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Articles about book / author promotion and marketing, and author platform.

Why I'm Podcasting

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Note:  This was cross-posted for me by the owner of Publetariat.com. Originally it was intended for my blog, so if it sounds a little too "self-promotey" it wasn’t an intentional "ZOMG publetariat guyz look at me!" Re-reading it in this context it may come off that way, so thought I would add a little explanation, since Publetariat wasn’t the original intended audience.

I’ve been thinking about the podcasting and why I’m doing it. I came across Charlotte Stein’s blog. and it’s very silly and goofy and awesome and made of win. Believe it or not, I’m very silly and goofy (I won’t go so far as to say I’m awesome and made of win here, since that’s just never going to come off right.)

This rarely comes off online. I’m very passionate about publishing and my writing and about every other topic under the sun. I have an opinion about everything. I may not be right, but I have a viewpoint and I’m not shy about sharing it. Sometimes people read anger that isn’t there. And I get that. My grandfather once yelled at one of my best friends on Halloween when she came over there with me. Only he wasn’t really yelling AT her. He was just really irate about something and he was yelling “in general” but it seemed like he was yelling at her. She was an audience for his yelling but not it’s intended target.

He doesn’t realize he does it.

I’m kind of in that same boat. Only I realize (generally after the fact) that I do it. Though generally I come off much “harsher” in text. I wish I could let my silly side out and my freak flag fly (and sometimes I do a little bit on Twitter), but online I’m just always on a crusade, even when I’m not trying to be. I’m just intense. And there are days I want a vacation from myself and that intensity.

Though I’m still passionate and intense about things on my podcast, I feel like the more personal level of a podcast changes things. Like I listened to April Hamilton being interviewed by Joanna Penn on this podcast.

In many ways, April is a lot like me. We can both be very outspoken and brash and we can both get into very intense debates with people that somehow go sour when someone gets upset because they feel it’s gotten personal even when it hasn’t. But hearing her speak on the podcast, her voice softens those edges and she sounds about as friendly as a person can get. Then suddenly you’re able to re-frame nearly everything she’s ever said as it’s actually intended to be. I’ve always “gotten” April’s intentions in these sorts of exchanges, but hearing that friendly of a voice on a podcast, drove it home more sharply.

And so I think that’s what a podcast does for me. It gives me that extra dimension and softens some edges. (Well when I don’t sound like a chipmunk in a trailer park. Cause DUDE holy crap sometimes it gets crazy.) Hopefully while it still may be passionate and intense, it becomes clear that I’m *not* angry with everyone. I’m incredibly excited about the path I’m on and what I’m doing.

Then the fiction podcast, that’s all about the work, and it gives me another way to get the work out there and hopefully interacting with and engaging with an audience. Plus I know this sounds crazy-level vain but I really like my reading voice. It’s much better than my other podcast voice or my live interview voice because when I take the time to slow down and enunciate properly the twang is there, but it’s not like ZOMG insane.

Anyway… I also promised a link to the Breakthru Radio Book Talk episode I was on, so here it is. It should be noted that parts of the interview I’ve got that trailer park chipmunk thing going on. Though the reading at the end sounds a lot better (not perfect, but much better!)

Anywho… and then there are times during the interview (I don’t know why I torture myself by re-listening to it) where I remember even during the interview I’m thinking “Don’t say that. My GOD Zoe, shut UP!” But yeah, no. Never happens. No one should give me a microphone and just let me talk, that’s madness I tell you.

Click here to check out my very first podcast. It’s not "state of the art" podcasting but it’s a starting point. Sometimes the important thing is just getting started. And doing a basic podcast really isn’t rocket science. It can be done.


This is a cross-posting from Zoe Winters’ blog.

Publetariat Vault Opens To Indie Press -Published Authors

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By popular request, the Publetariat Vault is now open to authors who are published with a small, independent press and wish to seek a larger publisher or literary agent, or who hope to connect with TV, film, game and other content producers. Vault listings are free of charge through June of this year, and Vault University’s Author Platform/Promo curriculum is offered free of charge to any author with an active Vault listing, making this a terrific opportunity for indie authors of every stripe.

If you have no idea what the Vault is, here’s a description from the site:

The Publetariat Vault provides a groundbreaking service: the opportunity to get your self-published or indie-published book in front of the agents, publishers and producers who are seeking proven books for representation or low-risk acquisitions. If you’ve ever thought that if agents, publishers or producers only knew how much readers like your book, or how well it’s selling, or what a great job you’re doing to promote both it and yourself, they’d sit up and take notice, then the Vault was made for you…

For purposes of the Vault, a "small, independent press" is defined as any publisher which is not an imprint of a larger, corporate trade publisher (e.g., Random House, Penguin, etc.). We’re making this distinction, and limitation, because self-published authors and authors published by small, indie presses have less exposure to agents, producers and large publishers than those who are already published by larger publishers. Since Publetariat is all about serving the needs of indies everywhere, it seems only fair to make Vault listings available to indie press -published authors.

To learn more about the Vault, you can click here to view a blank listing form, here to view a sample published listing, and here to view the search form agents, publishers and content producers will use. Click here to view the site’s FAQ, and here to view the site’s Terms of Use.

To list a book in the Vault for free through the end of June, just go to the Vault site, review the Terms of Use and if you agree to abide by them, register for your free account. Next, follow the directions provided in the new user registration email to create your listing(s). All listings are created as ‘draft’ listings by default, not visible to searchers, until the author chooses to ‘publish’ them. This allows authors to take as much time as they need to complete and polish their listings before making them available for search by agents, publishers and producers. When you’re ready to publish your listing, use the Vault’s Contact Us form to request publication of your listing, bypassing the site’s PayPal payment processing and alerting a Publetariat admin to enroll you in the Vault University Author Platform/Promo curriculum at no charge. You will receive an email with your login information for Vault U.

Here’s some information about Vault U. from the Vault U. site:

Vault University is an offshoot of the Publetariat Vault, and is brought to you by Publetariat. Vault U. provides lessons in self-publishing, author platform and book promotion free of charge for authors with published Vault listings, and offers enrollment on a fee basis for all other authors. 

Vault U. offers a Publishing curriculum and an Author Platform/Promotion curriculum, with a new lesson posted to each curriculum at the beginning of each month. Vault U. enrollees have direct access to instructors via the comment forms provided at the end of each lesson, which ‘students’ can use to get answers to their specific questions about the lesson, or to further discuss any aspect of the lesson. Click here to learn more about Vault University, here to view a sample Vault U lesson, and here to view the What Goes Into an Author Press Kit portion of the Vault U lesson entitled ‘Your Marketing/Distribution Plan’.

Approximately two weeks prior to the end of June, 2010, all Vault-listed authors will receive an email reminding them that the free listing period is drawing to a close, and asking them to either cancel their listings or renew them at the usual rate of $10 per month. Authors who wish to cancel their Vault listings but remain enrolled in Vault U. will be able to do so by switching to paid enrollment at the usual rate of $5 per month. 

 

Do I Care About Mobile Readers? [A Checklist]

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This post, from Piotr Kowalczyk ( @namenick on Twitter) originally appeared on his Password Incorrect site on 1/10/10 and is reprinted here in its entirety with his permission.

