04/24/2011 • 9:48 PM 0
Top 20 Facebook Apps for Book Lovers – GalleyCat.
Got a book you want to review, find, sell or promote? Your publicity list starts with this link. Supremely useful collection of apps for the author, publicist and book lover.
Filed under: authors, blogs & blogging, book reviews, Books, Publicity & Promotion, self-publishing, book lovers, book promotion, book reviews, books, Facebook, facebook apps, promotion, publicity, useful apps for authors
12/27/2010 • 2:44 PM 0
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TiVo figures out what you like and makes television programming suggestions. What if there was an app for that?
A modest proposal for book marketing – The Shatzkin Files
Brilliant idea. Until the robots rise, we’ll have to do it for ourselves.
On blogs like this.
Uh-oh.
Obsolescence, dear fellow-bloggers, smells sulphurous.
Filed under: ebooks, Publicity & Promotion, publishing, authors, book promotion, E-book
12/27/2010 • 8:23 AM 2
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Sometimes the toughest part of marketing is not annoying your target audience.
Try to market in smart and happy ways to avoid overkill.
I know when you’re talking about your babies, it’s hard to hold back.
Filed under: Publicity & Promotion, publishing, book promotion, books, Chris Brogan, Facebook, Internet Marketing, Marketing and Advertising, social media, Twitter, writers
12/08/2010 • 1:52 PM 1
Mostly I talk about writing and publishing here, but if you have a book to sell, promotion and publicity is integral to the process. Social media has democratized book promotion in that it’s an all-access pass and the admission is free.
Writers, this afternoon, I have three great links on the topic of optimizing your use of social media to spread the word about your words:
TNW Social Media » 10 Ways Journalists and the Media Use Twitter
How to triple your Twitter traffic in 7 days
Is It Time to Take a Social Media Inventory? | FreelanceFolder
Please let me know in the comments below.
Filed under: Publicity & Promotion, publishing, Social Media, Twitter, Useful writing links, book promotion, Business, Facebook, Internet Marketing, LinkedIn, Marketing and Advertising, social media, Twitter, YouTube
12/06/2010 • 11:00 AM 0
Image by 'Lil via Flickr
All authors, whether self-published or traditional, look for opportunities to promote their books. Now there’s way to do that with the Independent Authors Network. If you are self-published or are published with a small press, check out this site to help new readers find you.
Filed under: authors, Publicity & Promotion, book promotion, publicity and promotion, publishing
11/29/2010 • 1:50 PM 0
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This morning I mentioned I have some authors lined up for profiles for publication in this hallowed space. For instance, author of My Camino and friend of the blog, Sue Kenney, will share her journey across Spain and to publication in the near future. Not only is she an author, she’s a filmmaker, too.
Why can’t you spread the glory of your achievement, too? Answer: You can! I want to pick your brain.
I love books and love to hear from authors about their struggles and successes. If you’re an author with a book you want the world to know about (and if you have a book, why wouldn’t you?), shoot me an e-mail at chazz@chazzwrites.vpweb.ca.
I’d like to make author interviews a regular weekly feature if I get enough interest. If your fiction or non-fiction looks like a good fit, I’ll send you a questionnaire to answer et voilà! Instant book promotion as we delve into your climb to the literary pinnacle.
Brains! Brains! So hungry! I want to pick at your brain!
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Filed under: blogs & blogging, Publicity & Promotion, publishing, self-publishing, Useful writing links, web reviews, Writers, Author, author interviews, author profiles, book marketing, book promotion, books, Literature, publishing
11/26/2010 • 2:05 PM 5
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This article in the Globe and Mail advises you drop tweeting from your schedule. The main point is, writers waste time tweeting when they don’t have something to sell.
I’m not sure why anyone thinks a writer’s e-marketing time should be all or nothing. It’s probably useful to market to your audience, present or future. Your marketing time should not cut into your writing time. If it does, you either aren’t writing enough or not prioritizing. Blogging and tweeting to your market (present or future) should be a fun thing for you to do. If you don’t like it, then don’t do it.
I tweet, but always during time that would otherwise be dead time (e.g. waiting for something, while suffering insomnia or during commercials when I forgot to PVR something.) I enjoy blogging about writing and I make time for it. As a result, I watch a lot less TV than I used to do.
