Quotations as Promotion

Every once in a while I like to drop in one of my fave tips from my Sharing with Writers newsletter. Doing so does two things. It affirms my advice that recycling what we write is a good marketing technique (because it saves time and because frequency is an important tenet of marketing). It also encourages visitors to this blog to sign up for this newsletter for valuable tips (and inspiration) like this one. Please sign at www.howtodoitfrugally.com. The sign-up form is in the upper right column of every page of the site. Note: There is a freebie for doing so!

Writing/Promotion Tip: As you edit your work, notice the little quotable gems within it and use them on Twitter to increase interest in what you are doing. Quotes are supremely re-tweetable, too. (_: 

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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:

Cruisin' Conference for Writers

Many of you know I love to travel, love to cruise, and love to write.
Now I get to do them all at once. I will be a presenter on Catherine Yesayan’s first-ever cruise leaving out of the Long Beach Harbor on Sunday, Feb 5, sort of a pre Valentine’s love fest for writers. It also stars Jeraldine Saunders, author of the long-running (and famed!) “Love Boat” TV series starring Gavin McLeod. She will give the keynote speech and share with other writers her extensive career in publishing nonfiction self-help books.
It’s also frugal because the conference prices are quite low but you’ll also get a $35 reduction if you reserve before 9/11/11.

Here is what Catherine has to say:

“Save your stateroom for a one-of-a-kind WRITERS' RETREAT on a cruise ship to Mexican Riviera: Sunday Feb. 5-12, 2012. Our fabulous teachers will guide you into story development, visual thinking, and journaling. Writers and non-writers are welcome. We have negotiated the best prices. Learn more: http://loveboatretreat.webs.com/”

Here is her formal invitation:

Remember the "Love Boat?"

Our Pre-Valentine Cruise will bring "Love Boat" memories alive with keynote speaker Jeraldine Saunders,
author of the long-running TV series
"The Love Boat"

JOIN US FOR AN ENTERTAINING
and one-of-a kind writing retreat
on a CRUISE SHIP
to Mexican Riviera including
Puerto Vallarta and Cabo San Lucas.

Sailing Dates:
Sunday February 5-12, 2012
Ship: Carnival Splendor
Sailing from Long Beach, CA

First-ever writing getaway

This will be our first getaway. However, we'd like to turn it into an annual retreat. Each year we would go to different parts of the world, write about different places, people, cultures and travel experiences. We hope to publish the written narratives of our participants in an anthology called
Shades of Culture.

Classes are taught by our master-presenters:
Jeraldine Saunders
Carolyn Howard-Johnson
Kelly Rait-

Get inspired by Ms. Jeraldine Saunders
who will share memories of the "Love Boat"
from 70s and 80s.

Imagine unwinding and lounging in the shallow of a chaise.

Imagine basking against the azure seas and writing about your inner thoughts.

For those of you who write or have always wanted to write personal narratives or travel journals, here is a great opportunity!

Writers and non-writers are welcome.
Program Director: Catherine Yesayan
cyesayan@gmail.com
Cell: 818 497 0707
Learn more at
http://loveboatretreat.webs.com/ 

Now, I have to ask you, wouldn’t it be fun to have enough Sharing with Writers subscribers and visitors among us to have our own little cocktail party/meet and greet? (-:


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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:

New Flash: Kindle to Feature Special Indie Bookstore

In the News:  Kindle/Amazon announced its new Indie bookstores of Kindle books today.

They see it as a wonderful advantage of authors. I am reading between the lines but I see it as a way to separate the wheat (professionally produced indie books) from the chaff (indie books that leave something to be desired). That is a good thing for readers and may be good for writers, too, if it encourages them to take more care with their editing and formatting, etc. Learn more about it on this Amazon page:

https://kdp.amazon.com/self-publishing/help?moduleId=200734540

By the way, there is no way for authors to submit their books for this honor. Amazon is selecting entries using their algorithms.

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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:

Sharing Favorite Newsletter Tip for Authors

This tip is from the (New!) 2^nd Edition of The Frugal Book Promoter: Yep, that new book is coming in just a few days. But here's the tip.

