Publicity
Back in December we received a note from author Kim Boykin, whose debut novel The Wisdom of Hair was set to release in March. We book WU guest slots far in advance, and had to let her know that we would’t be able to offer anything in March, however something Kim said to us sparked another idea. She spent a good deal of her own money on promotional opportunities offered through the Brenda Novak Auction last year–opportunities that have and will help her to market The Wisdom of Hair. The Brenda Novak auction, which raises money for diabetes research and has become very popular among all in the writing community, was kicking off again in May. Maybe there would be an opportunity to talk about it then?
Absolutely.
Said Kim:
I believe writers make a difference just by telling stories. Winning the right item for your writing on Brenda Novak’s Auction For Diabetes Research can go a long way toward advancing your publishing career AND go a long way towards saving lives.
Last year, Kim came away with many useful wins, including an AUTHORBUZZ Package from Author M.J. Rose and more. (She’ll tell you more about them below.) Wonderful buys, and it’s a win-win-win for Kim as the cause hits close to home. She said:
Both of my husbands parents are diabetic and my grandmother was too. Brenda Novak’s son is 15 and insulin dependent, it’s a cause close to many hearts.”
You can learn more about Kim and The Wisdom of Hair on her website and blog, and by following her on Facebook and Twitter. Enjoy, and bid, WU’ers; this is a great cause.
Doubling Down
Recently, I told a group of aspiring authors that there’s never been a better time to be a writer, and it’s true. Even with traditional publishers still trying to figure out the industry and Amazon’s continued march toward domination, I believe this is the best time in the history of storytelling to get your story out.
As a novelist, I thought nabbing a publishing contract would be the hardest part of the process. I was wrong. Whether it’s your first or your fifty-first, getting your book noticed today is like meeting a blind date at a massive cocktail party in the middle of Times Square and telling him to look for the girl in the little black dress.
So, what’s a traditionally published or self-published author to do? Coming from a marketing background, I looked for ways to maximize the advertising and promotions budget I set for myself and found bestselling author Brenda Novak’s Annual Online Auction For Diabetes Research.
Read MorePhoto courtesy Wikimedia Commons
(This graphic shows the lyrics to a classic Disney Song. Can you read it?)
Whether on a book cover, a website design, an ad, or even a whole marketing barrage, graphic design can either materially increase your book’s chances of getting attention or can leave it unrecognized in the mountain of competitors. This goes for the self-published as well as for the commercially published.
While it is certainly possible for you to do your own graphics, or rely on your publisher, there are also very good reasons for writers to hire a professional graphic artist. Without elaborating on those reasons, in this post I’ll give you some brief insight into the working process of a graphic designer, and give you some pointers on how you as a client can increase the chances that your designer will give you exactly the fabulously stunning image that you wanted on time, under budget, and with a minimum of frustration and drama. There are a number of other websites that discuss graphic design, but I approach this topic from the viewpoint of a writer.
This will be the first of a two-part post. Today’s post will cover Knowing What you Want, Finding the Right Graphic Artist, and The Basic Graphic Design Process. The next post will discuss Money Matters, Tips to Getting the Right ‘Look’ and Avoiding Graphic Design Landmines.
First, Know What You Want.
Knowing what you want doesn’t mean that you can ‘see’ the exact image in your head down to the Art Nouveau font and the impressionist landscape detail background. (If you can ‘see’ the exact image you want in that much detail in your head, then DIY graphic design might be for you.)
Knowing what you want means you know what kind of graphic product you want to produce and what format that product will take. This involves far more than ‘style,’ it involves knowing the nitty gritty of the final product, how big it needs to be, what text it will include, what images it will include. For example:
Read MoreRecently here on Writer Unboxed, the lovely Sharon Bially wrote about The Bad PR Hangover (and how to avoid it). A fabulous post – if you have not read it, read it too. You see, I’ve also had a handful of authors recently who have found me and relayed terrible and unfavorable stories of working with a book publicist or publicity firm (or other outside/freelance help) with an unhappy or very unfavorable outcome, similar to what Sharon wrote about. I hear these stories from time to time, but lately the number is on the rise and now that I know other publicity and marketing pros are also hearing these situations too, I think it’s even more important to equip authors with as much info as possible to avoid these situations. The tips Sharon shared in her post, and mine below, can also be applied toward any help an author hires – from a publicist to a website designer, from an editor to a cover designer and so on.
