Authors: Do you need help increasing your brand, sales and skills? Are you looking for a publisher or agent?
"I can help you!"
I NO LONGER WORK AS A BOOK MARKETING COACH; I'M THE PUBLISHER AT IMAJIN BOOKS.
I've worked for over 25 years in advertising, promotions and sales, and spent nearly 2 years as a motivational speaker for a major international company. Currently a bestselling novelist and 'shameless' promoter, I've shared my experiences and techniques as a Book Marketing Coach for nearly a decade.
Whether you're published or unpublished, I can help. My last publisher called me a "marketing guru" and "whiz", although I prefer to think of what I do as teaching, or coaching.
As a writer and published author, I know how difficult our industry can be, and how uncertain a writer's income can be. I've had my ups and downs, suffered from what I call "Starving Writer Syndrome" (akin to Starving Artist Syndrome). I've experienced many years where I spent more than I earned. It's not fun, and it places a huge amount of stress on a writer's self-confidence, financial situation and family.
For years, I've made it my mission to help other writers when I can, and therefore I'd like to introduce you, my fellow writers, to my brother, Derek Kaye. He's a financial advisor, and he has a plan for you to free up money in your home--even if you think there's nothing available.
Let me introduce you to Derek's 'Get Your Finances On Track' system...
Are you stressed out about money, debt and your ability to get ahead and
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As
long as you truly want to change the way you're doing things and start living
a life of abundance, this new model will help you to manage your household cash
flow ...
...
and finally start to get ahead and live the life you truly desire.
If you're an author and you want to do your own marketing rather than pay someone else thousands of dollars per year to do it, you will need some really good resource tools.
These are the 5 books I highly recommend you buy, read, highlight, read again, follow, read again and take action on:
I've met 4/5 of these authors and they are awesome people with some great ideas. And having these ideas at your fingertips is certainly much easier than trying to hunt down this information online every time you need it. These books are my 'bibles' of my trade.
I want to share some great advice I found in TIPS for WRITERS from the PUBLISHING INSIDER, a newsletter distributed by publishing expert Jerry D. Simmons. Nancy Ancowitz recently blogged on PsychologyToday.com, sharing her tips for new and aspiring authors.
My advice: 10 tips for new and aspiring authors
Purpose. Get clear about why you want to write a book versus an article or something else. Is it to reach more people, build your personal brand, hit the jackpot on the New York Times’s Best Sellers list?
Money. Determine how you’ll juggle making a living while writing your book. Will you save up plenty of money, go on sabbatical, work part-time—or work full time while writing your manuscript at night and just take catnaps while standing in elevators?
Self-publishing versus conventional publishing. Weigh the pros and cons of self-publishing and e-book publishing versus conventional publishing. If you decide to go the conventional route, find a literary agent who is passionate about your book idea. She will “shop” your manuscript around at publishing houses and help negotiate the best terms for you. For a list of agents, check out theAssociation of Authors’ Representatives; also ask published authors for their recommendations.
Branding. Start building your brand long before your book is published by writing, speaking, using social media tools, organizing and/or joining special interest groups, and spreading the word through your network.
Product. Consider whether you want to offer a product or service in connection with your book. If so, set the wheels in motion now so that when your book comes out, you’ll have more to offer your readers.
Public speaking. If you’re not already comfortable with public speaking, which is an important skill for an author, take a course, hire a coach, join Toastmasters International, and get some practice, even at small, approachable venues. Down the road, closer to the time of your book launch, also consider investing in press training to buff up your skills at answering questions on the spot for media interviews.
Published authors. Meet them. Buy their books and review them on Amazon. Gain from their insights. Build relationships with them and ask for their advice about your book.
Publicity. Save up now to hire a publicist, but don’t rely on him to do all the work. You’re the engine; start building relationships with journalists and organizations where you can speak that are interested in your topic.
Support. Get the support you need to write your book. Join or form a group of other authors, turn to a mentor, hire a coach, start a Meetup or Tweetup, and read, comment, and post questions to authors’ blogs. You’ll benefit from having a community of authors and can learn a lot from one another.
It is said that every person has at least one good story in them! Some people are gifted to have more than one.
Do you know a future writer – someone who dreams of writing fiction, poetry, or short stories? Maybe that future writer is…you! If you dream of writing, then why not write?
Why not Dare to Dream…and Dream BIG?
There once was a young girl who dreamed of becoming a writer. Her goal was to become the next Stephen King…or 'Stephanie', at least. When she was about 16, she started writing a novel. It took her over a year to complete it and at 17, she tried to find a publisher. She submitted query letters, partial manuscripts…and her dreams, for other people to judge. She received rejection letter after rejection letter.
The first strike against her was that she had very few published works – a few town articles in a small local paper were her only credit. The second strike against her was that she was Canadian, struggling to get into a predominantly American market. 95% of the major, big-league publishing companies were American. She hit a brick wall – hard.
For the next few years, she wrote mostly poetry until she submitted a health and beauty article and landed another column in a small newspaper. And then a year or so later she ended up in a New Brunswick newspaper, as the writer of a song dedicated to the Gulf War soldiers. This was the first indication that she had power – power to influence people's emotions, to make them feel something.
Years passed as she struggled to find a way to make her dream come true, to be that writer. She continued to write, took a course in journalism/short story writing and graduated with a 98% average. She wrote two children's books, complete with illustrations and tried desperately to get them published. They became her 'babies', her creations. Her children's books were well received in schools when she did readings, but no one seemed interested in publishing them. After two years of more brick walls, she gave up trying. Her dream dissipated…died a slow death.
More years went by, until one day she was talking to a friend about a story she had always wanted to write. It was a story about a young girl who experiences a tragedy and loses part of her memory – a tale about killer whales and native legends. It was a story about wolves and dreams, love and life, death and fear…but mostly it was a story about triumph and forgiveness. Her friend told her "You need to just WRITE it! Even if it never gets published, write it for YOU!"
My friend was right! And now I am a bestselling author!
Recently, a fellow writer posted an article written by another author to our writers' group. He was trying to be helpful. But he openly admitted he didn't have permission to reproduce the article. He hadn't bothered to contact the author and ask, and the article author isn't a member of our group, as far as I know. This led to a discussion on the issue of copyright infringement.
My fellow writer's argument: he was trying to be helpful, was promoting another author who would be grateful for the extra promotion, and he hadn't profited from posting it so it wasn't infringement.
My argument: if you haven't received permission from the author and you've posted their article, especially in its entirety, it's copyright infringement. And as writers, we should be very careful not to cross that line.
Is it copyright infringement if you reproduce an article without the author's permission? Yes.
Even if you don't make any money off it?Yes.
Even if you're trying to help that author? Yes.
There were two solutions to this issue that the writer could have explored. He could've emailed the author for permission; most authors will say yes but may have guidelines/rules. Or he could've posted the link to wherever the article was posted legally.
Over the years, I've found a handful of my articles printed online without my permission. One misspelled my name. One didn't include my name. One altered my text. One added their own advertisement links where I had linked to sites like Facebook. One didn't include a link to my website. I can assure you, I didn't feel honored and I doubt I made any sales from them. In fact, I usually asked them to either attribute me correctly, or in the case of one person who thought it was their God given right to print whatever they wanted, I asked them to remove my article. But if someone asks mefirst if they can reproduce one of my articles (without any changes) and adds my name (correctly spelled) and a live link to my site, I am happy. And honored.
I know I'm not the only one who has experienced this. I once reproduced a post from a newsletter. The owner of the newsletter stated they had permission to use it and so did the subscribers. After I posted it, the author contacted me and asked me why I'd infringed on her copyright. I explained I thought she'd given permission, as was mentioned in the newsletter. She didn't even know her material had been used in that newsletter. She was pissssed!
I don't blame her, and I felt pretty awful about it. I offered to immediately remove my post, but she graciously allowed me to use it. I'd already attributed her and had included a link to her site (which was how she found out I'd printed her post).
Have you ever found your material illegally reproduced online? If you did, how did you respond? If you haven't, how would you feel about it--especially as I've mentioned--without your name or incorrectly spelled, no links to your site, edited text etc?