Year 2010 has already been called “The Year of the Mobile”. Internet activity is shifting from desktop computers to laptops to tablets to mobile phones. This is an inevitable trend. People play music on mobile phones, update their social networks, watch movies and even play games. What about reading? It seems to be one of the easiest things. It’s not.

One side of the story is that people complain about general reading comfort – and this is a common excuse to stay with paper. The other side of the story is a fact, that a majority of Internet content is still not mobile friendly.

Here’s a quick checklist of things which can be done to make mobile readers’ life much easier.

Do I publish my books in formats optimized for mobile reading?

If you plan to publish a next book, a free teaser of a book or any new piece of writing, think not only of Scribd, BookBuzzr or Lulu. Think also of sites which convert your book to formats tailored for mobile viewing, like ePub or mobi. The most popular services, besides Amazon’s Kindle Store, are Smashwords, Feedbooks, Wattpad and Kobo.

Do I use a mobile friendly blogging platform?

Most of what 2.0 authors write is not actually books, but everything else intended to draw attention to those books. A blog is still a major place to share thoughts and tease about a book (first chapters, excerpts, etc). If you’re on WordPress.com, you are 100% mobile friendly. When a reader is visiting your blog from a cellphone, a mobile theme is automatically loaded instead of a regular one.

Do I use mobilizing plugins for my self-hosted blog? 

 If you run a self-hosted blog, you can use a proper plugin. This is especially important, when a blog is rich with many advanced plugins. They make it slow to load and probably the content will not display correctly as well. A list of blog mobilizing plugins can be found here.

Do I use blog mobilizing services?

If not a plugin, you can use one of convenient blog mobilizing services, like Mofuse or Mippin. You may also consider mobilizing part of your blog (such as one category) – and this tool seems to be the best option. Just paste the RSS feed in and in a couple of easy steps you’ll have it running. The list of services is also available in the above mentioned article.

Does my feed shows full articles?

More and more people are switching to reading RSS feeds on their mobile phones. If you set up an option to show only an excerpt of your post, the reader is forced to move to your page in order to read the rest. If your blog is not mobilized, consider it a lost view (or even a last view). A much better option would be to show a full length post in a feed.

Do I tweet mobile links?

Even if you haven’t done any of the above, you can still make your content mobile friendly. This is especially important if you spend a considerable part of your time in mobile communities like Twitter, Brightkite and alike. You can always use Google Mobilizer – just paste a link and in one click you’ll have your page optimized for mobile viewing.

Now, if your content is already mobilized, there is one more thing you could do. [As] non-mobilized blogs [are still common], the general attitude [toward reading blogs on mobile devices] is “do not open this link”. So ask yourself…

Do I inform readers that my blog is mobilized?

You can easily do that. Use text or widgets delivered by blog mobilizing services. Hopefully one day it won’t be needed any longer.

 

Also see this article, which provides instructions for how to make your blog available for sale to Kindle owners.

Stuck: Is the DIY Scaring Them Off?

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"So you are in Ingram’s?," they ask, as if it’s some kind of legitimizing checkpoint in order to go any further. Because if the book wasn’t listed, like there’s no possible way in a million years they would even take this conversation any further.

[Publetariat Editor’s note: strong language after the jump.]

There is no veritable "indie" brotherhood from which an author can establish a relationship with indie bookstores. I can’t breeze in and ask them to carry my book, just because they’re independent and I’m independent. Ok, good enough, they have to read it first. Fine. Makes enough sense. But how can I afford to send out potentially hundreds of promo copies? Why can’t my synopsis be good enough? Is it because I’m the author walking into the bookstore and that is too accessible?

Is the D.I.Y scaring them off?  All this time I’ve been poo-pooing those statements by certain twitter detractors that author accessibility is always a good thing, especially for no-names like me. Is it possible though, that bookstore owners are uncomfortable with the author walking in with a copy of the book and asking them to carry it?  So, is the D.I.Y. scaring them off? They want a little more professionalism, anonymity?

I had these beautiful, glossy 4×6 postcards with the cover on one side and the synopsis/backflap copy and ISBN info on the back. How much money am I going to piss away by doing a mass mailing to selected indie bookstores throughout the country?

But what is their risk in carrying something no one’s ever heard of? Is it shelf space? I can understand that. They have to make a buck, and the real estate in these small spaces carries a premium for titles that will sell with a profitable margin.

But 29 Jobs and a Million Lies is slim. It’s got a nice cover, really, it does. What’s the risk? Just take a chance on me. I’ll promote the book the best I can, and I’ll do a reading at one of your events, even on a regular basis.

I need to bring my following, you say? I have a following if I don’t have an opportunity to sell my book locally? Ahh, that independent Catch-22. The onus is on me to cultivate that following, even if it’s friends who I’ll have to drag to these readings and events. Friends do not always equal Fans, though they can overlap.

I’ve learned that the Twitter "following" numbers do not equate to sales, or even real "fans." So how do I cultivate a local following who will trail me to these events and boost up attendance at coffee-house readings? Really–how? Because I can’t get the Ocean County Library or the Middletown Library to return my calls inquiring about carrying the book and doing a reading.

I’m willing to do it all. I’m a little stuck now.

On the positive side, the local arts paper has agreed to do a profile (I’ll be whoring that right here soon) on me so I guess I can use that to get in the door at a few of these joints.

Right? That’ll un-stuck me?

(Oh my god, my first post without a "fuck".)

Thanks, as always, for reading.

This is a cross-posting from Jenn Topper‘s Don’t Publish Me! blog.

How To Lose Friends And Tick Off People On Facebook

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This article, from Scott Stratten, originally appeared on UnMarketing on 1/20/10 and is reprinted here in its entirety with his permission. While it is addressed to social media consultants, the advice here is equally useful to authors, publishers, and anyone else who hopes to avoid missteps in using social media.

An open letter to all my friends in the social media consultant/guru game,

Please stop.

You’re steering people the wrong way.

You sell yourself as social media consultants, the ones that can show you the way and then fark it up.

I beg of you to stop.

Go back to teaching Internet marketing from the old days, I could at least ignore you then. I talk to you at conferences, share the stage but I can’t listen to you up there any longer spewing “tips” that hurt people and their relationships.

Here is what I and many, if not most of the world, request of you to stop immediately when teaching “Facebook Strategy”:

Photo by the awesome Racheal McCaig

1. Stop telling people to invite everyone in their contact list to every event, even if it’s local. If you invite me to your 1 hour workshop at the library in New Mexico, and I live in Toronto, it hurts my view of you and questions your geography skills

2. Stop teaching people to create fake events. You know what I’m talking about… it’s the “month long event” that you say people should create, and then they “message” all the “no’s and maybe’s” and “not yet responded” to continue to pump out their message. It makes me feel all unfriendy. (yes, that’s unfriendy)

3. You know that trick of tagging people in articles/pics/videos that they don’t appear in so they come and read it? Stop it. Getting me to think I’m mentioned somewhere just to find out I’m not and you’re just being a selfish bumhole, does not bode well for our future “friend” status on the book of faces.

4. Inviting me to a “loss weight” teleseminar event, where it lists people you’ve invited is like being on a roll call at fat camp. Really? Do I look fat in these jogging pants? I know a lot of people are overweight, but inviting someone to an event to lose that weight, especially when I’m perfectly happy living my life of denial, does not strengthen our relationship.

