Publishing/Marketing News and Views
Bringing you the information and resources you need to succeed.
February 2014, Volume 1, Issue 4
Editor: Patricia Fry
So far, in this bi-monthly newsletter, we’ve focused on the fact that a successful book requires a great deal of thought and action even before the book is a book. In the August, 2013 issue, I listed 10 steps authors must take before they start the writing process. In the October issue, we focused on the psychology of a book proposal. I’m sure this was an eye-opener for many of you, In December, the theme was publishing. We covered common publishing mistakes that many authors make.
So what comes after publishing? Those of you who have been following the suggestions in these newsletters and the advice of other professionals already know that it is PROMOTION. And that is the focus of this issue. If you’re writing a book, trying to get one published or you have one or more published books, the information and resources in this newsletter could make the difference between your book’s failure or success.
Because promotion is such a major, complex, oh-so-important topic, we will cover it over the next several issues. If you’ve missed any issues of this newsletter, remember, they are all archived here: http://www.matilijapress.com/publishingblog/?page_id=3081
Included in this issue:
- Announcement!! Patricia’s Going on a Blog Tour
- Book Promotion Basics—Understanding the Concept
- Your Author Platform—What is it, How do you get one?
- 10 Ways to Establish Your Author Platform BEFORE Your Book is a Book
- Recommended Book—Promote Your Book
- Special Report—How to Transition from Nonfiction to Fiction Writing
- Resource of the Month—Kindle Direct Publishing Program for Novelists
- Patricia Fry’s Bio Roundup—Introducing her latest Klepto Cat Mystery
- Previews of Coming Attractions—A plethora of book marketing ideas
Announcement!!
Patricia Fry is on tour—a blog tour, that is. During the entire Valentine’s Day week—February 10-14, 2014—she will visit blogs related to mystery-writing and/or cats. Why? In order to promote her Klepto Cat Mystery series, Catnapped, Cat-Eye Witness and Sleight of Paw.
Here’s her schedule:
Monday, February 10, http://www.readalot-Rhonda1111.blogspot.com
Tuesday, February 11, http://bookread-mumswritings.blogspot.com
Wednesday, February 12, http://www.mochasmysteriesmeows.com
Thursday, February 13 http://socratesbookreviews.blogspot.com
Friday, February 14, http://kittycrochettwo.blogspot.com
Tune into her daily publishing blog and/or her Catscapades blog each day that week for updates.
http://www.matilijapress.com/publishingblog
http://www.matilijapress.com/catscapades
Book Promotion Basics—Understanding the Concept of Book Promotion
Most of us, when we decide to write our first book, expect a bestseller or at least one that will attract thousands upon thousands of readers on merit alone. You might envision yourself being greeted by enormous crowds at book signings throughout the country and being interviewed by this nation’s top TV show hosts. You dream of launching the book and, within a few months, when sales are in the millions, stepping out of the limelight and going to work writing your next book.
A Reality Check
What you’ll soon discover is that, in order to sell even a few copies of your book, you’ll have to pay at least as much attention to promoting it as you did to writing it. If you want sales to continue beyond those initial ones to family, friends and folks who read the nice article about you in the local newspaper, you will have to keep up your promotional efforts. If you want to reach potential buyers in a wide range of arenas, you may have to market outside of your comfort zone. Any successful author will tell you that marketing takes creativity and an enterprising outlook. And this is true whether you land a traditional royalty publisher, you self-publish (establish your own publishing company) or you decide to go with one of the many hybrid pay-to-publish (vanity) services.
Develop a Marketing Mindset
The best way to approach the huge responsibility for promoting your book is to get a clear sense of what the process of book promotion entails and the multitude of options at your disposal. In other words, study the publishing industry including the process of book promotion. Know who your readers are, where they are and what is the best way to approach them. Learn about some of the many book promotion activities. Then go back and choose those activities that resonate with you—that make sense in light of your energy level, time allowances and constraints, skills, talents, strengths, interests, comfort level and the topic/genre of your book.
