Author Websites and Author Marilyn Perlyn’s “Biggest and Brightest Light”
August 31st, 2010
By Jennifer S. Wilkov, host of the “Your Book Is Your Hook!” Show on WomensRadio
www.yourbookisyourhook.com
This week on the “Your Book Is Your Hook!” Show, Renee Giroux, author website expert of Stimulating Conversation, will talk with radio personality and host Jennifer S. Wilkov about author website essentials as well as the biggest mistakes authors make when building websites for themselves and their books.
Ms. Giroux will point out what an author needs to prepare when enrolling a website designer and why they can’t just hire one and leave the site to the designer. She’ll also talk about the important distinction of hiring a designer who is knowledgeable about author websites in particular as well as whether an author should make separate websites for themselves and their books or not.
Marilyn Perlyn, renowned multi-award winning author of The Biggest and Brightest Light and an inspirational speaker, will discuss with radio personality and host Jennifer S. Wilkov the evolution of how the experience she had with her 6 year old daughter, Amanda, and Amanda’s empathy for her teacher’s loss of her own daughter changed her life as well as her family’s lives forever and became a beloved storybook about how children really can make a difference in the lives of others. Mrs. Perlyn will also explain why she chose to self-publish the book so it would be a hardcover children’s book, how she got Muhammad Ali to write the foreword for it and how she is using her book as her hook.
Mrs. Perlyn will reveal the incredible impact her young daughter’s experience with empathy has had on others and how it has easily extended beyond her own family to thousands of other children worldwide along with their parents, grandparents and teachers. She’ll also discuss her celebrated OCHO Project which stands for Opportunities for Children to Help Others and how she and her family have found so many ways to make a difference for children across the United States and around the world.
In the Education Corner, host Jennifer S. Wilkov will be talking about the power of your participation when using your book as your hook.
Anatomy of an Author Website
August 31st, 2010
By Guest Blogger, Renee Giroux, Stimulating Conversation
www.Stimulating-Conversation.com
When a website is done correctly it serves it’s owner and readers well. When it is done badly, the results are punishing! There is a whole website dedicated to the area of bad websites, called
WebsitesThatSuck. I should qualify and say that the site does not have to be gorgeous, or flashy, or even clever. All of those things are really nice, but most of all your website needs to have the basic information and structure for media and readers to use your site effectively.
Essential anatomy of an author’s website is:
1. Your name (author’s name) generally used as a logo on all pages. Your name should also be your domain name. This helps with Branding and SEO. Sometimes, when your name is not available you can use something like www.johnsmithauthor.com or www.johnsmithwrites.com. You get the idea. Try not to be too clever. Generally people searching for you will use logic over wit.
2. Navigation is the most essential piece of the website design. Navigation should be straight forward, and easy to understand. You may be very funny or clever, but save that for your content, interviews, and books. People need to clearly, easily, and logically find their way around your site. The navigation needs to begin above the fold, and should not be difficult to locate. Websites that Suck coined the term Mystery Meat Navigation. If you are in any way not clear on navigation, or are just curious if your site uses Mystery Meat Navigation, check out the site.
3. Your Book. I know that seems like an obvious statement, but honestly you would be surprised. You should have an image of your book, and at least one way to buy your book. A ton of online retailers make it very simple. There are even IndieBound booksellers happy to provide you with that service, if you are wanting to promote independent booksellers.
4. About You. People want to know about you. You should have a bio. That is an essential part of your marketing plan anyway, so go ahead reuse that essay you already wrote. Here is where you can be clever and fun. Your readers want to know about you and your personality.
5. Your Image. I am a huge advocate for a professional photo, not a snapshot of you in your kitchen, but a well thought out picture. I have met many authors who either write under a pen name, or who otherwise would rather not have their photo posted for the world. I understand. I have seen many clever alternatives to the photo. One of my favorites is a sketch drawing. A stylized photo would work. Keep in mind, if a major press outlet was doing a story on you, what image would you want them to use to represent you. Having your image on your website, even if only on the media page, helps media outlets promote you.
6. Contact information. Again, I know that this seems obvious, and every website handles contact info a little differently. You can make a contact form easily, even in the free templates, but it is also just fine to have a narrative page. Some authors list the different contact names and info for themselves, their assistant, their agent, their PR rep, and their publisher. If you are not comfortable with listing your email with a ‘mail to’ link attached, then spell it out. (i.e.: renee AT stimulating DASH conversation DOT com. Regardless of how to you present the information, always include your contact information.
7. A link to your publisher. Even if you are self published, people should be able to access that information from your website.
