Nonfiction Writing

This Blog is Moving! Please Re-Link or Re-RSS!

2010-05-29T00:00:00.002-04:00

Sorry for the inconvenience, but we're in the process of moving from this blog to another platform. It's here: http://jstevemiller.com/blog .

If you're currently linked to this blog, please link to the new blog, which also contains all the old posts from this blog.

Thanks for your faithful following! I'll see you over at the other blog!

Sincerely,

Steve

Writing and Publicity Tips from Mars and Venus

2010-04-30T08:13:00.004-04:00

I just listened to Steve Harrison interviewing Dr. John Gray, author of the best-selling (over 30,000,000 copies) Men are from Mars and Women are from Venus. It's worth a listen for any author. Here some of my takeaways:

1) There's value in sharing your ideas in seminars before sharing them in books. Typically, authors think the other way around - "I'll write this book and then sell it at my seminars." But Dr. Gray started with counseling and seminars. For him, this was valuable in that over time he could observe the audience response and discover what connected and what didn't. It also gave him time to develop key analogies, such as "Mars and Venus."

Here's how it happened:

He'd been teaching relationship seminars about how understanding gender differences can improve relationships. Another seminar leader used a striking analogy which compared the man-woman relationship to a cross-cultural experience. (Dr. Gray knows he's hearing a great point when the hair on his arms stands up.)

But he knew he needed an analogy of his own. So one day he began to imagine what it would be like if men were Martians, but were unhappy, and contacted the inhabitants of Venus to try to find happiness. Then, they move together to earth. Since Martians and Venusians do things differently, they must come to understand those differences to get along and thrive.

The point: Sometimes your seminal points and analogies can come out of years of working with people and leading seminars. "To be successful you need a perspective that has been honed and sanded down." (None of my quotes may not be exact.)

2) Dream up a unique perspective. If it's just another book on relationships, with chapters on each of the main points that everyone else lists, that's not news. Why would radio stations want to interview you? But Mars and Venus presents a fresh perspective. The media is all about fresh perspectives.

3) Utilize your life experiences. For nine years, Dr. Gray lived as a celibate monk. There, he learned to be content and happy on his own. Thus, he could relate very differently than people who were hoping to find purpose and happiness through a mate.

"It's your life experiences that give you the power to pull people in."

4) If you're wanting to educate and inspire others, don't depend on selling books to them for your revenue. Support yourself in other ways, so that you can get out and share your ideas. Supporting himself as a computer programmer gave him the time to write and promote his book, without having to depend upon them for income.

5) Don't be discouraged if your early books aren't great successes. Publishers didn't want his first book, so he self-published. His second book was with a small publisher, so small that it took him a year to get a distributor.

6) Smaller books can often communicate better than bigger books. After writing a large book on relationships that said everything he wanted to say, he honed it down to ten concepts for his Mars and Venus book. Most people read only the first two chapters of self-help books.

7) Make it fun and lighthearted. This was another change he made from the larger book.

8) It's okay if it's not an immediate success. Some authors feel that if their books are good enough, that reviewers will instantly rave and word of mouth will immediately take effect. Not for Venus and Mars. He went on a book tour, which indeed landed him on Oprah. Yet, he was relegated to the last three minutes of the program, and it didn't produce sales. After that, his publisher gave up on publicity for his book, saying, "Well, that was our chance and it didn't work out."

9) Keep pressing forward with your own marketing strategy. After his publisher quit publicizing, he took it upon himself to advertise in the Radio-Television Interview Report (RTIR) and did radio interview after radio interview. After doing those for a year, he got best-seller status. Then, he wrote Oprah again and she devoted an entire show to him. After that, his book stayed on the New York Times Bestseller List for seven years.

What struck you about this interview? Anything I missed? Anything you'd like to add from your own experience or knowledge to my nine takeaways?

Getting Reviews on Blogs

2010-04-23T07:46:00.002-04:00

Book marketing guru's all speak highly of getting book reviews, even to the tune of sending out 500 or so books to get the word out.

I've found the top 500 blogs in my subject area (I write nonfiction) and am spending a couple of months going to each one and asking if they'd like to do a review and a giveaway. Some don't reply. Some say they've got too many books beside their bed, or they don't do reviews. But about 1 in 6 request a copy for review. (I'll tabulate later just how many come through. Some need reminders.)

Nobody acts like I'm bothering them. It's a win/win and they're grateful for getting a free book on a subject area they're passionate about. And some of these blogs get major traffic. One that reviewed my book yesterday gets 80,000 visitors per month, has 250 incoming links, an Alexa rank of 94,000 and 900+ subscribed RSS readers.

Again, I'll tabulate results later (like how many came through with reviews and how many of my books actually sold as a result), but it seems at this point to be a good campaign.

btw, I do take the time to read some posts on each blog, and read the "About" section so that I can see if we're indeed a match and I can personalize my request to each one. I think it's better to take a slow, personal approach than just try to see how many blogs I can hit in a day. A couple of the bloggers mentioned how much they appreciated that I took the time to check out their blog before suggesting a review.

Has anyone else had success/failures in getting reviews from bloggers?

Learning From a Successful Teen Novelist

2010-03-27T09:30:00.004-04:00

As a 10-year-old, Christopher Paolini started reading fantasy books, but became frustrated because he didn’t feel they were good enough. So at 14 he began writing his own book, but quickly found out he didn’t know what he was doing, so he began reading everything he could get his hands on about how to write.

At fifteen he wrote his first draft, which took him about a year. Then he took about a year to re-write it. His parents read it and thought he should publish it. They took a third year to prepare it for publication (proofing, typesetting, etc.) and self-published it through print on demand with Lightning Source. It’s name: Eragon (he took the word “dragon” and substituted an “e” for the “d”).

Here's the writing process in a bit more detail from Christopher:

“By the end of 1999, I had completed the first draft of ERAGON. At last I was able to read my own book from start to finish ... and I was dismayed by how amateurish it seemed. The story was fine, but it was mired in atrocious language and grammar. I was like a musician who has composed his first aria, only to discover that he can’t perform it because he has not yet learned to sing. I set out to rewrite ERAGON with the goal of raising the language to a professional level.

I did not entirely succeed. My second draft—which took a second year (2000)—was larger than the first and bloated with far too many words. At that point, I turned the manuscript over to my parents, both of whom are published authors.

Finally, I began to benefit from real editing. Editing and revision are two of the most important tools for forging a great book. With my parents’ advice, I was able to clarify my descriptions, streamline my logic, and quicken the pace of the story so that ERAGON read the way that I had intended it to. This consumed the bulk of 2001.

My parents and I had decided to self-publish ERAGON for financial and creative reasons.” ( http://www.teenreads.com/authors/au-paolini-christopher.asp )

But here’s where he deviated from most authors. Instead of sitting around waiting to see if anyone would discover his book, he went out and started selling it. I don’t get the impression that he did 1001 different things to market his book. He found one method that suited him and worked for him: doing a presentation in schools. And he worked hard at it.

“We started by doing book signings in bookstores, but quickly learned that no one shows up for an author they have never heard of. I was very determined, and would stay for eight hours straight and talk to every person who came in the store and try to sell them a book. On a good day, I might sell forty books. That’s not bad for a signing, but it’s a lot of work.”

I then learned that if I went into a school and did a presentation, in one day we could sell 300 books or more, and inspire students to read and write, so I concentrated on that. We also started charging a fee for the presentation, to help cover travel expenses.

He did most presentations dressed in a medieval costume.

"My dad and I made two trips to Houston, where my grandmother lives. I called numerous school librarians and spoke to them about my book and presentation. They didn’t know who I was, so it took a bit of persuading, but I managed to arrange to visit several schools, along with a few bookstores, that first trip. One of the librarians posted an enthusiastic recommendation of my presentation to an online teachers’ forum (pop quiz: so what does getting on this forum do for him? sm – that’s called a platform for other schools), so by the time we returned home to Montana, my mom already had a second trip to Texas planned, and I didn’t have to do any cold calls. That second trip was a solid month long, with three or four hour-long presentations every single day.”

He and his family ended up doing over 135 talks.

In the summer of 2002, American novelist Carl Hiaasen was on vacation in one of the cities that Paolini gave a talk in. While there, his stepson bought a copy of Eragon that he "immediately loved".[1] He showed it to his stepfather, who brought the book to the attention of the publishing house Alfred A. Knopf. Michelle Frey, executive editor at Knopf, contacted Paolini and his family to ask if they were interested in having Knopf publish Eragon.” Knopf re-edited it and published it in 2003.

He got two big-time reviews, but they were both rather mediocre, calling it formulaic, not that well-written, but hey, not bad for a young person. But the public voted with their dollars and Eragon placed on the New York Times Best Seller list for 121 weeks.

Then the movie came out in 2006. It tended to get lousy reviews by the critics, but I’m sure Paolini and the publishing company cried all the way to the bank since “the film’s $249 million total worldwide gross was the sixteenth highest for 2006.”

Today Paoloni continues to write books.

Takeaways for authors:

1) Take your time in writing your book. Writing is rewriting. Get input from professionals.

2) Writers without platforms can make it.

3) Market your book. I don’t think any of this would have happened had Paolini never contacted his first school to see if he could do a presentation.

(References: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eragon, http://www.teenreads.com/authors/au-paolini-christopher.asp , http://inheritance.wikia.com/wiki/Christopher_Paolini)

Too Much Competition to Sell Books?

2010-03-16T08:08:00.004-04:00

Someone on a forum lamented that, with so many books on the market, the competition makes it nearly impossible to sell books. So let's say that there were 400,000 new books published last year. Many are by big-time publishers and big-time authors. Are we small-time authors crazy to compete in this game?

In the end, perhaps it makes little difference whether there are 100,000 books published next year, or 2,000,000 books. Our real competition is against books that are #1 - well-written and #2 - well-marketed. Sure, there are exceptions that get a lucky break and make it big, but typically those that lack #1 or #2 (the vast majority of books) are buried so low that they're not really competing with us.

In marketing my non-fiction book, I'll e-mail (this week) about 20 popular financial blogs or financial magazines, asking if they want to look it over to bring out tips for graduates. About 4 typically respond. If I follow-up well, I get reviews out there, with links pointed back to my book on Amazon. Another small-time author friend likes radio and is finding this response rate when he queries radio. I interviewed him last week. You might like to see exactly how he goes about it:

http://freelancewriterblog.blogspot.com/2010/03/author-shares-gueri...

When another friend who writes novels puts his book into local (not chain) restaurants, he's not typically finding any competition. He's the only book there. It doesn't matter if 150,000 novels were published last year. The people in line at the restaurant don't have the 150,000 before them; they see my friend's novel.

That's all to say, although it's gonna be very difficult to get into the channels that everybody's competing for, like Publisher's Weekly or Kirkus, once you go to other channels, there's lots of room to sell good books. We just have to be creative in how to get the word out there. We're not competing with all the books that are published, just all the books that people are aware of, which may be no larger a group than we were competing against 20 years ago.

Author Shares Guerilla Marketing Tips that Work

2010-03-12T10:42:00.006-05:00

Danny Kofke doesn't have a big platform, nor does he have a lot of time. He teaches full time in a public school (special education) and is raising two young children. Yet, he's selling far more books than your typical author, largely through his own publicity efforts. On his media page, I find four radio shows and one book signing that are booked for the next couple of months. And it's not a brand new book. It's been out over two years. It's called How to Survive (And Perhaps Thrive) on a Teacher's Salary.

Here are some tips I picked up from him in a phone conversation this morning:

1) Face it, it takes time and effort to sell books. They don't sell themselves.

2) Book marketing is fun! He's been at this for over two years and still gets a charge out of doing radio interviews, TV and other media. He still fondly recalls the excitement of doing his first radio interview.

3) He takes advantage of both large and small opportunities. You never know what might pay off. He had one interview he did for Bank Rate that got picked up by the FOX site. Another went secondarily to AOL's home page. The point? Just get out there and do something, even if it's small. Do something enough and cool things start to happen.

4) His main method is to research viable media and send e-mails to them.

He starts with a Google search for such topics as "radio stations about teachers", "financial radio shows," etc. Then, he finds them on the Web and studies the show. If it's all about, for example, recommending stocks to buy, he doesn't pursue it.
Next, he finds the contact person on the site. E-mail them a pitch. The pitch must be powerful. Remember, it's not about your book, it's about their audience. With the first paragraph, share a startling statistic or something to grab them, demonstrating that their audience wants to hear what you have to say. If you've gotten publicity before, link them to your media page so that they can see or hear past interviews.

5) Follow-up and keep good records. Danny emphasized this over and over. He'll pitch anyone and everyone, then write on the calendar to follow-up in a month or so if they haven't responded. If they still don't respond, he may e-mail again several months later, saying something like, "Hey, I just spoke on this station and was mentioned in this article. If you'd like to interview me...." And he keeps following up until someone says that don't want to hear any more.

As you can imagine, good record-keeping is vital. He calendars items that he needs to do at a later time. He keeps a notebook as to who he's e-mailed, how they responded, and when to follow-up. If someone declines and wants no further pitches, he notes that as well.

Example: He contacted the "700 Club" early in his marketing. They declined to interview him. But recently he e-mailed again, telling them what other events he's done and linking them to his author site so that they can see his other interviews. This time, they booked him!

6) Interest can build over time. The media isn't just interested in new books. Once you get one interview and put it on your media site, this can leverage more reviews. Now the media has something to judge whether or not you're a fit for their program. The more interviews you get, the more impressive you look. It's called building a platform from scratch. It's called leveraging one opportunity to get other opportunities.

Danny sent 10 e-mails over time to CBS about getting on their early show. Finally, he could say in an e-mail, "Hey, I was just on CNN." This time, they replied and asked to see his interview from CNN. That's progress! Hopefully, he'll let us know if it comes through!

7) Danny uses HARO (Help a Reporter Out) to give his expertise to journalists who need to interview experts, or regular people with specialized experiences. Responding to a HARO request got him into the Wall Street Journal.

8) Set up your media page. We've already mentioned how he's using it. I like it for two reasons:

It gives the media exactly what they want to know, all there on one page where they don't have to waste time searching for information. They can click on both articles and interviews and see that Danny can handle himself well on interviews.
It's free and takes minimal time to maintain. I can hear marketing experts saying, "You need to post a blog every day, or at least a few times a week. You need to get links from other prominent sites. You need to post on other people's blogs." To which I'd respond, "Danny doesn't have time for all that crap. He's got something that works for him. Why ruin it?"

Danny's blog is free and functions well for his purpose. He set it up on blogspot.com and didn't even bother to buy a distinct url. Apparently, he doesn't need a url, so why pay $10 a year to get one? That goes along with his book on how to live on a teacher's salary. You don't buy things you neither want nor need.
It's easily up-datable. You don't have to use DreamWeaver or ExpressionWeb or have to hire a webmaster. Blogspot gives you all the basic tools you need.

9) You don't have to do everything. If I understand Danny correctly (I'll let him edit this), he isn't putting his book in book fairs, sending it off extensively for review, going for book awards, writing articles for magazines, and traveling extensively. While he has his eye on other opportunities, like presentations to school faculty, he's hung in there with something that's working for him - doing radio shows. I've heard that one of the hardest things for entrepreneurs to do is to stick with a winning formula once they've found one. Danny's making it work, and for that, I greatly admire him!

Follow-Up Interview

Out of 20 first contacts that you make, how many do you estimate end up
actually booking you?

Danny -I would say maybe 4-5 even replied to my message and maybe 2 would book me.

SM - Now that you've got interviews on your press page that they can look at
and realize that you've been in major media, is it easier to book interviews? If so, how many out of 20 responded at first and how many out of 20 now?

Danny - Yes, it's easier to book interviews now. Most producers want to see how you can fit into their show and help their listeners/viewers out. It is not about you or your book most of the time - it is about your message. Since I have been on numerous TV and radio shows, producers can take a look at these and see if I would be a good fit for them. They no longer have to guess what I would sound/look like since they can see first-hand. I would say I now get 5-6 responses (still not half) from the pitches I send out.

SM - Is 90% of what you're doing going after radio?

Danny - No, I would say about 60% radio, 30% television and the rest various print outlets. At first, before I had any television exposure, I was mainly going after radio but now, since I have had exposure in all three areas I mentioned, I pitch appropriate people in all of these areas.

SM - How many contacts (new and followup) do you think you average each week?

Danny - I would estimate 100 or so. Some weeks it is more and some less but, overall, I would say that is the average.

SM - How much time do you think you average marketing your book each week?

Danny - It is an endless job since there are so many ways to market. I have come up with a balance to be the best husband, father, teacher and marketer I can so I limit myself since I could probably work on marketing 10 hours a day! I would say I spend an average of 15-20 hours a week working on book related stuff.

Thanks Danny! That's great information. Thanks for being so generous with us!

Bookstores vs. Amazon for Sales: Part II

2010-03-08T08:38:00.004-05:00

The New York Times article on James Patterson (James Patterson, Inc.), was instructive regarding how publishers, and thus bookstores, cater to the big-time authors. A couple of paragraphs told about how the big publishers now put most of their marketing efforts behind their best selling authors, much more so now than the past. The result is that best-selling authors sell even more books, but the mid-list authors get very little marketing dollars. Publisher pay thousands of dollars to reserve top-placement sections of bookstores for their best-selling authors. Thus, the best-selling authors keep selling more copies while the rest of us may initially get into a bookstore, but will soon be sent back to publisher if we fail to sell, never to return.

Thus, even if the smaller authors get into the bookstores, if there isn't a strong marketing campaign (either by the author or the publisher), then people won't come to the bookstore looking for the book, and it will get returned.

I'm a small-time author, and am glad that my books are offered through Baker & Taylor and Ingram, but the bulk of my sales come through Amazon. And yes, in a sense, Amazon is just passive, but isn't that the current revolution in marketing - from "interruption marketing" to "I'll help you find me marketing"?

By optimizing my Amazon pages, posting articles on popular sites and blogs, getting reviews on popular sites and newspapers, and by having all these linked back to my Amazon page, I get regular sales. And I get 35% of each sale on Amazon - much, much better than the percentage of my sales to bookstores through the big wholesalers.

So for me it's both/and, but Amazon is becoming the bigger and bigger player for me.

J. Steve Miller
President, Legacy Educational Resources
Author of Enjoy Your Money! How to Make It, Save It, Invest It and Give It
"The money book for people who hate money books."
http://wisdomcreekpress.com/press_kits.html

Brick and Mortar Bookstores vs. Amazon for Authors

2010-03-08T08:32:00.001-05:00

An experience, a stat and a reflection on brick and mortar vs. Amazon:

An Experience

I write resources for those teaching character and life skills in public schools. When the two Superbowl contenders are decided, I immediately find out who the highest profile athletes are so that I can research them for character stories (what led them to such a high level of success.)

So Kurt Warner was quarterbacking in the Superbowl a couple of years ago and I decided to read his autobiography. He'd led his team to the Superbowl several years earlier in a spectacular bag-boy to Superbowl hero story and I thought, "This is as high a profile person as you can get. The Superbowl's a week away, the most watched media event of the year; so I'm sure his autobiography will be in my local bookstores."

I called Barnes & Noble, Borders and Books a Million. None carried it. One said they couldn't even order it. I ordered from Amazon.

A Stat

A few experiences like this one and people begin defaulting to Amazon. Here are the stats from 2008:

Barnes and Noble.com = $466 million
Borders/ Waldenbooks = $3.11 billion
Barnes & Nobel/ B. Dalton = $4.52 billion
Amazon.com = $5.35 billion (book sales only)

More importantly in 2008, Amazon’s sales grew by 16% while each of the other bookstore chains lost money. If this trend continues, Amazon will rapidly become a bigger and bigger player for authors, and bookstores will become less and less - particularly for small-time authors who can't be guaranteed to get into bookstores and be continually stocked there.

A Reflection

Don't get me wrong; I love bookstores! But after a couple of experiences like that, I began defaulting to Amazon. I support bookstores. I hang out at bookstores. But I depend on Amazon. It's a time issue. A local bookstore can carry only a small percentage of the millions of books in print, even of books that are recognized classics in their fields - like a Psychology text on "Persuasion" I couldn't find locally. After signing up for Amazon Prime, we never pay postage. And books come quickly to our door.

If you're a major selling author like Sue Grafton for novels or David McCullough for biographies, traditional brick and mortar bookstores, Walmart, etc. are wonderful sales outlets. For the rest of us, they are a useful outlet that people can order from, but not likely to carry us long-term.

If a person with as high a profile as Kurt Warner's (incredibly "high platform", which all publishers are looking to publish) can't keep his autobiography in the bookstores several years after it was written (and it was truly a well-written, inspiring book), then what chance do us low-profile authors have of keeping our books in bookstores over the years? At best, for low-profile authors, I'd suggest that brick and mortar bookstores are typically a short-term rather than long-term strategy.

I have a book on church music, published 17 years ago with a traditional publisher, with no marketing done for it in the past 15 years, that still sells steadily on Amazon. It probably lasted only a couple of years in bookstores.

On Getting Articles Published

2010-02-19T12:40:00.006-05:00

It's one thing to write insightful and well-crafted prose, quite another to navigate the business of writing - actually getting published and making money from your craft. Most of the ideas for this post come from The March/April issue of Writer's Digest, which attacked theme: Your Economic Survival Guide. Lots of great stuff here. I'll center in on ideas for getting articles published.

1. Build Relationships. Maybe you meet writers at socials or writers' conferences. Offer to take them to lunch to ask for advice. If you've written for someone before, keep in touch! Keep a good client list. If you came through with a good article last time, they're more likely to take your idea next time. Submit to them regularly.

2. Understand the Market. Perry Perkins makes a full-time living writing articles. At first, he wrote articles and used Writers Market to try to find appropriate places to place them. Then, he took a different approach. He spent several days reading through Writers Market, cover to cover, studying it. This knowledge can become a brainstorming list to dream up articles a certain publication might love. Then he could write queries based on what magazines were looking for, rather than trying to taylor his articles to fit their purposes.

There's an interesting parallel to Warren Buffett's advice to a young person wanting to learn how to invest like him. Basically, he told him to start like he did, studying every publically traded stock in the United States. The person objected - there are thousands of stocks! To which Buffett replied, "Start with the A's". I think Buffett's point was: if you want to pick the best companies, it helps to understand how they compare with other companies. The more companies you know and understand, the better decisions you can make.

Writing is a skill. But we sell our writing in a market - an industry. The more thoroughly we understand that market, the easier it will become to find the perfect match for our articles, and to propose articles that would be the perfect match for specific publications.

3. If your writing is good, then it's a numbers game - put out lots of submissions. Trying to move up from making a partial living to making a full living, Perkins upped his submissions from an average of 2.5 per day to 15 per day (assuming a five day work week). It worked!

4. Query big, well-paying publications first.

5. Don't put hours into an article until you know someone wants it. Query first.

6. Know the publication, giving editors what they want, when they want it, how they want it. You know this by studying their guidelines for submission and reading their publications.

Leftover Questions

I've written article for magazines, but have never done extensive article submission. Do most magazines accept multiple submissions? I suppose that since Perkins recommends hitting the big publications first, they he's giving them a week or a month to respond before submitting the proposal to lesser publications. How long do you give the major publication? And if there are 10 lesser publications, do you send out those 10 at the same time? What if more than one wants it? Do you write two similar, but different articles?

If you have answers or suggestions, please let me know.

31 Recent Blogging Insights

2010-02-19T08:06:00.006-05:00

From a blogging seminar and Writer's Digest article:

1. Be extremely specific/niche. Find what's not already published on Amazon.

2. Blog about what you love.

3. If you need to make money off it, find a topic where "Something You Love" meets "Something People Will Pay For." You may love to write about your cat and the cutesy things he does. But will people pay for it? (I think this is one of the most overlooked insights in people trying to make money with their blog. It's not just, "blog every day with quality content." You've got to ask if you're putting out information that people are willing to pay for in some fashion.)

4. Break up copy with bold headlines, subheads, etc.

5. Have several beginnings of posts on your blog home page, where they can click for more.

6. Headline Tips:

Be Concise
Use full names of people and places
Include key words and phrases
Include story details.

7. Choose your own domain name, cheap from godaddy.com.

8. Link back to earlier posts = 2 page views.

9. Ask for input - engage your audience!

10. To build a following, post every day for 30 days, then 2 - 3 x per week.

11. Comment on other blogs and track back.

12. Wordpress Direct (wpdirect.com) is search engine optimization on steroids.

13. Set up supporting blogs that link back to your main blog.

14. Reciprocal linking is suspect to Google - looks like an arrangement.

15. Try www.hootsuite.com to manage several of your social media (Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, etc.) at once.

16. Pre-populate your tweets and blogs to save hours.

17. People and search engines love "Top Ten," "How to..." and Videos.

18. Embed the video on your blog rather than just link to youtube.

19. Put your blog address on the video.

20. Try live streaming free at ustream.com, to connect with people in real time.

21. Monetize with e-books. The blog is the jumping off point.

22. Monetize with "Donate" button. "If anything I've written helped you, donate now." Just set up a merchant account with PayPal and embed the code.

23. One person with an airline insider weekly e-mail asks readers to donate once a year. It's enough to make a living. The average donation is $50 per month. He works at it full time.

24. Monetize with premium resources. So you have lots of free resources available, which lets them know you do quality stuff. Then you sell e-books or a members only section.

25. Monetize by being an Amazon Associate. When you recommend a book, you have a link to Amazon. If someone buys, you get a cut.

26. Monetize by selling ads. But you have to have a lot of traffic to make it work. You might do better approaching a compatible company than just going with Google Ads.

27. Approach other blogs with posts they could use. That gives you links coming back. Some successful bloggers get most of their traffic from other blogs.

28. Write guest posts for another blog or publication. One blogger writes a monthly column for her state's main newspaper. It gives her respect and brings people in.

29. Use 1.5 spacing. More inviting.

30. Go to Google Trends (http://www.google.com/trends) to find hot topics and hot searches. Other sources of trends = Technorati, Digg, StumbleUpon, Reddit.

31. Submit appropriate posts to article marketing directories such as http://ezinearticles.com/ or http://www.associatedcontent.com/.

32. Do clear calls to action: "Sign up for my newsletter," "Buy my book."

"Blogging is just like networking - the one with the most friends wins!"
"We need 1,000 eyeballs looking at our writing!"

Summary of First Year Marketing Book

2010-02-18T08:35:00.004-05:00

Often, what I find lacking in book marketing literature (I've read 15 such books so far) is the answer to the question:

"Okay, so you've told me 10,000 ways to market my book. But how can I decide which of those ways are likely to have the best payoff? I know every book's different, but what methods tend to work best and what often doesn't sell books at all?"

To help answer that question, a big part of this blog over the past year has been to track my efforts to sell my book, Enjoy Your Money! How to Make It, Save It, Invest It and Give It. I've admitted grand schemes that produced no sales at all and lots of tiny efforts that apparently, taken together as a whole, are now producing significant sales on a regular basis.

So here's my 11 month summary, which I used for a consult with Brian Jud (guru at marketing books "Beyond the Bookstore) and Guy Achtzehn (formerly with Simon & Schuster; current president, The Marketing and Sales Group and The Promotional BookStore. Represents such brands as Black & Decker/DeWalt, Bulova, Coleman, Fuji and Ralph Lauren. Here's information on doing your own $49 consult with them. )

Enjoy Your Money!
Marketing Summary

Bottom Line: Much of the ground work has been laid (glowing reviews, attractive and inviting Amazon presence, useful media page) and the book has proven itself to be a valuable resource (readers like it). I think we’ve arrived at a time that we can leverage these tools to seriously get the word out about this book. The big question: of all the available marketing methods, which will be the most effective to pursue, given limited time?

