Writing and Publishing News from

February 20, 2011

How to Design Your Author’s Platform

Filed under: Announcements,Authorship,Book Promotion — Patricia @ 5:58 am

I’ve added a new course to my repertoire!! And it’s one that countless authors can use.

You’ve heard the term “platform,” and you’ve heard that this is something authors need. But some of you are still wondering exactly what it is, why you need one and how to get one. Here’s the scoop:

In this highly competitive publishing arena, not only is it necessary for the author to adopt bookselling strategies, he must groom himself as a representative for his book. He must back up his book with the appropriate elements of influence. How? By establishing a platform and continuously building on it.

A large majority of traditional royalty publishers require that their authors have a platform—a following, connections, a sphere of influence and name recognition within the genre/topic of their book. A publisher wants to know that you can attract readers for your book—that you have a built-in audience or can easily generate one.

If you choose to self-publish (establish your own publishing company) or go with a pay-to-publish service, you will still need a platform in order to position yourself and your book in the marketplace. As you are aware, readers of fiction generally choose books based on author name recognition and consumers of nonfiction are more interested in the author’s level of expertise and/or experience.

Authors need to ask themselves, “Why will people be interested in my book?” “What will entice them to buy a book that I wrote?” Not only will this course help you respond to these questions, it will coach and support you in establishing your personalized author platform.

Through this course, you will learn:
• What a platform is and why it is so valuable.

• How to identify the elements of your current platform and use them to your benefit.

• How to add to your platform in order to position yourself as a trusted expert in your field or genre

• How to develop a following.

• How to more effectively represent yourself to publishers, the media and your potential customers.

Within the realm of bookselling, it isn’t about the book as much as much as it is about the author and his or her sphere of influence. Let us help you to design your author platform which is a major step toward creating a successful publishing experience.

Sign up for this one-of-a-kind course for personalized assistance with your all-important author’s platform today. While I teach all of my SEVEN courses on-demand (on your schedule), I am starting this 6-week course next Friday, February 25, 2011.

Be among the first to sign up. You won’t be disappointed!

http://www.matilijapress.com/course_platform.htm

Check out all of my courses here: http://www.matilijapress.com/courses.htm

Question? PLFry620@yahoo.com

February 11, 2011

How to Sell Books By Writing Articles/Stories

Filed under: Article-Writing,Book Promotion,Writing — Patricia @ 6:06 am

Do you have a book to promote? I have been preaching for years and years about my favorite way of promoting a book—writing articles or stories for publication. And lately, I’ve been noticing that other publishing/book marketing professionals are also urging authors to promote through articles and stories in targeted publications.

Whether your book is scientific in nature, a business book, how-to or self-help book or an informational/reference book, you gain more and more credibility in your area every time you publish an article related to the topic of your interest or expertise. And you attract more readers for your book.

For a novel, memoir or children’s book, the key is to submit stories in your genre or area of your book’s interest to appropriate publications. In so doing, you are reaching your audience—readers who are interested in your genre or subject matter. The more often they see your name connected to stories they enjoy reading, the more apt they are to purchase your book.

Haven’t you experienced this yourself? You keep seeing a particular author’s name in the ezines and magazines you read and at the websites you visit. You like what he has to say and you begin to seek out articles by him. Soon you consider him fairly credible and you become interested in, perhaps, reading his book.

If you enjoy reading fiction, you probably have favorite authors. Some of them you may have discovered through the stories they have published in the publications you read.

Having your work published in periodicals—both print and online—is a proven method of building a platform—a following. And I highly recommend it.

If you are not sure how to approach the article or story market, do I have an opportunity for you!

I’m teaching my online article-writing course starting Tuesday February 15. It’s $125.00 for the 6-week course. Learn more about what this course includes here: http://www.matilijapress.com/course_magarticles.htm

To find out how an online course works, go here: http://www.matilijapress.com/course_howwork.htm

Questions? Contact Patricia Fry here: PLFry620@yahoo.com

February 4, 2011

5 Ways to Promote Your Book Without Changing Your Lifestyle

Filed under: Book Promotion — Patricia @ 5:38 am

Some authors that I meet when giving presentations and during consultations are reluctant to go out of their way to promote their books. They say, in essence, “It’s a good book, isn’t that enough?” Sure, they want to sell a gazillion copies, but they resist the marketing process. They just want to write.

The truth is that, whether your book is self-published, you have a traditional publisher or you’ve signed with a fee-based POD “self-publishing” company, you must participate in promoting it.

In my book, Over 75 Good Ideas for Promoting Your Book I outline a collection of no and low-cost marketing ideas. Granted, not all marketing techniques are for all authors. Each of us has our level of comfort. While I strongly urge authors to stretch beyond their comfort zones, there’s nothing wrong with starting the process in familiar territory.

By the way, I will be discounting this book “Over 75 Good Ideas for Promoting Your Book” and The Right Way to Write, Publish and Sell Your Book starting next week. Let me know if you’d like to be notified when the discount goes in effect. PLFry620@yahoo.com.

Here are five ideas for promoting your book while involved in the process of living your life.

1. Talk about your book everywhere you go. Show your book to your coworkers, clients, vendors, members at your gym, the waitress who takes your lunch order and your dry cleaner, for example.

2. Promote your book on the Internet. If you use the Internet to chat or conduct research anyway, why not do some promotion while you’re there. Go to the sites that reflect the subject of your book and get involved in chats, leave notes on bulletin boards, offer excerpts from your book for the site. A literary site may feature your poetry book on their author’s page. A gardening site would probably be thrilled to post information about your book on living wreaths.

3. Join clubs and organizations related to your book topic. Attend meetings and show your book around. Offer to give presentations reflecting your expertise. Donate books for special events. Get even more exposure by volunteering for some of the community service projects that these organizations promote.

4. Write letters to the editor. Watch newspapers and other publications for articles or letters that relates to the topic of your book. Then respond with information or opinions that reflect the content of your book. Be sure to include the title of your book in your letter.

5. Sell books on the road. Anytime you travel, take a dozen or so books with you to sell along the way. Arrange in advance with a bookstore or specialty shop to have a book signing while there. Send press releases to local newspapers announcing your event. Make sure the store has plenty of copies of your books to sell.

Here’s an idea: try at least one new marketing technique every month. Become a public speaker, for example, offer your book as a premium item, tap into the library market, create a promotional display to offer bookstores and specialty shops that sell your book or get added recognition for your book by entering it in contests.

http://www.matilijapress.com
http://www.patriciafry.com

February 3, 2011

Are You Writing a Bulldozer Book?

Filed under: Authorship,Book Promotion,Book Proposals — Patricia @ 8:47 am

There are many reasons why a book doesn’t sell. Here are a few:
• The author doesn’t promote it.
• The cover isn’t appealing.
• The author isn’t well-known in this topic or genre.
• There’s no audience for a book on this topic.
• It’s a bulldozer book.

What is a bulldozer book? It’s one designed to change minds. The author’s intent is to push his or her opinions or beliefs onto the reader. He hopes to influence people to change a habit, make new choices, adjust an aspect of their lives.

Doesn’t this describe the self-help book? Well, not exactly. A self-help book generally offers information and instructions in a gentle, but authoritative way. The author of a successful self-help book researches his topic, his audience and the competition and writes a book that is needed/wanted. And then he or she promotes it to an appropriate audience.

The authors of bulldozer books see people getting fat on fast foods, they observe more sin than they can tolerate, they have a real adversity to smoking or they’re sick of hearing about cruelty to children, for example. This author has a beef with a segment of the population—a bone to pick. He’s on a mission. And so he writes a book designed to transform fast food junkies into vegetarians. He pens a book on how sinners can find God. He produces a stop-smoking book for the hardcore smoker. Or he writes a book on parenting for druggies.

There’s nothing wrong with wanting to make the world a better place or for trying to help someone take better care of him or herself or their families. Where authors of bulldozer books fail is in their approach and in identifying their target audiences.

Over the years, I’ve certainly gone on writing missions of my own. I wanted to help save children from abusive parents and animals from cruel situations. I wrote articles designed to teach parenting skills and proper, humane pet care. And I attempted to get them published in magazines that I thought would be read by my proposed audience—those people who needed to hear my message. The gatekeepers to those audiences, however—the editors—kept my articles from my targeted readership. The truth is, the readers weren’t interested in learning better ways and they wouldn’t have read my words of wisdom, anyway.

Now herein is the reason why bulldozer books fail. Members of the targeted audience aren’t interested in making changes. If they were, they would go in search of a general how-to or self-help book on the topic. They are not typically going to buy a book that is trying to force feed them your perspective—your truth.

Your book, which is designed to shame the lazy, unfriendly homeowner into cleaning up his yard and be more helpful to his neighbors, is not going to be welcomed by this audience. Your book intended to change the hearts of animal abusers, will go unnoticed, at least by this segment of readers. However, this is not to say that you shouldn’t write that book.

• Write it for children—gently and appropriately showing them the way to be responsible or how to care for animals.
• Change the focus so that it will actually attract the audience you want to reach—you can catch more flies with honey than with vinegar.
• Go ahead and write it and then promote it to an audience who cares.

Some stalled bulldozer books can be transformed into brisk selling books simply by changing the target audience. The book’s message might be reasonable, useful and valuable, it’s just that you’re pitching it to the wrong audience. It’s okay to preach to the choir. Instead of promoting your book, “Stop Dog Fighting, Now,” to dog fighters, pitch it to a public who wants to know what measures they can take to stop this barbaric practice. Rather than pushing your healthy eating book on fast-food addicts who love their lifestyle, make it available to folks who enjoy healthy eating and who crave more tips, hints and resources.

I suggest that hopeful authors ask themselves two questions before producing a book: Why do I want to write this book—Reason? And what is the purpose of this book? Respond truthfully and thoughtfully to these two questions and you will be less likely to write a bulldozer book. Another way to avoid inadvertently (or purposely) writing a bulldozer book, is to always write a book proposal as a first step.

If you did not write a book proposal and/or if you feel as though you are promoting your book to the wrong audience, read my ebook, The Author’s Repair Kit, Heal Your Publishing Mistakes and Breathe New Life Into Your Book. http://www.matilijapress.com/author_repairkit.html

January 31, 2011

Book Review Blog Sites

Filed under: Book Promotion — Patricia @ 5:39 am

Are you interested in having your book reviewed? If you have a published book, you should be. Yesterday, I came across a list of 100 blogs for book reviews. Here are a few that I checked out. You might want to visit them and see about having your book reviewed at an appropriate blog site.

At Becky’s Book Reviews they post reviews of many different fiction books. http://blbooks.blogspot.com

Hey Lady! Whatcha Readin? posts reviews for literary fiction. http://www.heylady.net

Lola reviews books at Caribousmom. http://reviewsbylola.wordpress.com. She reviews historical novels, mysteries and others.

Here’s a book review site where you post your own reviews. Review someone else’s book or have someone review your book and post the review here: http://www.thenewbookreview.blogspot.com

This blog site includes reviews on many types of books, but seems to focus on historical fiction and history books. http://bookfoolery.blogspot.com

I love this one—the Smart Bitches review Trashy Books at Smart Bitches, Trashy Books. And they are talking romance novels. http://www.smartbitchestrashybooks.com

If you have a science fiction book, consider having it reviewed here: http://boldblueadventure.blogspot.com

Dreadlock Girl reviews practically all genres. http://www.dreadlockgirl.com/reads

There are numerous other bloggers who might review your book related to the theme of their blog or they may post your review at their blog site. If you haven’t done so already, set up a Google Alerts account using key words that would bring up relevant blog sites. Contact the bloggers and ask about having your appropriate book reviewed. http://www.google.com/alerts Or go in search of blogs in the theme/genre of your book.

Let me know where you’ve had your book reviewed or where you go to learn about books in your favorite genre/topic.

January 29, 2011

When the Book Promotion Well Runs Dry

Filed under: Book Promotion — Patricia @ 7:23 am

If this post seems familiar, congratulations. This means that either you have been visiting this blog site’s archives or that you’ve been following this blog for five years. I’m drawing a rare—extremely rare—blank today as I contemplate my blog post. So I’ve decided to reach into the archives and remind you of this message:

Excerpted from my January 27, 2006 post

Do you ever feel as though you’ve been up and down every promotional street, avenue and pathway in every world city and you’ve come to that dreaded dead end? You wonder “Where do I go from here?” You feel as though you’ve tapped into every possible promotional opportunity available for your particular book and now you’re stuck. You’ve run out of ideas and resources. You don’t know where to turn or how to proceed. STOP! Don’t start burning books or throwing your computer out the window. Take a break. Breathe… Breathe… Breathe…

There, now don’t you feel better?

We all hit that brick wall of hopelessness once in a while. Sometimes it’s just a matter of exhaustion and stress. It’s nothing more than a strong signal that it’s time to step back and get a fresh perspective. Go take a walk, reorganize your office, putter in the garden, play with your cat, take a nap. You’ll come back to your office feeling a bit less frazzled and ready to resume the task of book promotion.

Most of us, when we enter into this field, believe in the concept: “Write it and they will come.” We rely on bookstores to distribute our books to all of those readers who are out there searching for a book like ours. Once this idea is exposed for the fallacy that it is, the author suddenly feels alone, confused and as if he has been deceived.

When I feel the promotional well starting to dip near the panic level, I open my promotional file. As an author, you do have a promotional file, don’t you—a folder that contains every book promotion idea you’ve ever had? Maybe now is the time to build a website or start blogging. Perhaps you can plan a book signing tour or go ahead and rent a booth at a major book festival this spring. Check into the newsletters out there on the topic/genre of your book. You can learn a lot about your audience and where they are, by reading these newsletters. Contribute articles to some of those newsletters and appropriate magazines. Set up some speaking engagements.

Book promotion is an all-consuming activity. If you are an author, you probably already know this. If you are thinking about producing a book, you need to know that writing is the easy part. It’s what comes after that will keep you busy, test your creativity and stamina and sometimes drive you crazy. So go ahead and write that great book, but also take the time to develop a promotional plan. And create a backup plan. Be prepared so that the next time you see the brick wall coming swiftly toward you, you can leap right over it without missing a promotional beat.

If you’re running out of promotional ideas stop by my website and check out some of the articles there on book promotion. http://www.matilijapress.com

January 23, 2011

Do Bookstores Matter to Authors?

Filed under: Book Promotion — Patricia @ 7:21 am

If you’ve been studying the publishing industry for any length of time—reading this blog, industry newsletters, books by myself and other professionals—you’ve probably crossed bookstores off of your list of potential sales outlets for your book.

You’ve been told that it is next to impossible to get your book into bookstores—that your book is liable to get lost among the thousands of others in a bookstore. Is this true? Well, yes. You probably can’t count on bookstore sales to help your book reach the level of success you desire. But I don’t want you to dismiss the idea of selling through bookstores altogether.

What I hope to get across to authors through my nagging and ranting about bookstores is that you should not count on them as your primary sales outlet. Bookstores should not be considered the ultimate last word in book promotion and sales. But do they have a place in the scheme of things where our marketing plan is concerned? Absolutely!

• You want to try to infiltrate the mega-bookstores. At least have your book listed in Books in Print so they can order it if someone comes in and asks about it.

• Apply for Barnes and Noble and Borders’ warehouse programs. (Contact me for more info on this.) PLFry620@yahoo.com.

• Make sure your book is listed in online bookstores—Borders, Barnes and Noble, Amazon, etc.

• Approach independent bookstores individually and ask them to take your books on consignment.

• Contact specialty bookstores related to the theme or genre of your book: mystery, cats, religion, spirituality, cookbooks, children’s, etc.

And then promote the heck out of your book so people are walking into bookstores asking for it.

Ignore bookstores altogether and you will sabotage the success of your book. Use them; just don’t rely on them totally. Consider bookstores an outlet for your book, but also promote it over the Internet, go out and give presentations, do radio/TV gigs, reserve booths at flea markets and book festivals, approach appropriate specialty stores with your book—kitchen stores, gift shops, museum gift shops, toy stores, pharmacies, auto parts stores, etc. Some of my books are selling well in a local “Made in Ojai” store where everything in it comes from local artists, potters, authors, jewelers, etc.

By the way, the gigantic Los Angeles Times Festival of Books is coming up in April. If you’d like to take your book to this spectacular event, you may be able to participate in the SPAWN booth. SPAWN is Small Publishers, Artists and Writers Network. It’s an organization that you probably should join, anyway in order to further your freelance writing career or your success as an author. SPAWN has two booths at the festival this year and members can join us and sell their books from our booth for $200 per day. If you do not live in Southern California or you do not wish to travel, we will display your book in the booth. Post it in our beautiful print catalog which we will be giving away to each visitor to the booth. This will be your brochure. The cost for displaying one book and one catalog entry is $55. A catalog entry only is $35.

Learn more about these amazing opportunities by subscribing to our FREE SPAWN newsletter. The next issue will be sent to your email box February 1, 2011. http://www.spawn.org Sign up for the newsletter and receive a FREE ebook, Promote Yourself: 25 Ways to Promote Your Work, Whether You’re an Artist, Author or Small Publishers.

You can also enter our archives and read the January 2011 issue of SPAWNews to find details about SPAWN and the LA Times Festival of Books. http://www.spawn.org Contact me for additional information: Patricia@spawn.org.

January 22, 2011

Second Chances for Your Book

Filed under: Authorship,Book Promotion — Patricia @ 6:19 am

We talked recently about the possibility of your self-published or pay-to-publish book being picked up by a traditional royalty publisher. Well, it happened again to one of my clients. This time it is a children’s picture book—can you believe it? Instead of illustrations, this author used photographs. It is a charming book. Delightful. I will reveal more once it is produced.

And I had an email conversation with Debbie Allen yesterday. She is the author of Confessions of Shameless Self Promoters, Confessions of Shameless Internet Promoters and others. She self-published her first book in the series and did so well with it—appeared on the Howard Stern Show, became a bestseller at amazon—and Mc Graw-Hill recently picked it up.

I met another young man this week—under thirty. He self-published his story, and sold 12,000 copies of it before being picked up by an agent and then HarperCollins. He managed this by landing some pretty serious media and a chance meeting with a major agent.

I’m currently revising one of my self-published books for a publisher.

And I think I’ve told you about my client who sold so many copies of her young adult fantasy that Scholastic Books picked it up.

You’re actually hearing about this phenomenon more and more often. So if you know you have an excellent book idea and you are confident that you can write something that is meaningful or highly entertaining to a large audience, why not go for it? But it could take an enormous amount of time, energy, strategy and belief in yourself to take that book to that next level. Everyone of these authors will tell you that and all of them are highly motivated powerhouse promoters.

I’m here to encourage you. But I don’t want you to delude yourself. It will take a whole lot of savvy and work to go from point A (writing a worthy book) to point B (experiencing thousands of sales through a traditional publisher).

For more about how the whole publishing thing works and how to navigate within this industry, read The Right Way to Write, Publish and Sell Your Book. http://www.matilijapress.com/rightway.html

Need editing? Would you like a free evaluation of your manuscript? Check out this site: http://www.patriciafry.com

January 19, 2011

The Business of Authorship

Filed under: Authorship,Book Promotion — Patricia @ 5:42 am

Do you think that authors are the only ones who must define and target an audience? Absolutely not. Anyone who contemplates starting a business or coming out with a new product MUST identify their customers—that is, if they want to be successful.

The thing that causes authors confusion is the fact that they don’t typically look at publishing as a business.

You’ve heard/read me say, “Publishing is not an extension of your writing.” You’ve heard/read me and others say, “Writing is a craft/an art and publishing is a serious business.” Some of you even accept this and understand it to a point. But you may still not quite get it to the degree that you must in order to create a viable product and sell numbers of it.

Most authors hope to make money on their book. But they still have trouble viewing their book as a product that must be advertised—promoted. The fact is that over 76 percent of books fail. The average number that pay-to-publish books sell is 100. In most cases, you will not break even at that rate.

Most of you know something about business. Many of you are in business. You know which brands of clothing, electronics, pet food, laundry detergent, etc. are outselling the others because that’s the one you see promoted with the most gusto. It’s the one that gets the most exposure.

You may notice promotion going on at events you attend—one brand of water is being given away at the track meet, there are signs around the field advertising various local businesses, a plane flies by with a banner asking you to vote for a certain candidate, people are wearing hats with business logos, a car in the parking lot has a sign on the side depicting a real estate company, someone is handing out business cards or brochures, a sign in the snack bar indicates that a certain brand of hotdog is being served. When you decide to have a yard sale, you hang signs to let people know when and where it is, you might place a free ad in the newspaper and hand out notices to neighbors. It’s all advertising/exposure. And it’s something you, as a published author, will have to engage in if you want to sell your books.

Sure, some people will stumble upon the yard sale without having seen the signs. But you can’t rely on that—just as you can’t rely on your book being accepted for sale in bookstores nationwide and it being widely purchased. Not without some effort on your part.

I’ve known a LOT of authors and I can tell you that those with a business sense—those who go into publishing with a business head (no matter their choice of publishing options) always sell more books and become more successful than those who don’t. Write a book from the heart, pay to have the unedited book published and then sit back and wait for it to sell and you will surely fail.

Learn more about how you can promote your particular book through my online-on-demand book promotion course. http://www.matilijapress.com/course_bookpromotion.htm

January 18, 2011

Aggressively Go In Search of Your Target Audience

Filed under: Book Promotion — Patricia @ 5:27 am

While working on my book revision yesterday, I came across this section about targeting your audience for your book. I thought it might be of interest to those of you who are still a little unsure of who your true audience for your book is and how to determine where they are.

Ask yourself who are you writing this book for? Define who will want to read it, not necessarily who you think should read it. And make sure that this is a large enough audience or a strong enough niche audience to support the book you are writing. (If not, you may want to expand on the concept of your book to appeal to a larger audience.)

Use logic and research when determining your target audience. And be realistic. Seek out statistics reflecting the number of people who purchase genre fiction each year, for example, or who buy certain types of children’s books or cookbooks. Start here: http://www.publishers.org. Click on “Industry Statistics.”

And then you must determine where you will find these people. Discover your audience by visiting websites of authors with books like yours. Who are they directing their advertising toward? Read their media releases—you may get an idea of what groups of consumers they are approaching with their promotional material. Study their book’s back cover copy. Who are they addressing? Read their testimonials. Who wrote them?

It’s not always easy to locate your target audience, but it is important to go through the motions. Otherwise, you are just flailing in the wind. You’ll have a product and no discernable direction for promoting or selling it.

Would you create a new way to sharpen pencils without an idea of who would buy the device? Would you just stand on the street corner or stay in your office waiting for the appropriate customer to come forward? No, you would be out contacting office managers in charge of supplies, promoting to accountants and visiting schools where you know that pencils are widely used. In your production, you would consider your end user—children (is it safe to use?), busy professionals (is it easy to use and attractive?), for example.

Never lose sight of the fact that your book is a product and it is up to you, the author, to identify and discover ways to reach your particular readers (customers). And the best time to do this is before you complete the book. Why?

• You should have your audience in mind as you write the book to make sure that the story will aptly entertain them, be clear and be free of inconsistencies.

• While compiling your nonfiction book, consider whether this is the material, facts, information your target audience desires/needs.

Otherwise, how can you be sure that you are writing a book that is wanted/needed—that will be well-received?

Figure out where you will find your audience. Now don’t cop out and decide that you will simply sell your book through bookstores. Did you know that over half of all books sold in America are sold outside of the traditional bookstore? You must also think outside the bookstore. Think instead, specialty stores, back-of-the-room sales, story time in schools/libraries, college bookstores, Internet sales and, of course, those off-the-wall ideas that could work for your particular book and with your particular personality.

Arrange to do a reading from your crazy-sports-moments book at the county-wide Little League Parents’ end-of-year barbecue. Attend open mic events with your book or poetry. Do signings at motorcycle shops for your book featuring a woman stunt rider. Have a stand and sell your Western romance at local rodeos. Offer your parenting book as a door prize at state and county run parenting classes and so forth.

Use your creative abilities to devise a marketing plan. That’s what it takes in these highly competitive times. With over a million books coming out each year, if we want our book to be in the running for attention with all of the others, we MUST get creative and bold.

Read my book The Right Way to Write, Publish and Sell Your Book for additional marketing ideas. http://www.matiliapress.com/rightway.html. In fact, you might want to sign up for my online book promotion course to help generate some ideas and devise a plan. http://www.matilijapress.com/course_bookpromotion.htm

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