Choices is pleased to host Claudine Wolk and Julie Murkette on their WOW! Women on Writing virtual book tour. They have written the essential book marketing and publishing guide called: Get Your Book Seen and Sold. Also, Claudine has honored us with a guest post titled: You Can’t Do Everything To Promote Your Book. The Good News Is That You Don’t Have To! Here's Claudine: The breadth of what is possible to market and promote your book is endless. Keep reading this post, though. There is hope for you to do right by your book. No author can do everything to promote their book. But the good news is that you don’t have to do everything. You MUST promote your book, though. If you don’t promote your book, it won’t sell, plain and simple. So, what is an author to do to get their book seen and sold? First, get comfortable with book marketing as a discipline. Like any other discipline it is a bit of a new language… take some time to learn the new language. How … [Read more...]
Tips for leading a conference workshop
Since I participated at the Greater Los Angeles Writers Conference as both a workshop leader and panelist the end of June, it's time to share a post I wrote for The Memoir Network's Writers Blog in early May on this subject. I very much thank The Memoir Network's founder Denis Ledoux for inviting me to write for his great memoir website. Here's the post verbatim: Promoting yourself as a writer Participating in writing conferences, either as a panelist, lecturer, or as a workshop leader is a great way to get your name and book out in public and to network with other writers like you Being a presenter comes with tasks, but the challenge is not impossible. I'd like to offer you some guidelines to help you be as successful as you can be to: Respond to a presenters' request for proposal, Adhere to a list of conference presenter's guidelines, and Develop a workshop that keeps the promises you proposed in the specified allotted time. I recently co-led a workshop at the Story … [Read more...]
Book reviews matter
I've written about book reviews before. Frankly I wish they'd all go away. But since I'm an author I have to live with them. I also know that reviews matter. Good ones help sales. Bad ones hurt author's egos. I reblogged a post about reviews from Kristen Lamb last June. She and I are on the same page about writing bad reviews. We just won't. We know how much they hurt, and why hurt our author friends and colleagues? And, I've had some reviews of my memoir, Leaving the Hall Light On that were pretty ego-hurting. However, I'm fortunate that most been very positive. Like the one posted on Amazon yesterday. It is so in tune with my sentiments and what I wanted to get across in my book, I have to share it here. My only connection to the reviewer is she contacted me about how to get permission to use a Paul Simon song quote in her own book, and I gave her the information. When she told me she read my book, I asked if she'd write a review. Yesterday she contacted me again to tell me she … [Read more...]
Support your local bookstore
I'm so in love with my local bookstore Pages: a bookstore, I support it whenever I can. And it has supported me as well. I've had three readings there. I hope you will do the same to make sure we keep our bookstores alive. In view of that here is a post I just came across from the Book Marketing Expert, reprinted with his permission. Let's work hard to prevent bookstores from going away. Reprinted from "The Book Marketing Expert newsletter," a free ezine offering book promotion and publicity tips and techniques. http://www.amarketingexpert.com What Happens if Bookstores Go Away? ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ That sentence alone is enough to send chills down my spine. No bookstores? I can't imagine a world without them. Yet the fact of the matter is, that's likely where we are headed. I don't often share this, but you know that term "bucket list"? One of my bucket list items is to get locked in a bookstore overnight - with a fully-functioning Starbucks … [Read more...]
Introducing my guests
For a change of pace I'm going to devote the next three weeks to the voices of other wonderful and experienced writers and publishers. I've asked eight people whom I've either met personally or online to tell you about their writing, publishing, and marketing experiences. I feel so fortunate that they have agreed to be my guests here on Choices. I hope you will keep coming back for more and more. You'll find the information interesting and very helpful to your writing lives. Here's my guest lineup in order of appearance: Sharon Lippincott November 26 Sharon is the author of The Heart and Craft of Lifestory Writing, knows she's been successful. Her insightful questions and observations have challenged people in many areas for decades. Today they are primarily aimed at students in her lifestory and creative writing classes along with readers of her blog, forum posts, book reviews, and other publications. Kathleen Pooler November 29 Kathy is a … [Read more...]
Book tour report
The first event was a National Association of Memoir Writers roundtable with Linda Joy Meyers on the subject of: Keeping Your Book Alive Part I and II: Advice for authors who Need a New Publisher; Low-cost/no-cost Marketing Ideas I sat with Mike O'Mary, owner and publisher at, while we talked about what to do if your publisher goes out of business and what it's like to "start over" with a new publisher. And as you probably know already the loss of my original publisher was a blessing in disguise. Mike and I met for the first time just before we went on the air, and he is the dream of Dream of Things. During the roundtable, Mike and I also talked about what it takes to promote your memoir in today's marketplace, including a variety of low-cost and no-cost ideas that any author can use to promote his/her book. Here's the link to this roundtable. Mike has a wealth of information about ways to promote your book. Mike orchestrated the next four book tour events for his other … [Read more...]
Book marketing – is there ever enough?
Okay, I'm on to another marketing project. I was overwhelmed and indeed impressed by the numbers of blogs Jessica Bell is going to visit during her two-week book launch blog tour for her soon to-be-released, String Bridge. And that got me thinking I hadn't visited nearly enough blogs at the time of my book launch. I visited one blog a day for about three weeks, and she's going to have interviews and reviews on up to seven or eight blogs a day for two weeks. Plus she's going to have a whole lot of these same folks and more hit Amazon on the day of the book's release. Now that's using the network to the fullest, I would say. With my friend Susan at my book launch with Ben in the background I asked her how she amassed such a list and she admitted it was a lot of work. She reads and comments on all the blogs on her list regularly. And that's why she felt she was justified in asking them to do this book marketing favor for her. I know that's true. Jessica visits and comments on … [Read more...]
The Business of Writing: The Importance of Marketing
Besides all the work I'm doing to revise and edit my memoir manuscript I've been laying the groundwork for a marketing campaign once the book is published. In fact, I'm drumming up interest already several months in advance. In addition to posting regularly on my blogs Choices and Red Room, I have created a Facebook page devoted exclusively to book news, writing tips, and writing-related quotes. (In just two weeks I've amassed a fan base of 125.) I am also posting regularly on Twitter. In addition, I've amassed many friends in the business of writing and publishing on my personal Facebook page. After contacting several of my poetry publishers about my book, I'm excited to report that they too are ready to help in the marketing campaign. One publisher plans to post a profile about me on its blog. Another has offered a free add in its magazine. And it doesn't stop there. One of my writing teachers plans to write about the book in her newsletter, and I've laid the groundwork … [Read more...]