8. A Media Page. You may just be starting out, and not yet have tons of interviews or press to include, but please, expect that you will and leave a place for it on your website. The media page can include links to all your media coverage, information for media to use for interviews, Virtual press kits, your press releases, or optional images if you have them. Anything you would like Oprah’s or Terry Gross’ staff to know when they are researching you for your interview.
9. A Site Map is usually included with most DIY services. Any professional site is going to have the site map done for you, so don’t stress over it too much, but understand that the search engines use the site map, hence it’s importance.
10. Title Tags and Metadata are technical terms for the small details that you don’t realize we use. Title tags, for example, are the titles on the page at the very top of the browser window. For sites that don’t have title tags, generic information renders where the title should be. Another example of metadata populates the small paragraph you read when looking at search engine results. These details seem small, but when they are not included they make a site look unprofessional, and more importantly, they make it very difficult for your site to be found by search engines, and in turn readers and media. Wiki explains, but technically. If you have questions about your site’s metadata, feel free to ask, we can help you identify it, and edit it if needed.
I want to emphasize that regardless of whether you create your own website from a template, use a free blogging platform, a professional web developer, or your brother-in-law, please think through the needs of your site before starting. Try to step back and see your site through the users point of view. Expect press and readers to visit your site to get more information about you.
BONUS INFO on Author Profiles
Now that your website is live it’s time to get your profile on every FREE site for authors. Your name, brand and profile need to appear in all the places where writers and readers gather. The other important factor is that all of these important sites provide your site with a link back, from a high ranking book website. That is one of the basics of gaining high SEO ranking.
The following sites offer authors a FREE service, so take advantage. Get your name out there!
Amazon’s Author Central: Amazon loves books, and books begin with authors. As an author, you are part of a special community at Amazon. At Author Central, you have the opportunity to share the most up-to-date information about yourself and your work with your readers -you can view and edit your bibliography, add a photo and biography to a personal profile, and use a blog to connect with readers.
If you’re an author with a book listed in our catalog, you are eligible to join Author Central. You can use your Amazon.com customer account to get started (or create a new one if needed).
BookTour: Events in BookTour’s database are sent to online calendars and our partner book-friendly sites. Adding your events to BookTour is the quickest way to get them seen by thousands of potential new readers.
Filedby.com: Any author with a book published in the U.S. or Canada can join for free, manage and enhance their pages, promote their books, check for accuracy, provide corrections and much more. The company was started to provide every author with the tools to market successfully on the web.
Goodreads Author Program: Much like MySpace Bands pages, the Goodreads Authors program is a completely free feature designed to help authors reach their target audience — passionate readers. This is the perfect place for new and established authors to promote their books.
The Authors Program is designed for people with published books, or who are in the process of publishing a book. It’s best if your work is on a bookseller’s site like Amazon, but we will accept any author who has published a book. This includes authors from other countries as well as authors who are self-published (such as through Ebooks or services like Lulu). If your book is self-published and is not yet in the Goodreads database, you may manually add it. If you are a writer but have not yet published a book, you may want to check out the writing section of your profile where you can post your writing for others to read and review.
Authors Den: The largest most vibrant free online literary community of authors and readers! Visited by 1,400,000+ readers/mo. Authors: participate and you will reach many readers. Share your bio, books, blog, events, stories, articles, poetry and drive traffic to your other websites.
Librarything: LibraryThing is a great place for authors to connect on a personal level with their readers. If you’re also a LibraryThing member, then become an official LibraryThing Author, and showcase some of your personal books for interested readers. Sign up to participate in an Author Chat.
Use LibraryThing Local to your advantage. Add readings and upcoming talks to the “Events” section on your author page, so readers know where to find you.
Linkedin: is an interconnected network of experienced professionals from around the world, representing 170 industries and 200 countries. You can find, be introduced to, and collaborate with qualified professionals that you need to work with to accomplish your goals.
I can’t say enough about LinkedIn, here are several articles and posts explaining why authors should be here:
- http://michellerafter.wordpress.com/2007/12/07/how-writers-can-use-linkedin/
- http://www.fundsforwriters.com/linkedin.htm
- http://writeitdown.groupsite.com/
- http://www.authortechtips.com/2009/07/4-reasons-why-every-author-should-use-linkedin/
Shelfari: introduces readers to our global community of book lovers and encourages them to share their literary inclinations and passions with peers, friends, and total strangers (for now).
Shelfari is a gathering place for authors, aspiring authors, publishers, and readers, and has many tools and features to help these groups connect with each other in a fun and engaging way. Our mission is to enhance the experience of reading by connecting readers in meaningful conversations about the published word.
Requires you create a “profile” and then request to link your profile with your author page you may have to request that your book be added to their datadase. Their Author Unbound Program allows any member to edit or add to the author’s page.
