Writing and Publishing News

There are two concepts that you need to consider when you have a book to promote.

• No one will buy a book they don’t know about.

• It is up to the author to promote his or her book.

I spoke to a group of 50 or 60 authors and hopeful authors last night—all who came out to learn how to promote their books without having to step too far outside their comfort zone. And I felt it was important for them to understand these two concepts first.

Let’s examine the first statement: doesn’t it make sense that if you keep your book a secret—if you don’t reach out to your potential readers and tell them about your book—they aren’t going to be clamoring to buy it? First, you should answer the following questions.

• Who comprises your audience?
• Where are these potential readers?
• What is the best way to approach them?

And you should be the one to create a marketing plan for your book since you care more about your project than anyone else in the world. As I told my audience last night, you can buy into your self-publishing company’s marketing package. You can hire a publicist. You can accept the (often) minimal help a traditional publisher offers as far as book promotion. But you should never turn your responsibility for marketing your book over to anyone else.
During the writing process, through the publishing process and on throughout the entire book promotion process, you—the author—must take charge and consider yourself the CEO of your book.

Learn more about publishing and book promotion through Publish Your Book and Promote Your Book, available at amazon.com and most other online and downtown bookstores.

How important are book reviews? Is it necessary to get your book reviewed? If you’re still unsure as to the benefits of book reviews and/or if you aren’t quite sure where to go to get a book review, maybe this blog post will help.

The fact is, there are many, many opportunities to get your novel reviewed. The Internet is brimming with book review sites. Some are more prestigious than others. And most of them are free. Many book reviewers prefer to read books only in certain genres. And the majority of reviewers will post your review on your Amazon page. Here are some book review directories. But also be sure to use your research skills to locate specific reviewers who focus on the genre of your novel.

http://acqweb.org/bookrev.html
http://dir.yahoo.com/arts/humanities/literature/reviews
www.stepbystepselfpublishing.net/free-book-reviews.html

Can you get your ebook reviewed? Certainly. Here are a few lists and directories of ebook reviewers.
http://www.tinahunter.ca/links/ebook-reviewers
http://www.ebookcrossroads.com/ebook-reviewers.html

Some newspapers and magazines still run book review columns. Here are a couple of directories to get you started.
http://www.world-newspapers.com/review.html
http://www.dmoz.org/Arts/Literature/Reviews_and_Criticism/Magazines_and_Newspapers

You haven’t had your novel reviewed yet? I’d say that’s because you haven’t really tried very hard to find book reviewers. Study some of these lists, contact appropriate reviewers and let us know how it goes.

There are a lot of creative ways you can promote fiction at your website. You do have a website for your novel, don’t you? Here’s what I suggest:

• Have an attractive, appealing cover designed for your book so it looks good at your site and when you have it displayed at book festivals and so forth.

• Position the book front and center and make it clear that the book (or your series of books) is the focus of your website and that it is for sale.

• Set up a merchant account so you can make sales or at least a paypal account and an address where folks can mail checks.

• Make it easy for folks to contact you. You may notice that it is impossible or near impossible to locate a contact button at some websites. Never allow your potential customers to struggle in order to make a purchase or reach you with a question or concern. They may want to place a large order.

• Offer something for free to draw people to your site. For fiction, this might be trivia with regard to the theme of your book—the wild west, WWII, the 1950s, old movie stars, New Orleans jazz, gangsters, New York City, dog shows, horse racing, etc.

• Provide a trailer—a video commercial or preview representing the story.

• List resources pertaining to the theme of your novel or fiction-writing in order to attract a larger number of visitors.

• Keep adding or changing things at your site. One way to do this is to manage an active blog related to writing fiction or the theme of your book. We’ll talk about blogs in another post.

While changing and adding, always maintain the integrity of your home page where your book is displayed. When you add or change something at your site, do so by using additional pages that are well marked and easy to follow.
Would love to hear some of your ideas and those you’ve seen in your Internet travels.

We’ve been talking about book promotion—in particular, promoting fiction. Today, I’ll discuss a specific promotional activity for novelists—the one that probably scares you the most.

I believe in going out and speaking personally to your audience. Readers like to meet the authors they read. When I said that to a new author recently, he laughed and said, “Why? I’m not a celebrity.” That’s right. Most authors today are not widely known. And maybe that’s why your book isn’t selling well.

Think about how you handle a book when you first discover it. You see it online, at a book festival or in a bookstore. Maybe a friend hands it to you as recommended reading. First, you look at the front cover. What’s the second thing you do? You turn it over (or click) and look at the back. If there’s a photo of the author, you take a closer look at it. While you’re reading the book, you might turn to the back cover or the back pages again in order to study the author’s photograph. You want to know who wrote the lovely prose, the crazy or dynamic story, the fascinating dialog or the hogwash you’re reading.

But meeting the author has an even greater influence on whether or not you will purchase the book. If you like the author, you are more apt to want to read what he wrote. And if you never heard about this book nor met the author, you would not be buying the book at all. Now turn this around so it relates to you—the author or your marvelous book.

Part of your mission is, of course, to get word out about your book. Another part of it is to somehow convince or entice folks to buy it. And you can do this with your personality.

Go out and speak to your readers.
What do you talk about? How do you entertain them? Here are a few ideas:
• Tell just enough of the story in your book to entice readers to buy it. You may have to work on a presentation that makes your story absolutely compelling—riveting.

