Working Titlez

Radio interviews can be a powerful tool in the author/marketer’s toolkit. They work especially well to help generate interest in an event, signing, or workshop that’s upcoming. They are quite easy to book, as well.  Ask your publisher if they’ll record a short interview with you. Post it online, on your blog and website, and email it to radio show bookers as a demo. Book publicist Stephanie Barko shares some useful advice. ~CHU

By Guest Blogger Stephanie Barko, Literary Publicist

Authors often wonder why their attempts to capture the attention of radio & TV producers fail.

Book marketing on the radio is an art, and perhaps getting on the radio and generating sales from your spot is an even greater art. You can be featured on the most highly syndicated show for an hour and still not generate sales from your time there unless you carefully prepare for your interview.

Here are some tips for getting on the radio:

1. Create a catchy subject line. Although some producers like to be pitched on the phone, you cannot go wrong with sending an email with a catchy subject line. Unusual subject lines capture attention. If your subject line is boring, you will be assumed to be likewise.
2. Ask for a specific date. Especially if it’s locally produced radio, and you will be traveling to that location on a set date, make sure you state when you will be in town. If you are there because of a local event or special date in local history, mention that also.
3. State why the information in your book is compelling to that station’s audience. You can be general or specific here, but include a sentence or two about why their demographic would benefit from hearing your message.
4. List five things that you will reveal to their listeners. Surely there are five points in your book that this station’s following would find especially useful, fascinating, or surprising. Make those points clear to the producer.
5. List three good reasons to book you as a guest on their station. Now that the producer wants your message, explain why you make a good guest because of your speaking career, your media experience, your voiceover or acting training, your career as an entertainer or whatever you can leverage about your presentation skills. If you have a radio podcast or video clip, embed it in your email to illustrate your skills.

Here’s how to generate sales while you’re on the radio:

After you get the booking, send the show’s host a Q&A ahead of time that brings out the issues in your book. And most importantly, when you enter the studio or pick up the phone, have five talking points written down on index cards in front of you. That way, you’ll stay focused and remember to repeat your buy link several times.

Learn more about Stephanie by reading The University of Texas at Austin’s interview with her that posted this week. Stephanie Barko, Literary Publicist was voted Best Book Promotion Service in Preditors & Editors’ 2010 Readers Poll. Her award winning clients include nonfiction and historical fiction publishers and authors. Follow Stephanie at http://www.stephaniebarko.com/blog.

Do the game-changing chain bookstore woes mean we’ll all have to buy books online, from the limited selection of retail big boxes, or not at all? Is there an opportunity for a Renaissance of indie neighborhood bookstores? What about your habits? Do you view the bookstore browsing experience a chance to discover something new and wonderful? Or do you consider retail bookstores merely a showroom — and you’ll actually buy your books online? The authors of this thoughtful essay examine the role of the bookstore in a changing marketplace. ~CHU

Will Independent Bookstores Seize the Day?

By Jack McKeown and Don Linn

“Borders ended up caught between the variety of the Internet and the intimacy of the independents. Its outlets could never stock as many books as Amazon. Nor could they duplicate the native flavor of the corner bookstores…As paper books become a niche product, niche retailers will be the best place to buy and sell them.” —Edward McClelland, “How Borders Lost its Soul,” Salon.com, February 19, 2011

Southbury is a town located in western Connecticut, part of a region known as the Central Naugatuck Valley. It is a town with both rural and suburban neighborhoods, and a charming historic district. With its four-largest neighboring towns, it comprises a book market of approximately 175,000 souls whose demographics skew to relatively affluent, highly educated and older, propelled by an influx of Baby Boomer empty-nesters and retirees over the last ten years. Two weeks ago, Southbury lost it sole surviving bookstore—a 22,000 square-foot Borders in Southbury Plaza, one of the two hundred superstores closed throughout the country as a part of the chain’s bankruptcy. The nearest Barnes & Noble is in Danbury, 22 miles away. The nearest independents are in Ridgefield and Washington, 20-to-25 miles distant—too far for a casual shopping trip. Without an enterprising independent stepping in to fill this vacuum, who could blame Southbury’s population for falling into the waiting arms of Amazon as the only viable alternative?

Read the rest . . .

You hear it over and over: One of the best ways for authors to sell books and build a fan base is through speaking engagements. Especially for non-fiction authors, “expertizing” one’s self through book publication and speaking is a great way to build a career.

My own speaking life improved greatly with the advice of our author Judi Moreo (You Are More Than Enough: Every Woman’s Guide to Power, Purpose, and Passion) who is the president this year of the National Speakers Association (NSA). I highly recommend this group for folks who want to be professional (and paid) speakers and there are chapters all over the country.

