Showing posts with label " "The Frugal Book Promoter. Show all posts
Showing posts with label " "The Frugal Book Promoter. Show all posts

Forget Book Sales: Think Career Building

 It Isn't About Book Sales: It's About Career Building

By Carolyn Howard-Johnson

Adapted from the multi award-winning flagship book in the HowToDoItFrugally Series of
books for writers, The Frugal Book Promoter, Third Edition

In a writer's world sharing is sometimes as important as the creative aspect of building a book. The trouble is sharing—for many—translates into selling books. Of course, we all want to do that, but we tend to lose sight of the fact that we will eventually sell a whole lot more books and, in doing so, share with a whole lot more people, if we concentrate on building our careers. Indeed, for some authors with nonfiction books based on their businesses and professions, the whole purpose of the book is to increase credibility and exposure for themselves and careers. 

What many authors think of when they think of book sales is the kind of hardsell that most would rather eschew. When they decide to do it anyway because they know they should, they may skip learning something about marketing first and their efforts backfire on them. I have a motto: “Never say, buy my book.” Keep reading for better ways to market your book and yourself.

Here's the surprise. Marketing—marketing anything—isn't about selling. Marketing a book is about finding the people who will benefit and appreciate what the author has to share and then letting those people know how they will benefit (or avoid problems) by reading it.. And there is a lot of writing that goes along with it and that's what we do. And there is real pleasure in seeing our marketing efforts succeed and seeing our careers build as we do more of it and learn more about it. Here are some ideas of giving-sharing kinds of marketing from my Frugal Book Promoter. Each may be used as a part of a launch campaign or to nudge exposure for books that have been around a while.

§  Meet new readers by running a contest on your website, on Twitter, or in your newsletter. Use your books for prizes or get cross-promotion benefits by asking other authors to share their books; many will donate one to you in trade for the exposure. Watch the 99 Cent Stores for suitable favors to go with them.

Hint: Any promotion you do including a contest is more powerful when you call on your friends to tell their blog visitors or Facebook pals about it.

    Barter your books or your services for exposure on other authors’ websites. Other authors tend to understand your need to build your career and to sell your books. You'll make long lasting friends doing it.
   Offer classes in writing to your local high school, college, or library system. Students can become valued friends and fellow writers. Publicizing the classes is easy and free and helps build your author-name recognition. When appropriate, use your own book as suggested reading. Use your teaching experience in your media kit to show you have presentation skills.
 
   Send notes to your friends and readers asking them to recommend your book to others. Or offer them a perk like free shipping, gift wrap, or small gift if they purchase your book for a friend. That’s an ideal way to use those contact lists—the ones I show you how to build in The Frugal Book Promoter—and to let personal friends share in your exciting publishing adventure.
    Some of your reviews (both others’ reviews of your book and reviews you’ve written about others’ books) can be networking experiences. Read that word "networking" as "making friends who want to work with you." Check the guidelines for the free review service blog I started to help fellow authors extend the life of their favorite reviews. It's at TheNewBookReview.blogspot.com.
 
   Connect and reconnect. Subscribe to new blogs and newsletters to get new ideas, new opinions. Start reading the ones you once subscribed to again. Join a writers’ group or organization related to the subject of your book. Offer to help them with guest articles and blogs. Enter their contests. Communicate on their forums.

    When you ship signed copies of your book, include a coupon for the purchase of another copy for a friend—signed and dedicated—or for one of your other books. Some distributors insert fliers or coupons into your books when they ship them for a small fee.

   Adjust the idea above to a cross-promotional effort with a friend who writes in the same genre as you. She puts a coupon for your book in her shipments; you do the same for her in yours.

    Be sure your Amazon buy pages amplify the effects of their logarithms and utilized the benefits they offer through AuthorCentral. 

    Explore the opportunities for speaking on cruise ships. Many have cut back on the number of speakers they use, but your area of expertise may be perfect for one of them. I tried it, but found ship politics a drawback. Still many authors like Allyn Evans who holds top honors in Toastmasters and Erica Miner have used these venues successfully. Do know, however, that you need a knockout platform including speaking credits.