Barnes & Noble: Meet the Writers: If you’d like to be considered for Meet the Writers, send an email to writers@book.com
A Directory of Authors on Twitter: Authors request their twitter account be added.
BookBuzzr: A portable author website in the form of an embeddable book-widget that’s shareable across multiple social networks. And with book-pages that look and act like pages from a real book. This is a nifty, free widget to add more flair to your virtual presence.
BookTour.com will allow you post your events, and email readers when you are visting their area. You can also post your author profile for free.
Storycasting.com: is a site for members to “cast” their dream cast for their favorite books. <25-30% of readers already do this casting thing in some way, and so all we’re doing is webenabling an existing casual hobby. Even if the author isn’t one of these ‘casual caster’ types, they should know that a significant portion of their readers are, and so it’s worth it, in terms of the reader/author connection, to post a cast of their own and send their fans. It’s a hook, and if you don’t use an available hook (especially when it’s free), you’re just missing out.
- It’s a great source of information to blog about. They can blog about their cast, they can make a blog contest using Storycasting, they can later blog about all their fans’ casts, etc.
- Storycasting.com is starting to engage with the publishers, by this winter you’re going to see publishers using their publicity engine to send readers to the site as part of their launch and genre push.
- Storycasting should be on the list of things every fiction author and publisher does as part of their book promotion process.
Interested authors may email: Holly,author support intern, who will get them and their books set up on the site, and get them an author account so they can cast. Needed are: author, title, synopsis, and cover-art; Storycasting.com can get all that from their website, or from Amazon.
If they don’t have a website or aren’t on Amazon, they need to send that directly (please limit synopsis to ~85 words). Either way, Storycasting.com will put the books in, with the links to Amazon, and a link to their website or blog.
How I Use My Book As My Hook – For Teaching Empathy
August 31st, 2010
By Guest Blogger, Marilyn Perlyn, Author of The Biggest and Brightest Light
www.BiggestandBrightestLight.com
My book is the platform for my career as an author, inspirational speaker, service-learning advisor, character education provider, and creator of a free school service initiative called The OCHO Project: Read for a Need (Opportunities for Children to Help Others). The book has served as an inspiration for children to realize their own potential and power to help those in need. But most importantly, the book demonstrates to children what “empathy” means…what it looks like, feels like, and sounds like…and motivates children to treat another person kindly based upon the understanding of what that person is going through.
Since my book is non-fiction, I was able to find an underserved niche market for my book and market it to that audience. Some books, such as mine, can be marketed to a diverse group of people such as children, parents, grandparents and educators. I discovered that one group to market to was educators because of the book’s message about kindness, caring and empathy. In the last decade, character education in many schools has been mandated by the state. Although it is mandatory, many schools lacked the resources to find materials that teachers can use. By being creative, having a dynamite website and developing free online educational programs, I am able to get educators to purchase the book and have additional materials that enable them to use the book throughout the school year.
I also keep abreast of current events related to my book. For instance, last year the New York Times had an article on the front page about the importance of schools teaching empathy as a prevention to bullying. Bullying is currently a huge problem in our country and we are constantly hearing terrible stories of children that were bullied. Topics such as these provide formats for speaking engagements. This week (July 31, 2010) the New York Times had another article entitled, “The Benefits of Volunteerism, If the Service Is Real.” This article states, “Studies have shown that generally, community service for whatever reason is a good thing. But how it is done and whether it also involves service learning – that is, lessons that discuss homelessness, say, or hunger in a larger context – make a difference.” The OCHO Project is just that, a service-learning project. I try to be creative with marketing tools that are both current and relevant.
My book has become my hook because I have created “a mental model for behavior” that I want my readers to remember. It is my job to do the research to show them that they will be better people for having read my book. My book has taken me on a journey that I never dreamed of. Writing about a real life experience has made my enthusiasm contagious (or so I am told!). Remember, passion sells! It has opened up a whole new world to me and I can only hope that my readers will find the story shared in The Biggest and Brightest Light as inspiring as I have.
The Power of Your Participation When Using Your Book As Your Hook
August 31st, 2010
By Jennifer S. Wilkov, host of the “Your Book Is Your Hook!” Show on WomensRadio
www.yourbookisyourhook.com
As authors and writers, we’re always learning about resources and industry tools that we can use to improve our book project performance and the enjoyment of our writing and marketing experiences. Today let’s talk about the power of participation when making your book your hook.
An author succeeds the most when a team is formed around him or her. Those with a team go farther, it seems, than others. Enrolling experts in areas not so familiar or strong is a common practice for people in all professions and walks of life.
There is a poignant distinction, though, that cannot be denied between hiring someone to delegate a task to and collaborating with a hired helper. Whichever way you choose to support your project, the core component that will determine your success is not related to the people you hire. It hinges on how powerful your own participation is in the process.
