Writing and Publishing News from

December 4, 2011

Make Some Money Writing for Magazines

Filed under: Article-Writing,Writing — Patricia @ 6:27 am

Yesterday I taught a class at our local college on article-writing. I had nine students, who were all eager to start writing about things they know and are passionate about and various causes and issues that are meaningful to them. Some of these writers will go on to establish careers as a freelance article writer (in fact one was already doing a lot of article work) and others will never quite get a foothold in this profession.

What is the difference between those who will establish an article-writing business and those who will move on to something else? Those who have the best chance of developing a full or part-time career in this business will do the following:

1: They’ll play by the rules. In other words, they will study each magazine’s editorial guidelines and follow professional protocol when submitting their query letters and/or manuscripts.

2: Once they have gotten their feet wet by writing about what they know and what they’re passionate about, they’ll start pursuing other article ideas and seeking other venues.

3: They’ll keep up with what’s going on in the world of freelance writing. They will subscribe to a few appropriate magazines/newsletters and study them. They’ll read books on the topic of submitting articles.

4: They’ll mingle with other writers. I recommend that some of them join writers’ groups. A few of them might get a lot out of participating in critique groups. If they join SPAWN, they’ll have access to a great newsletter that is generally brimming with information and leads for article-writers. It’s $65/year to belong to SPAWN. http://www.spawn.org

5: They’ll spend nearly as much time learning how to come up with article ideas and new twists on old ideas as they do honing their writing skills.

6: They’ll keep their audience in mind while formulating and writing each article.

7: They’ll pay attention to the message and purpose of each magazine and conform.

If you have an interest in writing articles for the many paying magazines and ezines, sign up for my on-demand, online article-writing course today. http://www.matilijapress.com/course_magarticles.htm

Learn more about me and me work here:
http://www.matilijapress.com
http://www.patriciafry.com

December 3, 2011

Authors, Take Your Book to a Holiday Party

Filed under: Book Promotion — Patricia @ 4:57 am

We’re coming upon the most active entertaining season of the year. Families gather, neighbors welcome neighbors into their homes, friends and coworkers join together in celebration. Why not throw a party to promote your book?

Invite guests in for some traditional holiday goodies—cookies, home-baked breads and warm spiced cider. Or ask friends or colleagues to throw a party in their homes. Entertain guests by demonstrating some of the meals in your cookbook, spinning yarns about the good-old-days described in your memoir or sharing tips from your book on family budgeting, for example.

Many books are conducive to this type of promotional activity—you just may have to get creative when planning the home-party entertainment. Illustrate stories from your book of cat adventures or your travels to Turkey using a slide show of photographs. A slide show might also enhance your presentation about going green, giving your house more curb appeal, pet photography tips or the plight of the wild horses in America.

Involve guests in your program. This would work for books featuring natural beauty secrets, dog grooming techniques, journal-keeping for emotional health, do-it-yourself acupressure and so forth.

If you have a novel, bring props and scripts and ask guests to help you act out parts of your story.

What are some of the elements that will make your event a success?

• It should be fun and/or informative.

• Guests must feel as though they benefit from your presentation—that they learned something of value, their life is better because of what they learned or they simply enjoyed the evening.

• Offer a discount on your book or give a bonus item to those who purchase the book that evening.

If you have a book to promote, spend some time this week developing a presentation to give in a home-party situation. Just as you did when writing your book, keep your potential audience in mind. Rather than focusing on how many books you can sell, consider what the guests want/need that you can provide. Here are some tips that should help you in preparing your presentation.
• Be well prepared.

• Make it interesting.

• Keep it fairly brief—you want to give enough that your audience feels fulfilled, while also leaving them wanting just a little bit more.

• Involve your audience wherever possible.

• Change things up throughout your talk. In other words, tell a story, give some facts, throw in a quote and ask for audience participation a couple of times. Anecdotes are always interesting and can break up a mundane talk.

• Before launching out to speak in public or present quaint home party entertainment, practice in front of people you know. Join a Toastmasters club. Get involved in a storytelling group.

While your purpose is to sell books, this should not be evident to your audience. They should not get the idea that you are there primarily to sell them a book. Instead, they should feel as though you are interested in their well-being and that you want them to enjoy the evening. At some point, however, you’ll want to announce (or have your host announce) that autographed copies of the book are for sale throughout the evening.

How many books can you sell in an evening at a home party? If guests are invited in accordance with their interest in your topic/genre, you could potentially one or more copies to 50 or 60 percent of them. So if there are 13 guests, and you sell one or two copies to 8 of them, that might add up to a dozen books. That’s $220 for a $20 book. A nice evening’s work.