    I call reviews forever-reviews because they hang around forever. And because they are forever useful even when a book that is aging. In fact, I think they are so important to your career that I wrote an entire book on how to get them, how to manage them on places like Amazon, and how to utilize them…well, forever. It is, How to Get Great Book Reviews Frugally and Ethically: The ins and outs of using free reviews to build and sustain a writing career.

-------->

Carolyn Howard-Johnson has been promoting her own books and helping clients promote theirs for more than a decade. Her marketing plan for the second book in the HowToDoItFrugally Series of books for writers, The Frugal Editor: Put Your Best Book Forward to Avoid Humiliation and Ensure Success won the Next Generation Millennium Award for Marketing. The just-released third edition of The Frugal Book Promoter, published by Modern History Press, is New! Expanded! Updated! Her poetry, fiction and nonfiction books have been honored by the likes of Writer’s Digest, USA Book News Award, the Irwin award, Dan Poynter’s Global Ebook Awards and more. Learn more about Carolyn and her books of fiction and poetry. Each of them helped her learn more about maximizing marketing efforts for different writers, different titles. Learn more at www.howtodoitfrugally.com


  

Help for Second Edition Blues


I sometimes run Q and A a la Ann Landers columns in my SharingwithWriters newsletter using questions that my clients ask me or that subscribers send to me. This is one of my favorites because involves two subjects that seem to interest authors most--Amazon sales and getting reviews.

QUESTION:

Do you lose your Amazon reviews when you publish a second edition of your book?

ANSWER:

You can get Amazon to post reviews from the first edition to the second through Author Connect. And you can get Amazon to put a referral widget from the first edition to the second. They tend to move this widget around, but it's always been near the top of the first edition buy page (though not as prominent as I'd like to see it!).

Please note: Amazon will not remove the first edition from their site.

But please don't buy the first edition! The second edition is expanded by at least 100 pages, updated, and, if I do say so, lots prettier! (-:

Do know that when Amazon does this they transfer all of the reviews from old edition to New; you can't pick and choose. So if something in the first edition has been criticized and you fixed it in the second edition, they won’t discard that earlier review. A recourse is to use the comment feature that is found at the end of each review to dispute the claim—maybe with a thank you to the reviewer for helping you correct that in the second edition. There are some other ways to help fix Review problems in the newest of the #HowToDoItFrugally Series of books for writers, How to Get Great Book Reviews Frugally and Ethically.

Just an extra here: If you just update your old edition rather than publish a new one, you may be losing more marketing opportunities than you ever dreamed of. Of course, a second edition should have something new about the cover like the words second edition or a whole new cover and at least 10% new content.

Carolyn Howard-Johnson, author of This Is the Place; Harkening: A Collection of Stories Remembered; Tracings, a chapbook of poetry; and how to books for writers including the award-winning second edition of, The Frugal Book Promoter: How to get nearly free
publicity on your own or by partnering with your publisher; The multi award-winning second edition of The Frugal Editor; and Great Little Last Minute Editing Tips for Writers. Some of her other blogs are TheNewBookReview.blogspot.com, a blog where authors can recycle their favorite reviews free. She also blogs at all things editing, grammar, formatting and more at The Frugal, Smart and Tuned-In Editor . And, be sure to sign up for SharingwithWriters newsletter.

Sneak Peek in Next Book in the HowToDoItFrugally Series


Book Covers for Book Series Demand Extra, Loving Care
By Carolyn Howard-Johnson, author of the multi award-winning
HowToDoItFrugally series of book for writers

Considerations for covers for series aren’t really so different from any book except that an author and her cover artist must consider whether the elements can be sustained and there are several ways to do that with the cover.

One of the most sustainable elements of marketing a book series is the author’s name. New authors and artists without special training in book cover design often under emphasize their own name. I tell them to look at the books in the window of Hudson’s bookstores in airports. The authors’ names are huge. The authors’ names are sometimes gilt. The authors’ names are often embossed. That’s because (you’ve heard this before from me in my multi award-winning book, The Frugal Book Promoter), an author’s name is her true brand. Or soon will be. And an author planning a series is even more dependent on his or her own name for recognition and identification than most.