When you hire help, experts and assistants require information, direction and a clear understanding of your purpose and goals for your project. Without this, each individual you want to hire could be the top in their field, yet it is next to impossible for them to do their best work for you and your book when they don’t have this essential guidance and input from you, the creator and originator of the work.
It is not about whether or not you have the money to hire an expert to help you, but rather what you prepare and bring forth to the process on your own that counts.
In the interview I did this week with Renee Giroux on the “Your Book Is Your Hook!” Show, Renee talked about how it is not enough for an author to hire her to create and craft an amazing website for them as an author and also for their book. The author must provide input and feedback during the course of its development so that it resonates with the author’s intentions, good feelings about the project and their personal presentation style.
During last week’s show, I had this same conversation with Penny Sansevieri of Author Marketing Experts, who clearly stated that one cannot hire her and her team and then disappear without providing input and direction for their book marketing and publicity activities. They have to be a willing participant in order for the strategies chosen to truly work.
The power of an author’s participation is greater than you think. You must provide the heart, passion and purpose of your project to those you hire to help you get your message out. These are the same qualities and points of information that only YOU can provide to your reading audience who are scattered throughout the general public and want to know why they should read your book.
Without you, your book cannot be your hook because you are needed to put forth the fuel and fire required to make it hook your reader, vendors and collaborators.
People and experts, by our very nature, want to work with someone who is excited about their own project. When the author is psyched up and ready to take their project to greatness, experts line up to get on board with it because the enthusiasm of the author becomes contagious. They want to be a part of it because the project has momentum, joy and excitement wrapped up around it. When the author falls in love with their own project, it’s easy for others to jump right into the love fest and fan the flames of project’s energy and attraction to more people.
But that juice for your project has to stem from you and your vision, purpose and passion for what you wrote about and what you intend to do with it.
Marilyn Perlyn, a mother of a young daughter at the time she experienced the life events that she eventually wrote about in her book, continues today, more than twenty years later, to joyfully promote and praise her book project as her hook for helping children, parents, grandparents and teachers learn how important encouraging empathy in our children really is. She is passionate about her own experience that changed her life and the lives of her whole family. She speaks lovingly of her own transformation caused by the unanticipated response and actions her own daughter took at the moment of someone else’s pain – someone not even related to her yet so much a part of her life – the pain she saw in her first grade teacher when her daughter died as a result of an illness.
Marilyn, as the author, has spoken inspirationally to schoolchildren, community organizations, parents and teachers about the premise of her project and why it’s important to acknowledge and, furthermore, encourage this behavior in our kids. She has been recognized with awards and imparted her perspective to her own children who have also been recognized for their own efforts to make a difference in other’s lives. They have been interviewed on Oprah! and as a family, they have received more than 30 awards including the National Daily Points of Light Award.
Marilyn’s book was published in 2004. Since then she has been a willing participant in every step of the process of writing, publishing and promoting her book. She continues to seek out advice and guidance from experts for how she can further promote her project and expand its message so it can continue to be heard by new audiences. She is an amazing example of the success the author of one story can enjoy. And joy is the right word for Marilyn. Her investment is way more than money. Her investment in her project is love – love for all those who benefit from the message of her book – and she does everything in her power to bring that message home to the hearts of everyone she meets.
When you as an author invest your participation, love and passion into your project, you too will enjoy amazing results from the team of experts you hire to help you and you’ll achieve greater success with using your book as your hook.
For more information on this Education Corner topic and others, please refer to www.YourBookIsYourHook.com/blog for more articles and resources to help you with your books.
When you start seeing your book as your hook for your brand, you’ll find it is so much more than just a book.
Marketing Your Book with Penny Sansevieri & Kimberlie Dykeman’s “Pure Soapbox”
August 23rd, 2010
By Jennifer S. Wilkov, host of the “Your Book Is Your Hook!” Show on WomensRadio
www.yourbookisyourhook.com
This week on the “Your Book Is Your Hook!” Show, Penny Sansevieri, CEO and Founder of Author Marketing Experts, Inc., will talk with radio personality and host Jennifer S. Wilkov about effective book marketing tips and techniques as well as how authors should be using their books as their hook.
Ms Sansevieri will share best practices for marketing your book including where authors should begin, how to best work with the book marketing expert you hire and whether the self-published author really has to work that much harder than a traditionally published author to get the same kind of exposure. An industry expert for more than 10 years, she will also share her perspective of the future of the book publishing industry.
Kimberlie Dykeman, author of Pure Soapbox: A Cleansing Jolt of Perspective, Motivation and Humor, will discuss with radio personality and host Jennifer S. Wilkov the evolution of how her book and brand came about, how she got published, and how she is using her book as her hook.