Background

My literary agent contacted many traditional publishers, all of whom turned it down. She has relationships with many of these, so she asked them why. None of them had a problem with the quality of the book (one asked for a copy, should we get it published!). They felt that I lacked the platform – “financial books won’t sell unless you have a national radio show”. I respectfully disagreed, started my own publishing company and published print on demand through Booksurge (now CreateSpace) in March of 2009.

I sent galleys to all the major reviewers four months before publication, but got no reviews.
I pursued other reviewers and financial columnists, got a publicist who helped me with press releases, etc. Sales have continued to increase as a result (see next section for specifics).
Wholesalers: Available through Baker & Taylor (from March, 2009) and Ingram (by March, 2010), without a return policy. Thus, I don’t expect bookstores to be a main source of sales at this time. I could pay extra to have a return policy with Baker & Taylor, and probably with Ingram, but some advise not to.

Distributors: In December, the Follett Corporation ( http://www.follett.com/about.cfm ), a major player in distribution to young adult libraries (juvenile collections in public libraries, high school libraries), started receiving some orders and they contacted me. We signed a non-exclusive contract for them to distribute. They actually market their books, so I’m hopeful that this will be a solid outlet. I paid Premium Book Company (Through Brian Jud) to search for bulk sale opportunities. Nothing so far, but I know this is a long-term project.

Marketing So Far
What’s Working and What’s Not

#1: Amazon Sales: At first, since there were no big-time reviews, books only sold when I did some initiative: like letting Facebook friends know about it, or a review came out. But by the Fall, sales have begun taking a life of their own, even when I have no specific initiative going on. Apparently, word of mouth is taking over. Prior to December, it was selling a bit less than one per day. In December, it sold about 2 per day; in January, 3 per day. Perhaps we’ve hit a tipping point! Or maybe December and January are just good for financial books. Who knows?

#2: Bulk purchases for gifts: A CPA bought 100 copies (and promises to purchase more) to give away to graduating seniors. A pastor bought 30 copies to give to graduating seniors. A lady bought 30 copies to give as gifts. I have a personal relationship with all three of these, so people who don’t know me already may not be as eager to jump on it. Following up on this, I personally visited several CPA firms in my city and gave them a free copy to look over, in case they wanted to purchase in bulk at $10 each for Christmas gifts for their clients. None followed through, although some secretaries bought copies.

#3: Bulk purchases for speaking: I’ve spoken at two retreats where they bought the books for each of the students at $10 each – about 30 copies per retreat. I relate to students well and enjoy communicating with them. I’ve also spoken to adults in both churches and civic organizations, and can begin seeking out more opportunities if I decide to go this direction.

#4: Sales from Reviews: I found 30 major newspapers that have financial columns, e-mailed the columnists, sent free books to those who requested it. I got only one review, but it was from a syndicated financial columnist from the Oakland Tribune, and I got multiple sales immediately after he published. I don’t know how many direct sales have come from reviews, but I think that, even with no-platform reviewers, the word gets out. So far, I’ve sent out about 320 copies to people for review, to enter contests (I received a “best books” award), let teachers review it, see if a CPA would like to order in bulk, etc. I seldom send it to anyone without contacting them first and getting a request.

Bookstores sales: Two local bookstores haven’t sold any. A bookstore in my home town sells a few copies regularly. A local university bookstore has sold copies and pushes it during graduation. I don’t have a lot of confidence in this book’s ability to sell well in bookstores, if it’s not pushed by the owners. If a media wave hits, then maybe it will send people to the bookstores to buy it.

Stores that aren’t bookstores: Several non-bookstores (a coffee shop, a fitness center, a video rental store, a home office/copy place) have tried to sell it, with only a couple sold. But a Trade & Play Video Game store owner sold some copies saying that the secret is that parents look at it while they’re waiting in line and he recommends it. He seems pretty excited about it. (My theory was to put it in a place where parents bring their kids to buy stuff, and while the parents are wandering around with nothing to do, they’ll pick up the book and look it over.) I think the key here is to find store owners who’ll actually read the book and catch a passion for helping people by recommending it.

HARO (Help A Reporter Out): I’ve contributed to several articles, one of which resulted in a lot of traffic to one of my sites. As Murphy’s Law would have it, this was a few months before my book was published.

I was on two major Atlanta TV stations and sold none. (I bought the rights and put them on youtube, however. Also, I got a link from their site, which could be very important.)

I did one radio interview and sold none.

Assets|

1. The book itself. People like it, but it doesn’t sell itself (I’m neither Donald Trump nor Dave Ramsey.)

2. My presence on Amazon (all 19 reviews are five-star!) and my Media Pages. All include great reviews:

Main Media Page: http://wisdomcreekpress.com/press_kits.html
Media Page Targeting Educators: http://wisdomcreekpress.com/personal_finance_text.html
Amazon Page: http://www.amazon.com/Enjoy-Your-Money-Make-Invest/dp/098187567X/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1237211789&sr=8-2

3. Work ethic: I don’t have lots of time, but I can do something each day. I can set long term goals and execute.

4. Flexibility: If I find that something works better than what I planned, I change course.

5. Patience. I excel at plodding. I’m fully willing to do things for months that might produce multiple sales years from now. I see marketing this book as a life-long effort, so I’m willing to set decade-long goals.

6. I’m a voracious learner. If I don’t understand it the first time, I’ll get it on the 30th time. If you tell me that I need to read certain books to understand certain aspects of marketing, I can do that.

7. Speaking: Although I’m not a world-class speaker, young people and adults enjoy my presentations and give me great reviews. People ask me back. But I can’t get out a lot, due to family responsibilities (seven boys and caring for 104-year-old granny.)

8. Articles: This book lends itself to limitless articles. Lots of material, tons of research, lots of interesting angles.

9. Royalties: I get 35% of the retail price on each Amazon sale. At this point, this is my main avenue for sales. Since CreateSpace is owned by Amazon, there are no costs to me for this transaction (no mailing to Amazon, no yearly fees, etc.) To sell it myself, the book costs me about $4.60 to purchase it in bulk, including shipping to me. So I can still offer it at a 55% discount to wholesalers/distributors (if they pay postage, which Follett does), and make a profit.

10. My Websites and Newsletters: My not-for-profit, Legacy Educational Resources, encompasses two websites that I have full control over: www.character-education.info and www.youth-ministry.info . Together, these sites get about 900 unique visitors per day. My quarterly e-zine goes out to about 8,000 people who’ve signed up on these sites. Unfortunately, although many of these are educators, a relatively small amount would be actually teaching person finance, so links from these sites and mentions in the e-zines have produced insignificant sales.

11. Rights: I own the rights to the book, so that if I can publish booklets, excerpts, e-books, or whatever I please. If a company or book club wanted to order in bulk, I could price out an offset run and even personalize it for the company.

12. Social Media Savvy: I have three blogs, a twitter account (@enjoyyourmoney), am on Facebook, LinkedIn, and participate in several marketing forums. I don’t put a lot of time into these, but at least have a presence. In general, for me, I’m finding more value in “going where the people are already gathered,” rather than trying to gather people around me.

13. Website: www.enjoyyourmoney.org Open to input here.

Limitations

Limited Marketing Budget. I’m small time. But since the book’s making money, I can devote that money to marketing.

Limited Time: I run a not-for-profit, am raising 7 boys, and care for my 104-year-old granny. I can do something every day to market my book, but I can’t devote full time.

Small Platform: I have no strong platform (radio show, syndicated column, etc.) except for the platform I’m building (leveraging bigger blurbs from smaller blurbs, etc.).

Geographically, I’m physically constrained. I can’t get physically far from home very often at this point in life. I can’t be a full-time travelling speaker, nor do I desire that life. I can speak once a month or so.

Current priorities

(Do you agree? Which of these would you prioritize? What do you specifically recommend for me to do?)

This is where I really need your input. There are so many ways to market this book, and I could devote a solid year to several of them. Which do you think would be the most effective to pursue (if any of them.) At present, this looks like a good way to prioritize. What do you think? And with the avenues you’d pursue, how specifically would you pursue them?

#1 – Shoot for multiple sales to schools, including home schoolers. How, specifically, would you do this?

• Try to get some initial classes to use it, so that these teachers could recommend it. Haven’t succeeded so far. (I give myself a “D” for poor follow-up.)
• Follett has a division that works with textbooks. Perhaps I can cultivate this relationship.
• Continue to develop my free, online resources to accompany the book at www.enjoyyourmoney.org .
• Find the most popular home school blogs and sites and newsletters and offer them a free book for review.
• Find where traditional educators go for advice on texts and try to get in there.

#2 – Offer the book to well traveled blogs/newsletters/sites/magazines on topics like personal finance, success, raising teens, etc. Not only does the word get out to their audiences, but many of these people are influential in other realms besides their newsletter (like recommending texts to their local schools). Ulrich’s and Gale’s Directories give me hundreds of these. I can also use Technorati, Google Blogs, etc.

#3 – Radio. So I’ve got this southern accent working against me, but I think I come across natural and enjoyable in the media. Since radio people are always wanting a new angle on personal finance (particularly during the recession), should I get in the Radio-TV Interview Report (RTIR)? I think that’s where Kiyosaki (Rich Dad/ Poor Dad) made his big break.

#4 – Speaking at Universities? There are all kinds of clubs and organizations there.

#5 – Offer it to not-for-profits and prison ministries and poverty stricken schools at my cost? Hey, I wrote the book to help people. And I get the feeling that the more I can get it out there, the more word of mouth will take over and the more people will actually pay for it.

#6 – Contact those who’ve written “So You Want To…” and “Listmania” Amazon lists on personal finance or personal success, offering them a free book if they’ll add it to their list, if they deem it worthy.

#7 – Military, including military families, military returning home, etc. Find the newsletters, blogs and sites they frequent. Many of these have had their finances done for them, their room and board provided. How can I help them make their transition back home? Do you have ideas here?

Again, I see hundreds of things I could do to market this book. But how do I narrow down the best use of my limited time and limited budget?

Using Articles to Market Books

2010-02-17T18:29:00.011-05:00

Surely I could get more mileage out of my articles. I typically put them in the members' sections of my two sites, post them on my blogs, and use them in my newsletters. But after I've spent so much time researching and crafting an article, shouldn't I take a few more minutes to get the article out there somewhere, providing incoming links from the far corners of the Web and helping my Google rankings with key words? That's precisely what a lot of marketing experts suggest.

According to web marketing guru Ralph F. Wilson, "Those who find success with article marketing don't just write one article, they write and submit one a week -- or two or three. Done well, article marketing works very well." (From How to Support Your Site through Article Marketing.)

Here are some suggestions I've run across on submitting articles to free article sites, where people read articles and follow links back to my sites, or where blog owners and journalists find articles to put in their blogs and e-zines.

1. Submit only to about five top article directories and some niche sites. Don't use software to submit to hundreds of directories. Google will see that as spam and penalize your search engine position. Few people go to the lesser directories anyway. Look for the current top directories, as ranked by Alexa and Google. Here are five of the top article directories. I checked their Alexa ranks today (lower numbers are better):

http://ezinearticles.com - Alexa Rank: 132

ArticlesBase.com - Alexa Rank: 424

http://www.associatedcontent.com/ - Alexa Rank: 518

GoArticles.com - Alexa Rank: 1609

ArticleDashboard.com - Alexa Rank: 2965

SearchWarp.com - Alexa Rank: 5800

2. Write short articles: typically between 400 and 750 words. (See what each article directory recommends.)

3. Hyperlink to your site and/or book (see how many links the site allows) in your signature (not the body of the article.) Hyperlink from key phrases you're targeting, not just the url. Search engines rank hyperlinked phrases higher.

4. Format it allowing plenty of white space, using devices like headings, subheadings, bullet points and bold for key words/phrases.

5. Choose your key words carefully. I like to find them here: https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal . Use them in your title and your first sentence. But don't use them too much. Google's algorithm also accounts for synonyms. And your chances of getting ranked highly for a mega-searched term like "Money" are slim. (Everybody's trying to capture them.) So consider choosing some words that still get a lot of searches, but aren't out of your league.

6. Write quality, timely articles.

7. Write a title that intrigues, accurately sums up the article, and contains your key words. (Good luck!)

8. Additionally, send the article to e-zine editors' Websites in the field of your topic.

Lingering Questions:

1. Would it be better to target certain major publications? Even if I got only one article in the MSN Network or a major magazine, wouldn't that link likely draw more traffic than 1000 links from article databases?

I suppose that once I submit an article to one of these free sites, many magazines will no longer want it, since they may want rights to publish it for the first time. So, if I think an article might be appropriate for a magazine with a large circulation, would I do better to submit it there first and wait until later for the free sites? Or, are the odds so slim in getting into the major magazine (and the corresponding site) that I'd do just as well submitting to free sites?

Looks like I need to read several authoritative articles on submitting articles to magazines to better estimate the odds on this tactic.

2. Is it okay to submit to all these places (including top blogs and sites) at once, or do some want first rights?

3. Let's think long-term. Let's say I concentrate on more traditional magazine/ezine publishing for my better articles. So I get some published in magazines with medium circulation and then some with larger circulations. Isn't it possible that, in a few years, my resume could include "Has written for People Magazine and AARP?" Wouldn't that be better for my long-term career, than just saying, "I put up 1000 articles on free article sites and got them put in a bunch of blogs?"

Writing Lessons from James Patterson

2010-02-12T19:13:00.010-05:00

You may love James Patterson's books. You may hate them. But you can't deny his success - if you measure success by sales.

He's published more New York Times best sellers than anyone: fifty one. Thirty five of them hit No. 1.
Last year, he sold 14 million books in 38 languages.
He publishes books at an astounding rate: 9 original books in 2009. He plans to publish at least 9 in 2010.
"Since 2006, Mr. Patterson has written one out of every 17 hardcover novels...bought in the United States."

Jonathan Mahler's recent New York Times article on Patterson (James Patterson Inc., 1-24-10) gave me some insights worth chewing on. Here are my takeaways:

1. Writing can be a team sport. Writing is popularly viewed as the lone venture of recluses who hole up in their basements, surfacing every 9 months or so to submit their finished products to their publishing houses and do their national book signing tour. Then it's back to the basement. But in reality, perhaps there are as many ways to write as there are writers.

Patterson's writing has evolved into a method that doesn't require him to write the entire book. He envisions the broad strokes of the story and writes a detailed outline that can run up to 50 pages, triple spaced. (He writes it in long hand on a legal pad and gives it to an assistant to type.) He then gives the outline to one of his five coauthors (each specializes in a particular series or genre), who writes chapters and hands them back to Patterson for revisions or rewrites.

The benefit of team writing is that members of the team can concentrate on what they do best, or what they like to do best. The task of writing a 250 page book requires a vision, a knack for telling a story, the ability to create interesting, likeable characters, structuring, titling, creating cool analogies, and piddling over grammatical minutia. Just because someone's bag of talents and interests doesn't include one or more of these skills shouldn't automatically preclude her from being a writer.

It's considered normal for a screenplay to involve a visionary, several writers, and input from a legion of people, including actors and pre-release audiences. Couldn't many authors benefit from such a team approach?

2. Take your marketing seriously. Most authors seem averse to personally marketing their books. To them, it almost seems morally repugnant - like bribing people to read something they should choose of their own volition. But read up on the business of writing and you'll discover that publishers these days insist that authors involve themselves in the selling of books. I'd suggest that Patterson's success is at least partly due to his personal involvement in marketing his books.

As a former ad executive, he's intimately involved with the design, publishing and advertising of his books. In his early years of writing, Patterson repeatedly challenged conventional industry practices in book marketing. It's quite possible that if he hadn't taken rather extraordinary measures in advertising those early books, he'd just be another writer today.

3. Keep improving. Of one of his early books, Patterson says, "That's an absolutely horrifying book.... I actually tell people not to read it."

4. It's tough to get a first novel published. Over a dozen publishers rejected Patterson's first manuscript. Once published, it won a prestigious Edgar Award. Everyone in the industry tells me it's much more difficult to get published now. So don't let rejection indicate to you that your writing sucks. All authors, except best-selling authors, get rejection after rejection.

5. Don't expect everyone to like your books. Stephen King has called Patterson "a terrible writer." A Washington Post reviewer called one of his works "subliterate." To which Patterson responds, "Thousands of people don't like what I do. Fortunately, millions do."

6. Story trumps sentences. In his early work, he obsessed over his sentences. Now he's more interested in stories than sentences. Mahler describes Patterson's writing as "light on atmospherics and heavy on action, conveyed by simple, colloquial sentences." Patterson says, "I don't believe in showing off. Showing off can get in the way of a good story." He writes short chapters and avoids "description, back story and scene setting whenever possible." He prefers to "hurl readers into the action and establish his characters with a minimum of telegraphic details."

7. On writing what people want. "I have a saying. If you want to write for yourself, get a diary. If you want to write for a few friends, get a blog. But if you want to write for a lot of people, think about them a little bit. What do they like? What are their needs? A lot of people in this country go through their days numb. They need to be entertained. They need to feel something."

8. On loving your work. Patterson's grandad once said to him, "Jim, I don't care what you do when you grow up. I don't care if you drive a truck like I do or if you become the president. Just remember that when you go over the mountain to work in the morning, you've got to be singing." Patterson said, "Well, I am."

9. Understand the publishing industry's bias toward best-selling authors. Times have changed. The industry has changed. Before 1980, if you sold a couple of hundred thousand copies in hardcover, you had a "hit" book. Today, to be a blockbuster, it's gotta sell at least one million copies. How did this happen, and how does this affect authors?

When conglomerates consolidated the industry in the 1980's, they sought larger profits by pushing for bigger best-sellers. "Under pressure from both their parent companies and booksellers, publishers became less and less willing to gamble on undiscovered talent and more inclined to hoard their resources for their most bankable authors. ... The few books that publishers invested heavily in sold; most of the rest didn't. And the blockbuster became even bigger."

My takeaways: 1) If you're already a best-selling author, the traditional publishing industry is a great way to go. They'll publish you, spend the money to market you, and pay to have your books displayed in the most prominent places in bookstores. 2) If you're not already a best-selling author, expect it to be very difficult to get published (or republished) with traditional publishers. If you do get published by them, they probably will do little to market your book. If you've gotta market the book yourself anyway, and have the time and motivation to consider the new tools of publishing, consider the self-publishing option.

Networking Miracle

2010-01-26T11:07:00.005-05:00

Get out there. Keep meeting new people. Take an interest by asking what they do. Offer your assistance or help. It's called networking, and there's something very mysterious about it.

So last night I almost skipped a networking event - a local alumni gathering for the university my wife attended. But I went because I always seem to meet someone I need to meet at these type meetings. Also, they offer free food.

So the first few people I met were interesting, nice, and I felt like I was able to encourage or offer some direction in their pursuits. We exchanged business cards. It's always fun to be useful to someone.

The fourth and last person I met was a financial planner, so we naturally hit it off - my latest book is on personal finances. He mentioned that he was raising two boys, trying to help them toward independence, so I mentioned that getting my own 7 boys independent inspired my recent research and writing. Finally, I offered him a free copy, thinking he might find it useful. And, who knows, he might could recommend it to clients or when he teaches seminars or something.

So he says, "Hey, my wife works with a textbook distributor to schools. I'll let her see it."

I thought, "A textbook distributor to schools? A TEXTBOOK DISTRIBUTOR TO SCHOOLS!!!"

It just happens that my top marketing goal for this year is to figure out how to get my book into schools. I don't have a distributor to schools. I need one.

This is so bizarre that it almost defies imagination. On the way home, after giving him a copy (always, always, keep copies of your books in your car), I looked at all the lights of stores in Kennesaw and thought, "Out of the 30,000 people in Kennesaw, Georgia tonight, what are the odds that one of them works for a book distributor to schools? And what are the odds that I would meet that person's husband at a random event that had nothing to do with book marketing, and that the meeting would occur in the very month I was prioritizing marketing to schools?"

Coincidence? Because of my faith, I have to believe that this was a God thing. As someone once said, "a coincidence is when God works a miracle and decides to remain anonymous."

On the other hand, there tends to be a human part in miracles - someone prays, someone is out helping the needy, then God shows up. Networking gurus would say that miracles tend to happen more around people who are out there doing something, rather than to people who are sitting on the couch eating nachos and watching TV.

Whatever you make of this, I think it pays to get out there and meet people. I help them; they help me. That's when miracles happen.

J. Steve Miller
President, Legacy Educational Resources
Author of Enjoy Your Money! How to Make It, Save It, Invest It and Give It
"The money book for people who hate money books."
http://wisdomcreekpress.com/press_kits.html

A Writer's Weaknesses: Try Teamwork

2010-01-26T08:02:00.004-05:00

Here's a note I wrote on a forum to someone who said he's a great idea person, but his grammar sucks. I assume that he's tried to work on his grammar, but it's just one of those things that he can't "get."

Dear _____,

If you're aspiring to be an editor, you'll have to be an expert on Grammar. But if you're wanting to write books and articles, that's what a writing team is all about. Whenever I write an article or a chapter, I read it over and over it, trying to perfect it. Then I give it to my wife, who's a fast reader and can give me big-picture ideas. Then I make corrections and give it to my mom, who's a stickler for grammar - she's the comma queen, agonizing over whether this or that comma is really necessary. If you're in a writer's group, that's where they come in handy.

For a book, I'll give the manuscript to many other people, besides my wife and mom, to critique. They keep finding errors - some of fact, some of grammar, some of consistency or logical development. These are not typically professional writers - just people who like to read. (They're typically glad to look it over, honored that I respect their opinion. I give them a free book after it's published, then ask if they'll give me a review on Amazon. Since they've already read the manuscript, I get reviews right after it comes out.)

By the time I give a book to a professional editor, she's having to look hard to find mistakes.

Sure, there are some writers who can do it all, then turn it in to an editor for final polishing. Steven King used to teach English on a college level, so he can do it that way. But many, many others think of it as a team approach. James Patterson, the most prolific, best-selling author of our time, will "write" 9 books this year. He's the idea person; then he gives it to a team member to flesh it out. George Lucas can't spell worth anything - but he's a great idea person and can tell a great story. Lloyd Braun hatched the idea of the TV series "Lost." He hired Abrams and Lindelof to do the writing. And they involve others in their writing sessions as well.

Do you involve others in your writing? In what way? How does it work for you?

Author Shares What Publicity Worked for Her and What Didn't

2010-01-19T16:34:00.004-05:00

This article by a POD author tells frankly what worked and what didn't for her. Shows that just putting money into things that give you exposure don't necessarily sell books.

http://searchwarp.com/swa562239-Marketing-A-Pod-Book-In-2009-Reflections-On-What-Worked-And-What-Didnt.htm

Book Marketing: The Snowball Effect

2010-01-17T15:36:00.004-05:00

When I first published Enjoy Your Money!, I narrowed down a distributor who targeted selling to libraries and applied for their services. They turned me down flat. Now, eight months later, two library distributors are requesting my book and one, a distinguished distributor, (Follett) has signed me on as a vendor.

What brought them to me? Follett said that they had received some orders, which, I assume, came from libraries. But how did the libraries hear of my book?

My best guess is that it's either from VOYA Magazine - a review magazine that targets youth libraries (which I pursued), or The Librarian's News Wire - to which I sent a free press release.

Besides orders from distributors, my Amazon sales have doubled in December and January. Yesterday, for no discernible reason, I sold 17 books on Amazon, although I average only 2 per day. Where are all the Amazon orders coming from? There's no way for me to know.

Apparently, some of those links from reviews or word of mouth from readers or links from my contributions to discussion groups - something - has made publicity take on a life of its own.

I suppose it's what publicity folks call "buzz." Being the skeptical type, I'd always been suspicious of those claiming that you could create buzz by doing certain things. Sure, it happens to some, but what percentage of authors can create it, even when they do all the right things? But I guess it can happen!

My lesson?

"Nobody wants you till somebody wants you;
then everybody wants you."

So the trick is to get somebody to want you and build upon that. Put your manuscript out far and wide to get blurbs and reviews. Use those reviews and blurbs to solicit more reviews and blurbs. Eventually, movers and shakers begin to notice. If you have 100 or 1000 links out there pointing back to your book, somebody who's searching for a book like yours is likely to find you. And occasionally, one of those buyers will be a person of influence who spreads the word far and wide.

Hey, this is pretty exciting!

Time Saver for Typing the Same Text Over and Over

2010-01-17T08:36:00.003-05:00

I found a free clippings manager (multi clipboard) that's a free "ad on" with Firefox. Once I copy my five line signature (see at end of this post) into the program, I can hit ctl/alt/v and then click "n" (for "name") and the below signature magically appears! This should save me a lot of time!

Without a multi-clipboard, we copy text to put into another document or program, but once we copy a second text, the first text disappears. With a multi-clipboard, you can store any text that you find yourself regularly typing, so that you can paste it without having to copy it all over again.

It's called Clippings 3.1 and can be downloaded here if you're running Firefox as your browser:

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1347

J. Steve Miller
President, Legacy Educational Resources
Author of Enjoy Your Money! How to Make It, Save It, Invest It and Give It
"The money book for people who hate money books."
http://wisdomcreekpress.com/press_kits.html

Pursue Niche Reviewers

2010-01-15T08:42:00.001-05:00

Keep pursuing reviews beyond the big-time reviewers!

About 8 months after my book came out, I sent my book to VOYA Magazine, a niche publication that librarians consult for their young adult collections. They did a nice review, and within a month, I received a request from the Follett Corporation (http://www.follett.com/about.cfm), saying they'd received requests for the book and wanted to distribute it to school libraries. I looked up Follett in my book marketing books to find that they were indeed a respected (founded in 1873!), large distributor who actively market their books to libraries. They're starting to order my books and so far appear very professional. I give them a 55% discount off retail, but they provide free shipping through their Fed Ex account.

I've wanted to get my book into libraries, but I'm sure it would have been a long, arduous task for me to pull off personally. Since libraries are used to working with Follett and respect them, this should be a wonderful opportunity!

So, if you think your book might be valuable for school libraries or the youth collections of other libraries, consider sending a copy to VOYA magazine. Here's some of their information:

VOYA Magazine, Voice of Youth Advocates, "The Library Magazine Serving Those Who Serve Young Adults" "VOYA is the only magazine that matters for librarians working with young adults. . . . Simply the best there is."—Patrick Jones, public librarian and author of Connecting Young Adults and Libraries, 2nd Ed. (Neal-Schuman, 1998). Founded in 1978. http://www.voya.com/aboutus/index.shtml#history

J. Steve Miller
Author of Enjoy Your Money! How to Make It, Save It, Invest It and Give It
"The money book for people who hate money books"
http://wisdomcreekpress.com/press_kits.html

Book Marketing: Think and Think Different

2010-01-06T08:59:00.003-05:00

IBM's motto is "Think." Apple Computer's motto is "Think Different." Authors would do well to adopt both mottoes in their marketing strategies.

So far over the past year, I've read about 15 books on book marketing. I've found the lack of redundancy striking. Each book shares fresh ideas, new experiences and recommends new tools and resources just begging to be explored. As a result, I have a much better handle on how to sell my books - what's most likely to work and what will most likely be a waste of time.

