Writing and Publishing News from

How much publicity has your book received lately? I just got word that I was quoted in an article on writing and publishing last week. Also, when I received Brian Jud’s newsletter yesterday, I saw that he had published one of my timely tidbits of information. Of course, my blog goes live almost every single day and I get some publicity when I remember to twitter.

Currently, I have about half dozen articles scheduled for publication in a variety of regional and national/international writing/publishing newsletters. And each bit of exposure certainly introduces my books and services to additional authors at all stages of their projects.

Oh yes, and I ordered 100 photo magnets yesterday to use as give-aways to those who order my upcoming book, Catscapades, True Cat Tales.

Are you getting word out about your book? Are you reaching your audience with your publicity? Are you giving in order to receive—in other words, do you freely offer information and resources related to the theme of your book? Do you provide excerpts and free chapters? Do you have gimmick gifts?

When other authors give like this, do you feel compelled to trust them? When you are in the market for their services or a book like theirs, do you consider purchasing what they have?

This week—Valentine’s Day week—jot down all of the ways that you can accommodate your potential and real customers.

I knew a woman once who was looking for a man. She kept making lists of what she wanted in a man and she prayed about the type of man she wanted—what qualities she desired… But no man came into her life. Finally, one day, she began thinking in a very different way. She started considering what she could offer a man. And that attitude, for this woman, was the beginning of the end of her loneliness.

Do you sometimes feel lonely? Are you and your books sitting there all alone all day and night, pining to be noticed? This week, try reaching out. Come up with reasons why people would want to buy your book. Give them additional reasons by providing them with information they need or even a little incentive to buy.

Do these things and let me know how it goes for you.

In the meantime, be sure to check out my latest book—an ebook for authors: The Successful Author’s Handbook.
http://www.matilijapress.com/successful_author_handbook.html

If you and your book are struggling to be noticed—your audience seems to have abandoned you—order The Author’s Repair Kit. http://www.matilijapress.com/author_repairkit.html

It’s Super Bowl Sunday. I’m not a football fan, but I’ve enjoyed some fun gatherings (and food) around the event over the years.

These parties remind me of some of my book launch celebrations. Once my three daughters threw me a party on the large patio of a local outdoor bookstore and invited around 100 people. That was super fun.

These days, however, releasing a new book simply means shifting into higher gear with promotion. The only semblance of festivity is a high five or a few “atta-girls” as the neighbors (or my grandsons) help us unload boxes of books from the freight truck.

There is no fanfare with the publication of an ebook, however. The fact is that ebooks are fairly obscure/invisible. There’s no excitement of a big shipment arriving at our doorstep. There’s nothing to show off in person or to place on bookstore shelves. Producing an ebook is kind of a silent victory except where the computer is concerned. When you hatch an ebook, the Internet becomes your very best friend and a hard-working tool. And the author must work even harder than ever to get the word about the secret he doesn’t want to keep.

Have you all checked out my latest ebook or any of my ebooks? If you are a successfully published author with extreme knowledge about the publishing industry, then I probably do not have a book for you. If, however,

• you hope to someday become an author.
• you have one or more books that aren’t selling very well.
• you are about to come out with your first book.
• you are working on a book,

you really must take a look at two of my ebooks—The Successful Author’s Handbook
and The Author’s Repair Kit. http://www.matilijapress.com

If you’re not accustomed to purchasing and handling ebooks, here are a few suggestions:

1: Print the ebook out on 3-hole punched paper and store it in a binder for easy reading and reference.

2: Save it in your computer where you can read it and refer to it at any time.

3: Purchase a handheld reader.

There’s still a lot of controversy about the current and future popularity of ebooks. What is your experience/feeling about them? Do you buy or publish them? How do you use them? What do you believe about the future of ebooks?

Have you ever wondered when you can stop promoting your book? How many promotional activities do you have to pursue in order to sell enough books? And by the way, what is “enough” books?

I can tell you—and I have told you, by the way—that your book will sell for as long as you are willing to promote it. So the answers to the rest of these questions are up to you. How many books do you want to sell? Do you want to make a large profit, at least a small profit or do you want to just break even?

