Well, hopefully you will all be happy to know that Borders finally paid me. I waited impatiently for 153 days for payment of $371.07. That\u2019s 5 months or 22 weeks. And it seems quite ridiculous that I had to wait that long for payment—in fact, scandalous, don’t you think?<\/p>\n
For those of you who don’t remember, I did a book signing at a Borders in Nashville on March 31 of this year. I had sent 25 copies of my book, The Right Way to Write, Publish and Sell Your Book<\/em>, ahead to the store and several copies had been sold before I arrived for the signing. That night, around 20 \u2013 30 people showed up and we sold several more copies. The store manager asked if I had any additional books to leave with him. I had 6 left from a workshop in Atlanta and he took them all. I sent an invoice for 31 books April 6. That’s when the “fun” began. <\/p>\n After dozens of calls and emails, letters and faxes; after being, many times, completely ignored; after raising my voice in frustration; after many promises and obvious lies, finally, yesterday, I received payment. <\/p>\n Folks, I’d like to issue you a warning about doing business with Borders. No one seemed willing to explain to me what happened. I don’t know if the store manager was at fault or if he was a victim of policies from headquarters. Since I don’t know, I have to warn you against doing any kind of significant business with Borders. If you are seeking a place to do a book signing, consider Barnes and Noble, a library, a church, a board room at a local company, someone’s home, a friendly little independent bookstore—anyplace other than a Borders. I suspect that they are having some financial problems. Or are they just disorganized? Either way, you don’t want to be caught in the middle of their problems when your money is at stake.<\/p>\n Google Alerts<\/strong> Use key words related to your book topic or genre and news of related stories and blogs will come to your email box daily. This is a good way to find out about bloggers who are reviewing books like yours, interviewing authors or other experts and discussing issues you write about. It’s a good way to learn more about what’s going on in your genre or topic and to find ways to get involved, thus to promote your book to wider audiences.<\/p>\n Just yesterday, my Google Alerts notified me of 3 blog sites where they interview authors. I contacted all of them about interviewing me. I responded to one set of interview questions already. I’ll let you know when and where it is posted.<\/p>\n My Speech for the WOW Writers’ Conference in Phoenix<\/strong>
\nDo you subscribe to Google Alerts? If you are promoting a book, this is an excellent way to keep your finger on the pulse of your particular industry. Go to
\n http:\/\/www.google.com\/alerts<\/a> <\/p>\n
\nI’m down to note cards for my Phoenix Wizards of Words speech. That means that I have a pretty good handle on the speech and can start practicing it using note cards instead of the entire written speech. I don’t know how you rehearse speeches and presentations, but I rehearse while walking every day. I also go over the speech in my head before I go to sleep at night. I don’t like canned speeches. But I do like to be quite familiar with the topics I want to cover, the order of the presentation and the points I want to make. Thus, my goal is to become so familiar with the material that I can present it in a natural, off-the-cuff way. <\/p>\n