But beyond learning from the pros, I find the need to do my own thinking. After all, no book is exactly like my book. Isn't it likely that the marketing of my book should be just as unique?

Yesterday a chance encounter showed me the need to keep thinking and learning. I walked into the gym to see Henry walking toward me. Now Henry's hard to not notice - he's built like a tank, with arms the size of my legs. He tells me excitedly that he's been selling my personal finance books (Enjoy Your Money!) at his video game store.

(Why did I put it on consignment in a video game store? Well, the owner of our local SOHO HERO, a home office printing and mailing shop, told me that a local author sells children's books at her store because parents come in with their kids, who start reading the books while their parents make their copies, and then they want their parents to buy the book. I thought, "Since parents are more likely to buy my book, I need to find a store where the kids are doing stuff and the parents have the time on their hands to pick up a book and check it out. Thus, a video game store.)

I responded, "Wow! I was ready to collect all my books from local stores. I'd concluded that, although Amazon sales were great, that people simply wouldn't buy my book from stores." Henry said, "Here's how it works. People are waiting in line and pick up the book. I tell them that I respect the author and like what I see in the way he's training his kids. Then they want to buy it. Here's the secret to your store sales: the person at the cash register has to believe in the book and be willing to sell it."

So my conclusion about sales in local stores was apparently all wrong. They could sell. But I'd missed one little component that was sabotaging my sales: make sure that I sell the owner on the book and give them enough information to be able to encourage people to buy it. If someone asks the store owner about the book and the response is, "I don't really know anything about it. It's just a book by some local author" then why would anyone buy it?

It's just one little trick. But perhaps there are 50 subtle tricks to getting my books sold in local, non-bookstore outlets. Odds are, reading all the marketing books in the world wouldn't tell me all the tricks that would work for my book. That's why we need to keep trying new things, keep listening, keep thinking, and keep thinking different.

When Marketing Meets Magic

2010-01-05T15:18:00.003-05:00

I'm sure some low-profile authors, by some inexplicable stroke of fortune, publish their books, get a phone call from Oprah within the first month, become instant media darlings, and watch their books quickly climb to best-seller status. It's like magic, but a magic that graces far less than one in a million authors.

The more typical magic comes as a complete surprise in the midst of an author doing the daily, mundane tasks to get her book noticed. Sadly, the great majority of authors will never experience the tap of the fairy's wand, not because their books suck, but because they failed to create the context frequented by fairies. Fairies quickly lose interest in authors who hope that their mother and brother will start an unstoppable word-of-mouth campaign. Soon, they flutter off to visit a more worthy author - the one passionately speaking at an obscure school to a bunch of half-interested students, wondering how in the world her life came to this. But then, quite unexpectedly, the fairy arrives with her wand. A teacher recommends the presentation on a popular teachers' forum, and you arrive home to find school after school begging you to speak at their schools and sell your books.

In broad strokes, that's how young author Christopher Paolini was touched by the magic. He tried doing the book signing thing in bookstores, but soon discovered that it didn't work very well for unknown, first-time authors. So he tried doing school presentations. He called school librarians in Houston and several of them allowed him to speak. Then the first fairy appeared, in the form of a librarian who posted an enthusiastic recommendation on a teachers' forum. That one recommendation allowed him to book a solid month of school talks in Houston.

He ended up doing over 135 presentations. In the summer of 2002, the second fairy appeared, in the form of novelist Carl Hiaasen, who was vacationing in a city where Paolini was speaking. Hiaasen's stepson showed the book to his stepdad, who recommended it to his publishing house. They signed Paolini and his book placed on the New York Times Best Seller list for 121 weeks.

You might wonder, "How lucky was it that one of those librarians frequented such a forum?" Or, "What are the odds that a novelist with connections just happened to find Paolini's book?"

Well, I'd argue that, although the odds of either of those specific events happening may be quite remote, the odds of something happening, given his 135 presentations, was almost certain.

At first, I didn't understand the magic. I thought that if one of my marketing efforts didn't produce immediate sales, it was just one more failure. But just getting out there and trying stirs things up. Fairies notice. Eventually, wands come out tapping and truly extraordinary stuff happens.

During my first few months of book marketing, I felt much like the pastor who went to watch the train go by every day. When someone inquired about his unusual habit, he said, "I just love to see something that moves without my having to push it." For the first few months, my book sold only when I was out there doing something. If I let up for a day, nothing happened. And 90% of what I tried seemed to have no impact at all.

But somehow, all that cumulative publicity made things start to happen. Some may call it word of mouth. Others may call it reaching a tipping point. Some may say I was touched by an angel. Whatever you call it, it certainly appears to be magic.

A book reviewer to school libraries wrote a positive review.
A respected distributor to school libraries started getting orders and requested a contract.
Twice as many sold on Amazon last month, without any promotion on my part.
Today, someone at the gym told me how he was successfully selling my book at his video store. Someone else found my website and said he's moving a branch of his organization to Atlanta and was interested in partnering. Yet another e-mailed to say he'd love to read my book, review it in his blog, and write an article for a popular youth-leaders publication.

Some may say I'm having lucky breaks, but I think luck tends to fall upon those who've been doing the daily, mundane stuff for nine months straight. Today, I felt the brush of the fairy's wand. It's pretty cool!

Cheap, Quality Mailers

2010-01-04T16:47:00.003-05:00

Leaders of early Wal-Mart said that they made money by saving money. Publishers would do well to follow suit. I find myself mailing hundreds of books to media and potential reviewers, so that buying bubble mailers from office supply stores or even Wal-Mart for $1 or more adds up.

I've been saving 71 cents per bubble mailer, including shipping, by ordering from http://valuemailers.com , when ordering 100 mailers. That's a savings of $71 on 100 mailers!

Always, always shop around and find the best rates on printing, mailing, and the other basics of the trade.

Annotated List of Books on Book Publication and Marketing

2009-12-06T10:34:00.003-05:00

This is a great, annotated list. http://wexfordpress.com/tex/shortlist.pdf

From the 15 or so books I've read on publishing/marketing, I've found that each new book I read gives me many valuable insights. It's not like you read one book and then the next is simply saying the same thing in different words. There's a lot to learn, and I'm glad for all the reading I've done on publishing and marketing.

Book Marketing: The Priority of Getting Reviews - Part I

2009-11-20T08:28:00.003-05:00

The Need to Prioritize

I've read about 15 books on marketing, particularly on marketing books. I've found thousands of ways to market them, some of which will work better for some books than others. One thing I'm trying to narrow down - out of the thousands of things I could be doing to market my book, where should I put most of my time and effort? My time is limited. What's my best bet for actually selling my books? What keeps ringing through, book after book, as a no-brainer for book marketing? Is it:

TV?
Radio?
Develop a popular blog?
Collect a killer e-mail list?
Do book signings?
Interact in social networking settings such as Twitter, Facebook and LinkIn?
Send out regular press releases?

The dizzying list could go on and on. And for any given book, just one of these strategies (like radio) might be the key to sparking the word of mouth that results in a major seller.

Why Prioritize Getting Reviews?

But I'm thinking that, especially for nonfiction, getting reviews stands out as one of, if not THE most effective avenue to get the word out and actually sell books. I believe that all of the book marketing literature I read recommends this approach heavily. Here are some quotes:

"There is no question about whether reviews work. We had more than 500 full-price orders for one of our books when a review by a syndicated columnist broke." "Getting a buzz started...is the result you desire. Do it by soliciting advance blurbs, getting reviews everywhere, tenaciously pursuing feature stories off the book pages, giving aways tons of free review and reading copies. A complimentary book is your cheapest and most effective advertising." (Marilyn & Tom Ross, Jump Start Your Book Sales)

"Send out review copies. Send out lots of them. Send out more than you think you should. Hit every major newspaper and magazine which you think might be at all interested in the subject of your book. In most cases this means sending out somewhere between 300 and 500 review copies. Don't be stingy about sending out review copies. For every hundred copies you send out, you'll get perhaps ten reviews. And those ten reviews will bring you anywhere from twenty to one hundred direct sales and many more indirect sales. Even at a conservative estimate, you'll receive 200 orders for every 100 copies you send out. That's cheap advertising." (John Kremer, 1001 Ways to Market Your Books, p. 138)

Why Do Reviews Work so Well?

1) Solomon advised, "Let another praise you, and not your own mouth." When I tell others about my book on Facebook or Twitter, that's me tooting my own horn. I'm suspect. Of course I think my book's great. Of course I want people to buy it. It's more persuasive when others talk about my book, than when I talk about my book. People perceive the recommendation of others, particularly experts, as more objective and more believable.

2) These experts have followings. Rather than trying to gather a following (e.g., creating a popular blog), go where the people are already gathered. It's generally more effective and easier to get the top thought leaders talking about your book, than trying to become the recognized thought leader in your field and trying to sell your books through that platform.

3) For each field, there are tons of outlets for review. In general, think beyond book review sites. Think of people who write regularly on your topic. In the field of personal finance, for example, there are hundreds of newsletters, hundreds of magazines, hundreds of related blogs and sites, hundreds of related organizations. When you think more broadly, it's not just the publications that target personal finance; Ladies Home Journal runs articles on personal finance. Home school publications recommend books on personal finance. These leads could keep me promoting for years.

I'll follow up this post with posts on finding reviewers and how to approach them.

Comments?

Writer Insights from Anita Renfroe

2009-11-09T17:28:00.004-05:00

Anita Renfroe is a humorist who's been described as "Erma Bombeck meets Carol Burnett, with a bit of Weird Al Yankovic thrown in." As the key note speaker at last week's Georgia Writers Association conference, she kept us laughing as she passed on insights gained from writing seven books. Here are my takeaways (sometimes expounding upon her suggestions):

The last five years have turned the publishing industry on its head. The playing field has been leveled. Now it's more "Wild West" out there. More and more, readers and viewers are "voting" their favorite videos and books to greater exposure. Regular people can suddenly catapult to the top. Find ways to take advantage of these tools.

One day, Anita's children encouraged her to put a video of her "William Tell Mom" presentation on YouTube. People loved it, forwarding it to friends, so that soon, 1.5 million people had viewed it. Then, Good Morning America came knocking, catapulting her to 200 speaking engagements per year.
Prior to this, she was primarily in a coccoon, taking care of her family and serving her husband in ministry. Don't worry if you're still in that coccoon stage. It's those real life experiences that give you the writing material for the rest of your life. Relish the stage your in.
It took time to realize that she had a talent for humor. She wanted to be a musician, but people kept telling her she was funny. Listen to other people's comments. Sometimes they can see your talents better than you can recognise your own.
You don't have to be in love with the writing process. She enjoys "having written," not the writing. While writing for a deadline, she can get excited about doing anything that has nothing to do with her current project. Use "the power of avoidance" to write other stuff for the future.
The more you write, the better you get. Her first publisher told her that most artists have to write 1000 bad songs before they write a good one. Keep writing and get those "bad songs" out of your system.
Work on your people skills. In the publishing industry, it's all about relationships. Nobody wants to work with a freak. If you put your manuscript into an editor's hand, but you don't come across like a nice person who'd be enjoyable to work with, your manuscript may never get read. Publishers don't want to work with writers who won't work with them on improvements, deliver manuscripts late, won't listen to their suggestions, whine every time they have to rewrite something.

So, if you go down in your basement to write and pop your head out once a year to relate to other humans, you'll probably find difficulty getting your stuff published.

Thanks Anita, for an insightful, enjoyable presentation!

The Dirty Little Secret of Getting Published

2009-10-28T14:52:00.003-04:00

Many authors seem to think that, if their writing is good enough, a major literary agent (and ultimately, a major publisher) will sign them up. If they get turned down repeatedly, they assume that their writing isn't good enough. According to this interview, that attitude can show a misunderstanding of the publishing industry.

Today, I listened to Steve Harrison interviewing literary agent Jeff Herman, who's seen over 500 clients get published (primarily nonfiction). His insider insights reveal a lot about the publishing industry. (This isn't word for word. I'm just summarizing and editorializing.)

First, the quality of your writing is just one part of the puzzle. Countless excellent writers aren't getting published, and they don't even understand why. Other writers, not nearly as talented as the excellent ones, are getting published repeatedly and experiencing good sales. So what's the difference?

According to Herman, it's all about platform and marketing. Successful writers (those who get published and sell their books) see their books as products. Without letting people know about these products, they simply won't sell. They see the authors' job as to get the word out about their books.

The authors who don't get signed think that writers write and publishing companies market. After all, don't major publishers have marketing and sales departments? True, but these departments don't work like the marketing of, say, a Proctor & Gamble product. From that standpoint, they're rather anemic. Rather, they focus on coming up with materials to sell it to the bookstores. (They also give you a lot of credibility, since they're very selective.)

But getting it into bookstores doesn't mean that readers will actually walk into the store and buy it. If you're not out there, making yourself and your book visible, why would anyone buy your book? (And if nobody buys it, the bookstore will probably return it to the publisher for a refund.)

So here's the dirty little secret that many authors don't get: publishers aren't just looking for good writing. They're looking for authors who understand marketing and have a strategy for marketing their books.

Says Herman:

"Most of your bestsellers, especially in the nonfiction area, are really being generated by the authors themselves."

These authors have created platforms, such as a busy website, or a significant presence on other well-traveled websites. Or, for example, they build a seminar business, selling books after the seminar. Successful authors don't just bring their content, they offer their own marketing machine.

Herman gets 100 to 300 book proposals per week from people he doesn't know. To set yourself apart, try to meet literary agents personally at places they show up, and convince them that you can market your book.

What do you think? Feel free to comment.

Foreword Accepting Books for Digital Review

2009-09-17T10:17:00.006-04:00

Need a review by a big-time, respected reviewer? Consider ForeWord's new (as of this month) review program.

The Need

Libraries and bookstores look primarily to the industry leaders in book reviews. Besides the main book review newspapers (New York Times, LA Times), here's the list:

Booklist (American Library Association)
BookPage
ForeWord Magazine
Kirkus Reviews
Library Journal
Publishers Weekly
SLJ Book Review (School Library Journal)

So you just submit your book to these organizations and get reviewed, right? Typically, wrong.
An e-mail from ForeWord this week painted the bleak picture. Until this month, ForeWord had only enough space in their magazine to review 5% of the books they received. (To put it another way, we had a 95% chance of rejection. Hey, if there's a 95% chance of rain, it's gonna rain.) Many, many wonderful books simply couldn't make the cut.

The Solution: Offer Digital Reviews to Worthy Books for $99

Since libraries and bookstores tend to search their digital reviews, why not offer authors/publishers an opportunity to get into ForeWord's digital database, which doesn't have their "100 book reviews every two months" restriction? ForeWord thought it was a grand idea. So will many authors and publishers.

How It Works

Get the overview here.
Mail your book to them (specified to "digital")
If they believe the book is up to their quality standards, they'll put it on a page indicating that they'll review it.
If and when you see it on that page, let them know you want it reviewed and pay them the $99. (If they don't review you, they refund your $99.)

How Authors Benefit

1. You get a review by a professional reviewer at an organization that's respected in the industry. Use it in all your publicity.
2. "Approved digital reviews will be published at forewordmagazine.com as soon as they are received and edited."
3. "The edited reviews will also be made available to librarians and booksellers at Baker & Taylor’s Title Source III, Ingram’s iPage, Bowker’s Books in Print, and Gale’s licensed databases under the ForeWord Reviews name."

While people who despise change will certainly whine (in King James English) about authors and publishers "paying for reviews," isn't this in reality a win for everyone? Only worthy books get reviewed. Professional reviewers get some money (aren't we looking for ways for professional writers to make money?). Libraries and Bookstores are able to access reviews about many more books.

I say it's a great idea and a good opportunity for serious authors. And if you're a serious writer who was recently downsized from your newspaper job and want to make some extra cash, why not apply for a review job?

What do you think?

Optimizing Your Blog

2009-09-11T12:34:00.006-04:00

In looking for high traffic blogs to comment on, I noticed that author Tim Ferris had one of the highest traffic blogs in personal finance. Oddly, his blog isn't primarily about personal finance, although I'm sure he occasionally posted on some financial topics. In checking out his blog, I found a video of him teaching how he optimizes his blog.

It's called "How to Build a High-Traffic Blog Without Killing Yourself"

My Takeaways

He blogs once or twice per week (not the 6 times a day that some say you should blog) on his Wordpress blog and analyzes everything he does (Google Analytics) to see what works and what doesn't.
He doesn't follow other people's twitters. He tweets only for specific purposes, spending 10 to 15 minutes on it every day or two.
He can spend from 20 minutes to 6 hours on a blog post, depending upon its nature.
He doesn't blog for income or to directly sell books. Rather, he blogs to access people and resources.
Blogging fits his life purpose: to love, be loved and never stop learning.
Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday are the days that he gets most traffic to his blogs, so these are his optimum times to post. He may post on Friday night to have the post out on Saturday.
He finds interesting pics for his blog, free of charge, by going to the Flicker Commons area and searching the most interesting.
He reads all the blog comments, saving the most informative ones in an application like Evernote. Thus, he has a large backlog of information to blog at a later time.

Check it out if you want to get some practical hints on taking your blog to the next level.

Virtual Book Tours

2009-09-09T10:34:00.012-04:00

What is a virtual book tour and how can it help authors publicize their books?

What Is a Virtual Book Tour?

Basically, during a time period, say, a month, an author gives interviews, receives book reviews and posts on relevant blogs. It's analogous to the traditional author tour, where you flit about the country doing book signings. But instead of physically traveling, you travel virtually, sitting in front of your computer, surfing from blog to blog.

Radio interviews and podcasts, if done from home, would also qualify as virtual, although I'll concentrate here on the virtual blog tour.

Does It Work?

For some authors, yes. I recall one author who rallied interested bloggers around his book before publication. When it came out, the bloggers made enough noise to make it into a major seller. I'm hearing other authors and experts saying that it's one of their favorite tactics for book publicity.

Would it work for all authors? I'd suggest that it's always good to get out there, making comments on blogs and asking for reviews on relevant, high traffic blogs. Since people blog about every topic imaginable, this should be one of the easiest ways to let people who are already fascinated with your topic find your book. The outcome will probably be dependent on the appeal of the book to bloggers, the author's skill at finding the right blogs, and the diligence of the author in contacting enough blogs to make it work.

Not only should this stir up interest for your tour dates, but since your interviews/reviews/guest posts/comments remain on the blogs with links to your book, surfers may find the posts months or years later and find your book as a result. If you do it right and get enough posts linking back to your book, then your book may become highly ranked in Google for key phrases that multitudes of people search.

According to virtual tour expert Dorothy Thompson, "The key to making your tour successful is to get on as many blogs as you possibly can."

How Much Time Does It Take?

Again, quoting Thompson, "The authors themselves put in an incredible amount of time answering questions and writing guest posts. If you do a month's worth of tours, you have approximately twenty interviews and guest posts to get done."

How to Do a Virtual Book Tour

1) Decide if you want to do it by yourself, or hire a professional. If you do the latter, you'll still need to put time and effort into the initiative. One author who's done both ways told me, "There are definite advantages to going with a PR firm (i.e., hitting hi-traffic blogs and getting the reviews), but if you have a strong network and are not afraid to get out there and ask for guest spots, it's absolutely doable."

2) Brainstorm the types of blogs you want to target. They may be:

Book blogs that target your genre.
Blogs on the topic(s) covered in your book. Examples: financial blogs for a personal finance book, pet blogs for a dog book, etc.
Blogs that aren't on your particular topic, but might include your topic: parenting blogs for a personal finance book, family magazine blog for your dog book.

3) Find key words and phrases that people use to search for your topics.

First, go to Google's tool for finding key words and phrases in Google Ad Words. (If the url has changed do a Google search for a phrase such as "find key words". Several sites have tended to offer these tools.) For my financial book, I did two searches, one on "money" and another on "finances."

I discovered, for example, that the phrase "earn money" was searched 368,000 times last month.

4) Find the most popular blogs in your subject areas. Here are several ways:

Visit Technorati , the most popular search engine for blogs. Search some of the key words and phrases you discovered. You'll notice that Technorati tells you the "authority" of each blog, according to how many other sites/blogs have linked to the blog.
See if one of Technorati's categories fits your subject matter. Click on the category and you'll find blogs listed according to their "authority."
Set up Google Alerts to e-mail you when someone has posted a blog or article on your subject matter.
Subscribe (with RSS) to the most popular blogs, so that you'll know immediately when they've posted something new. You'll need a free RSS reader, like Google Reader.

Tip: "I had 20 stops as a goal for my tour, and ended up with 18. Looking back I realize that I could have done less. It really isn't about the number of stops; it is more about the quality you put into each." (Kristin Callender)

3) Incorporate videos and podcasts

4) Make the most of accompanying publicity

Send out press releases about your book and the tour.
Announce each stop on writer’s boards and social networking sites.
Submit the interviews to other publications that might use them.

Helpful Article

Kristin Callender wrote a great article about how she did her virtual tour. Looks like she did it right and has left us with the specifics of how to pull one off ourselves.

http://kcsbooks.blogspot.com/2009/04/how-to-do-your-own-virtual-book-tour.html

Helpful Tools

Is a blog getting enough traffic to make it worth your time to pursue or comment on? To find out how much traffic it gets, download (free of charge) Alexa's "Sparky" . This toolbar lets you see the popularity of any blog or site that you're viewing. Warning: if the blogger didn't buy her own url, but instead has an ending like .blogspot.com or .blogger.com, then don't get all excited if you see an Alexa rank of #1 to #10. In that case, it's ranking Blogspot or Blogger, not that specific blog.

To give some indication of how many visits a blog or site might be getting, Alexa ranks my character education site as #741,000. That site gets from 500 to 600 unique visitors ("sessions" rather than "hits") per day.
Want to have new blog posts and relevant articles come to one, easy-to-view place? I use igoogle as my opening page in my web browser (Firefox). If you download it, click the "x" on every feature you don't like. Then, click "add stuff" on the right top of your screen to find free applications. Search for "Google News" and then customize it to send you news related to your topic. Download Google Reader so that all your RSS feeds all come to your browser page. Now you're alerted to new articles and blog posts on your topic, all together in one place - the place you first go to when you search the web!

Questions:

1) Is there really any significance to packing a tour into a month or so? Is it just a way to help authors keep concentrated, or is there some reason that it's actually more effective done over a few weeks than spread out over a year?
2) Any other tips or questions concerning virtual tours?

The Many Styles of Writers

2009-09-05T19:22:00.003-04:00

No, I'm not talking about their many genres and voices. I'm talking about the many styles of the writers themselves - the wonderfully varied ways that writers learn their craft and complete their manuscripts. If a young writer studies or mentors under only one or a small number of seasoned writers, she might assume that all writers should approach their craft in the same way. Yet, the more I read about great writers, the more variety I see in the way they approach their craft.

Today, I attended seminars by some very successful authors at the Decatur Book Festival - billed as America's largest independent book festival - and was struck by their differences. One spoke of the necessity of great research for his novels. Another said that, in his opinion, it was all about the story rather than the research - that an author, with his slight of hand or wizardry, uses his words to make people believe the story is true. If a person objected that he gave an Atlanta street the wrong name in his novel, he'd reply, "what do I care? It's fiction!"

I've heard some authors say, "Become a writer only if it's the only thing you can do." One author said that this was the case for her. Everything else she failed in. Yet, she had this great urge to write. Conversely, one successful author on a panel was a lawyer by trade. Another was a physician who taught in medical school. Obviously, they had talents besides writing.

Some authors are solitary folk; others love real-life relationships. Some authors write religiously from 6:00 AM till evening with few breaks. Others write at night, like Tolkien, after the kids are in bed. Some writers studied writing in under grad and Masters programs; others never studied writing, but simply one day thought, "I could write a better book than this crappy novel." They basically learned as they went, took criticism gracefully, and learned the craft. Some are in love with the words and the process. Others, like Mark Twain, said he wrote because there was money in it. Some write the novel start to finish on their own. Others, like James Patterson, collaborate.

I think that's a good reminder for all of us. Whenever an instructor or influential writer makes dogmatic pronouncements about "the way all serious writers write," consider that he might not know the wonderfully varied ways that writers approach their craft. Learn from the masters of your genre. Consider what they say. But in the end, do what works for you.

Book Marketing Tip: Participate in Online Discussions

2009-08-23T13:20:00.013-04:00

Book marketers, authors, publicists, and social networking gurus all sing the praises of participating in online discussions about the topics and themes of their writing. It's a great way to connect with people who are already interested in your topic. Do it enough, and in the right way, and you'll help your niche audience find your book. Here are some of the reasons:

1) People who blog want comments on their blogs. You're not bothering them by thanking them for their blog post, adding something helpful to the discussion, and ending with your name and book information.

2) People who frequent these blogs and discussion groups are looking for information that you're an expert in. You don't have to interrupt someone (like TV or Radio Commercials) to try to interest them in your book. They're already interested and stopped by the blog or discussion group or newspaper article to find more information.

How to Find Articles and Blogs to Comment On

1. Find key words and phrases that people use to search for your topics.

First, go to Google's tool for finding key words and phrases in Google Ad Words. (If the url has changed do a Google search for a phrase such as "find key words". Several sites have tended to offer these tools.)

For my financial book, I did two searches, one on "money" and another on "finances." I discovered, for example, that the phrase "earn money" was searched 368,000 times last month.

2. Find the most popular blogs in your subject areas. Here are several ways:

Visit Technorati , the most popular search engine for blogs. Search some of the key words and phrases you discovered. You'll notice that Technorati tells you the "authority" of each blog, according to how many other sites/blogs have linked to the blog.
See if one of Technorati's categories fits your subject matter. Click on the category and you'll find blogs listed according to their "authority."
Set up Google Alerts to e-mail you when someone has posted a blog or article on your subject matter.
Subscribe (with RSS) to the most popular blogs, so that you'll know immediately when they've posted something new. You'll need a free RSS reader, like Google Reader.

3. Is a blog getting enough traffic to make it worth your time to pursue or comment on? To find out how much traffic it gets, download (free of charge) Alexa's "Sparky" . This toolbar lets you see the popularity of any blog or site that you're viewing.

4. On some popular blogs, you may want to ask the administrators if they'd like a free copy of your book to review. (They may ask for another copy as a give-away.) Also, look at Technorati's list of top blogs in different areas. You might want to sign up for RSS feeds from the top sites so that you're first to know when they make a commentable post.

Other tips:

1) The early commenter gets the most visible comments. Blogs tend to post in order from first comment to last. Thus, if you're commenting on a newspaper article or a popular blog, comment as close to its posting as possible. Otherwise you may post comment #45, which nobody will ever read. That's the benefit of having receiving Google Alerts and setting up syndication from popular columns and blogs. As soon as you receive an alert, you can read the article and comment. Those reading the article all that day will also see your comment. [Maybe its a guy thing with my competitiveness, but I like to think that I've captured the "Poll Position" (first position in a car race or horse race) to motivate me to get that first comment.]

2) Before reading the article, scroll to the bottom of the article to make sure you can leave comments.

3) Realize that some blogs will not allow you to link back to your site or Amazon page. So just put the name of your book so that they can copy and paste into Amazon to search for it.

