Your Book Authors

August 18th, 2011

As they say–better late than never, right? We are getting back on track with this week’s blog post and will have a new podcast to share next week. You can also check out the course syllabuses (syllabi?) for our six week eCourses, the third lesson for each course will be up next week! Now on to this week’s blog post…

What is public relations? It’s a common misconception that marketing and public relations are the same thing. In fact, a good PR strategy is actually one component of an overall marketing plan. In order to promote your book, you’ll need to develop a strategy for attracting media attention. In this day and age, this includes not just newspapers and magazines, but blogs and other online news outlets. We’ve put together five quick steps for you to take to promote yourself and your book in print and online media.

If your target market makes hats out of their newspapers instead of reading them, you should probably try an online publication. (photo by katerha)

Step 1: Create a media kit

You need a media kit. Period. If you don’t have one yet, take 30 minutes to go through our marketing kit mini workbook and create one now. If you have one, make sure you keep it up to date. You’ll also want to have both a printed and digital version of your kit to share with interested parties.

Step 2: Prepare your pitch

In 30 seconds or 100 words, you need to be able to convince someone that you and your book are interesting and original. Write and rehearse your pitch so you’ll be ready when the time comes. Prepare a few alternate versions of your pitch that you can use in different scenarios depending upon your audience.

Step 3: Do your research

Before you start approaching people looking for publicity, make sure you know who you’re talking to. How many people read/visit the publication each day? What are their interests? Do they align with the subject matter of your book? There are so many blogs and publications available on the web you should take advantage of the variety to find just the right fit for your target market.

Step 4: Put together a press release

In addition to your media kit and pitch, have a press release put together that’s publishing ready. Read over our tips for writing a stellar press release if you need some extra guidance. Essentially you just want to write something from a third person perspective (no “I” or “me” references) that gives a brief synopsis of you, your book and where its available for purchase. Some publications might print the release as is while others can at least use it to get a better idea of you and your book.

Step 5: Just ask!

Once you’ve got your potential targets selected, go for it! Contact them via the appropriate means (e-mail, Twitter or Facebook) and lay out your pitch. If you’re asking for a guest post or article, suggest some topics you can write about that might interest their readers (make sure they’re things you can tie into your book as well). Be sure to point out what benefit your book/post/article would be to their organization and why it’s relevant. Finish with your contact information so they know how to get a hold of you if they have additional questions or follow-ups.

That’s it! Five easy steps and you’ll be on your way down the road to (free) publicity!

Posted by in Shannon in Marketing, Public Relations on August 18th, 2011 | No Comments »

The e-Publishing Diaries: Formatting Kindle eBooks, Part 1

August 7 (P Minus 25): Thank you to everyone who has responded to the blog tour request! I’m putting the details together and will get back to you within a couple of days. 

When many people think of e-publishing, the first thing that comes to mind are ebooks for Amazon’s Kindle, which is why I want to spend at least a couple of posts in this series on that format specifically. When I first considered the possibility of e-publishing, I assumed that offering Oscar as a Kindle ebook was all I would want or need to do.

I soon learned it’s not quite that simple (see also author Elizabeth Spann Craig’s thoughts on the ebook challenge). Different companies and e-readers (for example, Amazon’s Kindle and BN’s Nook) require different kinds of file formats (mobi and epub, respectively). Wikipedia has a good breakdown of the different formats, with tables at the bottom of the article that offer quick visual comparisons of features.

Guest writer Guido Henkel on The Creative Penn explains why he takes the time and effort to customize his works for each of the different formats, rather than limiting himself only to mobi and/or epub, or using a company such as Smashwords to do the formatting and distribution for him (click on any Smashwords title to see a listing at the bottom of the screen of available ebook reading formats):

“To me it is important to give my readers the choice to read in whatever format works best for them. I would never want a single reader to abort a purchase because he or she realizes that the book is not available for their format of choice. Even if I make only a single sale in the Palm format, I feel it was worth the effort, if only to show that I care.” Read More

So while this post is about Kindle (mobi) formatting, I want to be sure to be clear that mobi is far from the only game in town, especially with Nook’s color capability and the iPad’s interactive potential. Since Kindle ebooks are perhaps the best known, however, let’s begin.

First, if you have never done any ebook formatting, and especially if you aren’t that familiar with html, I recommend using MobiPocket Creator (free to download), which allows you to “build” a mobi file using a fairly intuitive drag and drop system.

The bulk of the work comes in creating “clean” html files to upload to Mobipocket Creator. Give yourself a few days or weeks to learn. CJ’s Easy as Pie Kindle Tutorials are an excellent free resource to take you through the steps, or, if you don’t mind spending a few dollars, get a copy of Joshua Tallent’s Kindle Formatting: The Complete Guide to Formatting Books for the Amazon Kindle.

Here’s the most important part: Practice on one or more projects at a leisurely, stress-free pace before you format your “masterpiece.” Once you create an ebook using Mobipocket Creator, you can read it on your own Kindle (or a Kindle reading app) just as you can any purchased book. The possibilities are endless! Make an ebook of family recipes for holiday gifts. Make an ebook of your child’s stories. Or make your own edition of a favorite, public domain classic from Project Gutenberg (download the html version). While Mobipocket Creator does give the option of officially publishing through their services, you can skip that step and keep the ebook just for yourself.

