Inspiration: The Best Christmas Gift of All for a Writer

Sharif Khan is a new friend I met on Twitter and later Facebook. I fell in love with this blog post and he graciously agreed to let me reprint it for you. I've loved the reassurance author Malcolm Gladwell has given me with several of his books and Sharif is obviously a fan, too. May Malcolm and Sharif encourage you to continue to be motivated through 2011. And to continue to read. I think that's one of the best ways to stay inspired and learn more about the intricacies of book promotion.



The Secret to Writing Success


By Sharif Khan, Author of Psychology of the Hero Soul




If you’re like me, I get really skeptical when I hear some guru claiming to have a silver bullet to achieving lasting success, be it a magic pill, number, formula, or mantra. However, there is one success formula or ‘magic number’ if you will, that I can wholeheartedly recommend: 10000.
‘10000?’ you ask. Yes, 10000. 10,000 hours to be precise. That’s the magic number for success.
According to Canadian journalist, author, and pop sociologist, Malcolm Gladwell, who has studied the common denominators shared by successful people around the world, you need to invest 10,000 hours practicing your craft to reach a level of professional success.
He goes on to cite examples such as Bill Gates, who practiced 10,000 hours of computer programming since high school before becoming a mega mogul. Even Gladwell asserts that he spent 10,000 hours of practice at The American Spectator and Washington Post, putting in about 20 hours work a week for a period of 10 years before becoming a successful author.
I decided to validate this theory in my hometown of Toronto by asking Aurora Award-Winning Science Fiction author, Karl Schroeder about Gladwell’s “10,000-Hour Rule” at a short story workshop he was hosting. He admitted, yes, that was about the time it took for him to reach professional success in his field as a sci-fi writer.

If you were to spend just 2 hours a day practicing your craft (writing, editing, polishing, rewriting), you’d reach a professional level of success in your field in about 14 years. Given the fact that (according to Nielsen Media Research) the average American spends 5 hours a day watching television, investing 2 hours a day in your dream vocation should not be all that difficult to do.
Now, if you were to push yourself and simply work an additional hour a day (that’s 3 hours a day) notice what a difference your minimal effort would make over time. 3 hours a day would get you to your 10,000 hour mark in about 9 years. Subtract 9 years from 14 years and you would save yourself 5 years of wasted time working on stuff that you either detested or were not fully passionate about to begin with!
I think you see where I’m going with this. It takes a decade or more to become an overnight success. Put in your 10,000 hours of practice. Start now, thank me later.
~Sharif Khan (www.sharifkhan.com ; sharif@herosoul.com ) is a freelance writer, essayist, and author of Psychology of the Hero Soul, an inspirational leadership book on awakening the hero within. He lives in Toronto where he is working on his first novel.


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 Carolyn Howard-Johnson, author of This Is the Place; Harkening: A Collection of Stories Remembered; Tracings, a chapbook of poetry; and how to books for writers including, The Frugal Book Promoter: How To Do What Your Publisher Won't; The Frugal Editor: Put Your Best Book Forward to Avoid Humiliation and Ensure Success; and Great Little Last Minute Editing Tips for Writers . The Great First Impression Book Proposal is her newest booklet for writers. She has three FRUGAL books for retailers including A Retailer’s Guide to Frugal In-Store Promotions: How To Increase Profits and Spit in the Eyes of Economic Downturns with Thrifty Events and Sales Techniques. Some of her other blogs are TheNewBookReview.blogspot.com, a blog where authors can recycle their favorite reviews. She also blogs at all things editing, grammar, formatting and more at The Frugal, Smart and Tuned-In Editor . If your followers at Twitter would benefit from this blog post, please use the little Green widget to let them know about this blog:

Giving Thanks and Keeping It Simple

Today is Thanksgiving (in case you missed the CNN report this morning! Ha!) And I'm thankful. I'm thankful for a whole lot of little things in addition to the big list I keep. And I was reminded of one of them this morning.

