C h a z z W r i t e s . c o m

See all my books at AllThatChazz.com.

08/30/2011 • 10:57 PM 5

TOP 10: People (who are not fans)

Old marketing decreed:

Get everybody! Your sales quota must include all sentient species with a credit card in the known universe!

New world marketing responds:

Nope. Establish a base of just a bunch.

But the bunch has to be rabid and slavering for your next masterpiece, book, song, film, poem, service, comic, or sex toy.

In short, you need fans (as in fanatics.)

For self-publishers, everybody in your fan base starts out as a reader, but they won’t all join you on your journey and buy in to your revolution. A lot of people can’t even be bothered to cross the street to spit on you. Something I learned a long time ago was that I am not everyone’s cup of pee. (Note to non-fans: that’s a joke and a point, not a typo.) I learned that to build successful businesses or loving followings, I had to focus on the people who appreciate me and ignore the rest. Oddly, everyone knows the 80-20 Rule, but how many apply it to their lives?

Critics will sap you of time and energy if you pay them too much attention. A fellow writer got one bad review recently. All his reviews were overwhelmingly positive except for that one. That burned like a cigarette in the eye. That’s the key to understanding the dark side of Internet marketing. Yes, you can spread the word faster about a good thing. However, negative reviews can get a lot of attention, too, mostly from the author who serves as the critic’s target. In fact, several authors have observed a bandwagon effect among some reviewers and book bloggers. One bad review can lead to more bad reviews. Ironically, as Reena Jacobs observed recently, it may be worse not to be reviewed at all than to receive negative reviews. If readers love or hate your book, at least you’ve spurred a reaction. If you ignite no fire at all, that may be a bad sign.

Here’s what to keep in mind when you read something negative about your work:

1. People (who are not fans) are nastier on the net than they would ever dare in person. They aren’t talking to you as a person with feelings and aspirations. They’re having a conversation in their heads with the idiot they imagine you are. Cyberspace allows distance, anonymity and depersonalization. Your nice neighbour, that little old lady who gets your mail for you while you’re on vacation and bakes cookies at Christmas? If her favorite author kills off a regular series character, the old dear’s mind can curdle into that of a serial killer when she writes an Amazon review.

2. People (who are not fans) mistake your work for you and judge you along with the work. If one of your books, blog posts, comics etc.,… is not as good as the others (and inevitably that will be so) critics will make assumptions about you and your mental state. Don’t you mistake all of your work for you though. They’ll make it personal, but don’t fall for that trap. Unfortunately, because we wrap up the author’s persona with his or her book to sell it, we foster an absurd inseparability in people’s minds. For instance, when Deepak Chopra was on the road selling a natural health book and had the temerity to drink coffee (OH-MY-STARS-AND-GARTERS!) a reader tried to shame him for it. That little old lady was pissed.

3. People (who are not fans) are more likely to write something negative than positive. Look at all those letters to the editor in the newspaper. Not so many saying, “Good job!” are there? Now think of the five best books you’ve ever read. Go to Amazon. See those negative reviews of the books that changed your life? Are you starting to see the weight you should give negative reviews yet? This is a subjective business. Repeat that until it sinks in. (I’m still repeating it, too.)

4. People (who are not fans) say things for their own reasons that don’t necessarily have anything to do with you. Maybe they made a bad day and want to export it. Maybe junior high was tough and the Internet is where they get even with strangers. Review the beginning of the movie Wanted. Remember the “I’d feel sorry for you if you weren’t such a bitch, Janet” speech? Repeat as necessary. (If you’ve ever worked in a cubicle farm, that scene alone will make you leap off the couch and spill your Cheetos all over the floor.)

