Writing and Publishing News

Yesterday, we talked about how to make sure your book is one that reviewers would want to review. Today, let’s consider reviews for books that are already written:

3: Make the most of what you have. Okay, your book is a done deal. How can you maximize your book review options? Get personal with your book. Dissect it and jot down what you find. For example, what city is the story set in? Pursue reviews in regional magazines in that area. Do you have a section in your budgeting book for teaching children money-awareness? Parenting magazines might be a good secondary review option for this book. Is your book clean and honorable? Consider reviews in religious magazines. Maybe your novel has a séance scene. This may provide an opportunity for a review in a metaphysical or New Age publication.

4: Locate appropriate publications and websites. You probably have magazines in your genre or topic on your own book shelves. Start there. Scan magazines at your local library and bookstores. Study Writer’s Market to find additional magazines related to your book’s theme. Do a Google search to locate even more magazines and newsletters. Here’s a link to one newsletter directory. http://www.newsletteraccess.com

Likewise, there are hundreds of online review sites. Seek out those related to the theme/genre of your book. Here is an online review directory to get you started: http://www.acqweb.org/bookrev.html

You’ll find additional book review directories on the resources list at http://www.matilijapress.com and also in my latest book: “Promote Your Book, Over 250 Proven, Low-Cost Tips and Techniques for the Enterprising Author.” This book is available at Amazon.com and most other online and downtown bookstores. Or order it and many other books for authors at: http://www.matilijapress.com

5: Contact appropriate reviewers with your review package. I suggest sending a query/introduction letter or email asking if you can submit your book to them for review. Include some quality promo material related to your book—in particular, a color cover image. Some magazine websites post book review submission guidelines. Adhere to them.

If you are invited to send the book, package it carefully along with your brochure, promo postcard, business cards and a cover letter. In the letter, remind the book reviewer that they requested the book for review. Be sure that your contact information is included.

Most online review sites offer a submissions page. Follow the instructions there.

6: Keep accurate records. Log every review package and book that goes out—when, to whom and be sure to log the contact information.

After two or three weeks, if you have not heard from a reviewer who requested your book, contact him/her and ask if they received the book and when they have it scheduled for review.

7: Express your gratitude. Once the review has been posted, send a thank you note to the reviewer.

Unless your book is seriously obscure, you should be able to land book reviews in dozens of publications. And the book doesn’t have to be hot off the presses. Maybe you neglected to solicit book reviews when the book was fresh. Don’t let that stop you from trying to get some publicity now. Go ahead and contact appropriate book reviewers. If it is a worthwhile book, most of them will say, yes.

How much will this cost you? Absolutely nothing! It is a rare reviewer that will charge for a book review in a magazine or newsletter. Sure, there are book review site where they charge. There are publications devoted to book reviews that charge. But, magazines and newsletters that include a book review section, rarely charge for a book review. They offer them as a service to their audience.

What are some of the excuses that keep authors from succeeding? Here are a few I’ve heard over the years and some I continue to hear.

1: “I don’t need to develop a marketing plan because this book will sell itself.” Promotion is about getting exposure, having your book become known, putting it before your audience… And if you don’t do that, no one will know about it, which means they certainly will not purchase it.

2: “I don’t feel like being around that many strangers.” An author told me this when I suggested a bookselling opportunity to him. It’s hard to sell books when there aren’t very many people around.

3: “You can’t sell books at book signings.” Of course, I’ve also heard, “Publishers don’t buy books from first time authors,” “You have to have an agent in order to get a publishing contract,” and other fallacies. The truth is, you can’t sell books at signings if you don’t attend them. Plus, sales aren’t the only thing you should consider when you are promoting a book. What else is there? Exposure, exposure, exposure!

4: “I don’t like getting up in front of a group.” I also hear, “I don’t want to mess with building a website,” “I hate approaching people to review my book, give me testimonials, publish my article, etc.” I tell these authors that personality sells books. In fact, personality is probably the most important factor in selling some books. An author who wants to sell books, should definitely become more proactive and more people oriented.

5: “I have publishers interested in my book so I don’t want to promote it.” I got this response after asking an author if she’d like to participate in a book festival. I think I convinced her that she could be selling some of the copies she has in her garage and making some money while continuing to wait for a publisher to commit to publishing her book. As a matter of fact, impressive sales might just tip the scale in her favor.

