Writing and Publishing News

Before I continue with today’s theme, I’d like to report that the venue for the Spring Book Show and Conference in Atlanta will be moving. The Georgia World Congress Center will be closed through March in order to repair the damage caused by Friday night’s tornado and they have cancelled all events. The Spring Book Show and Conference organizers are scrambling to find another venue. I will report on their decision as soon as I know what it is.

Here’s part two of my piece on avoiding mistakes that hamper future book sales. Herein, I share with you things you can do to enhance your book sales even as you are in the process of writing your book. In fact, if you don’t consider the concepts I’ve outlined in Part One and Part Two (blog entries for March 17 and 18, 2008), you, too, might be disappointed in your eventual book sales.

5: The author has unrealistic expectations. Many first-time authors (we’ve all been there) expect to sell their books by the truckloads through mega bookstores. They believe that any good book will be eagerly welcomed by bookstore owners and managers. The reality is that few people outside of traditional royalty publishers with track records can get new books into bookstores. And space on bookstore shelves does not guarantee sales. In fact, books that are not selling will be returned—sometimes within the first six months.

Remedy: Study the publishing industry well before you start writing your book. Enter into the field of publishing with an understanding of the industry, your options, the possible consequences of your choices AND your responsibilities as a published author. Study the world of book promotion. Don’t expect that your book will sell well just because it exists. Understand that it is going to take a lot of work and time to get your book noticed among the thousands of others.

6: The author plans to give promotion just a lick and a promise. I’ve seen it often: An author brings out a book, notifies her local newspaper, sets up a website, visits a few independent bookstores, attends a book festival and then goes back to her previous lifestyle. She realizes a brief flurry of book sales and then they stop. She doesn’t know why.

Remedy: Book promotion is ongoing. It should start before you write the book and continue for as long as you want to sell books. Your book will sell only for as long as you are willing to promote it.

7: The author gives up. I can’t tell you how often I hear this, “I can’t sell my book, so what’s the use?” You won’t achieve the level of success you desire if you quit.

Remedy: Adopt a never-give-up attitude. Adapt the same measure of persistence, stick-to-itiveness and patience it took to complete your book project and either land a publisher or produce the book yourself.

8: The author grows weary of the book promotion process. Sure you’re going to suffer burnout. Promoting a book is a long, hard process.

Remedy: Tap into your sense of creativity in order to spark book sales and your interest in marketing. Try new, exciting ways to boost sales. Plan a trip and take your book along. Visit bookstores and negotiate consignment deals. Rent a booth at a book festival. Give a performance featuring your book and invite the entire community. With the help of a publicist or marketing genius, launch a mail order campaign.

There’s a lot to consider when entering the huge and competitive publishing business. And promotion is a major consideration. Whether you land a traditional royalty publisher, self-publish (establish your own publishing company) or go with a fee-based POD publishing service, it is up to the author to promote his or her book. And the time to start thinking about promotion is before you ever sit down and put pen to paper or fingers to keyboard.

Patricia Fry is the president of SPAWN. She is also a full-time freelance writer and the author or 28 books. Ten of her books relate to writing and publishing. If you have a book to promote or a book in the works, you must add Patricia’s newly revised book, “The Right Way to Write, Publish and Sell Your Book” to your collection of reference books. If you are stuck or struggling with your project, order her NEW companion “Author’s Workbook” to accompany “The Right Way to Write, Publish and Sell Your Book.” http://www.matilijapress.com/rightway.html

While it may appear that this blog entry is for the published author, it’s actually for those of you with books in the works. There are things you can do to enhance your book sales way before you ever produce that book. And over the next two days, I’m going to discuss 8 mistakes authors make and how to avoid them.

As the president of SPAWN (Small Publishers, Artists and Writers Network) and an international speaker, I meet many authors every year who are disappointed in their book sales. I think it’s fair to say that 100 percent of the time the fault lies with the author. Here are six common mistakes first-time authors make and tips for how to avoid them:

1: The author writes the wrong book for the wrong audience. This author hasn’t done his homework to discover his true audience for this book. He may be writing a bulldozer book—one designed to change minds. It may be a valid book subject, but he plans to promote it to an audience who isn’t interested. Or, perhaps, the author believes she is writing a young adult novel, when, in fact, it has a wider audience among women who read romantic historical fiction.

Remedy: Early on, study your chosen genre/topic and identify your audience—those people who would want to read this book—not those who should. Write the book for an audience who cares.

2: The author doesn’t know that he is responsible for promotion. Obviously, this author didn’t take the time and initiative to study the publishing industry or he would know that his job isn’t over once the book is published.

Remedy: Read The Right Way to Write, Publish and Sell Your Book and other books related to publishing so that you have clarity about your role as a published author.