4) Some say that they allow you to use basic html to add a link. Here's an example. It's a bit more tricky, but not that hard once you figure it out. When a reply box says it allows html, here's the code I put into it to get a live link to our publisher site. (Typically, I link them to the Amazon page for my book, but that link's so long I thought it might confuse the issue.) (don't use the parentheses): (http://wisdomcreekpress.com/">Enjoy Your Money! How to Make It, Save It, Invest It and Give It)

To make your live link, simply replace my url or web address (shown in bold blue) with your url. Then, replace my book title (shown in bold green) with your book title. Now, keep it handy, like in a saved Word document or a saved e-mail, so that you can find it quickly and copy and paste it into a comment the next time you need it.

Other Benefits of Commenting on Blogs

You become more of an expert on your topic and more up-to-date. It's an education in itself.
You discover other organizations that need to know about your book.

Do you have experience with commenting on other people's blogs or articles? Let us know what you think!

Submitting to Book Awards

2009-08-21T09:15:00.034-04:00

The Benefits of Book Awards

An author friend submitted his book to be considered for an award. Although he didn't win, he was nominated for an award, giving him the right to put a sticker on his book saying something like: "Nominated for Georgia Author of the Year." He says that this sticker really helps him with sales.

For low platform authors who aren't household names, we need all the help we can get. So why not pursue honors, awards and blurbs that tell buyers, "This book is special!"? Authors who win awards can say to a bookseller, "This award-winning book..." which sets it apart from most competing books.

Additionally, winning books are often displayed at ceremonies, given special promotion. Distributors and booksellers may take notice, and finalists and winners often receive cash awards.

So I took a couple of hours to hit the library and peruse the 2009 editions of both Literary Market Place (LMP) and Writers Market, both of which have sections listing book awards. (There's also a section of the Christian Writers Market dedicated to contests.) Don't be overwhelmed by the huge number of awards. You can narrow down pretty quickly which ones apply to your book.

Update on "Benefits," 2/10/10: In November, my book won the "Personal Finance" category for the Best Books award! I ordered a set of gold stars, which paste nicely on my cover. I sent out a free press release, one of which was to an organization that targets press releases to libraries. It may have been this release which caused libraries to start placing orders with a quality book distributor, who contacted me requesting a contract. They're starting to market my book to libraries and make regular sales. Another experience: Last month, I took my book to an independent bookstore to see if they would carry it. Her first reaction was to look at the award sticker and say, "This helps."

Do My Odds of Winning Make It a Worthwhile Gamble?

Your odds are better than you might first think. First of all, you're seldom in competition with best-selling authors. They apparently don't feel the need to compete and big-time publishers focus their marketing efforts on their best selling authors when the book first comes out - not a year later when contest winners are announced.

Let's estimate the odds of winning an award from "the largest independent book awards contest in the world" - The Independent Publisher Book Awards. They claimed to have 4,000 entries in 2009. Having so many entries, I assume that it's one of my longest shots for winning. But those entries are divided into 67 categories, narrowing down my competition to an average of 60 books per category. But each category offers three awards, thus narrowing down my competition to an average of 20 books.

Now if you're in a specialized category, like "multicultural nonfiction adult", isn't it entirely possible that I'll find myself competing with five other books, three of which are titled "How to Get Rich on the Internet," written in broken English by telephone company support personnel in third world countries?

My conclusion: If I've written a good book that's well-edited and designed, these are good enough odds to pursue.

Caution: There will be much more competition in the broader categories. But the good news is that a first, second, or third place in one of these categories says a lot about the quality of your book. In a February, 2010 letter from The Independent Publisher Book Awards:

"It looks like this year’s entry numbers are similar to last year’s, when we reached 4,000 total entries for the first time. That means the competition is very tough and the judging will be even tougher. Last year we had nine categories with over 100 entries each, and eleven more with over 70 entries each! I feel these large numbers bring credibility to the Awards, and that the more entries we have per category, the more valuable each award becomes."

Narrowing Down Appropriate Contests

Side note: according to Writers Market, contests come and go pretty quickly. Make sure the award still exists before sending your book. New contests are announced regularly in writers publications. These may not be prestigious, but your book would probably have less competition. And does the average book-buyer know a prestigious contest from a non-prestigious one?

My book is a nonfiction personal finance book written in a story form, published by a small publisher, targeting people 16-32 years old. So I can ignore all awards that:

1) Don't accept submissions. (Some contests do their own searching.)
2) Only accept submissions from Canada or Ohio or people born in Texas.
3) Cater to big-name authors and big publishers. (See the winners of past years.)
4) Take only fiction or poetry or books about orchids (yes, there is one like that).
5) Accept only non-published manuscripts.

Here's my narrowed down list, with stars by the organizations I'm pursuing:

* Foreword Magazine Book of the Year - www.forewordmagazine.com - 61 Categories. "ForeWord is the only review trade journal devoted exclusively to books from independent houses." Foreword is respected by libraries, distributors and booksellers. With 61 categories, first, second and third places in each category, plus an announcement of finalists, there's a decent chance to get some recognition. Even to say your book was "a finalist in the Foreword Book of the Year Awards" could be a huge boost. Jan. 15, 2010 deadline. $75 entry fee per title, per category.

* Benjamin Franklin Awards - www.ibpa-online.org - Sponsored by "the largest non-profit trade association representing independent publishers": The Independent Book Publishers Association. 54 categories. "Regarded as one of the highest national honors in small and independent book publishing." Deadlines: Sept. 30 for books published through August; Dec. 31 for rest of books published in 2009. $80 entrance fee for IBPA members. $180 for non-members, which includes a membership. (Good contest, but I'm too cheap to fork out $180.)

* Eric Hoffer Award for Independent Books - www.writersnotes.com - Fifteen categories. "Each category will be awarded a winner, runner-up, and multiple honorable mentions." Deadline: Jan. 21, 2010. $45 entrance fee.

* The Independent Publisher Book Awards (67 categories) - http://www.independentpublisher.com/ipland/LearnMore.php - "Gold, silver and bronze medals will be awarded in each category." Over 4,000 entries ... "the largest independent book awards contest in the world." $85 entry fee per category. Discounts for earlier submission. Deadline: March 20, 2010.

* Nautilus Award - www.marilynmcguire.com - "Recognizing Books...that Promote Spiritual Growth, Conscious Living, and Positive Social Change as they stimulate the 'imagination' and inspire the reader to "new possibilities" for a better world." 28 categories. Submit August 2009 to Jan. 15, 2010. $165 entrance fee, but discounts for submitting earlier (e.g., $145 before Oct. 16).

*800CEORead.com Best Business Books - http://800ceoread.com/page/show/book_awards - Each book will be judged on the originality of its ideas and content. Eleven categories, October 15 deadline. Submit two copies. No entrance fee. (Update: I didn't win or place.)

*Mom's Choice Awards - http://www.momschoiceawards.com/enter.php - Deadline of Oct. 1, 2009. $300 per book, per category. Benefits: book reviews, special promotions, etc. Over 100 categories.

*Best Books Awards - http://www.usabooknews.com/2009bestbooksawards.html - $69 per book, per category. Deadline: Sept. 30, 2009. 100+ categories. Benefits: special promotions. Update: I won the personal finance division!

*National Indie Excellence Awards - http://www.indieexcellence.com/ - 100+ categories, $65 per book, per category. March 31, 2010 deadline. Benefits: promotions, etc.

The Writer's Digest International Self-Published Book Awards - http://www.writersdigest.com/competitions

Michael L. Printz Award - http://www.ala.org/ala/mgrps/divs/yalsa/booklistsawards/printzaward/Printz.cfm - "an award for a book that exemplifies literary excellence in young adult literature." "sponsored by Booklist, a publication of the American Library Association. Actually, this is one of many awards for young adult literature. See the rest of the awards here: http://www.ala.org/ala/mgrps/divs/yalsa/booklistsawards/booklistsbook.cfm . Hurdle: Most of these awards require submission by someone other than the author/publisher/editor, e.g., a librarian. But if libraries are raving about your book, see if a librarian will submit it for you. Note also their category for Outstanding Books for the College Bound.

The Christopher Awards - www.christophers.org - No charge for submission, but few categories (less chances to win) and winners seems to come from big presses.

Patterson Prize for Books for Young People - www.pccc.edu/poetry

What Next?

At this point, I'll go to each site and gather more information to help me prioritize. I'll ask questions like,

How much do they charge? (I don't have an unlimited budget!)
What are my odds of winning or getting at least getting a nomination?
Do they subdivide into categories, or is it me against hundreds of others for one or two big prizes?
How prestigious is the award?

I'll also want to see if there are smaller awards, open only to people in my region or to books on personal finance. Not all contests are listed in the publications I consulted.

Important: I had falsely assumed that all awards would be for books published in the previous calendar year, thus having deadlines of a couple of months into the next year following publication. But some work on different schedules. Check each contest to find their schedule.

Any other ideas or personal experiences with seeking book awards? If you won one or were nominated for one, did it help you with sales?

Book Marketing Takeaways from Ning Discussion

2009-08-16T14:19:00.005-04:00

I've been following Ning discussion in their Book Marketing Network entitled "What's the Biggest Challenge with Your Book?" Many excellent ideas have been shared over the last couple of years. I decided to try to consolidate the ideas, which come from authors and book marketing experts and publishers.

1. My book won't sell itself. I, the author, need to alert the world to it's existence and show them a way to purchase it.

2. I need a distribution system (e.g., through Amazon, traditional distributors, etc.). Typically, people won't turn out in droves to buy from my website.

3. Get with a major wholesaler, like Ingram or Baker and Taylor. Bookstores tend to order through them. I need a return policy with the wholesaler, since book stores expect it.

4. Try lots of things to discover what works for me and my book. Every author is different; every book is different. Thus, what flops for one book may fly for another. When I find something that works, keep pursuing it.

5. Expect lots of failures and dead ends. It's part of the business. If one bookstore turns me down, learn from it and proceed to the next store. Ask what distribution channels they use. Ask what kinds of books they like to stock. The next manager might be delighted to take my book. "In 'The Last Lecture', Randy Pausch reminds us that brick walls are made to separate those of us who really want it from those of us who don't want it enough."

6. Reviews sell books. Get lots of them. Sending out books for review is one of the cheapest and most productive ways to promote books. Example: The MidWest Book Review welcomes small publishers and self-published books. Find other reviewers, particularly by finding publications (like trade journals) and columnists who write on my topic.

7. Do five things every day to promote my book. Most of those efforts will come to nothing, but cumulatively, that's 35 initiatives each week, 140 per month, over 1800 per year. With those numbers, people will take notice and channels will open. In a real sense, it's a numbers game, so do the numbers. It's okay to stumble a lot. It's okay to do things that produce absolutely no sales at all. But doing something trumps doing nothing.

8. Have a Website and/or a blog. There needs to be a place for people to come, meet me, hang out, and find out more about my books. When I send press releases, curious media will check my online press kit to find other reviews, interviews, topics for discussion, etc. Over time, I just might build a following. If I provide a way for them to leave me their e-mail address (to get a newsletter, etc.) then I can alert them to my next book.

9. Book signings aren't dead. The ones that work tend to be the ones where I go to talk about a felt need - some authors might talk about how to deal with an alcoholic family member or how to manage their money. Even if I don't sell many books, I'm likely to meet valuable connectors. One person does signings with a group of authors, which makes it easier for people to walk up and start a conversation.

10. Speak at meetings where people are already gathered. Rather than trying to gather a crowd, speak at civic organizations and to university organizations. They do their own advertising and have their regulars who show up every week. If you're terrified to speak before groups, that's pretty normal. Start small, learn from each outing, and see if it works for you. You might surprise yourself and end up enjoying it.

11. Consider doing a "virtual book tour." Get help from someone experienced in these. "You may want to contact Penny Sansevieri at AMarketingExpert.com or Chris Anderson (editor of Wired Magazine). Both have companies that help with virtual book tours." - Bill Frank

12. Participate in web-based discussions where people already gather.

Go to Google Ad Words Keywords Tool https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal to find many phrases that people search concerning my topic.

Sign up for Google Alerts about your topic. Experiment with several of the key words/phrases I discovered. When it alerts me to an interesting article or blog that speaks on my topic, thank the writer for the article and add a comment, signing off with my name, the name of my book, and a link to my book on Amazon.

Go to Technorati. Use my key words/phrases to find the top-ranked (most incoming links) blogs about my topic. Lots of people typically read and participate in these blogs. Start interacting and sign off as above. On some popular blogs, I may want to ask the administrators if they'd like a free copy of your book to review. (They may ask for another copy as a give-away.)

13. Think outside of the bookstore. In non-bookstores, I'm not competing with other books. See if they will sell my books on consignment. "Leave fliers or bookmarks in hospital emergency rooms, doctors offices, dentist, etc. Hotels even let you advertise your book."

14. Give yourself time. Some say it takes as much as three years for a book to catch on. If my book isn't selling well after a year, welcome to the club. Am I still doing my five marketing thingies per day? Conversations start and die if not tended. It's my responsibility to keep the word of mouth going.

15. Keep learning! Read books (Bill Frank's recommended list is here.) Participate in these discussion groups. Readers don't choose books simply because they are well-written. If I want my books to sell, I need to study the industry, which means to learn, learn, learn. "Being knowledgeable about the book business is the best way to be successful in the book business. Armed with knowledge, you can determine what is the best way to go for you and your book." - Bill Frank, Aug. 27.

16. Nominate Bill Frank for any appropriate rewards. He's developed the best conversation I've seen about this topic. The content of this discussion is invaluable and should be read by all authors. If he writes a book on book marketing, I want it. He's humble, knowledgeable and patient with our questions. One practical way we can help him is to go to his recommended book list and check it as helpful (Note: "Rate It" in the right column of his Listmania List).

Bill, if you're reading this, we'd like to know any other way we can assist you.

On Marketing and Social Media: "Go Where People Are Already Gathered"

2009-08-13T08:48:00.008-04:00

This concept, found in a Ning book marketing discussion, caused me to question the conventional wisdom on both social networking and book signings. An author was relating what was working for her. Rather than trying to gather a bunch of people to talk to them about her books (like traditional book signings), she chose to talk to civic groups and other pre-existing meetings that already had followings and publicized their own events.

When I did a recent book signing, I had to publicize the event, e-mail folks, etc. About 10 people came and I sold several books. Perhaps more will sell since I left some at the place of business to try to sell. But that was a lot of time and effort to try to draw a crowd and sell a few books.

Yet, there are many civic organizations and universities that have budgets to bring in speakers. They'd probably pay me something and allow me to sell books in the back afterwards. They already have loyal attendees and they do all the publicity. They gather the crowd and I just show up to speak. That sounds like a great use of my time.

Applying "Go Where the Crowd is Already Gathered" to Web-Based Social Networking

This makes sense and perhaps has application to our use of social media to get the word out about our books.

It seems to me that since social media (and the experts I read) is a "social" thing, where there should be ongoing discussions between people, that any marketing strategy involving Twitter, Facebook and a personal blog would be a pretty time consuming task. I'd not only put out information regularly (perhaps daily?), but would additionally follow others who follow me (time reading) and occasionally comment on their comments. And over time, that may or may not pay off in sales.

In a timeless world, where I could continually add things to my schedule, trying to gather a following would be a no-brainer. It's another way to start conversations about my book, gain a following, etc. But in a time-limited world, I have to think of this versus other ways to get the word out.

Now this goes against the prevailing wisdom of some of the marketing people I read. Feel free to reply if you think my reasoning is off.

Applying This to Writing a Newsletter

According to most marketing gurus I read, we should prioritize collecting e-mail addresses and sending out a regular newsletter. I understand the benefits of this and believe that for an author who has both the time and the passion for it, this can be a good thing.

On the other hand, sending out a quality e-mail can take lots of time and effort. And the newsletter can't likely promote your book every issue, so will the number of resulting sales be worth the effort, if your primary reason for starting it is to sell books? (I publish two quarterly newsletters, but they're not primarily to market my books. If that were my sole intention, I probably wouldn't publish them.)

Applying the "go where the people are already gathered" principle to newsletters, consider contributing to other people's successful newsletters. I just sent a post on a successful networking experience I had to John Kremer, one of the most respected names in book publishing. No telling how many people receive his regular e-letter or follow his blog. But he's putting my article on his blog, linking to it from his newsletter, and putting a link back to my site. All these people will then know something about my book.

Book marketing gurus like Kremer, Poynter and Jud probably each have many, many more people than I could ever gather for a newsletter. By helping them with their newsletters, I expose all of their lists to my books. And what about all the newsletters out there that target family life, personal finances, etc. I could keep myself busy for a year getting publicity through just newsletters!

Applying This to Writing a Column

Some publicists recommend that I try writing a column for a newspaper on my topic. Hey, it gets me out there, helps build a following, and who knows, I just might get syndicated and appear in newspapers around the country!

But writing a great column takes loads of time. And with all the competition out there, what are the odds that I'd win out over all the MBA's in professional writing who are pushing to write the same column?

And even if I win at this game and write a popular column that's syndicated, I can't talk about my book very much, or I become irritating.

I got to thinking about this problem, so I visited the Amazon pages of books written by some of the most popular syndicated personal finance columnists in major newspapers. Their Amazon rankings were 328,000, 612,000 and 353,000. That compares to my Amazon ranking of 132,000! That means that I'm selling many more books than these popular columnists (at least on Amazon). Perhaps it's because I'm going to places that people are already gathered, and each time I go (unlike a financial columnist), I can talk about my book, or at least put it with my signature.

Applying this to social networking, one person on Ning said that she has Google Alerts set up to alert her when anybody's writing on her topic. She clicks through to the the articles or blogs or online newspapers, reads the articles, comments and adds to the discussion, then signs it with her name and a link to her book on Amazon. She said that whenever she does this, she notes an increase in sales. I tried it yesterday with two comments, one on a newspaper and one on a blog. The person replied to the blog, "Thanks for the comment. I look forward to reading your book." Hmmm...that was a pretty quick return. And I didn't irritate anyone. And I didn't have to wait a year to gather a following. And I didn't have to spend many, many hours writing unique, informative blogs.

This blogger was delighted that I commented on his blog. (Bloggers live for positive comments, assuring them know that people are actually reading their stuff.)

This applies the "go where people are already gathered" concept to social media. Rather than spending my days trying to attract a Twitter and Blog and Facebook following that may or may not be interested in my book, a strategy that just might annoy my "friends" if I keep bringing up my book, why not simply go to the blogs and online media outlets that are already discussing my topic and join in the discussion? I get links back from many significant sites. And for the ones that don't allow links back (like many major newspapers), just sign it with your name and the name of the book.

So, regarding social networking, I'm concentrating on "going where the people are already gathered" rather than "trying to gather people". In a timeless world, I could do both. But the tick-tick of my wall clock reminds me that each second has a period after it. I've got to concentrate my limited time on the most likely payoffs.

Your thoughts?

Getting Your Book to Top Bloggers and Top Sites

2009-07-29T12:40:00.003-04:00

Want to get your book in front of people? One way is to find the most popular sites and blogs that speak about the subjects you write on. Send an e-mail to the main writers for the blog or site to see if they're interested in reviewing your book.

And how then do you find those popular sites and blogs?

1) Technorati ranks blogs according to number of incoming links, assuming that a blog is more respected and visited if more people link to it. Click "blogs" on their site to find their blog directory.

Now find the subjects that most closely match your topic and click on them to find the most popular blogs that talk about those subjects.

2) Download the free Alexa toolbar to discover how many people visit any given site. Click "Download the Alexa Toolbar" to start the process.

3) Search key words or phrases in Google Blog Search to find more blogs.

4) Of course, search Google to find other popular sites besides blogs.

Other ideas?

Using Press Releases to Promote Books (Part 2)

2009-07-22T10:26:00.008-04:00

Considering doing a press release to promote your book? Perhaps my experiences can help. Here's what I've done and the results:

1) I sent a release through several free press release organizations. To see what I did and what organizations I used, click here to my former blog post. This was a general release about the publication of my book, but put in a newsy way that showed how it addressed some of today's issues. I didn't get any response, but did find the release posted on an Atlanta business site.

2) A month later, I sent exactly the same release through a paid service ($175) that claimed to have a targeted list. The company is Bostick Communications, who intrigued me with an e-mail advertising their services. Within 24 hours, I received over 20 responses, including a TV request, a radio opportunity, and requests from newspaper columnists and bloggers who review books.

My contact at Bostick answered my questions promptly and thoroughly prior to taking my money. Then, he approved my release and told me that they'd wait until Monday to send it, since they get less response toward the end of the week. Following the press release, Bostick alerts me via e-mail when and where my book has been reviewed.

Why the Difference?

I'm assuming that media folks don't have all day to read thousands of press releases. Thus, they ignore the stuff coming from free services and pay attention to the services they've learned to rely upon for helpful, targetted stories. That's the service that companies like Bostwick provide authors. If you wrote a book on childrearing, your press release wouldn't go to the editors at Popular Mechanics. That makes sense.

Tips from the Trenches

1. Make your press release newsworthy. Thousands of new books come out each year. Another book isn't news. "Steve Miller's Money Book Was Just Published" makes a bad headline. Try to connect your book with something newsworthy, like "New Money Book Helps Generation Y Avoid Baby Boomer's Mistakes."

2. Choose a company that can target the niche you want to reach.

3. Have an online press kit that compels the media to take you seriously (blurbs and reviews), gives them example questions and answers, and - if you're shooting for radio or TV - demonstrates that you can handle yourself in that arena. Link the news release to your online press kit. (Example: Here's my press kit.)

4. Realize that sending out review copies can be expensive. If someone half-way around the world offers to review the book, make sure it's worth it to you. It may cost $14 or so. If you're limited by a budget, you could almost send 5 copies via media mail within the USA for that amount.

5. Make the most of your results. I got a book request from two book review bloggers who had a very little traffic to their blogs. (An Alexa application tells me a site's Google Ranking as I view any site.) Was it worth sending her a book? Well, I looked at each profile to discover one worked in the legal industry and another was a home schooler. I sent each a copy for review, suggesting that the book would make a neat gift to lawyer clients and a great home school text (would she give me a blurb on the book's value to home schoolers?). Give these opportunities some creative thought to get more benefits out of each reviewer.

Any helpful advice or questions about press releases?

Marketing Books with Online Video

2009-07-17T20:54:00.009-04:00

This week I participated in a seminar on using videos on social media sites like YouTube and Google Videos to market books. Here are some tips I picked up, as well as some questions I have yet to resolve. I'll present the basic strategy here, then add my thoughts and concerns.

How to Sell Tons of Products (According to the Seminar)
Using Free, Web-Based Video

a. Pick a topic that people search for on the Web that ties in with your book. (Example: The topic "How Can I Find a Job?" would tie into your book, "Fool-Proof Career Advice For Recessionary Times")

b. Make short, one to three-minute, inexpensive (you can use a $99 flip camera) how-to videos about the topic. Make these based on frequently asked questions (FAQ's) about the topic.

c. Put the videos up on 30+ free video sites. Since Google prioritizes video, you have a great chance of getting a high ranking for your key words.

d. Link the videos to your website or blog, telling them that you offer more free videos on the same subject.

e. Use the free videos on your site to show them the value of your for sale products.

f. Link them to a page where they can purchase your products.

Does it work? Here's his evidence: 1) He's an expert. 2) He's seen it work for him. 3) His reasoning seems to make sense. 4) He's got quotes from others who say it worked for them.

Concerns:

1) It was a bit sensational - "You're virtually guaranteed..."

I don't believe anything's "guaranteed" to work in internet marketing.

Here are some reasons that this method could fail in any individual case:

2) Many other people may be targeting your niche with videos. If you're all using the same methods, how can yours be "virtually guaranteed" to turn up high in a Google search?

3) Sometimes Google's algorithms are hard, if not impossible, to figure out. (I have a site for youth workers that had more content than any other youth ministry sites (over 150 articles by top youth workers), and more visitors (about 650 per day) than all but about 2 of the top youth ministry sites. Yet, for some reason, using all the best practices for search engine optimization, and even paying an SEO professional, I could never get higher than page five in a Google search for the all-important phrase: "youth ministry." Go figure.

4) Your niche may not be very "sellable".

EXAMPLE SELLABLE NICHE: Someone produces a set of free videos showing unique, proven ways to promote a product on YouTube. He argues convincingly that he's an established expert. He directs people from the video to his site or blog for more free instructions. There, he sells people on a product that enhances their ability to use this method to greater advantage and increase their revenues. As long as he's selling a first-rate product that users will write believable blurbs about, then he's probably on to something.

EXAMPLE QUESTIONABLE NICHE: You've written a biography of your father, who was a nice guy and did well at his business, although the business was not big enough to be generally recognisable. You put some videos up on YouTube explaining "How to Make It Big in Your Business," directing them to your site for more free videos, which in turn tell them about your book.

Here are the problems I see with marketing this niche. First, there are lots of competing YouTube videos about how to run a business. What will make yours rank above the others, many of which are probably optimised by SEO professionals? Second, you're not a recognized expert. Thus, lots of people link to talks by Jack Welch, one of the top CEO's of the last century, making his videos (and dozens of other recognized business gurus) come up before yours in Google search. Third, your product isn't widely compelling. Sure, people who knew your father and his business might want the book. But people in general would be more compelled to read the story of Dell, MicroSoft, Amazon, Home Depot, or a host of other great companies.

5) Producing home-made, unprofessional video footage may work fine for some endeavors, but not for those who need to keep a sharp, professional image.

My takeaways:

Put my tv interviews up on more sites. Currently I have them only on YouTube. Why not put them up on more?
Since my book is about personal finances - a general topic which many videos cover - look for a niche that isn't crowded, yet people search for it. (Example: "What baby boomers should do after their retirement invesments plummeted in the crash.")
Make some helpful videos answering the most frequently asked questions on this niche.
Link the videos to my book on Amazon.

To learn more:

http://www.trafficgeyser.com - a service to help people market their products through online video.

http://www.newinfluencer.com/traffic-geyser-review - a helpful critique of the above service.

http://www.diosacommunications.com/youtubebestpractices.htm - YouTube best practices for non-profits.

http://www.quis.com/2008/08/25/youtube-best-practices - As the title says: YouTube Best Practices.

Have you had experiences with online video that you'd like to share?

Wise Online Counsel for Book Publishing and Marketing

2009-07-15T12:51:00.004-04:00

To get an overview of book publishing and book marketing, read good respected works, such as Poynter's Self-Publishing Manual, Kremer's 1001 Ways to Market Your Books, or Jud's Beyond the Bookstore.

But sometimes I need specific information that most books don't address, or need information that's quickly dated in books, such as:

What publishers are currently offering the best services?
What are the best blogs to send a book to for review?
What book marketing techniques are working best today?

Fortunately, writers and publishers like to write, so you'll find them churning out gobs of great information in various social media. Here are three examples that I've been learning from recently. They have lots of active discussions by knowledgeable people:

1 - Book Publishing Professionals group on LinkedIn. We're having some great discussions on self-publishing vs. traditional publishing vs. vanity publishing. Also, a great discussion on the best uses of social media for book marketing. You'll find input from experienced writers and publishers.

2 - Book Blogs Group on Ning. Book lovers share their favorite books. Authors tell about their books.

3 - Book Marketing Network on Ning. Started by book marketing guru John Kremer, he just started a new discussion on what's actually working in selling books.

What a great time to be writing and publishing! There's so much great, free information available!

Do you have other free places you recommend to learn about writing and publishing?

The Right Way for Authors to Use Social Media

2009-07-01T08:36:00.004-04:00

I'm hearing all kinds of messages concerning how authors should use social media. Some say very dogmatically that all authors should try to build a platform with social media to ultimately sell their books. If you start a blog and start Tweeting, but don't see any results, they'll chide you that you're not posting enough comments. "You need to Tweet every 30 minutes and post something on your blog 7x per day," they'll say.

