"Roundheads and Ramblings"
Marketing
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Posted on Friday, November 04, 2011 9:56 AM
 You've heard people say,"The early bird gets the worm." Well, that's fine advice, if you have a taste for worms. But here at Katzenhaus Books, we've observed that while the early bird may get the worm, it's the second mouse who gets the cheese. That's doubly true when it comes to book publishing. The path to publication is studded with traps for the unwary. We're here to help aspiring writers avoid those traps and reach their goals.
 Here's the final guide to topics you'll find in my upcoming book, The Second Mouse Gets the Cheese. You will want any book you write to be as letter-perfect as possible. But if it comes off the press with typos or grammatical errors, the self-published author has no one else to blame. Do you need help with grammar, punctuation, vocabulary? Thinking about hiring a professional editor? Then read chapters 12 through 14:
12. Listen to Your Inner English Teacher Conquering Commas When Do You Use a Hyphen? And Why? Punctuation Marks We Can Do Without Spelling—Cna Ouy Rdea This?
13. Listen to What You Say Don't Let Your Modifiers Dangle One Letter Can Change Everything A Few More Problematic Pairs More Ways To Improve Your Diction Five Words
14. Hire an Editor Choosing an Editor It's the Little Things That Get You
Are You Ever Finished Editing? Editing your Kindle Edition
Once you've written your book, what do you do with it? How do you make sure it is professional in appearance? How do you handle distribution? How do you sell it? Is it possible to make money by self-publishing? Finish up with chapters 15-17:
15. Reject the Get-Rich-Quick Schemes Choosing Your Printing Company Contracting for Other Services
The Challenge of Book Layouts
16. Market, Market, Market Your Elevator Speech A Virtual Launch Party A Virtual Book Tour Press Release: Advertisement or Publicity? The Value of Book Contests
17. Embrace New Technology Why You Must Publish an eBook Kindling a Controversy Give Away $70,000 and Make a Profit Kindle Free Books: The New Public Library The Elusive Amazon Algorithm The Price of Success
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Posted on Thursday, October 20, 2011 8:42 AM
Would you ever consider paying someone $100.00 for the privilege of entering a book contest? Sound like a scam? Well, think again. Book contests can help your marketing efforts in many ways. Granted, $100.00 sounds like a lot of money to someone who is only selling a few books a month, and that amount does not cover the cost of the book itself or your mailing costs, either. But a charge of $100.00 or less is usually a legitimate one. Running a book contest is an expensive proposition. After all, someone has to pay for medals and ribbons, winner’s stickers, websites, postage, ads, and all the other related expenses. By charging relatively small fees, the sponsors of these contests are making it possible to reward many more fledgling authors.
Are you afraid the contest is rigged? If it has been operating for several years, you should be able to find a list of past winners. A legitimate contest should be listed in publications like Writers Markets or on the websites of the sponsoring organizations. By all means, do your homework, and find a contest that appears reputable and designed for writers like yourself. Then read the rules and jump in.
Are you afraid of rejection? Failure is something you might as well get used to if you’ve decided to become a writer. Every one of us could paper a room with our rejection letters. Lots of books just don’t make it. I saw a statistic recently that indicated that out of 1.2 million books published in the past year, only about 3000 of them will ever sell more than 50,000 copies. So welcome to the 99.75% of us who should not quit our day jobs. We all flounder together. A book contest may be just what you need to overcome that fear of failure. Even if you don’t win a thing, you’ll benefit.
You may be surprised to find that the very act of entering a contest makes you feel more confident about your own abilities. After all, you have written a book that meets the qualifications of an organization that awards good writing. You’ve followed guidelines and met a deadline. Best of all, you’ve proved to yourself that you have faith in your own work. That’s important.
If you don’t win, be sure to follow up. Many such contests are willing to provide you with their reviewers’ comments, so that you can learn what it was that they did not like about your book. If you can learn from your first attempt, you’ll have a better shot at future contests. Also take a look at the winners. Read their books or at least excerpts from them, so that you get an idea of what the reviewers liked about them. That’s another lesson learned.