Penny Sansivieri's newsletter came to me in my e-mail box. I take dozens of e-letters, but Penny's is one of my favorites for its practical advice on book promotion.  It is always long and packed with resources. I print it out to read when I'm waiting for auditions and doctors. In the past the letter had always come to me as plain text in my e-mail window. Recently, the format changed to full HTML. It was gorgeous but I didn't like it as well and couldn't really decide why. 

Maybe it's because I'm an old-fashioned type girl. I found the old version easier to read than the new, flashier iteration a la ConstantContact.com.  At least, plain text feels more personal or less commercial to me.

In the last election a Pennsylvania politician (can't remember his name but I would have if he'd been from California!) eschewed slick red, white, and blue brochures for homemadish-looking black on white ones and made it part of his branding. Not only did his back-to-essentials approach get mentioned in Time magazine, he won!

Today--Thanksgiving Day--Penny's letter came to me in its not-so-glorious old format. I love it. And I'm thankful. I wanted to use the occasion to remind folks that we don't have to make a big job out of every promotion we do. I believe in the keep-it-simple-stupid credo. I talk a lot about shortcuts and recycling in both my The Frugal Book Promoter and Your Blog, Your Business books.

Of course, I'll read Penny's letter no matter how she sends it to me. Content is still what's important and she's got it!  Oh, by the way. You can subscribe to her letter the easy way by sending an e-mail with SUBSCRIBE in the subject line to subscribe@amarketingexpert.com.  You can subscribe to my Sharing with Writers newsletter (which will come to you as plain text in your e-mail box, too!) the same way. Send your SUBSCRIBE message to  HoJoNews@aol..com.




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Carolyn Howard-Johnson, author of This Is the Place; Harkening: A Collection of Stories Remembered; Tracings, a chapbook of poetry; and how to books for writers including, The Frugal Book Promoter: How To Do What Your Publisher Won't; The Frugal Editor: Put Your Best Book Forward to Avoid Humiliation and Ensure Success; and Great Little Last Minute Editing Tips for Writers . The Great First Impression Book Proposal is her newest booklet for writers. She has three FRUGAL books for retailers including A Retailer’s Guide to Frugal In-Store Promotions: How To Increase Profits and Spit in the Eyes of Economic Downturns with Thrifty Events and Sales Techniques. Some of her other blogs are TheNewBookReview.blogspot.com, a blog where authors can recycle their favorite reviews. She also blogs at all things editing, grammar, formatting and more at The Frugal, Smart and Tuned-In Editor . If your followers at Twitter would benefit from this blog post, please use the little Green widget to let them know about this blog:

Joyce White Talks the Basics of Podcasts and BlogTalkRadio

When Joyce White and I started talking about BlogTalkRadio successes, I was surprised to learn that I hadn't shared much about streaming broadcasts on the Net as a way to promote ourselves and our books. Joyce kindly agreed to write about her recent experiences for Sharing with Writers visitors. You'll find more on how to prepare for both radio and TV in The Frugal Book Promoter, too. It's promotion you can easily arrange for yourself. That is, you won't need a publicist to do it for you. How's that for frugal! (-:  Here is Joyce's a bit of encouragement from Joyce:



Okay, the hard part is done. Our book is finished and published. Our heart is out there for grabs at Amazon and on our Web sites.

Now what do poets and writers do? If you are like me, you probably have to chase others around to read your work to them. There is not much instant gratification for poets and other writers, but I’ve recently found being on a Blog Talk Show is a relatively simple, cheap way to promote ourselves and read our poetry to the world. If people know us, they are more likely to trust us and buy our books. Reaching out to BlogTalkRadio listeners increases our traffic, our subscriber list, and potentially our sales. It is a great way of making new friends and networking buddies.

 

For many of us, our work grows out of our personal histories and brings joy and healing to both the reader and the listeners. As a poet, I’m always looking for an initial thought burst, a memory or a feeling I can blow out of proportion, and use in a grand over-indulgent way. I’ve found a great, grand, and a frugal way to get my poetry read and talked about. That is to generate media attention, do-it-yourself style on Blog Talk Radio.

 

Podcasts have opened up so many new opportunities for authors and poets. Broadcasts are usually like radio programs in format and feature those of us with a message. They sort of emulate radio and television shows, only they are syndicated over the Internet. Listeners download them automatically to their computers at their convenience and they are available all over the world. With such a far reach, their uses can serve a variety of purposes.