Let’s say you’ve just completed your first (or twenty-first) book. It doesn’t matter how many books have gone before this one, they’re each your master-work—a thrilling accomplishment.
Creating a book is not unlike creating life. The author conceives the idea, grows it inside of him/herself and, after many months of labor, gives birth. If you doubt your emotional connection to your book, think about how difficult it was to send your “child” off to the publisher or printer. If you’re like many authors, you experienced a strange sense of loss as you relinquished temporary control of your project. And you couldn’t wait to hold the finished book in your hands.
Before welcoming your completed book home—in fact, even before writing it—you need to think about its future. The point of producing a book for publication is presumably so that it will be read. At the very least, you hope to recoup your expenses. And you would not be human if you didn’t dream of it bringing you fame and fortune. This won’t happen, however, without your concentrated effort. It’s up to you to promote your book. And the time to plan your marketing strategy is even prior to writing your first chapter.
Before starting that book, answer these two questions.
- Why do I want to write this book? What is my primary reason for writing it?
- What is the point/purpose of the book?
If you’re writing a book because you want to become famous, earn a lot of money,
show off, prove something to someone else or yourself, you may be writing it for all of the wrong reasons. If, on the other hand, you love to write, you know you have something of entertainment or intellectual value to share with a segment of people, your book will fill a definite need and/or you want to use the book to position yourself as an expert in your field, your reasons might be valid.
When considering the purpose of your book, if you determine that you’re writing it in order to change minds, make an unpopular point or to tell the world your rather ordinary story, the validity of this book is questionable. If your purpose is to educate or inform a particular audience on a topic of interest to them or entertain readers through good writing, perhaps you’re on the right track. Make sure that your reason and purpose are genuine and not frivolous.
Can I Get My Book Into Bookstores?
Even when yours is a valid book with a true and significant target audience, you must understand that there’s more to selling books than having them placed on the shelves in mega-bookstores. In fact, it’s almost impossible for a self-published author (one who has established his/her own publishing company) or a pay-to-publish author to convince major booksellers to carry their books nationwide. Managers of chain bookstores will generally special order copies of your book for customers who request it, as long as you’ve taken the steps necessary to be included in the main bookseller databases. And some of these stores will carry books by local authors. In order to have your book stocked in bookstores nationwide, you’ll need one of two things—the support of a major traditional royalty publisher or an aggressive marketing plan that’s bringing hundreds of customers into those stores asking for your book.
If your book has been published and is being distributed by a recognized traditional publisher, the chain bookstores will most likely take it on. But if sales don’t meet their expectations, your book will be rotated out of stock and sent back to the publisher along with truckloads of other stagnating books.
No One Will Buy a Book They Don’t Know Exists
The point is that your book won’t sell itself. Its success depends on your ability and willingness to promote. Even before you put pen to paper, it’s important to think realistically about marketing. And having a New York publisher doesn’t change this fact.
It’s hard work to promote a book. If you’re still reeling from years of banging your head against the computer while writing this book and months of dealing with cover designers, editors, illustrators, printers, the bar code folks, the copyright office, etc, you ain’t seen nothing, yet. Published authors will tell you that producing the book is easy compared to marketing it. Publishing guides typically warn budding authors to prepare themselves for the work they’ll encounter after their book is published. And, yes, marketing is the responsibility of the author.
Even before starting your book, decide whether or not you’re cut out for the work ahead. As you know, writing is a relatively quiet activity—one that even an introvert can pursue successfully. But publishing and marketing are active businesses that take imagination, assertiveness, courage, persistence and lots of energy. Not everyone is suited to do both the writing and aggressive (or even assertive) marketing. Are you?
Further, with the advent of the Internet and the obvious race to create new technology at a faster and faster pace, it is important that you learn about the marketing tools available through social media and through your own website. The technological learning curve can be difficult for someone who is not all that familiar with the digital movement. But it is oh so important if you want to participate on a level playing field.
How Much Time Does it Take to Promote a Book?
