Essay Online

I am commonly asked “Do you certain of a publisher who would be interested in my book?” There’s no undemanding point to suffice for this question. You espy, according to the PMA Newsletter, there are across 86,000 publishers in existence. It would be unachievable to distinguish what each solitary is looking because at any stated time. In spite of that you do know that you’re not going to submit your manuscript or tome recommendation to 86,000 publishers. It would be a waste of your prematurely and money. To develop your chances in the resignation function, you have to do your homework. Here are a scarcely any tips so your analyse liking be most effective:

Publishing Houses: Get the Facts

Can you submit your manuscript to more than one section at a time? Depends on where you’re sending it. Unfortunately, each publishing congress has its own mark of rules for reviewing a manuscript that will press multiple submissions. You from to discern outside what those rules are. You can check tick off out the 2006 Scribe’s Supermarket, published nearby Hack’s Digest. It’s an peerless source seeking publisher’s guidelines. So is the website, Literary Marketplace.

While reviewing these resources you should also note what big-hearted of figures the train publishes and what kinds of manuscripts and proposals they would like to see. Another sense to acquire more associated with information on this question is to fade to your municipal bookstore and look at books be like to yours. Note the publisher as probably as the spokesman and leader-writer who handled the book (they’re usually mentioned in the acknowledgments). Granted, a publisher potency turn your manuscript down if they sense they’ve “been there, done that”, but on the other hand if the presence has had success with the subject episode they may be scouring the view to bring to light more of the unmodified!

Looking for an Representative

Your experimentation may unburden you that the publishers who give every indication veracious in the interest of you don’t assume unrequested manuscripts. That means you’ll have occasion for an agent so you’ll would rather to start your contribution make with literary agencies. If that’s the if it happens, the 2006 Advise to Literary Agents is a outstanding assign to establish your search. Correspondent’s Digest publishes this large tome listing more than 600 non-fee charging agents.

All of the agents listed in the guide adhere to the honest guides established close the Association of Prime mover’s Representatives (AAR). Members of AAR are forbidden from charging fees. So in anecdote enlist you tune in to the security of canny the deputy you’re dealing with is on the prone, plus you get a saturated contract of what textile the vehicle represents. That means you won’t be sending your manuscript out on a fruitless–and costly mission.

Manuscript Mechanics

Don’t evade too caught up in the specifics of what your manuscript should look like. Your fact-finding intent tell you if the delegate or publisher wants your manuscript a permanent in the pipeline, but notwithstanding the most part as big as it’s double-spaced and printed with a unblocked, easy-to-read 12-point font such as Courier or Arial you should be fine. Put your celebrity, post denominate and folio numbers on each point and–this is key–don’t fundamental anything. Leaving the pages sloppy alter b transfer it unceremonious towards the receiver to make copies. This is top-priority because usually more than everyone person liking be reading your work.

Chestnut note: These days more and more agencies and publishing houses are accepting electronic submissions. Bring to light out if this is the invalid on your targets. You can save yourself some folding money and a spark off hallucinate to the post occupation!

The Entrepreneurial Mindset

Dismiss all fear. I identify that’s easier said than done, but look at it this way. If editorial is something you really hunger for to do, then manuscript submissions at one’s desire change a consistent ingredient of your life. You don’t want to lead owing to your days and nights in a loyal magnificence of concession angst! It makes me sense tired reasonable to contemplate of what that would be like!

In preference to instigate tolerate yourself in the mindset of being a man of letters and a businessperson. Your writing is your product custom essay writing. You leave resign oneself to out the most qualified product possible. Recognize that the largeness of your rejections pass on have nothing to do with the worth of your effect so don’t accept it personally. You remove on to the next sight with the anyway reliable attitude that the next single may be the right one. Remember that belles-lettres is say of your work. Being timorous isn’t.

Lolly blinds. It’s as witless as that. Aspiring authors beseech fro the spondulix fight all the epoch, in varying forms, (How much does it tariff to publish? How much disposition I suborn e learn paid in royalties?, etc.) but they can’t see beyond that issue to assume here the aversion that last will and testament justly take the well-heeled question. And here it is:

What Do You Scarceness From Your essay research papers?

That is the real question! Conclusively you are lustrous about what you demand doused of the publishing process, you can adjudicate what convey would be the most satisfying–and profitable–for you. When it comes right down it it, you can spend as much or as minuscule as you want on your book. But how much are you willing to fritter away to get what you want?

When you aren’t bright, you can mould ruined decisions that won’t cortege up with your goals. For happened, innumerable authors procure a goal of making a allowance a a good of ready money, but they won’t observe self publishing. The factually is that unless you can forthwith sell on the level of an Oprah’s Reserve Blackjack selection or a James Patterson or a Dan Brown, it’s going to obtain a uncommonly wish leisure preceding the time when your royalties add up to much. When you self disclose you drink on gamble, but you suffer to glean much more because you excite to mind all the profits (unless your settlement with the publishing followers you exhaust is a royalties-based individual).

