Do you ever feel as though you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve been up and down every promotional street, avenue and pathway in every world city and you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve come to that dreaded dead end? You wonder \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Where do I go from here?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d You feel as though you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve tapped into every possible promotional opportunity available for your particular book and now you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re stuck. You\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve run out of ideas and resources. You don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know where to turn or how to proceed. STOP! Don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t start burning books or throwing your computer out the window. Take a break. Breathe… Breathe… Breathe…<\/p>\n
There, now don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t you feel better? <\/p>\n
We all hit that brick wall of hopelessness once in a while. Sometimes it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s just a matter of exhaustion and stress. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s nothing more than a strong signal that it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s 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\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 You\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll come back to your office feeling a bit less frazzled and ready to resume the task of book promotion.<\/p>\n
I didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t hit the wall, yesterday, but I was beginning to feel as though I was headed in that direction. It seemed as if I was running out of ideas for promoting my new book, The Right Way to Write, Publish and Sell Your Book<\/em>. Now, already having several writing\/publishing-related books under my belt, I pretty much know my way around the promotional block when it comes to this topic. I contacted my extensive mailing list. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve sent review copies to those who typically review books of this type. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve signed with Quality Books, have entered my book into the Amazon Advantage program and Barnes and Noble is considering my book for inclusion in their program. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve submitted numerous articles to dozens of writing\/publishing-related magazines and newsletters to bring attention to this book. I contribute to my blog every few days and I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m noticing that it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s showing up fairly often at Google. And I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m in the process of setting up workshops. I have one coming up in Ventura in February\/March. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m flying to Honolulu to participate in a Pen Women\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s writer\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s conference in April. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll have my books in the SPAWN booth at the L.A Book Festival. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m also working on getting gigs in VA, FL, TX, OK and AZ this year and probably MO. That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a lot, but is it enough? What more can I do, I wondered? And I put on my thinking cap.<\/p>\n I thought about all of the authors I meet who have no idea where to start when it comes to promoting their books. Most of us, when we enter into this field, believe in the concept: “Write it and they will come.” We also 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. This is why I wrote, The Right Way to Write, Publish and Sell Your Book<\/em>. And this is why I urge hopeful authors to read it BEFORE putting pen to paper.<\/p>\n Yes, I know, I started out talking promotion. No, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m not off track\u00e2\u20ac\u201dpromotion should be one of a hopeful author\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s first considerations when he\/she feels that inkling to write a book for publication. Build promotion into your book. Create a following before you begin to write the book. Have a solid promotional plan in place before you ever start writing. Then when you hit the wall\u00e2\u20ac\u201dfeel as though you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve run dry of promotional ideas–it won\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t be nearly as hard to pick yourself up and move forward. <\/p>\n Here\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s what I did this week to jumpstart my slightly diminishing promotional energy: I was surprised by the number of newsletters I found. I printed out several of them and I subscribed to some of them. How did I find them? I started by searching for a directory of newsletters for writers and authors. I found a couple. I also found resource lists on major sites that listed magazines and newsletters that I didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know about. Then I did something that I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t think most of us do very often. I went to the back pages that came up in a Google search. After viewing the first 2 or 3 pages, I clicked on page 10, page 16, page 23. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a whole new world back there\u00e2\u20ac\u201da valuable new world for someone who is promoting a book.<\/p>\n I also like to occasionally use search engines other than Google for a fresh look at what\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s out there in cyberspace. I love the SPAWN MetaSearch (in the member area of the SPAWN Web site). Yahoo has a pretty good search system and there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s AltaVista.com. <\/p>\n My little visit into the back pages of Google and to some of the other search engines yesterday has given me a huge new load of resources through which to promote The Right Way to Write, Publish and Sell Your Book<\/em> and my other writing\/publishing-related books.<\/p>\n Another thing that I do when I feel the promotional well starting to dip near the panic level is to open my promotional file. As an author, you do have a promotional file, don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t you\u00e2\u20ac\u201da folder that contains every book promotion idea you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve ever had? Maybe now is the time to build a Web site 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.<\/p>\n 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\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s 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.<\/p>\n If you’re running out of promotionl ideas, be sure to read my new book, The Right Way to Write, Publish and Sell Your Book <\/em> http:\/\/www.matilijapress.com\/rightway.html <\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Do you ever feel as though you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve been up and down every promotional street, avenue and pathway in every world city and you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve come to that dreaded dead end? You wonder \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Where do I go from here?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d You feel as though you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve tapped into every possible promotional opportunity available for your particular book and now […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[5],"tags":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t
\nI contacted a writer friend and asked her to read my book, write a couple of reviews and submit them to a list of magazines and newsletters. (She\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll get the writer\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s credit and fee.) In the meantime, I did the research. I located some known and some obscure writing\/publishing magazines and newsletters that publish submitted reviews (as opposed to doing the review in-house). <\/p>\n