Lovely Review from Spun Stories by Cynthia Haggard
THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO GETTING YOUR BOOK PUBLISHED by Arielle Eckstut & David Henry Sterry
Here is another book from my pile of how-to books on self-publishing. THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO GETTING YOUR BOOK PUBLISHED by Arielle Eckstut and David Henry Sterry covers just about everything you need to know about the Wild West World of publishing today. Earlier this year, I reviewed Dan Poynter’s classic book about self-publishing and praised it to the skies. The only shortcoming with that book was that it focused on publishing an actual physical book. In a way, this book takes up from where Dan Poynter left off. In addition to the usual advice about how to get an agent, and how to publish a softcover book, this book also looks at e-book and social media.
The book is divided into three parts:
- Setting up Shop, which covers how to get an idea for your book, how to develop your author platform, how to package your book with a title and a pitch, how to get an agent, the agonies of the submission roulette and what to when (not if) you get rejected.
- Taking Care of Business covers selling your book, contracts, working with your publisher, and self-publishing.
- Getting the Word Out covers publicity and marketing, the book launch, how to keep your book sales alive and royalties.
There is no better recommendation I can give than to tell you that my softcover copy is bristling with those sticky markers, which indicates that I found plenty of nuggets inside. If you are trying to publish your book, I recommend that you read this one carefully. You might find exactly what you need inside. Five stars.
–Cynthia Haggard writes historical novels. She has two completed manuscripts that will be published in the coming year. THWARTED QUEEN is a portrait of a woman trapped by power, a marriage undone by betrayal, and a King brought down by fear.FAMILY SPLINTERS is a novel about identity, forbidden love and family secrets. (c) 2011. All rights reserved.
New Lit City on Pitchapalooza
http://lit.newcity.com/category/news/lit-events/
Pictures of our two winners Margo Gremmler & Adam Sleper
Pitchapalooza Rock the Bay Area Corte Madera to Santa Cruz to Berkeley to San Francisco
The Book Doctors, aka, Arielle Eckstut and David Henry Sterry, authors of The Essential Guide to Getting Your Book Published, will be making house calls all over the Bay Area. They want YOU to pitch your book at Pitchapalooza, which was recently featured in The New York Times, and in mini-documentaries for Newsday and NBC. Pitchapalooza is like American Idol for books–only without the Simon. 20-25 writers get one minute to pitch their book ideas to an all-star panel of publishing experts. The winner receives an introduction to an appropriate agent or publisher for his/her book. Plus, anyone who buys a book gets a free consultation worth $100. In the last month THREE Pitchapalooza participants have signed book deals with great publishers. Two of them are from the Bay Area.
July 23, Mystery Writers Conference, Book Passage, Corte Madera, California
July 24, 1 PM, Green Apple Books, (Rock-It Room) San Francisco, California w/ Publishers Group West superstar Elise Cannon
July 25, 7pm, Books Inc, Berkeley, California w/ Soft Skull top dog Laura Mazer
July 28, 7 PM, Bookshop Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz, California
July 30, 10 AM, Stanford University, Palo Alto, California (workshop)
Arielle Eckstut has been a literary agent for 18 years. She is also the author of seven books and the co-founder of the iconic brand, LittleMissMatched. David Henry Sterry is the best-selling author of 12 books, on a wide variety of subject including memoir, sports, YA fiction and reference. His last book appeared on the cover of the Sunday New York Times Book Review. Together, they’ve helped dozens and dozens of talented amateur writers become published authors. They’ve appeared everywhere from NPR’s Morning Edition to USA Today, and have taught publishing workshops everywhere from the Miami Book Fair to Stanford University. Find more at www.thebookdoctors.com.
