Writing and Publishing News

Do you have an opportunity antenna? Are you aware when a publishing or book promotion opportunity comes your way?

Sometimes we stay so busy and focused on what is in front of us that we don’t even notice when an opportunity arises. For example, you attend a social event or business meeting and someone asks you what you’ve been doing lately. You might say, “Oh, I spent a few days at the beach with my kids,” or “I’ve been shopping for a new sofa,” or “I worked in the yard yesterday.” Instead, why not use this as an opportunity to promote your book.

Say, instead, “I just picked up a few boxes of my brand new book on vegetarian cooking last week,” or “I’m planning a book signing for my novel Friday night—here’s an invitation, please come,” or “I’m speaking next week to a group of businessmen about the history of our city—have you seem my new book in local bookstores? Here’s some information about it.”

I see authors at book festivals and writers conferences with their antenna down. A magazine editor might introduce herself and hand the author a card. This would be a great opportunity for the author to ask who their audience is and if they do book reviews or if they solicit articles from freelancers.

Librarians, booksellers and educators stop at the SPAWN booth at book festivals and speak to our authors. Some of them neglect to see this as a possible opportunity to get their books in libraries, bookstores or schools.

I once watched as the program director for a radio station tried to engage a couple of our authors in a conversation about their books and the authors just gave their usual spiel. It didn’t occur to them to pitch their book for a radio show.

And this is the very reason why so many authors leave a book festival feeling as though it wasn’t worthwhile. When book sales are your only measure of success, you may miss a lot of good opportunities. No, book festivals and conferences are full of opportunities and it is up to the author to develop and use his or her opportunity antennas.

It’s bad enough that authors stop seeking opportunities to promote their books. But when they avoid or ignore opportunities that look them in the eye, this is a sad, sad situation.

Can you think of an opportunity that you missed because you weren’t alert enough or that you accepted because you were paying attention? Would love to hear about them. PLFry620@yahoo.com

In the meantime, have any of you checked out my latest book at Amazon.com? It’s Talk Up Your Book. As it is now, you have to type in the book title AND my name in order to bring up this book at amazon. I hope that changes.

You may find, as I have, that there are many glitches and much waiting when a new book comes out. It seems to take a while for all of the ducks to be put in a row so that the book is available in print and Kindle/Nook, etc., so that you can easily order it from the most reliable sources, and so forth. The book cover for this book changed in midstream and the publisher hasn’t even posted the correct cover on his site, yet. I’ve asked about this twice and am told the request has been made.

In the meantime, I am working on getting the book on my site. I am eager to start promotion, but will wait until those ducks are all lined up.

As we’ve discussed, the purpose of your free ebooklet is to help you become more well-known among your readers and to sell more books. When you advertise the freebie, it will bring people to your website. When they read your brilliant, educational, informational or even entertaining ebooklet, some of them will buy your books or services.

Use the ebooklet itself to promote your books and services. I always include a paragraph or two about me and my books. I include ordering information in a couple of places throughout the ebooklet. I also recommend my books. For example, in my ebooklet, “50 Ways to Promote Your Ebook,” when I write about public speaking as a way to promote your ebook, I recommend my latest book, “Talk Up Your Book.” I also mention as often as possible without making it sound like a commercial, that I do book editing.

If you can offer valid resources and information on a topic of the reader’s interest and if you can come across as knowledgeable, people reading it will order your books.

And one of the best things about offering a free ebooklet at your website is the fact that those receiving it must sign up for it. Now you have the names and email addresses for those who are definitely interested in your topic or expertise. You can contact them with news of new books, new services, etc. These potential customers will become an important part of your massive emailing list.

Order my freebie here: http://www.patriciafry.com

Tomorrow, I will talk about freebie ebooks for novelists.

We’ve been talking about the incredibly useful freebie you can offer to your audience from your website. This is, perhaps, a free ebooklet of 10 to 50 pages or so that provides information, resources, ideas, tips, techniques, etc. related to the theme/topic of your nonfiction book.

Today, we’ll cover how to promote that freebie—how to entice people to download it from your website. And why do you want to promote something that is free—what will you get out of it anyway?

First, let me say that anything that will put your name before your particular audience is a good marketing move, don’t you think? People are more apt to buy a book by someone they have at least heard of. If they are interested in your topic and they find your free ebooklet informative or, in some other way, of benefit to them, they are more apt to buy one or more books that you have written. They are more inclined to consider any services you offer.

People LOVE getting something for free. Here’s an illustration of that point—I’ve been able to attract somewhere between 300 and 500 people to my site over the past year or so to download my free ebooklets. And most of these people had never heard of Patricia Fry. Sure, I go out and speak to hundreds of people throughout the US every year. I personally meet another hundred or two at book festivals each year. I also get exposure as the director of SPAWN and through the articles I write for a variety of writing/publishing publications. I have several books for authors and they are everywhere. But, still, many of the people who learn about my free offer of an ebooklet have not heard of me or my books.

They come to my website for the freebie and learn something about me and my work in the process. Not only does my website give them a peek into who I am and what I do—depending on how long they stay there—but the freebie, while it is highly informational, also promotes me and my work.