5. Maybe you gave the person (who is not a fan) a negative review and it’s payback time. Yes, this happens. Maybe you friended them on Facebook, but you weren’t fast enough about getting that friend confirmation done and they took offence. Who knows? Everyone take everything personally because we are all the stars of our own movies. This has nothing to do with your work, but your work gives an opportunity for nasty people to say something shitty. Some authors don’t read reviews at all because, they argue, “If I believe the good ones, I’d have to believe the bad ones, too.” These are very mature people I can’t relate to. I don’t personally know anyone with that much self-control. I envy their sagacity.

6. Negative reviews are easier to write than positive reviews. Snark is easy. Snark is even funny sometimes, but mean’s no good. And if you’re going to be at all mean, you better be twice as smart as you are mean. For instance, I enjoy listening to Slate’s Culture Gabfest podcast….but sometimes I wonder, “Do these people ever like anything?” People (who are not fans) enjoy being clever at your expense. That does not necessarily equal constructive criticism. Maybe it’s just bitchy. Or stupid or wrong. Or all three. In this part of the equation, it’s not about you or your work. It’s that some people’s only creative outlet is criticism. Some fleas think they are driving the dog.

7. People (who are not fans) hope you’ll fail so they can feel better about their failures…or that they failed to try at all. Doing nothing at all is a great way to avoid criticism. Except for that pesky self-loathing and the long darkness before dawn when the demons come to torture your dreams and stifle your soul’s breath. (Yes, I’m saying that being a loser is like sleep apnea and all the implied dangers of heart disease but without the medical attention and sympathy from friends and family.)

8. People (who are not fans) don’t have enough going on in their lives, but they’ve got lots of time to focus on you. Otherwise, why the hyperbole about how bad your book is? I love books, but it’s just a book review, not the Nuremberg trial. The way some reviewers go on, you’d think trying and failing to entertain or educate or pass the time was a hanging offence. Another friend got a bad review recently. The ebook she gave out was free. The level of criticism did not match the critic’s financial and emotional investment. This author was wise enough to ignore the naysayer because she knew the guy wasn’t in her fan base and never would be. So what? There are plenty of readers out there to be converted to your peculiar brand of evil jocularity.

9. People (who are not fans) may be right. Maybe you do suck. But you can’t think that and succeed. You can only try to do better. Forgive yourself. You are a work in progress. “Books are never finished,” Oscar Wilde said. “they are merely abandoned.” Only listen to the people you trust. There are too many variables in the skulls of strangers who are not your fans. Write to please yourself first and don’t listen to input from writers too much. To write is to do your thing. That’s one reason so many people keep writing despite insufficient recompense, Carpal Tunnel Syndrome and their parents’ bitter disappointment. (On the other hand, if every review is negative except the one from Mom, rethink.)

10. People (who are not fans) can be fickle. Tim Ferris, author of The 4 Hour Body, observed that a fan base has two extremes. At the top are the people who will follow you down the mouth of a cannon. At the bottom are haters who want to fire you out of said cannon. Ferris feels that the people at the extremes can switch places. Do something too different and some former fanatics will resist the new direction and even become haters. Be unexpectedly nice to your enemies and a few may come around to decide you are a worthy human being after all.

Or you could say “Screw ’em!”,

focus on the people who do get you

and move along briskly.

If you read all the way to here and hated the post, why did you read this far? It was too long a post for that nonsense. I will never understand that about haters. Don’t they have shit to do?

If you loved this post and it came at just the right time and you couldn’t have done without it…thank you. I love you for a selfish and stupid reason: You love something I wrote.

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Filed under: publishing, Rant, Rejection, reviews, self-publishing, web reviews, Writers, writing tips, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

08/26/2011 • 9:57 PM 1

Update: The choice to go indie

A friend had heard a rumour that I was quitting my part-time job to go full-time as a writer and self-publisher. “What’s this I hear?” he said. He didn’t sound impressed with my chutzpah.

I explained my plans and he crossed his arms. “That’s an…interesting choice.”

I mimicked him and made a joke out of it, but clearly, he’s worried about me. Then he mentioned that a relative, after years of writing short stories and playing the submit/reject/resubmit game, just got a publishing deal with a traditional publisher for his first novel.

