August 29, 2008
The following is a guest post from Sara Dobie of Sylvan Dell Publishing on generating publicity for your new book release. Think the hard part is over once you’ve landed that book contract and see your new book in print? Sara sets you straight.
Guess what? You’re a published author. Sitting on your couch, it’s hard to believe. Publishing is what happens to other people—people who wear black, smoke cigarettes and talk about Kerouac. It doesn’t happen to people like YOU, who have day jobs, families, and car loans. Obviously, you’re excited. You can already see yourself on the cover of
People magazine, Pulitzer in hand. You pat yourself on the back—job well done. You can finally relax and wait to become a millionaire. Right?Wrong.
Your work has just begun, and it’s the work of “publicity.”
If there is no publicity, no one knows your name. If no one knows your name, no one knows your book. If no one knows your book, it doesn’t sell, and it dies on the shelves faster than you can say “backlist.” So as an author, what can you do to beat the competition? And no, you should not start harassing managers at Barnes and Noble.
1) The Review
Getting your book reviewed is mainly in the hands of your publisher. However, there are plenty of things that you, as an author, can do to assist in the process and make it more effective. Publishers know about the big dogs. They know Publishers Weekly, the New York Times, the LA Times, etc. However, they don’t know the specialists in your field. If your book is about birds, your publisher isn’t going to know the most famous ornithologist who just has to endorse your book. So think—what contacts do you have? Which of these contacts could be used to the advantage of your book? Pass this on to your publisher, and they will thank you for it! If you are willing to help your publisher, it will pay off. They will be much more willing to focus on you, because you’ve done your research. You have the names and organizations; all your publisher has to do is send the emails. Think alumni associations, your local media contacts, state reading associations and national topic-specific magazines that would want to know about your book. The opportunities are endless, and it will keep you ahead of the pack.
2) What’s your pitch?
In other words, what are you selling? Is your book about a new diet that promises Michael Phelps abs? What about a children’s book that can teach kids about ADD? Can you explain the entire theme/mission/importance of your book in five words or less? You need to, because that’s about as much time you’ll have to impress the random Oprah intern who just happens to give you a call. The real question is, can you sell yourself?
Let’s face it—in the media and in stores, no one is booking your novel. They are booking you. If you are lacking in passion for your product, they’ll know, and your book will suffer. You have to be willing to go out there and get those interviews. Get those events. I suggest selling yourself as a package. Any author can just sit there and sign a book. What about an author who can use her book to teach kids about bullies? What about a different author who can show math teachers a better way to interest students in fractions? You have to make bookstores believe you have something to offer. Make them believe you are the one doing the favor, as opposed to vice versa. You are the main attraction. People will come to see you because you are worthy of seeing. If you don’t think so, who will?
3) The Launch
I cannot emphasize how important your book launch is. I have said it over and over and over to authors all over the country. Some believe me, and some don’t. Who do you suppose has the better book sales? If you said the ones who don’t believe me, I’m glad I’m not your publicist.
Okay, in the publishing world, there is a “publication date.” This is when your book is available for purchase to the public. Your launch date should be scheduled around this time. A specific scheduled event should be referred to as your “launch date,” in fact, because a definite date makes it tangible to the media, meaning more likely to be covered. The media likes tangible events, as opposed to vague announcements, as in “People can buy my book now! Cool, huh?” No. They don’t care. They care, however, when you have a cluster of events coming up where people can actually meet you.
What does a cluster entail? I’m talking fifteen to twenty scheduled events, clustered around a two-week period, with your launch right at the beginning. I realize you probably don’t have fifteen to twenty individual bookstores in your hometown. It helps to travel, making it more of an official Author Tour. If your funds require you to stay close to home, no problem! Start with bookstores. Now, what about gift shops and specialty stores whose clientele would relate to your book? What about libraries? If your book is about astronomy, what about planetariums or museums? If it’s about salt marshes, what about national parks? The opportunities are endless. You just have to be ready to work. Events sell books. Yes, authors are artists, and your books do mean a lot to you. However, a book—no matter how good it is—dies without sales. Get out there and schedule events. It’s the way to turn your book into your career.