Consider the following: time is a major factor in book promotion. The ideal would be to devote all of your waking hours to marketing your book. If you can’t give the book your undivided attention, at least commit to a promotional schedule. Vow to make three contacts related to book promotion per day or spend one or two days per week pursuing marketing efforts.
And this should not be considered a temporary schedule. Don’t assume that one book tour will launch your book or that one review is all you need to keep your book selling. It’s likely that when you stop promoting your book, sales will dwindle and then stop.
Do you have something worthwhile to market? This is an extremely difficult question to answer. Even experienced publishers wrestle with this question, as is evidenced by some of the books they turn down that later become bestsellers and some of the losers they take on.
Research Can Make the Difference Between Success and Failure
Why does a book fail to sell? Sometimes the timing is off—the subject has been
overworked or its time has not yet come. Maybe the author hasn’t hit upon the right slant for his book or the right market or marketing technique. That’s why it is imperative that you research the market for your book even before you start writing it. And a book proposal can help you do this.
As we’ve established, marketing a book takes time, commitment, energy and creativity. Following are additional ideas to help you launch your successful promotional program. If you select the right activities for you and your book and you proceed in an organized, methodical, diligent and persistent manner, you will most likely succeed in your promotional efforts.
Your Author’s Platform—Where Does it Come From?
You hear/read a lot about the importance of establishing and building on a platform. What exactly is a platform?
Your platform makes a case for your credibility as the author of your particular book. A platform involves your way of attracting readers. You can trace your bookselling success (or lack of) directly to your amazing platform (or lack of). If you have a valid and convincing platform, people will buy your book. If not, maybe not. For example, if you are thought of as an expert in your field, people will have more trust in you and will be more apt to purchase your book on the topic of your expertise. If you have proven yourself as the author of Western stories or science fiction, you’ve developed a following.
A platform is your reach—how far and wide you are known by your potential readers. For example, if you have a large readership for your blog, newsletter, articles and other books in a specific genre, you can be fairly certain that you will be able to sell a number of copies of your new book in this genre.
A platform includes your realm of influence. If you have a large following of people who use your products or services, who attend your lectures and who believe in the advice you offer, for example, you are most likely influencing many of them and they will trust you enough to purchase your book on this topic.
Sometimes a platform comes naturally—you sort of grow a platform without realizing it is happening. You develop it as a matter of your life course as a PE teacher and fitness advocate, a longtime author of genre fiction, a parent of an autistic child and a widely-known activist for mainstreaming kids with disabilities or a flower shop franchise owner and public speaker at floral trade shows, for example. But most of us with platforms must continually build on them in order to remain visible to upcoming generations and to keep up with technological and other advances in our industries/areas of interest.
Other times we must build our platforms from scratch. The retired bank president who sits down to write her first book focusing on child-related charities abroad, may be known in the banking industry, but will have to play catch-up when it comes to establishing a platform on the subject of her book. The grammar school teacher who decides to write a children’s book has a ways to go in order to create credibility as a children’s book writer if she has no background experience. The foundation of her platform is the fact that she is a teacher. But she will have to build from there.
There are many steps to building a platform. I write about how to do this a lot. I speak about it. I frequently outline various steps to help authors recognize the cornerstones of their natural platforms and to continue building on them. A platform is such an important aspect of authorship that there should be more platform support systems for authors.
Download our FREE ebooklet, How to Establish Your Author Platform. http://www.patriciafry.com
10 Ways to Establish Your Author Platform BEFORE your book is a Book
1: Build a Website related to the theme of your book and promote it widely.
2: Get involved in social media sites and actively pursue this opportunity.
3: Compile a huge mailing and emailing list to use in promoting your book.
4: Seek endorsements from high-profile people in your genre.
5: Submit articles or stories to the publications read by your audience—lots of them!
6: Establish an active and useful or entertaining blog and promote it.
7: Be a guest blogger at popular blog sites related to your book’s theme or genre.
8: Participate in organizations and groups related to your field or genre.
9: Talk about your book everywhere you go—hand out promo material.
10: Speak to your audience every chance you get at club meetings, appropriate conferences, etc.