Perhaps it’s just another side effect of a crazy publishing market where things are being shaken up. When things are shaken up, growing and changing so quickly, well, there are things that are “unknown”, that is when some people take advantage. I have heard some mind-blowing, heart-wrenching stories just like the two Sharon mentioned. Whatever the reason for the increased instances of bad experiences or being taken advantage of, it should not happen that way, does not have to happen that way and there are things you can do to prevent – or recover – from a situation like that.
One author who called me even called it PTPD – Post-traumatic publicity disorder. Sharon’s author called it a bad PR hangover.
Regardless, here are 5 Additional Tips to Avoid a Bad PR Hangover/Experience/ PTPD (or whatever you want to call it!). Sharon’s great advice included things like setting reasonable expectations up front, getting a detailed work plan in place, having a publicist who is accessible and communicative on a regular basis and who offers you general guidance – all great tips!
To take this a few steps further, authors should:
#1 Get referrals
Do your research and make sure you get referrals – past and present clients – who have worked with the publicist. Ask for their favorite clients/campaigns but also ask for referrals for their most challenging (even if they don’t want to give those out, ask and make sure it’s not just the ones they know will rave). Ask those referrals as many questions about your potential new publicist as you can. Questions like: what are their strengths, what are their weaknesses, how often did they communicate/update, what were their biggest wins and biggest challenges. Also, ask for non-author referrals – like an internal publicist at a publisher they worked with. It’s always good to know how your potential outside publicist will be received and interact with your publisher (if you have one). Do not ever hire a person without talking to multiple referrals and asking the tough questions. And they should not be afraid to talk about those challenging clients or projects they might not be as proud of. I had a client once who signed up with me and, within […]
GIVEAWAY: I am very excited to again give away a copy of my newest book, CREATE YOUR WRITER PLATFORM. It’s a book all about how to build your visibility, brand, network and discoverability so you can better market yourself and your books. I’m giving away 1 copy to a random commenter based in the U.S. or Canada; comment within one week to win. Good luck! (Update: Dori Weinstein won.)
My screenwriting partner and WD coworker, Brian A. Klems, is gearing up for the April release of his first book — a humorous guide for fathers called OH BOY, YOU’RE HAVING A GIRL: A DAD’S SURVIVAL GUIDE TO RAISING DAUGHTERS (Adams Media). On top of that, my coworker Robert Brewer (editor of Writer’s Market) recently got a publishing deal for a book of his poetry. (This is big because getting a book of poems traditionally published is next to impossible.) So I find myself as a cheerleader for my writing buddies — trying to do what I can to help as their 2013 release dates approach. I help in two ways: 1) I use my own experience of writing & publishing books to share advice on what they can expect and plan for; and 2) I simply do whatever little things I can that help in any way.
This last part brings up an important point: Anyone can support an author’s book release by doing different things to help the book sell and get noticed. So, in no particular order, here are 11 things — some big, some small — that you can do to support a writer friend when their book comes out:
Read MoreToo many book launches are panic attacks, similar to a trip to the dentist.
With 1.5 million books published last year, writers nowadays know that publicity for their books around book launch can be challenging. The days where you can silently write your book, and then scream about it on launch day are producing lesser results than they may have once done.
So we introduce this concept of author platform – slowly developing a trusting relationship with your ideal readers over time. So that, when your book finally does launch, you have an audience of people waiting for it. They WANT to buy it. They WANT to spread the word. You have to rely less on screaming at the world about your book, and more on communicating with an audience that already knows you and trusts you. An audience ready to take action, to buy your book.
But we are all busy. We put off core aspects of developing your brand as a writer because, well, you are writing; you are working through a tough publishing process, whether you are self-publishing or going through a traditional agent/publisher relationship.