“That’s great!” I said. “When does his book come out?”

“Not for another year or so.”

And there it is. I’m truly happy for him (I am!) but by the time he has his first novel out, I’ll have at least six ebooks for sale. There are trade-offs, but this is a great time to be a writer who has a problem with authority.

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08/21/2011 • 1:03 PM 6

Writers: Not everyone will love us. I’m okay with that.

AllgemeineGesichts-Hals massage

Image via Wikipedia

I’m a couple of months away from writing and publishing full-time now. After 18 years as a massage therapist, I’m seeing an unflattering commonality between professions. Writers and massage therapists both seem to want respect desperately. And that’s the problem.

As I move into writing full-time, I see some of the same mistakes among the self-published that I witnessed in my (soon-to-be-former) occupation. Massage therapists want respect so badly they often give up their power to other health care practitioners and bureaucrats . That’s not how to gain respect. They should get respect by doing great things rather than trying to regulate to the lowest common denominator. (But that’s another rant about having a shred of dignity for another time and place.)

As writers seeking respect, we must give respect, but not require it of others artificially. Instead of respect, I suggest we seek out a readership.Respect must arise organically from circumstance and accomplishment. We have to do what we do well. That is all that’s needed. There’s a lot to that process, of course. Writing well, editing well, proofing well, formatting well, publishing with as few mistakes as possible…makes the head spin, doesn’t it? Most of all, tell a good story that keeps readers engaged. Sell a lot of books. Ultimately, sales will really get the attention of naysayers (and then they’ll really get cranky with you!)

Until then, self-published authors are called wannabes, amateurs, pretenders, unvetted, unproven, and unserious hobbyists.

Don’t worry about that.

You can mount a number of logical, fiscally sound arguments worthy of Joe Konrath, but until you deliver on the numbers, you’re just another “one of those.”

Sales figures aren’t subjective.

In my crotchety opinion, the best thing self-published authors can do is stay the course and ignore naysayers. Don’t even try to convince them. Let your success with readers be your argument. You know why, right? Because some publishers and critics and traditionally published authors don’t want to concede anything. They don’t want to give what you’re doing any respect. They fear change. They don’t want to like you. Maybe that will come later. (I’m not saying all critics and legacy authors want to dislike you, of course. However, the naysayers are loud and already get too much attention. They can hurt your feelings and sap your motivation if you give them your energy.)

You know who does want to like what you do? People who like stories. Readers. Readers and writers are not the same group. Readers differ from writers in number, grammar fetish, decibels, expertise, enjoyment and predisposition. Readers want to like your story and they want to like you. Cater to the right audience and maybe someday the naysayers will come around. If they don’t, either you didn’t do a good job or they are very determined snobs. If it’s the former, improve and carry on. If it’s the latter, screw ’em. Not everybody has to love you.

Wanting love without needing it from just any bonehead?

That’s the beginning of self-respect.

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08/16/2011 • 9:49 PM 9

Book trailers: Problems and solutions

1. Book trailers are often done poorly. You’re a writer so you probably aren’t bubbling over with a ton of film skills. You could learn, but how many hats can you wear and is this really where you want to put your energy?

2. To make a book trailer well costs time and energy. Oh, and some money, though smart and funny buys more eyes than money. (Want to see examples of cheap videos that work and get eyeballs? Go to YouTube and search Nigahiga and Ray William Johnson, or click this Harry Potter parody brilliance or this crazy Michael Buble/Dexter parody. These guys go longer than a minute, yes, but they deserve it. You probably don’t.) If you still want a book trailer, don’t spend a whack on it. Try not to spend anything at all because it probably won’t work at all. Really.

3. Book trailers can make an author feel great, but readers aren’t necessarily watchers. Love of one medium doesn’t translate to another.

4. The main problem with book trailers is that almost all of them are way too long! It’s an ad. A thirty-second commercial is plenty. Most seem to clock in at over a minute or more and that’s the wrong way to go. How often do you enjoy a long advertisement?