3: The author doesn’t take the opportunity to build promotion into his book while he’s writing it. When the book is finished, there’s little to hang his hat on with regard to promoting it.

Remedy: Savvy authors think about their target audience while they are writing and designing their books. If yours would make a good reference book, for example, you’ll want to include a complete index. For a novel, choose a setting that is conducive to promotion. Give a character a popular ailment and present it in a positive light.

You can build promotion into your how-to book by involving a lot of experts and/or organizations through interviews and by including them in your resource list, for example. Solicit testimonials for your back cover from high profile people in your field or genre.

4: The author neglects to establish a platform. A platform is the author’s following, his reach, his way of attracting his target audience. Most successful authors today have a platform in place before they produce a book.

Remedy: Start building and capitalizing on your platform from the beginning. Your platform for your book on phobias might be the fact that you’re a psychologist in this area of study, that you suffered a severe phobia for years, that you work with women with phobias, that you’ve written about this for years.

Even as a novelist, you’ll need a following and this can be established through published stories, a popular/active Web site, the fact that you are accustomed to public speaking or are involved in storytelling. Maybe you are getting ready to retire and plan to travel and promote your book throughout the states.

I constantly teach and preach the importance of understanding something about the publishing industry BEFORE getting involved. And just one good reason for doing this is so that you’re prepared when it comes time to promote your book. (Watch for Part Two of this message in tomorrow’s blog entry.)

Buy The Right Way to Write, Publish and Sell Your Book. Read it from cover to cover. And then place it on your desk where you can refer to it often. http://www.matilijapress.com/rightway.html

Can you believe it? As I was writing yesterday’s blog entry about coming to Atlanta, the people of that city were crawling out from under debris left by a serious TORNADO. Exactly 2 weeks before the day that I plan my arrival in Atlanta, a tornado hits the very spot where I’ll be—the very spot where I was one year ago. I stayed at the Omni Hotel last year, directly across the street from the CNN building. The event is always held at the Georgia World Congress Center, which is out the backdoor of the Omni. All 3 of these large buildings were damaged.

There was personal property damage and injury, as well. My heart goes out to those citizens of Atlanta who suffered loss this weekend.

From what I understand, the show will go on. The Spring Book Show and Conference, that is, at the Georgia World Congress Center in Atlanta March 28 and 29. I’ll be there on Saturday, March 29. I’ll conduct a 3-hour seminar from 9-12 and I’m speaking about the secrets to publishing success at 2 that afternoon.
http://www.anvilpub.net/spring_seminar_2.htm

Nashville, I hope you don’t have any storms on the horizon. I’ll be there at Borders West End the evening of March 31 (Monday night at 7). I look forward to meeting all you Nashville writers/authors.

Life is sometimes plagued by near misses and setbacks. We have setbacks in our publishing projects, too, don’t we? Life can get in the way of the books we want to write. Storms, catastrophes, illness, accidents, jobs, etc. can interrupt the flow of our writing work. Sometimes we just aren’t in the mood to write or to promote our published books. We are sick of rejection slips or we are too discouraged to keep promoting our books.

For some hopeful authors, the setbacks become permanent. There are many wouldbe authors who never do complete the books of their dreams.

What does it take to actually follow through with a book project? Pretty much what it takes to accomplish anything in your life—raising a child; caring properly for a pet every day; completing school; learning something new like riding a bike, driving, typing, a foreign language, a dance move, knitting, a new computer program or woodworking. It takes persistence, determination and patience. I maintain that it also takes motivation. If you aren’t properly motivated to complete or accomplish something as difficult and complex as seeing a book project to fruition, you simply won’t succeed.

Today, I challenge you to examine your motivation for wanting to write a book. Most of us want to be heard/read. We have something to say and we want to share that word, concept, information, perspective. Most fiction authors want validation for their writing. They love the process of writing and feel that they can continue only if they’re able to sell what they write—only if what they write is being read. Other authors and hopeful authors are motivated by their need to help others through their own experiences or knowledge.

What motivates you to write? If you want to write, but aren’t writing, why is that? What stops you? I’d like to hear from you on this topic. I think that the information collected from you could culminate in a book or, at least an article that might help other writers. PLFry620@yahoo.com

If you haven’t visited my site in a while, do so this week.
http://www.matilijapress.com
You will find tons of information for writers and authors, articles galore, oodles of resource and books for practically every writer/author.

And then hop over to the SPAWN website. That’s Small Publishers, Artists and Writers Network
http://www.spawn.org

If you have a book to promote, you might want to join us in the SPAWN booths at the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books April 26-27, which means you must join SPAWN. If you can’t be in Los Angeles that weekend, let us display your book in the SPAWN booths at this gigantic of all book festivals. Again, you must be a member of SPAWN. Join at http://www.spawn.org Questions? PLFry620@yahoo.com or Patricia@spawn.org.