Don’t mean to be pushy….
The publishing industry is cutthroat. If you’re not careful, your book is old news before you’ve even unwrapped your complimentary copies. You have to retain the passion you had while writing your book through the entire process. Do not let yourself think that once your book is on the shelf, you’re done. You cannot sit back and collect royalty checks. Work with your publisher. Give your input, and use your contacts to encourage word of mouth. Believe in yourself, and bookstores will believe in you, too. Finally, always keep those events coming. Stay in the public eye, and your book will, as well. It feels good to be recognized for your work, but it won’t happen until you get off the couch and show ‘em what you got.
Sara Dobie is the Public Relations Coordinator for Sylvan Dell Publishing in South Carolina. Learn more about Sara and Sylvan Dell Publishing at www.SylvanDellPublishing.com.
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August 11, 2008
I realized that I don’t really do a lot on All Book Marketing to feature posts and information from other corners of the Web. So I’m going to try to start a somewhat regular feature here highlighting blog posts on book marketing, PR, and publicity. Normally these posts will probably be on Fridays, but for now, enjoy:
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August 8, 2008
Evan Marshall, author of The Marshall Plan for Novel Writing which I’ve mentioned here before as the first novel outlining system I used (and one I’m still pulling elements from for other projects), has released a new program for the plan.
The software, The Marshall Plan for Novel Writing Template Generator, allows you to use the novel writing system from his book (and workbook) a bit more intuitively. I’ve been playing with it a bit. It took me a little while to get used to it (not at any fault of the software - I usually just do my outlining and such by hand), but I’m enjoying it.
When it comes time to edit the novel outline I created with his system, I plan to enter the outline into the program rather than only keeping the hand-drafted copy around. I have no idea when that’s going to be, as I have another book project I’m focusing on before that, but when I do, you can find out more over at AllBookWriting.com.
Something interesting (and admirable) that Evan pointed out is the fact that he actually learned programming himself in order to create this. He had the feedback from authors. He knew what they wanted. And rather than outsourcing the programming he took the DIY approach (which I’m a big fan of) and actually created this software himself!
I’ll be talking a bit more about the software when I do a review of the two Marshall Plan books over at the book writing blog, but I wanted to take the time to mention it over here first for those that may be interested in giving it a shot. Anything that makes life easier and more productive is worth it in my eyes, and the program will certainly do that. I’d just suggest familiarizing yourself a bit with the plan through the book first - it’s one of my favorite writing resources, and I couldn’t recommend it highly enough.
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July 30, 2008
Today I’d like to welcome guest poster, and author of the My Virtual Book Tour Secrets e-book, Bill Frederick. As you may remember, I recently posted about virtual publicity tours. One type of virtual book publicity tour we talked about was the virtual blog tour. In this post, Bill will share with you a formula for choosing blogs worth contacting (those most likely to offer you exposure for your new release) when it comes to setting up a virtual publicity tour for your own book.
Many authors are discovering the value of adding virtual book tours to their book’s promotional campaign. The success of any virtual book tour depends on your ability to locate targeted, high-trafficked blogs to approach.
According to Technorati’s “The State of the Live Web” report, (http://technorati.com/weblog/2007/04/328.html) “… there are over 70 million blogs in the blogosphere today. And there are an estimated 120,000 new blogs being created worldwide each and every day.
That’s about 1.4 blogs created every second of every day. That’s a lot of potential hosts for your virtual book tour. There are some problems with many of these blogs though. Among other things, their creators abandon them in a month or two, they receive little or no traffic (readers), or they’re splogs (spam blogs).
So, how do you determine which of the 70 million blogs is worth approaching? I use a simple two-step system for locating targeted blogs.
