I can.
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Thank you Lauren – let me know what you’d like to do – nominate a book of yours, host a post or interview, review one of the books on offer, or just share hashtag tweets during the week. All would be greatly appreciated!
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Hi Ana
We recently became Twitter ‘friends’ and I’m a new writer of romantic comedy. I’d love to be part of the promo week – please count me in!
Rosa
@RosaT_Author
Rosa Temple writes…
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Great! I just added you to the Dropbox list – do you want to nominate a book for participation?
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Yes, my latest one, Natalie’s Getting Married. Here is the universal link myBook.to/RosaTemple Hope it works. Please let me know. Will I receive more info along the way about how to participate?
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Added!
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Yes, I will be posting an action plan – for now, feel free to start talking about #ComedyBookWeek on social media or approach book reviewers with invites to review any of the participating books. The more emphasis we place on the event, rather than an individual, the more likely we will get picked up by big reviewers, I think. I’ve already approached a few – will post a new list on Dropbox soon, with a list of book reviewers and bloggers.
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Hi Ana
When you get the chance, please use this link to my book https://www.amazon.co.uk/Natalies-Getting-Married-Rosa-Temple-ebook/dp/B01AC6XY72
I can’t hover on the one I gave you previously in Dropbox and I don’t want to annoy people with broken links! 🙂
I’ll start posting about the event asap.
Rosa
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I’d love to be involved if possible? I’ve a romantic comedy book out where I hope the balance between romance and comedy is precisely equal! Is called ‘It Started With A Snub. If it’s too late then no worries, I’ll definitely help promote, the world needs to laugh more!!!:)
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It’s not too late 🙂 Please send me link to the book and LINKs to your social media sites – I will add you to the Dropbox list.
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Great – please send me the link to the book and your social media, and I will add you.
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This sounds like a blast! I write humorous sci-fi, as well as cozy mysteries, and I’d love to get involved.
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That’s great! Please send me your details and I will add you to the list of participating authors. If you want to host a sales page, review, or interview, please let me know, and I will add you to the calendar of events, too.
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Ooh, would a sales page list the books on sale for the week? I could definitely host an interview or two, as well! This sounds like it will be a great week. It’s a fantastic idea.
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Yes, the Dropbox spreadsheet has links to all participating books to date. Anybody is welcome to post the links to any or all of the books on their website. I will be listing them all for the duration of the week.
You can also choose any author on that list and approach them via their social media for a free review copy or interview. If you have one planned, please let me know, and I will add it to the Calendar of Events.
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Great! I will check it out.
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Reblogged this on happymeerkatreviews and commented:
I’ll be taking part in #ComedyBookWeek posting some reviews of funny books! Indie authors of comedy and book bloggers are needed! Please take a look and get involved if you can, it should be a great week!
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Hey, been off KBoards for a while and missed this.
This is right up my alley. How can I get added to the list? Are there logos to tweet and post?
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Hi, Dan, not too late! Please email URL LINKS to your books (up to 3) and ACTIVE social media to me at ana.spoke(at )yahoo.com and I will add you. Here’s the link to the logo: https://anaspoke.files.wordpress.com/2016/05/humor_book.jpg
Lastly, make sure to use #ComedyBookWeek hashtag!
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Am I too late to enter as an author? This sounds awesome!
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Hi, Amy – no, happy to add you. Can you please email to Ana.spoke (at) yahoo(dot)com the URL LINKS to your books and active social media?
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Great job at taking some initiative! Sounds like there are a lot of people who needed this and you are the one getting the ball rolling.
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Thank you! Just wait till January – it will be even better.
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