Yet, saner voices are saying what many of us intuitively felt all along - that social media shouldn't be about me sending out lots of messages and trying to sell my stuff. Instead, it should be more...well... SOCIAL. Social implies listening as well as talking, commenting on other people's comments rather than just spouting off my thoughts. My wife, Cherie, found these wonderful tips on social media from Chris Brogan, a true thought leader in social media. You'll note that his tips are diametrically opposed to much of the "here's how to sell your product with social media" hype.

19 Presence Management Chores You COULD Do Every Day

June 29, 2009

If you’re looking to establish your online presence, and build relationships, it’s not the kind of project where you show up, build your profiles, friend a few people, and call it good. It’s a lot like tending the farm. Here are seven particular “chores” you could do every day that should prove beneficial to your online interests.

Twitter

1. Find seven things worth retweeting in your general feed and share.
2. Reply to at least five things with full responses (not just “thanks”).
3. Point out a few people that you admire. It shows your mindset, too.
4. Follow back at least 10 folks. (I use an automated tool, but this is a personal preference. If you want such, I use SocialToo.)
5. 10 minutes of just polite two-way chit chat goes far.

Facebook

6. Check in on birthdays on the home page. (Want a secret? Send the birthday wish via Twitter or email. Feels even more deliberate.)
7. Respond to any comments on your wall.
8. Post a status message daily, something engaging or interesting.
9. Comment on at least seven people’s status messages or updates.
10. Share at least 3 interesting updates that you find.
11. If you belong to groups or fan pages, leave a new comment or two.

LinkedIn

11. Accept any invitations that make sense for you to accept.
12. Enter any recent business cards to invite them to LinkedIn (if you’re growing your network).
13. Drop into Q&A and see if you can volunteer 2-3 answers.
14. Provide 1 recommendation every few days for people you can honestly and fully recommend.
15. Add any relevant slide decks to the Slideshare app there, or books to the Amazon bookshelf.

Blogs

16. Visit your blog’s comments section and comment back on at least 5 replies.
17. If you have a few extra minutes, click through to the blogs of the commenters, and read a post or two and comment back.
18. While on those sites, use a tool like StumbleUpon and promote their good work.
19. Write the occasional post promoting the good work of a blog in your community.

It’s Not Easy

Maintaining your online presence takes time. If you look at all I’ve listed above, that’s easily more than an hour of work. But it depends what the value of that presence is to you, if you’re doing this as an individual, or to your organization, if you’re doing this on behalf of a brand or product.

We’ve traded dollars for time, in lots of these equations, as we see the return on our advertising spend diminish. It’s your choice whether you want to maintain an active online presence, or if you want to get away with a bit less.

This is the end of Chris' comments. His blog is a great example of what he's preaching above. You can find his blog at:
http://www.chrisbrogan.com/

Updated List of Nonfiction Book Reviewers

2009-06-30T16:09:00.008-04:00

Where do you send copies of adult nonfiction books for review? (Many of these places also review fiction.) I decided to blog this process to save other authors time, since these reviewers change policies, consolidate, and otherwise change over time. Old lists may be dated.

Why send books out to these reviewers?

1) You can use the review in your online press information and various other places.

2) Some submit their reviews to other review sites, giving you links and recommendations from many other sites. (Example: Dead Trees Review sends the review to 17 review sites, including Amazon.com.)

3) Since many of these people review many books and put their reviews on Amazon, Amazon ranks them highly as reviewers. (For example: one prides himself on being a top 500 Amazon reviewer. This not only means that he's reviewed a lot of books, but additionally that many people checked that his reviews were helpful.) I assume that if a top Amazon reviewer positively reviewed my book, that this would figure into how highly Amazon would rank my book in a search.

Three months prior to publication, I sent galleys to each of these reviewers after reading each of their sites to make sure I knew what each expected (e.g., some want two copies, some want them sent to a specific person, some tell how to contact them to make sure they received copies). I got this list by comparing recommendations from books such as Kremer's 1001 Ways to Market Your Books, Poynter's Self-Publishing Manual, and Bowerman's The Well-Fed Self-Publisher. Unfortunately for small publishers and self-publishers, from what I read, these tend to review only books by major publishers. But the payoff can be so great, I went ahead and sent galleys.

Booklist (American Library Association)
BookPage
ForeWord Magazine
Kirkus Reviews
Library Journal
Publishers Weekly
SLJ Book Review (School Library Journal)
New York Times
LA Times

After publication, I'm e-mailing the following review companies to see if they will review my book. Basically, I went through the list of "Other Reviewers" at MidWest Book Review, which claimed to list the best of the reviewers (140 of them). It took a couple of weeks to visit each site, see what kinds of reviews they did, and narrow it down to about 25 reviewers appropriate for my book. Each site tells how to submit.

I took a list of 140 reviewers and culled it down to 25 worth submitting to. Another list of 32 reviewers yielded me only two potential reviewers.

I eliminated those reviewers who:

reviewed only fiction
were apparently no longer in business
would only review for money
wouldn't review American books
reviewed only books by major publishers

Reviewers appropriate for my book (a nonfiction book from a small publisher in the USA)

AllBooks Review
AMAZON.COM - Yes, they do their own reviews.
Armchair Interviews

The Best Reviews
BestsellersWorld.com
Blue Rectangle (reviews on video)
Book Room Reviews
BookPleasures.com
Bookviews
Books in Review
broken pencil
California Literary Review
Christian Library Journal
Compulsive Reader
Curled Up With A Good Book
Dead Trees Review (Paul Lappen)
Get Book Reviews
Independent Publisher
INDEPENDENT PUBLISHER ONLINE
January Magazine: Book Reviews
Kaye Trout's Book Reviews
Midwest Book Reviews - Update: When I called to check on the status of my book, they said, "So far, so good, but just to let you know what you're up against, we're receiving 2300 books per month." Update: July 12. They reviewed it with a five star review on July 7! I sold about four books the next day on Amazon.com (I'm assuming because of that review) but haven't sold any the four days following. They'll put the review in their publications, so hopefully this will result in library and other sales. Update: July 14. Received a nice letter from Midwest Book Review, alerting me to their review, and letting me know that it will appear in 1) their online review magazine, Small Press Bookwatch. 2) Cengage Learning 3) Gale interactive CD-ROM series Book Review Index (published four times yearly for academic, corporate, and public library systems). 4) the review databases of LexisNexis and Goliath 4) Archived on the Midwest Book Review site for 5 years. This looks like a first class organization.
My Shelf
NewPages Book Reviews Index
NewPages Guide to Review Sources
Reader Views (book reviews, author publicity, & more)
Rebecca Review
Seeker Book Reviews
VOICE OF YOUTH ADVOCATES

Good lists of links to reviewers

http://www.midwestbookreview.com/links/othr_rev.htm - Midwest Book Review's list of other reviewers. This is the list of 140 reviewers that I culled from.

http://www.aldaily.com/#bookreviews - Links to Big-time reviewers like the Washington Post and Wall Street Journal.

http://www.angelfire.com/ca4/tela/ - Big-time newspapers that review books.

http://www.newpages.com/NPGuides/reviews.htm - List of reviewers from Newpages.

http://www.dirk-wyle.com/newsl.htm - Short list of one reviewer's favorite review sites.

Wikipedia Book Review Magazines

Niche Book Reviewers

If your book falls in an area that may attract its own reviewers, search that in Google. For example, if your book is distinctively Christian, search "Christian Book Reviews" in Google to find many reviewers of Christian books. Similarly, some sites/publications may review only financial books or regional books. So search the topic of your book for book reviewers, such as "financial book reviews" or "scientific book reviews."

Other ideas on getting book reviews? Please comment below!

Is Twitter and Blogging Worth an Author's Time?

2009-06-22T08:56:00.007-04:00

A recent blog by the CEO of Thomas Nelson (Michael Hyatt) recommended that almost anyone could build a platform with social networking:

"But today, by starting a blog and making use of tools social networking tools like Twitter and Facebook, you can build a big platform with little more that the investment of your creativity and time. I’m not saying it is easy, but I am saying it is within reach. (By the way, I consider my blog to be my “homebase” and Twitter, Facebook, Plaxo, LinkedIn, etc., to be “outposts.”)"

I think that this can be true in some cases, but I'd like to know some hard data on how many authors actually start off as "nobodies" and successfully build a platform that sells books by these social networking tools, even if they put a lot of time into it and do it right.

Don't get me wrong. I'm blogging and I tweet. And I'm sure that many sales have been made through authors Twittering. But that doesn't mean it's for everybody. In my opinion, we need to question the prevailing wisdom that promises all authors that they can build strong platforms through twittering and blogging.

Here are some of my reasons:

1) It appears to me that the ones who build a platform with Twitter, Blogging, etc., are often special cases.

a) Some were already famous (already had a platform) and thus many people wanted to follow them. The president of Thomas Nelson is a prime example. It's a great way to expand his platform, since many people already look to him as a thought leader. I and many others care what the CEO of Thomas Nelson says about publishing. A comparatively minuscule group cares about what I say about publishing. With limited time to read, if we were publishing about the same subject (I'm actually blogging about a different niche than Nelson), would you rather follow Hyatt or Miller?

b) Some do well because they're blogging about themes attractive to bloggers. Someone who becomes a thought leader in blogging or social networking in general will build a following because so many of the people interested in their thoughts search and redistribute blog posts and link back. Also, people need to subscribe to these thought leaders because the industry is developing so quickly. People want to know the latest ideas in fast-moving industries. The same can be true of the publishing industry, which is experiencing such a revolution. But with so many thought leaders out there in these areas, good luck becoming one of the top leaders!

Let's say you're a young writer, hoping to get published. Publishers keep telling you, "I like your writing, but you have no platform! We don't think we can market your book, since you have no platform." So someone advises you, "Go start a blog and start twittering and build yourself a platform!"

So, what will you blog about? Thousands of authors are blogging about their writing experiences. What's unique about your blog that would make people follow you? If you can't answer that question, lower your expectations about getting a following.

2) I don't see any hard data about what percentage of writers achieve significant sales by blogging and tweeting. (If you know any hard data, please let me know!) Sure, I hear many stories of people who made a great contact or made a great sale, but we can't conclude from these success stories that anybody can succeed by replicating what they did. I think it's called "success bias" - we hear the stories of the successes but don't hear from those who worked hard at blogging and reaped nothing. Thus, we assume that it should work for anyone.

Let's imagine that we collect 50 stories of authors who made significant contacts and sales while riding trains. Does that mean all authors should start riding trains? Hardly. Similarly, tell me 50 stories of people who are selling a lot of books through their blogs and I've still got to ask questions such as:

"Why are they doing well through blogs?
Are these people like me, starting with no significant platform?
Are they targeting a niche subject that they've become a recognized expert in?
Do they put hours a day into blogging, twittering and commenting on other blogs?"
Can I easily replicate what they're doing with their blogs?

3) My track record of sales through Twitter and my blogs has been, well, underwhelming. I think I've achieved approximately 0 sales so far through those efforts. (I've sold many through review articles in newspapers, etc.) (For an article by a person with much more blogging experience than me, echoing my experience, see the article, "Why Blogging Won't Sell My Books." The author concludes: "In terms of visitors received and books sold for the time I put in writing, blogging is the worst return on investment I get."

4) A marketing professional reported dismal results. In a recent article , a twitter marketer, who tracks what happens to his tweets that he sends to his 55,000 followers, reported that his potential sales were rather dismal:

"Now, 6% of them are all I can get to click on a link, and I must assume that if I have anything I wanted to sell to these folks, I would be lucky to sell 6% of them (using 6% as my new social-networking constant). That gives me almost 0.4% from my total “mailing list” of followers, which is about one-fifth of what you get from any real-world direct-marketing effort. This is hardly a revolution in marketing. But it might be what you can expect from the average social-network marketing schemes. And it isn’t much."

5) Blogging and Twittering experts say you have to blog and twitter very often to attract a following. Do we really have that kind of time? A responder to the above article said,

"Three or Four Tweets a day will do absolutely no good. You have to do 30 tweets a day. The life expectancy of a tweet is less than 15 minutes. You need to have a network of twitter accounts that can get your message to over 500K users - not one single account."

So let's see, that means I Twitter something every 30 minutes of my 16 waking hours.

Similarly, I've heard that if you really want to build a following on your blog, you should blog about seven times per day.

That's a huge time investment! So this morning I took a son to school, planned for supper, got my 103-year-old granny up and took her for a doctor visit. I'm raising 7 boys, the flowers in the front yard need watering, I'm setting up a book signing, sending books to reviewers, planning articles to send to magazines. My main business is running an educational resources organization. I need to read more, exercise more, write more books, write more articles about my books, set up more signings, pray more, and water the dying flowers in my front yard. And someone's saying a good use of my time is to put up 7 meaty, relevant blogs each day and twitter every 30 minutes!

None of us have unlimited time. I own an older copy of Kremer's 1001 Ways to Market Your Books. Now with web-based social networking, let's make that 1002 ways. So if I'm blogging and twittering all day, when will I find time for some of the other 1001 marketing tools?

The Bottom Line

I blog about once a week for several reasons: 1) I blog about matters that I will later write books about. 2) Blogs are great ways to get out important information. 3) Blogs can help establish me as an expert in a field, leading to speaking opportunities, a platform, etc. 4) My blogs store important information that I want to refer back to later. 5) My blogs are part of a small web of links from my sites, blogs and other social networking sites - helping me to raise my search engine rankings for my books on Amazon.

I twitter to let people know I've published a new blog or link them to important articles. I'll twitter something once every few days.

Will I ever sell any books through these efforts? Perhaps. But I see them more as parts of my online presence that will pay off in the long-run, since I'm using them for several purposes, not just sales.

Questions to Ask Yourself Before You Start a Blog Campaign

So someone's told you that, in order to sell your books, you should start blogging to build your following. Here are some questions you should ask yourself:

1) Does the topic of your blog lend itself to bloggers? If your topic isn't a passionate one among a significant niche of people, then don't expect regular readers.

2) What's your competition? So you're an unknown who's writing your first mystery and you start a blog about writing mysteries. How many other mystery writers already have blogs? Why would people follow your blog rather than the writing professors with blogs and the famous mystery writers with blogs? What are you offering that people can't get better somewhere else?

3) Do you enjoy blogging? Would you do it even if it didn't result in many sales? Life's too short to invest a lot of time doing something you hate.

4) Do you have the time to pursue it? I justify posting a blog about every other week. I know that this isn't frequent enough to get a big following, but there are only so many minutes to go around. Additionally, I honestly don't have enough to say of significance on my topic to post more often. To add more posts would be to add fluff.

5) Are you prepared to do the research and writing it takes to become a true expert (thought leader) in your field? If you don't plan to become a thought leader, fine. If you aspire to being a thought leader, you don't get there by posting what you ate for breakfast. You'll need to keep abreast of the top books and periodicals in your field, reading the the most respected bloggers in your field and interacting with them. You don't become a trusted expert by proclaiming yourself a trusted expert. You earn that trust by putting out consistently accurate, helpful, thought-provoking posts. That takes research. That takes a passion for your field. That takes time.

6) Are you already a recognized expert? If not, it may take a lot more than establishing a meaty blog to establish yourself. Most of these folks (recognized experts) seem to speak widely and establish themselves in other ways besides just blogging.

7) How intimately tied to your book is the topic of your blog? My character education site has thousands of subscribers and attracts from 500 to 600 visitors per day. But sending them an e-mail about my book on personal money management provoked very little interest. The fact is, few of my subscribers are teaching personal money management.

So you're writing a mystery and your blog is about writing mysteries, which attracts other mystery writers. Even if you get a steady following of 100 people, or even 1000 fellow-authors who are interested in writing mysteries, how many of them will actually want to purchase your mystery? Probably some, but is it worth the vast amount of time it takes to gain that following?

8) Where do you want to be within the next 5 or 10 years? Does your blog fit into that picture? If, beyond selling books, you see yourself pulling together your blog posts to publish books, or using your blog to show a school that you're the right person for teaching that writing class, then blogging may be for you. If you see it as a quick fix to sell some books, you'll likely be disappointed.

9) Have you defined your expectations for your blog? If you expect hordes of people to start buying your book, simply because of your blog, you've probably got the wrong expectation. Choose one of Kremers other 1001 ways to market your book. First, if you constantly blog about your book, people won't follow you. They'll see you as advertising rather than informing. Second, blogging seems to be more about helping people and establishing relationships than directly selling products. Sure, the resulting relationships can result in setting up a speaking engagement that sells books, but define those expectations beforehand.

In Sum...

With my present state on knowledge, I'd advise authors to blog if they enjoy blogging, have enough time to blog, and have other reasons to blog besides just selling books. If you don't already have a platform and don't relish blogging regularly, don't just gut it out to try to get sales. There are probably other things you could do that would have a faster and more likely payoff.

What do you think? (Feel free to post your thoughts.)

When Does It Make Sense to Self-Publish?

2009-06-18T18:29:00.002-04:00

I was commenting in a professional publishers Linked-In group and decided to republish here.

Think of self-publishing as just another entrepreneurial endeavor. Some businesses can (and must) start out with mounds of start-up cash. But many, many businesses start out in garages or dorm rooms. Think: Dell, Amazon, FaceBook, and thousands of other businesses that started off baking cookies in their kitchens or making yogurt on their farms. They didn't have live audiences to entertain or a huge industry to start them off - just a visionary product that could start local and build.

So let's think of a self-published book as an entrepreneurial effort to create and sell a product.

What made this entrepreneurial effort difficult in the past was the amount of money required for an individual to publish her own book. Although authors still have to pay for good editing, etc., two revolutions have made it easier to "entrepreneur" with a book:

1) Radically less up-front risk because of print-on-demand. (I just received an e-mail that Lightning Source is offering to print your first POD book, if you submit it in digital format, for $199. Imagine telling someone 20 years ago that you'd get their book on the market in a month for $199. You'd have been indited for fraud!)

2) New ways to market books outside of traditional bookstores. (Amazon, social networking, etc.)

So, when does it make sense to self-publish?

(One publisher suggested the first four reasons; I chimed in with the rest.)

#1 - You're a great salesperson.

#2 - You can work with a good team of sales people.

#3 - You teach and use the book as a text.

#4 - You don't plan to sell many copies. Print-on-demand makes sense for those publishing a family history that only relatives and family friends are likely to buy. Also, some publish highly technical books that a few hundred people might pay large sums to purchase.

#5 - No traditional publishers accept your book, but you still believe in it. (We could build a large list of self-published books that ended up becoming best-sellers.)

#6 - A non-fiction book fits in a niche category that would likely come up to the top in an Amazon search. (I've not marketed my book on Christian music in 15 years, but it continues to sell steadily on Amazon. A search for "Contemporary Christian Music" brings it close to the top of a search.)

#7 - The author thinks the book will be a steady, slow seller, but never sell a lot in any given year. I know of a successful author who writes books for other writers, such as "Late-18th-Century American Terminology and Culture" (I made the name up, having forgotten the actual title) to be used by people writing historical fiction. It wouldn't make sense to print 5,000 copies and store most of them for 10 years. But the author might sell 500 copies per year forever on Amazon. If you write 20 books like this, you're making some decent money.

Other ideas of when it's best to self-publish? Please comment!

J. Steve Miller
Author of Enjoy Your Money! How to Make It, Save It, Invest It and Give It
www.enjoyyourmoney.org

Posting Video Interviews for Book Marketing

2009-06-11T13:39:00.004-04:00

Interested in posting a video to promote your book? I've heard people say that posting to places like YouTube.com can generate a lot of interest in your books and bring in a lot of Web traffic to view your books. Since it's free, I'm all for it. Here's how I went about it. I'll tell later what impact, if any, I think it had on book sales.

1) Get a decent video together. One person who works with video recommended doing something unprofessional, like with a home video set. He said that young people particularly like the realness of it. In under five minutes, tell something about your book or have someone interview you about the book.

I went the professional route, but paid only $40 per video. I was fortunate that my publicist set me up on CBS News and Fox 5 News. The interviews were under five minutes each and looked very professional. All I had to do was to pay a service (ask at the TV station who records and sells rights) to get the rights so that they could e-mail me a digital copy. I'm told that getting it this way gives a better copy than trying to download it from the TV station and putting it directly on youtube. Here are my three videos:

Fox 5 News on young people and finances

CBS News on financial management for teens and college students

CBS News Followup on personal finances for young people and Generation Y

I'd recommend giving viewers unique, useful information. I doubt they'd come just to see you talk about your book, unless you're Steven King. Each of my videos are on something specific, like how young graduates can land jobs and succeed with their finances. (It's graduation season as I write.) Those are topics that people might search for information on in Google. My book and Web address are mentioned unabnoxiously by the interviewers.

2) Brainstorm search terms and phrases that people might use in searching for your video. Put some of them in Google Adword's Key Words Tool to find more terms and to find out how many times different terms/phrases are searched. (Example: do people search more for "personal finance" or "personal finances." To decide which term to use, find out how many times each is searched.) You'll use these terms in the fourth step.

3) Sign up for a YouTube acount at www.youtube.com. (Click "SignUp" on top right menu. Just follow their instructions. My video typically failed to upload all the way the first time or two, then succeeded on the second or third try.)

4) Use the search terms you came up with in my second step. In your YouTube account, on the page where you're uploading your video, use key words in your title, description, and in the box where you can add descriptive words and phrases.

5) Include a link in your description to your author site, media page of your publisher site, blog, or to your book on Amazon.

6) Ask friends and family to watch it on their computers. If they like it, have them rate it on YouTube and tell why they liked it. (If they don't like it, tell them skip the rating process and instead take a film course so that next time around they can recognize real quality when they see it.) The higher it's rated (and the more people who rate it), the better your chances of being found.

7) Link to the video from all your blogs and sites. The more incoming links, the more important search engines think you are. Thus, more people will likely find you in a search.

8) Don't expect immediate results. Google only "dances" once a month, when it updates its algorythms and data.

9) Let me know any of your good or bad experiences. If this doesn't help authors to sell books, we could all save time by not fooling with it!

Using News Releases to Promote Books

2009-06-10T08:13:00.009-04:00

Today I start my news release campaign for my book, so I'm reviewing David Meerman Scott's recommendations for press releases in his book, "The New Rules of Marketing and PR" (pp. 167-177).

In the past, news releases were sent to the media to try to get articles in newspapers and magazines and spots on radio. Today, there are added benefits:

anyone searching the web for key phrases contained in your release might find you.
people who requested alerts to these phrases may automatically receive notice of your release.
"Each time your news release is posted on another site, such as an online news site, the inbound link from the online news site to your Web site helps to increase the search engine ranking of your site, because the search engines use inbound links as one of the important criteria for their page-ranking algorithms."
Having multiple press releases out there lets journalists know that you're active - things are happening with you and your book.

Here are some tips I consolidated from Scott:

1) Send them regularly - not just when you have big news.
2) Make good use of key words that people would use to search for your topic/book.
3) Appeal to buyers - their problems and needs - not just journalists.
4) Encourage them to respond in some way.
5) Include links to appropriate landing pages on your site or blog.
6) Add social media tags (e.g., Technorati, DIGG, del.icio.us) to help people find it.
7) Post it simultaneously on your website (e.g., in the "media room" or press section of your author or publisher site). Keep it there as long as it's still appropriate.
8) Send it via a news release distribution service so that you reach hundreds of Websites (including news services like Yahoo!, Google and Lycos) with each release.
9) Topics to write releases about: new takes on old problems, interesting information, award received, speaking at an event, product feature added, white paper published, etc.

Recommended (by Scott) news release distribution services:

Business Wire: www.businesswire.com
Market Wire: www.marketwire.com
PrimeNewswire: www.primezone.com
PR Newswire: www.prnewswire.com
PRWeb: www.prweb.com

I believe that all of these are paid services, where you might pay a couple of hundred bucks to send a release to a certain geographic area (like Atlanta).

I've decided to send the first press release of my book to only free press release services, since I don't think the release of a book is something that the media is interested in (unless it was the latest Harry Potter book). As a guerilla marketer, I don't want to spend money that I'm not reasonably sure will have a pay-off. Thus, I'm primarily doing it for the other reasons listed above, which might not require paid releases.

For free press releases, my publicist, Stephanie Richards, recommends sending each release to all of the following:

www.i-newswire.com/submit.php

Offers a free and paid ($25 per release) option. Free press release contains ads. Paid has premium distribution and claims to increase your website traffic (I assume this means that the release will be posted on sites with a live link back to my site.)

www.dbusinessnews.com

Quotes from their site: "the Nations leading Internet provider of local business intelligence, including news, e-commerce services, business tools, and investment and research resources for small businesses.... "...the nation's only comprehensive business resource tool for large, medium and small businesses."

"dBusinessNews is delivered by email every business morning to a large and affluent readership base made up of over 700,000 subscribers. It has rapidly become the news source of choice for professionals, executives, managers, venture capitalists, entrepreneurs, civic leaders, government officials, and an extensive network of reporters and news outlets.

dBusinessNews' XML newsfeeds is carried by major news distribution services including the Associated Press, Yahoo, Google, Altavista Moreover.com and 2000+ business web sites."

www.24-7pressrelease.com

Their free press releases "receive limited distribution and are not guaranteed to be posted. Links may not be used." The $49 option is recommended for search engine optimization and visibility, distributing to popular newswires like Google News.

http://liswire.com/

The Librarian's News Wire targets librarians.

http://www.newswiretoday.com/

News Wire Today - "a free press releases & news wire distribution service to corporations, PR agencies, market research, business journalists, freelance writers, news content providers."

I have to sign up for a free subscription to use most of them. I'll post another blog with more specifics, including a link to the press release itself.

[Update: within 3 days of sending the press releases, I've sold 7 books on Amazon. But it's getting hard to know if these sales are due to my latest initiative, or to past initiatives starting to pay off. Last week I also put up three videos on YouTube from my TV appearances and linked them to my book. Perhaps that's paying off as well. Or, perhaps a review came out that I haven't found yet. Harder to say now, as opposed to just after the initial publication three months ago, what's contributing to sales.]

What is your experience with press releases? Any suggestions?

Optimize Your Blog to Increase Book Sales

2009-06-03T08:48:00.001-04:00

Today I want to better optimize my blogs, so that more people can find them. Why?

The more people who interact on your blog, the more comments (read: knowledge) you get.

The more people who interact on your blog, the more people find out about your products and services.
The more people who interact on your blog, the more people can find you on search engines (Google favors site that have more traffic and more incoming links and syndications.)

So how can you get more traffic to your site? My blog is hosted by Google Blogger. Here are their suggestions, which I'm trying to implement today: (The links might not work if you're not a member of blogger.com.)

Promoting Your Blog

This is in no way a science or guarantee; it's simply a few suggestions with which many bloggers have found success.

Set your blog to Send Pings. When this setting is activated, your blog will be included in various "recently updated" lists on the web as well as other blog-related services.

Activate Your Navbar. Do this and you might start to see the effects right away! One of the features on the Blogger Navbar is a button called NextBlog - click it to visit the next Navbar-enabled blog.

Install Email This Post. If you use Email This Post on your blog, people will be able to forward your posts to friends. This may not have an immediate impact on your site stats but it enables others to publicize your blog for you.

Turn on Post Pages. By publishing every post as its very own web page with Post Pages, you ensure that your entries are way more link-able and more attractive to search engines.

