Writing and Publishing News

Do you have one of those filters or blocks on your email to keep the spam out? Why? When I consider signing up for a program that blocks email from unknown sources, I begin to weigh the pros and cons.

On the one hand, certainly, I would have around 100 to 300 fewer unwanted emails to deal with every day (700 to 2100 per week) through my personal, business and SPAWN email programs. But I would also miss out on opportunities to sell books, sign up new SPAWN members, work with new clients, help struggling authors, participate in events, and so forth.

Every time I open an email from an author who needs help, who is seeking an editor, who wants to buy a book (or 5), who wants me to write an article or give a presentation, I am so glad that my program allows their emails through. The time I spend every day deleting emails about Viagra, time-share vacation homes, printers in Asia, Amazon’s book pick and so forth, is well worth the benefits of the occasional opportunity.

When I get an email from someone at my website: info@matilijapress.com, or at SPAWN: Patricia@spawn.org, I always respond using PLFry620@yahoo.com. My email address isn’t familiar to the other person’s email system, so it’s possible that it will either block it (and the individual never hears from me) or the individual doesn’t recognize the email address, neglects to look at the usually meaningful/telling subject line and hits delete.

Protection is good. But, if you are attempting to promote a book, get freelance writing work, solicit help from professionals you meet throughout the internet, etc. you really ought to have a guest-friendly system that will allow you to receive the messages you want.

Do any of you have email blocks and filters? How do they work for you? Do you think that you are missing out on responses you solicit, book sales, freelance work and maybe even important invitations or messages because of the filter or block? How do you feel about that?

I recommend that, if you are attempting to build a writing or publishing business, you reconsider your spam filters. It’s sort of like choosing to stay in the house rather than going out and watching a family of ducks cross the road or a moose grazing or a magnificent rainbow because it’s raining and you’re afraid you will get wet. Wouldn’t it be worth the inconvenience of getting wet in order to experience the wonder of nature?

Like rain coming down on your head, spam can be annoying. But I am willing to put up with it in order to enjoy and benefit from those gifts that I would otherwise miss out on.

Comments?

Most of you have never taken an online course. Like many who have, I really like this type of education. The way my four courses are set up, you receive a lecture with information, resources and recommendations and an assignment via email each week for 6 or 8 weeks. You can, then, complete the assignments at your leisure during the week and submit them for comment, critique and direction.

Of course, the level of satisfaction and success you experience in any course, mine included, depend on your level of participation.

Here’s a FREE preview of my Book Promotion Course

Session 1:
With your help, I’ll become familiar with your project, your current promotional activities and marketing plans as well as any promotional limitations you believe you have. We’ll talk about your book’s hook and identify your target audience. Once I know something about you and your project, I can better guide you in establishing an appropriate plan.

Session 2:
This session focuses on the promotion basics that everyone should be pursuing—developing a massive mailing list, creating a website, soliciting numerous book reviews and dealing with distributors and wholesalers (if you are at liberty to do so).

Session 3:
This week, we’ll talk about bookstores, whether your book is conducive to bookstore sales and how to locate and approach bookstore managers. We’ll also cover specialty stores and discuss how to keep your books on bookstore or specialty store shelves (the secret is sales).

Session 4:
This class features personal appearances—book signings, book festivals, presentations in front of groups interested in your topic or genre, casual (or formal) presentations before organized gatherings, radio/TV and online interviews and special venues. You’ll find a most useful how-to element in this session.

Session 5:
Use the media to promote your book. I help you make your book newsworthy and I’ll teach you how to make news. We’ll also talk about library sales.

Session 6:
It’s time to reevaluate your marketing goals and make sure they are realistic. I’ll guide you in writing your short-term and long-term marketing plan based on your strengths, abilities, skills, finances, energy level, time commitments and motivation. We’ll also talk about working with a publicist, the extra services offered by your fee-based POD “self-publishing” service and attending writers/publishers conferences.

After the session, you’ll get one free email consultation.

Yup, it’s school in a bottle, more or less, but with feedback and guidance throughout. The main thing you must come to the course with is an open mind and the motivation to do what it takes to get the sales results you desire.

Here are some questions to ask yourself:

• What is your best book promotion activity?
• Which activities fit into your comfort zone?
• If you were to venture outside of your comfort zone, would be more successful?
• If you spent more time in targeted promotion, would you be selling more books?

Think about where you are with your book sales and where you would like to be. If you are not satisfied—you know you could do more and gain more—and you would like some guidance through the rough book promotion road, consider signing up for my Book Promotion course.
http://www.matilijapress.com/course_bookpromotion.htm

I also offer the following:
Article Writing Course
Book Proposal Workshop
Self-Publishing Workshop
http://www.matilijapress.com/courses.htm

There’s a new term I’ve been seeing used throughout the Internet. It’s “audience development.” Have you heard/read it? Do you know what it means? It seems to be a marketing term implying the process of creating buyers for your products.

When I first saw the term, I thought it referred to public speaking and/or perhaps one’s readership. And it might be slanted that way. I mean, when you are speaking in front of a group, you want to develop that audience into one that is interested, attentive—eating out of your hand, as they say. And your readers—you want that audience to fall in love with your characters, to hang on your every word, to enjoy the reading experience. You want to develop your reading audience, right? You want to create an audience through your amazing promotional efforts and you want to grow that audience and then develop that audience into one that thoroughly enjoys and/or appreciates your book, right?