Spanning the dynamic platform of the SOAPBOX® brand, Ms. Dykeman will talk about her rise in the ranks of two of the most challenging fields: publishing and entertainment. As an on-camera personality, executive producer and international spokesperson as well as a motivation expert, she will reveal not only how her book continues to expand her brand but also how she has engaged and enrolled a well-known charity, LIVESTRONG™, as a beneficiary of her book’s success.
In the Education Corner, host Jennifer S. Wilkov will be talking about using your book as your hook for your brand.
Why (some) Authors Fail
August 23rd, 2010
By Guest Blogger, Penny C. Sansevieri of Author Marketing Experts, Inc.
www.amarketingexpert.com
Sorry for the buzz kill title of this article, but instead of spreading pixie dust as many marketing articles do, I thought I’d take a hard look at the realities of self-defeating behavior and some of the things authors might buy into that will sabotage their careers. Over the years I’ve written a lot of articles on how to be successful, but to be successful you must first learn how to fail up, meaning that you learn from what you did wrong, take full responsibility for it and move on. Lessons in publishing are often costly, both in time and dollars. I don’t presume to tell you that you should avoid making any mistakes, but many of them are avoidable. Here are a few for you to consider.
Not learning enough about the industry
The first piece of this is simple: get to know the market you are in. This is a bit of a dual message because I’m not just speaking of the market you are promoting to: your area of expertise, but also to the publishing industry at large. Who else is publishing in this area? What are they publishing? Is your area of writing hot or a fading trend? These are all good things to know before you jump headlong into your area. Getting to know your market can help you not only avoid expensive errors but also possibly incorporate trends into your book that could help to leverage its success. How to learn about the industry? Read up on it at sites like Publishersmarketplace.com, subscribe to the free or paid newsletter the site offers. This will give you a good sense of what’s selling, who’s buying, what’s being published. Publishers Weekly is another good resource. If you can’t afford a subscription try their online site at publishersweekly.com, or check out your local library to see if they carry any copies. This is a great industry resource.
Not Accepting Feedback
A couple of weeks ago an author who has sat in on a number of my classes, both online and off, asked me numerous times how she could get onto Huffington Post as a blogger. I told her I would try to pursue a Huffpo blogger for her to get feedback on her work. I did this as a favor because, well, she was relentless in her pursuit of this and I had to admire that. So, I finally got a blogger to review her work and the critique came back not so good. In fact it was terrible. I sat on it for a day, wondering if I should share it with her. I finally decided that if she was so relentless about her career, she would be equally relentless about crafting a perfect message, right? Not so much, actually. When I forwarded her the feedback she shot me off an email saying that many other people loved it and that astrologically this was a terrible time to accept feedback so she would dismiss it. Some moon phase or something. I honestly can’t recall. No, I’m not making this up. OK, listen, full confession time here. I have a friend who calls me whenever Mercury is retrograde, “don’t buy anything electronic” she says, and I listen. Well, sometimes. Anyway, point being that I get that we’re all driven by a different drummer, but if someone takes the time to critique your work why would you not try to learn from that? Look, I know not everyone is going to be spot-on with their feedback, but take from it what you can and move on – better yourself, better your writing.
Feedback is a crucial part to any writer’s career. If someone who is more knowledgeable than you about the industry you are in is willing to give you feedback you should listen. Really. In a room of one hundred authors I can pick out the successful ones. You know who they are? They are the ones who aren’t so wrapped up in their egos that they aren’t willing to listen and learn.
Not Surrounding Yourself with Enough Professionals
Let’s face it, your mother and immediate family will love anything you write. These are not the people who will offer you the kind of guidance that will further your career. Yes, they will (and should) love and support you through this work, but you need professionals you trust by your side giving you advice, wisdom, and direction. You don’t need to keep a group of experts on retainer, but you need to know who they are so you can call on them when you need help.
Not Doing Their Research
What would you think of a store owner who opened a yogurt shop in downtown San Diego only to find that five other stores were opening within months of his, one of them a very successful franchise with a huge following? Wouldn’t this make you sort of wonder why on earth this store owner would do that, I mean open a store without doing the proper research? Then why on earth would you launch head first into publishing without knowing your market – I mean the publishing market? So many authors learn the ropes after their book is out, and by then it’s too late. Well, not too late really because you still have a book, but late in the sense that you can’t really do anything about mistakes made and the money it’s gonna cost you. There are a ton of online resources out there. Get to know them, I’ve listed a number of them in this article and there are more, many more. The Internet is abundant with free content. Use it.