I’m off to teach an article-writing class at the local college this morning. I’m looking forward to spending a few hours with writers. If you want to learn how to establish a freelance article-writing business or to promote your book through articles, sign up for my on-demand, online article-writing course. Learn more about it here: http://www.matilijapress.com/course_magarticles.htm

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

December 2, 2011

Break Through Your Writer’s Resistance

Filed under: Writing — Patricia @ 6:35 am

I broke the hundred mark this week. I now have 101 followers at Twitter. Welcome each and every one of you.

I guess that’s something to celebrate. I do appreciate all of you who read my tweets and are interested, perhaps, in what I have to say in my daily blog about writing, publishing, book promotion and other aspects of my world. And I’m always up for meeting other authors. If I can help you, through this blog, all the better.

That’s what I use my Twitter account for—to let folks know about my blog topic for the day and to lead them to my blog site.

I even follow others occasionally at Twitter. It’s always an adventure to learn about some of the people who hang out at Twitter. While some are serious writers and authors who want to connect with other writers and authors, there are also those to whom you are tempted to say, “Get a life!” I mean, where are they from? What are they thinking? Oh I know, they are not thinking people—just reactive people out to see what sort of shock value they can generate. It’s a crazy world, getting crazier by the minute. Would you agree?

In fact, some of the people I’ve met over the years or come in contact with via the Internet who cannot find a publisher for their books or homes for their articles/stories are generally writing from their own narrowly focused opinion or mindset. Some of them write off-the-wall stuff designed to change minds; make a prickly, unpopular point; create chaotic thinking; cause rather than resolve a problem.

It has been my experience that some writers and hopeful authors who claim they want to be published, truly want, more than anything, to be heard. It isn’t the writing they are in love with, it is the idea of circulating their views publicly.

I can tell the difference between someone who is passionate about their writing and someone who is interested in a cause. The true writer is willing to do what it takes to get published, even if it means rewriting their article/book manuscript—writing on a topic that is more appropriate for the magazines or publishers they want to break into. Someone who wants to establish a career as a writer is willing to learn the finer points of submitting articles/stories or preparing a book manuscript for publication. This writer will bend and change in order to conform to the standards of the industry.

He or she will read books and articles on the subject, take classes and apply what they learn in order to move their careers forward or to meet their publishing goals.

If your writing career or publishing dreams seem to be stuck in the mud, maybe it is because you are being inflexible. Perhaps you are not willing to conform, your writing skills need serious improvement or your topic is too narrowly focused. If you are not realizing the success you desire, take a step back. Review some of the comments members of your critique group have shared. Ponder the advice you’ve received from professionals. Go back over the notes written on the rejection letters you’ve received. And while you’re at it, take a look at some of the articles, blog posts and books you’ve accumulated. Consider them from a more open-minded point of view.

I have a friend who, when I met her, was interested in writing, but didn’t know how to get started. She bought some of my books and I sort of mentored her from afar (via email). Finally, she drummed up the courage to write an article about her precious little dog that she lost to cancer and the ordeal they went through. She followed that one up with a couple of other articles pretty much all on the same topic. It didn’t take long, however, for her to run out of outlets for her narrow topic. And I convinced her to step outside that box and try writing articles related to her favorite subject—animals—only with much wider appeal. She spent the next several years writing a variety of articles on a wide variety of topics for pet magazines, ezines, websites.

Now my esteemed protégée is writing on all types of topics for a lot of different magazines. She has so many lines in the water that it is hard to imagine how timid she was at first to even put one toe in.

I’d love to hear from those of you who feel you may have been stuck at some point in your careers—or maybe you are now—and what you did or plan to do about it.

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

December 1, 2011

Publicity Potpourri

Filed under: Book Promotion — Patricia @ 5:22 am

We’ve had a lot of publicity these past few weeks. I was interviewed by Paula Krapf for Penny Sansevieri’s A Marketing Expert Publishing Insiders program. Check it out at http://www.blogtalk.com/thepublishinginsiders

Read more about the interview at http://networkedblogs.com/qObJN

Freelance Writers Report ran my piece, “Does Anyone Really Want to Read Your Book?” And my article on how to generate news on behalf of your book appeared this month in Brian Jud’s Book Marketing Matters.

If you subscribe to these publications as well as Book Promotion Newsletter, Publishing Basics, IBPA Independent, Advanced Christian Authors, Writing for Dollars, Writer’s Journal, etc. and some of your writers’ group newsletters (Redwood Writers, Willamette Writers, Southwest Sage, OC Writers, SLO Writers, SPAWNews, Cisco (Texas) Writers, Virginia Writers and so forth), you probably see my articles pop up quite often. If you don’t see my articles in the publishing/book promotion-related publications you read, let me know about publication and I’ll contact them about submitting something.