If you did spend a whack of money and saw no return on your investment, at least making a book trailer is fun. You had fun, right? Geez, I hope so.

Unless…How can you turn that frown upside down and twist the book trailer problem around?

You could make your next book trailer a contest among your readers (and potential readers.)

This turns the work over to budding film students and enthusiastic fans. While you were writing your short stories, they were dreaming of buying a new lens for two-shots and becoming the next Tarantino.

1. Turn an advertising problem into a challenge for your readership. Give a couple of months of lead time before the contest closes.

2. Come up with a prize that will motivate your people.

3. Be sure to give them all the information they need to sell the book and make a little movie. Every director gets a free copy or a good-sized sample. The trailer should intrigue, excite and sell without spoiling.

4. Ask the contestants to make their trailer, put it on YouTube and then everyone will vote to decide which book trailer is the winner.

One book trailer is chosen, but they are all up on YouTube.

You don’t just have one book trailer working for you. You have a bunch out there.

I’m still not convinced that you’ll sell a lot of books with book trailers per se. If it adds to your web presence, however, people could be more aware of your existence than they would otherwise be. So don’t make one book trailer that’s perfect and expensive. Have a bunch of them out there that are less than perfect…and still get one you love.

It’s a great way to engage your readership, spread the word and get help.

You can’t do it all. Well…maybe you can, you genius you.

But you don’t have to. Also, it sounds like fun, doesn’t it?

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07/24/2011 • 3:26 PM 9

Self-publishing: The Couch Change Economy vs. The Great Personality Argument

How does a guy go from getting paid $85 an hour to taking the risk of self-publishing? It’s not such a big leap.

Last night, on impulse, I bought a little tub of Heavenly Hash ice cream for $1.99. 

That explains everything, huh? Okay. Let’s go deeper:

When a new tax hike hit my province last July, my business changed. I’ve been a massage therapist for 18 years. I have great clients I care about and not just a few who care about me. To accommodate the new tax, my hourly rate went up to $85 per hour. A bunch of my clients took it in stride, but several just couldn’t afford to come in for treatment as often. I live in a lovely, but economically depressed area. Since I work as a part-time therapist and that fee is before tax, $85 an hour isn’t quite as great as it sounds. When I did my taxes, the numbers confirmed what I suspected: I like my work, but it wasn’t paying. I needed to change something if I was going to have anything left over at the end of the month. I could go back to working out of clinics full-bore and full-time and make “real” money or I could explore other options.

Then I thought, “You know, I don’t have that much to lose now.”

That’s the “A-ha” moment. I believe in my writing and marketing savvy. It was time to bet on that and switch to writing full-time. This wasn’t coming out of nowhere. I’d held several positions in traditional book publishing and trained and worked as  a journalist. As a freelance editor, columnist, features and speech writer, my writing income rose to become a healthy chunk of my overall income. Last year I spent more time working on writing and editing than I did in health care.

Also—and this is crucial—I had five novels in my drawer ready to edit and bring to fruition.

Many authors propose books and only start to write them after they get someone to ask them to do so. (That’s a smart way to do it, by the way, but it’s not the only way.) I had opportunities to go that route. However, I had  no interest in doing so. I have a strong streak of I-want-to-do-it-my-way (which doesn’t always serve me best but, for me, that’s the only way it’s going to happen and sustain.) I hadn’t sent out any manuscripts at all! As soon as I completed one book, I rushed on to the next, giddy and getting high off the writing. Writing is always way more fun than chasing agents and editors. It’s an odd kind of procrastination, staying busy kneading dough but never actually finishing a loaf of bread so you can eat it.  I helped several authors get their books published, but was in no hurry to bring my own out into the world. I was waiting for something and that something was me.

This week, I finally caught up to me. I finished the last manuscript I needed to get written before I could move forward with my grand plans to go full-time as a writer. (More on my complex marketing plans in another post, another time.)