 

Of course, most of us know building relationships and working together for a common good is a wonderful way to promote ourselves and our work. Martin Luther King says, “Not everyone can be famous. But everyone can be great.” Yay for independent publishing and Blog Talk Radio where we all can be great and celebrities, too!

 

If you’re interested in introducing yourself and your poetry or work to the world in a frugal manner, check out Carolyn Howard-Johnson’s, Podcast: On Frugal Book Promotion at http://www.thecreativepenn.com/2010/06/08/podcast-on-frugal-book-promotion-with-carolyn-howard-johnson/ . As a new author of art therapy articles, poetry, and book reviews, I’ve been on four podcasts talking about my work and poetry and it was great fun. My last podcast on November 16th brought over 300 readers to my website, http://www.wingedforarttherapy  . I only have a few suggestions to share when introducing yourself and your work to Blog Talk Radio and the world.

 

Be ready for questions from your host - - like what, why and who inspires you to write? Questions like these:

•  Are you a messenger?
• Who is your audience?
• How will most enjoy and benefit your message?
• What are you working on now?
• Have a couple poems or excerpts ready to read. (short)

Have fun, be honest, quick to respond, and repeat your host’s question in the beginning before answering; that way you won’t get lost, like I often do when talking about myself. Sometimes when we're nervous, we and forget the question!

 

Happy Podcasting for the Holidays!
Blessings, Joyce White, http://www.sculptingtheheart.com .

 

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Carolyn Howard-Johnson, author of This Is the Place; Harkening: A Collection of Stories Remembered; Tracings, a chapbook of poetry; and how to books for writers including, The Frugal Book Promoter: How To Do What Your Publisher Won't; The Frugal Editor: Put Your Best Book Forward to Avoid Humiliation and Ensure Success; and Great Little Last Minute Editing Tips for Writers . The Great First Impression Book Proposal is her newest booklet for writers. She has three FRUGAL books for retailers including A Retailer’s Guide to Frugal In-Store Promotions: How To Increase Profits and Spit in the Eyes of Economic Downturns with Thrifty Events and Sales Techniques. Some of her other blogs are TheNewBookReview.blogspot.com, a blog where authors can recycle their favorite reviews. She also blogs at all things editing, grammar, formatting and more at The Frugal, Smart and Tuned-In Editor . If your followers at Twitter would benefit from this blog post, please use the little Green widget to let them know about this blog:

FREE Amazon Secrets in Return for a Favor

Authors love to hate Amazon.com. Trouble is, we can't thrive without it. Sadly most authors and even publishers don't know how to effectively use the features Amazon offers -- especially the trick to achieving bestselling ratings.
Luckily, Aggie Villaneuva learned that stuff the hard way -- and she achieved two category bestsellers in 2010, each book in three separate categories! She freely shares that knowledge with us in her TWO white paper reports in ONE, "How Choosing Kindle Categories Wisely Got me Two Best Sellers This Year." Plus "How to Gain Bestseller Status in Amazon’s Print Bookstore Too."
Miraculously, (because Aggie is a peach!)  I'm offering it at no charge to authors willing to help other authors learn even more about the writing and publishing world by subscribing to my Sharing with Writers newsletter. One report for the author who recommends my newsletter. Another for the author who signs up. It doesn't get any better than that!

To qualify for this double gift, put SUBSCRIBE-FREE "AMAZON Secrets" REPORT in the subject line of an e-mail and send it to HoJoNews@aol.com. In the window of the e-mail, list the e-mail address of the recommending author and the new subscriber. Both authors will get an e-copy of Aggie's report back in their e-mail boxes. Easy as that!

