That Dirty Word...

Sometimes, as I research sites on the blogosphere for this weekly roundup, a topic just keeps getting highlighted. 

This week it is marketing. 

Everyone seems to be talking about marketing books or ideas in some way or another. 

Marketing is one of those dirty words that authors need to know and understand but would prefer that other people say and do on their behalf.

Now that the author is stuck with having to learn marketing tips, as the publishing industry either ditches their authors or ditches their publicity budget, marketing is becoming a hot topic.

What works?

This week some online gurus had some interesting things to share about this bright, new, shiny, wholesome word.

Michael Hyatt is CEO of Thomas Nelson Publishers and has a popular blog. This week he is looking at How to use FREE as your marketing strategy.

The BookDesigner has started a new series on Book Marketingfor the beginner self publisher. Even if you are not self publishing take a look. You never know where you might find a golden tip to generate more sales.

Ducttapemarketing has posted a podcast interview on their site with David Merman Scott on his new edition of New Rules of Marketing and PR. David’s book changed the landscape of small business marketing when it came out in 2007. His ideas and tools quickly became a bible for small business. So if you are seriously in business, drop by to listen to David.

Tony Eldridge recently reposted his Bookbuzzr link.  This is a nifty piece of code that allows you to put a sample of your book in a book icon with your cover on it on your websites with links to bookseller sites....and it is free.

While you are focussing on the word FREE... a group of dedicated contest lovers have started a Facebook page where they list every free book giveaway contest going. This is an interesting bit of marketing...for authors... bloggers...publishers....  Word of mouth is an incredible force and so is Facebook. They have only been going a couple of days and already they have over 200 people joining in.

The Children’s Writer’s and Illustrators Market Guide 2012 is out this month and Kidlit.com has a free copy to give away...because they contributed a couple of articles. With our exchange rate looking so good it is worth investing in a copy of the Guide. It is the white pages of publishers, agents, and art editors across the US (and their international section is growing every year) for people working in Children’s Publishing. It has great articles and how to tips as well. It is tax deductable and, if you get a free shipping bookseller, so worth the money. ($28 NZ for over 400 pages)

In the hot topics being discussed this week...David Gaughran’sidea of getting translators to translate your ebook/book for a share of theroyalties became a hot topic amongst the translating community as well as the Indie publishing community. Writers and Translators were weighing into the discussion to say how it might work or should work. Lots of interesting comments and examples of how to get your book translated into other languages as publishers get ready for the roll out of Kindle into non English speaking markets later this year.

Publishing Perspectives has focussed their critical eye onthe Gamification of books. If you are scratching your head...Children’s publishing has taken a head start on this with 39 Clues and Pottermore...those poor adult writers...how do you make a game out of your cookbook? Ah ha, read the article to find out...

Mark Coker, the guy behind Smashwords, has uploaded his slideshow keynote from The Central Coast Writers Conference last weekend about Five Big Trends That Will Rock The Future Of Publishing.

Over in the Craft Section,

The Five Elements Of The Riveting First Line. K M Weiland takes a scalpel to the first line and shows you how to craft the layers in. (take some time to trawl around her site too. You Will Be In Awe.)

Over on Craicerplus (My Amplify Page) I have links to articles on...

Links to Free Clip Art

The Agents Side Of The Gay YA Saga

What StartUps Can Teach Publishers....This is a great article looking at crowd sourcing, dynamic pricing...

To Finish,

 A couple of months ago Writer Beware highlighted the questionable behaviour of Publish America...a ‘publishing’ firm who (for a fee) would take your MS to Edinburgh and present it to JK Rowling for comment. Yesterday, Writer Beware has become aware of a new scheme(scam) by this ‘reputable’ company...They can get your Christian Book in front of Christian Booksellers (for a fee.) Read the whole story and BE AWARE that sometimes Marketing (by unscrupulous people) is still a dirty word.

enjoy,

maureen

pic from ablebrains

Quick...It's Thursday...

The day started with the realization that it was Thursday. I’m still on holiday, now in another city from last week. Things are much busier here, more distractions. Then I also realized that I had not touched a computer since I got here.

What was the blog post going to be about? Still being on holiday? How wrinkly a child can get when water sliding? The Tennis on TV?

So a quick look into Twitter…to look for items of interest.

Rachelle has tale of woe about what happens when a publisher has a preconceived notion of a book and before reading it plans the marketing of it.