Authors who make these excuses—who prefer to stay within their comfort zone and out of the limelight—can probably expect to be one the over 78 percent of authors who fail every year.

Instead, I urge you to stop making excuses that interfere with your publishing goals. Educate yourself about the publishing industry and become proactive and assertive on behalf of your project.

Learn more about book promotion by reading my book, Promote Your Book, Over 250 Proven, Low-Cost Tips and Techniques for the Enterprising Author. If you still don’t quite “get” the world of publishing, purchase Publish Your Book, Proven Strategies and Resources for the Enterprising Author. They are both available at Amazon.com and most other online and downtown bookstores. You can also order it from my website: http:www.matilijapress.com

Write what you know. Isn’t that what we’re told? And it’s what I teach.

Yesterday, I spoke to a group of writers in Sacramento, California on freelance writing and I shared this bit of wisdom with them. In fact, I shared with the group of around 30 that I started our writing about horses and horse care because our family was involved with horses at the time and that was something I knew. I described my early article-writing success, which I attribute to the fact that I knew my topic, I knew my audience and I knew my market.

I went on to explain the importance of expanding your horizons, if you hope to establish a career as a freelance article writer. I talked about the steps I took in order to branch out and begin writing on many other topics.

One writer evidently missed my second point as he raised his hand and said that he doesn’t agree that you should only write about what you know. And neither do I. This should be a starting point—a way to break into the writing game. But, if you want to establish a career, you will need to write on many different topics—many of which will require research and interviews with experts.

There are so many writers emerging and way more approaches to writing than ever before. I urge you to order a copy of Publish Your Book, Proven Strategies and Resources for the Enterprising Author to help you make more of the right decisions on behalf of your project(s). Available at Amazon.com, Barnes&Noble.com and most other online and downtown bookstores.

Email is an odd phenomenon. No one who is over the age of 17 grew up with it. Many of us are still learning the ins and outs and idiosyncrasies of our email programs. While I receive and send a couple of hundred emails every day, I still don’t know all of the intricate aspects of my system. But I am learning more about how to handle incoming and outgoing email messages so that only the important ones are received and read and fewer of those are lost.

Think about this, do you often feel rejected because your email messages are ignored? Do you envision a black hole where your outgoing email is swallowed up, never to be read by human eyes? Well, that’s exactly what happens to thousands of valid email messages each year. And it’s mainly because of what we put (or neglect to put) in the Subject Line.

What’s the big deal about the subject line? Right up there with the “to” and the “from” the subject line is the most important aspect of any email. Why? This is what causes the recipient to open it or discard it. Think about how you determine which email messages to open and which to delete.

You will open email with information or words that are familiar to you or that relate to someone you know or something you’re involved in. I typically open email from people I know and those that look as though they relate to one of my books, writing, publishing or SPAWN. If the email lands in my bulk/spam box, it has an unfamiliar return address and the subject line reads, “I’m confused,” “Waiting to hear from you,” “Need information” or another generic phrase, I may delete it. Occasionally, however, I follow my intuition and open one of these messages. Often, I’m glad that I did because it is from a potential client. But I wonder how many email messages I delete every year just because it doesn’t appear to be legitimate.

Folks, think before you click “send.” If you want your email to be read and, especially if you want a response, pay attention to what is in your subject line. Maybe you have a question about our networking organization, SPAWN (Small Publishers, Artists and Writers Network). Or you need help with your book proposal. Instead of typing, “Question,” or “Interesting Proposal” in the subject line, type, “Question about SPAWN,” or “Need help with my book proposal.”

Likewise, let’s all pay closer attention to the email we delete. Just because it lands in our bulk/spam email box or just because it has an unfamiliar email address, don’t discard it.
Look at the name. Read the subject line. Is it familiar? Check closely before deleting because it may just be the response you are waiting for.

Sometimes the email you have been waiting for or have requested comes from an unfamiliar email address—one different than you expected.

We’re all guilty of deleting legitimate emails. But this will occur much less often if we will type reasonable, clear messages in the subject line and if we take a little more time to review the messages in our email and spam mail boxes.

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

Do you want a job in the publishing field—as an editor for a magazine, for example, or a publishing company; as a videographer; columnist in the area of beauty tips, cooking, style, pets, etc? Are you aware of the number and magnitude of job boards for writers and others on the fringes of the writing field—photographers, artists and art teachers, web developers, etc? I report on job boards for the SPAWN Market Update from time to time.