I’ve found the process to be a bit slow and putzy (there is a lot of uploading, testing, revising, uploading again) but not all that difficult—enjoyable, even. I’ve done two previous projects before tackling Oscar’s Gift, which takes a lot of the pressure off and gives me a realistic sense of how long the process will take.

What does a Mobipocket Creator ebook look like? See for yourself by downloading a free sample chapter of Oscar’s Gift using the Box file sharing widget in the top right column (feedback welcome!). You can then open the file with a Kindle reading app, or connect your Kindle to your computer and drag the file to the “documents” folder in your Kindle files. If the widget doesn’t work for downloading (I’ve never tried it before), just leave a comment, and I’ll gladly email you the file.

Like this:

The e-Publishing Diaries: PBS’s MediaShift and Other Supportive Resources

August 8 (P Minus 24): Today’s updates:

• Received an email from Bowker’s saying that my ISBN order is being processed and should be emailed soon (more about ISBNs later this week; it’s more complicated than I first thought)
• Began gathering visuals for a book trailer
• Changed the method of file sharing for the Kindle sample chapter to Dropbox, after the Box.net widget looked too clunky (see upper right; I will add more file versions, including a pdf, in the coming days and weeks)
• Am getting excellent proofreading feedback from my eagle-eye final proofreader
• Am almost ready to send out blog tour information and options to those who expressed interest
• Am generally far too excited about working on Oscar, given the other work I also need to do during the day!

Here are a few really good resources I’ve found recently and have learned from. At the end of this series, I’ll collect all of the links in one place to share in a tab.

1. PBS’s MediaShift (“Your Guide to the Digital Media Revolution”) has a section titled BookShift that has several informative, interesting, and motivating articles, such as these:

• How to Pair Smashwords and Scribd for Ideal E-Book Strategy
• 2010: The Year Self-Publishing Lost Its Stigma
• The Pitfalls of Using Self-Publishing Book Packages
• 6 Ways Authors Can Succeed by Self-Publishing Books

2. Jenny Blake has put together an amazing 15-tab “Book Marketing Master Spreadsheet.” Download it. Now. (Shared by Seth Godin)

3. “Self-Published or Independent? What’s in a Name Anyway?” makes the argument for using the descriptor “independent publisher” rather than “self-published,” and offers some valuable perspective-changing tools in the process.

4. Finally, Bryan Young similarly argues why authors should consider “approaching book publishing as an entrepreneur” in “Combating the Stigma of Self-Publishing“:

“JK Rowling was rejected by 12 publishers before Bloomsbury Press picked her up. Would it have made the Harry Potter books somehow less good if she went to self-publish them instead of try another publisher? Maybe they wouldn’t have had the runaway success they did, but she certainly wouldn’t have produced a bad book.

On the other side of the coin, how many terrible books have you read coming from publishers? The answer is a lot. They get it wrong as often as anybody. They really aren’t the tastemakers people seem to give them credit for.”

Like this:

August 15th, 2011

The following is a guest post by Randall Davidson. I know we were scheduled to have a new post from Shannon today, but due to a friend of Duolit wedding and a special out-of-town guest, we thought we’d run this guest post instead. Thanks for a great post, Randall!

Self-published works are not subjected to the watchful eyes of professional editors, leaving the job of proofreading in the hands of the writer. To create self-published works that look great and convey your ideas appropriately, follow these 10 proofreading tips from professional proofreaders:

1. Allow some time to pass. If your self-imposed deadline allows, put the work aside for a few days or weeks before beginning the proofreading process.
2. Simplify whenever possible. Look for complicated words that can be replaced with simpler ones. Also, look for long passages that can be broken down into multiple sentences or paragraphs.
3. Format your text. Arrange the text as you will be publishing it. Then, look for problems with paragraphs breaking strangely across pages. Formatted text also looks different from plain text, so typos you missed before may show up.
4. Have someone read the text to you. If it’s not too time consuming, have someone read the text to you. You will hear problems with word choice, transition issues, and other awkward phrases that aren’t apparent on paper.
5. Look for consistency. Make sure you stay with either second or third person throughout the work, and remain consistent with your writing style. You may have written the work over several weeks or months, but the text should seem like it was all written at once.
6. Use grammar-checking software. While there’s no substitute for careful examination by hand, grammar software can catch many simple errors before you begin the final proofreading stage.
7. Pay attention to graphic design. With no editor or publisher involved when you’re proofreading a work that you will publish yourself, you have to pay attention to every detail. This includes design elements.
8. Get the technical things right. No matter the format in which you are self-publishing your work, make sure to check copyright and title pages as well as indices and tables of contents. No one else will check these things.
9. Consider your audience very carefully. Re-read every word to make sure the information is directed at your audience, and is not just serving your needs. The work is for the audience, not you.
10. Do it all again. Once is never enough when proofreading. While it can be tedious to read the same words again, it’s a necessary part of good editing.

By following these 10 proofreading tips, your self-published works can be as good as professionally edited ones.

About the author: Randall Davidson is one of the founders of ProofreadingServices.Us, a proofreading services company that offers manuscript proofreading. Randall enjoys sharing writing tips and best practices with other authors.

Posted by in Toni in Guest Posts, Writing on August 15th, 2011 | No Comments »