And while we’re here, can you start teaching your clients:

1. Inviting me to assassinate someone in the temple in Mafia Wars may give off the wrong vibe for your brand… I don’t know about you, but I like to be a sniper in the privacy of my own Xbox, not regular updates on my wall of whose neck I’ve cracked

2. Hundreds of Farmville updates on your wall doesn’t make me think you’ll focus on my needs if I become your client. Especially if you’re positioned as a “busy” person, and your status update says “I have no time!!!” And yet we can read how you just nursed a sickly cat on your farm in FarmVille, well, um, it’s just awkward.

3. Blingee generic mass-sent greeting animated cards make people go nuts. Before turning off and blocking the app, I had 43 posted on my wall. In 4 hours. Nothing says “I thought of you personally” like a mass sent lame greeting self-serving wall post. “Hey Scott, if you don’t like the app, you can just turn it off” Well, I didn’t ask you, but if you insist, that’s like me having to tell people to stop kicking me in the nuts. It should be opt-in, not opt-out.

If you’re going to be in the position of an expert, act like one.

Teach people that really, truly want to know how to do things in social media properly. Show them how to:

1. Connect with people on an authentic, not automated level.

2. Show them that with time and effort, you can meet the greatest people in the world on sites like Twitter, if they only would only invest their time, care and knowledge first.

3. That “success” is subjective, not a number of friends/followers. If by success you mean some of the most incredible relationships you’ve ever had, that once trust is established can also lead to a fruitful business, you can have it within social media.

4. Tell them to treat others like they would like to be treated. That sending repeat invites weekly to your event on Facebook would really really suck if they had 20 people doing it to them every week, and that promoting others is sometimes better than promoting yourself.

5. And warn them, that us, the self-appointed guards of social media are very protective, very persistent and aren’t goin anywhere.

There you have it my fellow social media teachers. I’m sure we’ll get along fine with just these small but meaningful changes.

Love you.

Sincerely,

The entire Internet

(As a special treat, I also made this into a song for you. With apologies to Heart)

UPDATE – Thanks to the awesome @SnipeyHead here is a post on how to get rid of most of this annoying schtuff by using FaceBook Lite. 

Scott Stratten is the President of Un-Marketing.com. He is an expert in Viral, Social, and Authentic Marketing which he calls Un-Marketing. It’s all about positioning yourself as a trusted expert in front of target market, so when they have the need, they choose you, That’s UN-Marketing.

Over 45,000 people follow his daily rantings on Twitter and was voted one of the top influencers on the site with over 20 million users . His recent Tweet-a-thon raised over $16,000 for child hunger, in less than 12 hours. His book “UnMarketing: Stop Marketing. Start Engaging” is due to hit the shelves in the Fall of 2010 from Wiley & Sons.

His clients’ viral marketing videos have been viewed over 60 million times and has generated massive profits and lists. One of the movies was chosen by the Chicago Bears as their biggest motivator towards their Super Bowl run a few years ago, while another made their client over $5 million in 7 days. He recently appeared in the Wall Street Journal, Mashable.com, USA Today, CNN.com and Fast Company. That plus $5 gets him a coffee anywhere in the world.

Since he still has to pay for his own coffee, he earns his keep by speaking and consulting around the world on how businesses can engage better (or at all!) with their current and potential customer base using social media, viral marketing and just plain old engaging conversation. His team of Un-Jedi’s are responsible for such online hits as “The Dash Movie”, “The Time Movie” as well as the tongue-in-cheek “I’m Breaking Up With The Leafs” (although Scott wants you to know he really is no longer a Leafs fan).

Top 10 Book Promotion Strategies for 2010 Revealed by Survey

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A recent survey of authors and publishers by a national book marketing firm reveals that they are anxious to leverage the benefits of social media marketing as they promote their books in the coming months.

According to Dana Lynn Smith of The Savvy Book Marketer, nearly all – 94 percent of the respondents – said they plan to promote their books with social networking and other social media this year.

"Online book promotion through social media is clearly a popular strategy," says Smith, a book marketing consultant. "But, it’s important that authors and publishers learn to use these new book promotion tools effectively."

According to Smith’s late 2009 survey, here are the top 10 book promotion methods that authors and publishers plan to use this year:

1.  Social networking and social media: 94 percent

2.  Blogging: 84 percent

3.  Seeking book reviews: 75 percent

4.  Seeking testimonials and endorsements: 73 percent

5.  Press releases: 68 percent

6.  Ezines or email marketing: 62 percent

7.  Radio and television talk shows: 62 percent

8.  Speaking or teleseminars: 60 percent

9.  Article marketing: 57 percent

10. Book signings: 56 percent

"Despite the emphasis on online book promotion in 2010, more traditional activities like book reviews and radio interviews are still important," notes Smith. "An effective book promotion plan should use a variety of online and offline tactics for the widest reach."

Of the 136 people responding to the book promotion strategies survey, 42 percent are independently or self-published authors, 25 percent are authors published by a traditional publishing house, 12 percent are aspiring authors, and 21 are publishers or others in the industry.

Smith, who develops marketing plans for nonfiction books, is the author of The Savvy Book Marketer’s Guide to Successful Social Marketing and several other book promotion guides.

For book promotion tips, visit The Savvy Book Marketer blog at www.TheSavvyBookMarketer.com. Subscribers to Smith’s complimentary newsletter, The Savvy Book Marketer, get a copy of the Top Book Marketing Tips e-book when they register for the newsletter at www.BookMarketingNewsletter.com. For more book marketing tips, follow Smith on Twitter at www.twitter.com/BookMarketer .

How To Sign An Ebook

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This post, from Ami Greko, originally appeared on The New Sleekness on 1/18/10 and is reprinted here in its entirety with her permission.

Like the oft-lamented “smell of books,” I’ve found that there there are some concepts that people consistently get hung up on when discussing ebooks. I used to try to puzzle out answers to these, but in this new, Zen-like approach I’m experimenting with in 2010, I’ve decided to try to actually evaluate the meanings behind the questions. Get your Desktop Rock Garden ready: we’re going behind the scenes on three of them this week.

Question 1: “How will people get their ebooks signed?”

As far as I can tell, the logic behind this question seems to go like this: authors have always signed books, and readers have always come to events to get their books signed, therefore not being able to do that = huge problem.

Here’s the logic I’d love to see people using: instead of wondering how we can adapt an older model to suit new technology, maybe we should think about what getting a book signed represents to a consumer, and see if there’s a way an ereader could make it better.

I’m not big on signed books, so it’s possible I’m missing something here, but it seems to me that they tap into a few different things: the impulse to memorialize an event, the collecting jones, and also the desire to have a unique experience directly with the author. Why else stand in line for an hour with your name spelled out on a post-it note waiting for Salman Rushdie to scrawl his signature and your name in Shalimar the Clown? (←An actual unfulfilling personal experience I’d prefer to not relive.)

We can make this a different encounter. It’s a paradigm shift. Instead of forcing people to wait in line hoping to get some small face time with an author, maybe everyone who attends the reading gets a recording of the event immediately following. Maybe the author is excited enough about being sent on tour that he writes an additional story with the book’s characters, available exclusively to those who show up at his appearances. Maybe a risk-taker even releases the first chapter of her upcoming work-in-progress and an email address where comments can be sent.

The suggestions above aren’t meant to be definitive, and more importantly, they aren’t meant to be changes that need to happen overnight. I mean for them to be examples of the ways in which we can reconsider the signing experience wholesale, instead of merely adapting old practices.