I think this is something every writer should be wary of. And anyone who feels that by using someone else's material, they're honoring them or helping them. You're not. Get permission. Or use links; they work. :-)
For some interesting insights into copyright, please check out the following:
P.S. In case you're wondering, this blog post is copyrighted. If you'd like to repost it on your site, blog or to a writers' group, please email me via http://www.cherylktardif.com/. Or feel free to add just the title and link to the article here. Thank you. :-)
Quick! Go to Google and do a vanity search. If you don't know what this means, it's simple. Type your name in the search bar. See how many direct hits to your site (or anything that pertains to you) come up. A few years ago, I did this and was quite depressed to see that I was nowhere to be found. In the internet world, I simply did not exist. Since then, I have learned a few tricks of the trade, and I am now deeply entrenched in the most popular search engines. What does this mean? It means that anyone, anywhere, can view information about my books and me. What this means to you is that if you are not at least 10 pages deep after a vanity search, you have a lot of work to do.
Your job as a published author is to "get known". The fact is, the more your name is out there in cyberspace and the more people who read about your exciting action-packed thriller or suspenseful murder mystery and the more people who see your name pop up when they search for ‘Canadian mystery authors’ or ‘American romance novels’, then the more potential customers you have reached. People buy more of what they know, what they frequently see. This is branding. Online, it is known as creating an internet identity.
Domain name - you can register and buy a domain name, preferably your author name, at Namesecure.com or other domain registrars.
2.
Website - you'll need a website that looks professional and that you can have your domain name linked to. Do not use free site companies as the ads they place will make you look like an amateur.
3.
Blog - you can easily set up a blog and link it to your site so people can find it easily. Try a blog from Blogger.com or Wordpress.com for easy to maintain templates.
4.
Twitter account - a Twitter account will put you and your work in front of people instantly. Try to tweet something every day and you'll have people following you in no time. The more people who see you, the more potential sales you could have when you are published.
5.
Facebook & MySpace accounts - these accounts will help you connect with other writers and published authors. You should also connect with publishers, libraries, schools, agents, editors, magazines etc. Learn from your 'friends' here, connect with them, build genuine relationships, and when you're ready to have a book blurbed, you'll know who to contact.
6.
Talent - you must have a natural talent at not only thinking up a good story or telling a good story but writing a good story. Without natural talent, all the writing courses in the world can't help you.
7.
Ability to take constructive criticism - you won't go anywhere if you refuse to improve and all works can be improved. If you want to go far in this business, you'll need to learn to leave your ego at the door. Feedback and criticism is a gift. Take a few days to think about any feedback you get. Ask yourself if changing things would make your work better. If you get the same comments from a variety of people, listen to them!
8.
Persistence - this is a slow moving business and you must be able to persevere no matter what. You WILL get rejection letters. Your work WILL be rejected. But it's a numbers game. Wade through the nos to get to that yes! Keep moving forward no matter the roadblocks.
9.
Dedication - you must dedicate yourself to writing the best possible works you can and to always learning about the craft of writing and the business of publishing and promoting.
10.
Belief! Without belief in yourself and your skills as a writer you won't go far. If you don't believe in yourself, why should anyone else? You must believe without a shadow of doubt that your work deserves to be on a bookstore shelf. Without BELIEF, the first 9 must-haves will be useless.
by Denise C. Baron
(originally published on Ragan.com)
The marriage between a writer and editor can be a glorious one, or it can be a relationship full of strife. As in any marriage, the glue that will hold it together combines mutual respect, appreciation and admiration of each partner's skills and the role each person plays.
Marriages tend to be most successful when the partners are also each other's best friend. They might not always agree, but they manage to work things out compatibly.
A writer's best friend should be his editor. I say should be, because that's not always the case. In a perfect world, a writer writes and an editor improves. Ultimately, the beneficary of their alliance is the reader.
Although you'll find many a talented writer/editor out there, not all writers are cut out to be editors and vice versa. So being a writer doesn't automatically entitle you to consider yourself an editor, nor can all editors write particularly well. What good editors can do well is recognize good writing when they see it and, in wielding their blue pencils, ensure they preserve the writer's voice.
Good editors will take the text the writer has labored over and artfully make it even better – and the writer gets the glory. They correct mistakes, rearrange text where warranted or necessary, amend for house style, confer with the writer, and occasionally suggest overall improvements.
What good editors don't do is equally important. They do not feed their egos by making changes willy-nilly. They do not need to put their stamp on the writer's piece to prove anything. They're already where they are because they've earned the privilege. Truth is, they'd much prefer getting clean copy that is publication-ready; the reality is that's rarely the case. And that's OK, because if all writers submitted perfect prose, these people would be out of a job.
