You should be blogging, if you're not already. So says the recently converted book promotion specialist -- yours truly. I've been preaching my "blogging for book promotion" mantra for weeks, but now I can cite a couple of influential blogging supporters: The New York Times and Amazon.com. When the New York Times and Amazon.com tout blogging for authors, you know it's something you should look into.

A client of mine, Joe Vitale ("Mr. Fire"), just launched a blog for his latest book, Life’s Missing Instruction Manual. You can view his blog by clicking here.

As the New York Times points out, all authors' blogs are not alike. Authors have a variety of reasons for creating and maintaining blogs. Some authors want to disseminate information beyond what's in their books. Others want to drive traffic to their Web sites or create a dialogue with readers.

Some authors, of course, don't know yet why they're creating blogs for their books. They just have the gut feeling they "should" do it. That's the feeling of this book publicist, as well. You "should" be blogging, if you're an author, and you "should" encourage blogging, if you're a publisher.

I think Joe Vitale's blog serves as a good example of what an author's blog should look like. He's on the cutting edge of author blogging. Will you be the next author to create a blog? It's not rocket science, as they say. Visit any of the blogging sites, including the one I used -- Blogger.com -- to get started quickly and painlessly.

Technorati Tags: book promotion, book publicity

Posted by Stacey J Miller at 12:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

What can a business consultant teach us about book promotion? Quite a bit, if the business consultant in question is Barry Maher, author of the science fiction novel, “Legend.”

In an Apex Digest article written by Jason Sizemore, Maher suggests treating your book as though it were a small business. Focus on your customer' needs, and promote what you have to offer them.

To paraphrase Maher, the best book promotion is a satisfied reader. If it works for Maher and his book, "Legend," it will probably work for yours.

Technorati Tags: book promotion, book publicity

Posted by Stacey J Miller at 5:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Most book promotion specialists advise writers and publishers to begin their outreach to the media six months before the book's publication date.

The truth is, the more lead time you have to promote your book, the better off you may be. And it's never too early to start marketing your book ... even if it hasn't been written yet.

Here's a very clever book marketing plan that I came across yesterday. It's slated to begin well before even a word of the book it's supposed to promote has been penned.

The strategy goes like this:

Create a Web site, bring people to it, earn at least a million dollars through the Web site ... and then write a book about how you accomplished it. Not an easy trick in this post dot-com economy, but not impossible, either.

Oh, and these authors-to-be are not lacking in self-confidence (or in credentials). They've already alerted us to the fact that their Web site, Tooxta, will soon be as popular as Google and Ebay. And you know what? I believe them.

Tooxta. Tooxta. Tooxta. Commit that name to long-term memory. I have a feeling we'll be hearing a lot more about it. Stock tips, anyone?

Technorati Tags: book promotion, book publicity

Posted by Stacey J Miller at 11:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The Canton, Ohio Repository published a must-read article on Monday, December 26, 2005 called ""Publishing Looked to Internet as New Frontier in 2005." It points out that we'll soon be reading books via cell phones, buying books online one page at a time, and using blogs to promote books.

Book publicists: take note. The world of book publishing is changing.

But, in these days when a book promotion campaign might include opt-in emails and videopodcasts, it's nice to know there's one constant: Oprah Winfrey. Oprah, the queen of the televised book club, can still turn any writer into an overnight sensation. So, for every novelist and self-help author on the planet, an appearance on the Oprah Winfrey show will continue to be the holy grail no matter what else changes in the world.

The publishing industry may change and grow amid hype and lawsuits, but it's good to know that some things will remain unchanged. Thank you, Oprah, for giving us something to count on in the new year.

Technorati Tags: book promotion, book publicity

Posted by Stacey J Miller at 11:58 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

There are trade secrets in all professions, and promoting books is no exception. But, recently, I've discovered the #1 best book publicity shortcut of all: not taking shortcuts.

Here's what happened. I've been submitting articles that were written by authors for years. I offer these articles to weekly newspaper editors around the country. The editors can print the article for free as long as they include the author's attribution -- book title, URL, and so forth.

But, lately, I've become pumped up by the possibilities of submitting articles online. So I did some research and, ultimately, bought a software package that promised magic: I'd cut-and-paste the article into the software, add information about the author, and hit the "go" button. Before I knew it, the article would be submitted to the appropriate Web sites. All I had to do was sit back and watch the software automatically work, and then check my email to find confirmations that the article had been published online.

Easy? Not very. It took me about 7 hours to set up the software so it would work. Then, once I'd taken another hour or so to carefully review the software, I realized that I could not successfully use the software to publish articles by various authors. In other words, I could use the software to submit my own articles online, but not my clients' articles.

I was not feeling good about the software at that point. Still, I conducted a test of the software using one of my articles to see whether the software would be useful to me at all. At least, then, I could recommend it to my clients. Almost immediately, the confirmations did start to come into my email box. This was good, so I checked each one of the sites that claimed to have published my article.

It's a good thing I checked, because here's what I found. In no case (so far) was the article published correctly. The article, as published, was either completely missing the appropriate attribution, or -- in a couple of cases -- it was a blank page that contained only a title (no text and, mercifully, no attribution). I'm assuming the software uploaded my information to the wrong fields, but since I'm not a programming expert, I don't know for certain what went wrong.

I only know that the software test proved one thing: Book promotion shortcuts can be counterproductive. This particular experiment cost me the price of the software and a great deal of embarrassment. I'm certainly not recommending it to my clients.

So, you see, there are valuable book publicity tricks and tools of the trade out there, but the old wisdom applies. If it seems too good to be true, then it probably is. Avoid the snake oil, and invest your time in money in those book promotion strategies that have been proven to work.

Posted by Stacey J Miller at 2:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Are you still looking for holiday gifts? It's almost too easy to order a book online these days, or to stop at one of the chain bookstores while you're in the mall.

But here's my thought for the day: if you need another holiday gift, how about buying it at your local bookstore? You'll feel good about supporting an independent bookseller, and your gesture might repay you many times over.

Independent booksellers make independent decisions. Thus, they're more likely to buy your book or set up a signing for you than a chain bookstore would be. Enjoy the holiday, and buy wisely -- and pragmatically.

Posted by Stacey J Miller at 12:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Does the world need another literary agent? Well, we have one, thanks to the changing face of the publishing industry. Laurence Kirshbaum, the former chairman and chief executive of the Time Warner Book Group, has walked away from his prestigious position at a mainstream publishing house to pitch book projects to . . . well, other mainstream publishing houses. Here's the story.

I'm just wondering why changes in the publishing industry often seem to lead us back to our starting point -- more literary agents, more submissions to mainstream publishing houses, more waiting for advances and hoping for royalty checks, and more trying to entice publishers to promote books they often don't even care about.

Why do so many unpublished authors ask me to create a book promotion plan that they'll use to impress literary agents who might then agree to pitch their books to mainstream publishing houses wo that maybe, someday, their books will see the light of day? (I'll do that for you, if you insist, but it may not be the best idea because presenting an independent book publicist's promotion plan to a mainstream publisher may discourage that publishing company from conducting its own in-house PR campaign for your book.)

Why can't we see that, since the times are a'changing, we can change, too? We don't have to jump through the same old publishing industry hoops as we did a few years ago.

We don't need a literary agent, and we don't need a publisher.

We can want to work with a literary agent. We can want to work with a publisher. But we're not forced to do so.

We have the choice to self-publish.

I'm not talking about vanity publishing or working with one of the nondiscriminating P.O.D publishing companies.

I'm talking about becoming the publisher of your own book: getting your own ISBN and Library of Congress numbers, hiring your own production team, hooking up with a distributor, marketing and promoting your book, and taking on all the financial risk yourself -- and making all the key decisions about your book. What could make more sense than that?

Okay, I know that not every author wants to be a publisher, and for that reason, not every should be a publisher. Also, I rarely turn down the opportunity to promote an interesting book that's published by a prestigious house, so I fully understand why an author would accept an attractive advance from a renowned New York-based publisher.

But for those who are seeing the changes in the publishing industry and still feel forced to do things in the same old way to avoid the stigma of self-publishing, please get over it. Distributors, the media, and potential book buyers really will take your self-published book seriously if it's worthy of their time and attention. You don't have to have a mainstream publishing company's imprint on your book anymore. There are other, and often more lucrative, options for you. Feel free to explore them.

Posted by Stacey J Miller at 11:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)