Writing and Publishing News from

A good number of those first few boxes of books you order from your printer or publisher will be give aways. You’ll give copies to contributors to the book, your editor and key players in your industry or genre, for example. These are people who might talk up your book and recommend it to others. In fact, after giving them a copy of the book, send emails or give a call occasionally to ask if they have read the book and what they think about it. Urge them to write a review and post it at appropriate sites. Ask them to promote it to their colleagues, in their newsletters, at their blogs, etc.

Send books to appropriate reviewers. This might be book review editors for industry or genre magazines and newsletters, colleagues and professionals in your field or genre and/or some of the many online book reviewers.

Newsflash, you do not have to pay for reviews. Magazine/ezine book reviewers do not charge for book reviews, in fact sometimes they pay for book reviews from outside contributors. There are dozens—maybe hundreds—of online book reviewers that do not charge. Here are a few book review directories:

http://acqweb.org/bookrev.html
http://dir.yahoo.com/arts/humanities/literature/reviews
http://www.stepbystepselfpublishing.net/free-book-reviews.html
(These are just a scant sampling of the resources and information you will find in my book, “Promote Your Book.”

When someone writes a review or makes positive comments about your book, always, always ask them if they would post the review/comments at the book’s Amazon page.

You can also research other books like yours at Amazon. Find out who is reviewing them? Contact some of those reviewers and ask if they would review your book.

Some reviewers prefer to receive an electronic version of your book. Others will insist on a print copy.

Along with the task of contacting people to review your book, be sure to send notices to everyone on the gigantic email list you have been building. Tell them about your book. List the benefits to potential readers and supply ordering information.

Order your copy of Promote Your Book, Over 250 Proven, Low-Cost Tips and Techniques for the Enterprising Author. It’s available at amazon.com and most other online and downtown bookstores. Also at http://www.matilijapress.com

You’ve made an educated decision—you had your book manuscript edited by an experienced book editor. You followed the editor’s instructions and suggestions for tightening your writing, rewriting muddy sentences, creating better transitions, etc. You have studied your publishing options and you’ve researched each one so you know you are making the right publishing decision for you and for your particular book. You are ready to move forward.

Now if you can’t relate to the first paragraph, let me back up a bit. You should know that, in publishing there are apples and there are oranges. A few grapefruit and lemons are tossed in as well. The policy manual and values of one company doesn’t necessarily reflect the policies and values of all. Choosing a publisher can be as personal as—well choosing a hairdresser or a best friend. You must do your homework and part of that homework is studying, not just the first publisher or pay-to-publish company that contacts you with a contract, but studying the publishing industry and all of your options. Become aware of the dangers. Find out who are the good guys and who have shaky reputations. And this is not something you can do on your own. Read books by professionals in the industry—including Mark Levine’s “The Fine Print of Self-Publishing.” Learn to do your own research in order to discover if Company A is upstanding or if there have been many complaints lodged against them, etc. And please, please, read my book, “Publish Your Book.” I wrote it just for those of you who are not, yet, familiar with the world of publishing.

Okay, once you have done your homework and made a good publishing choice, you will soon have a book in your hands. If you chose the pay-to-publish route or self-publishing (you’ve established your own publishing company), have enough books printed so you can give many of them away and still have some to sell. If you’ve gone with a traditional publisher, likewise, order at least two boxes of books to sell on your own. The publisher expects you to do this, you know.

Once you have made your publishing decision, you may have anywhere from two-weeks to several months before you hold your book in your hands. Start now seeking out book festivals, appropriate conferences and speaking opportunities where your audience congregates.

I’ve given these links to you numerous times, but here they are again:
To locate conferences related to your topic:
http://www.shawguides.com
http://www.allconferences.com
http://www.eventseye.com
http://www.eventsinamerica.com

To locate book festivals:
http://author-network.com/festivals.html
http://bookfestivals.com

Also conduct your own Internet search to find conferences and festivals in your area.

Before your book is a book, set up website start blogging.

Make sure your book is at Amazon.com. Generally, your publisher or pay-to-publish company will arrange this for you. Just make sure that it happens. Everyone shops at Amazon these days.

If you need more information, anecdotes and resources to help you develop or hone your speaking and communication skills, how to locate speaking engagements, how to get on radio/TV, how to do webinars, etc., be sure to read “Talk Up Your Book.” Available at Amazon.com and most other online and downtown bookstores. Also at my website: http://www.matilijapress.com

Tomorrow we’ll talk about those give-away books. Who are you going to give them to and why? What are the benefits of giving free books? Why does it pay to be generous?

If you have something to sell, you need to find your particular buyers. You must identify them, locate them and approach them. Otherwise, how will they know about your book? Think about it. I mean, really think about it this morning. How will they know your book exists?