I also list publishers, reviewers, magazine, etc. databases, which I believe can be of great help to writers and authors. But you have to be willing to put in the time seeking out those sources that are right for you. This also means sorting through some dead links and leads that go nowhere.

Is it worth your time? If you want a job as an editor in Chicago, as an art director in San Francisco or you need a publisher for your children’s chapter book, you certainly could score if you are diligent and thorough in your research. In case you would like a new start within the world of publishing, here are some job boards you may want to check out. To find more, join SPAWN (Small Publishers, Artists and Writers Network) and read back issues of the SPAWN Market Update to locate thousands and thousands of opportunities you may not be aware of.

http://www.mediabistro.com/joblistings
http://www.gofreelance.com
http://www.modernfreelance.com/freelancer-job-sites/freelance-writers.php

If you want to find job boards of your own or any other type of directory, do an Internet search.

Will you soon be faced with the task of writing a book proposal? Here are some resources that might help.

Former acquisitions editor and literary agent, Terry Whalin is offering a 12-lesson online book proposal course for under $100 ($27 per month for three months). Check it out at http://WriteABookProposal.com

And then there are a couple of good books on the subject:
Write a Perfect Book Proposal by Jeff and Deborah Herman
Publish Your Book, Proven Strategies and Resources for the Enterprising Author by Patricia Fry has a 53-page section on writing a book proposal.

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

Are you constantly in research mode? If you are a freelance writer or journalist, you most certainly are. How else would you come up with enough ideas for articles to bring in those paychecks?

But as authors who are promoting our books, we must also be in research mode all the time. Here’s what I mean:

• You should be always on the look-out for new book promotion opportunities. You might read in the newspaper that a new kitchen store has opened in the next community—see about signing your cookbook in conjunction with their grand opening. You notice that there will be an upscale flea market in the spring—contact the organizer and secure a booth. You read in SPAWNews that SPAWN has a booth at a major Southern California book festival where members can sell their books—you’ll be in California that week, time to make a call. (This is true—read the January edition of SPAWNews after January 1, 2012 here: http://www.spawn.org

• Watch for news in your industry. You heard on a news station that there has been a possible breakthrough or changes in regulations related to the theme of your book. Find out more about this so you can give a report to your newsletter subscribers and live audiences. Aspects of your industry are in major transition. You’ll want to follow this news and share it in a follow-up book or at your blog.

• Become aware of new concepts in your field or genre. It is important that you pass along current information and findings with regard to your book. Your readers will have more faith in a nonfiction author who keeps up with trends and a fiction writer who understands the genre.

Shifting into research mode is as easy as paying attention. But it requires effort. You must make it a habit to subscribe to and read pertinent material and to find ways to use it. Scour the Internet, including blogs on your topic/genre, the daily newspaper, nightly news, etc. Listen to talk radio when you are running errands in your car or delivering books to bookstores, etc. Attend lectures by your professional peers. Listen to teleseminars, podcasts and so forth. Read books by your colleagues and marketing experts.

If you are not doing these things, you are missing out on opportunities to expand your knowledge. If you can’t offer your audiences, blog followers and readers something fresh and pertinent on a regular basis, you are falling down on the job. And if you aren’t out there finding new and interesting ways to approach your readers, you could become one of the nearly eighty percent of authors who fail each year.

Here’s an idea: Order my newest book, Promote Your Book, Over 250 Proven, Low-Cost Tips and Techniques for the Enterprising Author and step up your marketing efforts. If you use what you learn in this book, you could earn the cost of this book back 25, 50 or even 100 fold within the first few months.

http://www.matilijapress.com/PromoteYourBook.html

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

Toward the end of my book, Promote Your Book, Over 250 Proven, Low-Cost Tips and Techniques for the Enterprising Author, I include a chapter on “How to Enhance Your Marketing Skills.” Here is an abbreviated excerpt from that chapter:

1: Join trade/genre organizations and mingle with other experts in your field or genre.

2: Continue to study trends in your field or genre. Once you write a book on a topic or in a genre, you become an instant expert. Don’t disappoint your readers. Continue to learn and widen your horizon on issues, trends and news related to the theme/genre of your book.