And what if you do win? Even if you get nothing but an honorable mention sticker to put on your book, it will draw attention to your work and perhaps even help you sell more books. Publishers, agents, book sellers, and buyers are all impressed by those shiny little seals. A gold seal makes you stand out from that whole crowd of 1.2 million book authors. Win just one award, at any level, and you can call yourself an award-winning author. Put that on your website, display the seal or your medal everywhere you can, and use the award as a major factor in your marketing efforts.
This past year, I entered two contests — the Pinnacle Book Achievement Awards and the annual Military Writers Society of America Book Awards. Neither contest offered a Pulitzer or a Man Booker prize, but I profited greatly from both. Both contests give awards in many genres and are open to both traditional publishers and self-publishers. Both publish reviews of their book entries, and any self-publisher can use another book review. Remember that getting favorable publicity is a major part of your marketing effort.
Pinnacle Awards, presented by the North American Booksellers Exchange (NABE), come out every three months, but the award seal does not give dates. I won my “Best Historical Fiction” award for Summer 2011, but the seal shows only the award, not the date. The Military Writers Society of America (MWSA) awarded the same book a bronze medal for Biography. Again, the resulting seal shows only the award, not the date or genre. As soon as these contests announced their winners, my book sales began to improve. The NABE award resulted in my book being given a prominent display at two major book trade shows on the west coast. To receive my medal from MWSA, I traveled to their convention, where I met wonderfully congenial and supportive writers. I am much the richer (and not just in cash!) for the experiences these contests have given me. They were well worth the entry fees.
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Posted on Wednesday, October 19, 2011 8:50 AM
You can pay to advertise your book. You have to earn your good publicity. Please keep that distinction in mind when you create a new press release.
An advertising manager works in a newspaper office. His job requires him to fill the empty spaces between the columns and the articles with offers that readers will not be able to refuse. He will accept your ad for your new book happily, provided it is not obscene or offensive to the paper's paid subscribers. He may even help you come up with those key words designed to bring you sales: amazing, must-read, best-selling, award-winning, non-stop action, page-turner. For a "slightly higher" price you can add color, illustrations, quotes, testimonials, exclamation points, stars, banners, everything but the flashing lights and loudspeakers. The fancier your ad, the better he will like it. And the return? Well, there are no guarantees. All he can really offer is the chance to put your name and the title of the book in front of people, in the hope that they will pause on the page long enough to read what your ad says. After that, it is entirely up to your own words to entice the reader to buy what you have for sale.
A newspaper columnist also works in the office. Her job is to fill the spaces between the ads with interesting columns that will make readers stop, read, and remember what she has written. On those days when nothing burns down, no one murders a spouse, and the dog doesn't bite the mailman, the columnist will be on a desperate hunt for eye-catching news. No, she doesn't need a sales pitch, and she probably won't think it is important that you have a book for sale. She's looking for a human interest story, a tale of a struggling writer who finally wins an award, a librarian who makes a history-changing discovery, a visiting scholar with a story to tell, or an expert who has discovered the answer to someone's prayers. If you can couch your press release in those terms, the columnist will not only write your story but tell it in its most appealing format. And the return? Once again, your name and book title appear in the public eye. But now they are bathed in a much more favorable light. A column in a newspaper or magazine or an interview on the local radio station brings you favorable publicity, not advertising.
A good press release has great potential for attracting readers to your book, but it requires several contributions from you. It must be newsworthy. Its details must be clearly and concisely described. More important, it must be formatted correctly so that the columnist sees it as a professional presentation. Here are some suggestions on how to do that formatting, so that everything fits on a single page.
1. At the top of the page, put the words "FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE" in all capital letters. That gives the columnist permission to use the information that follows. Skip a line and give the release date and the city of origin: "July 4, 1776, Philadelphia"
2. Skip another line and write your headline. Keep it short and attention-grabbing. Type it on one line with the first letter of each word capitalized: "Patriots Declare Independence From England."