Stanford Workshop: How To Get Your Book Published
It is the greatest time in history to be a writer. The barrier to publishing has been torn down and now anyone can get published. But to get published successfully is a whole other matter. Eckstut and Sterry take you through the entire publishing process, from choosing the right idea, to writing a door-opening proposal or manuscript, to finding the right agent and/or publisher (or going right to self-publishing), to promoting and marketing your work, to effectively using social media. This all-in-one, soups-to-nuts workshop will leave attendees with a compass and map to a successfully published book.
Here’s what people are saying about The Essential Guide To Getting Your Book Published:
“I started with nothing but an idea, and then I bought this book. Soon I had an A-list agent, a near six-figure advance, and multiple TV deals in the works. Buy it and memorize it. This little tome is the quiet secret of rockstar authors.”—New York Times best-selling author Timothy Ferris, The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich,
“It is a must-have for every aspiring writer… thorough, forthright quite entertaining.”—Khaled Hosseini, New York Times bestselling author of the Kite Runner
“Before you write your own book, read this one first.”—Jonathan Karp, editor-in-chief, Simon and Schuster
As You Like It: The Book Doctors Present The Power of Facebook for Authors
“Is’t possible that on so little acquaintance you
should like her? that but seeing you should love
her? and loving woo? and, wooing, she should
grant? and will you persever to enjoy her?”
— William Shakespeare, As You Like It, Act V, Scene II
Every day published, self-published and unpublished writers breathlessly ask us, “Do I really have to have a Facebook page? And if so, what the heck do I do with it?” We will endeavor to answer these questions. But there are also a lot of questions we are not asked, but we think authors should be asking. Our goal is to present a roadmap that will help any writer navigate this increasingly complicated –and crucial– cyber-landscape.
While we get our Facebook on every day, we turned to two experts, Annik LaFarge and Antonella Iannarino, to give us the skinny on the latest and greatest ways to use this monster of a tool.
Annik spent 25 years in the publishing business in senior marketing, editorial, and publishing positions. Today she runs her own company that specializes in online project management, editorial work, and consulting on digital strategy. She recently wrote The Author Online: A Short Guide to Building Your Website, Whether You Do it Yourself (and you can!) or you Work With Pros. Antonella, an agent and digital media maven at the David Black Agency, has helped authors like Mitch Albom get their websites and Facebook pages up and running. Here Annik and Antonella offer us both the Big Think about how to use Facebook and also some more granular how-to information (just follow the links…) that will help you get started today.
First, Annik addresses the most popular questions The Book Doctors hear from authors about Facebook:
1) How many Facebook fans is enough to impress a publisher?
What seems like a lot of fans to one publisher might seem paltry to another, so rather than think in terms of actual numbers I urge you instead to think about growth. Facebook’s analytic tool called Insights allows you to easily track the number of monthly active users, Likes, wall posts, comments and visits that your page receives, along with the increase or decrease on a week-to-week basis. So pay attention to that data and aim to present your publisher with a percentage of growth rather than a fixed, context-less number. More impressive will be the fact that with active use and engagement you grew your key metrics by ten or twenty percent over a period of several months or a year. That shows dedication on your part, and demonstrates that you understand how to provide high value content to your readers. Even more impressive will be the number of Likes your page has garnered from fans. Read on and you’ll understand why.
2) Should I set up a fan page for my book or just use my personal page?
You should set up a fan page because these are accessible to anyone on the web, whether or not they’re Facebook members. And they don’t have to be your friends to access it; the page is open to anyone. This way you can post special content or links on your Facebook page and mention it in media interviews. For all of you Luddites out there Antonella wrote a great primer about how to do this: The 7 Essential Elements for an Author’s Fan Page. Everything you need to know is there, along with screenshots plus a link to a piece that outlines all the important settings for your Facebook page. At the end of this article we’ve offered a few examples of author fan pages that you can use to generate ideas of your own.
3. When should I set up my Facebook page – when I start writing/once I have a book deal/once my book comes out?
It takes time to build an audience. The sooner you begin the more time you’ll have to grow your fan base and start learning – by studying your Insight analytics – what sort of content resonates with them. Start as soon as possible. How about tomorrow afternoon?