Recommended Books
This month, I recommend reading Promote Your Book, Over 250 Proven, Low-Cost Tips and Techniques for the Enterprising Author, by Patricia Fry. This book is endorsed by some of the most well-known professionals in the business, including Penny Sansevieri, Mark Levine and Dan Poynter. It is one of those books you’ll want to keep at your elbow throughout the publishing and marketing process. This well-organized collection of low- and no-cost ideas provides solutions for any author in any genre. Let me stress that this book is designed for authors of fiction as well as nonfiction.
My most recent book for authors is Talk Up Your Book, How to Sell Your Book Through Public Speaking, Interviews, Signings, Festivals, Conferences and More. An important aspect of book promotion is the personal approach. You will sell more books through personality than practically any other way. And this book is designed to guide you in becoming a better spokesperson on behalf of your book.
Both books available in print, Kindle and audio at Amazon.com and in print here: http://www.matilijapress.com/PromoteYourBook.html http://www.matilijapress.com/TalkUpYourBook.html
Special Report—Transition from Nonfiction to Fiction Writing
After forty years of writing nonfiction for publication, I’ve started dabbling in fiction. Unlike many young writers, years ago, I dreamed of writing nonfiction. I fantasized about having a byline in magazines and I did—many times over. I wanted to be a columnist and I accomplished that goal. Then I decided to write a book. I’ve now published over forty of them. All I wrote was nonfiction until one day in June of 2011, when I discovered my fiction muse (or is it a folly?). All I know is that I am in LOVE with writing fiction and I’m enjoying the challenges presented in the process.
What are the main differences between writing fiction and nonfiction? What skills must be honed when shifting from one to the other? Is a new mindset or aptitude necessary? Do the rules of one apply to the other? Here’s my take on these issues:
1: You still need to write with your audience in mind. In nonfiction, make sure your instructions are clear, your organization logical and that you are presenting something useful to your reader. As a writer of fiction, you must also write for your audience. Can they follow along with the story? Is it entertaining enough that they want to keep reading? If you can’t put yourself in the minds of your readers, you may not be successful at writing either fiction or nonfiction.
2: You must make sure you have an audience. Is this book actually something that is needed/wanted by a segment of readers? How large is this proposed audience? Pointed research may be necessary to determine how many people read novels set in Alaska involving pilots, period novels or who enjoy mysteries. If you’re writing nonfiction, you should find out how many people in America follow tennis, are allergic to makeup, are vegan or have horses, for example, before writing a book on this topic.
3: You must be consistent in both mediums. In nonfiction, avoid using conflicting facts, information and statistics. We’ve all seen it happen—in Chapter One, there are 25 million dog owners in the US and in Chapter Twelve, the author claims there are 50 million. In fiction, we sometimes change a character’s name, hometown, place of business, street name, etc. and then forget to make the change throughout the story.
4: In either medium, you must give your book credibility and personality. When done correctly, these can lead to smoother transitions. For nonfiction, working quotes into an article or chapter is sometimes tricky. It can be a challenge to get someone to say what you want them to say in order to corroborate a point you’re making. I’ve had difficulty at times writing a point using an expert quote. While quotes certainly aren’t the backbone of a nonfiction book, often, in fiction, dialog is. Dialog helps to move a story along. It gives the characters personality and it’s a vehicle through which they can express emotion.
5: Fiction must be as believable as nonfiction. In the latter, the author must strive to appear credible in his presentation of facts and figures. But don’t be fooled. In fiction, your story still has to have an element of truth. Not that you can’t fictionalize and use fantasy and science fiction—of course you can. But if you say the main character has a broken left leg, the next time you mention that leg, it had better be the left one. If you set the scene during summer in Las Vegas, don’t have someone shivering while walking down a street at noon and pulling their wool coat up around their neck. Fact-checking is also a necessity for novelists. If your story doesn’t make sense, your reader will lose interest and you will lose credibility in his/her eyes.