What ways would you be excited to see the signing experience change?

 

Part II in this series, Kindles For All!, can be read on The New Sleekness.

Ami Greko is the director of business development for AdaptiveBlue, working primarily with their add-on Glue. She has previously worked as a publicist at Viking Penguin and FSG, marketing director at Folio Literary Management, and digital marketing manager at Macmillan.

Congratulations: You Get To Be The Bigger Person Now

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If you’re working your author platform effectively, you’re very active online. You’re doing any or all of the following: posting to your blog, possibly posting to others’ blogs, tweeting, posting updates on Facebook or MySpace or LinkedIn, participating in online discussion groups and comment threads, posting or commenting on YouTube book trailers, and maybe even podcasting. Your goal is to open a dialogue with readers and your peers, and the better your author platform, the more feedback and discussion you will generate. Much of the feedback and discussion will be enjoyable and thought-provoking, a kind of online ‘salon’. The rest of it, not so much.

An awful lot of people will have strongly held opinions with which you disagree, or which are ill-informed, or which are obviously being shared only for the sake of getting a rise out of you or casting aspersions on you or your work. But however much you may want to angrily tear into this latter group anytime they darken your virtual doorstep, however tempting it may be to respond with a biting and clever remark, you must never do it. Answering the uncouth and trollish in kind requires you to become uncouth and trollish, which can quickly escalate beyond your control and undermine all the goodwill you’ve built up to date with your community of readers and peers, and quickly turn off any newcomers to your tribe.
 
As an author, you’ll find there are two primary arenas in which you may feel it’s necessary to rain invective down upon a perceived adversary: following a bad review, or following an ill-informed or insulting post to, or about, you. First, let’s look at what happens when authors respond to negative reviews…negatively.
 
Consider this case of commercially- and critically-successful novelist Alice Hoffman, who was so outraged by a negative review (some have called it merely lukewarm) from author Roberta Silman in the Boston Globe that Hoffman ended up flaming Silman all over Twitter. Hoffman eventually went so far as to provide Silman’s phone number to her fans and request that they call Silman to defend Hoffman. It wasn’t long before the mainstream press was all over this, and not much longer before an embarrassed Hoffman began making public apologies.
Then there’s author Alain de Botton, who responded to a negative review on Caleb Crain’s blog with a number of posts that eventually escalated to the point where Botton was saying things like, “I will hate you till the day I die and wish you nothing but ill will in every career move you make.” There’s a terrific post about the incident on Ed Rants in which de Botton responds to questions about the incident and provides an essay as part of his response as well.
 
Next, take a gander at the controversy more recently sparked by author Candace Sams on Amazon. When reader-reviewer LB Taylor posted a one-star review of Sam’s novel Electra Galaxy’s Mr Interstellar Feller, Sams responded with a series of angry responses, initially under an alias but eventually under her own name as well. When the dust had settled and the press and blogs were finished with her Sams went back and deleted all of her posts in the Amazon thread, but it was too late by then because plenty of sites and blogs (such as Babbling About Books) had already copied and re-published the worst and most disturbing of them online.
 
Prior to the Sams dustup, perhaps the best-known author outburst came from Anne Rice in 2004, also on Amazon, in response to multiple negative reviews of her novel, Blood Canticle. In a 1200-word diatribe, among other things, Rice responded to reader-critics by saying, “Your stupid, arrogant assumptions about me and what I am doing are slander…You have used the site as if it were a public urinal to publish falsehood and lies." Her entire response is reprinted on the encyclopedia dramatica site, where the term “rice out” is defined as, “To make a spectacle of oneself in response to literary criticism by insisting that one’s creative work is superior in all aspects.”
 
Now, compare these authorial meltdowns to the actions of Carla Cassidy, who posted a wry and clever rebuttal to a negative review on the Smart Bitches, Trashy Books site. SBTB’s review featured a sarcastic, snarky list of 26 reasons why Cassidy’s novel Pregnesia is the best book in the history of pregnant amnesiac romance books. Cassidy responded with her own list of 10 reasons why she loves the SBTB review, as detailed on the Saturday Writers site. According to Saturday Writers, “Carla responded with grace and humor that exactly matched the tone of the review. I don’t think I could respond so well to a negative review. I’m in awe of her.”
If you can’t craft a humorous and/or graceful response to a negative review—and the many examples of non-humorous, non-graceful responses from seasoned authors given in this post are proof enough that you can’t trust your own judgment on this—, then it’s best just to keep your mouth (and keyboard) shut entirely on such matters. As Neil Gaiman has said on his blog, “some things are better written in anger and deleted in the morning.”
 
As for coping with stuff and nonsense from respondents to articles or blog posts you’ve written, or from people who are more or less just out to make you look bad, you should simply ignore such commentary when it’s clearly labeled as opinion but it may sometimes be necessary to correct inaccurate factual information posted about you or your work. If you choose to do so you must tread with the utmost care, lest a new idiom for author freak-outs turns up in common usage with your name attached to it. I don’t think I’ve yet seen a more shining example of calm, professional, classy damage control than that of Harlequin Digital Director Malle Valik in response to the firestorm of controversy that followed Harlequin’s announcement of its partnership with Author Solutions, Inc.
 
First, Malle responded personally to the many charges leveled against the partnership on Smart Bitches, Trashy Books (scroll down through the comments thread to Malle’s first comment, posted on 11/18/09 at 6:48am). Next, she graciously answered some specific questions about the deal on Dear Author, then came back to respond to some very pointed and angry remarks in the comments thread following that interview. In the face of a plethora of insults and accusations, Malle kept her cool, kept a positive attitude, and remained professional. She kept the discussion on-point, and never allowed herself to stoop to the mud-slinging tone employed by many of the attackers.
 
Malle Valik is to be commended for her exemplary performance in this matter, and to be emulated by every one of us anytime we find ourselves in the unenviable shoes she was wearing last November. To do so, you must first acknowledge that as a writer, you are in the free speech business. It is your duty (and should be your honor) to defend the right of anyone to voice any opinion on any subject, however much you may disagree with that opinion or even find it offensive. While I freely acknowledge that very often, the people who put you in a mind to take the low road are not honestly attempting to engage you in a fair debate, it will do you no good to respond to them in kind. Correct factual errors if you must, but only if you’re certain you’re capable of Valikian conduct in the matter. Take action on libelous statements about you or your work if you feel they have the potential to do significant damage to your earnings or reputation, but do so in private, offline. Otherwise, your safest bet is to ignore the noise; it’s not truly worthy of your attention, anyway.

This is a cross-posting from April L. Hamilton‘s Indie Author blog.

Kindle Rush Results

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This post, from Seth Harwood, originally appeared on the Author Bootcamp blog  and is reprinted here in its entirety with his permission.

Click here to Listen to this post as Audio. (Right-click to download.)

As some of you already know, back on December 27th, I released a sample of my first short story collection A Long Way from Disney on Amazon’s Kindle store and used social media strategies to market it. I did this for various reasons, but mainly because, as I said here on OC before, I believe authors need to take on the role of scientists and experiment with what’s possible in today’s publishing world. (If you’re interested in how I publicized this, see my recent posts at AuthorBootCamp.com.)