PS: You'll also find the section on using Amazon in my The Frugal Book Promoter useful. Amazon isn't perfect but they are trying to be author friendly. And, I have to say, they've never been late with a royalty payment. Authors can't always say that about their publishers, can they? (-:











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Carolyn Howard-Johnson, author of This Is the Place; Harkening: A Collection of Stories Remembered; Tracings, a chapbook of poetry; and how to books for writers including, The Frugal Book Promoter: How To Do What Your Publisher Won't; The Frugal Editor: Put Your Best Book Forward to Avoid Humiliation and Ensure Success; and Great Little Last Minute Editing Tips for Writers . The Great First Impression Book Proposal is her newest booklet for writers. She has three FRUGAL books for retailers including A Retailer’s Guide to Frugal In-Store Promotions: How To Increase Profits and Spit in the Eyes of Economic Downturns with Thrifty Events and Sales Techniques. Some of her other blogs are TheNewBookReview.blogspot.com, a blog where authors can recycle their favorite reviews. She also blogs at all things editing, grammar, formatting and more at The Frugal, Smart and Tuned-In Editor . If your followers at Twitter would benefit from this blog post, please use the little Green widget to let them know about this blog:

How To Be A Prolific Writer

By Dr. Peter Clement

When I found Carolyn’s @FrugalBookPromo on Twitter last week, she responded, “Pleased to meet you, Peter. You are prolific to be sure. Maybe you’d like to write an article for my blog on how you do it!”


I was pleased with the invitation, but taken aback at being called prolific. That was a term I’d associated with the masters: Tolstoy; Dickens; Dick Francis. Just a few days ago I read an interview with Stephen King where he revealed that his novella Ur had taken him three days to write, but that he’d then released it as an e-book, and quickly earned himself $80,000. “I’m very prolific,” he added to explain this feat. The word that also came to my mind was profitable.

Then there is the most prolific writer I ever met in the flesh. Forget about Sue Grafton or Michael Connolly. Seven years ago I’d been invited to speak at the Oklahoma Writers Festival, and one of the events was the presentation of a lifetime achievement award to Dusty Miller, a real life cowboy who’d written well over a hundred novels about life on the range, all of them published. I later found myself beside him in the men’s room and after congratulating him on his win, asked, “How many books do you write in a year?”

“Well, son,” he said in a rasping drawl as he hitched up his jeans, “one year I wrote nine, and that was too many.”

At this point in time I’d published six novels in six years, and simply gave him a wan smile.

So in turning my thoughts to prolificacy, I can only offer my own pedestrian insights.

I think the first necessity to being a writer at all, prolific or not, is to have been a prolific reader. It is only by reading everything that, magically, a person can find his or her voice. I have no idea how this cognitive miracle works, but it is a widely stated truism. In my own case I tried to write in my twenties and the result sucked. Twenty years of inhaling two books a week later, I wrote my first novel, Lethal Practice.

But even then, there are a lot of prolific readers who never write anything, despite many having a vague intention to do so. And according to a psychiatrist friend who also is a writer, those who start a novel and actually finish it are one in a thousand. My own opinion is that writers must write. We have this magical compulsion that grips us without mercy and compels us to tell our stories. We do it because we have to. This is what I call prolificacy as a disease.

However, there also were some practical steps that I found useful:

First I quit my job, at least, the half of my job that was in ER [Emergency Room]. I’d just finished an eight-year stint as Department Chief, and with twenty years of working shifts under my belt, I figured it was now or never that I make time to take a flyer on a plot idea that had been grumbling in the back of my mind for half a decade. In more genteel terms, I took a two-year sabbatical. This also granted me a chicken-out clause, because I could have the shifts back if I flopped as a writer. (Peace of mind as to future employment goes a long way to unleashing creativity. So does keeping food on the table. I maintained the half of my work-week that involved family practice in a private office.) Two years later I’d finished the manuscript for Lethal Practice, and a year after that, had sold it to Ballantine. Prolific or not, I felt I’d hit a home run.

Then I discovered the second ingredient: A deadline. Before they’d publish the first book, I had to sign a contract to produce a sequel, the delivery date being in one year. “What happens if I don’t make it?” I asked.

“Don’t even think about it,” my agent said, filing the contracts in triplicate.

I had visions of burly men kept in the basement of Bertelsmann wielding shears, their sole purpose being to track down delinquent authors and collect digits, a phalange at a time for every day overdue.