First, before I even begin evaluating specific blogs to contact for a virtual book tour, I develop a list of 20 or so keywords that best describe my book and its topic. I combine keywords to come up with phrases that people might use when searching for the topic of my book.
After I’ve developed my list of 20 keywords I set up a Google Alert (http://www.google.com/alerts) for each one of the keyword phrases. Google will then email me an update each time one of my keywords is mentioned in the blogosphere … including a link to the post and blog that mentioned my phrase. I can then visit the blog and determine its Blog Rank and then decide if I want to approach the owner asking them if they’d be interested in hosting a stop on my virtual book tour.
That brings me to the criteria I use for selecting blogs to approach.
In a nutshell, my Formula for Successful Blog Selection is:
H + F + P + D + L + C + T = BR
I use a blog’s BR, or Blog Rank, to decide whether or not I want to approach the blog owner for possible inclusion in my virtual book tour.
The H stands for History.
Basically, how old is the blog? Generally speaking, older blogs have had more time to be ranked in the search engines; resulting in more traffic and usually more readers. You can find out how old a blog is by checking its “archives.” If a blog is less than one year old I score it a “0,” one to two years old it scores a “1,” and older than three years it receives a score of “2.”
The F in the formula is for Focus.
Does the blog’s theme match your book’s theme? Or, is the blog’s theme about books in general? If you answer, “Yes,” to either question, give the blog a “1,” if your answer is “No,” score the blog a “0.”
The P is for Posting Frequency.
How often does the owner post a new article on the blog? The blogs you want to approach for your virtual book tour should post neither too often nor too infrequently. The minimum posting frequency you should consider is a weekly post. Better yet, is a blog that posts new content three to five days per week. If a
blog posts once a month or less, score it a “0.” If a post is made once a week, score the blog a “1.” And, if the blog posts three or more times per week, give the blog a score of “2.”
The D in the formula is for Domain.
Is the blog you’re considering hosted on its own server with its own domain name? Or is it hosted on one of the free blog hosts? If you answered “Yes,” to the blog has its own server and domain, give the blog a “1,” if your answer is “No,” score the blog a “0.”
L is for Links, backlinks in particular.
Backlinks are incoming links from other websites. Search engines often use the number of backlinks a site has as a measure of its popularity. While Google will give you a rough idea of the number of backlinks a blog has, I find that Yahoo gives more accurate information. The search that you want to type into the Yahoo.com search box looks like this:
link:www.domainname.com (no spaces)
The number you’re interested in will show next to Inlinks. If the number is less than 1,000, score the blog a “0,” if the number is between 1,000 and 5,000 score the blog a “1,” if it is greater than 5,000 give the blog a score of “2.”
The C is for Comments.
The number of comments a blog receives reveals how active the readers are. The more participation a blog community has the better. While some hot or controversial topics may receive upwards of 100 comments, the average is usually much lower. Your job is to look over the past 20 or so posts and determine the average number of comments a post receives. If the average number of comments is less than five, score the blog a “0.” If the number of comments a blog receives is greater than five, score the blog a “1.”
Finally, the T is for Tour.
Has the blog you’re considering ever host a virtual book tour before? Published a book review? Interviewed an author? If the answer is “Yes,” give the blog a “1,” if the answer is “No,” give the blog a “0.”
Adding all the scores together, H + F + P + D + L + C + T, will give you a blog’s BR or Blog Rank.
If a blog scores between 7 and 10, it is in what I refer to as the A-Range. I contact them immediately.
If a blog scores between 3 to 6, it falls in the B-Range. I’d contact them as soon as you’ve contacted and received responses from all of you’re A-Range blogs.
If a blog scores below 3, the amount of exposure that your book will receive may not be worth your time and effort. I would only contact them after all A-Range and B-Range blogs have been contacted and you still have open dates during your planned virtual book tour.
By following these two-steps, setting up Google Alerts for your book’s keywords and evaluating each blog with the Blog Rank Formula, you can set up your own successful virtual book tour.