• To create added interest, dress to reflect the period or theme of your book—the Colonial days, the wild West, the 1950s or aviation, horse racing, the Olympics or a character in your fantasy, for example.

• Talk about the writing life and how this book came into being.

• Entertain with a humorous edge if appropriate. You could read from your book while someone acts out the scenes in an exaggerated way.

• Share what you learned about the process of writing—making sure these are lessons that your audience can relate to.

• Create scripts and ask people from the audience to help you act out a scene from your story.

• Give backstory related to your story. What inspired you to write on this topic—in this genre? Sometimes the backstory is as interesting as the story you wrote.
While the nonfiction author generally teaches or informs his audiences, the novelist is expected to entertain. Keep this in mind. If you can write a good story—one that holds the interest of your readers—you should be able to aptly entertain them with your live presentations.

If you’re a little or a lot shy about standing in front of a group, rush immediately to your nearest Toastmasters club or college speaking class and begin training. This aspect of book promotion is too important to ignore. http://www.toastmasters.org

For a whole lot more about public speaking, landing gigs at some of the many conferences held throughout the world, communicating with your potential readers and much more, order your copy of my book, “Talk Up Your Book” today. It’s at amazon.com in print, Kindle and audio as well as at most other online and downtown bookstores. Or order it here: http://www.matilijapress.com

If you write novels, you are probably not the most assertive marketer for your books. And you probably agree with the majority of novelists that books, blog posts and lectures on book promotion are prepared strictly for nonfiction writers. So untrue!

Exactly like your nonfiction author counterparts, you need to know who your audience is, where they are and how to approach them. And you must approach them in order to let them know that your book exists. Your book won’t sell itself. So how do you approach your audience? Pretty much the same ways as nonfiction authors do.

Go out and speak to them, get your book reviewed many times over, send press releases, engage in social media, join appropriate organizations, build an interesting and useful website, blog and create amazing promotional material, for example.

Your speaking venues might be different, your reviewer list may have different names on it, your press releases might read differently, your presentations will have a different flavor, you might join different organizations, your blog and Facebook entries will read a bit differently, you’ll seek out different media to approach with your promotional material, but you’ll follow the same basic path as anyone who is promoting a book.

Whether you write fiction or nonfiction, you will reserve space at book festivals where you can promote your book. You’ll talk about your book everywhere you go. You’ll send notices about your book to your massive mailing and emailing list. You’ll seek out appropriate websites, specialty stores, etc. through which to sell your fiction or nonfiction book. You’ll add to your line of books—for fiction, a sequel, a play, an audio book: for nonfiction, a spin-off booklet or a related item, for example. Whether your book is a romance novel, fantasy, thriller, adventure, mystery, how to, self-help or spiritual book you might enter it in contests, run contests, do book signings, do seasonal marketing, employ sales representatives, have your book available on Amazon, tweet and submit articles/stories as a way to increase sales.

Now tell me, if you can, how is the task and the concept of book promotion different for those of you who write novels?

For over 250 book promotion ideas, including over 150 specific tips and suggestions for novelists as well as many examples, order your copy of Promote Your Book by Patricia Fry (that’s me). It’s available at amazon.com as well as most other online and downtown bookstores. In print, Kindle and audio.

This week, we’ve talked a little about marketing different types of books. I think we’ve established that, while authors can use similar activities to promote their dissimilar books, the venue is often different.

Public speaking is a great way to introduce yourself and your book to a group of people who gather because of a common interest. I write books for authors, so I go out and speak at writers group meetings, authors associations and writers conferences. We spoke earlier this week about promoting recovery and self-help books related to an affliction, illness or disease. Authors of these books might speak where support groups related to this illness meet, at wellness and health conferences and so forth.

Yesterday, I gave some resources for children’s book authors. Where do you go to promote books for children? Many of these authors read to children in schools, libraries, Sunday school classes and other places where children congregate. Book festivals often have a children’s element where authors entertain youngsters by reading from their books.

Whether you have a book on quilting, genealogy, finances/budgeting, photography, cat care, woodworking or aviation, you should be able to find groups who meet to discuss this subject and even conferences devoted to this subject throughout the US. I was at a conference once and walked into a room where another conference was going on. That one was all about sound system speakers. They had every kind of speaker on display and many people interested in them. I tell you this to emphasize the wide variety and range of interests people have. It seems that even your book on miniatures, making useful items out of grass, Halloween masks, knife sharpening, dip stick art or any number of other off-the-wall subjects may, indeed, have an audience. It is up to you to find them.

Rather than marketing to the general public, however, you’ll need to seek out those individuals and groups who share your interest and go where they are.

So many authors make the mistake of producing a book and then trying to market it to the masses. Their focus should be the individual who shares their fascination with yarn pompoms, cork art, cat behavior, etc. or have a need to learn how to repair a hem, cut up a chicken, trim a dog’s nails or prepare items for the compost heap.

Your job as the author of a book is not to develop an interest as much as it is to locate those who already have the interest.

For over 250 tips and techniques for promoting all sorts of books, including fiction (which we’ll discuss tomorrow), order your copy of Promote Your Book, Over 250 Proven, Low-Cost Tips and Techniques for the Enterprising Author. Order it at http://www.matilijapress.com or at amazon.com or any other online or downtown bookstore.