So we wait. And as the book launch approaches, it becomes more and more similar to how we treat a trip to the dentist:
Read MoreOne of the things I fear most with all the publishing and promotional advice zipping around the cybersphere is that some people—quiet people who have something really important or compelling to say—will look at all that is ‘required’ of them to get published or to promote their books and they will become so discouraged they never even give themselves a chance.
The thing is, I know that many quiet people have amazing stories to tell, their very quietness contributing to their heightened sense of observation, or their rich inner life feeding their understanding of human nature or providing fertile ground for some really dramatic stories—stories that may be exactly the sort I am starving for.
I’m afraid these people will take one look at the suggestion that one must have 10,000 followers on Twitter or 5,000 Facebook friends and throw up their hands in despair and assume there is no way that they can create enough noise to break through that barrier—that there is no way their stories can break through that barrier.
I reject a world where the only stories that get heard are those told by loud, flashy people or those who have a sales or entrepreneurial skill set and are willing to use it set at full volume in order to get their books in front of readers. Sometimes the very skills that allow a person to tell the stories we most need to hear are the same skills that preclude them from ever being able to do those things.
So I would like to remind all those quiet, introverted writers out there that there is not only one path to successful publication and that not all quiet people will finish last. The quiet road may be harder or take longer, but rest assured, there is a road.
Read MoreIn the last four weeks I’ve done three workshops, two of them at writer’s conferences. As always, I found it all stimulating. And I sold some of my books—understandably, a number of copies of Flogging the Quill, Crafting a Novel that Sells (usually after the class had happened) and a number of copies of The Vampire Kitty-cat Chronicles; that one brings up a question that I’ll address later on selling actual, physical books versus selling on the Internet.
Workshops by other pros never fail to stimulate
Even though I’ve been at this writing and editing business for some time now, I never fail to come away from the workshops and presentations I get to attend with new insights and notes on things I can do in my WIP.
How about you? If you’re a seasoned pro, do you go to writing workshops? If you do, are they helpful for you?
Teaching workshops is also stimulating. I enjoy them and have fun, and every one sharpens my own understanding of what works and what doesn’t work in fiction, and I apply that to the next workshop and to my editing work. Well, to my writing, too. I’ll admit that it’s also great fun to have one’s views and coaching validated by workshoppers in their comments after the class and in their evaluations.
Presenting a novel is hard
At Wordstock in Portland, I did my first-ever presentation of one of my novels, The Vampire Kitty-cat Chronicles. I had 50 minutes – and an audience of 6 people. I don’t think I did well.
Read MoreTherese here to introduce a book authors have needed for a long time: What To Do Before the Book Launch by authors M.J. Rose and Randy Susan Meyers. I was given a copy of this to preview months back, and was thrilled to provide an endorsement:
Dripping with the wisdom authors gain after years of experience but wish they’d had from moment one. If you want to move from book deal to debut in the best of all ways, this book will tell you how to do it—and how not to do it. It is positively packed with essential advice. Highly recommended.
—Therese Walsh, co-founder of Writer Unboxed, author of The Last Will of Moira Leahy
I’m so pleased to have M.J. with us today to tell you more about the book and share an excerpt. Enjoy!
What To Do Before Your Book Launch
What to expect when you’re expecting your book? What’s going to happen first, and second, and third?
Randy Susan Meyers (a wonderful novelist and amazing friend) and I have written a book. Every thing we’ve learned – most of it the hard way. (Watch the video here.)
I’ve had twelve fiction book launches. I have made terrible terrible mistakes with every one. My big takeaway after all these years is I need clones! Short of that – I need a “to do” list.
This book is our to-do list.
Included are chapters on author websites, blogs & author photos, publicity & marketing, book & author positioning book trailers, launch parties & public presentations, manners for authors, consolation for bad reviews, a timeline for the year before publication. worksheets for social media and writers on the craft & business of writing. Plus some other helpful (hopefully) advice and cautionary tales.
Here is an excerpt.
Ultimately, we all have to realize this basic truth:
Read MoreOn a weekly basis, I field emails and phone calls from authors who are tackling the world of publishing alone. They have decided to self-publish their book or go with a small press and are looking for guidance to promote it. They often ask – can you help make my book a bestseller? How can publicity help sales? What are typical sales numbers for books you represent that have no publisher?