A Long Way From DisneyFrom a scientific point of view, the experiment was a great success. I learned a great deal, which I’ll discuss below. I sold a lot of books (at $.99 each): around 350 in the first week, and I got my name and stories in front of a lot of new people. I also heard from a number of them who read the book right away and really loved it! For you authors out there, I hope you can relate: Getting positive feedback on your work from total strangers is about the best feedback there is.
[For those of you keeping score at home, those sales put $260 into Amazon’s pockets and $140 into mine. Not too shabby, I don’t think, but also not the split an author might hope for.]

Okay, without any further delay: Here are the Results (What I’ve learned) from Experiment 1:

1) Timing can be essential. I positioned myself to hit the Kindle store just after Xmas, thinking that with many newly gifted Kindles out there, a lot more Kindle ebooks would be selling and that I could cash in on this rush. I was correct in this prediction (Amazon sold more ebooks than paper copies over Christmas), but what I didn’t predict was how much harder this made it to reach the Top 100 Kindle bestseller list, a goal I had set for myself. I wanted to hit the top 100 because it would give the book additional exposure and stimulate more buying from newbie Kindle owners looking for quick, cheap content.
 

Ultimately, I think choosing this time right after Xmas might have helped me sell a few more books. But by not hitting the top 100 list, I missed a critical chance to attract more attention on the Kindle store. As author Rob Kroese posted on an Amazon Kindle Discussion board, he was able to hit 300 in books on the Kindle bestseller list prior to the holidays by selling 30 copies a day. During the holidays, he sold 60 copies per day and couldn’t crack the top 500. I should mention that the highest ranking I got on Kindle Bestsellers was #250, which in retrospect was a great achievement, even if it came short of my goal.

On that note, I also hit #4 in Short Stories, #16 in Literary Fiction and #40 overall in Fiction.

Would I have been able to reach my goal of the top 100 at another time? I’m not so sure.
 

2) Making the Kindle Top 100 list is actually pretty hard for an independent author. Initially I figured, how many copies of these books can they be selling? Well, I learned that in actuality the answer can be quite high. A lot of the books on the Top 100 list are actually FREE! The Kindle store includes many classics in the public domain—for example, Sherlock Holmes, Pride and Prejudice, Treasure Island, Little Women, etc. And whenever someone downloads these free texts, Amazon counts it as a sale. It’s hard to compete against FREE. And, for this reason, the bestselling ebooks list can be harder climb than the paper version. (Back in March 08, I made #45 overall in books on Amazon when I tried a similar experiment with a print on demand publisher and my first novel, Jack Wakes Up.)
 

3) Free isn’t for Everyone. So why shouldn’t I set the price of my book at FREE—the web’s new magic price, according to Chris Anderson—as I’ve done with audio podcast versions of all my fiction at my site and on iTunes? Well, because Amazon’s Digital Text Platform (how you put your book up on Kindle) won’t let me. That’s right, as an independent posting content to the Kindle store, the lowest I can go in price is $.99. It’s true. So who’s posting these freebies on the Kindle store? Publishers. Including, you guessed it, "Public Domain Books."

There’s no sour grapes here. I hope no one will misread any of these statements as that. But there are some interesting lessons learned. Would I have made the top 100 if I had put my book up at a less busy book-selling time? Who knows. But if Rob Kroese can hit #300 by selling 30 books in a day, I probably would’ve had a good shot when I sold close to 200 copies on just the first day. I’ll just have to try another experiment at some point to find out.

When I do, I’ll also capitalize on one more thing I learned in this experiment about actual buying on the Kindle platform:
 

4) Non-Kindle-owners need education if you want them to buy. Not too many people have a Kindle out there, but any Kindle book can be purchased on a PC or an Phone/Touch. This means that a great many people can actually buy a Kindle book, but many of them will need to be educated about how they can do this—something that I tried to enable, but could’ve done far better with in retrospect.

So how did I do? As a writer, the biggest success of this experiment was getting my fiction into more people’s hands and hearing strong feedback from them. As for my writing career and how to proceed with publishing experiments going forward, I really learned a great deal. I hope you found it helpful. To talk more about this with me, please comment on either of my writing/publishing websites: sethharwood.com or authorbootcamp.com, or hit me up on Twitter (@sethharwood) or Facebook.

What am I doing next? Going cross-platform with this experiment—taking the Kindle version of A Long Way from Disney and bringing it to Smashwords (Sony reader and others), Mobipocket (Blackberry) and the iTunes store as an App to enable the content to be read on even more devices! I’ll be back to talk about how that all goes soon!

5 Reasons Writers Need to Embrace Technology

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Many people I meet say “I don’t like computers” or “It’s too hard to use all these sites” when I mention words like ebooks, social networking, online author platform and blogs.

But if you are serious about your career as a writer/author, think about these 5 reasons you need to embrace technology (by which I primarily mean the internet!).

  • People are online. Those people could buy your book. Even if you don’t like consuming ebooks or on mobile devices, millions of other people do and more join the fun every day. You want to reach them so you need to be online or at least have your information available to be found. If you are engaging on social network sites, providing information on your blog or producing your work in podcast audio format, you are more likely to get readers of your work than if you just wait for a publisher to find you, or bookstores to stock your book.
  • It is the best way to build an author platform. The author platform is now critical for everyone except the top authors and famous celebrities. It means people will find you, hopefully engage with you and then be interested in your writing/books or business. The old way of building a platform was through traditional media and PR (which costs money), or through 1:1 contact/networking as well as speaking. All of this is still relevant, but if you also have an online presence you will reach people globally when they are searching or browsing. You can also utilize word of mouth online which can boost your platform much faster and much further.
  • The tools have never been easier and they are free. You don’t need to know how to program to have a website or blog now. You don’t need $20,000 to have a website. You can have one for free. You don’t need to know much except how to drive a mouse. Point and click is all you need for most of these tools plus the confidence to try them out. The recent list of the most influential websites in the world included Facebook, Twitter and Flickr, all of which are great tools for platform building and all very easy to use. For more ideas, check out my free Author 2.0 Blueprint which contains other free sites you can use.
  • Mobile devices are exploding and the internet is going mobile. You may not know people with an ebook reader, but how many of your friends and family have a mobile device? Most of them? All of them? In fact, 1 billion mobile web users are predicted in 2010. Some of these people absolutely love what you do. They want to know you, connect with you and read what you produce. You need to be online to connect with them. The exciting thing is that this opens up the market to millions of people in countries who can’t afford a computer but who can surf the web on a mobile device. Wow! A whole new world of readers.

Check out this video if you need convincing, it’s a brilliant look at this mobile, connected world.

How can you embrace technology and not go mad?

Pick a site and start somewhere. Grow from there. That’s it! Here are the most influential websites online – they include some great sites to start playing with technology including Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.

If you are overwhelmed, start with these 3 : Decide on your goals. Set up a blog. Start on Twitter. [Read the whole article here].

Yes, you will get frustrated. You will find it a bit hard to get started. You will have to play around, spend some time with it, and you may get it wrong. But the rewards are endless!

Please do let me know any questions you have on this. I’d like to help you!

Personal note: I am an IT consultant, but not a programmer. I am Gen X and was not brought up with the web or computers in general. I got my first email account at 21. My degrees are in theology and psychology, not IT. I am a geek but I have learnt this stuff, it doesn’t come naturally. So this is something I am still learning myself! Come and join me!

This is a cross-posting from Joanna Penn‘s site, The Creative Penn. See this page on her site for more information about the various ways to contact and connect with Joanna.