Then there's the incompetent editor. The damage this person can inflict is unlimited in scope and may include whitewashing the writer's text, making it conform to a faceless style, or otherwise stifling what distinguishes one writer from another: the personality, the voice. This person should not be editing anyone's copy but should be praying for the writer's forgiveness – and a lenient penance – and then seeking a new line of work.
Similarly, career writers who fail to understand that theirs is a vocation of lifetime learning may be unsuited for the task. Good writers are on a never-ending quest to improve; what they know for certain is that they don't know it all. And so they strive for perfection. Every day. It's the only way they eventually can become great.
Still the so-called writers and editors lurk. It's no wonder that the writer's lament is that anyone can do his job. That's because everyone writes, right? Who in business today has not composed a memo or an e-mail or even an instant message? Isn't that writing, after all? Doesn't that make everyone a writer?
Uh, no.
A writer doesn't merely put pen to paper or finger to keyboard. What a writer does is create. A writer captures ideas and transforms them into verbal pictures for the reader. Pictures that do indeed tell a story. Pictures that captivate the reader. These pictures are powerful tools. They can make you laugh or cry, enrage or delight you. Mainly, though, they will make you think.
Next time you find yourself reading good writing, listen carefully to hear the writer's voice. Some writers sound witty; others sound academic. Some sound like people you can envision yourself hanging out with; others sound too intimidating for that. What you're listening to is the result of the writer and editor working in harmony.
Just like a happy marriage.
Denise C. Baron is a director of global communications with Merck & Co., Inc. This article was reprinted here with permission from Denise C. Baron.
Most authors should know that it's really up to them to promote their books, not the publisher. The publisher will do what they can do, of course, but the author is the one who can really get the word out there to the masses. So here is my Top 10 list of things authors can do to successfully promote their own books.
Promote your book BEFORE it's even published. Think of this like movie trailers. Film companies are super intelligent; they give people a sneak peek to get them interested, then hook them with anticipation by announcing a release date. Authors can do the same. Give your readers a sneak peek--a free sample, a book trailer. Then as soon as you know the release date (and about 1-3 months in advance) start promoting this new release.
Have your book PROFESSIONALLY edited. If you want longevity as a writer, you must treat this like a career. This means that even self-published, author-originated works must be edited professionally by someone who knows HOW to edit. NEVER be the only editor for your book. If you put out an inferior product you will lose fans and sales, and bookstores will not promote you. If you're going to do this, do it right! You're competing with every other book out there, and there are millions, so find a good editor.
Once your book is published, promote the heck out of it! Too many authors leave marketing up to their publisher. This is your baby, no one else's. As soon as your book is released, you have a window of about 3 months to get it off the ground, and another 3 months to keep things rolling. Not even a publisher can market your book as well as you can, and if you don't know how, LEARN. If you don't know where to start, I'm a book marketing coach; I can teach you.
Create a solid internet identity. What will we find if we Google your name right now? Will we find someone else with the same name who sells lawn ornaments? Are there 10 hits? 1000? 100,000? Are the first 3 pages of any search engine all about you or at least 90% you? If not, you've got work to do. Make sure you have a professional looking website and blog. Don't use a free host with ads for your site. Invest in a domain name (your name preferably) and pay for hosting.
Blog at least 2-3 times a week. On numerous blogs. Blogging about anything sells books. Readers like to see the human side of their favorite authors, so blogging should not be a hardcore sales pitch every post. Find a controversial or thematic angle within your book and blog about that. My novel Whale Song dealt with assisted suicide. I not only researched the topic, but I blogged about it and was then contacted by a radio station because of my blog post and then was interviewed. Blog about the journey you took to get where you are in your writing career. Blog about editing, rejections, writer's block, courses, anything that might be helpful to other writers.
Hold a virtual book tour. VBTs are an excellent and inexpensive way to get the word out about your book. Other bloggers are now promoting YOU. There is, however, an effective way to do this and an ineffective way. Successful blog tours have the following main elements: thoughtful planning, research, themed articles/posts, calls to action, proper scheduling, advertising and high sales. Your book should reach the bestsellers lists on Amazon, at the very least.
