The Story Behind My “The more you. Know…” Motto

Making Publishing Decisions the Frugal Way

By Carolyn Howard-Johnson, novelist, poet, and
author of the multi award-winning HowToDoItFrugally Series of books for writers

 

The internet spreads a cruel notion among new authors. They are led to believe the well-respected publisher they are “sure” to acquire employs a magical entity who will apply literary voodoo to their manuscript and come up with the perfect book they dream of. The truth is authors might achieve that dream better by publishing their book themselves like Faulkner or Hemingway did or hire someone (or many someones) to achieve that goal. To carry that idea a little further, they might have to do much of what they think they’ll avoid with traditional publishers anyway. The stories we hear about the does, don’ts, and what ifs are often fairy tales borrowed from the centuries before this new millennium.

A more practical way to make publishing choices is to make a list weighing the suitability of the title of your WIP (Word in Progress), the author’s preferences, personality, and pocketbook and then break each of those categories into as many as an author can determine are applicable to their project. The graph you build will not make the decision for you—the idea that it’s always your choice is usually a bit of a fairytale, too. But it will give you a more realistic expectation for your WIP as well gaps in learning you still need to do. That process is never ending. 

 

Your list would look something like this. 

1.The title. 
    a. Some genres—even some writing styles—are simply

more difficult to get into print; that range of difficulty can

vary with the different aspects of publishing process from

covers to formatting, to interior design, to developing 

index that librarians expect in nonfiction books.

b. Some titles depend on publication within a current

timeframe that cannot wait for the traditional search for an

agent or publisher. Once a contract with a publisher is

signed, it can easily take a year to get a book to library and

bookstore shelves.

2. The author’s personality. 

a. How honest can the author be about their own strengths 

and weaknesses.

b. How willing is an author to learn what it takes to partner

with publishers or those they must hire.
3. The author’s preferences.

a. How flexible can the author be when they meet unexpected exigencies.

b. Can the author welcome input/demands regarding their creative work, or—minimally—be willing to ask or negotiate with a publisher’s team or those they must hire.

c. Some authors go in search of an agent before they are aware that most take about 15% of the royalty a publisher allots to what they think will be the author’s “share.”

4. The author’s pocketbook.

a. In any publishing scenario, there will be unexpected expenses—sometimes insurmountable. The most disappointing is ending up with a publisher who isn’t a true publisher, that is, it doesn’t cover important needs like marketing or charges hefty fees for what the author could better do themselves.

5. Time Considerations. That would be for the tune the author needs to invest to learn more about the different aspects or the process they believe is right for their situation as well how quickly the book must be available to the public to accommodate current or coming news cycles.

a. This list is long on possibilities and includes most

everything from marketing and PR skills like speaking,

making videos, etc. to the basics of writing a successful

query letter.

b. Most experts strongly suggest that the book cover not be

one of those you hope to do yourself, even if the author is

an artist. Book covers require a graphic artist with

marketing knowledge, knowledge of printing in color and

the delicate mathematics needed to make the cover fit

many elements of a book from book dimension to weight

of the paper to width of the spine.

 

You can see that both the success and joy of your publishing journey will depend on what you know. I borrowed the phrase “The more you know…” from the hours of TV I spent watching MSNBC on a cruise when their own ad campaign took place of paid ads to meet cruise system parameters. It started to make more sense when I finally turned my computer on to tackle the self-editing project I had planned for sea days. I had already spent a few years trying to sift through rumors at expensive writer’s conferences and critique groups populated by others as new to the publishing industry as I was. I could feel the truth to that MSNBC adage through to my bones.

 

The two best ways for authors to learn is to eschew how-to books written for everyone. To learn what I needed to know to avoid the publishing potholes I had been falling in. I now tell my clients to take specific classes in writing and other aspects of publishing at accredited universities which is also expensive, but their instructors and information are usually carefully vetted. I also tell them to read books—even used paperbacks from Amazon—written by those same instructors or experts—people with lots of experience learning the stuff our traditional industry expects of us! Eventually I became one of those instructors myself (at UCLA) and started to write texts for my classes and for everyone else including the emerging do-it-yourselfers. You know, not for everybody but books precisely for the needs of publishing authors.