One year later to the day, with twenty minutes to go before the UPS pickup cut-off, Death Rounds was in the mail.

By then I’d started to trust my writing process. Probably the most efficient technique I adopted was to punch through that first draft. Once the story is complete in rough, then the real writing begins. As the cliché says, great stories aren’t written, they are re-written. My own humble version of this adage is, at the end of the day, I’m further along staring at a page that needs a lot of work than at a blank page.

The second draft is where I do the heavy lifting, and cutting. Eighty percent of editing, I think, is clearing out the verbal clutter.

During the third draft I still cut a lot, and rewrite to shade and polish the characters. But even then I’m not ready to hand off to an editor. At this point I always recruit at least a dozen readers. They are a broad spectrum of people, some super-smart book lovers, some more mundane in their literary tastes, and I give them two tasks: mark any passage where I’m not clear and any passage where they find themselves skimming pages because I am boring them. This feedback I incorporate into the fourth draft, and it lifts the manuscript to a whole new level where I can then get the best use of a professional editor for the fifth rewrite. Finally, I let it sit a month, and do a final, fresh read through for polishing.

A few other comments:

It’s important to keep the stories themselves fresh. I did seven books in seven years with Ballantine, and with each novel treated myself to a topic and theme I found exciting. The challenge to exhilarate oneself is, I think, absolutely essential to being as prolific as one can, that definition being very personal for each individual writer.

The other issue is time. In my latest novel, The Darkness Drops, I took on a very rich and complex story that, to do it justice, required much more work than my previous novels. It simply would not fit in the one-year deadline. Yet as a writer, with the story’s demand for a large canvas—the various levels of plot, the blending of past and present events, a big cast in a strongly character-driven narrative, the potential for creating fast-paced suspense and an intriguing mystery at its center on a global scale--I couldn’t resist the challenge. The first draft took me two years. Major cuts, rewrites, and shortening it by a hundred pages without losing the heart of the story took another year. Showing it around to my stable of readers for their feedback, then, with the help of an editor, polishing, making some final trims, shading the characters and fine-tuning the all-important unique structure of the novel, took a few months more. By the criterion of time alone, all this might make me seem less prolific. But as writers, when we tackle our most ambitious stories, no matter how long or difficult the path, we accomplish a necessary push beyond our comfort zone. I brought The Darkness Drops to life. As long as you, the reader, find it to be full of passion, drama, adventure, fun, and entertainment, I’ve achieved my goal.
~To learn more about Peter Clement and his books, visit: peterclementbooks.com The Darkness Drops is also available for Kindle.
the mutant












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Carolyn Howard-Johnson, author of This Is the Place; Harkening: A Collection of Stories Remembered; Tracings, a chapbook of poetry; and how to books for writers including, The Frugal Book Promoter: How To Do What Your Publisher Won't; The Frugal Editor: Put Your Best Book Forward to Avoid Humiliation and Ensure Success; and Great Little Last Minute Editing Tips for Writers . The Great First Impression Book Proposal is her newest booklet for writers. She has three FRUGAL books for retailers including A Retailer’s Guide to Frugal In-Store Promotions: How To Increase Profits and Spit in the Eyes of Economic Downturns with Thrifty Events and Sales Techniques. Some of her other blogs are TheNewBookReview.blogspot.com, a blog where authors can recycle their favorite reviews. She also blogs at all things editing, grammar, formatting and more at The Frugal, Smart and Tuned-In Editor . If your followers at Twitter would benefit from this blog post, please use the little Green widget to let them know about this blog:

Audio/Video Promotion or Who Says Poets Can't Promote

It is common knowledge that it is more difficult for writers of fiction and poetry to promote their work. It can be done, however. This post is sort of a holiday gift to poets. That is, I am sending you samples of what my poetry writing partner did with audios and a video to help us promote our Blooming Red: Christmas Poetry for the Rational (www.budurl.com/BloomingRed). I've also given you some links to my Web site to show you how I used the links and the html code for the video on my Web site.  I'm going right now to see if I can figure out how to install the video on Amazon.