4) How often should I communicate via Facebook? What is too much?
You’ll know when it’s too much because the postings will feel forced. Communicate as often as you have something worthwhile to say. Being consistent is good, but not essential. Some people insist that you should post to a blog or Facebook page at least once a week. I think the better rule of thumb is: always default to quality, not quantity. Your friends and fans have other things to read; just make sure that whatever they find on your page is worth their time.
5) I’m worried about privacy issues. What should I do?
You don’t need to include personal information on your Page. You do need to provide some details when first signing up for a personal account with Facebook, but that’s for registration and you can keep that information private through your privacy settings. But for your Page, the only details you can elect to include on your “Info” tab that might be of concern are your birthday and contact information. Think carefully about posting your birthday online. The upside is that your friends can send you nice messages, wishing you a happy birthday. The downside is that your date of birth is used by banks and other institutions as a legal identifier, and so there are reasons to keep it private. Antonella points out that some people include their zodiac sign and list their publisher’s address or a P.O. box for fan mail. As for managing information on your personal profile, our best advice is to closely monitor your settings and stay up-to-date on changes that Facebook makes. They happen often, and are widely discussed online. Often, Facebook’s default options are not pro-privacy. So pay attention, and ask your friends what they do if you’re unsure. And of course, use common sense about what information you share. Anywhere.
6) Should I put up pictures? Video? What kind of picture should I put up for my profile?
If your pictures and videos enhance what you’re sharing on Facebook then sure, use them. But don’t post any visual media just because you have it. Post it because the stuff is worthy of being posted – because it helps you amuse, entertain, educate, engage. And use something dignified. A goofy picture of you and your dog is okay for your personal page but not, perhaps, the image you want to leave potential book buyers with. Many authors (myself included) use their book cover instead of a photograph. That’s fine too, just try to keep the image relevant to you and your work.
Now that Annik and Antonella have covered the questions The Book Doctors get on a daily basis, we want to introduce the questions you should be asking, but aren’t. Take notes!
1) So now I know I need to get people to “Like” my page. What’s the best way to do this so I can build my list of friends/fans?
Two ways. First, post relevant, engaging content: questions, insights, books you’ve read, etc. Give people a reason to visit your page, make it interesting, interactive, and a true reflection of you and your work. Then tell people about it in all the ways available to you: link to it from your website or blog; place a link in your email signature; mention it on the flap or back cover of your books; send a message with a link to all your personal Facebook friends asking them to join your book page by clicking the Like button; etc.
2) What’s the deal with the “Like” button and why is it so ubiquitous?
As you may have noticed, the “Like” button that appears at the top of a fan page, is now showing up in lots of other places: on people’s blogs, next to products on online stores, and in nooks and crannies all over the World Wide Web.
I recently had a conversation with Greg Lieber who runs business operations for GraphEffect, one of the fast growing social advertising platforms that Facebook works with closely. They develop and manage Facebook campaigns for large brands that go way beyond the spookily targeted ads you see in the right column of your Facebook page.
He helped me understand the basics of how Facebook works by explaining that its algorithm, EdgeRank, gives a value to all of the items that appear in your News Feed and that a huge component of this is the number of Likes and comments that are associated with it.
So let’s say you have a blog and you’ve installed a Facebook plug-in that places a Like button alongside each post you write. When someone clicks the Like button your post appears in that person’s Facebook News Feed and becomes visible to all of their friends, plus it includes a link back to your blog.
This allows people to discover your work and enables them to either like the post directly in the feed or to click on the post and like it directly from the post itself. As the likes increase via Facebook’s viral channels the value of the post increases in EdgeRank and makes the post more likely to appear in your friend’s News Feed. However there are other factors at play: for example, if there’s a friend or page you interact with frequently on Facebook, then this person or page’s post will likely appear towards the top of your News Feed. Another factor is timing: the older your post, the less likely it is to appear in the News Feed of your friends. Finally, the “weight” of the post’s feedback plays a role, meaning that comments on a specific post are going to have a greater impact than ‘Likes’ of that same post.