But writing time has to come first. The real question is, must you blog or make a book trailer or tweet to your followers? Can’t you just leave that to someone else when the time comes? (Answer: No. Selling anything means selling yourself.)
The Globe article suggests that it is often contests that curate bestsellers (especially in Canada.) Mm, yes, but what if you don’t write the sort of fiction that’s likely to even be considered by the Giller Prize panel? You can’t leave your book’s promotion to the whim of a handful of people, not when the power of the Internet is right in front of you.
It’s worth noting that publishers expect authors to shoulder most of the responsibility for promoting their books. Your publisher and agent will want you to have a blog as a home base that all your marketing efforts feed. If you’re into self-publishing, it’s all you, though that’s arguably not much different from what it ever was. (I’ve been a publicist and I’ve worked with publicists. What they’re doing is not rocket science. You can do it and if you won’t do that, at least control it.)
Do people follow you on Twitter and then buy your books based on those interactions? I bought a Scott Sigler book after he shot me a kind tweet. If Margaret Atwood alerted to her Twitter followers that she was holding a book signing at a particular bookstore, not only would they all get her message, that’s free targeted marketing to a group very likely to show up if they can.
Is social media marketing the norm for book marketing? Answers: Yes, no and not yet. Yes, because it’s the cheapest way to go. No, because the are many authors and publishers out there who haven’t embraced the full power of social media’s potential. Lots of people still think Twitter is about letting people know about that spicy burger from lunch backing up on you. They don’t get that Twitter can push information you want to you (sometimes information you didn’t even know you needed.) And finally, not yet, because I wouldn’t count on that “no” remaining stable.
Yes, there have been authors who did not promote themselves. JD Salinger became a recluse and never tweeted. However, that’s a lousy example for two reasons:
1. He was JD Salinger and we aren’t.
2. The world (and the world of publishing) has changed drastically, even among those who are reluctant to embrace new models.
For instance, the number of book sales reps has plummeted. Interactions through Twitter and Amazon Reviews and Blogs and search engines: All that technology has turned up the volume on the marketing environment so it’s hard to hear the tiny books by unknown authors who aren’t stepping up to speak for themselves.
Yes, I know you have lots of books on your shelves and most of your buying decisions were not influenced by anything you saw on Twitter. You’re right. But as e-books flood the market from self-publishers, you won’t be right about that for long.
Build your following now so when you do have something to sell, you’ll have lots of people to spread the word. If you don’t begin to market yourself until you have a book to sell, you’re already late.
First I have to buy in to you. Then I consider your product. Twas always thus, but now more than ever.
Filed under: blogs & blogging, book reviews, Books, links, Media, publishing, Rant, self-publishing, Twitter, Useful writing links, web reviews, Blog, book marketing, book promotion, Margaret Atwood, publicity, Scotiabank Giller Prize, Scott Sigler, social media marketing, Social Networking, TweetDeck, Twitter
10/01/2010 • 6:57 PM 0
Book Buzzr has great articles on book promotion.
Love this! How to Make a Living as a Writer
Filed under: Publicity & Promotion, publishing, web reviews, Writers, book promotion, Making a Living as a Writer, Ray Bradbury
09/30/2010 • 1:55 PM 1
(If you missed it this morning, Part I is immediately below this post.)
I’ve seen my friend the master networker in action for a long time. Peter’s helpful to everyone he meets. I’ve rarely visited him when he didn’t have a bunch of out-of-country house guests he was sheltering. (He’s helped me out with shelter many times, in fact.) Peter grew up in rural New Brunswick, but on his first day in Toronto he walked down Yonge Street and met 11 people he knew by name. Not surprisingly, they all knew him, too. People are always happy to see Peter.
It’s not all that complicated…and yet, most of us aren’t like Peter. Why is that? We could be, you know. Let me break it down for you. Try to do the following things for one month. See how many more friends you make and how much richer your life can be. Yes, I’m working on it, too.
1. Be interested. He really wants to know what you’re about. No fake or canned questions.
2. Be friendly. He’s fast with a smile and he loves a good joke (hearing them and making them.)
3. Be interesting. Peter is interesting because he’s an extrovert who has a huge comfort zone.(Oh, yeah, there’s the thing I lack. Introversion is one way I get in my own way.)
4. Be open to opportunities. Peter decided he wanted to learn Portuguese in middle age, so he did. He didn’t think about how hard it would be. He doesn’t get in his own way so now he can speak casually in Portuguese with the Brazilian ambassador to Canada and now owns several businesses in Brazil with his partner (who, by the way, has all these same qualities and I love him, too.) Peter has a lot of experience with people because he makes himself available and gives of himself. Notice I said I would have simply thanked Sue for the bookmark and moved on? I’m comfortable writing and emailing. He’s just as relaxed face to face. I have to work on that. (When I was a reporter, talking to people killed me. Later, as a book sales rep and publicist, I got better at it, but I still procrastinated sometimes. Still do, occasionally.)
5. Focus. When you’re talking, Peter’s paying attention.
6. Be engaged. He’s not waiting for the second you shut up so he can jump in and say what he wants to say.
7. Talk about them, not you. Sue didn’t find out where we were coming up with publishing industry knowledge until she asked us directly. We told her, but not before she cared to know.
8. Be nice. That’s not hard, is it? Well…if you don’t have that already, I don’t think it works to fake it. The only thing I’ve learned from watching several seasons of Survivor is, if you’re a jerk, you can’t fake being nice for anywhere near a month and not even for $1,000,000. If you, now, reading this, aren’t sure you’re a jerk, ask yourself this question: Is everyone you meet a jerk, idiot or moron? If you answered yes, I’m sorry to tell you, it’s you. Find out why you’re a jerk. Work on yourself. Try talk therapy and/or antidepressants.
9. Relax. Peter can go to a party and if he doesn’t already know everyone there when he arrives, he will when he leaves. I’m shy and uncomfortable socializing with a group of strangers. For Peter,that’s how he has fun. When I relax and come out of my shell, I notice I have fun, too.
10. Make people feel great about themselves. He doesn’t lie. He finds the best in people and, oddly enough, that tends to draw out the best in people.
11. He never thinks of it as “networking.” I think Pete would just call it “living.” He lives so large.
Filed under: Publicity & Promotion, book promotion, networking, publicity, Top Ten List
09/30/2010 • 9:32 AM 1
Cover via Amazon
By master, I’m not referring to me. I’m referring to my friend Peter. We are each other’s oldest friends and he’s a master of human relations. I have lots to learn from him. I’ll get to that in very straight forward terms (i.e. the ever-popular Top Ten List in Part II coming this afternoon), but first, a concrete example:
I attended Word on the Street with Peter in Toronto. I got Peter his first job in publishing and he was fabulously successful at it. He’s now a shipping magnate, but he still has a keen interest in books (reading and writing them.) After we met up at the book fair, we’d made it about twelve feet through the crowd before an author offered him a bookmark to advertise her book. If it were just me, I would have smiled, thanked her and moved on. That’s why I’m not the master networker. Peter is, so he asked what her book is about. The author, Sue Kenney, wrote of about her pilgrimage on Spain’s Camino. Sue was very nice and her book sounds interesting. Peter had travelled the Camino so he was especially enthused. (Peter’s a world traveller, too, so he’s been everywhere and sometimes it seems like he’s done everything. Somehow, he never makes you feel bad about that. Ever watch The Amazing Race? That’s Peter’s life without the humiliating mini-games along the way.)
Peter asked Sue a couple probing questions and it sounded like she was well on her way with her book (and two others.) Most important, she already had a movie deal, she’d already sold a lot of books on her own and she had a spirit of adventure and a great personality. What she needed was an agent and a publisher to break out. In a few minutes I’d suggested a couple of ways to search for the right agent and Peter threw out a couple of names of Toronto agents he knew. We then went on to discuss a publisher to avoid and a big publisher to approach. After a few more minutes of discussing some fine points of sales, Sue said, “Thanks! But…who are you guys?”
“Just your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man. Here’s a card, read my writing and publishing blog…” (Okay, I didn’t say the first part.) Sue’s going to be a success. She already has all the elements she needs in place and her publisher and agent will love her. As is required more than ever these days, she’s already done the heavy lifting for them. All she has to do now is concentrate on getting to be a known entity. (I also pushed her to get Christina Katz’s book Get Known Before the Book Deal to that end. Yes, I confess I’ve flogged that book already on this blog several times. Why haven’t you gone and bought it yet, hm?) Besides writing My Camino, Sue is already a speaker and filmmaker. She’s on her way. Come to think of it, one more thing about Sue and her book…
Filed under: agents, Books, Publicity & Promotion, publishing, agents, book promotion, networking, publicity
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