You can also contact me about the type of articles—the topics—you would like me to cover in my blog and my articles.

Are you submitting articles regularly on the topic of your nonfiction book? If not, you’re missing out on an opportunity to get great exposure, to add to your credibility in your field and, potentially, to sell more books.

I’m teaching a class at the community college in Ventura, CA Saturday on article-writing. There’s still time to sign up:
http://www.communityed.venturacollege.edu

If you can’t make it, but you’d like to learn the process of submitting articles for book promotion or for profit, sign up for my on-demand, online article-writing course.
http://www.matilijapress.com/course_magarticles.htm

And if you have a book to promote, do yourself a favor and order a copy of my latest book, Promote Your Book, Over 250 Proven, Low-Cost Tips and Techniques for the Enterprising Author. http://amzn.to/oe56Ia If you’re serious about learning how to sell more books, you will not be disappointed. And this is true whether your book is nonfiction or fiction. In fact, pretty close to all of the ideas in this book are suited to fiction as well as nonfiction authors. I know that those of you who write fiction sometimes have trouble developing and maintaining a marketing mindset. That’s why I took pains to give you specific instructions on how to use some of these ideas throughout the book. In fact, there are at least 120 tips and suggestions specifically for you fiction writers in this book. Yes, I went through and counted them recently when an author of fiction told me the book was for nonfiction authors.

Promote Your Book, Over 250 Proven, Low-Cost Tips and Techniques for the Enterprising Author. For those of you who write fiction, nonfiction and even children’s books. Order your copy today.

November 30, 2011

Here’s Serious Help With Book Promotion

Filed under: Uncategorized — Patricia @ 5:02 am

Are you promoting a book? Have you just about come to the end of your promotional idea rope? Maybe it is time to hire a publicist to help renew the excitement about your book.

This is not necessarily a recommendation. Publicists can be expensive. Some of them aren’t worth the money you spend. On the other hand, a good publicist can make a huge difference in the sales of a good book. But which one should you choose?

As you would when contemplating hiring anyone, learn something about the individual and ask for and study references. Also, make sure that he or she has worked successfully with books in your genre or on your topic in the past.

Here is a website that lists book publicists: http://www.bookmarket.com/bookpublicists.t.htm

Do-It-Yourself Promotion—With Help
This month I interviewed the owner of a brand new company for the SPAWN Market Update featuring a new concept in book promotion. It is do-it-yourself promotion. They charge as little as $49/month. Check it out here: http://www.youdopr.com

Note: Owner, Dan Smith, is offering 5 SPAWN members membership for FREE. The first 5 SPAWN members who contact Dan at admin@youdopr.com gets the membership deal. But you have to be a SPAWN member. So this might be a good time for you to sign up. http://www.spawn.org

SPAWN at Los Angeles Times Festival of Books
Also keep in mind that SPAWN will be at the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books in April and we’re taking a handful of SPAWN members with us. If you have a book to sell and you want GREAT exposure, subscribe to our free enewsletter, SPAWNews and watch for information and instructions for making reservations. http://www.spawn.org

NEW Book on Low-Cost Book Promotion
In the meantime, you’ll find over 250 low and no-cost book promotion activities in my latest book, Promote Your Book, Over 250 Proven, Low-Cost Tips and Techniques for the Enterprising Author. http://www.matilijapress.com/PromoteYourBook.html

Last Chance—Article-Writing Class
My article-writing class is filling fast. If you want to attend this Saturday (December 3, 2011) at Ventura College in Ventura, CA, sign up here: http://www.communityed.venturacollege.edu I’m going to tell you how to make money and/or promote your nonfiction book through magazine/ezine articles.

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

November 29, 2011

Make Your Writing Shine Even More Brightly

Filed under: Writing — Patricia @ 5:19 am

What techniques do you use when writing your blog, an article, a chapter in your book or even an email? Over the years, I’ve noticed that I’ve created some interesting and workable methods for remembering what I want to write, for self-editing and for enhancing an article or blog post that seems to be lacking something.

For the most part, these techniques are automatic—I apply them without much thought. Recently, however, I began to notice some of the habits I’ve adopted over the years.

One thing I do, for example, is to jot notes ahead of the writing I am doing. If a thought occurs to me while I’m typing and it’s something I want to be sure to include in my email, blog or article, I will space down and make a note so that I will remember to write on that issue or thought before completing the piece. Otherwise, I tend to forget the bit of wisdom or the comment or other addition I thought was important to add.