6: Both fiction and nonfiction must share an element of emotion. In fiction you use emotion to set a scene. In nonfiction you set a tone. How can one write emotion into nonfiction? Have you ever read a rant or a passionate opinion and felt the anger or tension in the nonfiction piece? Sure you have. In fiction, it is the dialog and descriptions that set up the scenes or the mood that express emotion. A character might be quickly pacing the floor with a scowl on his face. Perhaps he grimaces and pounds his fist on the tabletop or winks and smiles across the room at someone. There are many ways to convey a mood in a story or the tone of an essay, for example.
7: Many types of writing rely on some measure of storytelling skill. In fiction, we create stories in order to entertain readers. In nonfiction, we often use real-life examples and anecdotes to illustrate points.
As you can see, the elements of good writing are all there for both fiction and nonfiction-writing.
Some of them are just used in different ways.
This is not to say that it’s easy to shift from one type of writing to the other. Actually, most people have difficulty making the transition. The nonfiction author must overcome her tendency to write within strict boundaries—her narration and dialogue may seem stilted and forced. The novelist might have difficulty coming across as credible when writing an instructional book, for example, because his style is too literary.
So what is the key to changing up your writing preference from time to time? A willingness to learn, flexibility and practice, practice, practice.
Resource of the Month
I’d like to recommend Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing program. I’m using it to produce my novels, Catnapped, Cat-Eye Witness and Sleight of Paw and I’ve been most pleased with the service, the promotional efforts of Amazon, the ease with which I can check my sales and the amazing number of sales these books continue to generate. Check this opportunity out here: http://www.kdp.amazon.com
I wouldn’t necessarily suggest this to those of you who write nonfiction. But people do seem to be reading their novels on Kindles and other eReaders.
Patricia Fry Bio Roundup
Patricia Fry’s Bio Roundup
I’ve been writing for publication for 40 years and I’m the author of over 40 published books—most of them on publishing and book promotion. I’m the Executive Director of SPAWN (Small Publishers, Artists and Writers Network) http://www.spawn.org I compile the Market Update, a bi-monthly newsletter for SPAWN members and I maintain a daily publishing blog. The blog boasts over 2,000 posts to date http://www.matilijapress.com/publishingblog I also write a blog related to cats—through which I promote my Klepto Cat Mystery series and Catscapades, True Cat Tales. http://www.matilijapress.com/catscapades
My articles have appeared in hundreds of publications, including Writers Digest, Publishing Basics, Book Marketing Matters, Writer’s Journal, Cat Fancy, Your Health, Horse of Course, Western Horse, The Artist’s Magazine, Woman’s World, The World and I and many others.
I work with authors on their projects from an editorial standpoint, I teach online courses for authors and I travel to speak several times each year at conferences and other author events.
While I’ve been writing nonfiction for all of my 40 years, I recently dipped my toe into the world of fiction and have launched the Klepto Cat Mystery series.
Patricia Fry announces another NEW addition to her Klepto Cat Mystery series.
First there was Catnapped, which is now in Kindle and print. http://amzn.to/14OCk0W
Then came Cat-Eye Witness, still available on Kindle http://amzn.to/1bJiq0x
Now we have created Sleight of Paw, a new Kindle book. http://amzn.to/1mGuAXQ (NEW)
If you like light mysteries and appreciate stories involving animals, you will enjoy this series. You can read any of these books as stand-alone books. But, if you’ve read Catnapped and/or Cat-Eye Witness, you sure don’t want to miss Sleight of Paw. Order your Kindle copy today: http://amzn.to/1mGuAXQ
If you don’t have a Kindle, you can download the Kindle app FREE to your computer, iPad, iPod or other device just go to: http://amzn.to/1mGuAXQ and download it from there.
Previews Coming Attractions—Plethora of Marketing ideas.
In the coming months, each newsletter will focus on a type of book promotion—public speaking/using your personality to promote books; social media; submitting articles or stories for publication; radio/TV; conferences; book reviews and so forth.
Mission Statement: The primary purpose of this enewsletter is to bring information, resources and encouragement to fellow authors both beginners and experienced. It’s an education for authors who want to become more successful in a highly competitive industry.