Most authors change their book selling goals with time. They come out of the publishing chute hoping to earn a fortune. When reality sets in and they understand what it takes to make those sales, they lower their standards. Many authors are eager to get back to their next writing project and sort of abandon their first project—hoping that the book will catch on and sales will begin to soar without too much effort on their part.

Okay, here’s the deal. Stop promoting your book and it will stop selling. How many types of promotion will you have to pursue? This depends on how many books you want to sell and to whom? How wide-spread is your target audience? Where are they? What sort of promotional approach resonates with them?

In 2000, I wrote a book called Over 75 Good Ideas for Promoting Your Book. I am currently revising that book and will call it Over 100 Good Ideas for Promoting Your Book. In fact, it is will include well over 100 ideas, but I didn’t think that 131 or 167 would fit in the title as nicely as Over 100.

Considering 100 promotional ideas is overwhelming enough, don’t you think? By the way, how many of them should you adopt? It depends on you, it depends on your book and it depends on your audience. I put those ideas out there for you to consider and choose from based on your skills and talents, the topic/genre of your book and your readers. I outline the ideas and hope that you, the author with a book to promote, will use those that work best in your situation. I also strongly urge you to stretch and grow in the process and take on some of the activities that are outside your comfort zone.

The new book probably won’t be ready until the latter half of 2010—especially if my editorial business stays busy (cross fingers). So if you need a leg-up, a boost or a whole lot of new ideas to apply to your marketing program, order your copy of Over 75 Good Ideas for Promoting Your Book today. http://www.matilijapress.com It’s only $6.50.

What are you doing today toward promoting your book? What did you do yesterday? You’ll find that book promotion is sort of like a snowball. The more energy you put into it—the more results you will see. But with book promotion, sometimes the effects of your efforts aren’t apparent right away. I believe that’s why some of you lose your momentum.

We expect to be rewarded on the spot for our efforts. We don’t like to wait days, weeks or months for a sale; we want it now! Yet, so much of book promotion is on a hurry up and wait basis.

I got an order for books today through Amazon.com. Yeah! But I don’t know which of my promotional efforts are at the bottom of this order. Could it be from people who read my blog, who followed me at Twitter, who attended one of my talks, who saw some of my articles, who read about my book in one of the many other books that list it as recommended reading? Maybe these customers are people I met in a casual setting or are friends of my clients.

How long have these customers been waiting to order my book—did they just hear about it or have they been sitting on ordering information for months or years?

Certainly there are many, many scenarios when it comes to the motivation and actions of customers. In most cases, you never find out what prompted the sale.

Authors used to track books that they promoted through mail order, ads or even articles by using different codes on their ordering information. You can still do this to some degree. Just add a different letter to your post office box number for each specific promotion. Or add, “Room 1, 2, 22 or 44” for example, in your ordering address. You’ve seen that done, haven’t you? Now you know that when you are required to add “Room 300” when you order a bottle of hand lotion from an ad, this is probably a code the company uses to find out which of their advertising is working best.

This process if more difficult today when your contact information generally consists of a link to your website. Tracking sales in today’s world of technology is a tough one. That’s why I will probably never know who ordered my books through Amazon this morning and where they learned about them. I can, however, add a field to my order form at my own website and ask customers to tell me how they heard about me, this site or my books. Not a bad idea. We do this on the SPAWN membership form.

In the meantime, another one of my articles appeared in Freelance Writer’s Report this month. This may generate book sales or bring me a client, but I realize that it might not happen immediately. As authors with books to promote we must always be projecting into the future. The promotional efforts you expended last month or three months ago may still have some energy in them—you might still see some orders come in from the article you submitted to a magazine in your topic or genre. The promotion you did two weeks ago might still be resonating with potential customers. Continue promoting every week in order to turn that potential customer into a customer. And conduct some promotional activities today in order to attract customers tomorrow.

Learn more about book promotion in my book, The Right Way to Write, Publish and Sell Your Book.
http://www.matilijapress.com/rightway.html.