Okay, so how do you promote the freebie? Pretty much the same way you promote your books and/or your services. You go where your audience is. I promote my freebie through some of the articles I write for various publications they read. I promote it in this blog and when I am guest blogger. I tell folks about it when I speak. I announce it in the discussion groups I belong to and my member organization newsletters. I mention it in materials I hand out at book festivals and so forth. I talk about it when I do a podcast or webinar. I promote it through my social media pages. Some of my friends are promoting it, too. Even those who have downloaded my freebies sometimes promote it. I had someone stand up during a talk I was giving at a conference earlier this year and say, “You must go to Patricia’s site and download this free ebooklet. It is fabulous.” She had a copy of it right there with her. This was my freebie, “50 Reasons Why You Should Write That Book.” It’s now for sale at my website for $3.95.

You could also mention it on your business card. Business cards are so inexpensive to produce these days, you might create one just to hand out to those folks you think might be interested in your freebie. Leave a few of them at your local business center, print shop, library, bookstores, art center, and so forth.

Would love to hear from those of you with additional promotional ideas I haven’t mentioned here. PLFry620@yahoo.com

Have you visited my amazon.com page to see my latest book? What do you think of the cover design? Why not be among the first to order this unique and highly useful book—well, highly useful to anyone who is promoting or will soon be promoting a book. Type in the title of the book AND my name: Talk Up Your Book—Patricia Fry.

Here’s access to my current freebie—50 Ways to Promote Your Ebook.
http://www.patriciafry.com

First an announcement—Amazon.com has my latest book up. The cover design changed in midstream and I’ve been waiting for Amazon to make the change at their site. It is done! Please go to Amazon and see the interesting, colorful cover. Oh yes, and buy the book. It’s:
Talk Up Your Book, How to Sell Your Book Through Public Speaking, Interviews, Signings, Festivals, Conferences and More. http://www.amazon.com

Type in my name, Patricia Fry and “Talk Up Your Book.” Would love your feedback—and your order. If you are involved in or will soon be involved in book promotion, I have to tell you that personality sells books. This is a great resource and guide for any author of fiction, nonfiction, memoir, children’s books, and others.

Your Freebie
Yesterday, we talked about that freebie I recommend you offer from your website. Today, I want share some ideas for promoting it. The point of offering something of value to your audience free is to attract more of your readers and potential readers to your website so they are aware of your offerings and to demonstrate the scope of your expertise in your book’s topic. You want to entice people to your site so they can learn more about you and your books. You want them to become familiar with you so they will consider purchasing your current book and any future books you may produce, as well.

So how do you spread the word about your freebie? Here are 10 ideas.
• Mention it in the bio or tagline at the end of the articles/stories you submit to various publications related to your topic/genre.
• Send a notice about your freebie to your emailing list.
• Announce it at Twitter, Facebook and your other social media accounts.
• Talk about it in your blog posts.
• Mention it when you are a guest blogger.
• Talk about it when you go out to speak.
• Include it in your handouts.
• Talk about it in related forums in which you participate.
• Ask to have it mentioned in the announcements sections in your organization newsletters.
• Hand out vouchers for the freebie when you do book festivals and signings.

You might be saying about now, “Gosh, that’s kind of like the same things I would do when promoting my book.” YES! Promotion is promotion.

Tomorrow, I will talk about how to use the information you receive from the people who download your freebie.

In the meantime, I’d love to hear about some of the freebies you are offering from your site or discuss with you some that might work for you. I am currently offering “50 Ways to Promote Your Ebook.” It has been extremely popular. I am working on my next freebie—“50 Ways to Prepare for Publishing Success.”
http://www.patriciafry.com
PLFry620@yahoo.com

I have talked to you about the value of offering something free at your website—something that will attract your readers.

If you use the 25, 50 or 75-ways to fly a kite, remodel a closet, photograph a squirrel, make $10,000 or whatever the theme of your book is, you also have 25, 50 or 75 new article/blog possibilities.

Think about it, each of your ideas, points, ways, etc. can be used independently—either as is or greatly expanded—to create entire articles or blog posts. You should also be able to repurpose them into presentations and maybe even books.

For example, one of my “ways” to be successfully published is to write a book proposal. I have also written a complete book on that topic. It is How to Write a Successful Book Proposal. One of my tips is to engage in public speaking. I have just come out with a book on how to sell books through public speaking, book festivals and such. I’m waiting for the first copies of Talk Up Your Book to land in my office as we speak.

If you have taken the time to create a free ebooklet for your website as a means to attract your readers, a good project for you today would be to sit down with it and figure out ways to expand on this item and maybe repurpose it.

Tomorrow, I’ll talk about how to promote your freebie in order to get people to visit your website and down load it.

Sunday, I’d like to talk about using your freebie to promote yourself, your books and your services.

In the meantime, if you would like a copy of my current free ebooklet, 50 Ways to Promote Your Ebook, just go to http://www.patriciafry.com

Also check out my showcase of books at: http://www.matilijapress.com
You won’t find Talk Up Your Book there, yet. It is at Amazon.com, but the wrong book cover is still being shown. I will make the big announcement about this book once all of the promotional pieces are in place.