For anyone interested in winning a free copy of “My Virtual Book Tour Secrets!”, visit this site (http://www.myvirtualbooktoursecrets.com/win-a-copy.html), read the instructions, and enter. Your odds are good because I’m giving away a free copy on each of the blog tour stops. You can increase your odds by visiting the other blog tour stops and entering on those sites as well.
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July 28, 2008
For one of the books I’m working on, I’ve thought about launching a character blog before I either pitch to publishers or decide to self-publish. I’d like to explore the potential ethical issues of a character blog and see what others here think about them.
What is a Character Blog?
A character blog is a blog authored by a fictional character - in this case, a character from a book. In some cases, the readers aren’t told publicly on the site that the author is a fictional character, and that the blog posts deal with fictional situations. In other cases, it’s clear on the blog that the author and content are both fictional.
Are Character Blogs Ethical?
This was tough for me at first. Coming from a PR background where I’m known for always siding with blunt honesty and transparency, the idea of a character blog can seem to be a bit unethical. On the issue of transparency, it would seem that at a bare minimum you would have to be honest about who you are as a blogger when communicating with your audience.
Then there’s the side of me that works as a writer. I’ve ghostwritten work. I’ve written under pseudonyms. If a character blog is unethical, then wouldn’t both ghostwriting and pen names be equally unethical?
I’d say so.
That’s why I choose to look at it this way - the PR side of me occasionally needs to shut up and allow the creative side to take control. Writing is an art form, and blogs are becoming just another creative outlet - after all, there’s no one type of blog or purpose of blogs.
So I’m OK with character blogs - even those that don’t make their fictional basis known up front. As a matter of fact, I think growing a character blog really relies on it not being exposed as such too quickly.
For example, what I’m considering is running a character blog before publishing for one of two reasons:
1. If I choose to pitch publishers, I’ll have a built-in audience for promotional purposes - I can show the publisher that I have decent reach with the market, have demonstrated a desire for the content and character, etc. (similar to email newsletter subscribers for a nonfiction release).
2. If I choose to self-publish, I have a built-in audience of potential buyers I can promote the book to directly.
The only thing I’m not sure about is whether or not I’ll have some small mention somewhere about it being a fictional blog, or if I’ll wait on that until the blog starts to take off a bit.
What are your thoughts on character blogs for promoting a book? Have you used one? Do you plan to? Do you have any ethical issues with running a fictional blog and simply considering it another form of creative writing with some creative freedom? Would you tell people on the blog that it’s a character blog? If so, when?
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July 21, 2008
You may remember that not long ago I was talking about Karen Wiesner’s First Draft in 30 Days
. Well, she has a new book coming out in September, and I wanted to share a few of the tools she’s using for online book promotion during the pre-launch phase. The book is called From First Draft To Finished Novel
.
As far as I’m concerned, from the buyer perspective, one of the best things an author or publisher can do to get me to buy a book is to give me some kind of preview. The back cover info isn’t enough. I want to get a feel for the author’s style. If the book revolves on worksheets or templates, I want to see them.
At the same time, I rarely physically go to a bookstore anymore, so paging through a book isn’t an option. When I buy from Amazon (and yes, I’m aware that it’s somewhat taboo at the moment with their author issues), I rarely buy a book that doesn’t take advantage of their “search inside” feature to let me see the TOC and an excerpt.
Karen’s taking full advantage of some simple, built-in marketing tools to promote her new book, and I wanted to point them out here as examples of things most authors can similarly do to give their potential buyers a taste of a book to entice us to buy online:
The Excerpt
Any author or publisher can post an excerpt of a book online. In Karen’s case, you can read the excerpt from From First Draft To Finished Novel here: Principles of Building a Story
Book Details
There’s no excuse for you to not have basic book details published online well in advance of the release date. In this case, both the publisher and author each have a page up devoted to background on the upcoming book.