 

Here is a list of those books and there are more recommendations in the appendixes of each one: 

 

The Frugal Book Promoter, The Frugal Editor, The Great First-Impression Book Proposal, Great Little Last-Minute Editing Tips for Writers from Modern History Press as well as

How To Get Great Book Reviews Frugally and Ethically that was self-published and will soon be available in a second edition from Modern History Press. Hurry! Amazon was showing a 46% discount on the Book Proposal paperback! 

MORE ABOUT TODAY’S COLUMNIST

Carolyn Howard-Johnson brings her experience as a publicist, journalist, marketer, and retailer to the advice she gives in her HowToDoItFrugally Series of books for writers and the many classes she taught for nearly a decade as instructor for UCLA Extension’s world-renown Writers’ Program. The books in her HowToDoItFrugally Series of books for writers have won multiple awards. That series includes The Frugal Book Promoter and The Frugal Editor which won awards from USA Book News, Readers’ Views Literary Award, the marketing award from Next Generation Indie Books and others including the coveted Irwin award. How to Get Great Book Reviews Frugally and Ethicallylaunched to rave reviews from Jim Cox, Editor-in-Chief of Midwest Book Reviews and others: 

 

“How to Get Great Book Reviews Frugally and Ethically [and other books in the series] could well serve as a textbook for a college Writing/Publishing curriculum.”

 

Howard-Johnson is the recipient of the California Legislature’s Woman of the Year in Arts and Entertainment Award, and her community’s Character and Ethics award for her work promoting tolerance with her writing. She was also named to Pasadena Weekly’s list of “Fourteen San Gabriel Valley women who make life happen” and was given her community’s Diamond Award for Achievement in the Arts. 

                  

The author loves to travel. She has visited nearly 100 countries and has studied writing at Cambridge University in the United Kingdom; Herzen University in St. Petersburg, Russia; and Charles University, Prague. She admits to carrying a pen and journal wherever she goes. Learn more about her books for writers and her creative work in the media room on her website.

New Inspiration for Bloggers

A little story about chapbooks

 

New Inspiration for Bloggers

 

By Carolyn Howard-Johnson, multi award-winning author of
The Frugal Book Promoter

                                                        From Amazon’s New Buy Page for Series Only

Many of us who use blogs to promote think of them as diaries best kept cloistered under lock and key, as a path to writing a book one entry (chapter) at a time as Lisa Cron suggested in her book Wired for Story, or as something too new or techy to be bothered with. Some authors might spurn them because they are used so frequently for marketing which they would prefer to avoid altogether and others might still feel queasy when they succumb to marketing for the good of their book. I am going to tell you how to rethink blogs, re-invent them with something ancient and outdated, and generally make you love them.

 

When I was an instructor for UCLA’s renowned Writers’ Program the storyteller in me made me tell my students about chapbooks before I told them about the far-reaching value of blogs. I combined the tech and romance in my story. I knew my students—being writers—would respond to a good story, too. It’s the story of chapbooks and their creators, the peddlers, the people called “chapmen:”

 

“Once upon Elizabethan Times—some time after the advent of the Gutenberg Press when common folk were just learning to read—roving peddlers wandered from village to village selling a variety of needs to the populace and they were called chapmen. It came to pass—as it always does in old tales—that one enterprising (and creative) chapman began to give away small promotional booklets showcasing his products to those who came by his cart. His booklets were so effective he began including a poem he had written in them. Or a story. Or his drawings. Those booklets soon became treasured literary and artistic works from the poems inside to their hand-stitched spines and handmade covers. Soon his customers began talking about their chapman, perhaps seeing him differently than before.

 

“I suspect that occasionally our chapman offered an extra booklet to give to a friend. Our chapman was for his audience a welcome diversion in the villager’s lives as well as a more affluent chapman than most, so the books he gave away—unbeknownst to him—inspired other itinerants to emulate him and all the British Isles was calling these artistic sales tools “chapbooks.”

 

That’s why, dear authors, we use the word “chapbook” for small books of poetry today. But we can also use them—as he did—as a kind of viral marketing scheme, one that encourages interaction between the poet or storyteller and customer.

 

They can be artistic with handmade endpapers and silken bookmarks or simple booklets barely large enough to meet Amazon’s requirements for publication. They can be reasonably priced or cost lots of money and time. I plan to use one when the next book in my HowToDoItFrugally Series of books for writers is released in the new year. It will be the frugal kind (of course!) from Amazon’s KDP!

 

Chapbooks can be sold at online bookstores or given away for their promotion value at book signings and presentations. I might include tips from the new book, a special offer to those who buy extras as gifts, and even poems or story excerpts for the books I have planned for the whole of 2025.

 

It seems writing finds a way to adapt to new technologies so why not re-adapt chapbooks to your needs. Without realizing it, the world of technology brought us a newbie chapbook with blogs. The basic concept is the same, but they let us reach farther and do it faster than the chapman could. So the question is, what will you use? Blog? Chapbook? Or both?

 

MORE ABOUT TODAY’S CONTRIBUTOR

 

Carolyn Howard-Johnson is a novelist, poet, and the author of the multi award-winning HowToDoItFrugally series of books for writers (http://www.howtodoitfrugally.com). The flagship book in that series is now available in its 3^rd Edition from Modern History Press. Her #thefrugalbookpromotertips feature Amazon’s new buy pages dedicated to book series at no extra cost. If you write a series, find hers as an example at https://amazon.com/dp/B0BTXQL27T. She also has a series of poetry chapbooks cowritten with Magdalena Ball at https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CFKMM9FN.

Carolyn also blogs writers’ resources at Writer’s Digest 101 Best Websites pick www.sharingwithwriters.blogspot.com and her www.sharingwithwriters.blogspot.com is a NO #bookbigotry site that aims to extend the exposure for reviews no matter the publish date or the press it is printed on. Find submission guidelines at https://tinyurl.com/SubmitReviewTNBR and other free opportunities by clicking on the round silver icons in the right column.

Most Serious Mistake Authors Make for the Success of Their Books

Preplanning for Jump Starting Your Book with Reviews

 

One of the first badges made for the Third Edition 

of Carolyn’s flagship book in the HowToDoItFrugally Series of 

books for writers. See the whole series at 

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BTXQL27T. 

Dear Subscribers and Visitors:

I still working madly on the second edition of my How to Get Great Book Reviews Frugally and Ethically with Modern History Press. It was time for a new one because getting reviews is so important and because there is so much new in the Wonderful World Wide Web surrounding the publishing industry (yep, four w’s!) to deal with these days. I hoped to have better news for the introduction of its release with this more important aspect of releasing a book that most authors miss out on.  Thus, think of it as a sneak preview with more on this topic to come!  

That book is still needed because using query letters and ARCs before a book’s release is still a mystery to so many. And, of course, reviews are still one of our very most useful (and successful) marketing devices. So please keep it mind! 

So this will be short. It’s something for you to copy-and-paste or bookmark somewhere it won’t get lost. You might also install a likely date on your calendar—at least four months before the expected release date or the book you are working on right now. I know. Appalling. But that’s a conservative estimate of the time your pre-release review campaign needs to  be ready to go before you type in those last three oglethorpes. No, I am not kidding. Here is a little excerpt from that new edition to get you fired up: 

 

My clients and readers hear me talk about preplanning often because human beings so often play the waiting game. It’s no different in the world of getting reviews. Preplanning for your first review-getting campaign is no small thing. It is essential to getting reviews into what I call the supermedia—that’s the media that other media and publishing industry gatekeepers rely on to give them the publishing world’s current news. That’s where you book needs to have a klieg light shining on it get the kind of exposure when and where it is most needed to assure your dream of selling lots of copies, of becoming a bestseller. That early review-getting campaign should include the news of your book’s release along with beautifully written and ethical reviews of your book. 

 

If there was ever harmful information being bandied about in the publishing world, this is it: “To promote your book, especially to get reviews, you should have a book available online or in print for reviewers to actually read,. You needn’t wait to have proof copies or ARCs (advance reader—or reviewer—copies) before you can ask for reviews. Authors who believe these rumors spread by web grapevines will miss their only opportunity to pitch a review to big review journals and to get the most exciting blurbs possible for the backs of their books.

 

The kind of query and ARC you are expected to provide to a reviewer depends on the kind of reviews you are trying to get, of course, but even the most sought-after review journals may accept manuscripts, galleys, or other means as review copies—all covered in detail in my How to Get Great Book Reviews book. It isn’t easy but the exposure you’ll get just as your book is released is well worth pursuing, When I was working as an assistant editor at Hearst’s famous Good Housekeeping Magazine, we started our decision-making for our holiday issue six months in advance and our stories weren’t always current news. That was necessary production time. Our stories that involved authors often had nothing to do with the release of their most current book. We authors need to know this kind of thing to work on our patience-and preplanning quotient!