[Side note: you may have recently seen that new “Send” button on Facebook. It’s similar to the Like button, but allows you to share a link privately with a friend or Facebook group using Facebook email. Whenever someone clicks it, it does increase your total like count, but it will not show up in the newsfeed.]
3) What sort of landing page should I have?
Creating a special “landing page” that people will see when they first come to your page is an effective way to use Facebook almost as you would the home page of a website. You can convey the “voice” of your site (in words and images) and tell folks what sort of regular content you’ll be providing there. A good example of this is a company called Global Basecamps, a popular eco-tourism business. See how their landing page expresses what the business is all about, tells you a bit about what they offer (weekly travel quizzes!) and, most important, encourages you to hit the Like button. Once you’ve Liked their page you’ll start landing, in future visits, on the wall page where they post all kinds of useful, interesting, amusing, content. The more good stuff they post, the more their visitors hit the Like button. And the more they hit the Like button….Well, you know about that now.
But be warned: Facebook recently changed – and made more complex – the programming language that members use to customize their pages. Today creating a landing page requires some knowledge of basic programming. Antonella’s 7 Essential Elements for an Author’s Facebook Page article has some very helpful background information and tips for how to get started (see #7), and she also includes links to third party apps that you (or your developer) can use.
4) Should I connect my Twitter feed or my website to Facebook?
Probably, but if all you feed to Twitter is your Facebook status updates you’re not making your Twitter account unique. Best of all: create unique content for each platform and give people a reason to follow you in both places.
Now that we’ve laid down the basics, look around at some author pages on Facebook and see what you like (lower case…) and admire. Some people share a lot, others very little. But it bears repeating: follow the quality over quantity rule and post your updates and links with care. Offer value to the people who come to your page, and remember that because you’ve made it public anyone can come there – it’s not just your friends and family. Think about all the many different kinds of people who might end up there – young or old, familiar with your work or not, interested in just one aspect of a subject you cover, etc. Visit your page periodically like you’re a perfect stranger, and consider how the content, style and look may strike those different audiences. Then review, update, revise. And for goodness sake, whatever you do, have fun!
THREE AUTHOR PAGES WORTH LOOKING AT ON FACEBOOK
Arielle Eckstut and David Henry Sterry are the authors of The Essential Guide to Getting Your Book Published and The Book Doctors blog.
Albany/Troy Media Love for Pitchapalooza & The Book Doctors
Thanks to all the great people in the very cool (who knew) Albany/Troy area
http://www.timesunion.com/local/article/Characters-stories-see-the-light-of-day-1380012.php
The Book Doctors Albany/Troy Pitchapalooza Boffo
Thanks to Susan Novotny & all the great people from Book House & Market Block Books. The pitches were so good we had two winners!
http://www.timesunion.com/local/article/Want-to-be-a-famous-author-Start-talking-1379234.php
Bookends Ridgewood Pitchapalooza ROCKS HARD!
Awesome Pitchapalooza at Bookends in Ridgewood New Jersey, amazing pitches, great people, fun-omenal owners/staff. Co-winners pictured, one is 12 years old. Workshop on May 15, the mysteries of publishing will be unraveled, secrets revealed, doors unlocked.
Herb Schaffner Displaying His Big Brain & Sharing Some Big Love For “The Essential Guide”
Our own Herb Schaffner displaying his big brain and sharing some big love for The Essential Guide.