Author Q&A
Whether done through your publisher or up on your own author site, it’s a good idea to have a Q&A sample available. This works well not so much for direct sales value, but from a media relations point of view. You want journalists to interview you or review your book. Having an author Q&A set online gives them added background, sample questions they may want to expand upon with you, or answers to common questions that you don’t want to be asked repeatedly (you’ll get more value out of the interview if they ask you ten deeper questions than the surface things everyone needs to know).
Worksheets
This won’t work for every type of book, but if you have some kind of addenda, consider making it available online prior to the book’s launch. In Karen’s case, she’s published worksheets and checklists from the new book online. You can find the PDF downloads at both the publisher’s and author’s book profile page listed a bit earlier in this post.
What other tools do you easily have access to prior to a book launch that you can use in your online book marketing efforts?
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July 12, 2008
Today I’m officially finished with the novel outline that I’ve been detailing on this blog. It’s a relief to have it out of the way, especially as I’ve already started on the next outline - you can follow along with that process over at AllBookWriting.com (the working title of that project is Three Weeks). I’m deviating quite a bit from the 30-day plan on the new outline, and am actually estimating to have that outline wrapped by within a 2-week period instead.
Anyway, this one’s taken care of. I spent the last few days cleaning it up, making notes of any additional research I may want to do before drafting, and finding pictures that represent how I currently picture the characters (to refresh my memory a bit later). This outline is now going to be shelved for a little while before I come back to it. I’ll be finishing the current outline, one e-book, and probably editing another outline at a bare minimum before coming back to this one (giving it time so I can come back to it with a fresh perspective).
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July 9, 2008
Today let’s very briefly go over some common components of the author (or book) media kit - in other words, what you should include. While most of these will work for a hard copy media kit / press kit, let’s focus on online author media kits (those in newsroom formats on your website or downloadable .pdf files).
Author Media Kit Components - Essential
- An author bio
- A published book list (titles, cover images, brief summary, publisher, ISBN, etc.)
- Media contact info (who journalists should contact with questions or interview requests)
- An author photo (high resolution)
- Past press mentions, interview credits, etc.
- Endorsements / testimonials from people the media will care about
- Latest press release (maybe a news release for your latest book launch, an upcoming speaking engagement, etc. - these are better suited for newsroom format, as you can include the full archive linked that way and it’s always up-to-date)
Author Media Kit Components - Optional (but good to have)
- More detailed book info (especially if you have a new release)
- Suggested interview questions (not all journalists that want to interview you will read all of your books or fully understand everything you were hoping to convey - include example questions they could ask you during an author interview, which they can tailor to their own use)
- Frequently asked questions (if you’re asked the same questions constantly, include them, and your answers, in the media kit to save everyone time)
- An excerpt from one or more of your books, or a longer synopsis
- Sales figures (especially for past books)
- Info on your target market / readers (who reads your books? who buys your books? why? This info helps a journalist know if you appeal to their own target audience.)
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July 8, 2008
I’m very happy to say that my novel outline should be completed later today. That leaves me with four more days to go through it all, fill in any holes that still exist (I’ve been keeping notes on things like that as I go along, so that should be relatively painless), and make a list of anything else I may want to research further before writing a full manuscript draft. Saturday is Day 30 of the 30-day plan for the current outline. I am absolutely tickled that I’ve gotten this far, because there were a few points where I really thought I might quit.
During the process, the story evolved before my eyes. Much of my research was scrapped because it became irrelevant. I did more research along the way. I added an extra viewpoint character. I completely changed the role of another to add more tension / another surprise element to the story. I’m pretty happy with a lot of the changes that just kind of manifested themselves during the process. Then again, this is precisely why outlining can be a great thing, no matter what system you follow.