Soon I will jump into what I call the Couch Change Economy.  You could call it the iTunes Purchasing Model or more simply, impulse buying.

That Heavenly Hash ice cream I bought? It was a stab of nostalgia that did it. I grew up in Nova Scotia. In the summer my parents would sometimes take me to the shore in the evening to cool off and watch the sunset. An old clapboard ice cream shop with poor posture  leaned into stiff Atlantic winds just 100 feet from relentless ocean waves. That was the only place I ever ate a waffle cone with two scoops of Heavenly Hash. If the tub had been priced higher, I wouldn’t have picked it up and put it in my shopping basket. I haven’t tasted it yet. I may not even finish it all. But for $1.99, it’s a cheap indulgence that reminds me of a good time with a dead mom.

When a book is cheap, no one minds taking a chance on an author they don’t know if the book sounds like it might interest them. If you don’t like a cheap ebook, you aren’t going to lose sleep over the equivalent of the sum of coins you can find in your couch.

How low that ebook price must be is the subject of many passionate discussions. 

John Locke says 99 cents (and a marketing strategy) made him a million-book seller. 

Joe Konrath has run the numbers and says $2.99 is the “sweet spot.” 

Others object that these prices devalue the work and no author who believes in their writing should charge so little. While I understand where they’re coming from, that sounds suspiciously like The Great Personality Argument. You can have a great personality, but if you don’t arrive at the party smiling, freshly scrubbed, with your hair combed, few people will approach you to discover how smart and funny you are. In short, couch change pricing sells more books than pricing on arbitrary values the author holds for his work. An author can believe in their work all they want (and they should) but for the sale, what matters is how much the buyer values the work. Your ideal readers may never discover how great your book is unless you make the package very attractive at low to no risk. Pricing at couch change levels is the No-pressure, Get-to-know-you price.

As debt ceiling negotiations rage in the United States and nervous stock market investors watch in horror as economies go off the rails, this is an excellent time to be working in a non-premium market. Low-priced items are low risk. Low-priced items sell at higher volume. (And a massage therapist doesn’t ever work in high volume.) I’m optimistic—which doesn’t come easy for me—that this is the year to make the jump if I ever will. And so I’ve begun informing my patients that I’m wrapping up my practice. Self-publishing suits the kind of hairpin I am and the math makes sense to me, if not to everyone.

Most important, writing full-time is my unfulfilled dream. I don’t believe in heaven or reincarnation, so I get one shot at making my heaven here and now.

A client (who isn’t mean but does have sarcastic streak) asked, “So when do the millions start rolling in?”

“I may never make millions,” I said. “It’s quite a loss compared to the billions I make as a massage therapist.”

We both laughed because the working poor are, considering all the challenges we face, surprisingly good-natured.

But I think things will work out. I believe in my books. I’m willing to price my work low enough that readers will find me, take a chance on something fun and quirky, new and different. Over time, I believe they will believe in me, too.

And last, consider this:

I’ve written books for years, very happily, giving no thought to getting paid at all.

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Filed under: authors, Publicity & Promotion, publishing, Rant, self-publishing, , , , ,

07/04/2011 • 1:14 AM 4

Book Reviews: A Very Decent Proposal

The magnificent Kim Nayyer sent me a very interesting idea

that the self-published among you might just love.

“Magnificent?” you say, skeptically.

Me? I don’t say anything. Instead I whap you on the nose with Kim’s rolled up bio: Peter Parker and Marian the librarian’s love child. Selects and edits creative non-fiction submissions to Victoria’s Island Writer magazine. Writes book reviews, mainly of children’s literature and adult legal texts, to the extent those genres are distinct. News and information junkie. Proved her good citizenship by writing a blog for Canada’s public broadcaster during the recent Canadian federal election. Her website is http://www.kimnayyer.com.