3: Never stop reading about book promotion. You can’t overload on the subject of book promotion. Study everything you can get your hands on and continue to hone your marketing skills and come up with new ideas. I’ve been promoting my books for around thirty years and I still learn new tricks of the trade, hear about new and innovative ideas and gain new perspectives that serve to enhance my approach to promotion. If you haven’t bought a good book on book promotion in a while, maybe now is the time to treat yourself. Of course, I recommend my book, “Promote Your Book.”

4: Join publishing organizations and clubs. Keep abreast of what’s happening in the world of publishing.

5: Attend publishing/writing conferences. Many of them are geared toward the author now and include good sessions on book promotion.

6: Promote, promote, promote. Never give up. Stop promoting and your book will die.

7: Create a marketing plan. There are probably several promotional activities you have thought about pursuing, but haven’t found the time. This is a good reason to establish a plan with reasonable goals and follow it. It will help you to make a commitment and follow-through.

8: Create a hot file. I love this idea. Establish a file and every time you hear about, read about or think about a good idea for promoting your book, tuck it into that file for later reference. Don’t let any of those great ideas slip past you. Tip: Take a look in the file at least once every two weeks and implement a new idea or pursue a new outlet or other source.

9: Track your sales. This is not easy in this age of computer sales. But one thing you can do is include a question on your online order form that says, “How did you hear about us?” You’ll get some idea of which promotion is working.

10: Be thankful. Whenever you get a review, your article appears in a newsletter, someone interviews you, always reciprocate with a warm “Thank you.”

And I want to thank you for your attention to this blog. This is a loosely represented excerpt from my book, Promote Your Book, Over 250 Proven, Low-Cost Tips and Techniques for the Enterprising Author (Allworth Press, 2011). Order the book at Amazon, at the publisher’s website or here: http://www.matilijapress.com/PromoteYourBook.html

I’ve discovered the secret to getting people to comment at your blogsite. Controversy.

Bring up a controversial topic and, if you have any followers at all, you will get comments. People will take sides, criticize you and some of those others who comment, rant, thank you for bringing up the subject, lambaste you for bringing up the subject and everything in between. And some of those comments might become fodder for future blog posts.

Another way to get comments at your blogsite is to make it personal. Post on topics close to the hearts of your visitors. If it resonates with them at an emotional level, they are more apt to respond.

But just because you don’t get a flurry of comments at your blogsite every single day doesn’t mean that you don’t have followers. Most people are not going to comment. Heck, some don’t even acknowledge your personal emails to them when you have responded to their emailed question or concern.

We no longer RSVP when it is requested. (I had to call nearly half of the people invited to my mother’s recent 90th birthday party to find out if they were coming or not. We needed a head count because we were footing the bill for the meal.) We neglect to contact colleagues or friends when we change our plans—even when those changes will affect the other people. Many of us show up to engagements and meetings late—and with no other excuse than, “Time just got away from me,” or “something came up.” And what about the person who holds up a meeting and has no excuse.

I am firmly against waiting for the latecomers. If a meeting is slated to start at 7, it should start at 7. I never understood why we cater to those who are irresponsibly (or even justifiably) late, when we should show more consideration for those who are prompt.

But I digress—I’m off on my own rant this morning. And there are probably people who do not appreciate that trait in a writer. (Although, this topic may evoke responses…)

If you have a blog that does not receive many comments, you probably feel like you’re blogging into the ethers—that you are not being heard/read. But I think it is more likely that your visitors just aren’t moved to comment. I get very few comments at my blogsite. I actually had two people comment on one of my blog posts this week—but they emailed me directly to tell me what a good post it was. And while at a recent book festival, I had a handful of people come to my booth and say such things as, “I love your blog.” “You give so much good information. Keep it up.”

I’m always encouraged when I get this sort of feedback, but sometimes I yearn to see a string of comments at my blogsite coming from a variety of people living all over the world. And I think I know how to accomplish this. I could bring up the horrible Penn State scandal. What a mess that is. And those who are blogging about it are sure getting the comments. Why? The world is curious and this is definitely an emotional issue. No one can think about this situation without feeling an emotion—generally those in the anger category (fear, disgust, hatred, sadness etc.)

I’d like to know—what blog topics inspire you to comment? Is there something related to writing/publishing/book promotion that you would like to discuss with me and my other followers?

By the way, I want to say a huge thank you to those of you who have provided feedback by way of your comments at my blogsite. I SO appreciate all of you.

For more about me, my work, and my books, visit my websites:
http://www.matilijapress.com
http://www.patriciafry.com