While I’m finishing up this outline, I’m also busy thinking about the next one (where I’ll be using the plan in Book in a Month). I was originally going to do another dark piece of fiction (the one I’m simply referring to as “fairy tale” on my book writing blog for the time being), but now I’m not sure. That one I still need to hash out in my head first - I don’t know exactly how I want to go about it, although I’m thinking it’s actually going to be like two stories rolled into one (not sure how to explain it yet).
So I thought about working on a comedy (the one I’m calling “Three Weeks” for now on the book writing blog). However, that one is closer to a vignette style (although not exactly). Anyway, I’m not sure of the odd styles of multiple stories are going to work for the other outlining process. I’ll choose one and adapt it to work - just not sure which yet. I’ll likely take one to two weeks off between outlines to finish up my current e-book, get my worksheets printed and in order for the process, etc.
The new novel outline experience won’t be featured here. It’s going to instead be covered at All Book Writing, while this blog continues focusing on book marketing and PR topics. I hope at least a few of you will be interested enough to follow it over there.
EDIT: Just wanted to confirm that yes, I did in fact finish up the outline today. Yay! I still have a few days to clean it up, fill in a few holes, make notes for anything else I might want to research before drafting, etc. I’ll probably update Saturday when the 30-day program is over with some thoughts on the whole process
On another note, I wanted to confirm that I’ll be moving on with the next novel outline shortly, and I’ve officially decided today that I’ll be working on a comedy this time - one I’m calling Three Weeks. You’ll be able to follow along with that process over at AllBookWriting.com. I’ve been doing a lot of brainstorming today on the general story, trying to figure out how I’m going to adapt the outline plan to it (from Book in a Month) as it’s not a “normal” continuous story. I may start as soon as tomorrow. I was going to take a week or two off, but I’m feeling rather “into” the story right now, so I figure I may as well run with it - and I don’t think it’ll be a huge burden cleaning up one outline while starting on the next. I’ll update more about that on the other blog.
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July 7, 2008
Note: This guest post from Austin S. Camacho is a stop on his virtual blog tour promoting his new book for small press and self-published authors: Successfully Marketing Your Novel in the 21st Century. Camacho talks about evidence-based marketing, and gives you a chance to get a free copy of his new book by sharing your own tips for marketing full-length fiction!
I wrote my new book,
Successfully Marketing Your Novel in the 21st Century for fiction authors who are self-published, are published by a small press, or published through a Print On Demand company. The book is filled with valuable tips and detailed techniques that have worked for me in the decade I’ve been promoting my own novels. It’s built on three broad principles: camouflage, planning, and evidence-based marketing. Today I’ll tell you a bit more about that last idea.I’ve spent a lot of time, money and energy, on marketing and have learned three important things:
- What worked for someone else may not work for me.
- The person pushing a marketing idea may not really care whether or not it increases my sales, as long as he or she gets paid.
- Some of the traditional wisdom may no longer apply. The publishing landscape changes every day.
For those reasons I keep careful records of everything I do in the marketing arena. Evidence-based marketing means that before I invest in a tactic, I consider the cost and project how many books it will have to move to pay off. Whenever I try a new idea, I look for some sort of measurement by which I can objectively judge if it was successful. And whenever someone offers to help me for a price, I ask specific questions about the success of previous clients and what guarantees they’ll give. If a publicist or marketing expert is unwilling to offer any kind of guarantee, there’s often a reason.
That doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t think outside the box. New ideas can be valuable. In fact, one way they can pay off is if you enter my contest.
THE CONTEST!
Send me your best tips on how to market full length fiction. I will feature the best three in my newsletter and on my blog – Another Writer’s Life. The entrants will each receive a copy of my book, and the one who sends the best tip will also receive a $50 gift certificate for bookmarks, business cards or a book cover from Iconix – the company that designed the cover of Successfully Marketing Your Novel in the 21st Century.
To enter, just visit http://www.ascamacho.com/sfmyn.htm.
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All Book Marketing is a blog on book marketing and book publicity, run by publicist and online PR specialist Jennifer Mattern.
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