Here’s the email Kim sent:

What a coincidence that I spotted your video book review today (nice!). Coincidence because a couple of days ago I was going to suggest to you a book review corner on your site, a corner restricted to reviews of self-published or e-only or e-first books, something along those lines to give a platform to the non-traditional market.

Recently a twitter contact  asked me whether I was able to review his book. I checked with a couple of my outlets. One only does Canadian books (and the guy’s in Portland) and the other only does pre-release publishing house books (and he’s self-published and the book came out earlier this year).I thought of you and your forthcoming books, and I thought of a couple of local self-published authors I know and how hard one of them works to sell her book.

My idea is not that you do all the reviews yourself (unless you want to, say in videos), but that you get a roster of a handful of decent writers/vloggers, perhaps other self-published authors, to do them as guest posts or to commit to doing one or two a year each, or perhaps in exchange for reviews of their books. The authors of course would send you or the reviewer free review copies of their books.  

Think it’s workable?

I love that idea! How about it, self-published party people?

If you’re a self-published author and want:

1. Your book to be reviewed, and

2. to review a couple of books a year

then, 3. Email Chazz at expartepress@gmail.com with:

your name, book title, genre, book length and what genres interest you for writing book reviews. I shall attempt to match up the compatible submissions and we’ll take it from there. Also, if you have suggestions, let me know. I do love the idea. I just haven’t thought much about what the protocol should be.

The self-published can support each other. As it stands, The System and The Man wants to keep you down. Let’s subvert The System, kick The Man in the crotch and spread the word about our books.

Yes, Kim the Magnificent. I think it’s workable!

GO INDIE! 

Filed under: authors, reviews, self-publishing, web reviews, Writers, , , , , , , , ,

06/16/2011 • 1:05 AM 22

6 Effective Ways to Promote Your Book

ReunionToday’s guest post is from the author of Reunion, Jeff Bennington! I forget how I ran across Jeff, though it could have been a lot of places since Jeff is a powerful experimenter in the realm of book promotion. His site is The Writing Bomb. He’s also blogged here before on CreateSpace versus Lightning Source–a very popular post, and for good reason: Jeff’s generous with what he learns. Here’s what he picked up from his book campaigns:

In the world of publishing, authors have found many ways to promote their work ranging from book signings with a 3-piece orchestra to dressing up like their characters. After publishing two novels, I’ve tried some of those crazy stunts, but from my experience, there are a few affordable and effective ways to promote your book online that won’t leave you looking like Barney the dinosaur. In fact, online marketing has been touted, and likely is, the best way for an author to promote his or her work.

However, authors have to approach marketing differently based on their genre and subject matter. And let’s be clear, when you promote your book, you can’t always expect immediate gratification and you’re not guaranteed sales. Your premise will drive readers to read a sample and the excerpt will determine your sales. And so, the quality of your writing is ultimately the best sales pitch.

The best promotion for me has come from the following:

#1 Goodreads.com: Goodreads “giveaways” are an incredible tool to publicize your book. I recently posted Reunion in a giveaway and had 787 bites in 5 days, beating out bestsellers that have been on the list for months.

HINT: Don’t post more than one book to give away and do it in one-week spurts. You’ll have to trust me on this.

I also like what my ad on Goodreads is doing. The thing with Goodreads is not how many clicks or sales you get, but how many folks “add” your book to their “to be read” list. When they do that, they are more or less planning on buying your book when they get to it, and they will, because most readers on Goodreads are avid readers and love talking about what they read, so they will also rate and review your book, which is another benefit of that site.

Another secret here is that if you spend X amount of dollars on an ad, you will likely get a lot more “adds” than clicks, which is good because it is a pay-per-click system. But if folks add your book without clicking on the ad then you have effectively extended the life of your ad immeasurably.

#2 Blog: If you don’t have a blog or you’re afraid of starting one or you think it’s too much

Jeff_Bennington

Jeff Bennington

work, then plan on writing your book solely for your mother to enjoy because blogging is only the beginning of what it takes to market your book…and it’s the easiest. It’ll only get harder and more expensive from there.