I will sometimes research a topic while in the middle of an article or even an email. Did you know that you can open two of your Internet windows at once? So you can be doing research while writing an email. If I’m responding to an email from a client and I want to add a bit of information I don’t have at my fingertips—a statistic or the name of a young adult fantasy publisher, for example—I can open another Yahoo window, find the information and then go back to my email and insert it. But most of you probably know this.

I write longer or more sensitive emails off-line—in my word processing program rather than directly in an email. When someone sends me interview questions, I write my answers off-line, as well.

I have developed the habit of re-reading everything before I click “send.” I even read personal emails before sending. This is an excellent habit to adopt. I used to think I was pretty good at creating good copy the first time around. Sure, I always double/triple-checked articles or my blog post before sending. But I was pretty quick to send emails without checking them. When I started looking them over more closely, I discovered that, in my haste, I sometimes typed the wrong words. My email might read, “I sue enjoyed our lunch together last week,” instead of “I sure enjoyed our lunch together last week.” I might unknowingly type “The food was band and the was service poor,” instead of “The food was bland and the service was poor.”

I’m positive that most of you make similar (and worse) mistakes as you are hurrying to complete an email. I know this because I receive so many emails with small and horrendous errors.

I’d like to hear about some of the habits you’ve developed in order to create more mistake-free emails, articles and such. And I hope that those of you who still find serious mistakes in your writings at some point down the road, will consider spending a little more time proofing what you write.

If you’re ready to have your article or book manuscript edited, please contact me for an estimate. Learn more about my work and my services here: http://www.patriciafry.com

Remember, I’m teaching a class on article-writing this Saturday (December 3, 2011) at the Ventura College in Ventura, CA. There’s still time to sign up. http://www.communityed.venturacollege.edu

November 28, 2011

How to Prepare for an Author Interview

Filed under: Book Promotion — Patricia @ 5:08 am

Are you ever invited to participate in interviews related to the theme of your book? I have done dozens of interviews over the years and a number of them recently with regard to my latest book, Promote Your Book. In fact, my interviews are posted in blogs and at websites throughout the Internet.

Tomorrow, I’ll be interviewed by Penny Sansevieri of A Marketing Expert. I’ll let you know where and when it will appear.

One thing I always try to do when I agree to an interview, is to send them a list of possible topics and questions. Most interviewees appreciate the assistance and it gives you the opportunity to appropriately prepare.

It is always helpful to ask for their list of questions ahead of time, too. When I get a list of questions from an interviewer, I typically go through my book and tag pages related to the questions so I can flip to the statistics and material I might need in order to speak on the topic.

I love doing interviews—in particular, email interviews. Many bloggers post interviews at their sites. They send the interviewee the questions. You can think before answering and you can even respond at your leisure.

The most unusual interview I ever did was the time I was responsible for the whole show—there was no interviewer. And I didn’t know this until minutes before the interview would take place. Here’s how that happened.

I agreed to a telephone interview. The day before, I emailed the interviewee to check in and ask how I should prepare. They emailed me back on the day of the interview saying that they would call and introduce me and then I would take it from there. What? No one would ask me questions? It was up to me to fill an hour of air time on my own? This turned out to be a seminar rather than an interview. I had no idea until, as I said, minutes before the call. I quickly crammed, made notes, placed tabs throughout my book and that’s as ready as I had time to become.

As it turned out, all went well. I was sweating it, but I made it through. Had to pat myself on the back when it was over. It’s not every author who could turn that bag of lemons into an enjoyable pitcher of sweet lemonade.

Article-Writing Class at Ventura College
Don’t forget, if you live anywhere near Ventura County and you’d like to know more about article-writing for profit, fun or book promotion, sign up for my class. It’s Saturday, December 3, 2011 at 9 to noon at the Ventura College. http://www.communityed.venturacollege.edu

November 27, 2011

Patricia Fry to Teach Article-Writing Workshop

Filed under: Announcements — Patricia @ 5:32 am

Next Saturday (December 3, 2011) I’m teaching a three hour workshop on article-writing. Writers are coming to the Ventura College to learn how to make money writing for magazines and online sites. While some students may want to earn a living writing articles (like I did for several years) or simply supplement their income, others may want to use article submissions to promote their books.

The process is the same. Basically, you want to submit appropriate article ideas to specific publications or epublications according to their guidelines and, when invited to do so, write an article to conform to their standards. Some editors want to see a query letter first. Others will take a look at your completed manuscript. The key to success as an article-writer is compliance. And in order to comply, you must understand the rules/policies/standards of each publication before submitting. You should also understand how to devise a query letter and know how to write a viable article.

