Today Max and I bring you a variety of ideas, tips and resources.
Who’s Max? He is my trusty behind the scenes feline assistant. Unbeknownst to any of you, every morning, he is here helping me write my blog. As I type my message to you, he’s either sitting on the corner of my desk “whiskering” in my ear or he’s on my lap purring out his opinion. This morning, he wants me to tell you, first off, to visit my Catscapades blog because he is the handsome dude featured this week. http://www.matilijapress.com/catscapades
How to Locate an Author
I had someone contact me a few days ago asking how to locate a particular author. She said she had done the usual Google search and came up with nothing. So I went to work to see what I could find out for her.
If you want to contact an author in hopes of having him/her write a testimonial for your book, to participate with you in a panel discussion at a conference, to interview at your blog site, to question with regard to their promotional activities, to quote for an article or ? here’s what you do:
• Conduct an Internet search using Google.com, Yahoo.com or your choice of search engines using the author’s name, his/her pen name and/or their book title. Hopefully, you will locate this author’s website.
• Look for the contact button. If you locate the author’s website, but can’t easily find contact information (which is becoming more and more of a problem at many websites), try the following: Look for the “contact” button among the links at the top, along the side or at the bottom of the page. If you don’t see one, click on “About Us.” Sometimes you’ll find the contact button embedded in this page. If the site offers any contests, submission information, advertising opportunities, list of names involved in the site, you might find contact information or a contact form on one of these pages. You can also take a peek at the Privacy Page at the site, if you can find one. And the Index page might help, as well.
• Get help. Here’s an interesting concept—Domain Tools, provides all sorts of information about the owners of most websites. Check it out at http://www.domaintools.com. I did a search using my own site and was quite surprised by the magnitude of information they have about me and my company, Matilija Press.
• Contact the publisher. If there is no website in sight, find out who published his/her book and contact them. Most publishing companies assign pr persons to their authors. Their job is to screen the authors’ messages and put them in touch with the people who can possibly help them to sell tons of books.
It doesn’t seem like something as simple as finding contact information at a website would become so difficult. But, if you ever need to reach someone who doesn’t really want to be disturbed, without these tips, you may end up a bit disturbed by the run-around you are given.
Book Promotion Tip and Resource
Use holidays to promote your book. How? Visit http://www.earthcalendar.net. Find holidays, events and special celebration days that relate to your book and use these to do some interesting promotion. For example, did you know that April 22 is Oklahoma Day in the U.S.? It’s also Earth Day and Administrative Professional Day (formerly Secretaries Day). April 23 is World Copyright Day. And the 25th is World Penguin Day. Oh yes, you’ll have lots of fun with this site and planning special promotional activities using it.
Changes in Library Directory Sites
I attempted to use the online ALA Library Directory this week and discovered that it seems to be disabled. Another Library Directory site that I list in my book, The Right Way to Write, Publish and Sell Your Book, also seems to be gone. But don’t stress over this. I’m not going to leave you hanging. Now, if you want to access a library directory use http://travelinlibrarian.info/libdir or http://www.publiclibraries.com
Let Me Know When Links No Longer Work
Many of you have copies of my book, The Right Way to Write, Publish and Sell Your Book. If you use one of my resources and discover that it is no longer useful, please let me know. I will personally locate replacement sites for you. In fact, if you have a need for a directory of any kind—job search for writers, book distributors, book festivals, writers conferences, legal help, etc., contact me either through this blog site or through my website or email address (both listed below). I’ll see what sites I can locate for you.
So there you have it—some important updates, a terrifically useful bit of information, some promises of help and enough new links to keep you busy until Max and I meet with you again.
Be sure to visit my website—you can always find a way to contact me there http://www.matilijapress.com. And to make it even easier, use this email address: PLFry620@yahoo.com.
And don’t forget to stop by and meet Max: http://www.matilijapress.com/catscapades