Turn on your site feed. When people subscribe to your site feed in their newsreaders, they're very likely going to read your post.

Add your blog to Blogger's listings. When you add your blog to our listings it shows up in Nextblog, Recently Updated, and other places. It's like opting-in to traffic.

Write quality content and do it well. If your "style" is bad writing, worse grammar, no punctuation, and an ugly design, that might be okay for a niche crowd. But the idea here is to achieve mass appeal, so fix yourself up a bit.

Publish regular updates. Simple: the more you blog, the more traffic you'll get.

Think of your audience. A good way to build an audience is to speak to one in particular. When you keep your audience in mind, your writing gains focus. Focus goes a long way toward repeat visitors.

Keep search engines in mind. There are a few things you can do to make your blog more search engine friendly. Use post titles and post page archiving. This will automatically give each of your post pages an intelligent name based on the title of your post. Also, try to be descriptive when you blog. A well crafted post about something very specific can end up very near the top results of a search.

Keep your posts and paragraphs short. Strive for succinct posts that pump pertinent new information into the blogosphere and move on. Keep it short and sweet so visitors can pop in, read up, and click on.

Put your blog URL in your email signature. Think of how many forwarded emails you've seen in your day, and just imagine the possibilities.

Sumbit your address to blog search sites and directories. People look for blog content at Technorati every day, are you on their list? You should be. Submit your blog's url to Technorati, Daypop, Blogdex, Popdex, and any other site of that ilk you come across. (jsm note: this list of blogs may be dated. I can't even find daypop today. Perhaps the list of blog search engines in this wikipedia article "search engines" will keep updated.

Link to other blogs. Links are the currency of the blogosphere and it takes money to make money so start linking.

Install a blogroll. It's a very simple yet effective social networking scheme and it has the same result as a simple link if not stronger: traffic! So if you don't have one yet, sign up for a blogroll and get that link-list going.

Be an active commenter. This is in the same vein as linking. Most comment systems also provide a way for you to leave a link back to your blog which begs a visit at the very least. So if you feel inspired, leave a comment or two in your blog travels. It behooves you.

Enable Following on your blog. Following a is a great way to keep your friends updated on the latest activity on your blog. New blogs will have this blog feature enabled by default, but for older blogs you will have to enable it from the Layout | Page Elements tab.

Other suggestions on optimizing your blogs for more traffic?

On Getting Distribution

2009-05-29T06:54:00.003-04:00

Seeking distribution? Small, independent publishers (like us) have a rough time getting distribution into bookstores. Here's why.

Imagine that you own a bookstore. You love books and you'd love to be able to order any book you want. But you don't have time to establish relationships with each of the 85,000 American publishers (Publishers Weekly stat. from 2004). (Can you imagine learning 85,000 different ways to order books?) If that's not overwhelming enough, c. 10,000 new publishing companies pop up each year (www.ISBN.org). If you're a bookstore owner, that's about 30 new publisher's you'd have to sign up with each day. Kind of takes the fun out of book selling.

That's why the publishing industry established middle men. Ingram and Baker & Taylor are the two main wholesalers that mainstream bookstores work with. Most bookstores have a relationship with both of them, allowing them to order regularly through those two systems. (Christian bookstores have their own middle men.)

But as you can imagine, Ingram and Baker & Taylor don't have time to establish relationships with 85,000 publishers and this year's 10,000 new publishers. They'll work directly with larger publishers, but otherwise they'll work with another set of middle men - the distributors.

So small publishers must establish a relationship with a distributor by filling out an application, paying a sign-up fee (some don't have a fee like this), and agreeing to give the distributor a cut in your profits (or both). This distributor in turn supplies the big wholesalers with your book.

This arrangement of four middle men (publisher, distributor, wholesaler, bookstore) between an author and a book-buyer shows why an author will get maybe 8% of a bookstore sale (80 cents of a $10.00 book). And, from what I read, none of these four middle men are getting rich.

What does this mean for a small publisher or self-published author? If you've printed your 2,000 or 5,000 copies, if you want to have a shot at getting into bookstores, you'll have to convince one of the distributors that your book will sell and establish a relationship. If you went print on demand through Lightning Source or Booksurge, bookstores and libraries can purchase through either Ingram (Lightning Source) or Baker & Taylor (Booksurge). But I don't think that either wholesaler is set up with a return policy with these print on demand books. Thus, only in rare situations will a bookstore stock your book. It's too much of a risk on their part to stock a book that they can't return if it doesn't sell. They can put through a special order if a customer wants it, but they won't stock it in hopes that someone will purchase it.

So it shouldn't have been a surprise when I received this rejection letter from Baker & Taylor:

Dear Publisher,

Thank you for sending in your materials for consideration as a new vendor to Baker & Taylor, Inc. After careful review of your application and supporting materials, we have decided not to establish a business relationship with your company at this time.

Our decision was based upon the following factor(s):

Inadequate marketing and/or promotion plan

As a courtesy, they included a list of distributors I could work through to get to them.

Hmmm. I sent them three copies of my 45-page marketing plan. One publisher had called my plan "over the top." I must assume that since I'm not a major publisher with catalogues going to bookstores and marketing through the traditional bookstore channels, that they fear that bookstores wouldn't buy it.

And you know what? They're probably right. While I've been on TV twice and had an excellent review from a major financial columnist, I doubt people are flooding the bookstores looking for my book. I think that my primary sales will come through Amazon and non-traditional channels. Why waste time and money trying to establish distribution into bookstores if bookstores aren't likely to carry it?

My decision, at this point, is to only distribute through Premium Book Company. I took out a $400 ad that they will use to try to distribute through alternative channels (libraries, to businesses as incentives, etc.) I'll let you know how it goes. I'm getting healthy sales through Amazon.com and through my own efforts to sell in bulk. For now, this seems like the best course to stay on.

One publishing adviser had counseled me against seeking a return policy with a wholesaler. If bookstores ordered 200 copies and they didn't sell, they'd get returned (some of them damaged), and I'd be out some money. Glad this phase is behind me. One less thing to worry about.

Is Your Book Marketing Working? Maybe It's Just a Matter of Time

2009-05-27T21:44:00.004-04:00

Two marketing books I was re-reading this week (with nonfiction books, I initially read do a thorough read, underlining extensively. Later, I tend to re-read just my underlinings for review.) urged readers to give marketing time - a lot of time. I didn't remember this from my first read of each book, but it came at a good time for me.

Some of my marketing for Enjoy Your Money has paid off immediately (like the nice review in the Oakland Tribune), but other things I've done seem to go nowhere (like adding all those search terms to my Amazon page.) I suppose I expected that most of my marketing efforts would have some kind of immediate payoff. Bad expectation. Marketing takes time. Here's what some experts are saying:

"When you aim at Amazon, you need a certain amount of patience. Though a well-written and well-published book should start selling almost at once, it will generally take about a year to reach its full potential. That's because, as the book begins to succeed, its success feeds more success. Amazon's sales mechanisms and dynamics gradually lift a winner toward the top. It just takes a while." (Aiming At Amazon, by Aaron Shepard, p. 135)

"Generally, your book's rise on lists and in other Amazon features is very gradual, and that's why reaching full potential takes a book about a year. So, take a deep breath, sit tight, and enjoy the very...slow...ride." (Shepard, p. 141)

"Patience is another way of saying commitment. My advice to you is to create a sensible plan, then stick with it until it proves itself to you. How long might that take? Maybe three months, if you're lucky. Probably six months. And maybe even as long as a year. But you will never, never, never know whether the plan is working within the first sixty days. Commitment is directly related to time." (Guerrilla Marketing, Jay Conrad Levinson, p. 17)

I'm about at the three-month mark for my book being available on Amazon. I'd pretty much concluded that nobody would ever be able to find my book on Amazon by searching general terms like Personal Money Management. After all, thousands of books on that topic are on Amazon, with many of the authors being household names like Dave Ramsey and high profile authors with television shows. Why would Amazon's search algorithm allow my book to the forefront of such a general Amazon search?

But today I searched Amazon under the popular search phrase Personal Money Management and was shocked to find my book coming up #4 of over 3,000 results! How could it be? Perhaps Amazon prioritizes books that

sell consistently, even if it averages just about one per day.
get lots of 5-star reviews.
have people who've taken the time to type in search terms for the book on Amazon.
have a blog connected to the Amazon page.
have several sites and blogs linking to the Amazon book page.

These would all be consistent with my book. But I'm still amazed that I'm coming up #4 in a search result. I also think it's interesting that many of these things (reviews, adding search terms, etc.) were up and going the first couple of weeks that I had the book on Amazon. I'm not sure why they're seeming to take effect now, after three months. Perhaps it just takes that much time for Amazon to realize that the book is a consistent seller. Or perhaps its search engine doesn't update with new information except once a month or so.

As Levinson urges, great marketing isn't in the huge things (like hoping for a spot on Oprah); it's simply doing the little things right, consistently over time.

So if you get easily discouraged, don't give up! Some things don't make a difference immediately. Give them time.

Do you have experience with failure over the short-haul but success over time? Please let us know!

A Solution to the "Need More Time to Market" Issue

2009-05-22T17:55:00.003-04:00

Publishing consultant John Mark Schuster just gave me an idea I thought was worthy to pass on. I'll print it here in its entirety:

"I recently spoke to an author who "hired" a college student to do
marketing/promotions for his book project.

He approached the Marketing Department at a local university and asked about
hiring a student to assist with his book promotional efforts. He was
surprised how much the college embraced him and shared that a student could
actually earn "credit hours" through an Internship program if set up
properly.

Benefits for the author:

-Having a college student assist with your book's marketing plan is a great
option for authors that do not have a lot of time or money to spare.
-You can interview a suitable candidate and pick a marketing student who is
well-suited for your needs.
-A college student knows how to effectively utilize the internet for both
marketing and research.

Perks for the student:

-College credit is earned and real world experience is a resume builder for
the student in this tough job market.
-They build a relationship with an author who may be able to help them
further develop in their professional life.

It is important to note that it will be your responsibility to provide the
student with your publishing or marketing goals. You will probably need to
complete a course credit form and outline your project in great detail to
the college's standards but in the end it could be a big payoff.

It will be your responsibility to further explore this option and complete
necessary forms/work but I hope this proves to be effective."

I might add that occasionally marketing classes like to take real businesses and suggest marketing plans for them. We did it last year with our not for profit and gleaned some great ideas.

When "What Makes Sense" Keeps us from "What Works"

2009-05-10T13:51:00.007-04:00

Need to sell more of your books? If marketing methods that make sense aren't working, try methods that don't make sense. This kind of thinking isn't unusual in the business world.

Who'd have thought that people would pay $3.50 for a cup of coffee? Starbucks did the nonsensical and built a great company.
Who'd have thought you could make money by selling products so cheap that real businessmen "just knew" you couldn't make a profit? Wal-Mart did the nonsensical and built the largest retailing outfit in the world.
Times were when people "just knew" that the universe revolved around the earth, that the earth was flat, and that time wasn't relative. But thinkers who entertained nonsensical thoughts discovered otherwise.

Assumptions I'm Questioning

So what are some of the things that "everybody who's anybody knows for certain" about selling books, that we might want to question?

Assumption #1: The best places to sell books are in bookstores.
Assumption #2: Businesses that don't currently sell books are the worst prospects for selling my book.
Assumption #3: The larger the bookstore, the better.
Assumption #4: Go for the large cities since more people are there.
Assumption #5: Go for reviews only in the largest newspapers.
Assumption #6: The ultimate is to get on TV.

Why I Question These Assumptions

I now question all these assumptions:

1. If you're a best-selling author with a traditional publisher, bookstores are great places to sell books. Although, after distributors, wholesalers, and bookstores take their cut, you won't get much money for each sale, people know they can find your books there. But if you're not that well-known, or not with a traditional publisher, you'll probably have trouble getting into the bookstore. And if it doesn't sell within a few months, it may be returned to the distributor and never re-ordered.

That's why Dan Poynter is fond of saying something like, "Bookstores are lousy places to sell books." Great places to buy books, just lousy places to sell them. And it makes sense, once you think about it. If my book is one of 100 personal finance books in a large bookstore, why would someone choose mine over the high profile Dave Ramsey's and Suze Ormans? But if they find it in a smaller, non-bookstore setting, there's no competition.

Since my current book is self-published, I'm encountering hurdle after hurdle to getting into bookstores. I've got it into some locally owned bookstores, but chains are much tougher.

2. Businesses that don't currently sell books at all might take some initial convincing to sell my book, but if they take it on consignment, with no risk, they might like the idea of finding a new source of income. That's how my friend David sold 200 books in a local restaurant in about 6 months. I've currently got my book in a consignment clothing and furniture store, and a video rental store. I'll keep you posted as to how these go.

3. Larger bookstores mean more competition for similar books. Amazon means the most competition. If you have a niche book, like my Contemporary Christian Music Debate, Amazon's a great place to sell a book. People searching for "Christian Rock" or "Contemporary Christian Music" find it at the top of their search. But my book on personal finances, Enjoy Your Money!, competes against thousands of books on the same subject. It's unlikely that anyone would find it searching the term "personal finances". (However, once readers hear about the book from other sources, Amazon's a wonderful place to sell my financial book.)

4. While big-time authors should do well signing books in large cities, where they already have followings, I doubt they'd come out for small-time authors. But since most big-time authors go for the large cities, why not go for the smaller cities? People in smaller, established cities actually read their newspapers to get local news. Hearing that an author's in town, they might be delighted to come to the library and hear you talk about your topic and your book.

5. It's great to get coverage in big-time papers that have a large circulation. Three days ago a financial columnist reviewed my book in the Oakland (California) Tribune. I sold 11 books that first day, five the second day, and four the third day. (One personal actually called to order from me, so that I'm reasonably sure where the other orders came from. For the few days prior to the article, none sold at all.) But if you can't get the big papers, realize that several small ones may net you just as many sales.

6. TV is cool, but can be frightening as well. I was on Fox 5's Good Day Atlanta last Thursday. Great potential, but what if I froze up like the Psychiatrist's interview in "What About Bob?". Everything went great, however. Everyone raved about how relaxed I seemed, how I gave great information, how the station highlighted my book and gave great contact information, how they linked to my book information from their Website, etc. Yet, on the day of the broadcast, I sold exactly 0 books. That's not a typo. The next day I sold a few, but I suspect the sales came from my wife telling her facebook friends about the interview.

Am I glad I did the interview? Sure!

It exposed a lot of people to the book who may buy it later.
People often need to be exposed to a product several times before they purchase.
I can purchase the video and use it on www.youtube.com and link to it from our publisher's Web page to show other potential media that I can handle interviews.

But still, no immediate sales as a result? I've heard similar stories of people who got big-time media coverage, but no or few sales. (I passed on this phenomenon to publishing consultant John Schuster, suggesting that perhaps "viewers view and readers read." He responded that "several marketing studies have shown exactly that.")

So don't put all your eggs into a few massive events, seeing them as your silver bullets. In the long run, the little, local stuff might be your biggest hit.

What are your experiences with what works and what doesn't concerning selling books? Are you questioning some common assumptions? Post a response and let's learn from each other!

Book Marketing Can Be Weird

2009-05-01T07:32:00.006-04:00

What marketing plan will work best for you? Are there any "sure-fire" ways to sell books? Here's what I learned yesterday.

The Potential

I've heard cutting edge book marketers say that one of the biggest keys to sales is collecting e-mail addresses on your site or blog and then sending regular e-mails to give readers useful information and inform them about your books. That tact would seem to work perfectly for me, since I've got two busy websites, one for youth workers and pastors (www.youth-ministry.info ) and one for those who teach character in public schools (www.character-education.info ). About 1,000 people visit these sites each day, and I've collected over 10,000 e-mail addresses.

The Plan

I've thought all along that my biggest opportunity for marketing my book on personal finances is through those sites, by posting links from the sites to my book on Amazon (did this for weeks ago), and mentioning the book in e-mails to the site members. In preparation, a couple of months ago, I found a great company that I can send my e-mails through. ( Vertical Response offers wonderful tools for creating your e-mails, managing your lists, and reporting the results. They'll also allow not-for-profits to send 10,000 e-mails free each month.)

I've spent a lot of time over the past week putting together an e-letter to the members of the youth ministry site and figuring out how to set up and send the e-mail. I have about 6000 e-mail addresses from the youth ministry site and sent out the first 2,000 e-letters yesterday.

The Underwhelming Response

So far, exactly 0 people have bought books from that e-mail! (As of last night, only one had even clicked through the link from the e-mail to look at the book.) I also have reason to believe that I've achieved no sales through people discovering my book on the sites and clicking through to order from there. Go figure.

[May 29 update: I sent an e-zine to my next list - about 3600 people, primarily teachers, who subscribed to my character education site. I offered a copy of the book at 60% off, or free if they're on budget restrictions, to review as a possible text. Two paid and one asked for a free one. If just one of these three decides to use it for a text...if they like it...if they give me a good blurb to use with other teachers...this would be a great payoff for the time and effort. But still, only three request a book out of 3600 educators?!?. Then again, how many of these actually teach a personal finance class?]

The Lesson

Throughout my life, I've occasionally attended seminars by super-successful people, who, with knowing glows about their faces, taught me seminars such as "Five Easy Steps to an Effective Ministry" or "Seven Sure-Fire Ways to Sell Tons of Books." But for me, nothing was ever easy and either I sucked at implementing the "Seven Sure-Fire Ways," or they simply didn't work for me.

Today, I'm more likely to teach a seminar entitled,

"Strategies That Worked for Me, and Just Might Work for You, but No Guarantees."

You can see why I'm not teaching many seminars. Everybody wants the "Sure-Fire" stuff.

The Lesson

I was a bit down last night, due to the "failure" of this effort. But after reflection, I've learned a wonderful thing. I'll go ahead and send out the rest of the e-mails. Perhaps this is the first time they've heard of the book and they'll make a decision later on. Maybe they need to hear about it from several sources. But if I see no real results in the e-letters, then the good news is, I don't have to do e-letters any more! One less thing to do, so that I can concentrate on things that actually work for me and my book.

I believe that successful marketing is finding out what works for my individual personality and gifts, combined with what works for my specific book.

Every book is different. Some can be positioned well on Amazon and do great without any further promotion. My book on church music, The Contemporary Christian Music Debate, isn't setting any sales records, but it sells pretty steady, although I've done absolutely no marketing at all for the book in 14 years. Being a niche book, those who struggle with musical style in their churches are likely to find it by searching "Contemporary Christian Music" or "Christian Rock" on Amazon or through Google. This is very different from my financial book. A person searching "personal finance" on Amazon would find thousands of books on the subject and wouldn't likely find mine unless they searched the exact title. The difference in subject matter requires different approaches to marketing. [May 29 update: My financial book is now #3 on a search for "personal money management" on Amazon. I didn't think this could happen. I couldn't be happier to be wrong on this one!]

Every author is different. Some have bubbly personalities that shine on radio and TV and book signings. Others prefer writing articles, sending e-mails and blogging.

There are myriads of ways to sell books and probably no silver bullet that works for everyone. Beware of what everybody says you have to do. Beware of doing only what makes the most sense. Figure out what works for you and your book, then pursue it with a passion!

The Encouragement

Yesterday evening, Cherie checked our voice mail and discovered that a pastor friend wants to know how to get my financial book by the case. This was totally unrelated to the e-mails I sent out. Go figure. Marketing is weird.

Post by J. Steve Miller, Author of Enjoy Your Money! How to Make It, Save It, Invest It and Give It.

Blogging About Popular Articles

2009-04-30T08:49:00.003-04:00

How can we get more people to read our blogs? How can we choose topics to blog about that people are really interested in?

A recent marketing newsletter recommended connecting popular, recent articles with your blog posts. Since people are already talking about an article and its topic, mentioning it can add authority and interest to your post, as well as attract readers who are further exploring the subject matter.

Example: You've written a book on personal money management. So you go to the Wall Street Journal site and browse the most popular recent articles. How do you know which are the most popular? Go to this page , which lists their recent articles in order of "Most Viewed" and "Most Emailed." It also lists the most popular by section and their most popular blog posts. (You can do the same with the New York Times, and probably other major newspapers you follow.)

The most popular article is, "Rejection, How Colleges Do It." Interesting. It's more popular than the articles on the current outbreak of Swine Flu, that has people around the country panicking and wearing face masks. But it makes sense. It's Spring, close to high school graduation, and parents are wanting to make sure their students get into college.

So, I've found a hot topic that the readers of my money blog might find helpful. I could simply summarize the main points of the Wall Street Journal article and link back to the article if my readers want to read the source.

This little trick helps me to identify felt needs and quickly provide information to help my readers.

Posted by J. Steve Miller, author of Enjoy Your Money! How to Make It, Save It, Invest it and Give It.

Week Three (Part 2) Think Local

2009-04-03T09:02:00.002-04:00

Much of what we read concerning book publicity urges us to pursue channels at a distance: mailing the book to distant contests, book reviewers, book tours to major cities, etc. Sure, take advantage of opportunities around the country (and world), but while peering into the distance, don't overlook the possibilities close to home. Since it's difficult for me to travel, due to raising kids and caring for my 103-year-old granny, I'm spending a lot of time thinking about local sales.

My good friend David Cady, an hour north of me in Dalton, Georgia (pop. 30,000), self-published a riveting novel about a snake-handling cult entitled The Handler. In the six months of its existence, in addition to other outlets, it's sold about 200 copies at a local restaurant! That's more than the total sales of a significant number of books!

Local Potential

18,000 people live in my town of Acworth.
700,000 live in my county (Cobb), which is a part of metro Atlanta.
5.5 million live in metro Atlanta.

Hmmm....I'd say that within an hour of my house I've got a pretty decent market. And even if I just marketed in Acworth, and fans began to recommend it to others, who recommend it to others, isn't it conceivable that we could reach a tipping point that provokes national sales? If David has sold 200 in one local restaurant, what if I could get my book into 200 stores? It's a worthy goal.

Local Stores

Last week I talked to local bookstores, local places I shop, local places I rent videos, the local gym where I work out. Most were friendly, receptive, and took a free copy to look over. [In case stores needed a book display, I bought some white, cardboard counter displays (8 5/8" wide) from Meridian Display (ask for Carole), at $4.34 each, for a box of 25 ($3.65 each if you purchase two boxes).]

Although you might have to go through more hoops with big chain stores, even Wal-Mart has has a way for local managers to purchase local products they wish to sell in their stores. It's called their "Local Purchase Program."

Local Speaking

In two weeks I'll speak to a group of about 100 students at a student organization at our local university. I'll be part of a panel on personal money management and will sell books in the back.

Think about speaking on the topic of your writing wherever it's appropriate. Civic organizations and schools are often looking for speakers on various topics. Perhaps your state has a grant like in Georgia, where approved authors are paid through the grant to speak in public schools.

Local Newspapers and Radio and Library Signing

Well, surely you've already thought about these. Your book is exciting news to your hometown. They want to know!

Excuse me, but 700,000 people in my county need a copy of my book. I'd better get out there and sell some!

Week Three: Contacting Newspaper Columnists

2009-04-02T09:14:00.003-04:00

How do you get newspaper columnists to write about your book? The secret? It's all about them, not about you and your book. Keep that in mind and you may go far.

1) They need to produce a column each week. Give them something that would delight their readers and make the writer look good. The fact that a new book is out isn't typically a great headline. Think deeper. Here's what I'm saying in an introductory e-mail to financial columnists:

e-mail title: Financially Illiterate Graduates

Dear ____,

Thanks for your column, which helps so many with their personal finances.

With graduation season just around the corner, I knew that many of your readers would want advice for graduating high school and college seniors, who, as we are well aware, are typically clueless concerning getting jobs, excelling at jobs, entrepreneurship, and personal finance. Also, readers might want recommendations for graduation gifts (why not the gift of financial wisdom?)

My book, targeting young people (ages 16-27), just came off the press. I'd love to send you a free copy for review. I think you'll find it well-researched and documented, but written in story form to make it a quick, fun read. It covers getting and thriving in jobs, as well as saving and investing money. It's called: Enjoy Your Money! How to Make It, Save It, Invest It and Give It.

Hopefully, during these difficult economic times, the book can help young people catch a vision for working hard, living beneath their means, etc., before they get into serious financial trouble.

If you're interested in a free copy, let me know an address and I'll send it on.

Thanks again for your life and writing!

Sincerely,

J. Steve Miller

smillero@mindspring.com

www.character-education.info

Put yourself in the columnist's shoes. Every year at this time, she's got to come up with something new that relates to the graduation season. My book gives great ideas. It's a win/win!

2) Find the columnists.

I Googled "Major Newspapers" and found them listed by state here:
http://www.newslink.org/metnews.html . By going to each newspaper site and looking through the sections and columnists, I was able to find their e-mail addresses.

3) Personalize your e-mail to each columnist. That way, it doesn't come across as a chain letter. I'm sure they get lots of books to review.

4) Offer them something. In other e-mails, I spoke of linking to their sites from my site, recommending their books, etc. If I publicize their projects, their more likely to publicize mine.

I've sent out my first four e-mails to columnists at the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, LA Times, and Washington Post. To prep for each of these syndicated columnists, I read a book by each one and am recommending their books from my Website. All but one have replied that they want me to send them a book. Cool!

5) When you send a book, include a brochure, press release and sign the book. Since they requested it, I wrote "Requested Materials" on the front of the mailer, to ensure it gets opened.

Hey, this is fun!

Publicity on Facebook: A Case Study

2009-03-30T06:52:00.004-04:00

For some time, I've been contemplating how to let my 150 or so Facebook friends know about my book. I resisted letting them know the first day it came out on Amazon. They would have come to an Amazon page with no customer reviews, a publisher description that needed tweeking, and no way to "Search Inside" the book. But after two weeks, I had six nice reviews (all five-star) from people who had read my manuscript before publication and everything looked great to welcome all my Facebook friends. I was excited!

Here were some of my strategic thoughts going into it:

1) Put my announcement into the correct slot, so that it actually goes to all my friends (not just a select few, not just published on my Facebook page.)

2) Be personal and non-pushy. Facebook is a gathering of people I care for. Don't abuse that.

3) Time the announcement. I decided to do it on a weekend, when people are more likely to catch up with their Facebook friends. Otherwise, if I did it during the week and they checked their home page two days later, my announcement would likely be buried down on a secondary page and they'd never see it.

4) Let them know, in a few sentences, what the book's about, why they might be interested in getting a copy, and how they could get it.

Here's what I wrote (including the image):

FINALLY! My book’s off the press and available at Amazon! It’s called, Enjoy Your Money! How to Make It, Save It, Invest It and Give It. Lots of documented research, but presented in a fun, story form. Nice gift for high school or college graduation. If you like it, pass it on to your other Facebook friends! (btw, my author name is J. Steve Miller)

The result? As of the end of the first day, I had two "Congratulations!" comments. Today, I find three more. But I don't see any sales from yesterday (I can track my daily Amazon sales through Booksurge). Not one.

Ruminations on my underwhelming Facebook publicity campaign?

1) Glad I did it. Hey, they're my friends and I want to share my excitement with them.
2) Yes, these are people I know and care about.
3) No, the book's not for everyone. Never expected all my friends to go buy a copy.
4) I'm unsure how many actually follow their Facebook homepage each day. Of 150 friends, I've got to wonder if 15 even saw my announcement.
5) Sales often come over time. Perhaps when they need to purchase a graduation gift, they'll think of it. If I get more response later, I'll update this report.