Sell your book on a specific dayby holding a contest. If you ask people to order from one major retailer, like Amazon for instance, on a specific day and offer them some kind of incentive, you will have the opportunity to make Amazon's bestsellers list. Pick a day, offer a prize they can't turn down (remember: never make your book your prize-at least, not the book you are trying to promote) and have a proof of purchase to ensure sales are submitted on one day. Once you make Amazon's list (and don't forget, books are broken into categories), you're a "bestselling author" with a "bestselling novel". That statement alone attracts more success.
Find out where your readers are. The goal is not to have your book in every bookstore. First, very few books achieve that. Second, having them in a store is no good if no one is buying them. So find out where your readers are. If you write mysteries, find out where mystery readers meet in your town. Become a guest author at a book club. Look for online reading groups or sites like GoodReads and start schmoozing with readers.
Cultivate personal relationships with bookstore staff. Most authors underestimate the power of signing books in a store. Too many authors focus entirely on sales, or lack of sales. Forget sales! Think about relationships instead--with store staff, customers and potential fans. That is what is important. When you build these relationships you will have store staff who will hand sell your book and go out of their way to promote you, invite you to special events and feature you on special front-end shelves that publishers have to pay for. Customers can turn into media contacts and interviews. Potential fans can turn into lifelong fans who will buy everything you write and recommend you to their family and friends.
Contact media for every event or set of events. If holding a bunch of signings during October, call it your "fall tour" and promote it. Send out press releases to local TV, radio, newspapers and magazines. Send out online releases to services like 24-7pressrelease and free online services. Just Google 'press distribution services'. Many authors consider interviews a form of success, and the more you create a need for your area of expertise (whether writing, getting published, or a particular theme from your book), the more media will want to interview you.
It takes a combined effort and partnership between author, publisher and retailers to make a book successful. A partnership. That's how you must think of it. So don't just throw your "baby" out in the world and expect someone else to baby sit it or expect it to fend for itself.
Take control and responsibility seriously. Being a writer is the emotional, creative side; being a successful author of a published book means you have to recognize the business side. It comes with the territory. Accept it. Embrace it. And be the most successful author you can be.
Hello Vikram, and welcome to The Write Type ~ Multi-Author Musings. We are so happy to have you visit us. Since I’ve used BookBuzzr and fReado.com myself, I can say that you offer a terrific service for authors and their readers. And it’s free!
Can you tell us a bit about yourself? Are you a writer? Reader?
I’m a serial entrepreneur who’s obsessed about building the next big thing on the Internet. I earned an MS in Industrial Administration from Carnegie Mellon University some years ago. I’m also a keen martial artist and practitioner of Aikido. I’m an avid reader of books and listener of audio books. I do have a book inside me that is waiting to come out some day soon.
Where did the idea for BookBuzzr come from? Why did you decide to create it?
A few months ago, an author friend of mine – Chetan Dhruve – was describing the pain that authors face in marketing their books online. There are two problems with traditional author sites:
1. Most of the traffic goes to 'destination sites' such as Facebook, MySpace, Yahoo or the New York Times. So your author site may not receive the kind of traffic that you would want. 2. Even if a fan of your book comes to your site, it's not easy for her to easily share information about your book with her friends.
So how do you market your book in an era where the attention-spans of consumers measure a few micro-seconds? How do you tempt your potential readers to flip-through the pages of your book? How do you allow easy sharing of your book on networks such as Facebook, MySpace and other social networks?
So I asked him what would be a dream online marketing tool. Chetan, in a few moments of inspiration, described what he’d want and we sketched out the screens of the ultimate online book-marketing tool. I got the product developed in a few months using developer resources at another software business that I own.
What exactly is BookBuzzr and how does it work?
BookBuzzr is a free, online book-marketing technology that can be placed instead of your book-cover image on your author website, Facebook profile and blog. BookBuzzr is more than just a replacement for your book-cover image. It's a portable author website that allows your book information and extract to be shared on Facebook, Blogs, MySpace and more. So every time a fan of yours decides to post your book-widget on his or her blog, your entire information (including where to buy and buzz about your book) becomes available there. It’s like your business card on the Internet!