Here are two audios of Maggie reading some poems from her section of our Blooming Red chapbook. She has amazing British/Aussie diction.
http://www.compulsivereader.com/html/images/Six%20Million%20Years%20Ago.mp3
http://www.compulsivereader.com/html/images/Silent%20Symphony.mp3

I installed these links on my Shopping Plaza (www.howtodoitfrugally.com/shopping_plaza.htm) and other pages on my Web site like www.howtodoitfrugally.com/poetry_books.htm and www.howtodoitfrugally.com/more_on_blooming_red.htm

Please enjoy Maggie reading one of her poems from our newest chapbook Blooming Red on my Web site. You can see how I used her video: (www.howtodoitfrugally.com/more_on_blooming_red.htm ). Be sure to scroll down to the poetry sample section on this page.



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Carolyn Howard-Johnson, author of This Is the Place; Harkening: A Collection of Stories Remembered; Tracings, a chapbook of poetry; and how to books for writers including, The Frugal Book Promoter: How To Do What Your Publisher Won't; The Frugal Editor: Put Your Best Book Forward to Avoid Humiliation and Ensure Success; and Great Little Last Minute Editing Tips for Writers . The Great First Impression Book Proposal is her newest booklet for writers. She has three FRUGAL books for retailers including A Retailer’s Guide to Frugal In-Store Promotions: How To Increase Profits and Spit in the Eyes of Economic Downturns with Thrifty Events and Sales Techniques. Some of her other blogs are TheNewBookReview.blogspot.com, a blog where authors can recycle their favorite reviews. She also blogs at all things editing, grammar, formatting and more at The Frugal, Smart and Tuned-In Editor . If your followers at Twitter would benefit from this blog post, please use the little Green widget to let them know about this blog:

AuthorsDen Offers New Free E-Book Program

Even though I have a Web site of my own, I have been a member of AuthorsDen for a number of years. For a number of reasons. But lately they are on a roll. I thought my subscribers would want to know about their new e-book program. Here is the letter directly from the AuthorsDen president:

Free Service Coming Soon!

We have a big surprise for you!

On Monday November 15th, at 12:00PM PST you will be able to sell your books right from your pages on AuthorsDen.com and earn 100% of the profits!

This is a huge new release, so we are staging it in two parts:

Stage 1: November 15th, you can participate by simply uploading your existing PDF files of your books and book covers so, get your files ready!

Stage 2: Mid-December time-frame, we will launch an online suite of writing and collaborating tools to write, edit, publish, and sell your books. Again, you keep all the profits.
I'd like to take this opportunity say thank you for your participation on AuthorsDen!

You have helped make AuthorsDen.com a wonderful author and reader community for all to enjoy. The community support that we witness everyday we login is amazing and the feedback you've provided has been incredible over the 10 years we've been online. I believe you will be delighted with our new service as it is a reflection of my strong belief that Authors create their works and should hold onto the profits as well.

Please let us know what you think.

Matt Miller
Founder of www.AuthorsDen.com

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Carolyn Howard-Johnson, author of This Is the Place; Harkening: A Collection of Stories Remembered; Tracings, a chapbook of poetry; and how to books for writers including, The Frugal Book Promoter: How To Do What Your Publisher Won't; The Frugal Editor: Put Your Best Book Forward to Avoid Humiliation and Ensure Success; and Great Little Last Minute Editing Tips for Writers . The Great First Impression Book Proposal is her newest booklet for writers. She has three FRUGAL books for retailers including A Retailer’s Guide to Frugal In-Store Promotions: How To Increase Profits and Spit in the Eyes of Economic Downturns with Thrifty Events and Sales Techniques. Some of her other blogs are TheNewBookReview.blogspot.com, a blog where authors can recycle their favorite reviews. She also blogs at all things editing, grammar, formatting and more at The Frugal, Smart and Tuned-In Editor . If your followers at Twitter would benefit from this blog post, please use the little Green widget to let them know about this blog:

SELLING BOOKS OUTSIDE OF BOOKSTORES

I love it when Sharing with Writers subscribers offer up their experiences for the edification of their fellow writers. Thus this week a little from Joe Dungan. Please note: You will find tips on making book signings--both at bookstores and far afield from bookstores successful--in The Frugal Book Promoter.  Having said that, I agree with Joe. Bookstores usually aren't the best place to sell books!