I start off by telling them these three things: every book is different, PR doesn’t guarantee sales and it will be an uphill battle. I am very selective with self-published books that come my way. Not because I have anything against self-publishing; but, because I won’t take a book on if I don’t think I can succeed on some level. I won’t take any book on unless I feel like I can succeed – it’s not about the number of clients for me, it’s about the work itself and if I’m a good fit for that book and author. So that I can successfully help on that uphill battle.
Most of the news about self-publishing is daunting and still very gloomy. The stigma still exists. I try not to be discouraging, but I know I need to be realistic. I had a self-published author come to me and say she wanted to sell 30,000 copies of her book. I told her she’d be lucky to sell 300. I wanted to be honest and up front. Yes, we would do all we can, but I wanted her to have realistic expectations.
But today I don’t want to be gloomy or discouraging when it comes to self or indie publishing. I want to tell you that IT CAN BE DONE! You can do it! And I want to share with you some success stories and tips – real stories of self-published authors who are not Amanda Hocking or John Locke or E.L. James.
Read MoreGIVEAWAY: In celebration of the Aug. 1 release of my new humor book, RED DOG / BLUE DOG: WHEN POOCHES GET POLITICAL, I am hosting a giveaway with this post. After one week, I will choose three (3) random commenters as winners, and those winners can chose any one of my books that they want to receive as a prize. Good luck to all! (UPDATE: Ronda R, Kenny K and Cathy won.)
Only 8 days (!) remain until the release of my latest political humor book. That means it’s a time for me to do what I can concerning promotion and publicity in support of the project. A bit of good news for me is that I’ve been down this road before. In 2010, my first humor book about garden gnomes was released and I got a close look at how the publicity machine works and why writers get coverage in some outlets but not in others. So as I start down this path a second time, let me share 7 pieces of advice concerning book promotion and publicity — all of which were shaped from what I learned during my first go-round in 2010.
1. Coverage is insanely hit-and-miss, so don’t be afraid to fire in multiple directions. After my book got mentions in Reader’s Digest and AOL News, I thought it would be a shoo-in for coverage when I notified the local media. Not so. The fact is: You never know who will be interested in your book, so your only option is to blast numerous outlets, big and small, local and not. (I often compare trying to garner book publicity to a blindfolded person firing in all directions.) That said, remember to personalize all your communication. Sending out a press release accompanied by a short, personal note will be much more effective than just a cold press release.
2. Your connections matter, so reach out to friends.
Read MoreSummer vacation – is there anything better? I’ve just had the most amazing summer vacation. This year, we skipped the beach, we skipped the long lines at Disneyland and we headed to the mountains of Colorado and Montana. We didn’t just have a summer vacation – we had a summer adventure.
I now know why so many writers retreat to the mountains – to cabins, to lakes, to nature – to write their books. I was inspired by the views, the sounds, the smells so much that I wanted to write a book! But rather than channel my inner-Hemingway, I channeled my inner-adventurer. We went hiking, we went geocaching, we went exploring to the tops of 14,000-feet-above-sea-level mountains –by jeep, by train, by tram, by foot. My family zip-lined over the tops of trees and down the Big Sky’s Lone Mountain. I watched and took pictures that day – and couldn’t help but think that book publicity has a lot in common with zip lining.
3 Ways Book Publicity is Like a Zip Line
#1 It’s in the (personal) approach
Watching several of the zip-liners, including my husband and two of my kids, I realized their personalities were all different and they were each approaching the adventure a different way – just like my clients. Some authors are timid and unsure if they want to invest in publicity and never really gain their footing until things starting happening and they slowly get a smile on their face (just like my 12-year-old daughter who had to warm up to the zip line); some are scared the whole way and need constant reassurance and even when they get off at the end, they are not sure they would do it again (like my business partner Kim whose family joined us in Montana); some are aggressive and bold and take charge, wanting as much detail and fun as possible, who enjoy every moment and are up for any crazy out-of-the-box or spontaneous idea (like my husband who zip-lined upside down!); others enjoy it but want it to be safe, straight, predictable and planned out well in advance.