 

Caution: In this world of ever-growing AI (artificial intelligence), I frequently mention the important decision authors and publishers must make according to their tolerance for risk in any given situation. A real paper copy is considered more plagiarism- and AI-resistant than e-books and that is true for ARCs, too.

 

I hope we’ll talk more about increasing your chances of getting expert reviews and some others (I call them “forever reviews. This is just your heads up that it is almost never too early, but it can be too late —to start working on the review process for your book. The publishing industry isn’t trying to keep it a secret from authors and publishers. It’s just that the system has been around a long time, there is so much new to know, there is so much misinformation out there, and, frankly, (Breathe!)  there are so many newbies just waiting to be taken advantage of.

 

So, next when you get that alert message from your calendar, let’s talk. If the starving authors among you can’t afford to buy my book, let me know by sending an e-mail to me at HoJoNews   @.   AOL    dot.   com with “Carolyn’s #AuthorsHelpingAuthors Project.” 

 

Disclaimer: This isn’t an exact excerpt from the How to Get Great Book Reviews Frugally and Ethically. It has been liberally tweaked so authors and publishers can get information they need to save good books from never getting the great start needed to propel their success and to help build long writing careers.

 

MORE ABOUT CAROLYN

The Image Amazon Makes for Authors with Series--Free!

 

Once a month Carolyn Howard-Johnson shares something writer-related she hopes might save some author from embarrassment (or make the task of writing more fun or creative) here on Karen Cioffi’s #WritersontheMove blog. This is an extra promotion that Karen graciously offered me after the release of the second edition of my How to Get Great Book Reviews Frugally and Ethically.It is part of her multi award-winning #HowToDoItFrugally Series of books for writers from Modern History Press including the third edition of The Frugal Editor . Find them all on Amazon’s new buy-page for series where the e-book versions are all offered with a single click. (The availability—free—of that new page for book series is another of her #FrugalBookPromoterTips she shares regularly on the social network X at www.twitter.com/frugalbookpromo.)

 

Carolyn finds time to blog all things publishing at her SharingwithWriters blog between serving her clients and writing new books.

 

 

 

Getting Ready to Celebrate the Release of My New Book--and Your Next New Book

Carolyn Series Page for her multi award-winning 
HowToGetItFrugally Series o Books for Writers

Getting Ready to Celebrate the 

Release of My NewBook--and Yours

 By Carolyn Howard-Johnson

Excerpt from the soon-to-be released 

How To Get Great Book Reviews Frugally and Ethically, second edition

It seems that doing final edits for a book is a great time for identifying sections in it that might be useful right now and give the readers of Karen Cioffi’s #WritersontheMove blog a head start on releasing books this fall. This section from the second edition of the third full sized book in my HowToGetGreatBookReviewsFrugallyandEthically, is after all about preplanning.  This section from Chapter Thirteen from that soon-to-be released book works because--odiously--pre-planning is a good thing can never really start too early--and the essentials can always be used in a next book, and the next. But it’s never more important than at release time; that’s when we as authors (no matter how or who publishes our books) can do something most authors forget to do  to jump start their book sales. That’s a shame because that what primes is for a chance and some very good stuff--like a chance  at  best-seller stardom! Consider this little piece your “how-to” as well as your inspiration to get started. And please put my Amazon Series page address on your calendar to check out for late fall release. The full series can be found on my Amazon Series page for the now long-lived series of books, HowToDoItFrugally Series for Writers. 

Navigating Pre-Publish Opps and Deadlines

“Writing a book is a little like having a baby. If we authors weren’t optimists, we’d probably never tackle writing a whole book. If we were realists about the time it takes to raise it properly after we’ve typed ‘The End,’ we might stop right there.” ~ CHJ

First-time authors are almost always completely unaware of the secret behind those vital promotion processes  and/or underestimate the importance of the time gap between the time our books or ARCs come rolling off a printing press and appear for sale in bookstores. They have no clue that big publishers actually set their release dates (the date bookstores are given the greenlight to deliver books into the hands of readers) well beyond the time the book comes rolling off their presses.