If you are looking for a chewy article to help you understand new media and how our habits are changing around the web and what it means to you, the author, read this article, The Web Is A Customer Service Medium.

Bookbuzzr is posting a great series of articles about book marketing mistakes. This one is on Tag lines. This is a very good article.

Publishers Weekly has an article up on whether We Have Reached The Tipping Point Where Self Publishing Is Better Than A Book Deal.

Still on this topic….

Richard Curtis has been looking at Whether Authors Make Good Publishers…

Richard and JA Konrath are going head to head over this…go on be a spectator and read the comments on this article. This is probably going to be a big issue of 2011. Publish yourself or stay with the traditional model…..

If you are thinking about book trailers this year here is a YouTube resource list for you.

I'll be back home next week...Keep an eye on Craicerplus (My Amplify Page) for new content.

Off to watch the Tennis....
maureen

Publishing In The Now...

The dramatic rescue today, while the world watched, of the Chilean Miners from their underground prison had all the elements of great story telling. 

First the spine chilling event itself, How can they survive? Four months underground, limited food, psychological pressures and the decision not to tell them how long it would take.... The race to innovate new technology and drill down...The emotional and financial toll on the families. Breakthrough, two months earlier than predicted. Extraction. A new birth....

So how long before the book comes out I wonder? I noticed this week that the book on the Christchurch Earthquake has arrived in shops...that’s just under six weeks. Ah, the speed of publishing, either its a speeding train or a camel train.

This week The New York Times trumpeted that the day of the picture book was over. Parents weren’t buying them and children were encouraged to 'read up'. All over the blogosphere articles were posted refuting this and the sentiments expressed in the article from one misguided blogging book mother that she was forcing her 6 year old boy to ‘read up.’

In my experience (professional teacher, expert in reading,) children, especially boys, go backwards and forwards with their reading strategies and confidence until they are about eleven years old. Picture books can be very challenging reads...I’m thinking some of Graeme Base’s work aimed at twelve year olds...Forcing children to ‘read up’ defeats the purpose of encouraging reading. All you are doing is confirming for the child that reading is hard, a chore, and not worth their while....

Writing the books can be hard, a chore, and is debatable whether it is worth your while...but also like reading, writing can be a joy, a challenge and extremely rewarding.

Michael Hyatt reminds us all of this in an article on his blog about great writing being its own marketing.

Mike Shatzkin looks at the Frankfurt Book Fair, which has just wrapped up, and what we can learn from it...the world is getting smaller and what has happened in the US publishing industry is going to hit the rest of the world, very soon, harder and faster.

Liz Bury of Publishing Perspectives has an article on the Frankfurt Book Fair which looks at publishers use of ebook rights and what it may mean for world wide rights...tricky little lines in your contract that give the writer a bigger slice of the pie if they are sold in different groups.(Commonwealth rights separate from North American rights etc.)

Also looking at contracts is Jeannie Franz Ransom who has an interesting tale to tell about negotiating contracts.

L J Sellers has posted on the Blood Red Pencil blog, a publishers evaluation check list for Manuscript Readers. This is very informative and a handy little guide to look at before you send your master piece off anywhere.

Victoria Mixon has posted some humdinger articles this week...I could have linked to three but then I thought...just send you all to her site...grab a coffee first because I guarantee you won’t want to leave for a while.

Over on Craicerplus (my Amplify Page) I have links to articles on

5 Articles You Should Have Read Over The Summer (or our winter...but you can read them now as a quick 

‘publishing in the now’ 101 course.)

10 Essentials For The Inspired Writers Life. (No surprises I agree with number 1 completely.)

The Infamous New York Times Article

A Screenshot of the Planning Sheet of a Harry Potter Book. This is really good and a good way of visually plotting all the story arcs...

6 Things You Lose When Writing A Novel...very funny piece from the great Tahereh

Salman Rushdie Has Written A Kids Book...( we could all be legit writers now...)

How To Create A Futuristic World...( now I know why I’m doing so much research....)

And if you have got to the bottom and thought 'hey there isn’t any marketing link...' Never fear, Bookbuzzr has a comprehensive list of ten things to think about when you are using the internet to market your book.

enjoy,

maureen

pic...once upon a time this was very now.

Talking Up The Book

This week I have been thinking about book publicity...not because I have a book coming out...although a few friends here have...(general jubilation) but because of the hype of Mockingjay on a lot of the blogs I read. 