In addition to the size of the author’s name, authors of book series should consider repeating its position on the cover, using the same solid—very bright—color, that metallic look, embossing if the publisher can afford it, or all three.  The font should be repeated, too—preferably one that’s identifiable even if only subliminally.

Of course, it’s the overall look of the cover that interests most authors and that brings up genre. All the elements of all the covers in the series must evoke the genre. This is one time that being super-original may not be best for sales. The look must suggest to the reader exactly what he or she will find inside the book. Think Picault’s images for Danielle Steele’s books. They catapulted him to fame in the world of fine art. Internationally known Park West carries his originals and prints even after his death. We may not be able to name him on sight, but we know it’s his work when we see it and that when they appear on a book cover, they are Steele’s books.  To evoke a feeling of familiarity among readers usually means using the same artist on each of the books in a particular series—perhaps even across different series.

Note: Consider negotiating with your artist that he or she will do book cover art only for your series. This probably will require a renewable stipend for exclusivity, but it may be worth it.

These are all considerations for series written by nonfiction authors, as well. Notice the unique font/art developed by Chaz DeSimone (http://DeSimoneDesign) for my HowToDoItFrugally series. Those coins say something visually and they are memorable.

It’s not always possible to be that creative, though. Chaz said my frugal titles were like the perfect storm. Everything came together for inspiration. But that’s still possible, even without that once-in-a-career brainstorm. Consider the famous Dummy series. In addition to carrying through a specific, very bright contrasting color scheme (yellow and black).  These books also all place logo in the same place on every cover  (I plan to talk about logos later in this book to be published in 2018). Consistency in image placement is important, too. In the Dummy books, they use  realistic images-- usually actual photos or true-to-life illustrations.

The Dummy graphic designer knows that the font is still important. He or she uses two fonts in the titles and both have a kind of do-it-yourself character. “Dummies” is in every one and connotes a small child’s first approach to printing without using too-obvious backwards letters or mixed caps and lower case. The other part of the title very simply tells the reader what he or she will learn. Word. Home Buying Kit. Mortgages. And because it slants right in a sort of italic look and is black and white, it evokes a chalkboard and—once again—a new learner. These cover took a lot more thought than is at first apparent.

There are other tricks for books in series, too. The visual can be maintained throughout a series in a geometric shape—a circle, oval, triangle. By using blocks of color that repeat themselves. We mentioned overall color schemes in the analysis of Dummies.
Obviously much will depend on an author’s publishing situation. When an author is traditionally published he may have very little control over his covers or none at all. Still—if possible, he should let the designer know the genre, his preference for an artist or style, and that it will be a series. That means that he must work to work as a partner with the designer and the more he knows about covers, the better partner he will be.

Note: If your book lends itself to using a reproduction of a famous painting in the public domain, put that idea on your list to consider. It has been shown that these images increase how well a reader remembers the cover, title and content of a book.
One thing the author will usually have complete control over is the size (thickness or page number) of her books. If one is very fat and another very slim, much will be lost in terms of a cohesive brand.
As you can tell, I am big on using the author’s name as a major design element, but there are times when the emphasis may best be put on another element of the cover. Sometimes it’s hard for an author to be open to something different from their first concept. Many authors fear looking too commercial or are very shy and loathe the idea of making their name the main design element. Many authors have an artist they want to feature (a mother who does water colors or uncle who does killer charcoals). That would be nice and personal, but if it doesn’t fit the topic, they should be open to rearranging their demand. Beyond the basics, I believe in giving the most professional designer you or your publisher can afford full reign to allow her creativity to shine. Sometimes it’s easier to make suggestions and fine tune afterward, anyway.

After you and your designer have settled on the look of your cover, you want to carry the branding sensibility you’ve begun to the interior of your book. Many graphic designers can help you with that, too. And you’ll want to keep all of this branding you’ve done in mind for the entire marketing campaign. A prissy, wedding like launch party with canapés doesn’t cut it for a series on caring for your car.

Note: If you are self-publishing and have decided to use a template like those provided by Createspace, be very careful to choose one with a structure that is most likely to be carried though for the entire series.

Those elements of your marketing campaign—Web site banners, the site itself, logos, business cards, bookmarks, signs for book fairs and on and on will become more apparent to you as you read the first
in my HowToDoItFrugally book series, The Frugal Book Promoter: How to get nearly free publicity on your own or partnering with your publisher (http://bit.ly/FrugalBookPromo). If this is your first book in a series, your campaign will grow as your plan—even if you are one of those who maps out the campaign carefully. A good map, though, will help you avoid having to make too many corrections as you go. That is both smart and frugal.

Note: Before making your final decision, reread the chapter in the flagship for of my #HowToDoItFrugally Series of books for writers, The Frugal Book Promoter. There you will find what you need for writing the copy for our book’s back cover like the mini biography, the oft-ignored (sadly!) second subtitle, and the pitch or mini synopsis. This may be an area that you are better at than your designer, though many graphic artists or cover designers who have lots of experience with books are also excellent copywriters and marketers. So do ask for advice and listen to the answers.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

This article is destined to become part of Carolyn Howard-Johnson’s fourth book in her multi award-winning HowToDoItFrugally series of books for writers set for 2018. It will have a foreword written by her book designer Chaz DeSimone and the frugalish coin design of the How to Get Great Book Reviews Frugally and Ethically (http://bit.ly/GreatBkReviews) where you will learn Carolyn’s secret to getting review from big journals by going through the back door and how to use reviews to access commercial catalogs.
first two will be carried forward to this book, too. Her newest book in the multi award-winning HowToDoItFrugally Series of books for writers is

Learn more about Carolyn including her poetry and fiction at http://howtodoitfrugally.com where you can also see some cover designs for her series of poetry books that were courtesy of free templates offered by Createspace.com.

Midwest Review's Selected Titles for Writers


Midwest Review’s Top Books for Writers
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
In a recent article in his newsletter, Jim Cox, founding guru of the Midwest Review, includes his suggested titles for writers and I'm flattered (and glad to be one of them). I thought the readers of this Writers On The Move blog might want to select one or two for the betterment of their careers in 2014.
Jim said, "There are a lot of excellent how to instruction manuals and guides available to the novice publisher and the newly self-published author on what has been termed 'guerilla marketing' strategies offering a wealth of tips, tricks, techniques, and strategies for those of limited financial means. You will find them reviewed and listed at:

"There you will find such informative and "every author/publisher should read this" titles like:

"1001 Ways to Market Your Books by John Kremer
52 Ways To Sell More Books! by Penny C. Sansevieri
The Author's Guide To Publishing And Marketing by Tim Ward & John Hunt
Book Marketing De-Mystified by Bruce Batchelor
Book Promotion Made Easy by Eric Gelb
Brilliant PR by Cathy Bussey
The Complete Guide To Book Publicity by Jodee Blanco
The Economical Guide To Self-Publishing by Linda F. Radke
The Frugal Book Promoter: 2nd Edition, by Carolyn Howard-Johnson
Grass Roots Book Marketing by Rusty Fischer
Grassroots Marketing For Authors And Publishers by Shel Horowitz
Grassroots Marketing: Getting Noticed in a Noisy World by Shel Horowitz
Grumpy's Guide To Global Marketing For Books by Carolyn Mordecai
Maverick Marketing by Lisa Messenger & Mel Carswell
Maximum Exposure Marketing System by Tami DePalma & Kim Dushinski
Mosquito Marketing for Authors by Michelle Dunn
Musings Of An Online Bookseller by John Landahl
Online Book Marketing by Lorraine Phillips
Publicize Your Book! by Jacqueline Deval
Publishing For Profit by Thomas Woll
Red Hot Internet Publicity by Penny C. Sansevieri
Sell More Books! by J. Steve Miller & Cherie K. Miller
Sell Your Book Like Wildfire by Rob Eager
Selling Books as Premiums & Incentives by Marilyn & Tom Ross
The Selling Of An Author by Bruce E. Mowday
Simple Guide to Marketing Your Book, by Mark Ortman
The Step-by-Step Guide to Self-Publishing for Profit! by C. Pinherio & Nick Russell
Why, When, Where, & How To Write, Publish, Market, & Sell Your Book by Bill Thurwanger
Write, Publish & Market Your Book by Patrika Vaughn
You Can Market Your Book by Carmen Leal

"There are a lot more titles where these came from. I take a justifiable pride in the Midwest Book Review web site as having the largest writing/publishing bibliography data bases in all the world!"