Some of you may remember a time before “self-publishing” companies, widely accepted independent publishing, a huge influx of traditional publishing companies and a saturation of books on the market all competing against each other. When your book was accepted by a traditional publisher, you went back to work writing your next one. Oh, you may have had to appear at a book signing now and then. But the publisher took charge of promoting your book. And how did he do that?

You see, this is what many authors are forgetting—that even in the 1980s, ‘70s, ‘60s, ‘50s and so forth, a book, in order to sell, had to be promoted to the appropriate audience. Readers would hear it talked about on a radio/TV show, read a review, see an advertisement in a magazine, notice a press release or story about the author in a newspaper, pick up a publisher’s catalog with the book in it, see it at the library and/or see it in bookstores. The publisher had marketers on staff and they approached your particular audience with news and information about your book.

Fast-forward to 2012. There’s even more competition for books in most all categories. Statistics show there are fewer readers. Publishers have cut way back on their marketing staff, except where a blockbuster book by a name author is concerned. This means it’s up to someone else to promote the other hundreds of thousands of books published each year.

Who do you suppose is interested enough in your book to take on the intense job of marketing it? That would be no one but you. Right?

If you go with a pay-to-publish (self-publishing) company or produce the book yourself, you have signed up to take on the entire job of promotion—or you will fail. And you certainly have some tools and options available to you that were not around in the ‘50s, ‘60s, etc.

Those of you who are currently writing a book or who are ready to publish, make sure that you understand what you are signing up for. My first suggestion is to study the publishing industry so you know what you can expect from it and what it expects from you—if you want some measure of success, that is.

Read the following books from Patricia Fry
Publish Your Book. Learn about the industry and how to navigate it, your options and how to make the right choices and your responsibilities as a published author.

Promote Your Book. This book includes over 250 book promotion ideas with many, many resources and anecdotes and tips from around two dozen authors.

Talk Up Your Book. Personality sells books and this book shows you how to turn up your personality so that you shine, people will notice you and you will sell more books.

All of these books are available at http://www.matilijapress.com and Amazon.com and other online and downtown bookstores. Also available from the publisher’s website: http://www.allworth.com

You go out and listen to authors speak on topics related to their expertise. You attend workshops on writing by authors. You buy books by these authors because you recognize the value in their messages. But, when you start planning your book, it never occurs to you that you should be going out and speaking to your readers. Some of you neglect to factor public speaking in as a method of reaching and promoting to your potential readers. And for some authors and some books, this is the ideal way to get word out about your book and entice people to purchase it.

Certainly, there are numerous other methods of book promotion and you should pursue those that work for you and for your book. You can stay home and promote online. You can have your book at Amazon.com and other online and downtown bookstores. You can use social media, post to your massive email list, do a virtual book tour, get book reviews, develop an active blog… But there truly is nothing as effective for some authors as meeting your public and selling to them in person.

I tell people that personality sells books. It’s true. Readers want to have a relationship with the authors they read. They want to know who is behind the marvelous novels they devour or the amazing how-to book that helped them so much or the informational book that so effectively guided them through a project.

Think about it, how often do you purchase something because of persuasion? Or personality?

Plan to do a variety of promotional activities, but make sure that some of those activities require one-on-one interaction with your potential readers through book festivals, presentations at conferences where your readers congregate, at civic club meetings, through podcasts and so forth.

For help in locating these opportunities, preparing for live presentations, rehearsing, creating handouts for such outings, arranging for effective publicity for events, plenty of speaking tips and techniques and more, order your copy of Talk Up Your Book, How to Sell Your Book Through Public Speaking, Interviews, Signings, Festivals, Conferences and More. It’s at Amazon and other online and downtown bookstores. Or order your copy here: http://www.matilijapress.com

I talk a lot about book promotion. And this is the activity I’m involved in right now—promoting my own new book, Talk Up Your Book. Well, I guess you’d say that I spend most of my time promoting my books, especially those books and ebooks related to publishing and book promotion. It’s a rather constant activity for me—continually bringing you worthwhile information and concepts through this daily blog, speaking and participating in conferences, seeking and setting up new speaking gigs, writing articles for appropriate publications, maintaining a useful website, showcasing my books, updating my Amazon Author Page, using social media, making myself visible at book festivals and so forth. This is ongoing for me.

Currently, however, I have stepped up my promotional activities. I’m still doing all of the above, plus I am talking about my book wherever I go, soliciting reviews and announcing the new book to my email list and in member newsletters.

Yes, I do practice what I preach. Announcements about Talk Up Your Book have gone out to around 1,500 people on the lists of names and email addresses I have collected over the years. And I have around 500-800 more business cards I need to sort through.

I did a teleseminar with around 200 people in attendance last week. I’ve had three reviews, so far. I will contact all of those who participated in the book next week and find out what they are doing to promote this book. I know that some are featuring it in their newsletters and at their websites. Two have written reviews.

I will check to see what my publicist at the publishing company is doing. So far, there are few results, but often it takes time to get the promotions ball rolling. I’ll probably be bombarded with requests for interviews and such around the holidays. Yikes!

Do you have a new book out? Are you preparing to launch a book soon? Start now planning your marketing strategy and keep adding ideas to your plan. Here’s something that will surely help, subscribe to and read newsletters related to book promotion. You will pick up new ideas and become privy to new resources to help you along the very difficult book promotion road. Join SPAWN (Small Publishers, Artists and Writers Network) and connect with other authors to learn what promotional ploys are working for them. You’ll also have access to the monthly SPAWN Market Update which has a strong focus toward book promotion ideas and resources. http://www.spawn.org Membership is only $65/year.

If you have a book to promote, watch our FREE enewsletter for an announcement about opportunities to display or sell your book in the SPAWN booth at the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books at a dramatically reduced rate. Did you know that a single booth space costs nearly a thousand dollars if you do it on your own? And this event attracts around 140,000 people. Subscribe to SPAWNews here: http://www.spawn.org

I’ve turned comments back on here. Would love to hear from you about the book promotion tactics you are pursuing or that you plan and how this is working out for you. And be sure to order your copy of Talk Up Your Book, How to Sell Your Book Through Public Speaking, Interviews, Signings, Festivals, Conferences and More. You will learn volumes about using your personality to sell books. And, folks, more and more authors are attesting to the fact that the most effective way to sell your book is through your personality. Order your copy of Talk Up Your Book at amazon.com at my website (url below) or at any other online or downtown bookstore.
http://www.matilijapress.com

Need a book editor? Learn more here:
http://www.patriciafry.com

Wasn’t that a great series we had going all week? If you missed it, go back and read the blog posts from November 5-9 and you’ll be treated to some fascinating stories from interesting novelists. You’ll meet bestselling author Margaret Brownley; author of a charming humor mystery series, Wendy Dager; long-time writer turned novelist, Hope Clark; budding novelist and award recipient, Kathleen Ewing and a novelist with some interesting titles and stories to match, Raven West.

Today, I’d like to talk about book promotion. I hear from authors often who say, “I can’t get out to promote in person,” “I can’t afford to travel and speak at conferences,” “I hate social media and don’t understand how to promote that way,” or “I don’t know how to go about getting book reviews.”

You know, as an author, you should pursue many avenues of promotion. In one week, for example, you might talk to a few people you meet about your book, post two or three blogs related to the theme or genre of your book, ask someone to post a review of your book at Amazon, leave comments on a couple of related blog sites and set up a book signing at an appropriate specialty store.

There are hundreds more ways to promote your book. However, you don’t have to do it all and you shouldn’t try to do it all. But it is important to tap into the opportunities that arise at any given moment. And I urge you to train yourself to recognize the opportunities.

It is also important to have a plan. You hear people tell you and you read in books and articles how important it is to identify your target audience and know where they are and how to reach them. When you follow this advice, you will have a much better idea of which promotional activities to pursue. Choose a couple to start with. If they are working for you, expand on them, if not, change your technique or move on to another promotional activity.

Give each activity time. I’ve had people ask, “How do I know my efforts are working?” This can be a valid concern, especially if your book is with a publisher. Then you are not receiving orders. The best measure of sales in this case is your royalty statement. You can also go to amazon.com and check on your book’s rank and sales at Author Central. But if you are the publisher, you know exactly how many books are going out. And this is the case with most pay-to-publish contracts, as well because you are responsible for placing and selling your books.

Okay, so what about this confusing, complex thing called book marketing and how does one successfully engage in it? My best advice is, as I said, know your target audience, their shopping/reading habits and so forth. Do your best to address them in your promotion. And also try a few (not too many at a time) promotional activities and see how they go. Continue those that are working and discontinue those that are not. Don’t try too many intense things at once. You’ll wear yourself out. But you do want to have several avenues for promotion and sales.

If I were to help a novelist set up his or her marketing plan, I might suggest that they include the following: (And these activities might be pursued all at the same time or staggered—depending on how much time you have and the response.)

• Build a website.
• Blog at least a couple of times per week.
• Submit stories to publications your audience reads.
• Solicit book reviews.
• Get out and speak to your readers—maybe once a month to start.
• Send announcements about your book out to your massive email list.
• Sign up for a book festival in or near your community.
• Establish a few social media accounts and use them.
• Place books in appropriate bookstores, gift shops and specialty stores

To learn more about the publishing industry and your role within it, order my book, Publish Your Book. For a complete guide to book promotion, order my book, Promote Your Book. If you need help or want more information/guidance in public speaking and communication for authors, you must read Talk Up Your Book. All available at http://www.matilijapress.com and, of course at amazon.com and most other online and downtown bookstores.