Platform Resolutions For Writers 2010

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This post, from Christina Katz, originally appeared on her blog on 1/4/10, and is reprinted here in its entirety with her permission.

Before writers establish an author platform, they typically establish a writer platform. Over the past decade, thousands of writers have parlayed established influence into traditional book deals. Landing a traditional book deal is still an effective way to exponentially increase your credibility and visibility.

Your “platform” refers to what you do in the world with your professional expertise that makes you visible and influential in the world. Having friends on Facebook or followers on Twitter is not your platform, unless the majority of those people know who you are, what you do, and are enthusiastic about your work.

I thought I would offer some advice about how to slowly and steadily establish a lasting platform. You may note the lack of fanaticism in this advice and the emphasis on enduring success instead. I’m a mother and a wife, a freelancer, a speaker, a teacher, and a blogger, so aiming for balance is the only way I can afford to work if I plan on sticking around for the long haul.

This advice has worked consistently for my students over the past several years. I think you will find that a grounded, step-by-step approach works just as well for you if you choose to follow it:

1. Develop a platform topic that you love and can work on tirelessly for the next few years. Your passion of the moment should come in second to the topic you could delve into deeply for a good, long time. Prior professional education and a depth of personal experience are going to be a boon to your platform if you have an eye on a future book deal.

2. Hang back from establishing a blog on your topic until you have cultivated a wealth of content and experience working with others on specialty-related activities that lend credibility and trust to your name. Others will tell you to start blogging immediately, but don’t, if you want to be efficient with your time and money.

3. Instead, gain authority by seeking publication in established, highly visible publications both in print and online that serve your target audience. Avoid the kind of publishing that anyone can accomplish, like posting on article sites, and work on your professional communication skills instead. By all means, avoid the content mills offering writers slave wages with the promise of future earnings.

4. Don’t begin any kind of marketing campaign for any product or service offerings until you have established yourself as a go-to person on your topic, again saving you time and money. Before you look at ways to serve others directly, channel your expertise into the best service methods possible based on your strengths and weaknesses. This is a meaty topic that is covered in-depth in my book, Get Known Before the Book Deal, Use Your Personal Strengths to Grow an Author Platform (Writer’s Digest Books 2008).

5. Then, develop a product or service that can become one of several multiple income streams over time that will support your goal of becoming a published author. For example, teaching classes over the years has allowed me to re-invest more of the money I earn from writing books back into book marketing. Make sure any offerings you produce are released conscientiously and are integrated into the professional writing you already do. Otherwise, you will seem like you are all over the place and just trying to score a buck.

6. Don’t expect your platform to support you financially for at least one or two years, as you micro-invest in it, re-invest in it as it grows, and expand your visibility.

7. Once you have a professional publication track record in your niche topic, then it’s time to hang your online shingle. I’ve seen this accomplished in as little as six months by exceptionally focused students. Take a portion of the money you’ve earned writing and invest it in a professional quality online presence.

8. A low-cost way to do this is to purchase your name as a URL and use a hosting site like GoDaddy.com to host a WordPress.org blog. I use the Thesis Theme, which you can see in action at my blog. In this way, a blog can also serve as your website where you post your published clips, offerings and bio. If you don’t have a ton of money to invest in the look of your site, you can always pay a designer later.

9. Delay partnering with others on joint ventures until you have a clear idea of your own strengths and weaknesses in and around your topic. And when you do partner with others be extremely discriminating. Make sure the partnership is going to be win-win-win for everyone involved.

10. Start an e-mail newsletter or e-zine with those who are most interested in your topic. Build your list by invitation and then grow it into a permission-based following over time. Create an expected, ongoing dialogue that is mutually beneficial to everyone involved and your list will grow.

11. Now you are ready to start blogging. And yes, I mean while you continue to do all the things we’ve already discussed. Be sure to zoom-focus your blog on what you have to add to the conversation that is already going on about your topic. Don’t just share information; make an impact. Make your blog a go-to, up-to-date resource for your audience.

12. Partner selectively with others who serve the same general audience that you do with integrity and humility. Spend time getting to know folks before you decide to partner with them. You can’t afford to taint the reputation you have worked so hard to establish by partnering with just anyone.

13. Now that you have an established niche and audience, definitely participate in social networking. I like Twitter, Facebook, and Linked In because they all offer something unique. The best way to learn is to jump in, spend an hour online each week until you are up and running. Follow the instructions for getting started provided by social media expert Meryl K. Evans.

This start-up plan for a writer platform will eventually blossom into an author platform. From start to finish, implementing a solid platform following this advice should take you about a year. By the end of that year, you will have established yourself as a serious contender in both professional and online circles, without killing yourself for some huckster’s promise of overnight success.

Have a plan. Leave a legacy in words, connections and professional influence. If you are consistent, by the time the year is done, you will have made effective use of your time and money in 2010.  I wish you the best of luck in your platform-building efforts!

 

Christina Katz is the author of Get Known Before the Book Deal, Use Your Personal Strengths to Grow an Author Platform and Writer Mama, How to Raise a Writing Career Alongside Your Kids for Writer’s Digest Books. She has written hundreds of articles for national, regional, and online publications, presents at literary and publishing events around the country, and is a monthly columnist for the Willamette Writer. Katz publishes a weekly e-zine, The Prosperous Writer, and hosts The Northwest Author Series. She holds an MFA in writing from Columbia College Chicago and a BA from Dartmouth College. A “gentle taskmaster” to her hundred or so students each year, Katz channels over a decade of professional writing experience into success strategies that help writers get on track and get published. Learn more at ChristinaKatz.com.

Publetariat, Circa 2010

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April L. Hamilton here, your friendly Editor in Chief, with some Publetariat news and freebies for you. On February 11, Publetariat will celebrate its one-year anniversary. It’s been a busy, fulfilling 11 months, and Publetariat has some new developments and giveaways set for its audience in 2010, as well as one event. 


Publetariat – New Contributors
First, Publetariat is proud to welcome Joel Friedlander, Jenn Topper, Stephen Windwalker, Bob Spear, Richard Sutton (The Indie Curmudgeon) and Mark Barrett as regular site contributors. Indie authors and/or publishing professionals all, they’ll be bringing valuable information and thought-provoking opinion to Publetariat.

 

Publetariat – Blogs and Free Exposure
Just a reminder: all Publetariat members have access to create blog entries on the site, and the 10 most recent blog entries are always featured on the front page of the site in the right-hand column. It’s an easy, free way to get some exposure to Publetariat’s  audience of writers, authors, publishers, and all manner of other bookish types, and that audience is quite large. As of this writing, Publetariat ranks in the top 1.4% of all websites worldwide in terms of traffic, per Alexa.

Publetariat membership is free, and we don’t share your contact details so you need not worry about being added to any spam lists. Heck, Publetariat doesn’t even send out any type of newsletter, so you don’t have to worry about us clogging up your in-box, either.

I’ll be honest with you: I do not recommend using Publetariat’s blogging feature as your primary blog, because it will always be framed by Publetariat columns/content (as opposed to a blog that contains nothing but content related to you and your work) and it doesn’t have all the nice bells and whistles you can get with Blogger, TypePad, WordPress, or another dedicated blogging site. Still, it can be a nice adjunct to whatever else you’ve got going on, and you may want to use it just to publish the occasional article you feel is deserving of wider exposure than your blog’s traffic level typically provides. I use it as an adjunct: even though I have my Indie Author Blog set up with Blogger, I use my Publetariat blog to publish my weekly #fridayflash flash fiction because my other blog is dedicated to posts about authorship and publishing.