By Joe Dungan

After I self-published my first book, L.A. Nuts, I did what all dutiful authors do: I scheduled readings and signings. One of them was up the coast from here in L.A., in a bookstore in a little town called Morro Bay. The owner was most helpful. She submitted info about the signing to the regional newspaper, which filled half a page with a big picture of me. She scheduled it during the Saturday afternoon farmer's market, so as to take advantage of all that foot traffic. She had a nice sign in the window announcing the event.

And I went and sat at the little table and in two magical hours, I sold... no books. Could barely engage the few passersby who wandered in.
She was very apologetic about it, wondering if the chance of rain had kept people indoors. I told her that I appreciated her efforts nonetheless, thanked her, and left.

Then my brother -- who'd been traveling with me on the trip -- and I headed a little further up the coast to a winery. As we started sampling wines, the owner engaged us in polite banter: Where were we from, what brought us up the coast, etc. I casually told him about the busted book signing, and described the book -- a series of humorous essays about crazy people in Los Angeles -- with equal casualness. Wasn't wearing my salesman cap in the slightest.

Next thing I know, the owner says, "I'll take one."

I handed the car keys to my brother and asked him to get a book out of the trunk. Then a guy nearby who'd been tasting wine and had overheard the conversation said, "Make it two."

Two hours at a bookstore: no sales. Ten minutes at a winery: two sales.

Lessons learned:

Don't be afraid to talk about your book anywhere? Of course. Never underestimate the power of the extremely soft sell? Sure. But it also taught me to look for non-bookstore venues to sell books. Just because people aren't at a bookstore doesn't mean they don't read. Plus, there are all kinds of tie-ins you can find between your book and various retailers. Sometimes, as illustrated above, you don't even need a tie-in. All you need is to show up.

It all reminded me of a quote I once read: "Bookstores are terrible places to sell books." Make sure your book is available in bookstores, of course, but don't put all your eggs in those baskets. Start thinking creatively about how non-bookstores could sell your book. Even if you can't think of any tie-in, show up with a copy and see if they can think of something. If they can't, they might buy one for themselves!
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Joe Dungan is a freelance writer, editor, and proofreader in Los Angeles. His first book, L.A. Nuts, won first place for humor in the 17th Annual Writer's Digest Self-Published Book Awards, a silver medal in Independent Publisher's IPPY Awards, and a bronze in ForeWord Reviews Book of the Year Awards. It's available from Amazon (click on the widget to the left), and non-bookstores in L.A. and beyond. He and his book are also on Facebook if you want to join/like for occasional, allegedly humorous updates.







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Carolyn Howard-Johnson, author of This Is the Place; Harkening: A Collection of Stories Remembered; Tracings, a chapbook of poetry; and how to books for writers including, The Frugal Book Promoter: How To Do What Your Publisher Won't; The Frugal Editor: Put Your Best Book Forward to Avoid Humiliation and Ensure Success; and Great Little Last Minute Editing Tips for Writers . The Great First Impression Book Proposal is her newest booklet for writers. She has three FRUGAL books for retailers including A Retailer’s Guide to Frugal In-Store Promotions: How To Increase Profits and Spit in the Eyes of Economic Downturns with Thrifty Events and Sales Techniques. Some of her other blogs are TheNewBookReview.blogspot.com, a blog where authors can recycle their favorite reviews. She also blogs at all things editing, grammar, formatting and more at The Frugal, Smart and Tuned-In Editor . If your followers at Twitter would benefit from this blog post, please use the little Green widget to let them know about this blog:

A Rant: What about "The Secret" and Analytical Skills

I know. You’ve been dying for one of my rants, right?


You know the ones that are unorganized. Ungrammatical but passionate. The ones that are ticked. Well here is one of those, just for you. It’s coming to you before the holiday season when I’ll try to think of something more inspirational.
First, this is what made me think about “Analytical Skills,” the topic of this rant. It is a link one of my blog subscribers sent me for a list of books (naturally I thought of you! Books!!). It's a list of books that will make you dumber! (http://www.onlinecertificateprograms.org/blog/2010/10-books-that-will-make-you-dumber/).

