By Angela Yuriko Smith

The Story Behind the Story

Once upon a time a writer decided to write her first book.

Her inspiration was a news article she had just written about…

The Jersey Devil!

She knew that even though she would be lost in her imagination for awhile and have to say no to socializing with

her friends…

… writing the book would be the easy part.

no…

no…

no…

no…

She knew that even the best book in the world could not be laid on the alter of fate

and be guaranteed success.

One does not sit waiting by the phone passively for success to call.

One must be willing to experiment and make mistakes.

And seek one’s fortune.

Finally her book was done

And she prepared its release on the world.

She went to her computer to plan and plot and came up withsome ideas that were…

…different.

First she started building.

She built the house from her book in

Second Life so visitors could

interact with her story…

She used that space to give away promotional gifts,perform live readings,have parties andshare links to her book…

She knew a very important secret.

Behind every avatar is a potential reader.

She was lucky because her daughter knew how to make machinima.

So together they built a movie set…

And made this book trailer….

It was a hit and the author was able to use it in all kinds of places such as…

On author network sites like Gather & GoodreadsYoutube, on it’s own and as a video response

Amazon & Smashwords Author ProfilesOn Facebook & Twitter

In Second Life

Everyone loved it and passed it on. The author knew it was a great marketing tool when someone asked her…

“Is that really Mae?”

Second Life was great for so many things like

Interviews…

Networking with other professionals…

Perform readings… Finding other authors…

She sent out a press release to 500 bloggers, magazine editors and other media that included:

•Promotional shirts•A one chapter teaser book•A VIP trip to the virtual scenes location

This won her several interviews, 2,000 unique visitorsto her virtual book scene and the coveted Editors Pick in Second Life’s Destination Guide

All this cost…

Nothing!!!!Nothing!!!!Nothing!!!!Nothing!!!!

The author knew that as awesome as her virtual campaign was she’d have to do other

things to get attention as well.

In one month she worked hard enough to get around 50 reviews of her book, 6 interviews, 2

live Q&A chats, 1,000 friends on Facebookand about a zillion mentions.

And it’s still going strong…

There was so much information that the author wanted to share with other writers…

… that she decided to write another book!

She decided to call it All You Need Is Like

And this is the story of that story…the story behind the story.

You can’t sell a bad book with great

marketing, but you can’t sell a good book without

great marketing.

Angela Yuriko Smith

You can find End of Mae at endofmae.com

Find out more about the release of my new book, All You Need Is Like

at dandilyonfluff.com

So many people have gone into helping me make End of Mae a success and if I thanked them all I would have to create another 25 slides minimum to just scratch the surface.

I do want to especially thank my daughter for all her support and help, my husband for putting up with my obsessive nature, and all my friends on Gather, Goodreads, Facebook, Twitter…

Particularly Lori A., A.F. Stewart, DarkBeauty, Cassandra O., Laura M., Eric S., Nova & Connie C.