I will be teaching all of the particulars of the article-writing business while offering up many tips and techniques you won’t find in the typical book on the topic.

If you live in the Ventura County area and want to add article-writing to your resume or to your array of book promotional activities, sign up for my class today. http://www.communityed.venturacollege.edu

I have quite a few articles at my site on article-writing. Check them out here:
http://www.matilijapress.com Click on “articles.”

Order my book, A Writer’s Guide to Article-Writing.
http://www.matilijapress.com/writingpage.html

And if you have a book to promote, my latest book is waiting patiently at Amazon.com for you to order either the print or Kindle version. Promote Your Book, Over 250 Proven, Low-Cost Tips and Techniques for the Enterprising Author http://amzn.to/oe56Ia

November 26, 2011

Sell More Books NOW!

Filed under: Book Promotion — Patricia @ 6:05 am

As authors, we should consciously shake up our comfort zone more than occasionally. When you come out with a new book, you might pour a lot of energy and time into a variety of promotional activities. If you were enterprising and diligent in developing a marketing plan before your book came out, no doubt you’ve been quite busy promoting it. You’ve probably had to stretch some in order to pursue some of the activities in your plan.

But if you’re like most authors, you have become relaxed in your promotional routine and rarely step outside of your comfort zone to promote your book, anymore. Because of this, your book sales have probably leveled off (or declined) since it first came out. You may wonder, is this what you can expect for evermore? Not necessarily. A leveling off or decline in sales means that you need to do more to get necessary exposure that leads to sales.

If you did your homework and produced a viable product—a book that is actually wanted/needed by a large segment of people or a solid niche group—then you should be able to keep sales figures up. But this won’t happen if you stop reaching out to your audience—if you slack off on your promotional efforts.

You have a website, post to your blog site regularly, send out a newsletter, participate in an annual book festival, do an occasional reading and place announcements on FaceBook and Twitter a few times a month. But there is so much more that you can do.

In this blog, as well as in some of my books and articles, I offer book promotion ideas. I explain the reason why you must keep promoting. I try to help you develop a mindset so you will understand the necessity of continuous book promotion. And my most valuable resource to date is my latest book, Promote Your Book, Over 250 Proven, Low-Cost Tips and Techniques for the Enterprising Author. Do yourself a huge favor this long weekend and pursue the following:

• Study back posts here at this blog site related to book promotion.
• Read some of my articles on book promotion at my website.
• Order my book today and read it from cover to cover.

http://www.matilijapress.com

November 25, 2011

Don’t Become Married to Unrealistic Expectations

Filed under: Book Promotion — Patricia @ 6:00 am

Are you hampering your book’s success because of your unrealistic expectations? I know authors who have gotten it in their heads that they must land a contract with a particular publisher or they want to sell books through a specific outlet or using a certain method. Anything else is unacceptable, in their minds.

It’s good to be strongly motivated and to have a clear idea about what you want. But this sort of attitude can actually block your success. When you become too narrowly focused and obsessed, you are unable to see beyond your single expectation and you often miss wonderful opportunities to experience the success you desire.

Do you even notice the opportunities around you? Are you aware when a door opens and reveals a potential opportunity? As an example of having unrealistic expectations that are blocking your success, you dream of having your book published by RandomHouse. The editors there have indicated that they are not interested. Rather than shift into high gear seeking another publisher, you spend your time trying to figure out how to break into RandomHouse.

Maybe you have a book to promote and you have always envisioned it being reviewed by some of the top Amazon reviewers. However, your book isn’t quite suited to their typical lists, so they aren’t interested in reviewing it. Rather than moving on to some of the many, countless other review opportunities and pursuing some of the hundreds of other book promotion ideas, you stay stuck in your desires and allow your book to become dead in the water.

If you recognize yourself in these scenarios, use this Thanksgiving week to change your thinking—to open your mind and to rid yourself of those restricting unrealistic expectations that may be halting your forward motion toward success.

In the meantime, I want to thank you all for purchasing my book, Promote Your Book, from Amazon. The ranking is up for that book, which means sales are up. So while you are doing yourself and your book project a huge favor by purchasing and studying that book, I do appreciate your confidence in my offerings.

For those of you who haven’t placed an order for Promote Your Book, Over 250 Proven, Low-Cost Tips and Techniques for the Enterprising Author from Amazon (print or Kindle), go to: http://amzn.to/oe56Ia

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