Apart from the easy share-ability, we've worked hard at making the pages of your book look and act like a real book. So when a reader clicks on the edge of the book, the page turns like a real book. Somehow, this seems to elicit a "wow!" from most people who try BookBuzzr.
fReado.com is the site which carries all the books that are available in BookBuzzr format.
Is it difficult for an author to set up a BookBuzzr widget?
Putting up your book into BookBuzzr format is quite simple. If you know how to share your videos and photos on Facebook or MySpace you know how to use BookBuzzr.
How many authors are using fReado?
We expect to have over a 1,500 authors & books on fReado by the end of this month.
Are there any recognizable names using BookBuzzr? Any “big” authors”?
We have quite a few big name authors using BookBuzzr. Chetan Dhruve whose inspired vision gave us the start for BookBuzzr is a pretty well-known name and his book has become an international sleeper-hit that’s been translated into 5 languages. Author Tony Eldridge whose book “The Samson Effect”, acquired by a Hollywood studio, is also using BookBuzzr.
Are publishers using your service to promote their authors’ books?
Yes. We’re making it easier for publishers to mass upload their books and author information with just a few clicks. We’ve got about 60 Publishers who have begun using fReado and BookBuzzr.
Can you give us an example of a BookBuzzr book widget?
Where do you see BookBuzzr in 3 years?
The other day, we got a testimonial from the author Lee Murphy and he said, “I think you have a terrific service and I know I have already sold one copy on Amazon as a direct result of it.”
So we know that we have a unique little book-marketing technology that every author needs. Our challenge is to let authors know about this free resource that can help every author in building and extending their platform. So in terms of where we see BookBuzzr in 3 years … we want to be the first place where every author goes when he or she begins to think about marketing books online. If every book-cover image on every author, publisher and book-seller’s website is replaced with the BookBuzzr book-widget, then I would say that most of our mission has been accomplished.
Towards this end, we’re making several improvements to BookBuzzr in the coming months to make it easier for fans to distribute a book-widget on their Facebook profiles, Twitter, blogs, social networks and cell-phones.
Thank you, Vikram!! I am sure that authors will be very excited about your service/product, especially after they've tried it once.
Today I was featured at 'Your Shelf Life', a great blog geared for writers and readers. The main question asked is what can you do to extend your 'shelf life' as an author and the 'shelf life' of your books.
I talked to Sandy about how I use contests to keep things fresh, interesting, exciting and interactive.
Recently, I spoke at the CanWrite! Conference in Edmonton, Alberta, on the Hot Trends, Hot Markets panel. I had a great time and I hope that attendees left with a better understanding of how they can market themselves online through the use of social networks.
Part 2:
Today, I want to talk about one of the three main categories of social networking--'book collection or catalog networks'. These are social networks that invite users/members to catalog their personal book collection, recommend books to fellow members/friends, discuss books and authors with others, and to send notes and virtually "meet" people from all over the world who love books.
Hire me as your personal Book Marketing Coach and learn how to properly use social networking to promote you and your books. Please contact me via GumboWriters at gumbomarketing@gmail.com.
If you're an aspiring or published author looking for some great resources, I highly recommend the following books. Some will be genre specific as this comprises a large part of my own library.
General writing resources:
Writer's Market (the holy grail for writers)
The Canadian Writer's Market (ditto for Canadian writers)
The Canadian Writer's Guide
The Writer's Digest Guide to Manuscript Formats
Self-Editing for Fiction Writers
The Writer's Guide to Character Traits (excellent for building your characters)
Characters and Viewpoint (great for improving POV) - published by Writer's Digest
Writing Dialogue - published by Writer's Digest
Extraordinary Origins of Everyday Things
How to Write a Children's Book and Get Published
Writing and Selling Your Mystery Novel
Forensics for Dummies (no dead bodies included)
Book marketing books:
What Writers Need to Know About Publishing (by Jerry D. Simmons, a great friend of mine)
The Book Publisher's Handbook (Eric Kampmann)
How to Sell What You Write
Beyond the Bookstore (Brian Jud)
Plug Your Book (Steve Weber, another friend)
1001 Ways to Market Your Books (John Kremer, another author friend)
Web Site WOW (Jeniffer Thompson)
Like any craft or skill, you have to learn it first, then take the time to hone and perfect it. These books will only help you become that much better and even more attractive to an agent or publisher.
I invite my fellow writers to add to this list and share their favorite writer's resources.