#3 Kindlenation.com: This is a very good site but you’ll have to plan months in advance to run an ad. It will definitely make your money back and more because they have a lot of readers who buy what they advertise. Programs run from $119 to $349. Kindle Nation reaches from 7,500 to 15,000+ opt-in readers. I paid $99 for an ad that ran in mid May and sold over 200 copies that day. So if you make $2 or $3 a book and spend $119…do the math.

#4 Twitter, Facebook, email lists: These are the most obvious and basic starting points. I’ll put it this way, I got all four of my book blurbs through Twitter connections, two of which are bestselling authors. If you can get that elsewhere, go for it. Basically, you have to tell your social marketing pals about your book.

And, this is important, you have to share their work too.

If you blast your friends and followers with your personal spam, they will retweet and share less and less the more you do it. Share what they are doing and chat with them and you’ll notice a marked difference in how receptive they are to spreading the word about your book. I’ve experimented with this and I can tell you without a shadow of doubt that cross promotion helps.

Strict self-promotion hurts.

However, I have found that tweeting short blurbs, such as “A Riveting and Incredibly Powerful Story of Pain and Triumph!” grabs reader’s attention more than, “Check out my new book, REUNION”. Try both methods and see which works better. Be sure to include a “tiny url” to allow room for your #tags.

HINT: Use the twitter share button on the right side of your Amazon sales page. It has the shortest “tiny url” I’ve seen yet.

#5 Ereadernewstoday.com: I’m on the schedule, so I don’t know for sure, but I’ve heard that Ereadernewstoday.com is a good site to advertise on. This program is $25 a day. Emails will reach about 10,000 book readers through opted-in email blasts.

#6 Blog Tour: Plan for a lot of work. It can be nearly free, but will be the most time consuming. However, if your book sucks, I think a blog tour can backfire. I’m just sayin’.

If you go this route, you better get your book professionally edited and proofed and have a great cover and good formatting because that’s what book bloggers and reviewers expect.

Basically, when it comes to promoting your book. You better make sure it is a damn good book or you’ll have a 7-digit Amazon ranking within a month. I know. I’ve seen it. But don’t get overwhelmed. I’m a newer author and I’m not breaking any records, but I believe these six methods of promotion will help you tremendously, especially if you are in the process of building your platform as I am.

Thanks for reading. What methods have you used to promote your book? How did it turn out? Let me know.

Jeff Bennington, author of REUNION & other thrillers

CLICK THE COVER TO BUY REUNION NOW:

Reunion

And here are more of Jeff’s links:

The Rumblin’ 

Killing the Giants

The Writing Bomb 

www.jeffbennington.com

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Filed under: Books, Guest blog post, Publicity & Promotion, Writers, , , , , , , , , , ,

06/02/2011 • 3:29 AM 0

Book promotion: I was wrong

I used to be a book publicist and, as a book sales rep, have worked with book publicists. Gotta say: not impressed with the breed. Most have a shiny coat, bark loudly, no teeth. I expected a lot of them. I don’t think I was wrong then, but now that the tech and culture have changed, I realize I’ve expected too much from publishers and their publicists.

In the old days, publicists organized events, book tours, mailed out advanced reading copies (ARCs) and hoped for reviews. The publicists I knew were pretty smug and full of themselves, especially considering how frequently they were unsuccessful.

The other wrinkle in the mix from an author’s point of view is, if you’re with a trad publisher, the publicity department has little time to get attention to any one book or author. The other continual complaint is, besides the small media/promotion window, most of the promotion budget always goes to the author who seems to need it least. That’s the publisher trying to maximize profits (rather than pimping a mid-list author.)

The world has changed and authors need to shift expectations: Publishers don’t publicize your book much and mostly download marketing duties to the author. That annoyed me. Now I think that’s the way it should be.

My reasoning is that the author/reader relationship has changed. Readers don’t want to interact with your publisher. They want to interact with you. Who cares about publishers. With the exception of Harlequin—the one company where you always know what you’re going to get—publishers don’t have brands. Authors have brands.

Old model:

Send stuff out (press releases, ARCs, bookmarks, catalogs, book tours) hoping media will bite.

New model:

Engage readers directly with Twitter conversations, blogger reviews and blog tours and hoping they will bite.

Yes, there’s still room for old model tactics, but they are either limited, outmoded, less effective or costly.

So nevermind that your publisher’s publicists aren’t returning your calls two weeks out from your book launch. Chances are they’re busy with another book and have expended your promotional budget. You can do better for yourself over the long run, anyway. (Or you can hire your very own publicist and do it up right for a longer time.)

Publishers unloaded marketing responsibilities to authors for budgetary reasons. Authors should shoulder that responsibility for a better reason:

Your readers want to talk to you, not them. 

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05/18/2011 • 8:01 AM 0

New mugs for editors at http://www.cafepress.ca/chazzwrites

As I recover from minor surgery, I’m taking it easy today. However, I do have a new product up at the store for editors who want to gently remind writers that it’s not called a liveline. It’s a deadline. Check out the new mugs here.

In fact, check out all the inventory at my store.

Tomorrow, in case you are struggling with a deadline: Top 10 ways to get back your motivation to write. Then, a post on how to edit without reading. Crazy shit, I know! Stay tuned.

Now I’m back to the couch with one more day feeling sorry for myself. I’ll get my groove back tomorrow, Stella.

(I’m okay. Minor injury sustained while defending Gotham from dark forces.)

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04/28/2011 • 6:04 AM Comments Off on Writers: Choose choice, not ideology

Writers: Choose choice, not ideology

Bertrand Russell's views on philosophy

Image via Wikipedia

Talking politics with someone the other day, they said a particular candidate was so stupid they didn’t know when a reporter was rude to them. I doubt that. Assuming the politician dressed himself that morning, he did know and instead of reacting to the rudeness, he stayed on topic. He was polite—or even too polite.

The guy I was talking to already didn’t like the politician, so he chose not just to disagree with him, but to assume he was an idiot.

People choose sides. Sometimes they don’t even know why, but they get heavily invested in one outcome, often before we have any facts. Sure, people like to think they’re logical, but in fact they’re often intuitive. They jump to their conclusion and the logic that’s recruited only feels like logic. It’s actually rationalization.

We’re hardwired to make quick decisions. It’s in our genes to choose a tribe, too. We stick with that tribe, even when the tribe doesn’t serve us. Even when it’s a bunch of  millionaire basketball players, fans think they’re somehow on the team. It’s a religious fervor to join, to believe, to be one with a larger whole.

And it gets goofy. Nationalism, for instance, is tribalism write large. If you own a Mac and extol its virtues, a bunch of disproportionately angry people will call you a wuss in some web forum or other. We take ownership of things we don’t own. We choose up sides to divide us and them where there is no us and them. Gay teens get ostracized and bullied, many to suicide. Liberals are too quick to write off all conservatives. People can’t seem to make a distinction between “supporting the troops” and “disagreeing with the mission.”

Or, for writers, watch traditionally published authors shit on self-publishing. But this post isn’t about traditional versus indie. I’m not talking today about which way is best (as if any one way is best for everyone.) This is not another one of those posts debating the use of terms, indie versus self-published and who gets to claim what (as if words are owned or static.)

This is a post that simply says: compared to all the big problems we have, traditional publishing versus the new publishing? Pretty trivial. (And it doesn’t have to be all one thing or the other thing, anyway.)

Lighten up. Choose your own path. If you’re shitting on somebody or telling others what to do, ease up on tribal tendencies and focus on you.

Man in the Mirror and all that.

You be you. I’ll be me.

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Filed under: Books, ebooks, links, publishing, Rant, self-publishing, Writers, , , , , ,

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