They do this to accommodate an extended premarketing campaign and to take care of necessary marketing including getting reviews. If authors do know about it, they feel it is somehow dishonest to follow publishers’ universal practices. The supermedia has done us a big favor by demanding those deadlines, and the New York Big Five—our models—have done it for probably more than a century. They aren’t fudging. It’s the way it’s done. The essential time gap before their books are released might look something like this:

 

Example: Your print date may be 04/01 and your release date set for 08/01 or beyond.

 

Gasp! The thing is, we already have too much love put into the project to give up, too much invested not to pay attention to this example set by publishers. The other thing is, we have choices, and what seems like it’s going to be hard can be managed with preplanning. The great news is you already have a head start with that master-list of yours. Though it is a never-ending project it’s ready to use just as it is. Even if we should decide against participating in the supermedia regimen—or learned about it too late—authors need time to do any or all the pre-release essentials.

The traditionally published must know their publisher’s marketing plans in enough detail to support their efforts. We all must resist getting so eager for the release of our book we forego the time between knowing our books are ready and releasing them to the public. We want, need, desire the thrill of being a “published author” whether it’s our first or our tenth. That’s what we came for. But if we don’t wait (and work our fannies off in the meantime!) many of the thrills that go with that achievement won’t materialize. No matter how carefully your book has been crafted, pre-release neglect severely limits a book’s future sales. A few get lucky in spite of it; most don’t. First off, once you get an ARC into a reviewer’s hands reviews aren’t done, done, done. Post this list on your bulletin board: 

§ Review Chapter Eleven, “Getting Your ARCs Ready for Anything,” and remind yourself you will be using them for life of your book. Reviews are forever.

§ Review Section III: “Your Review-Getting Arsenal”

§ Do a search on “blurbs” and “Editing (blurbs)” so your file of blurbs is set up to save you time in your ongoing marketing plan. You are building a career, not selling a book.

§ Check Chapter Four , “”You Blurbs and Getting Past Book Bigotry.” Even if you have the best publisher ever!

§ Reread this Chapter (Thirteen), too. Of course.

§ And keep reading for Amazon essentials in the next chapter. They’re a big part of must-dos before that release date.

Much of your review-getting and turning-reviews-into-blurbs business must happen after you have reviews and before your precious book comes rolling off the press—whatever kind of press you or your publisher uses. Don’t miss any that have appeared on the pages of journals trusted by publishing influentials and in your e-mail from readers.

As described in Chapters Ten and Eleven on ARCS, many of those big publishers use print-on-demand (POD) technology to produce review copies well before the first copies of their offset run come off the press. (It seems POD is an innovation that is too useful for anyone in the publishing industry to ignore!), but both you and they may choose other ARC iterations, too. Here’s the thing: No matter what they do, that time before your book’s release—way before—is time you must navigate. This is not a time to mourn what could have been. Take a sabbatical from anything that might interfere. Enlist help from friends. Sculpt that time using what you knew before and what you know now to realize that goal most of us wish for—surreptitiously or right out loud—to meet our hopes and expectation for our book.

MORE ABOUT THE #WRITERSONTHEMOVE CONTRIBUTOR 

Carolyn Howard-Johnson is the author of the multi award-winning series of HowToDoItFrugally books for writers including the flagship book of that series, USA Book News’ winner, The Frugal Book Promoter  now in its third edition. It was originally written for UCLA Extension's renowned Writers Program where she used it as a text for nearly a decade. She believes using the time before a book’s release is the most productive time for assuring its future. Two of her favorite awards are Woman of the Year in Arts and Entertainment given by members of the California Legislature and “Women Who Make Life Happen,” given by the Pasadena Weekly newspaper. She is also an award-winning poet and novelist and she loves passing along the tricks of the trade she learned from marketing those so-called hard-to-promote genres. Learn more on her website at https://HowToDoItFrugally.com. Let Amazon notify you when she publishes new books (or new editions!) by following her Amazon profile page: https://bit.ly/CarolynsAmznProfile. Her The Frugal Editor is now in its third edition from Modern History Press. Let it help you edit your work-in-process. The third book in the series, How to Get Great Book Reviews Frugally and Ethically will be released this fall.