3. Next comes a summary paragraph of about free to five lines, answering the standard questions " Who, what, where, when, and why."
4. Further details appear in the body of the press release. This is the spot for a plot summary,background information, and over relevant details. Keep this section to two or three paragraphs, each no longer than eight lines and separate the paragraphs with a blank line to make them easier to read. Be sure to write this section in third-person point of view. Imagine that you are the columnist, and see the information through her eyes.
5. End with contact information: the name of the publishing company, their media contact person (who is probably YOU!), a phone number, mailing address, and an e-mail address. A fax number or website may also be useful. Make it as easy as possible for the reader to make contact you and get more information.
6. Close with one of the printing symbols that lets readers know they have reached the end: --30-- or ###
Once you have your press release written, the final task is to get it into as many hands as possible, but make sure that they are the hands of people who will have a legitimate reason to care about your announcement. You'll find many offers from public relations people to handle your press releases and send them out to their standard lists of thousands of publications. Such services are not cheap, but they are all too often worthless. Newspapers, libraries, radio and TV stations, alumni associations, and trade groups are all fair game for press releases, but only if you have some personal connection to them. If you live in Wyoming, a morning talk show on a Georgia TV station will probably not invite you as a guest. If you graduated from the University of Tennessee, the University of Florida does not want to hear of your accomplishments. On the other hand, your local high school or college newspaper may be looking for stories about alumni who have become famous. Your company headquarters may be proud to publicize an employee who has received an honor. Contact every news outlet within a hour or so's drive from your home, and make your availability clear.
Use your writing talent to gain that all-important publicity. It lasts much longer than an ad.
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Carolyn Howard-Johnson: Posted on Saturday, August 27, 2011 2:04 PM
Here are excuses many authors use not to promote, killers all. Each includes advice that
will help a writer salvage his book and career from wrong thinking.
"My book is doing well enough. My career is on an upturn. I can easily take a
year off from promoting to write." Advice: Cut back if you must but slot in some
time to keep the efforts you've already made at least at a simmer.
"I hear everyone is cutting back on promotion so why shouldn't I?"
Advice:
Didn't your mother ever ask you, "If Johnny jumped off a cliff, would you do it,
too?" Look at those authors. If they're selling lots of books, it's because
somebody (their publisher, bookstores, their publicists) is promoting them. I'll
bet, though, that most of the authors saying this aren't selling very many. Look at
your situation. If you don't do it, who will do it for you?
"I like Carolyn's Frugal Book Promoter idea so I'm going to only do things that
cost no money at all."
Advice: Hey! Frugal is one thing. Cheap is another. Some
of the best things you can do cost some money. An example is American
Booksellers Association Advance Access program. Find it at www.bookweb.org.
Careful though. Always weigh the "rightness" of any program for your particular
book.
"I'm going to examine everything I'm doing and only continue what I can prove is
working."
Advice: You may not be able to prove much, if anything. That's not
the way marketing works. Judge how well your entire campaign is going only
after you have given it plenty of time to work. If one thing is working well,
maybe it is because your title or name is being seen elsewhere. Balance your
campaign, yes. Try new things, yes. Cut back on a few only if you must. Keep in
mind that book sales are not necessarily the most valid way to evaluate your
promotion.
"Nothing I've tried works. I'm giving up."
Advice. You may be on the brink. Or
maybe you've been giving up on each aspect of your campaign too early. Any
marketing plan must be many-pronged, frequent and long-term.
"If I cut back on promotion and find my sales slipping, I can always gear up
again."
Advice: Yikes! Good publicity and promotion build. It's like skipping
rocks on a pond. With each stone, ripples wave out, out, out. Eventually, after
you've skipped lots and lots of stones, the results start coming back to you in
waves. If you stop whipping those stones into the water, the results dissipate. It
will take a long time to get enough stones dancing across the water again to
match what you've done and, once you lose momentum, you may never get it
back.
Carolyn Howard-Johnson is the author of The Frugal Book Promoter: How to Do
What Your Publisher Won't, The Frugal Editor: Put Your Best Book Forward to
Avoid Humiliation and Ensure Success and an Amazon Short, "The Great First
Impression Book Proposal: Everything You Need To Know To Sell Your Book in
20 Minutes or Less." Learn more at www.howtodoitfrugally.com.
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Posted on Wednesday, August 17, 2011 9:16 AM
Along with the story of my book sales suddenly going viral goes the question of my reaction to the events. Honestly? I experienced equal parts of excitement, greed, disbelief, and sheer panic. I went into the experiment not really believing anything would happen. And when Smashwords distributed only 41 copies of the book before going dead again, I was sure the whole idea was ridiculous. I checked several times, and found that Amazon had not lowered my price. Meh!
Then I opened my KDP Reports page one day-- and refused to believe what I saw. It was noon on a Tuesday, and it was showing the sale of over 4000 books that day. I remember pointing it out to my husband and saying, "It's a mistake. It has to be. Selling that many books would be disastrous for our income tax." Well, yes and no. The figures were NOT a mistake, but the price was $0.00 -- so no tax problems to worry about.
I got nothing done the rest of the week. I was mesmerized and immobilized by watching the numbers climb. Periodically I took a screen picture of the Kindle Best-sellers list, just so I could prove that it all really happened. About mid-week, I started putting the bestseller figures on my website, figuring that I needed to take advantage of the momentum. Then I took them down again because I didn't want to brag. Then I put them up again -- back and forth, with no idea how to leverage what was happening into a long-term marketing tool.
 Around noon the following Monday, when I was at the top of the bestseller lists, the numbers did a hiccup. No copies distributed for 30 minutes or so. I checked the Amazon listing, and sure enough, the Kindle price was once again $2.99. When sales started again, they were much slower, and those wonderful numbers started to fall. No, they plummeted. Within hours, I had fallen from the top 100 bestsellers on Amazon. So much for fame and fortune.
So what did I learn from the experience?
1. There may be no limits to human greed and no top limit to "enough." When I sold 4,000 copies, I wanted to reach 5,000, then 6,00, then 7,000. When I was # 15 on the Amazon Bestseller list, I wanted a place in the top ten. And when I was #4, I scowled at the first 3 and wondered what it would take to topple them off their perches. (Never mind that the other three were hardback bestsellers on the NYTimes lists and backed by big-name publishing houses, while my little paperback was self-published.) I had never thought of becoming a "bestseller", but once there, I didn't want to give it up.
2. All success is relative (in other words, it's all in your mind!). In May, I was thrilled to sell 8 books in a single week; in August, I was disappointed and discouraged when sales fell from 5,000 a day to 700 a day -- and then from 700 a day to 75 a day. What would have been wild success in May felt like total failure in August. Even now, I'm embarrassed by that reaction.
3. Everything comes with a price. The sudden realization that I had thousands of dollars coming in as royalties meant potential disaster for our family finances. Off we went -- first to a financial advisor to look at what the income changes meant in terms of our overall financial picture -- then to hire an accountant who could take over a suddenly-complicated income tax situation -- and finally to the bank to open a separate business account and apply for a business credit card to keep book money separate from everyday living expenses. Like it or not, I had to quit gloating over my "literary" success and start thinking like a hard-hearted business woman, even if that meant laying out more money to pay for expert assistance.
The changes scared me. They still do. I have long quoted the advice, "Be careful what you wish for." No matter, I was totally unprepared for this, and my initial reactions were not among my finest moments. I hope I've learned enough from the experience to keep from repeating my self-absorption and greediness.
At least now, I am back at work on the new book, finances in better shape than they were a month ago, and able at last to take real satisfaction in knowing that the book has brought reading pleasure to others. Those are important benefits, ones that last longer than book rankings or royalty payments.
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