Naturally, I thought I'd pass his suggestions on to you. I always say, "One book on the writing and marketing of books is never enough."

Subscribe to Jim's newsletter at http://www.midwestbookreview.com.
You'll also find my personal list of helpful books for writers in the Appendix of The Frugal Editor, 2nd Edition, (presently only as an e-book).
----
Blogged by Carolyn Howard-Johnson. She has a large section of Resources for writers on her Web site at http://howtodoitfrugally.com.

Marketing Is Not for the Faint of Heart


Marketing is hard work... no really it takes effort. Those who have celebrity status may not have the same difficulty with marketing their work but little old me who has only a handful publishing credits doesn't fair so well. It can downright make me grumble.  Here is what I have learned, my own marketing 101 if you will.

1. Marketing is a full time gig. Whether you are giving a 20 second statement to a peer about what you do for a living or you are meeting with your printer to do a flier on your new book you must think about how, when, and where you can market your newest work and also yourself with every contact you make.

2. Marketing can take up so much time that you don't get enough writing time. It may take up so much time that you actually feel resentful because between websites, blogs, and networking  you don't feel like a writer anymore but more like a PR spokesperson. And the truth is, you are.

3. Marketing one published work will continue well into the next project promotion if you want that published work to keep selling. You also must start marketing the newest project well before it is published to continue building your writing platform. It feels like a continuous motion similar to the endless moving sidewalks in those huge airports. One leads to the next and finally you get to your terminal.

4. You need to set marketing boundaries and as an author, you need to rest and refresh. Realistically decide what percent of your day should  be writing and what should be marketing and networking. Design your day and your work week with those boundaries in mind and include a portion for rest and rejuvenation.

Marketing can be fun but it is also time sucking hard work. Seek advice from experts in the field of marketing the written word and some of those experts are right here at our fingertips. Soak up the information in their books and on their websites and sign up for their newsletters. Join a critique group that will help steer you to the right contacts or who will write  reviews of your work or share your name with those who might need your services. And the most important part of marketing is to believe in yourself and your work. That is not being arrogant but confident, and that will make the marketing of yourself a tad bit easier.


Awards Are Free Publicity Gold

By Carolyn Howard-Johnson,
author of the multi award-winning book,
The Frugal Book Promoter, now in its second edition


 
It is award season once again. It's exciting to see many of my author friends' books win, place, or show. I hope they remember that I told them their book doesn't have to be a top winner for the news to be newsworthy in my first book in the HowToDoItFrugally series of books for writers.

Media editors see awards as anything from a sure-fire feature story to a filler. But I fear that many authors still don't utilize their awards to their fullest potential. A list of things authors should do with their awards appeared in the first edition of The Frugal Book Promoter and, because it's so important, appears in the second edition now in release.

Add your new honor to the Awards page of your media kit. If it’s your first award, center it on a page of its own. Oh! And celebrate!

  • Write your media release announcing this coup. (See Chapter Eleven of the second edition of The Frugal Book Promoter to learn to build a targeted media list and Chapter Twelve to learn to write a professional media release.)
  • Post your news on media release distribution sites. Find a list of these sites at www.howtodoitfrugally.com/mediareleasedisseminators1.htm .
  • Notify your professional organizations.
  • Notify bookstores where you hope to have a signing and those where you have had a signing.
  • Notify your college and high school. Some have press offices. Most publish magazines for alumni and their current students.
  • Add this information to the signature feature (see Chapter Twenty) of your e-mail program.
  • Add this honor to the biography template you use in future media releases—the part that gives an editor background information on you.
  • Use this information when you pitch TV or radio producers, editors of newsletters and newspapers. and bloggers. It sets you apart from others and defines you as an expert.
  • If your book wins an award, order embossed gold labels from a company like http://labels-usa.com/embossed-labels.htm. You or your distributor can apply them to your books’ covers. If you win an important award, ask your publisher to redesign your bookcover or dustcover to feature it a la the Caldecott medal given for beautifully illustrated children’s books. If you don’t know this medal, visit your local bookstore and ask to see books given this award. It’s one of the most famous and most beautifully designed.
  • If your book is published as an e-book only, ask for the contest's official badge or banner to use. If they don't have one, make one of your own using http://bannerfans.com/banner_maker.php.
  • Be sure your award is front and center on your blog, your Web site, your Twitter wallpaper, and your social network pages.
  • Your award should be evident on everything from your business card to your checks and invoices. I use the footer of my stationery to tout my major awards.
  • Don't forget to put your award in your e-mail signature.
  • Frame your award certificate and hang it in your office to impress visitors and to inspire yourself to soar even higher!