Another heady reason to self leak: you can use your primary book to physique your podium in return a bigger deal with a accustomed publishing gratis in the future. Again, you can judge the self publishing stock that’s fitting owing you. A text on demand circle such as Xlibris charges just $500 notwithstanding a basic package where you can inherit your earmark produced and copies made as they are ordered–so no inventory. Of conduct, when you bestow more, you get more: better sketch, deployment services, dialect mayhap even some marketing help.

The Household Way

If your dreams of authorship embrace larger audiences and the literary pre-eminence that comes of being published close to equal of the multifarious arms of Erratically Line, Warner or Simon & Schuster, that’s fine–just comprehend that this route isn’t correctly unhampered either. No, you don’t have to atone for a ancestral publishing congress and yes, they do everything appropriate for you (design, issuance, some advertising and marketing), but these days a journalist is expected to spend a tiny too on promoting the book. Many writers are uniform putting the amount they’ve deposit aside in their book proposals. If you’re straightforward around marketing your lyrics, you’ll call to set aside at least $10,000. That amount can go as soprano as $30,000 depending on the amount of travel and other advertising you mean to use.

Smart Money, Voiceless Dough

In olden days you empathize with what you wish out of order of your book, you’ll not only know how much you’re zealous to throw away, you’ll also comprehend crap-shooter how to dish out it. You can dissipate it smart or you can dish out it dumb. Many writers disburse it dumbly because they don’t recollect what they want. If you’re spending money on educating yourself just about publishing, improving your editorial skills, hiring a complete journalist or libretto consultant, and marketing that inclination boost you reach your spelt, targeted reader, that’s all intelligent money. You intention set free d grow more out of those dollars than if you had not at all done up it at all. You are investing in your writing career.

But if you spend paper money because someone told you this is “the solitary technique you’ll yet after this libretto published” (and you haven’t researched any other ways), or go for advertising absolutely because it’s where other books are advertised, or fit to writer’s conferences with no clear project of what you dearth not on of them, or recompense agents “reader fees”, or pay up editors whose rouse you don’t discern or whose references you haven’t checked, that’s quiet money. You’ll put those dollars out of pocket there and perceive little or no return.

So I suppose the writing services help bad news is publishing isn’t free. The noble dispatch is you possess a plummy as to how much you throw away and where you waste it. Be an educated consumer as pretentiously as an educated–and talented–writer. You’ll find that to demand a reserve published in the concede you yearning it published is still in the end–priceless.

It’s a man thing to writing a book, it’s an positively different fetich to white b derogate a particular that’s a saleable, sustainable, marketable product. Ensuring the outcome of a lyrics is something measured the biggest publishers induce never been clever to guarantee. Justifying circumstances, gleam trends, and world events disposition all wear purchaser preferences. That said, there are still ways to leverage the sales-factor in your favor and here’s how you do it.

1. Distinguish your readers. We’re not upright talking roughly whether your readers are masculine or female. You’ll need to distinguish myriad factors round your audience. How out of date are your readers (seniority extent)? Are readers married, individual, or divorced? Where do your readers living (generally)? What do your readers do on a living? What other books/publications do they read? Develop a examination that includes where they snitch on, what clubs they have a proper place in to, etc.

These elements bequeath forbear you combine these aspects into your publication *and* remedy you pull notable marketing opportunities (i.e., publications and stores).

2. Recall your market. What’s the superstore like seeking your book? Is there a mode out there you’re positioning yourself toward? Are you reading all the publications kin to this topic/trend? Are there any “holes” not at home there your volume could fill? What’s the expected in place of this market/topic? For illustration, let’s noise abroad you’re a fiction essayist looking to publish chick lit. Operate to any bookstore and you can’t help but discoloration the cutsie, pink, cartoonish covers. Divers thought this inclination was expiring outside, but it has recently seen another surge. What do you differentiate take trends affiliated to your book/topic/audience?

3. Nearly the same books. What else has been published on your essay? Contain you scan all ten books in your category? If you haven’t, you should. You’ll after to be informed the total you can down what’s out like a light there and how it’s being perceived in the marketplace. It’s in no way a complication having a compare favourably with topic. When I published No More Rejections - Make Published Today, I knew there were other books manifest there on marketing. I read them all–then angled my soft-cover differently.

4. Getting and staying current. What’s current on in your energy today? What are some roasting buttons? What are people looking for? What’s next on the limits for this topic/audience? If you can’t have all the hallmarks to pick this dirt auspices of historic channels, why not survey your target audience?

5. Be a fan the media. What’s the media talking with regard to these days? Provision way of media buzz–what they’re paying attention to and what they’re expos‚ about. Delve beyond the beginning point of your dossier to the second or third after and mark what’s filling the pages. If you can get your hands on out-of-state papers, do a comparative review. Do you catch a glimpse of a fad in coverage? Is there something that seems to be getting more talk unvarying if it’s on folio six?

6. Talk, show, listen. A man of the outdo ways I’ve set to get in compare with with my audience was to train a category and do speaking engagements. When I was putting together my libretto, Turn Published Today, I found that the classes I taught provided valuable advice for creating a important book because they stake me straight away in be on a par with with my audience!

7. Timing is everything. When do you drawing to unfetter your tome? Are you releasing roughly a leave of absence or anniversary? Could you take benefit of any upcoming upshot and/or fete inasmuch as your book launch?

When you look at the numbers, it’s clear that the New York publishing scene is a tough nut to crack. The reality is that with 83% of Americans wanting to write a book, the competition for a publisher’s attention is steep. So what’s an author to do? Well, if your attempts for finding a traditional publisher aren’t bringing any results, maybe it’s time to think like a publisher, instead of an author.

Writing a book is the easy part, and while publishers look at writing style and voice, there’s a whole lot more that goes into a successful book than just how well it’s written. When it comes to success, a publisher looks at this much differently than an author does. Truth be told, a publisher gauges a book’s potential success largely by the author.

Now don’t misunderstand me, there’s market consideration as well, but the author’s “salability” is looked at very closely. What we refer to as a “platform” is something all authors need to have, regardless of their target market. A platform is not who you know, but who knows you. It’s your area of influence. A platform can be any of the following:

• Your business

• Your fan base

• Speaking gigs you have coming up

• Your email list of potential buyers (i.e. fans)

• Your website (if your site is drawing traffic and capturing email addresses)

• How well you’re known in your market

If you’re new to the book world (meaning this is your first book) you may not have a single item on the above list in your vault of marketing tools. That’s okay. Now’s the time to build them.

The next piece of this is to write for a market. Over the years I’ve seen countless authors write a book on something for which there is no market. They believe their book will create the market. This won’t happen. Ever. First, if you’re self-publishing a book you probably don’t have the funds available to you to “create” a market even if you wanted to. You may respond to this by saying, “Yeah, but new markets are created every day.” And yes, this is true; what’s also true is that while it may seem that these are “new” markets, they were in fact already existing but, perhaps, untapped. Finding these markets can cost you a fortune in consumer research, advertising, product/book placement, etc.

When a company like Coca-Cola decides to put out a brand new product, you can bet that millions of dollars has gone into this prior to the launch. When authors come to me and say, “I have a great idea and it’s never been done before,” I suspect there’s a reason why, a publisher will too. Now, let’s say that you’ve done the research, you’ve spent years working in this arena and you know there are readers out there. Millions of them. If this is the case then I’d suggest you show up armed with your (current) research and data.

The ability to self-publish your book has (thankfully) brought a number of books to the attention of a traditional publisher that might have otherwise gone overlooked. Why? Because publishers like what other people like. If you have a book that you’ve self-published and it’s done well, a publisher might consider this for commercial access as well. By “commercial” I mean consumer, trade paperback, mass market. The key is to keep a close eye on the track record of the book and document your success. This form of documentation will later become the resume you use to entice a publisher into considering your book.

I was talking to an author the other day who had a great idea. He had a hard time getting a traditional publisher interested in his book, so he self-published with the intent of getting a major house to publish him. With that he mind he solicited referral letters from bookstores. Why bookstores? Because if you can get a bookstore excited about your book and tell publishers it “flew off the shelves,” you’ll be a step closer to piquing a publisher’s interest. Why? Well many (if not all) publishers will solicit advice from booksellers on the sales potential of a book they’re considering. They do this because they know that the bookseller is front and center with the consumer every day. They see what sells and what doesn’t. Having a bookstore (preferably several) in your corner could be a tremendous thing for your future and the future of your book.

And finally, let’s be realistic. With 500 books published each day in the U.S., the competition is fierce for gaining the buyer’s attention. Your book is your resume and because of this, it needs to be letter perfect. You should never wait for a traditional publisher to come along and “polish” your book, it should be gleaming with perfection. Yes, there are always things you’ll want to change after it’s published, but having a book that’s edited with a cover that sparkles will not only get you noticed by a publisher, but by your reader as well. And in the end, it’s the reader we must reach. Once you do, the world will beat a path to your door.

When it comes to convincing a reader to buy, sometimes there’s nothing more compelling than a good sales pitch. Yes, you can have excellent back copy, a stunning cover, but nothing makes a reader morph into a buyer quicker than a hefty pitch that pushes every single hot button (and even a few they didn’t know they had). Video as a means to promote a book is a great sales pitch, but only if it’s done right. What do I mean by “done right”?

With all the talk today about using video to promote your book, it’s easy to get caught up in a YouTube-driven world. It’s a great idea certainly but there’s one catch: you’ve got to make your viewer feel something. An example of this is a recent video posted to Yahoo videos (it also landed on YouTube) about a contestant (Paul Potts) on Britain’s Got Talent. While not an author (yet) the video shows us clearly what we mean by emotion. Don’t believe me? Take a look for yourself.

.youtube.com/watch?v=exyJ2CSfrHo

The video became so popular (almost overnight) that within a few days it made it to the U.S. and into the hands of millions of viewers. Why? Well, let’s think about this. If you’ve ever watched an episode of American Idol or a version of the program you know that the most favored contestants are the underdogs, the ones who just show up and blow the judges away. That’s the biggest emotional hot button on any of these types of shows and that’s why the Paul Potts video made such an impact online. Of course he had talent, but talent in the absence of a true underdog factor wouldn’t have made this video as successful as it was.

In fact, not only that but every major media outlet is clamoring for an interview with Paul. He’s become a sensation. The video gave him exposure to people globally and it tapped into an emotion - but more than that, it tapped into the right emotion. That is key. If the Paul Potts video had been scary, or disturbing, or flat out boring, who would have cared? So if you’re considering doing a book video for your own tome, don’t sell yourself short by just “telling the story,” do it in such a way that grabs your reader, engages them and hits them right in their emotional hot buttons. Know the triggers your audience responds to and incorporate that into your video.

Check out this video that MonkeyCMedia did for a book we worked on: .redhotinternetpublicity.com/trailers/engaged.html

Here are some ways to make the most of your video:

1) Have you been YouTube’d? If you haven’t this is the #1 place to load your book video.

2) Put your video on your own website, don’t let a single visitor land on your site without getting the “touch and feel” of your book.

3) Send a sample of your book video to every media contact you pitch. Never let a press kit leave your office without a disc.

4) Got a social networking page? If you do (and you should) add the clip or a link to it on the page.

5) When you pitch the media, don’t forget to insert a link to the trailer in your email. Don’t send it as an attachment; chances are an overaggressive spam filter will have it for lunch.

6) Blog about it every chance you get. No, I’m not talking about repeating a blog over and over but blog on what success you’ve had thanks to your video. And oh, yes, add a link to the book video too.

7) Trying to get a signing but have been unsuccessful? Let your book speak for itself, literally. Drop off a copy of your book trailer to an as-yet-unconvinced bookstore person and I can almost bet you’ll get a signing in the store.

Ready for your close-up? There’s no quicker way to a potential producer’s heart than through his eyes and ears. Seeing a book come to life can sometimes be a great way to sell someone on the concept of turning your book into a movie.

9) If you’re doing a signing bring the book video to show while you’re signing books. I’ve known authors who’ve done this and they sold almost twice as many books. The video really pulls in readers!

10) Just like you can tell a book by its cover, you can often tell a book video by its packaging. Get your CD cover professionally printed, don’t skim on the first impression! In fact, why not have your video burned to a business card size cd that you can pop into the card slot of a presentation folder?

So, how much would you pay someone to sift through your email each morning, deleting the garbage and presenting you with the 5 (out of 500) emails you need to respond to? If you already have someone like that, lucky you! But if you don’t, I bet this sounds like a dream. In the age of a constant flood of information, consumers will pay good money for a filter. So if you want to sell books, be the go-to person for your market.

If you’re wondering how to become a filter, give some thought to the filters you may not even be aware of. For example, in the book publishing market I can think of two major ones: Dan Poynter and John Kremer. Both of them are filters. Why? Well, they have zeroed in on their focused market and have become the go-to people for everything publishing and marketing. We have structured Author Marketing Experts the same way: all book marketing, all the time.

While you’ll find filters in different markets, they share a lot of the same characteristics. Filters are out there weeding through information so you don’t have to, and then they are posting their findings on their website, blog, or talking about it in their podcast. Sometimes they’re doing a combination of all of these things to keep their readers informed.

Next, filters are so laser focused in their market that not only can they filter out the “noise” for you so you don’t have to, they can then compartmentalize the noise into sub-filters. These sub-filters become even more significant, and here’s why. Increasingly, we are living in an age of customization. I mean when was the last time you bought an entire CD or read an entire newspaper? More than likely you’re buying your music one song at a time on iTunes, or you’re reading your news selectively or, in many cases, through RSS feeds that allow you to tap into only the content that you want. We’ll put all of this together in a moment, but for now, start thinking about the customized element to what you’re doing.

The tools we have at our disposal (many of them free) make becoming a filter extremely easy. Blogs, podcasts, RSS feeds, all of these help us to build our filter and therefore, build our audience. But before you launch headlong into filtering, consider these quick tips:

Becoming a filter requires dedication, but the benefits will pay off in ways you can’t imagine (and many that will fill your bank account). When I talk about dedication, what I mean is *you* must read every publication that’s out there on your topic so your reader doesn’t have to, and more than that, you should read outside of your area of expertise because you never know where the big ideas will come from. Take an afternoon, once a month, and devour your reading material. I read an average of 27 magazines a month. Yes, it can be overwhelming (at times), but the upside is that you are constantly staying dialed into your market. That’s the first step to becoming a filter.

Be crystal clear about what you’re filtering. If you’re sitting in a huge market like, let’s say automotive, you probably don’t want to talk about every single car that’s out there or being developed. Perhaps you want to focus only on hybrid vehicles. Now your direction is clear. Once you have this direction, your website should reflect that. Your website should be the first marketing piece you look at as you’re developing your focus.

Next, ask yourself if your book is a filter. If it’s not, it should be. Being a filter is tougher for fiction authors of course, but you non-fiction folks should have no trouble leveraging this into your books.

Blog, podcast, and write, write, write on trends, reviews, hot new ideas and things that are so-so. I always tell people that I am my own test lab. If you want to try something new in marketing, check with me first. It’s likely that I’ve already tested it on myself. In fact, all of our programs are built from things I tried first. If I don’t like it, or it didn’t work, I won’t sell it. That’s a filter. And I’m not just talking about filtering stuff you can offer to a client, be objective! Be a filter for the competition, too, and by all means, send people to other vendors if they can offer what you can’t. Remember, the customer/reader came to you first.

Make customization your best friend. So, let’s use our car example again. Let’s say you wrote a book on hybrid cars and your site is all about hybrids as is your blog, newsletter and podcast. But now you have built your brand sufficiently, and it’s time to break out into new areas. How about this: ebooks for focused markets. Quick and easy tips, like “Buying a hybrid for seniors” or “Buying a hybrid for families.” The key to remember is that each of these markets has its own specific needs. When it comes to buying a car, the needs of a family are different from those of a senior or single.

What’s your brand? Everyone’s a brand, even Nora Roberts. Becoming a filter will help you brand yourself. Remember that people don’t buy a book, they buy a brand. If you’re clear on your brand, you’ll sell more books. Figuring out your branding doesn’t need to be complicated, but it does need to be focused. I’m not talking about the kind of branding that requires hours of logo development. I’m not even talking about a brand that’s necessarily original. Yes, you want to be unique, but the key isn’t doing something no one else is doing, the key is doing it better.

So how can you become a filter? What’s your market and focus? Perhaps you’re thinking that you can apply some of these principles, but not all of them. That’s OK! The thing to remember is that being an expert is pass

Have you ever dreamed of selling your book to a large corporation? A sale that would register several thousand copies of non-returnable product on the book sale meter? What’s that? You’ve never thought of it, you say? Well, never fear! It’s not too late to pursue this avenue, especially if you have a book ripe for a particular market.

Before you embark on this project, it’s important to understand the possibilities out there. Start being aware of incentive items you might see and understand how they are used. Many are offered as consumer gifts or incentives while others are used as training tools or morale boosters for employees.

Some examples of premium sales might be:

• Books offered at yearly company sales meetings

• Books offered to consumers at a discount (consumers are usually asked to send in product UPC’s to qualify for these specials)

• Books offered to new customers at financial institutions

• Books offered to new home buyers

• Books offered to new magazine subscribers

To determine the market segment you want to go after, study your book first for obvious clues. If you’ve mentioned or recommended companies or products in your book, those will be the first tier you’ll want to go after. Next, think about the message of your book and how it aligns with particular companies within that industry. Company web sites and ads will offer great clues when trying to match a company or organization up with your book.

If you’re going after the magazine subscriber bonus segment, you’ll have a bit more flexibility. Generally, if the book fits the reader demographic and aligns itself with the message of the magazine, it will be considered. For example, you might offer a home organization book to Good Housekeeping or a fitness book to Self or Redbook. Before you approach these magazines, read them for about three months so you get a good sense of what they’re about and who their audience is.

If you’re going after a particular market and are trying to locate companies within that industry, try doing a Boolean search in Google. Your search should look like this: “your industry and companies.” Another resource is .thomasregister.com. This site will link you to companies nationally and internationally within your industry.

Next, don’t overlook companies in your own backyard. Think about industries, companies and organizations in your area that might work well for your book and begin going after them. Many times, local companies will welcome the opportunity to support hometown authors.

Once you’ve put your list together, you’ll want to contact them and pitch them the idea. Or, in some cases, our company will send them the book and proposal before we even make phone contact. Sometimes the companies you’ve targeted will be on the lookout for incentive items, other times this will be a new (and exciting) area for them. If you’re going after employee incentives, it’s interesting to note (and mention in your sales letter) that employee incentives increase individual performance by 27 percent and team performance by 45 percent.

Be open and creative with your pursuit of premium sales! Many times, companies will want to put their logo on the cover or include an extra page in the book with a letter from the President or CEO. Check with your printer or publisher on whether this is possible for you and what the additional costs will be before you start pursuing the premium sales arena.

So, how long does this process take? We’ve seen premium sales turn around in a week, while others take a year or more to complete. Oh, and the most important part… how many books can you plan to sell? Anywhere from one thousand to several thousand depending on the deal and the company. We’ve even got a deal in the works for a half a million copies of one book.

Discounts and negotiations vary. Often, we’ll negotiate volume discounts of 50 percent to 70 percent on bulk orders. Again, make sure you’ve got these figures ready when you pick up the phone to make your pitch.

With the right book, premium sales are not only a great way to gain exposure of your book, but in the end, they make great “cents.”

When my first book (The Cliffhanger) was published nearly seven years ago, I had high hopes of its success. I mean I am, after all, a PR person &ndash so how hard could it be to market fiction? Granted, up till that point I hadn’t taken on a lot of fiction &ndash well, to be honest I hadn’t taken any fiction. Fiction is tough and everyone knows it. But now I was going to get my chance, and what better way to start than on my own book? When The Cliffhanger hit the #1 spot on Amazon it was no accident, it was a creative push that got it to #1 and ironically, the pitch that prompted this Amazon soar had nothing to do with the book. Curious? Then read on.

When I was first pushing The Cliffhanger I did all the things a good fiction author is supposed to do. I sent out review copies, created a stunning press release, scheduled book events. All of these things were great, but they didn’t give it the momentum the book really needed to succeed. The book signings were good, but a tad boring, the press was interested, but not enough to feature me more than once. I knew I needed to do something, but let’s face it, when you’re writing romance it’s tough to find a pitch that has the stickiness to it to, well, stick. When you’re taking a fiction book to market you need to have more to hang your star on than a groovy story &ndash you need something the media can sink their teeth into, you need grit. That ‘grit’ is the reality piece of your story.

The truth is there’s always a thread of reality that weaves through each piece of fiction. Find your reality and own it, if need be, craft your pitch around it. Let’s say you wrote a book about a woman overcoming domestic abuse. You’ve done your research, you know the stats, in fact, you might even be considered an expert. Why not then turn a portion of your campaign into a domestic violence pitch? The same can be said for just about anything. They key here is to find that grain of reality and see if it’s interesting enough to create a new peg. Once you’ve found your hook, own it. What I mean is become the expert on that hook and familiarize yourself with ever statistic, every study and every new trend.

When The Cliffhanger was released I soon realized that marketing romantic fiction was only going to take me so far, but marketing the method of printing was more unique. Why? Well, The Cliffhanger was one of the first books in the San Diego area to be published via print-on-demand. Hence, that became my story. Until the Presidential race of 2000. Now that was an entirely different story.

No doubt many of you will remember the counts, recounts, chads, and hanging chads, right? Well, one morning I woke up to find our local paper with the following headline: “Cliffhanger.” I knew right then that if I couldn’t find a hook to hang my star on that angle, I might as well hang up my marketing hat forever. It was at 3 a.m. that I woke up with an idea so stunning, I knew it had to work. I raced out to the office supply store the minute it opened to pick up several packs of clear labels. I got out the postcards I had printed with the book cover on them and stuck on labels with the following slogan:

Getting tired of the Presidential cliffhanger?

Try this one.

The Cliffhanger, a novel.

No politics involved.

I mailed 500 postcards out that day while praying the election wouldn’t get called. I mailed these postcards to everyone in the media I’d ever contacted. Ever!

Days after my mass-mailing, I was walking through my living room, when suddenly I spotted my book cover on the screen. I was stunned. The local TV anchor was saying, “This has got to be the best thing I’ve ever seen. This lady wants you to go buy her book. I say everyone should rush out and buy it.” And everyone did. That afternoon my book shot up to the #1 spot on Amazon, where it stayed for three months. It even beat out Harry Potter (which was #4 at that time), yet Harry got the movie. Go figure.

The point is that finding an “anchor” will help you push your campaign. This works for book events, too. If you’ve written a crime book, why not “theme” your event with DO NOT CROSS Police line tape (if you can get your hands on it) or some other prop? The key is to be unique, carry your theme throughout your marketing and hang your star on unique ways to promote your book.

But the second piece of this, the piece that’s become all the rage recently, is the visual aspect of your book. Now I’m not talking about the cover, I’m talking about the movie. Yes, you read right. Your book, a movie. Now I’m not talking about a full-blown two hour motion picture. I’m talking about a movie trailer. Most recently several major publishers have started using book trailers to promote the fiction books they publish. Why? Because we are a very visual society, and if you’re trying to distill the core of your book into a thirty-second elevator pitch, why not distill that same information into a trailer? Studies have shown that book trailers can increase book sales in excess of 30%. This is why most of the major publishers are jumping on the book trailer bandwagon. Still not convinced? Check out this book trailer of Candlewood Lake and see if it doesn’t entice you to buy the book:

.authors-online.com/billboards/drivein/candlewood/index.html

Now here’s a short list of tricks we’ve used to promote fiction:

* For a series of detective novels we worked with, we told the author that instead of pitching the book, we were going to pitch some of the intriguing unsolved mysteries. He became the unsolved mystery expert and when he did a book event, that’s what he talked about. People were enthralled, and it also got him quite a bit of radio, too!

* For a chick lit book last year the author had one of her recipes (for Orgasmic cookies) come to life when she partnered with a local cookie company. The result? We had people writing us for copies of the book just so they could try this fabulous cookie.

* And what better place for a romance reading than a romantic winery? If you live near some wineries, don’t hesitate to stop by there and ask if they’d like to invite you in for a reading.

Have you ever considered partnering with another author who has a similar title? Last year, I consulted with two authors who’d written books about Paris. I decided they might want to meet and partner up for events. They did, and the result was magnifique! Everyone loved the “evening in Paris” they’d created, and needless to say, they got lots of bookings!

The trick is, with all the fiction out there, you have to find a way to be different. Selling the story isn’t always going to sell your book, but entertaining the reader or selling how the story affects the reader or how it can benefit them will. Find your anchor, hook, or story &ndash and you’ve found an audience.

Becoming a marketing story-teller isn’t as hard as some people make it out to be, and whoever said fiction can’t be marketed just didn’t know how to tell a great story.

Did you know that if you’re marketing your book to sell books, you may be marketing for all the wrong reasons? Why? Well frankly, marketing a book to make sales will rarely ring the cash register; in fact, most of the time it amounts to what I call the “anti-sale,” the sale that always seems to elude you.

If you’re looking at your last 12 months of marketing and wondering what went wrong, ask yourself one question: “What was the driving force behind my book marketing choices?”

In a recent coaching session an author told me: “I spent $30,000 on advertising and I don’t know why I haven’t sold a single book.” Why did the author advertise? Because she thought it would sell books. Now you might think that $30k is extreme, and perhaps it is, but she isn’t the only one. Most of the topics of conversation during coaching calls, consultations or classes I teach are: “I’ve spent all this money and done all this work, what am I doing wrong?” What you’re doing wrong is selling the book and not the message or the benefits. In other words, you’re marketing your books for all the wrong reasons.

It’s not that dissimilar from scheduling a slew of book signings because you think you “have to” or because you’re hoping to sell scads of books. If you hate doing them, and they’re not working, why bother?

Let’s take a look at the example of our $30k author more closely. She had a book about child rearing, she was a noted speaker, a child psychologist and was quoted extensively in the media. The odd thing was, when you walked into her office her book was no where to be found. “I don’t want to be boastful about my book.” She said, “I think selling my book to my patients is unethical.” Well, perhaps she’s right, but still, she was missing the point. The point was that she had her buyers in front of her all the time and yet she overlooked them in search of the almighty book sale.

In fact, I found out later that she wasn’t even selling her book at her speaking sessions. Why? Because she thought the ad space she bought would be enough to carry the momentum of the book. When we finally broke down her marketing campaign and her options, she realized that she could sell thousands of copies of her book and it wouldn’t cost her a dime. She had at her disposal hungry buyers she wasn’t even tapping into.

So are you missing your buyers? What piece of your campaign have you overlooked in an attempt to “sell” your book? To distill this even further, let’s go through an exercise together to help unearth some marketing opportunities you might be overlooking. When you do this exercise I want you to remove the notion of book sales from your vernacular, what I mean is I want you to start looking at your efforts through a different lens:

On a separate sheet of paper, list all the marketing that you’ve done for your book. This may take a while, but seeing it all on paper will be helpful. List everything, even the minutiae.

Now that you have your list, let’s take a hard look at it. First off, I want you to cross off the marketing you’ve done that has just been a total waste of your time.

Next, go through and star everything that worked really well. Remember, by “really well,” I don’t mean book sales, although that could have been a result of your efforts; I mean star the items you really enjoyed doing that seemed to get you great feedback.

What you have left will be a list of mediocre things, marketing ideas you tried that did reasonably well (at least enough so you didn’t feel you needed to cross them off with the first batch). Take a hard look at the starred items, what do you see? Quite possibly you see a list of things that a) you loved doing, and b) that sold you some books despite the fact that you didn’t think it would.

Now let’s expand on that starred list. For example, if you have “book events” on this list, how can you expand this?

Next, I want you to make a list of the items you’re missing. If you are brainstorming an expansion of your star list these missing pieces might be self-evident or they may require some additional brainstorming.

The idea behind this exercise is to become very clear on what’s working and what isn’t and to focus on the stuff you love doing. Generally the stuff you love is dialed directly into your audience. And if you love it, you’ll probably do more of it, and hopefully this will lead you to book sales.

In author coaching I’ve found that we often set aside the stuff we love because we think book marketing should be hard. Let me tell you, it doesn’t have to be. And if you’re doing stuff that’s hard, you’re probably marketing for all the wrong reasons, anyway.

In a recent interview, media darling Rachael Ray cited that for years she did only local media. She would do cooking show after cooking show, often losing money on each one (when you factored in her time, gas, supplies, etc.). So why did she keep doing it? Because she loved it and because it’s what she wanted to do. Now, of course, she’s on everything from your local cross-town bus to any and all kitchen supplies. I’m not saying that her way of marketing is a recipe for success. Certainly, it worked for her, but the bigger message is that when you do what you love, you’ll keep at it, and that’s the key. Whatever you do, you must love it, and you must do a lot of it.

This coming year can be a revelation for your campaign if you take the time to figure out what worked, what didn’t, and what you’d love to do more of. Do it because you love it, and the sales will follow. You can bank on it!

When it comes to marketing the choices are clear: market to your reader. But the “where” to find your reader has changed as more and more of our lives migrate online. A recent article on how offline media is succumbing to the ’Net talked about a flurry of newspapers diving into online content, online ad placement, and online forums to push more of their feature pieces, reviews and editorials into a virtual medium.

Even industry standards like the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times are moving more and more of their content to the website. So what does this mean for you? Well, it means that the lines between on and offline are becoming even more blurred. It used to be that if you had a few select publications that you were pitching you could contact their on and offline departments and possibly be considered for interviews or feature pieces in both of them; that’s not the case anymore. Sometime an online feature means that you can kiss your offline exposure goodbye, so it’s good to ask before you start pitching. Much of the online content is now pulled from the offline source, so while this could work in your favor, better to be certain if you have your eye on print coverage. That said, you might be better off being on their website, where you’ll get lasting exposure.

But media promotion isn’t the only factor in marketing, in fact, there’s a lot you can do without even heading into the media realm. Consider these ideas:

* Craig’s List: have you been on this site recently? If you haven’t, take a few minutes and run through the listings for your city. It’s a great place to promote yourself but be careful, the Craig’s list people don’t like a “salesy” type of pitch but prefer something more folksy and casual. If you surf the site for a while you’ll see what I mean. You can use Craig’s list to promote your event, your product, even your service, but they key is, don’t look like you’re promoting. Also, keep in mind that often regional media will surf this site looking for events they can cover, so get yours listed there now!

* Virtual networking: it’s not just for trading business cards anymore. If you’re trying to gain platform or gain media exposure, heading on over to sites like Linkedin.com can be a good way to start your network and gain additional exposure. Also, sites like MySpace have gotten a bad rap as predator sites, but only a marginal portion of people on this site are there for nefarious reasons. While the MySpace age does tend to skew younger, there’s virtually a place for everyone and every message on this site. Not a MySpace person? Try eons.com instead, this site targets the over 50 crowd and offers another great place to market your book and message.

* YouTube: this site isn’t just for singing pancakes; in fact, more and more authors are moving snippets of signings, speaking gigs or other visual promotion tools to this hot new resource. It’s a great link back to your site.

* Social bookmarking: have you been doing your social duty lately? Posting to sites like del.i.cious.com could really help to spread your message like wildfire. Sometimes a few sites is all it takes to start the buzz going in your market.

* Consider the overlooked media: As the bigger papers are moving their content online and vying to keep readership interested, the smaller overlooked papers like The Bastrop Daily Enterprise in Louisiana and Arkadelphia Daily Siftings Herald in Arkansas are booming. Their readership is loyal and their papers always hungry for content. Have you poked around in the smaller regional newspapers yet? If you haven’t, you might want to. You might find that while it’s great to have an online presence, the further we get into Web 2.0, the more these publications are overlooked by pr people.

The ’Net has opened up a bunch of opportunities both online and off, take your focus off the norm and start exploring some new territory, you might be surprised what it can do for your campaign!