Measuring Their Success in Book Sales
Many of you might be shaking your head wondering how I could possibly say this, but it’s true. Book sales, even in the best of economic climates, are sketchy and planning your success or failure around them is a very bad way to market your book. Here’s the reality: exposure = awareness = sales. The more exposure you get, the more awareness there is for the book, the more sales you may get. But this equation takes time and in the midst of this marketing many other really great non-book-sale-related things may happen. An example of this is an author who didn’t really sell a lot of her books as she was marketing, but found that her speaking gigs started to pick up. Each speaking gig netted her about fifty book sales, and because of the market she was in, many of those book sales turned into individual consulting gigs that brought in much more revenue than a single book sale ever could have. Get the picture?
The other reason I say this is because book sales can be tough to calculate, many reporting agencies don’t report sales for three to six months. I know this sounds crazy but it’s part of the reason why publishing is such a tricky business. So, if you’re doing a huge push in December and you look at your statement in January and find that you’ve only sold 3 books, it might be because you’re looking at sales figures from September or October when you weren’t doing any marketing at all.
Still not convinced? Then let me share my own story with you. As of today, Red Hot Internet Publicity has been out since July of 2009. I suspect to date it’s sold 5,000 or fewer copies. Not impressive, is it? Does that number bother me? Not at all. Want to know why? Because out of the copies sold I have probably brought twenty to thirty new authors on board who will likely be authors for life. Also, I got a teaching gig at NYU because someone handed someone at NYU this book and all of a sudden – there you have it. So if I measured my success by book sales, you bet I’d be depressed. Thank God I don’t. Book sales aren’t what drive my success. The same should be true for you. Start measuring your success in other ways and book sales will come. I promise.
Seth Godin aka brilliant marketer addressed this in a recent blog post too: http://bit.ly/9n1Y9v
Not Understanding How New York Publishing Works
We may not like how the corporate publishing model works, we may find fault with it, but to understand it is to understand how the industry works. For example, knowing the publishing seasons and why Fall is the biggest time for New York publishers to launch a book and perhaps the worst time for you to send your book to market if you’ve self-published.
Also, know that that corporate publishers don’t publish to niches, or rarely do, so if you’re publishing to a niche, you may have a real leg up.
As for bookstores, the big six in New York pretty much own most of the shelf space in your local Barnes & Noble, so if you’re vying to get in there, you are going to have to do more than show up with a book in hand and a winning smile. You’re going to have to promote yourself to that local market and gain enough interest for your book that people start asking for it in bookstores.
Understanding the corporate publishing model means knowing and researching your industry and again, not just the industry you are writing for, but the market of publishing in general. Knowing what’s selling, what’s not – who’s buying, who’s closing their doors. Knowledge is power. Arm yourself with it and you’ll have a much more successful campaign.
Playing the Blame Game
If something goes wrong, own it. Unless it’s really not your fault, unless you were taken for a ride somehow, swindled or whatever. Own it. Take responsibility. Here’s an example. Recently an author came up to me after a class I taught and said she’d pitched 200 bloggers and only 5 of them wanted her book. What was wrong with them? Well, maybe it wasn’t the bloggers at all. Bloggers are busy, busier than they’ve ever been so your pitch has to be strong and your book exactly right for the blogger you are pitching. If you’re not getting a lot of pick up on your pitch you might need a new pitch and/or you might need a new set of bloggers. Don’t assume it’s someone else’s fault. Investigate what happened and take a critical look at the results. If you don’t feel you can be objective, hire someone to sift through the data. Assuming success eluded you because of someone else’s lack of interest or follow through might be undermining your campaign and you could be missing out on important data that could really help turn your campaign around.
Believing in the Unbelievable
There are no guarantees. No one can promise book sales, fame, or Oprah. Period. End of story. If someone is promising you these things, run, or if the offer seems too good to be true it likely is. If all else fails ask someone you trust. I get folks asking me all the time about campaigns, programs, and marketing opportunities. Feel free to do the same. Whether you are working with us or not, now or in the future, I will always give you a fair and honest answer. If you’d rather go to someone else, great – but find someone whose opinion you trust and ask before signing on the dotted line.
Success is not about hard work alone, it’s also about making smart, savvy choices and not being blinded by your own ambition, creativity, or ego such that it undermines your work. To be successful you need to be relentless, believe in your work and your mission but you also need to be objective, realistic, and humble. That is a successful mix for any author and in the end, isn’t really about getting the book out there? Focus on what matters. Good luck!