In the end, it's one less thing to worry about. I have plenty of ways to market this book. Now I can go back to concentrating on them. Facebook will continue to be a place where I keep up with my friends, rejoice with their successes and pray for their needs. It's not for hard "marketing" of my "products."

UPDATE: The following day, I got a few more personal responses. Now it's becoming more of a conversation item that will come up naturally as people interact. One will post a note on Facebook to say they're ordering the book, which may give an occasion for another to see the post, etc. With this new info, let's say that the announcement started a conversation that will continue. My book is a part of my life, and friends are interested in that aspect of my life.

Week Two: Sending Early Review Copies

2009-03-24T08:01:00.004-04:00

Solomon said, "Let another praise you, and not your own mouth." People believe what others say about my book more than what I say about my book. Thus, in order to "let another praise" my book, I've got to get it into the hands of potential praisers - preferably lots of them. According to book marketing guru John Kremer:

"Send out review copies. Send out lots of them. Send out more than you think you should. Hit every major newspaper and magazine which you think might be at all interested in the subject of your book. In most cases this means sending out somewhere between 300 and 500 review copies. Don't be stingy about sending out review copies."

But sending out free books costs me a lot of money. Can I really afford this? Kremer responds,

"For every hundred copies you send out, you'll get perhaps ten reviews. And those ten reviews will bring you anywhere from twenty to one hundred direct sales and many more indirect sales. Even at a conservative estimate, you'll receive 200 orders for every 100 copies you send out. That's cheap advertising." (1001 Ways to Market Your Books, p. 138)

Thinking economically, if Kremer's on target, then I'll pay about $4.50 plus shipping for each book sent for review. For each book sent, if I get two Amazon orders, I'll receive a check from Booksurge for $11.20. So, I receive a 100% increase on my investment. That pleasant thought takes the bite out of the initial expense.

Beyond sending lots of review copies, he recommends sending a news release, brochure, and reply card to less-than-prime reviewers. Send them copies only if they request them.

When do I send these out? Kremer recommends that most should be sent out during the first four months. That gives me time to see how the response is to the first group, and plan accordingly for the following mailouts.

Of course, although the initial sales generated by the reviews is encouraging and helps my bank account, what I'm shooting for is the sales that these early sales generate, as word of mouth takes over and people start blogging about the book and suggesting it to their employers for employee birthday and Christmas gifts. If it reaches a tipping point, where more sales bring even more sales, I've got a top seller.

So any day I'll receive my first shipment of 150 books. Here are some of my thoughts and action points:

1) Since I don't have to send them out all at once, prioritize those who require the earliest copies and those whose blurbs might carry the most weight with later reviewers.

If the MidWest Book Review calls my book "this year's best bet for a graduation gift," I can mention that review to get the attention of later reviewers.

2) Spend the time necessary to build a comprehensive list and narrow it down. At age 75, Warren Buffett was hunting for undervalued international stocks. First, he narrowed down the countries, then got a book the size of a large telephone book that listed the financial details of South Korean countries. (Additionally, he had to read up on how to understand the terms and symbols used in Korean accounting and company reports.) The result? One legal sized sheet of paper listing attractive Korean companies. (Alice Schroeder, The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life, pp. 813, 814) No wonder he's so successful. Who's as thorough as Buffett? In the end, his sifting of pan after pan of dirt yields gold and precious stones.

My narrowing down a list of magazines, newspapers, bloggers and radio shows is similar to Buffett's search for good companies. Books such as Ulrich's Periodicals Guide and Gale Directory of Publications and Broadcast Media help me to find publications that want information on my book's topic. Technorati's search engine leads me to the blogs about my topic (click "Blogs" and "Blog Directory"), conveniently listed in order of "authority" (how many sites and blogs link to the blog).

So how do I choose and prioritize potential reviewers? Here are my thoughts:

Choose those who write about your topic. Don't just send it to "Ladies Home Journal." Send it to the columnist for LHJ who either reviews your type of book or writes about the topics covered in your book.
Choose those who are most highly respected. Some are popular among those who like fluff, but are scorned by virtually all the authorities in the field. If they've got a book, check out their reviews on Amazon.
Choose those who are widely read. If a syndicated columnist for a large newspaper frequently writes on your topic, there's your priority. Read her column; purchase and read her book. Recommend her book on your blog or site. Write her a nice e-mail applauding her book, telling how you recommend it to others, and asking if she'd be so kind as to consider your book. How do you know the circulation of a newspaper or magazine? Gale and Ulrich give you the numbers. Technorati lets you know how many people link to a site/blog, giving us an idea of how many people are paying attention to what they say.
Prioritize reviewers who need it now. People will be looking for graduation gifts in about six weeks. Since I think my book would make a good graduation gift, I'll prioritize those short-lead-time writers who might want something on this topic. Big-time reviewers (e.g., Mid-West Book Review) receive lots of books in April and May, due to publishers wanting reviews for their summer marketing. I'll hit them in March, or wait until June, to increase my odds.
Prioritize reviewers with whom I have a relationship. They may not be big-time, but if you get good reviews in local media, that can lead to reviews in bigger media. Starting local is a good way to build a platform.
Prioritize reviewers who share the views expressed in my book. Financial advisers promoting short-term trading and get rich quick schemes wouldn't recommend a book like mine that warns people to avoid people like them.

By the way, don't apply the stats above (two sales for every book sent for review) to every book. It's just a rule of thumb. Every book is unique, with some having more appeal to reviewers than others.

But let's say that you send out an initial batch and discover that your book's getting good reviews and sales based on those reviews. Then forget the rule of thumb to send out "300 to 500 review copies." If you find 1000 legitimate reviewers with decent followings, keep sending them out over the months. As long as you're making money and generating sales, keep at it!

Sure, it takes some time to find these publications and writers. But it sure beats having a book that nobody knows about. And it sure beats wasting time and money by blindly sending out copies to people who have no interest in your book, only to find them sold as used books on Amazon.

My Book's Not Selling!

2009-03-22T10:38:00.002-04:00

If you're looking for a blog to tell you "My Sure-Fire Way to Get on Oprah," or "Fifty Ways to Guarantee Your Book's a Bestseller," try another blog. I'm simply detailing writing and marketing strategies as I implement them and will transparently tell you what's working and what's not.

Week One Review

So my book's been available on Amazon for eight days. The first day, one book sold. Over the next two days, three more sold. According to my research into Neuro-Economics, when we see something happen a couple of times, our mind jumps to the conclusion that a pattern has formed, and we expect the pattern to continue. And as we know in premarital counseling, if we fail to dispel unrealistic expectations, we set couples up for a disappointing let-down.

I think I experienced that letdown a bit after the third day. Nothing else has sold. I should have expected this. After all, my marketing plan involves

#1 - Getting early reviews from big-time reviewers (galleys sent to places like Booklist months ago; hoping to get reviews in two months).

#2 - Get my Amazon page and other Web pages tidied up to look enticing when people come.

#3 - Let all my Facebook friends and other friends know about it.

#4 - Get the word out to magazines, newspapers and other media.

#5 - Speak, sell in alternative markets, and slowly build a following.

So, why would I expect people to be purchasing books at this stage? I shouldn't be expecting any to sell. I haven't marketed it yet.

Sure, my book's in the world's largest bookstore. But I know a person whose book was available on Amazon for a year and never sold a copy. Typically, if you're not already an established author with people eagerly awaiting your next book, you've got to go out and sell books.

So why did my books sell for the first few days? My wife leaked out the word to some of her friends and they bought books. We know this explained a couple of the sales and assume it accounts for the other two.

Books don't sell themselves. The Chicken Soup guys put their first book in the trunks of their cars and marketed them. I'm on track for all this, but my first week's experience is a good, sobering reminder of the importance of getting the word out.

"But what about all those things you've done to fully utilize Amazon?" you might ask. Those things, like choosing tags and choosing search phrases, may pay off in a few weeks. I believe Google "dances" once a month to change rankings according to the new data that its "spiders" have gathered. Surely Amazon's searches work similarly.

My first box of books hasn't arrived yet. When it does...I'm ready to start!

Publicity Steps (Part 4)

2009-03-17T14:59:00.012-04:00

Imagine that the largest bookstore chain has promised to carry your book. Now, imagine that the owner tells you that you can make changes in the way your book is displayed? What if you could convince the management to

show the front rather than the spine
place it in a special display rather than competing with other books on a long rack
bring up near the front of the store rather than leaving it on the back row.

Would you be interested?

Well, the world's largest bookstore, Amazon.com, gives authors many tools to influence their "position" in their store. Taking advantage of these tools can make the difference between your book being hidden in a corner and getting first class positioning.

We've already talked about such basics as putting up your book image and adding tags. Here are some more tools to put your book out front:

1) Start your Amazon Blog. You do this through Amazon Connect. You can either use the free blog they offer, or connect your blog to Amazon through an rss feed. Your blog entries will show up on your Amazon book page.

2) Tags for Amazon Search. Put in search suggestions (staff will have to approve them) to show Amazon that your book should come up when certain terms/phrases are searched. (Don't put in over 10 yourself. If you want more terms, enlist the help of others.)

3) Listmania. Recommend top books in your field, including your own book. You do recommend it, right?

4) Consider participating in the Amazon Upgrade program, by which customers who purchase your book on Amazon can choose to pay a bit more and access the book digitally (online). They can't download it, but they can search each page.

5) Participate in Amazon forums. (You should find some displayed at the bottom of your book page.)

Here's a general page on Amazon to help authors get started on maximizing their exposure on Amazon.

Follow Amazon's Rules

You don't want to be a pest, or get in trouble with Amazon. So follow their helpful rules for involvement in their communities. I think it's fine to put your name at the end of a comment on a forum and under it put, "Author of...." But beyond that, answer people's questions rather than advertise your product. Don't be obnoxious. Don't cut down your competition, use profanity, put in live links, etc.

Third Publicity Step After Getting Published

2009-03-16T10:59:00.002-04:00

There are more ways to assimilate information than reading dead tree editions. Why not get your book out to people who prefer to listen to books in the cars or on their i-pods? Why not offer it to people who like to download books onto their computers or Kindles?

You've spent all that time researching and writing your book. Ultimately, your vision wasn't just to publish a traditional book. Your vision was to offer the world vital information or a compelling story. Think outside of your book!

Here's some information on one company that offers spoken books: audible.com .

Here's some information on Kindle, which currently offers about 1/4 million books.

As I keep learning options, I'll keep you informed.

Second Publicity Steps After Getting Published

2009-03-16T10:05:00.004-04:00

#6. (continued from last blog) Add tags to your Amazon book page. As you scroll down, you'll find the section: "Tags Customers Associate With This Product." What's this all about?

Sometimes customers aren't looking for a specific book on Amazon. Instead, they're searching for a book on a specific topic. They might type "ways to make money" into Amazon's search. How does Amazon know what books to show these people? In part, Amazon considers the tags that people have recommended to describe the book.

So, you want to put up all the tags you can that legitimately describe your book. Of course, you can simply brainstorm what search terms and phrases people might use. But why not tag with the search terms that are most used in search engines to search for your topic? In other words, wouldn't it be useful to know that the phrase I mentioned above: "ways to make money" is searched 135,000 times a month in search engines?

It's quite simple to get this information. I talked about it in a past blog. Consult that and find the terms that most people are using to search for the information you provide in your book.

Next, go back to your Amazon book page. Under "Tags Customers Associate With This Product," you'll find "Your Tags" and a box to "add" tags. So go to it - put in the most searched terms.

Unfortunately, you'll find that Amazon limits the amount of tags you can add. No problem. If your spouse or children or friends have their own Amazon accounts (they've ordered at least one book through Amazon), bring them some milk and cookies or offer to baby sit. When they turn their heads, get on their computer, go to your Amazon book page, and add more tags.

More later. (Cookies are ready. I'm going next door to add more tags.)

First Publicity Steps After Getting Published

2009-03-14T16:49:00.006-04:00

Today, my personal money management book, Enjoy Your Money! How to Make It, Save It, Invest It and Give It went live on Amazon. Yippy!

What are my first acts of publicity? The coming blogs will detail my steps - a helpful reminder for my future books, as well as for other writers who are close to publication.

1. Upload your image on your Amazon page. Having published through BookSurge, the front cover image was already up. If yours isn't there, upload it. (See the links under the place for the image for instructions on how to do this.) A book with no image appears rinky dink.

2. Allow customers to "flip through" your book. Below the image is a link called "Publisher: learn how customers can search inside this book." Click on it and follow the instructions to allow searching. It took less than five minutes to request this service.

Why allow searching your book?

First, in brick and mortar bookstores, we find an interesting book, look at the cover, then the back cover, and finally flip through to get a feel for the book. Amazon gives customers the same experience online. Don't worry, they can't read the entire book there. They just get enough of a taste to decide if the book's for them.

Second, it helps people to discover your book when searching for the topic your book covers. Example: You've written a book about losing weight and have a chapter on using vitamins to enhance your weight loss. Yet, neither your title, subtitle, nor publisher review says anything about vitamins. If you allow Amazon to search your book, those searching Amazon for "weight loss and vitamins" just might be able to find your book, since those words in your book would be considered in a search.

3. Link all your sites and blogs and social networking sites (Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace, Delicious, etc.) to your Amazon page. Not only will people who visit your social networking sites find your book, but search engines such as Google (and, I assume, Amazon's own search engine) rank pages higher that have more incoming links. In this way, people searching for information that your book contains will find your Amazon page ranked higher than those pages with less incoming links.

4. E-mail all those people who were kind enough to preview your manuscript and give suggestions and blurbs. Thank them for giving their early input on your manuscript. Tell them that the book's now out and you want to confirm their address to send them a free, signed copy. Ask them, if they liked the book, would they be willing to write a review on Amazon. Copy the web address of your book on Amazon and put it in the e-mail so that they can click on it to find your book.

Getting these reviews is critical. As Solomon recommended three thousand years ago, "Let another praise you, and not your own mouth." People believe what others say about your book more than what you say in your title, subtitle and publisher description. So before I start announcing my book to the world (radio, newspapers, magazine articles, etc.) I want to make sure that when each of these go to Amazon, they see many enthusiastic reviews.

They've already read your book. They told you they loved it. You're sending them a free copy. So now they'd love to help you out once more by writing a review.

5. As I mentioned in a past blog, in collaboration with my publicist, Stephanie Richards, I'm collecting the names of syndicated columnists and magazine editors and radio show hosts who might be interested in my book. Since I don't yet have copies in hand, I've been holding off for that step. More on that in my following blogs.

The New Era of Selling Books

2009-03-12T07:58:00.003-04:00

Sixteen years ago, when Tyndale House published my first book, my big concerns included,

"Will bookstores order and continue to carry my books?" After all, bookstores can carry only a small portion of this year's new books, and a much, much smaller portion of books published in the past (the backlist).
"Will my book go out of print after the first printing?"

What if a publisher had told me, back in 1993, that they could assure me that my book would be ordered by the largest bookstore chain in the world, stocked in every one of their stores, would be reordered continually to make sure it stayed in stock, and would never go out of print?

First of all, I'd laugh at the outrageous claim. Then I'd demand proof. It would be a dream come true!

But isn't that what we have today with Amazon.com? From what I read, it's selling more books than any of the other bookstore chains. The book I'm now publishing through BookSurge (a subsidiary of Amazon) is guaranteed to stay in stock through Amazon. Twenty years from now, heck, sixty years from now, it will still be on display at the world's largest bookstore.

The implications to authors are staggering.

But take it one step further. Back in 1993, my only hope for international distribution was to land agreements with distributors in other English-speaking countries, or land publishing contracts with foreign publishers. What if they told me, in 1993, that they could guarantee worldwide availability through a device that allowed anyone to download it immediately and pay via credit cards. Again, I would have laughed at the outrageous claim.

Yet, today, people can order my books globally through Amazon.

I'm simultaneously publishing my book in a Kindle format, making it available to Kindle owners. Yes, Kindle is taking hold. Princeton, Yale, Oxford, and UC Berkeley offer textbooks on Kindle. According to the Boston Herald, a full 10% of Amazon's revenues from book sales are digital sales for Kindles. Impressive.

It's a new era for selling books. Let's take advantage of it!

Book Marketing Research Tools (Part 1)

2009-03-10T16:25:00.003-04:00

Getting Reviews an Offering Related Articles

How can authors and publishers trace down the appropriate magazines, newsletters, e-zines, etc. that are eager to spread the word about your books? If you want the comprehensive resource, go to Ulrich's Periodicals Directory. It contains close to 1/4 millions resources, categorized by subject so that you can find everything from an e-letter specializing in fish bait to a newsletter dedicated to people in wheelchairs.

How to Access Ulrich

You can probably search it digitally, free of charge, through your local public library or university. I've been using the print version in four volumes (large enough to put a bar through and do a decent set of bench presses.)

Here's how I'm mining gold with the print version:

1. Open volume one and flip to the one page "Subject Guide to Abstracting and Indexing" (in the Roman Numeral section before the 1,2,3 page numbering begins.)
2. Find a category that that might relate to your topic. Example for my personal finance theme: "Business and Economics." Write down the category and the associated page number.
3. Find that same category in the following "Subjects" section. In this section, you'll find subheadings under your chosen category. Example: "Investments." Write down all relevant subheadings.
4. Repeat #2 and #3 until you've found all your relevant categories and subheadings.
5. Look up each category on the page number indicated. You'll likely find hundreds of magazines, newsletters, etc.
6. Skim down the middle of the column to weed out resources from countries or languages of no interest to you. I decided to start with only the USA. I might come back at another time and search other English-speaking countries, since my book will be available globally with Kindle.
7. Write down whatever information you need. Although Ulrich's gives me contact names and phone numbers, I'll probably check these against each website anyway, so that I'm primarily writing down the name of the publication and the web address. I also write down any pertinent information about the publication (e.g., who it's targeting, how many subscribe) to help me prioritize who to seek out first.

Newspapers

Volume 4, as well as cross-referencing and indexing the subjects and titles, lists daily and weekly newspapers by city and state. Don't you think your hometown newspaper might be interested in your book?

How to Use These Contacts

I'll send some of these an early copy for review. Others, I'll e-mail or mail a flyer and book information to see if they're interested. If they don't respond, I may follow-up on to see if they received the information.

Marketing Tools For Cheap Writers

2009-03-07T12:19:00.005-05:00

The Tools for Finding Your Market

Somewhere out there, your topic of expertise is being discussed in newsletters, e-zines, magazines, newspapers, radio shows and TV shows. Scads of people, hungry for new information on your topic, eagerly tune into these publications/broadcasts to learn more about your topic.

Wouldn't it be great if, rather than trying to drum up interest in your book among people who don't care, you could instead take your book to those who are looking for materials on your topic? How can authors/publishers introduce their books to the venues that are eagerly looking for their writings?

Directories are the GPS systems for book marketers, showing us where to find the niche writers and publications that want to freely expose their readership/viewership to our books.

How to Access These Tools

The three ways to access this information seem to be:

1) Ask your publisher or publicist to print off information for you. They're likely to have a paid subscription to online services that give the latest information in a searchable format. Typically, this would be a bit expensive for individual authors to access personally, without going through your publicist.

2) Go to a regional library or university. Small library may carry only very dated versions. I don't have time spend long hours researching this stuff at the library, since I care for my 103-year-old granny next door. I do my work in two-hour stretches.

3) Buy hard copies yourself. This way, you can pull them down during those 15-30 minute free moments (I get a lot done in 15 minute segments.) But who can afford to purchase these huge sets? This morning I found a better way.

Library Sales

My wife and I cherish our bi-yearly date to the Cobb County Library Sale. Since I have a book coming out this month, I was in a marketing mode. It didn't occur to me until I arrived that large libraries must replace their dated marketing directories each year. Sure, some are a year or two out of date, but I can always update the names, phone numbers and e-mail contact information by going to websites.

I was so excited with my success that I wanted a picture with my prize acquisitions. (If only books had antlers!) Here are some of the great reference books I got:

$1 per volume: Gale Directory of Publications and Broadcast Media (2008, 5 vols.). The cost for a new one is over $1,000, or used at Amazon for $75 + shipping. ("the definitive media source," including newspapers, magazines, radio stations, TV stations, cable systems, names of key personnel, etc.

50 cents per volume: Literary Marketplace (2007, 2 Vols). Costs $300 new. Get it used on Amazon for $20 plus shipping. ("The directory of the book publishing industry." Includes publishers, literary agents, awards and prizes, calendar of events, books and magazines for the trade.)

$1 per volume: Ulrich's Periodicals Directory(2008, 5 Vols) Get it used on Amazon for $235 ("...the premier serials reference source in the world." Find over 200,000 magazines, e-zines, newspapers, newsletters, contact information, circulation, etc.)

So, I saved well over $1000 compared to new prices or or over $300 over the used ones. I got invaluable reference tools I'll use continually over the coming years for $11.

Next year, show up at the library sale!

Help Readers Find You With Search Terms

2009-02-26T09:08:00.009-05:00

The Web has revolutionized marketing. Before the Web, "interruption marketing" prevailed - marketers interrupted readers/listeners from their articles/TV programs with an advertisement about a product they weren't searching for.

Today, millions of people are searching for information on the Web. As writers, we don't have to interrupt them to get their attention. We simply need to put useful information out there and make it easy for those searching for our information to find us.

Employing key search terms can help. Since I'm currently writing on personal finance, I want to know what terms people use to search for the information I'm providing. By using those terms in my titles, first paragraphs, links and in other prominent places, people will more likely find me when they do a Google or Yahoo search for those terms. So whether I'm writing a blog, a press release, a book title or subtitle (they will be searched on Amazon, for example), a book description, or a web page, I need to know how people are searching for this information.

First, I went to Google's tool for finding key words and phrases in Google Ad Words. (If the url has changed do a Google search for a phrase such as "find key words". Several sites have tended to offer these tools.) I did two searches, one on "money" and another on "finances."

Second, I deleted all the terms that didn't relate to the specific money topics I write on.

Finally, I ordered them according to search frequency.

Below, I've listed some of my results, telling me how many times each of these terms were searched, on average, in any given month.

Here are some of the ways that this information is useful to me:

1) People searching with the term “money” seem to be primarily searching for how to “make money” and “earn money.” 15 out of 19 (I found more terms than those I listed below) search terms were specifically about making and getting money. Make sure these terms are all over my articles and web pages concerning working, developing your skills, etc. at www.enjoyyourmoney.org .

2) Knowing what information people are hungry for helps me narrow down topics for future articles.

3) In searching “finances,” people are looking for financial advice or help, particularly with managing expenses and budgeting. I can use those terms when writing on those topics.

4) Obviously, work these key terms into my titles, headings, first paragraphs, links, etc. Titles are no longer determined solely by what's memorable and what's clever.

5) Since budgeting is often misspelled “budgetting,” and searched 2,400 times as such, I might include it on an appropriate page in places seen only by search engines, such as my meta tags or as a name for a graphic.

6) Use these terms as tags when I blog on those subjects.

7) Remember such significant, but not intuitively obvious, facts as “personal finances” being searched 33,100 times, but the singular form, “personal finance,” being searched 550,000 times!

8) Don't forget to use less searched terms at times (not included below), since so many large sites with massive traffic and incoming links will get priority placement by search engines for their use of those terms.

Other reflections or comments? Click below and join the discussion!

Search Terms for "Money"

(includes synonyms)

Over 1,000,000 Searches

Money 24,900,000

Make money 2,240,000

Dollars 2,240,000

Earn 1,830,000

Over 100,000

Earn money 368,000

Ways to make money 135,000

Over 20,000

Getting money 49,500

How to earn money 27,100

Money making ideas 27,100

Lots of money 27,100

Easy ways to make money 22,200

Money manager 22,200

Search Terms for "Finances"

(includes synonyms)

Over 1,000,000 Searches

Finance 16,600,000

Over 100,000

Personal finance 550,000

Expenses 450,000

Expense 450,000

Budgeting 246,000

Financial management 246,000

Finances 201,000

Money management 135,000

Budgets 110,000

Over 20,000

Financial help 90,500

Financial service 90,500

Financial information 60,500

Finance calculator 60,500

Financial plan 49,500

Financial advice 40,500

Personal finances 33,100

Financial 33,100

Household finance 27,100

Student finance 27,100

Teamwork in Writing

2009-02-15T18:18:00.004-05:00

Must writers perfect all aspects of writing, so that they can personally take an idea and flesh it out into a manuscript acceptable to publishers? Can we all be expected to dream up a story, write every word with flawless grammar, organize it into neat chapters, emotionally connect with readers and create unforgettable titles?

In some writers' cases, perhaps yes. But in my own writing, as well as many others, I'm seeing a lot of teamwork. Case in point: Writer's Digest recently interviewed James Patterson, holder of The New York Times bestsellers record at 42. He's sold more than 150,000,000 books worldwide!

While some frown upon coauthoring, he freely admits that he teams up with other writers. Typically, he comes up with the idea and writes an outline. He shows it to his agents and one will say he could write a book from that outline. The coauthor writes the first draft and Patterson takes that draft and writes subsequent drafts. For example, regarding the book Sundays at Tiffany's, Patterson says, "I worked with a co-writer, and then I wrote seven drafts."

He notes that most movie scripts and TV shows are written by teams. "In America, we get so caught up in individualism and heroes. I'm big on teams." "I have a file of stories that's 400 pages thick, and they're stories that I want to tell."

If I understand what Patterson's saying, he's an idea machine. He loves dreaming up story lines. Then, he drops it off to someone else to write it. Finally, he takes that draft and polishes it.

He doesn't do it all. He doesn't want to do it all. He doesn't feel obligated to do it all. He relishes the teamwork and celebrates it.

In my case, I research and write my manuscripts, but then give them out to many people to get their input before I re-shape the manuscript. Then, I give it to people who spot grammatical infractions as readily as a preppies spot fashion infractions. After that, of course, I send it to the publisher for final editing or to a professional editor if I'm self-publishing.

My point? If you can do it all and love to do it all, go for it! But since people differ so much in their strengths and talents, surely many writers will be great at creating story ideas, but lack the patience to sit down and write a 500 page story. Others can choose just the perfect word or delight in putting those words into creative sentences and paragraphs that wow us plain writers. Some come up with catchy titles; others love painstaking research.

So if you find yourself stalling out for some reason, stop and reflect. Could it be that God has gifted you for one or two parts of the writing process, and He wants you to team up with others to complete the parts that frustrate you? Teams have certainly worked for James Patterson. It's hard to argue with 42 bestsellers and 150,000,000 books sold.

What are your ideas on teamwork? How do you use teamwork in your writing? I'd love to hear your comments.

Writing Tips and Submission Tips

2009-02-14T21:41:00.007-05:00

How can writers polish their fiction and better their odds of getting noticed by a publishing house? This morning I joined a packed house (c. 100) at the Georgia Writers Association monthly meeting to hear a superb presentation by Chris Reardon, award-winning mystery writer (Agatha award), who has also written on writing and getting published. Find her at http://www.bellarosabooks.com/)

Here were some of my takeaways:

90% of submissions to publishers aren't accepted. So in large part, it's a numbers game - you must submit over and over again. John Grisham couldn't get a publisher interested in his first book, so he self-published.

You never have to accept any editor's opinions 100%. (One participant raised his hand to say that the first publisher he sent his manuscript to said that he should put it in first person. He acted on the advice and sent it to another publisher, who recommended putting it back into second person!)