One of the things I learned from Judi and NSA is that you must have a list of speaking topics and descriptions. I’ve recently updated my Programs for Writers, and at the same time, I updated my handouts. Now each topic has a box of handouts organized in my office, ready-to-go. I can grab the box I need, and when it gets low, it is time to reprint. I also keep a file of speech notes and whenever I come across new statistics or factoids, I add it to the file. When I’m ready to update or customize a talk for a specific group, the notes are right there.

Betty Auchard’s newest book, The Home for the Friendless, was April’s book-of-the-month at the Coffee Bean and Tea Leafs in Las Vegas. She met with fans, held book signings, spoke to a women’s group in Henderson, and even went across town to meet readers in Red Rock. Betty made friends everywhere she went!

Where do most book buyers purchase their books? Walmart, Costco, Sam’s Club and Target. They sell massive amounts, but don’t have much depth to their offerings, concentrating on the bestsellers. Not much opportunity for new authors or specialty titles. Online retailers are rapidly growing as a preferred source of both print and digital books, taking another big chunk out of the bookstore’s business. E-tailers offer a vast assortment but no personal selling. Many consumers today treat bookstores like showrooms — browsing to find the books they like — then ordering them online. Is it any wonder long-term sustainability of bookstores is in question? Nonetheless, bookstores are an important element in the sales matrix for books. Authors and publishers want their books on the shelves. Guest blogger Terry Cordingley shares his experienced take on the difficulties getting bookstore placement. ~ CHU

By Guest Blogger Terry Cordingley

When an author first publishes their book, they have visions of walking into a bookstore on their book’s release date…any bookstore…and immediately spotting their book on the shelf, right there at the front of the store. There may even be a stack of their books in a point-of-purchase display or in the window of one of the major book-selling chain stores. However, unless they are already a best-selling author, a celebrity or infamous (think Tiger Woods or Sarah Palin), this is highly unlikely.

But why? you might be thinking. My book is great! Everybody who reads it tells me how great it is! This may be true, but believe it or not, the decision to stock your book on the shelf has less to do with the merits of your book and more to do with mathematics.

In 2008, there were 560,626 new titles published in the U.S., more than double the number of books that were published just five years earlier. Most of this growth has occurred in self-published or short-run titles. However, despite the growth in the number of titles, bookstore sales are actually declining. Taking into account the number of titles available and the number of actual books sold, the average U.S. book is selling less than 250 copies a year.

When a new title is released, it isn’t just competing for shelf space at bookstores with 562,626 other titles, it is also competing with the millions of other titles that have been published in previous years. For every spot available on a bookstore shelf, there are hundreds, perhaps thousands, of other titles competing for that one spot.

Don’t just take my word of it. Most of this information was originally written by the president of another publishing company. As for the prime point-of-purchase displays at the front of a bookstore, publishers pay for that space, and that real estate isn’t cheap. The major chain stores don’t just put the books at the front of the store because they like them.

This information may seem a bit depressing for authors, but only for those that completely depend upon the major chain stores to sell their books. It isn’t the fault of the bookstores. With so much at stake, the bookstore buyers must stock books that they feel will have a good chance of selling and making money for the store. A book by a new, unknown author is a gamble, and a big one, for stores that must turn millions of dollars in profit each year just to make payroll and stay in business. That means stocking a lot of titles by famous celebrity authors, or titles that already have a good track record of sales.

Pretend for a moment that you own a video store. Which movie titles are you most likely to stock? Blockbusters like Twilight, or an independent film featuring unfamiliar actors? This is the same decision bookstores must make, and there are far more book titles released each year than movies.

This is the reason why niche marketing is so vitally important to authors and publishers. One fact I didn’t touch upon earlier is that most book sales don’t occur at bookstores. Most books are sold through other channels, such as retailers other than bookstores (supermarkets, pharmacies, gift shops, coffee shops), book clubs, online booksellers like Amazon, churches (many have their own bookstores now), home shopping TV channels, etc.

Of course, publishers do want their books to be stocked and sold through bookstores. Bookstores do, in fact, sell books. However, this shouldn’t be the only marketing channel used by publishers and authors. Focus on the book’s niche, figure out who the audience is for a particular title, and where that audience can readily be found, and you’ll have identified your prime market.

Terry Cordingley is the Associate Director of Marketing for Tate Publishing and Enterprises and has been with the company for more than five years. Terry currently holds every sales record in the Tate Publishing marketing department, and has personally sold more than $6 million worth of retail product. Follow his blog at http://terrycordingley.blogspot.com/.

As publishers, we long for reviews. They are harder and harder to come by with the domino-effect demise of so many book review venues, especially newspapers. Sadly, book review sections are rarely supported by advertising — publishers find their marketing dollars better spent buying “real estate” on the tables in the front of Borders and Barnes & Noble (yes, the space for those stacks of books have all been paid for). Thus newspapers, in belt-tightening times, found it necessary to end their book review sections. Today, most reviews that appear in mainstream print are wire stories that cover the top strata of commercial books.