How do we do that?

I’m reminded of the “Dora the Explorer” educational cartoons that I get to watch over and over every Wednesday when our 3-year-old granddaughter is here. These programs are amazing. They have elements of education, reasoning, understanding, community (working together), ethics, principles and problem solving, for example. There’s always a challenge, a plan and 3 steps to resolving the issue. I’d like to provide 3 steps to audience development. Now that’s a challenge for me. If you’ve been reading my books, the articles at my website and this blog for very long, you know that I like to give long lists of ideas.

1: Identify your audience.
2: Locate your audience.
3: Attract your audience.
4: Develop your audience.

Well you can see that I failed in my attempt to keep the steps to 3. I have 4 of them here for you to consider.

How many of you ever put this sort of thought into your audience when you decide to write a book, while you’re writing it, when you are going through the publishing process or even once the book is completed? You know intellectually that your book sales depend on readers/customers. But do you think about “audience development” in any sort of real sense? Do you spend time considering the individuals who make up your audience—their reading pleasures, their reading needs and desires?

Do you know where to find your potential audience? If you watch Dora with your children or grandchildren, you know that she relies on “The Map” to lay out the steps to her destinations. You may need help along the way, too. And there are numerous avenues you can pursue to get that assistance. Your well-thought out, well-researched book proposal is an excellent starting place.

Next, you must attract your audience. Now how do you do that? Typically through promotion, exposure—getting word out about your book. No one will buy it if they don’t know about it.

And then we come to audience development. That, too, is up to you. And you can go back all the way to square one with your book in order to start developing that audience. Yes, this is something you should be thinking about even before you start writing the book. Forget about Field of Dreams—“build it and they will come.” That concept is pure fantasy, especially in the highly competitive bookselling industry.

If you want to soothe your literary itch by writing what’s in your heart and/or on your mind, go for it. But don’t NECESSARILY expect it to be of interest to others. And especially don’t attempt to go out and find an audience after the writing is done.

As authors, we are at liberty of writing whatever we want. As authors whose goal is to be published, we must, at some point in the process, trade in our writer’s heart for an entrepreneurial head and replace our muse with strategy.

Some of you have published books. Are they selling well? Are you completely in-tune with your audience? Are you marketing to the right audience? Or are you still puzzled by the concept of audience development? Tomorrow is the deadline for joining in on my online Book Promotion Course (in progress). Sign up NOW at
http://www.matilijapress.com/course_bookpromotion.htm

It’s always fun to open a book, especially if you’re reviewing the book, and find your own book recommended or learn that you’ve been quoted. It happened to me this week. I made this discovery while reviewing C. Pinheiro and Nick Russell’s book, The Step-By–Step Guide to Self-Publishing for Profit. This book tells you how to start a home-based publishing company and publish your nonfiction book with CreateSpace and Amazon. And they recommend my book, The Right Way to Write, Publish and Sell Your Book. They also quote me as an expert.

Read the review in the upcoming November edition of SPAWNews.

You don’t subscribe to SPAWNews? It’s easy and profitable to change that—sign up at http://www.spawn.org and receive a FREE ebook: Promote Yourself: 25 Ways to Promote Yourself Whether You’re an Artist, Author or Small Publisher.

Join SPAWN ($45/year) and get another FREE book of your choice. Choose from 3 ebooks and 3 print books, including Mark Levine’s, The Fine Print of Self-Publishing: The Contracts and Services of 45 Self-Publishing Companies—Analyzed, Ranked and Exposed.

You’re the Expert
Are you the author of a nonfiction book? How many other books have you and/or your book been mentioned in? Have authors of books on your topic quoted you? Do they recommend your book? If not, perhaps your promotional efforts are too limited and limiting.

Here’s what you want—when someone is researching a book on the topic of your book, whether it is gardening, quilting, skydiving, dog showing, child-rearing, allergies, traveling, religion, art, writing or some obscure subject, you want this author to know about you. You want them to value your book and your opinion so they will add your book or company to their resources list or even quote liberally from your book (with your permission, of course). You want to stand out as an expert on your subject, so much so that other experts rely on the research you have done and the knowledge you have accumulated over the years.

How do you manage this? Exposure, exposure, exposure.
• Become known at websites related to your topic.
• Arrange to present workshops at appropriate conferences.
• Write and submit articles on your subject—lots of them.
• Rent booths at book festivals and talk to hundreds of people.
• Comment on other experts’ blogs.
• Showcase your book and lots of appropriate resources at your amazing website.
• Join publishing organizations and those related to your topic.

Hey, this is the same thing I suggest when I rant about how to promote your book, isn’t it? Yup! It’s all part of the same process. Whether you want to make a difference, become known in your field and/or sell books, the bottom line is the same. You must understand the concept of exposure. You need to have a plan. It is imperative that you are consistent and persistent in your attempts to get exposure. And you really, really need tons of energy.

Are your book sales sluggish? Do you seldom, if ever, see your name listed in an article, on a website or in a book as an expert in your field? Are you at a loss as to how to promote your book. It’s not too late to sign up for my online Book Promotion course, in progress. The cut-off date for signing up is September 15th, 2009.
http://www.matilijapress.com/course_bookpromotion.htm