Rejections don't mean you suck. Editors reject manuscripts for many reasons, including how they're feeling that day and the manuscript they read preceding yours. (Her own quirk is that she hates the overuse of elipses - "...." If she sees a few of these...you know...in the beginning of a manuscript, she automatically tosses it. It's to be used when the speaker trails off. If the speaker is interrupted, use a dash instead.)
Concerning the psychological trauma of rejection, Roerden encouraged us to read the following discussion (make sure to read all the replies. http://www.poesdeadlydaughters.blogspot.com/ See the January 31 entry).

If you can't handle rejection, just write for your own pleasure. Once you submit it, it's a business.

A large percentage of rejections are due to easily eliminated errors, e.g., they were sent to the wrong agent (a children's book agent rather than adult, etc.), were in an unusual font, were on colored paper.

A huge portion are eliminated on page one - even the first paragraph. So many manuscripts look like they've been put out on the page and left there, rather than analyzed.

The first reader: her job is to get through the pile quickly. A unique voice is what they're looking for.

At this point, she handed out two versions of an action scene. Everyone gave comments. What interested me was that she didn't dogmatically declare one right and the other wrong, although those in the audience had definite, differing opinions on which they liked best. One was shorter and moved faster, but more impersonal. It was like a screenplay, or investigative reporting. The other gave more insight into the attacked person's feelings, making you care more for the character, but it moved more slowly.

Let your writing create emotion rather than evoke emotion. Rather than tell your reader that your character is in danger or pitiful or full of himself, lead the reader to automatically feel those emotions. Lee Child successfully employs understatement to leave the door open for the reader to respond with his/her own emotions.
Go through your manuscript and get rid of all the adverbs, putting only those back in that absolutely must remain. Examples: "finally," "suddenly."

On Dialogue

When the first reader at a publishing company gives your manuscript initial approval, they will probably next skip over a couple of chapters and check out your dialogue. She had us read two examples of dialogue and give our insights. Symetrical dialogue (one asks a question and another answers) is used exclusively by most fiction writers, but it's dull when it goes on too long. It often works best with humour.

In real conversations, we often fail to answer questions. In writing, this leaves the reader with some tension (some key concerns remain unanswered) and moves them forward. This is called asymetrical dialogue or oblique (the response goes off in a different angle.) It can be annoying, but creates tension. Tension is one aspect of conflict, which of course is paramount to keeping the reader interested.

When your dialogue is so refined that it tells only what your particular character could be saying, it doesn't need tags (e.g., "said Marty"). The strongest scenes are those with two people. It can be done with three, but is more challenging.

On Improving Your Writing

The very best teacher for you is the reading of great writing. Read a work twice - first just to enjoy the story. Then read it again (right away) to study the style. Make notations. That is your best learning tool of all. When you come upon a problem in your writing, analyze how your favorite author did it.

Questions:

1) how do you find an editor?

Anyone can hang up a shingle and claim to be an editor. She once paid $1 a page but got no useful input. Get references. Ask about her work habits; did the editor deliver as promised; did she deliver on time; was she heavyhanded or did she offer choices. It's difficult to find a good editor because those who write a lot don't want to share their editors and risk them get overburdened.

Join several writers groups. She's a member of about eight writers organizations: three national, three local and two others.

Some critique groups could ruin your writing. Get the one you need.

2. When do you stop rewriting?

However long it takes to get it right. Revise as you get information back.
If an agent requests to see the whole thing, don't get your hopes up. Some want to make a decision on one reading rather than having to re-read your early chapters after she gets the entire manuscript. Your odds are the same, just as bad, the second time as the first.

All in all, she was 5 foot, 2" of wisdom and energy. If you missed your latest writers meeting, don't miss the next one!

Oh, and her 2008 book is Don't Sabotage Your Submission: Save Your Manuscript From Turning Up D.O.A., by Chris Roerden.

On Writing and Publishing Excellence

2008-12-10T11:38:00.004-05:00

Last weekend I visited my son in California, taking him to ski and snowboard Mammoth Mountain. Until that trip, I'd only skied the Southeast and considered myself a decent skier. But Mammoth taught me a lesson in excellence.

After a seemingly endless ascent on a lift that turned my knuckles white from my terrified grip, I was quite proud to find myself looking down the huge slope beneath me, basking in the headiness of "now I've made it to the big time." But after admiring the view for a few moments, a movement in the distance behind me caught my peripheral vision - another lift that I could barely see, taking skiers to a dizzying height that dwarfed my slope in comparison. From the lofty height, expert skiers would shoot down a slope that appeared to be only a degree or two off from a sheer cliff.

(I took the pic from the top of my lift. The top of the higher lift ends in the top left corner of the photo.)

My slope suddenly looked rather small -- a feeling akin to the kid who thinks the McDonald's playground is cool until he sees an advertisement for Disney World.

Now don't get me wrong. The humbling experience didn't dampen my spirits. I'll always treasure the time with Benji, the breathtaking views, and the exhilarating runs down the slopes. But it was both humbling and challenging to gaze upward and realize that there was more, should I aspire to excellence in the sport.

I immediately thought of my writing and publishing. It's cool to be published with a traditional publisher and to have my ideas translated into multiple languages. But it's also cool to glance up at the lofty heights attained by the greatest authors of my genre. They keep me from getting comfortable. They challenge me to keep getting input, gleaning from their wisdom and tweaking my style.

They also challenge my marketing. By glancing up regularly at the lofty heights attained by great book marketers such as Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen, I'm challenged to keep reading up on marketing, trying new methods and pursuing those that work with gusto.

So enjoy your writing and publishing at whatever level you've reached, but don't get comfortable by neglecting to regularly reflect upon the greatest in your field. There's always so much more to learn!

Useful Stats for Authors and Publishers

2008-11-14T10:24:00.009-05:00

Someone recently passed on to me some helpful publishing stats. They help me to compare expenditures, time put forth and sales to others in the industry. They also help me to plan more realistically and realize why I often have to do things that other writers aren't doing to get noticed in this industry.

Since Mark Twain famously singled out three degrees of lies:

#1: Lies
#2: Damn Lies
#3: Statistics

we'll take all these figures with a grain of salt and think through their practical implications. You'll notice that some of the stats contradict.

Number of Publishing Companies

8,000 to 11,000 new publishing companies are established each year http://www.ISBN.org .

Here's a summary of the growth in the number of publishers (from Publishers Weekly):

1947: 357 publishers
1973: 3,000 publishers
1980: 12,000
1994: 52,847
2004: 85,000

Number of Books

2006: 291,920 new titles and editions
2004: 2.8 million books in print (Bowker)
2004: 17 new books published each hour in the USA. (Book Industry Study Group)
70% of the books come from small/self publishers.
1999: The top 20 publishers accounted for 93% of the sales.

Small, Independent Publishers and Self-Publishers (http://www.BrennerBooks.co)

Each averaged publishing 7 titles.
60% operate from home offices.
They earned an average of $420,000 (1997) Compare this to Tom Woll's survey in 2002, which found 70% of the publishers reporting sales of less than $100,000.
Half of the ones earning over $1 million worked from home offices (1997).
The typical Indie publisher works 50 hour work weeks.
They publish four times more nonfiction than fiction.
Quickbooks is their favorite accounting software.

Average Amounts Spent on Tasks (http://www.BrennerBooks.co)

Interior Layout: $5 to $18 per page
Book Design: $10 to $150 per hour, totaling $465 for a simple cover to $3,533.26 for a complex cover.
Illustrations: $276 average.
Average revenue per employee: $97,713.

Hours to Complete Tasks

To write a fiction book: 475 hours
To write a nonfiction book: 725 hours
To produce a book: 422 hours fiction, 55p hours nonfiction
To design a cover: 10 to 15 hours
To edit: a book: 61 hours

Print Runs of small publishers

Average print run: 2000 to 5000 copies. (Tom Woll, Cross River Publishing)

Printing

Lightning Source has more than 2,000 publishers as clients.
30% of the new titles in 2005 were printed in quantities of less than 100 units.

Most initial print runs in at traditional publishers are 5,000 copies.

China is the leading manufacturer of four-color books.

Print on Demand

3.4% of their books sell more than 500 copies.

14.3% sold more than 200 copies.

"Xlibris averages 33 sales per title." Compare with "The average Xlibris book sells about 130 copies." Compare with :"Xlibris did just mail me an advertisement stating that they've published over 10,000 books and sold over 1 million copies. If you do the math, that comes to about 100 copies per book, and most authors probably buy a few dozen for friends and family."(The latter stat found at http://www.fonerbooks.com/best.htm)

I-Universe averages selling 75 copies per title.

Authorhouse claims to sell 108 books per title.

When are you Successful?

According to Authors Guild, a successful nonfiction book sells 7,500 copies. A successful fiction book sells 5,000 copies.

The average book in America sells about 500 copies. (SM - I wonder if this is speaking of traditionally published books only.)

"A book by the average author - that is, the average author who manages to find an agent and land a deal - sells just 11,800 copies, according to the Book Industry Study Group, a nonprofit research organization, and RR Bowker, a provider of bibliographic information." (Fast Company Magazine, Getting on the Same Page, November, 2005)

International Sales

In 2005-2006, books shipped to (in order) Canada, UK, Australia, Japan, Mexico, Singapore, Germany.

Men buy more books than women (internetretailer.com). Compare: "Women buy 68% of all books" (Publishersweekly.com)

Importance of book covers

A bookstore browser spends eight seconds looking at the front cover and 15 seconds looking at the back cover.

Sales reps give 14 second pitches.

The Potential for New Authors (www.bookpublishing.com)

81% of the population feel they have a book inside them.
27% would write fiction.
28% would write on personal development.
27% would write history, biography, etc.
20% would do a picture book, cookbook, etc.
6 million have written a manuscript.

How Many are Reading?

2002: 57% of the US population read a book.
2001: People in the U.S. read an average of over 14 books each year. (Gallup)
1997: 63% of adults report purchasing at least one book during the previous three-month period.
One third of high school graduates never read another book for the rest of their lives. (compare to "58% of the US adult population never reads another book after high school.")
People reduced their time reading between 1996 and 2001 to 2.1 hours per month. (Publishers Weekly)
2001: per capita spending on books per month was $7.18 (Publishers Weekly, May 26, 2003.)

27% of adult Americans (31% of Canadians) didn't read a single book for pleasure in 2007. (What about people who, like me, read voriously, but almost solely for information rather than pleasure? Would I have had to check the "not read one for pleasure" box? I suppose this tells us something about how many don't read novels.)

Of reading Americans and Canadians, most read more than 20 books per year. http://www.PublishersWeekly.com.

Self-Help Books

One in ten books sold are self-help. (Wall Street Journal, 1998)

BookStores

70% of Americans haven't visited a bookstore in five years. (www.LevinPR.com)

80% of books published by major publishers come through agents. (Michael Larsen)

70% of the books published do not make a profit. (Jerrold Jenkins)

Books are displayed in bookstores for one selling season of four months. If they don't sell by then, they are returned.

Industry return rate is 25 percent for paperback.

Book Reviews

LA Times receives 600 to 700 books for review each week. (Steve Wasserman, book review editor, www.latimes.com)

Government Grants to Publishers

Canadian government grants to publishers: $48 million. (Hmmm...I wonder how writers get into that money?)

The State of Traditional Publishing

2008-11-12T07:38:00.003-05:00

Simon & Schuster president and CEO Carolyn Reidy addressed the Evangelical Christian Publisher's Association's CEO Symposium and Publishing University the first week in November. Some of her comments are enlightening and thought provoking. I'm pulling from an article at Publishers Weekly by Cindy Crosby: Reidy: Worse Publishing Environment May Be On the Way.

For several reasons (e.g., a terrible economy and new publishing options), traditional publishers are struggling.

Here's one significant snippet:

"brand name authors continuing to sell but 'everything else is far off normal levels.'"

That tells me that, at this point in history, traditional publishing is for top-selling authors. It may become more and more difficult to be a small fry author in traditional publishing. They're gonna stick with those authors (and bias their marketing dollars) to those who have already established themselves as brands. They'll likely take new authors who already have huge platforms.

Another thoughty statement:

"Reidy also wondered out loud that with self-publishing so easy, 'is it only a matter
of time before one of (the major authors) actually strikes out on his or her own?'"

Hmmm...sounds like they fear that when big-time authors realize how easy it is to bypass the big publishers, they will cut out the middle man and start getting 35% royalties on Amazon sales like those publishing through BookSurge.

Traditional publishers still have a lot to offer, but there are certainly lots of great alternatives out there to consider.

Getting Amazon Reviews

2008-11-03T11:51:00.003-05:00

No author can ignore the incredible potential of Amazon sales. And one of the greatest things we can do to get more Amazon sales is to get more Amazon reviews.

Why? Because most of us take the reviews seriously. If I'm looking for book on, say, book marketing, and have to decide between two books, published the same year, with all things equal except that one has fifty reviews and the other two reviews, guess which one I tend to buy (if the reviews are decent, of course)? I assume that more are reading the book with more reviews. The less reviewed book seems like more of a risk.

Most authors apparently assume that getting reviews is a passive indeavor, as they wait for readers to post their comments. But the vast majority of readers don't write reviews. I see great books with only one or two reviews. Even if you love a book, do you generally write a review?

Knowing the importance of Amazon reviews, wise marketers find ways to encourage people to review their books. Thomas Nelson, a major publisher, does this through their "book review blogger" program. Here's their description:

"Any blogger can receive FREE copies of select Thomas Nelson products. In exchange, you must agree to read the book and post a 200-word review on your blog and on any consumer retail website."

Looks like they're buying first class ads at a bargain basement price.

Here's how I plan to do it. I sent an early draft of my latest book to about 30 friends and personal contacts to give me input before my final revision. Twenty-five of them read it. After my book comes out, I'll send a free copy to each of these people - a nice reward for their free editing. In an accompanying note, I'll say,

"Thanks so much for your help in making this a better book! There's no charge for the book, but would you do me one more favor by writing a candid review on Amazon? Here's where you'll find it (put the Amazon url here)."

Since they've already read the book, a review is a cinch.

You could do the same with your relatives, your writer's group, or your writer's association.

Breaking "The Distribution Code"

2008-10-27T10:16:00.004-04:00

How will you distribute your book? Bookstores and libraries don't have time to order from tens of thousands of individual authors who sell from a stack of books in their basement. It's much more efficient for them to order from a small selection of wholesalers and distributors.

So how do you get with the right distributors so that your book has a chance to make it into the main places that sell books? Some of the answers are pretty straightforward and others a bit more tricky. Make sure you know precisely what you're getting into.

"Available" or "Available with Return Policy"?

One publisher said that they do an especially good job of making their books "available" in bookstores. Hmmm... "available?" What they may mean is that "it's available for any bookstore to order through a major wholesaler."

Just one problem with that set-up: if the wholesaler offers no return policy, then most bookstores won't order it except when a customer comes in and puts through a special order. Why? Because bookstores are used to having the option of returning books that don't sell and getting their money back. (Libraries, on the other hand, will order with no return policy.)

So, if it's important to you to get your books into bookstores, you'll want to make sure your publisher sets you up with the major wholesalers - Ingram and Baker & Taylor - with a return policy.

If you're going the print on demand route, Booksurge hooks you up with Baker & Taylor, while Lightning Source gets you with Ingram and Baker & Taylor. But check to make sure whether or not they're offering a return policy. If not, and if getting into bookstores is important to you (it's not important to everybody), you might need to pay extra to establish the policy.

On Getting a Distributor or Wholesaler

If you're with a major publisher, you're almost assuredly hooked up with both Baker & Taylor and Ingram with a return policy. If you're publishing yourself or with a small press, you need to find out how you're set up.

Ingram won't take books directly from any press that has published less than ten books. If your publisher is very new, or if you're self-published, you'll need to find a distributor that has a relationship with Ingram.

Comparing Distributors

Some distributors passively take orders. Others actively market your book and make personal calls to open up new distribution channels.

Some ask for exclusive rights to distribute your book. Let's say you're with Booksurge and excited about making 35% on each Amazon sale. Could signing an "exclusive" contract with a distributor require you to distribute to Amazon through your distributor, giving you a much smaller part of the action? (This week, I chatted with a representative of AtlasBooks, the largest distributor for small to mid-size publishers, who told me that although publishers sign an exclusive distribution contract with them, they allow BookSurge authors to keep their 35% from Amazon.)

Make sure you know exactly what you're getting in a distributor!

Here's an annotated list of select distributors from John Kremer:

http://www.bookmarket.com/distributors.htm

Ingram lists these distributors as having a relationship with them:

http://www.ingrambook.com/new/distributors.asp

Publicity Tips

2008-10-27T07:42:00.004-04:00

Yesterday, I started reading Publicize Your Book! by Jacqueline Deval, a former publicity director of several publishing houses. She emphasizes that even if you have a traditional publisher with a marketing department, authors must market their books if they expect them to sell.

She begins by sharing the story of James Barron, who wrote a "funny and informative" book for expectant fathers. At the time of Deval's writing, Barron had 185,000 copies in print. How did he do it? A couple of things stood out to me:

1) "He stopped by specialty stores like maternity shops, toy shops, and hospital gift shops" to persuade them to order from his publisher and sell the book, giving them a sales order form. He even offered to buy back the books if they didn't sell, but never had to buy any back. Forty to 75 stores ordered, and many of these kept re-ordering.

2) He selected three cities to target: New York City (where he lived), Chicago (where he grew up), and Atlanta (where his wife was from). He hired publicists in Chicago and Atlanta to "set up media and book signings, as well as to go to the sames kinds of specialty stores as he did in New York." I'd never really thought of publicity people as being regional. But it makes sense that some publicists would have lots of regional relationships and know all the possible outlets.

He said, "I work under the assumption that I'm going to get twelve rejections for every yes."

I like that. If I find some success in alternative outlets and discover that one out of 10 will say yes, then it becomes a time and numbers game. If I contact 100 stores, I might get 10 stores taking me. I can wade through the rejections if they net me some decent sales. Cool!

Marketing Ideas from Robert and Kim Kiyosaki

2008-10-20T13:29:00.003-04:00

How can low-profile people publish and sell books?
What if publishers reject us?
What if bookstores don't want to stock our book?
How can we sell our books?

Best-selling author Robert Kiyosaki (author of Rich Dad Poor Dad, 26 million copies sold, on the NY Times Bestseller list for six years) and his wife Kim addressed some of those questions in an interview. Their main points:

1) He considers himself a poor writer, having flunked out of high school twice because he couldn't write. "I can't spell and don't know punctuation. If I were back in high school today, I'd still flunk."

So he wrote as best he could and gave it to a second grade teacher to re-write, but she made it into a boring textbook. He then gave it to the person who would become his co-author to put it back into more natural, interesting language.

2) He approached the book as an entrepreneur rather than a writer. His background was sales and marketing. From that perspective, most authors are boring. You need to say something that others aren't saying. You need to write with your readers' needs in mind.

Also, as an entrepreneur, he considered related sales. In fact, he wrote his book as a brochure to sell his $200 game.

3) He overcame rejection. All the publishers he pitched the book to said that it sucked and would never sell. Wholesalers and distributors didn't want it. Bookstores didn't want it. So, he self-published 1000 copies.

4) Market your books. He paid a publicist thousands of dollars, but got only one small speaking opportunity. He then took out an ad in the Radio-TV Interview Report, which landed him interviews with a few big-time radio stations. Then the big bookstores started calling him because people were asking about his book and they needed to stock it.

Someone asked Kim why she was attending this marketing conference. After all, they had already sold millions of books. She responded, "That's why we're on the bestseller lists." They're always learning about selling and always promoting their books. "You can never stop promoting, never stop selling. I never stop selling."

Marketing Ideas from Jack Canfield

2008-10-16T13:57:00.005-04:00

Today I listened to Steve Harrison interview Jack Canfield, co-author of the wildly successful "Chicken Soup for the Soul" series. Here are my takeaways.

His credentials: He sold over 115 million books over 41 languages, has been on Oprah, Larry King, etc. One of his Guinness World Records is to have the most books on the New York Times bestseller list at the same time.

His motivation: to change the world and make a difference.

How did he get started?

In college, he majored in Chinese history. But he took an elective class in psychology and fell in love with the subject. In grad school he studied education, then taught in an inner city school. He wanted to learn how to motivate his students and succeeded to such an extent that he began training other teachers. He then wrote a book about helping students, but discovered that if you didn't let people know about the book, that people wouldn't buy it.

At a teacher workshop he was leading, a person said, "My husband's company needs this." He hesitated to accept, thinking it was out of his field. But she assured him, "They're just kids in big suits."

He always illustrated his concepts with stories. People would ask if the stories were in a book. So he made a list of 70 stories, hooked up with Mark Victor Hansen and his stories and created their first Chicken Soup book.

But they were rejected by 144 publishers. They were both in debt, not making much money, and had to market it themselves. 18 months before it hit a bestseller lists, they began interviewing scads of people who had written successful books, asking, "What do you do that we need to learn?" They looked for patterns and created a marketing plan. By the end they had a #1 bestseller and later a bestselling series. A Chinese company just got rights to use their books to teach English in China.

Had he not said yes to teaching those businessmen, he would have never gotten to where he is today. Now he speaks to thousands.

His mission: "To inspire and empower people to live their highest vision in a context of love and joy." He helps others to live their vision, not to adopt his vision.

Harrison: "Did you just get lucky? What made the difference?"

Hanson: We make our own luck. We started thinking differently; thinking like a marketer. It took several years to get beyond the stigma of marketing - thinking that it was something less than legitimate for an author. It took a shift in attitude, a learning of techniques and strategies.

Harrison: Many authors have passion to serve and make a difference but feel awkward about self promotion. What would you say to them?

Canfield: If you had a cure for cancer, would you have a fear of being a self-promoter? Believe that what you have is extremely valuable. To not share it hurts people. If you have food for the hungry but don't tell the starving you have it, you've done them a disservice. You're not an egoist, you're simply helping people.

Don't hide your light under a bushel.

There's both a feminine and masculine aspect to creating a book. First, there's the creative part of giving birth to the book. Then there's the masculine sideof pushing it out into the world and supporting it. Don't put the baby in the dump.

Mark Victor Hanson was more outgoing than me. You might need to team up with a person who's more out there.

Mark and I had to become our own ad agents. We couldn't afford to hire a PR agent. But we won both a book publicist award and an Abby Award, beating out the professional PR people.

If you wanna be successful, you've got to do the work.

Things authors can do:

1) Decide (from Latin "To Cut Off"). Cut off alternative paths. We have over 2000 people who've said they didn't commit suicide because of a chicken soup book.

2) Expect to succeed. A publisher said, "You'll be lucky to sell 20,000 books." The publisher laughed out loud at them when they told them they wanted to sell 150,000 by Christmas. Now the publisher has profited wildly.

To visualize success, we took the NY Times bestseller list and typed in "Chicken Soup for the Soul" and put them in hallways, in our office, etc., to visualize the goal. We would visualize whole bookstore windows with their books in it. Today there's often an entire category of books called Chicken Soup for the Soul in bookstores.

We spent 8 or 9 minutes each day visualizing images of success.

Rather than say, "We're writing a book, we'd say, "We're writing a best-selling book." Dream big. It doesn't take any more energy or time to dream a big dream than to dream a small one.

What he learned from W. Clement Stone:

Get into action. Get off the couch. Do something that brings results. Stone would take a wooden quarter with the letters TUIT on it and give it to people who said, "I'll do it when I get around to it." He'd give them one and say, "Here's your round TUIT. Now get going on your project." It's the ones who act on ideas that make them happen.

I use a vision board screen-saver on my computer. Images of my goals keep going before me.

Every book you get into someones hands can change lives forever. Read You've Got to Read this Book. Every goal I've visualized has come through, although not all came through on time.

What visualization does:

You begin to believe it's possible.
You start your subconscious working on it.
You activate a new part of your brain that will help you achieve your goal.

Stone also taught him to use affirmations.

Harrison: And you studied marketing. I saw you at a marketing seminar, having already filled a spiral notebook full of new ideas and having to get out the hotel notepads.

Things to do:

First, be a giver. If you want the best for your reader, this is the 1st. We always identify a charity to share in the profits of each book. Put the charity on the back of your book. People like to buy, knowing that part goes to charity. Plus, it's hard to give without getting. Charities then started putting the book in their literature to sell more - they make more that way.
Give away articles to parenting magazines free of charge. Give free talks. For the first six weeks we went to churches and chambers of commerce. Find the connectors who can introduce you and your books to others.

With our last book, we gave away 2500 copies.

I can point to every free talk I've given an identify people who came up and said things like, "I want 100 books for...."

Become a joiner. He's part of 12 organizations, so that he can network. People are typically weak in finances and networks. Volunteer your time in organizations. He started volunteering in a hospital cutting cheese balls. But that's where he met leaders of organizations.

Harrison: It's the power of 6 degrees of separation.

Speak at conferences. If you're not willing to give it away free, you're not passionate about it. You get to meet other speakers and connectors.

Get out of your office. Writing books is like an iceberg - 10% is writing. 90% is marketing.

Harrison: What if have money issues?

Canfield: Read Speak and Grow Rich. The best way to make things happen is to talk to real, live people. There are lots of strategies. Call associations. It's all learnable.

Buy catologues to find lists of places that get speakers. Know the American associations.

We want to make large sales, not small sales. If Amway could buy it for their employees.... They called numerous organizations that hung up on them. Then got to "D" and a toy store owner talked to them and bought thousands.

We got lists of radio shows and started calling them. We did 600 shows that first year.

On interviews:

We asked Scott Peck (The Road Less Travelled) for his secret. He did 3 interviews a day. Even 10 years later he was doing one interview a day. One hour interviews are best.

Now he does a satellite radio interview, then radio shows. You can do virtual tours. But whatever you do, KEEP GETTING OUT! As long as he does interviews, sales go well. When he takes a week off, sales cut in half.

Harrison: Why do you still do the small stuff?

Everybody's listening to every radio station, otherwise, they couldn't stay going. So start with the radio. Take a 1:00 in the morning slot that nobody else wants to do. Somebody's out there listening. They may hear about the book, read it, and pass it on. It could change that person's life.

He takes internet radio shows, though may be small. We do constant and never-ending marketing. "I never wrote books to get rich; I wrote books to make a difference." So he takes small and big opportunities.

One of the big tools is bypass marketing. Only one out of seven people go into a bookstore to buy a book. So, 6 out of 7 aren't going where our books are. We had Chicken Soup in a Shell station and a bakery. We put them anywhere people had to wait - doctors offices, salons, etc. We sold hundreds of thousands that way. We went to Petco and Petsmart with our book about pets. We use blogs.

Have other speakers sell your books. Sell their books as well. That way you have more to offer.

Think of things I can do for others and what they can do for me. 99% of our stories are written by others. Many have a third or fourth author. I make less per book, but we have another seller.

Watch The Secret. Twenty-four speakers are in that movie. Later became a book. They all cross promoted. Since several biggies were recommending it to their contacts and people were getting it recommended repeatedly from people they respected, many watched it.

Harrison: Give us a key lesson to remember and act upon:

1) Write a great book. Learn the craft, get feedback.
2) Learn how to market books. (Go to the programs. Sit at the feet of the masters. Learn more to earn more.) I spent half of my early money on attending seminars. Become a master. Invest in your education to become a master marketer.

Steve Harrison and Jack Canfield are currently promoting a seminar they'll be doing. You can find information at: www.yourquantumleap.com