If you’d like to start blogging here, just sign up for a free member account and, once your registration has been confirmed via email, log in and click the Create Content link in the upper area of the left-hand column on any page of the site. Select Blog Entry on the Create Content page, and you’re ready to go.

 

Publetariat Vault – Free Listings for the First Half of 2010
Sister site The Publetariat Vault was launched last summer and has recently announced it is extending free listings through June 30, 2010. The Vault is a listing service for self-published authors who still own the rights to their works and wish to sign those works with a mainstream publisher, literary agent or film/TV/game/multimedia producer. Self-published books which have generated a lot of buzz, or sales, or both, are of great interest to such people, but until now it’s been very difficult for them to locate these books in the vast, undifferentiated sea of the internet.

That’s where the Vault comes in, providing not only standard catalog data (e.g., title, date of publication, page count, etc.), but actual sales figures and author platform links as well. Some have asked why anyone who already has a slushpile on his or her desk would want to search the Vault, and the answer is simple: not only is the Vault’s content searchable based on specific criteria (e.g., genre, protagonist sex or age, intended reading age for audience, more), but the results of Vault searches include actual sales and author platform information. This extra bit of information and links enable self-published authors to clearly demonstrate how both they, and their books, are performing in the marketplace.

The reason behind the decision to extend six months of free listings, a $60 value per listing, comes down to raising awareness. While the Vault has already registered such searchers as Sourcebooks, NBC/Vivendi/Universal (TV shows, movies, games), agent Nathan Bransford and publishing think tank Idealog, we recognize that the site needs more time to fully develop and become a trusted resource for its intended audience of authors and searchers alike—but we don’t expect authors to finance the effort.

This article provides a good overview of what the Vault is and how it works. You can read the Vault’s FAQ here, and its Terms of Use here. You can view a sample, dummy listing here, and see what the publisher/agent/producer search form looks like here. If you decide to register for a free account, you can do that here. After doing so, you will receive an email with full details on how to create your listings and bypass the PayPal payment system when publishing them.

We’re also working on expanding the Vault to include authors who have published with a small press but are still seeking representation; there will be announcements both here and on the Vault site when site changes to accomodate such authors are complete.

 

Vault University – Free Lessons/Handouts in Publishing and Author Platform/Promotion
Sister site Vault University launched last fall. This site provides monthly lessons for authors in two curricula: Publishing and Author Platform/Promotion. Vault U. was originally developed as a free educational service for authors who have their books listed in the Publetariat Vault: authors with at least one Vault listing are entitled to free enrollment in the Vault curriculum of their choice, though they’re enrolled in the Author Platform/Promotion curriculum by default since that’s the area of most interest to most self-published authors. If you take advantage of the Vault’s free listing offer above, you’ll also get access to Vault U lessons for free through 6/30/10. 

But that’s not the only means of getting free lessons and handouts from Vault U. Because lessons tend to be lengthy, entire, self-contained sections of lessons are often provided in the form of separate, standalone pdf "handout" documents. When this is the case, Vault U. makes those standalone pdfs available online free of charge to anyone who wants them. I always tweet about them, so if you follow me on Twitter ( @indieauthor ), you’ll be sure to hear about any that are posted in 2010. There are also plans to add a page to the Vault U. site with links to all available free handouts by the end of this month, so watch the Vault U. site for the appearance of that page. So far, Vault U. has offered the following freebies:

Crunching The Numbers: How It’s Possible To Sell Every Copy Of Your Self-Published Book And Still Lose Money – And How To Avoid That Outcome

Setting Up An Author Blog

Basics of Effective Website Design (intended for authors with some web developer skills and HTML literacy)

What Goes Into An Author Press Kit

If you like what you see in these lesson materials and would like more, but don’t wish to list a book in the Vault, Vault U. also accepts paid subscriptions at a rate of $5/mo per curriculum. You can read more about the Publishing curriculum here, and about the Author Platform/Promo curriculum here. Subscription links are provided at the bottom of each of those pages. 

 

Author Workshop Cruise
Finally, there’s the Author Workshop Cruise, scheduled for the week of 10/10/10. In this weeklong, all-workshop cruise, only 30 attendees will have the opportunity to learn everything they need to self-publish and promote right. It’s a vacation and writer’s workshop bundled into a single trip.

Workshops will be led by me (self-publishing in POD formats), Joshua Tallent (publishing for the Kindle), Kirk Biglione and Kassia Krozser (author platform and social media for authors) and Seth Harwood (author platform and podcasting for authors). Attendance is limited to allow for more personalized attention, and because all attendees will receive a private, 45-minute consulting session with a workshop presenter.

Cruise sponsors include Writer’s Digest, Smashwords and Everpub, and travel arrangements are being handled through AAA Travel, of the Auto Club of Southern California. This hasn’t been officially announced yet, but just between you, me and the internet, in addition to premiums provided by sponsors and workshop presenters, all cruise attendees will also receive a free, 12-month enrollment in the Vault U. curriculum of their choice as a benefit of cruise attendance.


That’s about all the news for now, but plans for a first-anniversary giveaway are in the works too so stay tuned!

BookBuzzr – The One Free Tool That Every Author Needs For Book Marketing

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This post, from Saneesh, originally appeared on the Freado The Book-Marketing Technology Blog on 10/20/09.

[Note from Publetariat Editor in Chief April L. Hamilton: While this is really just a promotional piece about the BookBuzzr widget, since that widget is free and I use it myself and can therefore recommend it personally, it’s a resource I’m very happy to share with Publetariat’s audience. I’ve embedded the BookBuzzr widget for my book, The IndieAuthor Guide, at the end of this post so readers can see for themselves exactly what it is and how it works.]

As an author trying to market your book online, you may find that many of the simple steps involved in Internet marketing are actually quite daunting. Consider the simplest and most important prerequisite, of offering an extract of your book online in a nice to read format that can be easily shared among your readers.

 

99% of author websites are unable to allow sampling of books on their websites. They simply stick in an image of their book and hope that this is enough to stimulate the desire to read the book among site visitors. You know you can do better than that!

BookBuzzr is built from the ground-up for word-of-mouth (or shall we say, click-of-mouse) book-marketing. By signing up for BookBuzzr you can allow readers to browse through portions of your book in a nice to read online, flip-book format where the experience is similar to reading a real book. Additionally, they can get a [centralized] listing of all things related to your book such as links to where they can buy your book, where they can discover interviews with you, where they can listen to podcasts related to your book and more.

Need another reason to sign-up for BookBuzzr? Let’s talk about "share-ability" or "distribute-ability." Let’s say you saw a book-extract of a book that you loved and you want to share this with readers of your blog. The best most people can do is to put up a link to the book-extract. But is this enough? The era of people going to a few "destination" websites to get their content is over. Today you are as likely to see an interesting video embedded on a blog that you discovered as you are to see that video on YouTube. So we’ve taken care of this for you. Fans of your book can easily embed your book on their personal blogs and become ambassadors for your book.
BookBuzzr is intended to take care of most of the details related to online book-marketing and book promotion on an ongoing basis. At the very least, BookBuzzr helps you to:  

  • Reach your target audience by allowing them to discover your book in various places such as blogs, websites, social networking sites and more.
     
  • Tell them that your book is available by providing links to places where they can buy your book.
     
  • Persuade them to read it by allowing them to easily sample your book with jaw-dropping book simulation technology.

As a bonus, when you sign up, you also get listed on fReado.com where readers can interact with you and with other readers. Further, you can link from fReado to your own author site or blog, thus helping your search engine rankings. Because fReado.com is optimized for search engines and because fReado.com is regularly crawled all over by the major search engines, the information about your book will soon be noticed and your pages should be listed in response to web searches. We also have plans to connect fReado with Facebook Connect. This enables your readers to:
 

  • Seamlessly "connect" their Facebook account and information with your book
     
  • Connect and find their friends who are on fReado
     
  • Share comments made on your book with their friends on Facebook

Sign up now for free and join other elite authors who understand the art of online book promotion!

Given the growth of Twitter and its importance in helping authors build their platform and sell more books, a number of Twitter features have been added to BookBuzzr to help authors market their book on Twitter with a large degree of automation. The goals behind these features are:

  • To help the author gain more followers on Twitter
     
  • To make the book more visible among the authors’ Twitter followers
     
  • To help readers of the book share the book among their Twitter followers.

These Twitter features for marketing books online include:
 

  • Authors can schedule tweets about their book in their Twitter accounts daily or weekly.
     
  • Every time a reader opens an author’s book-excerpt, a tweet goes out to the authors Twitter followers mentioning that the book was opened.
     
  • Readers will find a link to follow the author on Twitter when they are reading the author’s book-excerpt and when they finish reading the book-excerpt.
     
  • Readers can tweet about the book with just a few clicks. 

 

Writer's Night Before Christmas

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‘Twas the night before Christmas and all through my draft
Were examples of my inattention to craft
My characters all hung about without care,
In hopes that a plot point soon would be there.

 
My family were nestled all snug in their beds,
While visions of red herrings danced in my head.
The dog on its blanket, and the cat in my lap
Had just settled themselves for a long winter’s nap.
 
When on my computer there showed a blue screen!
(And if you use a PC, then you know what that means.)
Away to the cell phone I flew like a flash;
I dialed tech support and broke out in a rash.
 
The sales pitch that played while on hold I waited
Ensured my tech guy would be roundly berated.
That is, if he ever should come on the line.
And for this, per minute, it’s one-ninety-nine!
 
“Good evening,” he said, in a Punjab accent,
“I am happy to help you, and my name is Kent.”
More rapid than the Concorde was his troubleshoot,
I was back up and running, after one last reboot!
 
"Now Gaiman! Now, Atwood! Now, Cheever and Austen!
Salinger! O’Connor! Shakespeare and Augusten (Burroughs)!
Don’t withhold your wisdom! Upon me, bestow it!
Inspire me! Show me how best not to blow it!"
 
To their books I turned for some worthy advice;
I was pumped to return to my work in a trice.
So across clacking keyboard my fingers they flew,
With a speed and a passion—and no typos, too.
 
Hour after hour, the prose kept on flowing,
Though I had no idea where my story was going.
“But write it, I must!” I decided right then.
I resolved to see this project through to the end.
 
At one a.m. the second act came together,
At two I knew this book was better than ever!
My hero had purpose, my plot had no slack.
I cut my “B” story and never looked back!
 
I got up to make coffee at quarter to three;
Curses! My spouse left no Starbuck’s for me!
With instant crystals I’d have to make do.
Cripes! He used all of the half and half, too!
 
“I could add some Kahlua,” I told myself.
“There’s a big, honking bottle right there on the shelf.”
So I added a splash. And then a splash more.
At five, I finally came to on the floor.
 
With more Kahlua than coffee in the cup nearby,
An idea for the third act I wanted to try.
Werewolves! In high school! And vampires, as well!
It worked for that Meyer chick, my book’s a sure sell!
 
I tied up the plot in a neat little a bow,
With the arrival of aliens, and giant worms from below.
Defeated were foes of the Earth and the sky,
And thousands of townsfolk did not have to die.
 
With the Kahlua bottle all but drained,
I turned to do the last bit of work that remained.
To this one tradition, I was happy to bend.
Two carriage returns, all in caps: THE END.
 
I sprang to Facebook, to announce I was through.
From thence, on to Twitter, and MySpace too.
But lo, I exclaimed as my face met the sun,
"Twenty-four days late, my NaNoWriMo is done!"

 

This is a cross-posting from April L. Hamilton‘s Publetariat #fridayflash blog.

#fridayflash: Writer's Night Before Christmas

by

 

Twas the night before Christmas and all through my draft

Were examples of my inattention to craft

My characters all hung about without care,

In hopes that a plot point soon would be there.

 

My family were nestled all snug in their beds,

While visions of red herrings danced in my head.

The dog on its blanket, and the cat in my lap

Had just settled themselves for a long winter’s nap.

 

When on my computer there showed a blue screen!

(And if you use a PC, then you know what that means.)

Away to the cell phone I flew like a flash;

I dialed tech support and broke out in a rash.

 

The sales pitch that played while on hold I waited

Ensured my tech guy would be roundly berated.

That is, if he ever should come on the line.

And for this, per minute, it’s one-ninety-nine!

 

“Good evening,” he said, in a Punjab accent,

“I am happy to help you, and my name is Kent.”

More rapid than the Concorde was his troubleshoot,

I was back up and running, after one last reboot!

 

"Now Gaiman! Now, Atwood! Now, Cheever and Austen!

Salinger! O’Connor! Shakespeare and Augusten (Burroughs)!

Don’t withhold your wisdom! Upon me, bestow it!

Inspire me! Show me how best not to blow it!"

 

To their books I turned for some worthy advice;

I was pumped to return to my work in a trice.

So across clacking keyboard my fingers they flew,

With a speed and a passion—and no typos, too.

 

Hour after hour, the prose kept on flowing,

Though I had no idea where my story was going.

“But write it, I must!” I decided right then.

I resolved to see this project through to the end.

 

At one a.m. the second act came together,

At two I knew this book was better than ever!

My hero had purpose, my plot had no slack.

I cut my “B” story and never looked back!

 

I got up to make coffee at quarter to three;

Curses! My spouse left no Starbucks for me!

With instant crystals I’d have to make do.

Cripes! He used all of the half and half, too!

 

“I could add some Kahlua,” I told myself.

“There’s a big, honking bottle right there on the shelf.”

So I added a splash. And then a splash more.

At five, I finally came to on the floor.

 

With more Kahlua than coffee in the cup nearby,

An idea for the third act I wanted to try.

Werewolves! In high school! And vampires, as well!

It worked for that Meyer chick, my book’s a sure sell!

 

I tied up the plot in a neat little a bow,

With the arrival of aliens, and giant worms from below.

Defeated were foes of the Earth and the sky,

And thousands of townsfolk did not have to die.

 

With the Kahlua bottle all but drained,

I turned to do the last bit of work that remained.

To this one tradition, I was happy to bend.

Two carriage returns, all in caps: THE END.

 

I sprang to Facebook, to announce I was through.

From thence, on to Twitter, and MySpace too.

But lo, I exclaimed as my face met the sun,

"Twenty-four days late, my NaNoWriMo is done!"