Helpful Resources:
Some great and helpful books:
- Dan Poynter’s Self-Publishing Manual, Volume 2: How to Write, Print and Sell Your Own Book
(ParaPublishing, 2009) Dan Poynter - The Complete Guide to Self-Publishing: Everything You Need to Know to Write, Publish, Promote and Sell Your Own Book
(Writer’s Digest, 2009 or 2010) Marilyn Ross & Sue Collier - Doing Business by the Book: How to Craft a Crowd-Pleasing Book and Attract More Clients and Speaking Engagements Than You Ever Thought Possible
Sophfronia Scott (Advantage Media Group, 2008) - 1001 Ways to Market Your Book
John Kremer (Open Horizons, 2009) - Red Hot Internet Publicity
Penny Sansevieri (Cosimo, 2009) - Get Published Today
Penny Sansevieri (Lulu Publishing, 2010)
Great Publishing Blogs:
Online Video Marketing Initiative: Beginning with the Author Slate
August 23rd, 2010
By Guest BloggerR, Kimberly Dykeman of Soapbox®
www.PureSoapBox.com
Without a doubt, video is the most powerful way to tell a story, capture the imagination, argue a point, entertain and inform your target audiences – made up of individuals who prefer, hands down, to “watch” and “hear” your message and offerings, than read it. In putting a voice and a face to your name, you leverage the repurposable impact of engaging, storytelling video content to retain current audiences, gain new customers, and attract media, partners and sponsors.
PURPOSE:
As an author exploiting video, you have the muscle to transform your presence from average to extraordinary, adding a cosmopolitan layer to your reputation. Ultimately, video…even a simple Author Slate which adds dimension to your identity… can enhance current marketing and branding efforts of your book and name, increase site traffic and lead generation and online visibility and credibility via cutting-edge video communication tools that powerfully deliver the following:
- An authentic introduction to the person behind the book. Putting a voice and face to a name engages a broader audience of consumers.
- A showcase of the author’s presence, voice, mannerisms and ultimate ability to engage with another individual on camera. Adds tangible human element and shows media contacts first-hand the interview capabilities and proper placement of person in radio or TV broadcast.
- Intimate details of his/her biographical background (above and beyond the usual written bio) and his/her writing career, expertise in some industry, topic, etc.
- Breathing life into literature from the outside-in via a free-flow conversation about the book – how it came to be, who it is for, impact it has/will have, etc.
- A multimedia piece used immediately for enhanced media relations and long-term as a repurposable tool for traditional and internet-driven PR, and web.
SUGGESTED FORMATS for an AUTHOR’S SLATE:
- Man-on-the-Street: respond as if you were stopped on the street
- Mock Interview: pretend someone is actually interviewing you!
- Candid Camera: talk as if you don’t know you’re being filmed!
- Mock Oppositional/Smear: act as if this is the worst book in the world and people would be nuts to even investigate!
POINT IS: HAVE FUN WITH IT! Keep it short and sweet…under 3 minutes!
USAGE:
- Press Kits and Electronic Press Kits
- Author website: marquis, media player, etc.
- Company, Publicist/PR Agency, Distributor/Bookseller, Publisher websites
- Social Networking sites
- Pitch Tool for Radio/TV interview invitations, media tours, panel opportunities
- Footage to incorporate into current video reel of speaking engagements
- Reel for Looping at Trade Shows, Speaking Engagements, Conventions
- Add-on Voice-Over introduction to audio book or an add-in mini DVD to book
TIMELESS DISTRIBUTION:
To stand out from your competition, you must cater to the demands of society’s bigger-better-faster, tech-crazed culture and the ever-changing needs of your edutainment-focused consumers. Video is king for the times …to motivate, entertain and educate any audience …through the web and wireless/mobile media devices. Video sharing sites, like Brightcove, Blip, Facebook, Daily Motion, SevenLoad, Tumblr, YouTube, and Vimeo (to name just a handful), are crucial to virally deliver your message indefinitely… to consumers wherever they may roam and to whatever platform they may use!
“Video provides a rich medium designed to drive awareness and engagement, to entertain, and to deliver advertising impressions in a format more targeted, focused and familiar to customers.” – Web Analytics Demystified.com
NET-NET:
Once you’ve “birthed the baby”, you sure as heck want to tell and SHOW the world about it! Video offers authors a truly invaluable boost to their current social networking and online viral marketing efforts. Choose to create a memorable introduction to your new book creative content that provides engaging messaging, perhaps even shock-value, and definitely undeniable emotional viewer response.
TAKE A PEEK AT KIMBERLIE DYKEMAN’S AUTHOR SLATE for “PURE SOAPBOX”:
Using Your Book As Your Hook For Your Brand
August 23rd, 2010
By Jennifer S. Wilkov, host of the “Your Book Is Your Hook!” Show on WomensRadio
www.yourbookisyourhook.com
As authors and writers, we’re always learning about resources and industry tools that we can use to improve our book project performance and the enjoyment of our writing and marketing experiences. Today let’s talk about using your book as your hook to make your brand bigger.
A book can be the genesis of a whole big brand or it can enhance one that’s already established.