I teach and preach about the process of landing book reviews for your new (and even older) fiction or nonfiction book. But does anyone listen to me? Apparently not! Even long time members of SPAWN, who have access to years of my articles and posts featuring how to get your book reviewed, have been brainwashed about the process.

Authors, today, think that the only book review game in town is the book review site. The truth is, these sites may or may not review your book and they may or may not charge you a fee. If accepted, your book is featured along with hundreds of others. There are often so many titles listed that yours is quickly lost and forgotten among them.

Tell me, have you ever gone to a book review site in order to find a book to read? On the other hand, have you ever been swayed by a book reviewed by an editor you know and trust, in a magazine or newsletter that you enjoy reading? Most of you are nodding about now.

I have sold many copies of my books based on book reviews in appropriate magazines and newsletters. And you have probably bought books you’ve seen reviewed in your favorite publications. To my knowledge, however, I have never known one of my books to sell after being reviewed on a general book review site.

Recently, one SPAWN member said, “I’m tried to sending out a steady stream of my books to reviewers and never having the satisfaction of a review. It’s like the books just go into a black hole. Or maybe they get sold on eBay.”

I said to him, “Then don’t send books out randomly.” Here’s my recommendation:

• Research and locate appropriate magazines and newsletters.
• Contact the reviewer with information about your book.
• Invite the reviewer to request your book for review.
• When they request it, send it with the highest of hopes and your contact information.
• If you haven’t heard from the reviewer within a few weeks, follow up with her.

I tell authors that if they’re afraid their review copies will be sold, stamp “Review Copy” on the cover or, better yet, on edges of the pages.

Whether your book is a mystery, young adult fantasy, a book of inspirational stories or a how-to/self-help/informational book for pilots, homeowners, public speakers, horseback riders, gourmet cooks, businessmen/women, cat owners, artists or snowboarders, there are review opportunities in magazines and newsletters in practically every category.

Examine the magazines and newsletters you typically read. If you don’t see book reviews, contact the editor and ask if they do book reviews. I write most of the book reviews of books related to writing, publishing and book promotion for SPAWNews, but we might not have a review in every issue. Look on the magazine or newsletter masthead to see if they list a book review editor. If not, contact the editor.

Study Writer’s Market (available at most bookstores for around $30). Look for magazines in your genre/topic and see if their listing includes book reviews. Don’t forget to also check out appropriate regional magazines and other publications related to various hooks in your book.

Do a Google search to find out what magazines/newsletters are publishing book reviews.

There’s certainly nothing wrong with having your book reviewed at some of the online book review sites—but I recommend being discriminating. Choose a mystery review site for a review of your mystery; a site that reviews science fiction for your sci fi book, etc.

Some publications will post your reviews—reviews that you submit. So you might have colleagues write reviews of your book to use for this purpose.

Here are a few publications that use book reviews: Quarterly West, The Prairie Journal, North Carolina Literary Review, Horror Hound, Romantic Times, Black Issues, Civil War Book Review, America Magazine, Spirituality and Health Magazine, WE Magazine (for women), Women Writers A Zine and Business Week.

Teachers and Writers Magazine, Cottage Life, Saturday Evening Post, African Voices use book excerpts—they may agree to review appropriate books.

I hope that you will do your search to find appropriate publications (both print and online) that might review your particular book. Reviews to the right audience can certainly give a good book a kick in the pants.

Good luck. For more about getting book reviews as well as numerous other book promotion ideas, read my book, The Right Way to Write, Publish and Sell Your Book.
http://www.matilijapress.com/rightway.html

By the way, I am starting my 6-week, online Article Writing Course February 8, 2010. Sign up now and learn how to earn some money from your joy of writing.
http://www.matilijapress.com/course_magarticles.htm

Presumably you wrote a book proposal at some point in the process of writing your book. So you know who your audience is. When you were writing the book, you had a specific audience in mind. You could visualize members of a certain demographic reading your book. Maybe you wrote it expressly for them.