So I was pleased that our own R-J started a Book Nook web-based review section — and further impressed that the reviews are done voluntarily by news staff, and occasionally, by guest reviewers. No money changes hands — it is for the love of books. Wanting to do my part, I’ve stepped up to provide an occasional review (no, I’ll never be reviewing our own books!) and Cleopatra is my first subject. You can read my review here: Las Vegas Review-Journal Book Nook Review

What did I learn? Reviewing is hard! To provide a thoughtful and meaningful review means you think much harder about the book you’ve just read. But I like it, because that’s exactly what I want books to do — make me think!

A postscript: In both books, Cicero presented an interesting character. He certainly had no love for Cleopatra and was often a thorn in her side with his oratory — oft repeated by Roman society. I recently read Imperium by Robert Harris about Cicero’s life. What I learned from all three books is that politics whether two thousand years ago — or today — has been fraught with greed, corruption, and complicated machinations. It takes a great strategist, then and now, to maneuver through the mine fields, and the populace never wins.

Great news this morning! Three of our books placed in the National Indie Excellence Awards — Higher Than Eagles by Maralys Wills and The Home for the Friendless by Betty Auchard are Finalists in the Memoir category, while Friendless received a second award in the Interior Design category. And Dancing in My Nightgown, also by Betty Auchard, WON the Indie Excellence Award for Non-Fiction Audio. What’s extra-wow is that Betty, herself, is the narrator. Local production house Dog & Pony Studios were producers. So proud of everyone involved. Here’s book designer Sue Campbell’s report.

I rarely run into authors these days that don’t realize they must craft and execute a promotional plan for their book. At Stephens Press, we enthusiastically partner with our authors to conduct creative book launches and ongoing campaigns to build brand and buzz. This is nothing new as this essay from THE NEW YORK TIMES explains. ~ CHU

How Writers Build the Brand

By TONY PERROTTET

Advertisement From P. Ballantine & Sons, Newark (1951)

In this era when most writers are expected to do everything but run the printing presses, self-promotion is so accepted that we hardly give it a second thought. And yet, whenever I have a new book about to come out, I have to shake the unpleasant sensation that there is something unseemly about my own clamor for attention. Peddling my work like a Viagra salesman still feels at odds with the high calling of literature.

In such moments of doubt, I look to history for reassurance. It’s always comforting to be reminded that literary whoring — I mean, self-marketing — has been practiced by the greats.

READ THE REST . . .

Something I’ve been meaning to add for a long time is a long document called Identify Your Genre. It explains the importance of genre in the fiction world, and the many sub-genres that exist.

Genre “labels” evolve with time, just like language. Authors create a new category of book, write a series, other authors do the same, and Bingo! you’ve got a new genre. For example, how much to you know about  Steampunk Fiction? Amish Romances? See? Times change and new genres are born.

Find it under the DOWNLOADS tab, or use this link. You are welcome to forward to writer friends but please do not copy/publish in any way. Thanks!

by Krissy Hawkins
Author Maralys Wills recently chatted with Gregory Kompes, the man responsible for “The Fabulist Flash, A Newsletter for Writers”, to partake in some Q&A. Read some of the author’s revelations below – from discovering one’s writing style to self-marketing tips and of course, the most important lesson for writers – perseverance.

When did you ‘know’ you were a writer?
Long before I sold my first article, (about our sons’ adventures in hang gliding), I saw myself as a writer. As I collected 129 rejection slips for poems, essays, stories, and first-hand accounts, I wondered how many rejection slips it would take to sell something. In my mind it was always “when,” never “if.” Still, writing for money altered my title. Now I was an author. Before, I’d been a mother with a typewriter.

How would you describe your style of writing?
Straightforward. Vivid. Full of scenes and vignettes. Often humorous. A story-teller’s quest for the unusual, the humorous, the dramatic, the ironic. But securely anchored in the real world.

What is your writing process?
Except for publicity chores (which are all too time-consuming), I write whenever I can find the time. Sometimes I push things away to “make” time. When I’m deeply involved in a project, I let ordinary “living” go by the board. Laundry, shopping, cooking—they all wait. I have no schedule. Every stolen hour in front of the computer becomes my “schedule.”

What was your path to publication?
No special path. At first I simply sent things out (129 things), until United Airlines Mainliner magazine “bit.” From then on, every published book was achieved a different way. I was agented for my first nine books, yet for five of them the sale would not have occurred except for something I did myself. Even with an agent, you have to be part of the process.

What is your favorite self-marketing idea?
Speeches. There is no second choice. I have searched high and low for something that works as well as giving speeches, but have yet to find it.

8. What are the biggest surprises you’ve encountered as a writer?
Read the whole interview here.