Books bring a means of “hooking” your audience and market by providing insight into your business, system, creativity, imagination and ultimately – your brand. Even you!
On the credibility front, there is no question that books create instant credibility for you in your area of expertise. It also gives you the opportunity to be a little bit more transparent and a lot more accessible to your book reading audience. When they read your books, they feel more connected to you and why you do what you do.
Take a look at bigger, more established brands that have used books to tell their branding stories and how they got to be the big brands and businesses they are. Whether they’ve written them themselves or not, the brand benefits as a result of the books:
STARBUCKS – When you do a search in Amazon in just books, there are more than 1,000 results! Everything from The Starbucks Experience: 5 Principles for Turning the Ordinary Into the Extraordinary to Pour Your Heart Into It: How Starbucks Built A Company One Cup At A Time to It’s Not About the Coffee: Leadership Principles From a Life At Starbucks to even Everything But the Coffee: Learning About America from Starbucks and Finding the Next Starbucks: How to Identify and Invest in the Hot Stocks of Tomorrow.
GOOGLE – There are more than 3,000 results alone when you type the word “Google” into Amazon. A company that grew up on the premise that people would use their search engine over others to find what they are looking for on the Internet has turned into so much more. Books include for example
The Google Way: How One Company Is Revolutionizing Management as We Know It; Planet Google: One Company’s Audacious Plan to Organize Everything We Know; The Google Story: For Google’s 10th Birthday; and even What Would Google Do? and Google Speaks: Secrets of the World’s Greatest Billionaire Entrepreneurs, Sergey Brin and Larry Page.
TOYOTA – More than 4,000 results show up for “Toyota” when you search for it in Amazon. Here’s a company in a very different competitive space than a $5 cup of coffee or a free search engine. This is a brand that wants you to spend thousands of dollars on a vehicle that is going to require even more money after you buy it in order to maintain it. Yet books have been used to expand the visibility, credibility and confidence in their products and methods in the marketplace. Some of the books written about Toyota include The Toyota Way; Toyota Kata: Managing People for Improvement, Adaptiveness and Superior Results; Toyota Culture: The Heart and Soul of the Toyota Way and even The Toyota Leaders: An Executive Guide among others.
There are even people who are their own brands who use their books as their hooks. Take a look:
MARTHA STEWART – From cookbooks to craft books to cupcake books to housekeeping and organizational books, not to mention a leadership book or two, Martha Stewart has successfully used her books as her hook to continue to deepen her connection with her loyal following who just can’t wait to find out what secrets she’ll reveal next to improve the lives of her reading and viewing audience. Her brand extends to linens, paints, cooking products and even her own magazine – and her books do too. In fact, Martha has been producing and publishing books around her brand for more than 20 years. Here’s a smattering of them as a tasty sample: Martha Stewart’s Encyclopedia of Sewing and Fabric Crafts: Basic Techniques for Sewing, Applique, Embroidery, Quilting, Dyeing, and Printing, plus 150 Inspired Projects from A to Z; Martha Stewart’s Homekeeping Handbook: The Essential Guide to Caring for Everything in Your Home; Martha Stewart’s Cooking School: Lessons and Recipes for the Home Cook; Martha Stewart’s Hors d’Oeuvres Handbook; Martha Stewart’s Gardening: Month by Month; all these and more topped off by The Martha Rules: 10 Essentials for Achieving Success as You Start, Build, or Manage a Business.
LARRY KING – Since the 1980’s, Larry King has not only been one of the best known faces of CNN, he has also been a prolific writer. Establishing his own brand through his books, he has commented on everything from his own life, health, even his love of baseball as well as what he’s learned from pundits, politicians and Presidents. Here are some samples beginning with one of his earlier books from 1989 entitled Tell It to The King to a more recent book published 20 years later in 2009 entitled My Remarkable Journey. Then there are others before, in between and after these books including Remember Me When I’m Gone: The Rich and Famous Write Their Own Epitaphs and Obituaries; Love Stories of World War II; Powerful Prayers: Conversations on Faith, Hope and The Human Spirit with Today’s Most Provocative People; Anything Goes: What I’ve Learned from Pundits, Politicians and Presidents; Beyond a Reasonable Doubt; Taking On Heart Disease: Famous Personalities Recall How They Triumphed Over the Nation’s #1 Killer and How You Can Too; to even Why I Love Baseball and Daddy Day, Daughter Day, a children’s book he wrote with his daughter, Chaia.
Books have been used to brand people, systems, methods, philosophies and businesses for years.
When you start seeing your book as your hook for your brand, you’ll find it is so much more than just a book.
For more information on this Education Corner topic and others, please refer to www.YourBookIsYourHook.com/blog for more articles and resources to help you with your books.