~This is just a blog-size excerpt from a complete chapter on awards in The Frugal Book Promoter (www.budurl.com/FrugalBkPromo) , including information on how to improve your chances of getting one. Carolyn brings her experience as a journalist, publicist, retailer and author of her own books to the how-to books she writes for authors. Georgia is helping her celebrate the release of the 2nd edition of this USA Book News and Irwin award-winning book. Learn more about the whole series at www.howtodoitfrugally.com.  


Order Your Books for Holiday Giving Now--Especially for Those Who Deserve Your Thanks

I thought VBT subscribers and visitors might want a reminder that books! Yep, books! Make great holiday gifts. This is one that multi award-winning author Mary Green recommends. Gift yourself or the author in your life who has helped spread word of mouth. Amazon promised delivery by December 25th.

The Frugal Book Promoter
Second edition, expanded and updated
By Carolyn Howard-Johnson
416 pages
ISBN: 9781463743291
Available in paperback or for Kindle
Also available as an e-book at http://createspace.com/3656422

Author's Web site: http://www.howtodoitfrugally.com



5.0 out of 5 stars Everything you wanted to know about book promoting and much
much more., September 25, 2011
Reviewed by
originally for Amazon

This review is from: The Frugal Book Promoter: Second Edition: How to get nearly free publicity on your own or by partnering with your publisher. (Paperback)
When I saw the Table of Contents for this promoting bible, I was hooked. There was a chapter on everything I wanted or needed to know. I have written three "How To" books and have had a number of reviews and awards, but I am looking to go to the next level with some fresh new ideas. In other words, I had reached a plateau and did not want to repeat the same old methods.

When I first started reading the book I immediately liked the tone. It was as though the author was in my living room saying: Mary, why don't you try this and maybe you don't want to do this." Her books, like mine, are based on her personal experience. She has done book fairs; she has taught classes and consulted with authors; she has written award-winning books. She is an expert. That is what makes the book so powerful. I have read books that make me feel guilty if I haven't done ten things for my book that day.

Yesterday, I exhibited at a book festival and most of the authors were complaining that they had few sales. I looked up the topic in my new book. The author says "Book festivals are for readers." I knew intuitively that she was right. She goes on to say that these are really networking opportunities for the writers and not that many books are sold. That shift made me feel encouraged rather than discouraged at the book festival's results. Even though I did not sell tons of books, I did meet a lot of people: readers, writers and bookstore owners. I got a few tips and gave a few tips. I reconnected with people I had seen at previous events and got some recommendations for the best venues for future events. The author was spot on.

I also checked the chapter on book awards. I have won a total of 28 book awards for my three books and thought I knew all there was to know about awards and have spoken on the subject. However, after reading that section on book awards, I realized that I was not doing enough publicizing after I won the book awards and I am going to remedy that situation. Another tip I picked up. I am now going to say Mary Greenwood, multi-award winning author, instead of award-winning author.

Of course, I wished I had seen this book when my first book came out, but I can see that this book is useful for all authors, those working on their first book and authors who already have published several books and need some new ideas. I know I will go back and reread a chapter when I am starting a new task such as a press release or am thinking about doing a new blog or sprucing up my website.

I am just starting on my new book about "How to Negotiate With Your Dog" (hint: you don't.) I am going to use The Frugal Book Promoter Second Edition, the whole way. I can't wait to get started!
~Reviewer Green is author of How to Interview Like A Pro: Forty-Three Rules for Getting Your Next Job

Audio Books – Make Your Own or Hire It Out

    Contributed by Margot Conor The fast-growing industry of books on audio has become a compelling reason to go that extra distance as an ...