For Link on Herb Schaffner click here:
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“A must-have for every aspiring writer.” – Khaled Hosseini, New York Times bestselling author of The Kite Runner
The Essential Guide to Getting Your Book Published
http://thebookdoctors.com/
www.davidhenrysterry.com
@sterryhead 4 twttification
http://www.facebook.com/TheBookDoctors 4 facebookization
Herb Schaffner Sharing The Essential Guide to Getting You are Book Published on Bnet
I meet many smart business people who have dreams of becoming the next Malcolm Gladwell or Steve Covey. Figures vary, but here’s a safe number: there are thousands of business books published each year, only a tiny percentage of which will sell more than a thousand copies. Behind these waves of published titles are oceans of proposals and ideas that their owners hope to convert to a book contract and five-star reviews.
Yes, as a former publisher and book editor, I’ve seen these books and proposals come and go. And I understand the desire to be heard. So, if you’re one of those who wants to get a business book published, here are 6 questions to ask yourself.
1.Does your book solve a business problem? Publishers sort business books into categories that roughly encompass different functions in a company: management, leadership, communications, marketing, sales, product development and design, operations, entrepreneurship, and innovation. If yours doesn’t fit into one of those categories, it’ll be harder for you to sell your book and find an audience. As Todd Sattersten and Jack Covert of 800CEORead, noted in their book The 100 Best Business Books of All Time, business books are created and sold to solve problems.
2. Do you have the time and commitment to write a manuscript? This may be obvious, but it is the question you must answer. Whether you plan to write the book alone, or have the resources to hire a ghost writer or editor, the journey to writing a proposal, getting a publisher, and translating your vision into 50, 60, or 70 thousand words will be harder and more time consuming than you expect. You need more than nights and weekends, particularly if you want to have a family, friends, or a significant other when the process is completed. You will be writing to meet the standards and expectations of your editor and publisher, who must approve of the manuscript for it be ultimately published.
3. What books have sold in your subject area, and how well did they do? A few hours of research will uncover a lot of critical facts. Is your expert area over-published, ill-timed, or out of favor? For example, you could have a breakout concept on buying, fixing, and “flipping” houses for profit, but no publisher will touch the proposal until the real estate economy improves. You may have a great treatment for a book on social media marketing; however, major publishers have flooded the market with dozens of these books. Study Amazon, read publishers’ websites, go to your local bookstores, talk to bookstore managers: learn your shelf.
4. Do you have the resources and time to build up a following for your book? Every publisher will want to see your book’s platform–the combination of media and marketing channels over which you have provable access. These are channels that will translate into awareness of the book among key communities, interest in the book, and conversion into purchases. What is your social media profile? Can you deliver large numbers of Twitter follower or readers of your blog? Will your company support your book with client speeches, seminars, and purchases? Do you have a speaking platform? Do you have the credentials and experience to gain the attention of experienced business journalists?
5. What is your “elevator pitch” for this book? One publisher I admire related to me how the nature of online reading and browsing has transformed book marketing from the classic pitching of features and benefits to a memorable killer sentence or two. As you present your proposal to agents, publishers, retailers, consumers, and the media, your title, subtitle, and short pitch need to stick. For more on pitching and positioning books, and a well-packed trunk of everything you need to understand the book industry, I always recommend The Essential Guide to Getting Your Book Published by Arielle Eckstut and David Sterry.
6. Can you devote time (and money) to hawking the book once it’s published? Books face intense competition (attention is a precious resource) for the dollars of your potential readers. You need to sell your book based on a complete business plan: this will include social media, online marketing, speaking, client appearances, press releases, signings, networking, and much more. You should have a budget, and your website should be launched months ahead of publication. Be ready to work with your publisher to drive interest and demand for at least six months after publication. I will discuss successful book marketing in greater depth in future posts.
Have you tried to sell a book of yours to a major publisher? What tips would you add to this list?
Herb Schaffner is president of Schaffner Media Partners, a consultancy specializing in business, finance, and public affairs publishing expertise, and is found on Facebook. He has been a publisher and editor-in-chief at McGraw-Hill, and a senior editor at HarperCollins. Follow him on Twitter (when it’s not distracting).