I actually agree with most of their assessments of books that don't do much for the reader. I tutor a few students in ESL (English as Second Language) and accent reduction and I almost always review what they read in my first session with them. If they enjoy biographies, I steer them away from People magazine and suggest they read the biography editions of Time magazine—those issues where they list the 100 Most Influential People, as an example.
I steer them away from TV News (both ultra liberal and ultra conservative) and give them assignments for news channels that try to give us a more balanced perspective. I think that we spoon feed ourselves the kinds of material that only confirms what we already believe and I think that is a mistake. I also don’t see how knowing about the most recent car chase on the 405 or five-alarm fire in a crack house is going to make us any brighter. I also recommend 60 Minutes on Sunday nights and a few other programs.
Gasping for breath here.

You remember only a few weeks ago when writers (presumably all of whom can read!) were tsk-tsking over the information in Amazon’s most media release that reported their e-books had outsold paper books for the first time? Turned out it was that e-books had outsold hard cover books for the first time (and said exactly that!). That is a factoid; it certainly only barely qualifies as a fact. It sure isn't news considering how expensive hardcover books are these days. Seems everyone read what they wanted when they saw the word “hard” and didn’t stop to think how improbable it would be that e-book sales might have surpassed the sales of all books made of paper!
On this list published by Online Certificate Programs, you’ll find Dan Brown’s most famous book. Sure, it’s a fun story. But if you read it without analyzing his style, it may ruin your own style for the next decade. (I believe writers absorb subconsciously the styles of those they read—all the more reason to read well-written works!).

Only a few weeks ago I was given a bruising review on Amazon. It was from a woman who had decided not to read the Frugal Editor because what could an editor/author know if she had a book with an amateurish cover? Worse, the reviewer felt compelled to tell the world that it was an awful book after confessing she hadn’t read it! What she didn’t know about the branding part of marketing could fill another book. The Frugal Editor (www.budurl.com/TheFrugalEditor)  gives frugal advice! Therefore the cover is Frugal! Ah, well. One of the signs of weak analytical skills is that those who are weakest have never analyzed their own skills so they don’t have a clue!

You’ll see Ronda Byrne’s The Secret on this list of books that make people dumber, too. Actually, I think The Secret might help some folks but only if they use all the analytical skills they can muster when they read it. There are some things that get carried too far, even some that are misleading. Still, we could all use a more positive attitude and there are some principles of physics in it that are right on, principles that most of us regular folk either don’t know about or don’t know much about. That makes it hard for us to filter out the nuggets from the husks.

I do think a list like this is something we may find helpful. We should use our analytical skills no matter what we read, though--including this list.

We’re not required to agree with anything we read. It’s important to consider the source. Frankly, the Internet is right there at the top of news sources I choose to distrust. It’s right up there with political campaign ads. Right up there with medical claims and endorsements of all kinds (in spite of the fact that endorsements and blurbs are practically the lifeblood of selling books.) In fact, there isn’t much that I don’t mistrust. If that’s a bad thing, well, sue me. (-:

I’m done.
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Carolyn Howard-Johnson, author of This Is the Place; Harkening: A Collection of Stories Remembered; Tracings, a chapbook of poetry; and how to books for writers including, The Frugal Book Promoter: How To Do What Your Publisher Won't; The Frugal Editor: Put Your Best Book Forward to Avoid Humiliation and Ensure Success; and Great Little Last Minute Editing Tips for Writers . The Great First Impression Book Proposal is her newest booklet for writers. She has three FRUGAL books for retailers including A Retailer’s Guide to Frugal In-Store Promotions: How To Increase Profits and Spit in the Eyes of Economic Downturns with Thrifty Events and Sales Techniques. Some of her other blogs are TheNewBookReview.blogspot.com, a blog where authors can recycle their favorite reviews. She also blogs at all things editing, grammar, formatting and more at The Frugal, Smart and Tuned-In Editor . If your followers at Twitter would benefit from this blog post, please use the little Green widget to let them know about this blog: