I think about books and marketing all the time. I mean all the time. I don’t even listen to the radio in the car because I don’t want the background noise to disrupt my thoughts. I also think about how I can teach my clients that the Old Rules of Marketing don’t apply anymore. I get a lot of resistance but I have to keep pushing because I know once they get the hang of it and let go of the fear magic happens.

The old rules were pretty cut and dry. Advertising and branding. Reaching as many as possible with the tools you had to work with. If you are a major brand then you can advertise on radio, tv, cable etc… but if you are an author with a limited budget you need to be more creative. So you contact bookstores and schedule book signings. Then you put an ad in the paper letting people know that you will be at the bookstore. I know when I say bookstore many are wondering what I’m talking about. It saddens me to say that bookstores are dying at a rapid rate. I am a huge bookstore lover so it really is upsetting. I have a special place in my heart for the Independent Bookstore. Where you can walk in and people ask you what you like to read and give you ideas of great books that you might never know about if it were not for the bookseller in that store. Okay I got a bit off track but maybe not. The reason you may not have ever heard about that book is because of the limited budget for marketing. Don’t get me wrong, you still need a budget for marketing your book but you get more bang for your your buck now. I know it’s overwhelming and scary and all of those things.

Find a publicist that understands you and will work with you. Let them do the leg work so you can keep writing. I have found when authors try to do the marketing themselves they become discouraged and stop marketing. When your publicist gives you those to do lists that only you can do. Do it. Make the time. This is a business. You will get out of it what you put into it.

We are very lucky! The Web has changed the rules and we have to change our marketing. Many people are very uncomfortable with the Internet. GET COMFORTABLE! You know the old saying, ” If you can’t beat em’, join em”.

You have the chance to reach the world. What’s stopping you?

Denise

Book Marketing and Publishing doesn’t have to be stressful or expensive.
Follow me on Twitter http://twitter.com/progressivebook
Check out my Blog http://deniseglesser.blogspot.com
www.facebook.com/progressivebookmarketing

I look forward to trading marketing information with you!

Happy Writing!
Denise

Remember book marketing and publishing doesn’t have to be stressful or costly.

Progressive Book Marketing, LLC

http://marketyourbookwithprogressive.blogspot.com

http://www.progressivebookmarketing.net

I feel slightly hypocritical addressing this topic. I promised Books A Latte this guest blog back in May of 2008. One might think I hadn’t quite grasped the whole overcoming-obstacles concept yet.

But. When one considers that writing was the very thing keeping me from fulfilling my promise earlier, maybe one would cut me a break?

Although this guest blog was also a writing endeavor, and one to which I looked forward, I had to rank it below fulfilling book contracts, giving attention to my son, and a few other pressing items on my list of priorities.

And, oooo! There are the Golden Words! List. Of. Priorities!

The other night I met with my local writers’ group. Many of us admitted our writing was deadline driven. Once given a deadline, we suddenly find ways to overcome those annoying obstacles to writing. Like TV, the phone, socializing, laundry, working out, eating, sleeping. You know—all those things that pale next to the importance of meeting deadlines.

I’m being a tad facetious. But I’ve had such close deadlines for some of my books, I didn’t begin to debate putting some of the above items aside. If I wanted to fulfill my contracts and still show the love to my son, then chatty phone calls and hanging out with friends had to be put on hold for awhile. My friends understood I’d emerge later, as I have now, while between projects.

So, bottom line? Decide what’s most important in your life right now. If writing will interfere with nurturing your children, maybe this isn’t the season for you to write so much. If you can’t get in a full-blown workout and write, you have to decide which is most important at this moment—tight sentences or tight abs.

But whether we have a deadline or not, the Lord might have one for us. When you sit down to take a good look at your priorities, the best first step is to go to Him in prayer. If He can’t help us overcome obstacles, who can?

When you are starting to write or get writer’s block, the smartest idea is to write about what you know about.  Otherwise, you are going to be doing a lot of research.  While research is something you may want to consider in the future, novices should begin with writing about what they already have experienced or know best.  It helps you to improve your writing skills, while not worrying so much about the subject as you begin to improve your craft.

Get to know your best writing self.  Do you write best alone or with others in the room?  Can you concentrate with music and television blaring in the background or do you need dead silence.  I write best when it’s quiet, but my husband writes more words an hour with his favorite inspirational music playing softly in the background.  Not me! If I hear a song while I’m writing, I am thinking about the words of the song, not the words on my computer.

A lot of people have asked me about my writing process. I always tell them, “writer’s write.” Most people talk about writing and don’t actually write; but to complete a book you need to write, write, write. As my daughter says,  “a book is a lot of words!”  Writing is not easy nor for the faint of heart.

I believe God gives the heart and vision for the story or article. It also takes talents and gifts, but you can’t pull off an article or book without determination and discipline. You write one word at a time just like you play the piano one note at a time. You can do it, if you put your mind to it and overlook other distractions.

Practical Ideas to become the next Pulitzer Prize Winner:

Treat writing as special as you do reading.  I act as though my writing time is very important. Give yourself big challenges in the writing area, perhaps you are asking too little of yourself. Do you only believe you can do what you have already done or do you truly believe you can do more?  You need to believe you can climb some higher mountains than what you did the last time up the slopes.

Give yourself a reward for each writing completion each week or each month.  Sometimes I let stay at the pool for an extra hour in the sauna or buy a coffee mug that looks like a Hemingway mug.

Make lots of great stories available to yourself in a variety of ways. Do everything from checking out from the library old Fibber McGee radio shows to buying tickets to that community playhouse you always drive by.  Tell stories to your children each night to keep expanding your creativity, vocabulary, and fun quotient.

Always edit your work the next day, never the same day. A fresh perspective always helps. Keep reading books about writing so you learn all the tools you need for writing, not just the mechanics of writing. For example, you also need to be an expert on other things, like your audience and how to understand the genre.

It is a writer’s joy to fan the flames of the written word within themselves and others.  Do you have a mentor in the writing field and are you mentoring new or young writers?  Both keep you honest and fresh.

Cheryl Moeller
Stand up comic, syndicated humor columnist, and author
Check out some writing samples or buy books at www.momlaughs.blogspot.com

So you want to be a writer, and you think a small daily or good-size weekly is your best foot in the door?

Be prepared to swing two bats.

If this was baseball, practicing swinging two bats would put power in your swing. Same goes for writing. Disciplining yourself to crank out copy, and lots of it, will get you ready for the Big Leagues.

But it’s not for the faint of heart. If you want a 39.5 hour work week, unless you’re very efficient, you may be barking up the wrong tree. People don’t want to hear this. “I’d do anything to get a shot at writing,” I hear writers say. But the concept of giving it 110 percent is too daunting for some.

When I took my first job in print, I begged for it. I told my editor I would write anything, even obits. Without being asked, I wrote my heart out. I put myself on a rigorous training program of swinging two bats, frequently turning in two or even three stories a day while many around me slacked off because they could.

I learned how to crank out good copy, copious amounts of it, fast. Those three things you can never find together – quality, speed, quantity (or price) – I learned how to deliver. I’m not saying all my stuff was perfect.

The other thing people complain about when cranking out copy is not having time to network and develop sources.

I admit to using my own personal time to do a lot of things in the community, thus developing those sources. For some people, that’s unacceptable infringement of work into personal life. For those people, I don’t recommend community newspapering in a setting where resources are limited.

Written by: J. Louise Larson visit her blog at the WritingPorch.

An editor told me recently he’s been inundated by stories that aren’t finished.

In the freelance world, an unfinished story is a liability to the writer. The more work the editor has to do to it just to get it to useable, the less likely the writer is to continue the working relationship with that editor. Of course, with freelance, you generally get more lead time because they realize you have other work to work around.

But in the daily newspaper business, unfinished work is bad. With deadlines looming, an editor is forced to either get the writer to finish the piece, or to finish it themself, or to shelve it and disrupt the front page. Or let it run rough.
The writer may protest “But I finished the piece! I even ran SPELLCHECK.”

I’m here to tell you that like the AI commercial says, just because it looks done doesn’t mean it’s done.

Every writer has their own writing routines. But whether you put your byline on first or last, there are several steps without which your journalistic steak doesn’t have its AI on. It’s not even cooked.

1) Read it aloud. Does it make sense at this point?

2) Is everything in the right order, or do you need to do more cut-and-paste. I don’t mean chronological order — I mean, does it FLOW? Or is it all jerky, lurching from one paragraph to the other like a drunken tale?

3) Is there any duplication that needs to be eliminated?

4) Are quotes correctly attributed and introduced? Names and titles spelled correctly?

5) I recently noticed a piece that had a “there” where there should have been a “their.” Any of those?

6) Do you go on and on and on? Would a shorter story be better?
There are other polishing routines. Here are some of the main ones.
Remember: polish, polish, polish!

Written by: J. Louise Larson visit her blog at the WritingPorch.

The doorbell rang, and since both my son and I expected packages, we raced to the door to see what the UPS man had left on the front porch.

“Yes!” I snatched up the package with my name on it.

I carried it into the kitchen, laid it on the countertop, and ripped it open. After I pushed the paper wrapping aside, I pulled out the textbook and study guide for my latest college class. I clutched the book to my chest, and said, “I can’t wait to get started on this.”

Both my son and daughter looked at me like I’d grown a gigantic third eyeball. One of them said, “Oh, Mom. You are such a geek.”

“I know!” I laughed. “And that’s one good thing about getting older. I don’t care.”

I yearn to learn. I admit it. When I attended high school, I actually liked the challenge. Of course, I never made such a confession then. It wasn’t ‘cool’ to like school.

But now I realize what a privilege it is, not only to read, research, and learn, but also to read, research, learn, AND write! Prior to 1456, when the first Bible was produced on a printing press, all manuscripts of the Bible were laboriously copied by hand. These days, you probably have a dusty copy of the Bible some place in your home. We have an entire shelf in our bookcase dedicated to all the different versions of the Bible. I have such great admiration for those who wrote my textbooks and study guides – much more so now that I know the amount of hard work that can go into writing a 400-word devotional or a 1200 word article!

When I’m doing research, I have the entire Internet at my disposal. I can read any version I want, and listen to it being read to me if I desire. I can find numerous Bible commentaries, and countless sites with Biblical teaching.

I heard the other day that even the shyest person among us would impact at least 10,000 people over the course of his or her lifetime. And then to think that God might use some of my writing to bless others overwhelms me at times. The counter on my Devotionals blog clicked over the 30,000 mark the other day, and I have to admit, my stomach fluttered at the idea that that many people had viewed the site. I prayed, “Lord, direct people by the power of Holy Spirit who need encouragement to my site today.”

It’s not about numbers or fame, but ministry. I encourage everyone to remember our purpose – to lift up the Name of Jesus, and draw others and ourselves to Him. Let’s pause to thank God for the privilege of being a scribe for Him. May we all write beautiful words of prose and poetry, stories and teaching. What a privilege!

Donna J. Shepherd – Devotionals by Donna

Website: http://www.donnajshepherd.com

“No More Gunk! & OUCH! Sunburn!” – in Bookstores Now