Be Part of the Nation's Best Trafficked Book Fair at a Discount!

Join Authors' Coalition as a signing author at the Authors' Coalition booth at the LA Times Festival of Books on the beautiful UCLA campus now and get a substantial discount!

The fair is the last weekend of April 2009. The book-signing portion of the fair requires that you attend but other value-added promotions do not. You'll hear more about those later.

Authors' Coalition will again be sponsoring a booth at the LA Times/UCLA Festival of Books on April 2009. We focus on making a humdrum fair into a sizzling success; we make changes every year based on what we learned the year before and the year before that.

Register before September 16 and receive an early bird discount for the signing slots. One hour signing segments (50 minutes to allow set up) cost $100 for the first and $80 for a second hour. After August 15, the fee will return to its regular $150 for the first and $100 for the second day. The fee includes display of your book, your order forms and your bookmark or business card and a poster for the full two days. Those who are not members of Authors' Coalition will be asked to join at the Silver Membership level. The regular cost is $25, but will be discounted to $20 for those signing. Participants whose memberships from last year come due in April can join for only $10 in addition to the signing fee.

Last year we had our booth televised on the Internet. Rey Ybarra from Best Selling Author Television was there to cover the event. He conducted short three-minute interviews with the participating authors. The program proved to be a great success. Rey will be there with his crew again this year. (To see the 2008 video made by Rey Ybarra, go to Best Selling Author Television site at : http://www.veoh.com/channels/BSATV

For benefits offered by this booth please visit the Authors' Coalition official blog: www.authorscoalition.blogspot.com or e-mail Christine Alexanians at chalexwrite@yahoo.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 two how to books, The Frugal Book Promoter: How To Do What Your Publisher Won't and The Frugal Editor: Put Your Best Book Forward to Avoid Humiliation and Ensure success. She is also the author of the Amazon Short, "The Great First Impression Book Proposal." Some of her other blogs are TheNewBookReview.blogspot.com and AuthorsCoalition.blogspot.com, a blog that helps writers and publishers turn a ho-hum book fair booth into a sizzler.

Publishing Stupidity Running Amuck

Big publishers are discovering that fun promotion works. I cite two recent experiences that prove it. My friend, June Casagrande, pitched having bumper stickers that say Grammar Snobs Are Great Big Meanies made to her publisher (Penguin), and guess what! They did it.

Then, Time magazine ran an article (October 16, 2006) on how St. Martin's has taken to (my words) doing something more than running ads in the New York Times! The inspiration? Their author K'wan who wrote hip hop or street-lit like Gangsta.

So, "instead of signings at Barnes & Noble, St. Martins' is planning giveaway and readings in barber shops and beauty salons" . . . .ads on urban radio and an official Hood Rat mix tape CD.

Sorry, but if big publishers had spent less time ignoring (or dissing) independent authors and small presses, they'd have gotten the idea long ago. Two years ago the Authors' Coalition published a CD for our booth at the LA Times Festival of Books and, I guess you could say we got it because we're promotion-smart, too. We plan to do it again, so there!

Last year at the same fair, Joyce Faulkner , author of The Complete Writer tested magnet signs for her rental SUV. We may offer those soon on the Authors' Coalition site even though results were hard to measure. We did get some action from the press as we were carrying our bookshelves and signs in from the loading dock. They knew they'd seen something a little unusual and possibly even smart. So the street-smart author Time cites, Rentless Aaron, wasn't the first to plaster his car with signs. Maybe something just got into the air and spread.

Time says, "In an industry the considers ales of 20,000 a success, gritty steet-lit authors are routinely doubling that number." Where St. Martin's may have it over some of us is their budget and perhaps the genre itself.

OK, but it still seems big publishers have been monumentally slow learners in the face of the example of entrepreneurial authors I've seen at work. So, does anyone expect anyone to give us any credit? I, for one, don't. Time certainly didn't.

They mentioned Amazon which quashed the need for brick, mortar and shelves.

And they mentioned Vickie Stringer who just got tired of being at the mercy of others and self-published. As if that is news! She also founded her own publishing company and her own literary agency. Way to go, Miss Independent but many authors I know have been doing that since I got into the publishing business about seven years ago.

So, am I suggesting there's only one way to do things? Nope. I'm just saying that if we all got busy learning from one another, supporting one another, we just might all do better, big publishers included.

CHJ



Carolyn Howard-Johnson, author THIS IS THE PLACE; HARKENING: A COLLECTION OF STORIES REMEMBERED; TRACINGS, a chapbook of poetry; and two how to books, THE FRUGAL BOOK PROMOTER: HOW TO DO WHAT YOUR PUBLISHER WON'T; and THE FRUGAL EDITOR: PUT YOUR BEST BOOK FORWARD TO AVOID HUMILIATION AND ENSURE SUCCESS.