Reexamine the keywords you use when you market on the Web. Some work better than others. You may be missing one that doesn’t have much competition so when someone uses it (and that someone should be you!), your blog, Web site, article, or book appears nearer the top of a reader’s search page. To do that, use Google’s Keyword tool. You’ll find it on the list of your free Google Account’s homepage.

And, if you want a whole newsletter with tips like this on marketing, some one editing and a few on the craft of writing, send me an e-mail with SUBSCRIBE in the subject line and I'll take care of it for you.

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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:

Publicist Partnering: Shooting Your Book to Stardom--Frugally

If your name isn't King or Grisham or Roberts you've probably already figured out that you need to do a lot of publicity on your own because your publisher hasn't assigned a budget ample enough to shoot your book to stardom.

 That publicist can be you or someone else, but somebody's got to do it if you want your book to sell.

 I have a publicist friend who is also an author. Rolf Gompertz, 20 year veteran of NBC marketing,  rightfully claims that he could never find a PR person who would do the same kind of job he does, including the time he spends on his own PR work. How could anyone argue with that? We all are our own best publicists, even if we hire someone else.

But what if we don't have the time or expertise?

We can learn to do it ourselves. After all, we are writers. We should be able to grasp the knack of how to write a release.

But the best way to do it is to learn a lot about the marketing of books and then partner with expert publicists or people who can help you with specific projects like online book tours. And partnering with them in a way that won’t eat up your advance or cost you more than you’re likely to make on your book. Here are some suggestions for preparing yourself to be the best publicity partner around.

1.     Join organizations like SPAN (Small Publishers of North America) (www.spannnet.org) where you’ll learn to understand the world of publishing from every angle—your, that of your publicist and that of your publisher.

2.     Subscribe to newsletters sent out my experts in the field of publishing. Dan Poynter, John Kremer, Penny C. Sansevieri, and one of my favorite publicity gurus Joan Stewart are all online resources for getting online information that isn’t rooted in myth and gossip. You’ll learn tons from my Sharing with Writers newsletter, too. Subscribe by sending a SUBSCRIBE message to HoJoNews@aol.com.

3.     Take a class in public relations. The only way I know how to avoid drastic mistakes in choosing a class is to patronize your local college or attend writers’ conferences sponsored by universities.

4.     One of the most frugal ways to learn a new skillset is to read. Most of those who publish free newsletters like the ones I mentioned above, also have books that will get you off on the right foot. Find my Frugal Book Promoter at www.budurl.com/FrugalBkPromo

The next question is how do you find the best help with publicity possible.

1.     Consider what you need and how much time you can put into it. Your budget may not accommodate a full-service publicist. You may not have the time to fully participate with all of the services she offers at once, anyway.

2.     If that’s the case, consider people who will work with you piecemeal like BookinSync. You may need an online book tour. It shouldn’t be too expensive to get help with that and when you do, many of the contacts you get from your service will become contacts for the life of your writing career. Or you may need help writing your first release so you can do it yourself. That kind of help is available, too.

3.     Before you hire anyone consider their Rolodex. I'm talking about is a Rolodex of personal, working relationships with editors, radio hosts, etc. What kind of publicity have they gotten for their other clients? AND those relationships must be—to a great extent—contacts who might have an interest in a project like yours. A book publicist who has had mostly experience with mystery writers, deals mostly with books stores that dedicate themselves to stories about crime, and has a huge file of names of reviewers interested in psycho/thrillers probably won't be able to do you much good if yours is a literary novel.

4.     As you have already guessed, you want someone who has clients similar to you. Check that out, but also check with the clients. Were they satisfied? If not, why not. Their expectations may have been different than yours. Further, if there were some gaps that you consider important, you may be able to negotiate with your newfound partner to include those services in the publicity package you are contracting for.

Am I speaking from experience? You betcha. And lukewarm results were not the fault of my publicist. She did a great job with what she had. She just didn't have what I needed! If you do your homework, you’ll be happier with your publicity campaign and your publicist will be able to help you reach your goals more quickly…and they’ll be happier with you.

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Carolyn Howard-Johnson, is the author of so-called hard-to-promote genres (www.howtodoitfrugally.com/carolynhoward-johnson.com) and of the multi award-winning HowToDoItFrugally series of books for writers, www.howtodoitfrugally.com.

----- 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: