Writing and Publishing News

How many free copies of your book do you send out for promotional purposes? Five, twenty-five, ninety-five or more? Most authors provide free copies to contributors—those experts and other people who provided quotes and/or information for their book. The editor generally gets a copy and the cover designer, as does anyone else who offered a [...]

Some of you are aware that I’ve been questioning why some authors of fiction have trouble seeing the value for them in a book like my new one on book promotion. As you may recall, some fiction authors took one look at my book and said, “It’s a good book with some good ideas, but [...]

I believe that we all have favorite methods of promoting our books. And we also have techniques that work. It’s grand when both are the same. But, what happens when they are not? What are the consequences for authors when their favorite promotional activity isn’t the one that sells the most books? Logically, you would [...]

I’m having an interesting email debate with a novelist—and I hope to get more fiction book authors involved. The debate involves the differences between the way fiction and nonfiction authors promote their books. Is there any difference? Some of you may have both fiction and nonfiction books. Are there differences in the methods you use [...]

This week finds me busily trying to coordinate tasks in order to properly launch my latest book. There are so many details to handle and the timing depends on other people—the publisher, the publishing staff in charge of shipping books, my web master, reviewers, etc. For those of you who are just tuning in, the [...]

I am starting a new course today—my Memoir Writing Course. If you are interested in taking this 6-week online course for $200, you can learn more about it and sign up today here: http://www.matilijapress.com/course_memoirwriting.htm One advantage to taking my memoir course is that I have so much background in publishing as compared to other teachers [...]

Some new authors still believe that everything comes at a price. Not book reviews—unless you consider the searing pain you feel when you get a bad one. There are many ways to get free book reviews and I believe you should strive to get as many as you can from colleagues in your field, authors [...]

Hurry up and wait. That’s the game I’m playing now with my latest book, “Promote Your Book, Over 250 Proven, Low-Cost Tips and Techniques for the Enterprising Author.” I’m ready to go into book promotion mode, but I still have not seen a copy of the book. And I just learned that the Kindle version [...]

If you spend any time at all researching publishers, you will find some publishing horror stories. The more time you spend, the more stories you will discover. You’ll read about authors handing over thousands of dollars and getting little in return. You’ll hear about contracts from hell and broken promises. You’ll learn of failure and [...]

Are you still struggling to figure out your priorities? You have so much on your desk that you just don’t know what to do first. How do you face that situation? Some walk away and do something entirely different. Others pick and poke at their pile of tasks or go over and over their to-do [...]