The hype in the states is huge. Mockingjay is the third and final book in the Hunger Games trilogy....

The Hunger Games was a sleeper that woke up really quickly after it won critical acclaim. But it was already gathering a huge youth readership through word of mouth.  It is a cracking read...

A couple of days ago I was in a chain book store in the mall that likes to promote itself as the specialist book store and I witnessed two teens come up to the counter and ask for Mockingjay. The store manager was behind the counter and he didn’t know if they had the book or when they might be getting it...so he looked up on the computer and found that the arrival date was uncertain. 

I was slightly gobsmacked and being the interested (nosy)person that I am, I got into conversation with the manager. 

Did you know how huge the arrival of the third book is in the States? Oh really I didn’t think it was that huge.(Did this guy read any industry newsletters?) Well isn’t it interesting that you are getting teens coming in to ask about the book? Yes I’m only on the front desk for a few hours a day and I’ve had four requests from Teens about the book. (well duh isn’t this telling you something?) 

So I asked how many copies of the book they had ordered? Oh 10 do you think I should order more? Yes!  

Ok anytime you have TEENS coming in to talk/ask an adult behind a counter in a BOOKSHOP about a BOOK and you have seen no publicity about the book... wouldn’t it suggest that maybe there should be some investigation...

Basic store publicity (five minutes on the store printer) a sign in the shop window...'Order your copy of Mockingjay now! The cost of a teaspoon full of ink and five minutes could result in big book sales of hardcover books, not to mention street cred with teens... (On Twitter I note today the comments that bookstores have piles of Mockingjay taller than the sales assistants...)   

So how can we effectively market our books?

Bookbuzzr has an interview with Carolyn Howard Johnson about selling your book on Amazon and the best ways of how to do it.

Goodreads has a fascinating in depth article analysing their own statistics to see what media outlet is the best at selling books.

Joanna Penn has an interview with Paul Lonergan on 5 copywriting secrets to selling/publicising your book.

Maureen Crisp has got the kiwi perspective.

I asked long time Book Publicist Kathryn Carmody a few questions about how authors can plan their publicity and promote their forthcoming book. Kathryn very kindly answered the questions and added a few more to think about.

How far in advance should you plan Book Publicity?

Generally speaking, the earlier the better. It's August now and I'm talking with bi-monthly and glossy consumer magazines about November and December titles. The sales reps are selling November titles into bookstores this month too.

What is the most effective thing the Author can do to promote their book?

When you're being interviewed for a media story, remember to request that the book's title be mentioned. It's seems an obvious thing to do but you'd be amazed how often stories run without mentioning that there's a book at all.      

Are different types of publicity more effective than others in terms of book sales?

Because publicity works by referral from sources one trusts, community networks can be every bit as helpful as, for example, an interview with a top-rating radio host. The interview that is published or broadcast nationwide will help your book reach a wider audience faster but it's not unusual for a major interview to come about because a journalist saw a story in a newsletter and decided to follow up.

Timing is a part of the answer to this question too. Media coverage can be coordinated so it coincides with a book's actual availability: its in-store date.   

What publicity tools would be useful for an author to have on hand?          

The book’s media release; an eye-catching author photo (with photographer's credit) and the book's cover image, both as 300DPI JPGs, total file size not larger than 1MG; a corded phone to improve the sound quality of your radio interviews; a website with all the usual things but also a shopping facility that points to your local bookshop and a mailing list that fans can subscribe to, for advance notice of your next book.

Kathryn is a successful freelance publicist who is in demand because of her specialist skills. She is always willing to help and advise writers. She volunteers her time and skills frequently from Spinning Gold to Storylines...and is a valuable member of the (children’s) writing community here in Wellington. (Thanks Kathryn!)

Over on Craicerplus My Amplify page I have links to articles on

Eleven Beloved Children’s Books With Seriously Dubious Lessons

Seth Godin To No Longer Publish Books Traditionally

How to submit your book to Penguin without an Agent (this is a helpful article if you want to take advantage of Penguin UK opening their email to unsolicited submissions)

13 Writing Rules To Live By- (Tahereh is a genius so say I)

12 Deep Thoughts From Chip MacGregors Mail Box

Character Names To Avoid

I’ll leave you with the book trailer for Mockingjay....

enjoy

maureen

Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins (The Final book of the Hunger
Uploaded by expandedbooks. - Classic TV and last night's shows, online.