But are members of this audience purchasing your book? In fact, is your book moving off of the shelves or out of the warehouse as rapidly as you would like? Or do you feel stuck with lots of books to sell and few orders coming in?

You can blame the economy or your distributor/publisher/editor/graphic artist/ex-husband. Or you can reevaluate your project. Here are some questions to ponder:

Question: Have you been marketing to the right audience? Maybe your original plan for your book sort of shifted during the writing process along with your target audience.

Try This: Rethink the content and purpose of your book and determine your true audience. Use feedback from your customers to help you with this.

Question: Are you reaching members of your audience with your promotional efforts?

Try This: Perhaps you are promoting to the right audience, but you were mistaken about how to reach them. Did you think you could do all of your promotion online? Maybe your audience needs to see, touch, taste a book like yours before buying it; or they need a more personalized presentation. Consider going out and speaking on behalf of your book. Or try running a book trailer or a simple video with your live presentation at your website.

Question: Do you have hooks in your book that you could use in promotion?

Try This: If your target audience isn’t purchasing books in the numbers you envisioned, start dissecting your story or nonfiction book in search of additional selling points. Maybe romance readers aren’t the only ones who would enjoy your story. What might be considered additional hooks? Maybe your story has a cat or dog in it, it involves an intriguing mystery, the story takes place in the desert and/or your main character stutters. There are four additional hooks to use in promotion.

If your book sales aren’t soaring to the point you expected—you’re selling books practically one at a time rather than by the dozens—maybe the economy isn’t to blame. Perhaps you’re just promoting it to the wrong audience.

Reevaluate your audience and see if you can kick up your sales. For additional help with this, order my 47-page ebook, The Author’s Repair Kit, Heal Your Publishing Mistakes and Breathe New Life Into Your Book. It’s only $5.95. And it could help you to increase your book sales 100-fold.
http://www.matilijapress.com/author_repairkit.html

Have you included multiple promotional hooks in your book? This is something I and other professionals suggest. “Build promotion into your book,” we say, “so you can market to a wider audience.” Did you do this and now are you confused about where to promote your book?

Maybe you’ve written a romance novel set in the Middle East and a key character owns a race horse. Is this a romance that should be promoted to the large number of voracious romance readers, an ethnic novel that would interest people from and interested in the Middle Eastern culture or those who love horses and/or are intrigued by horse racing? Actually, you would pursue all three audiences.

Maybe your book shows how a family can live more green on a budget and it includes tips for homeschooling, family activities that requires only people-energy, etc. This book could be “cross promoted” to people who are interested in adopting a more green lifestyle, parents who are homeschooling or who are considering it and families who seek fun and unique togetherness activities.

I know one author (a college professor) who is writing his childhood story of struggles and strife in hopes that it will inspire young people to make better decisions. So his book is a memoir and his audience might include young adults. It might be considered inspirational and there is a how-to element. So he could market it to educators who are interested in his story and young adult readers as well as those seeking help and direction. He may even convince family therapists and recommend it to their young clients.

Cross promotion is not uncommon and, in this time of extreme competition, should be pursued by authors and their publicists.

Promote to each of your potential audiences. If your local independent bookstores accept your historical novel set in your state, suggest that they stock it with other novels as well as in the regional publicaitons section.

For your book on green living on a budget for families, go out and speak to general audiences, ecology groups, parents, educators and so forth. Do you see how you could create a different presentation for each group?

Sell this book through local flea markets/book festivals, gift shops, museum gift shops, home building supply stores, clothing stores that feature earth-friendly fabrics, natural food stores and more.

Today, sit down and think about the many ways that you can cross promote your book. If you are still in the writing stages, even better. Start adding aspects that will compute into marketing opportunities. Build promotion into your book—add those marketing hooks.

For more on book promotion as well as writing, editing, publishing, distributing, etc. your book, read my book, The Right Way to Write, Publish and Sell Your Book. http://www.matilijapress.com/rightway.html

Don’t forget, my online Book Promotion Workshop began yesterday. It’s not too late to join in. Learn more at http://www.matilijapress.com/course_bookpromotion.htm

Check out my article this month in Fran Silverman’s Book Promotion Newsletter. It’s called “Book Promotion Ideas That Your Publisher Didn’t Tell You About.” In fact, I wonder if publishers provide their authors with ideas and resources for promoting their books.

Pay-to-publish companies offer their authors promotional help for additional fees, such as press release services. Some will make your book “returnable” for around $800. I have yet to meet an author who has benefited from this status, however.

Publishers sometimes purchase my book, 75 Good Ideas For Promoting Your Book by the dozens for their authors—to help them jumpstart their promotional programs. Good idea! All publishers should provide something like this for their authors.

The Willamette Writer (based in Portland, Oregon) published my piece, “Is Landing a Traditional Publisher Getting Easier?” in their January issue. This is an interesting question, isn’t it? And the article is interesting, too. Believe it or not, in this time of fierce competition for authors, this article offers hope. You might be able to get a copy of the newsletter by requesting it here wilwrite@willamettewriters.com.

Why would I spend time writing articles for fairly small newsletters? For the exposure—to gain additional credibility—to position myself as an expert in my field.

Of course, at the bottom of each of these articles appears my bio: “Patricia Fry is the executive director of SPAWN (Small Publishers, Artists and Writers Network) www.spawn.org. She has been pursuing her publishing dream for over 35 years and has 29 books to her credit. Check out her array of books at http://www.matilijapress.com. Visit her informative blog at XXX.”

And

Patricia Fry is the executive director of SPAWN (Small Publishers, Artist and Writers Network) www.spawn.org. She is the author of 29 books, including The Right Way to Write, Publish and Sell Your Book, http://www.matilijapress.com/rightway.html. Visit her informative publishing blog often XXX

Do you promote yourself, your website, your books or your services by submitting your related articles or stories in appropriate magazines and newsletters? If not, you should be.

Book Proposal Workshop Starts January 5!
Don’t forget to sign up for my online Book Proposal Workshop to start January 5, 2010. And I’ll be teaching my Book Promotion Workshop starting January 12, 2010. Taking classes online is as easy as reading and submitting your homework via email at your leisure. Taking my courses is like working with me one-on-one on your particular project for a fraction of my usual fee.

Check out the courses I offer at
http://www.matilijapress.com/courses.htm. Be sure to read “How does an online course work?”

You probably think you know all there is about your book. You wrote it, after all. You edited it numerous times and then you worked with an editor to fine tune it. You’ve heard/read me say that you (the author) are the best one to promote your book because you care more about it than anyone else in the world. And you, presumably, know more about it.

But you can still learn more about your book from your readers. Listen and they will tell you what they like and dislike about your book, how the story or information affected them, whether the material is useful and so forth. You will also learn from readers who your actual target audience is.

You might think it is young adult readers, when older women are actually devouring your story. You might have written your self-help book to help people break bad habits and later discover that your audience actually comprises their spouses, caregivers, friends, coworkers…

How do you discover these surprising truths about your book? By mingling with your readers. Don’t stay at home with your promotional to-do list and continually promote your book to the same demographic. Especially if sales are weak, it does little good to aim your sales pitch in the same direction over and over again.

Get out and meet your readers at book signings, related club and organization events, at conferences and book festivals. Set up speaking engagements in cities locally or nationwide.

You can meet your readers online, too. Participate in forums on the topic or genre of your book, and spend more time listening than speaking. Get active in websites related to your topic/genre.

Create an interactive aspect to your website so people can respond to your questions or share their impressions of your book.

You’ve heard me suggest these things before, haven’t you? This is something you should be doing throughout the process of promoting your book. But, today I am asking you to use these opportunities to truly get to know your audience.

Based on the comments from your readers, you may decide to shift your focus from one target audience to another. If you used digital printing technology or created an ebook, it’s relatively easy to make changes to your book periodically. You can update your book to include things your readers have asked for, correct mistakes they have found or give your novel a more interesting ending, for example.

I’ve known authors who bypassed the opportunity to hire an editor and who paid for it through really negative reviews. Some authors are wonderful storytellers, but truly awful writers.

Do yourself a favor and listen to your readers, even if it becomes a little painful. If your goal is to produce a meaningful, useful and/or interesting book, then you might actually want to have honest friends and colleagues read your manuscript before publication. Put away your ego and pay attention to what they tell you.

And, once your book is published, rely on your readers again—to tell you the best way to promote it.

For more about writing, publishing and promoting your book, read my book, The Right Way to Write, Publish and Sell Your Book. My readers rave about this book. You can read some of the testimonials at my website—look along the left side of the book page: http://www.matilijapress.com/rightway.html

You still have a week to sign up for Patricia Fry’s online Book Proposal Course. Learn more here:
http://www.matilijapress.com/course_bookproposal.htm

Yesterday, we talked about our emotions upon holding our completed book in our hands for the first time and the letdown that sometimes follows. Today, I’d like to discuss what comes next.
That’s promotion, of course.

But where does one start the process of promoting his/her brand new book? Here’s what I suggest:

• Set up a merchant account system, a paypal account or some other reasonable method of accepting payment for books sold. (This is assuming that you have done the right thing and have a well-established website designed to promote your book.)

• Send announcements to your entire mailing list—snail mail and email. (If you’ve been working on your mailing list while you’ve been writing your book, you may have hundreds of names by now.)

• Place announcements in all of the newsletters and at websites where you can publish such things for free or a minimal fee. This would include your association newsletters (SPAWN members can place announcements in SPAWNews for free), publications related to your genre/topic, your church bulletin, your alumni newsletter and so forth.

• Send well-written, pertinent, news-based press releases to all of your local newspapers and those in your former home-towns. Follow up to make sure you get some coverage.

• Solicit book reviews in several appropriate newsletters and magazines—those related to your genre/topic. (If you’ve done your homework, you’ve already researched these.)

• Contact appropriate bloggers and ask for an interview or ask if you can be their guest columnist for one post. (Presumably, you have already discovered key bloggers in your topic/genre and have made contact with them.)

• Write articles or submit some of your stories to appropriate publications. Again, you should have been doing this all along as a means of establishing your credibility in your field or becoming known in your genre. Now is the time to step it up.

• Begin contacting newspaper/magazine columnists in your topic nationwide and ask for an interview or a book review. If only a small percentage of newspapers feature you and/or your book in a column, your reach could extend into the hundreds of thousands of readers.

• Get your book on amazon.com and, perhaps, barnesandnoble.com, and other online bookstores.

• Visit independent bookstores in your area. Arrange for book signings and ask if they will carry your book in their store on consignment.

• Arrange to be interviewed on local or national radio programs.

• Set up some speaking engagements locally.

• Visit appropriate non-bookstores such as, gift shops, stationery stores, pet stores, art galleries, gyms, motorcycle shops, pharmacies, kitchen stores, nurseries, etc. You might have a better chance of having your books accepted if you arrange for your own point-of-purchase display.

Now this ought to keep you busy for quite a long time. If you stick with it, continue researching new opportunities and consistently follow through, you should ultimately sell numbers of books.

Disclaimer: Those of you with self-published books (you established your own publishing company) will realize the greatest benefit from these promotional activities. If your book was produced by a pay-to-publish service, you can pursue some of these activities, but you will discover some restrictions along the way because you don’t own the ISBN, because your “publisher” won’t always comply with your request for a shipment of books, and because it may not be cost effective for you to make an agreement with a bookseller, for example.

Learn more about how to pursue each of these activities in The Right Way to Write, Publish and Sell Your Book. You’ll also find numerous other promotional ideas. http://www.matilijapress.com/rightway.html

Sign up today for Patricia Fry’s next online Book Promotion Workshop to start January 12, 2010.
http://www.matilijapress.com/course_bookpromotion.htm

By the way, thank you to those who have been ordering The Right Way to Write, Publish and Sell Your Book through Amazon.com. They just placed a large order for the book today. But the best way to order it is through Matilija Press at
http://www.matilijapress.com/rightway.html