eBook the Next Frontier
By Jerry D. Simmons | March 8th, 2010 | No Comments » (Click to add yours!)
Imagine for a moment as an author, selling copies of your books and never having to print replacement copies. Consider the elimination of shipping, handling and warehousing costs for printed books. Imagine never having to deal with book returns ever again. A market exists where all sales are final, welcome to the new frontier of bookselling with digital downloads and eBooks.
For new authors struggling to create an audience, why would you want to launch in print when the price of entry into the eBook market is so low? A writer can take a manuscript that has been professionally edited and create an eBook for a fraction of the cost of producing a printed book.
When publishing independently and working to stay within a budget for production and marketing, wouldn’t your money be better spent on marketing rather than print and production costs? If you already have a printed edition of your book, and you own the digital and electronic rights, why not add an eBook to your product mix? Times are changing, markets are shifting, the eBook is fast becoming a viable market for selling content.
The method of eBook distribution is patterned after the print distribution business which means you need a publisher or distributor to gain access to the marketplace. Print is not going away but more consumers will be moving to the eBook because of price and wider availability of eReaders. If you have interest in exploring the market for eBooks, please contact me through this web site.
Making the Right Publishing Decisions
By Jerry D. Simmons | March 5th, 2010 | No Comments » (Click to add yours!)
It’s interesting to note that many of the self-publishing mills (the big POD companies that market aggressively and often distort the facts) are offering writers a menu of options for publishing their manuscript. The question I have is, how can any writer know what is best for their book? Success in publishing is selling books, there is no other gauge. In order to sell copies, you need to know and understand the market for bookselling. In my opinion, you cannot make the right publishing decisions if you order your trim size, cover design, interior layout, price and page count from a menu of options. Your newly published book must fit the genre in which you write, and be positioned within that category to compete with all similar titles. Can you get that information from a menu? I don’t think so, not if you expect success, which translates into selling books.
Book Tour and Amazon Promotion by Dave Lieber
By Jerry D. Simmons | March 4th, 2010 | No Comments » (Click to add yours!)
Here’s an easy and free way to get noticed every week as a popular author in your hometown.
BookTour.com, which calls itself the world’s largest, 100 percent free directory of author events, offers a wonderful event calendar for your author engagements. The best part is the periodic e-mail update that gets sent to all readers who subscribe to learn about author events within a certain number of miles from their zip code.
What this means is this: If you list several events each month, you’ll show up on subscribers’ e-mail updates on a regular basis — unlike a visiting author who makes one appearance a year. Your consistency and obvious popularity will cause more buzz about you among your region’s serious readers.
But aside from pumping life into your public image, that same e-mail that arrives to subscribers with your “tour” dates, also comes with everyone else who is scheduled to appear in your designated region. This gives you real-time intelligence about which stores and events host authors on a regular basis and who they are hosting. This insight gives you a head-start when calling the bookstore: “Hi, I saw you booked Jerry Simmons last week. You know, I’m almost as good as him.”
As a reader award, I’m saving the best for last. Recently, BookTour and Amazon struck a deal so that all of your listed events on BookTour now stream into your Amazon Author Page, assuming you have one. (Go to authorcentral.amazon.com to sign up for that.)
A live stream of appearances on your Amazon Author Page gives you a leg up on many other authors, especially those who aren’t around anymore. Nathaniel Hawthorne and Mark Twain aren’t coming to a bookstore near you. But you are.
You’re out there! Now the let the world know free and easy, every week, all the time — and find out what everyone else is doing, too.
Dave Lieber is an international speaker and newspaper columnist for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. His newest Web site is davelieber.org – which he says is a sleek new “hub-of-the-wheel” author site that he just completed with author-tech guru Thomas Umstaddt Jr. of authortechtips.com.
Publish the Professional Way
By Jerry D. Simmons | March 3rd, 2010 | No Comments » (Click to add yours!)
There are more opportunities to publish a book than ever, including print and eBook, and the cost is going down. However, I’m not sure this is a good thing.
You may have heard the old saying “there are good lawyers, and there are cheap lawyers, but there are no good cheap lawyers.” This is definitely true for publishing, you can publish professionally or you can publish cheaply, but you cannot expect to have a professionally produced book for a few hundred dollars.
If you invest countless hours writing then the least you can do is have your manuscript professionally edited and produced. Your book is your resume; make it the best it can be. All the marketing in the world will not help you sell a poorly written or produced book.
Ask the Tough Questions
By Jerry D. Simmons | February 26th, 2010 | No Comments » (Click to add yours!)
Many of my blogs have to do with “so-called experts” who try and secure money from unsuspecting writers and authors. As much as I wish could write about more positive, constructive things, it becomes necessary for me to warn my readers that there are lots of people calling themselves “publishing experts” who are nothing of the kind. I find it once again important to give you some advice, and that is – ask the tough questions.
When someone tries to sell you a product or service, ask them about their success rate? Ask them to give you references? Go to their web sites and locate authors and titles, then do your best to inquire about the product or service? Network with me and other writers, members of your writing or critique group for advice. If you cannot find authors, titles, or anyone who seems to know anything about the product or service, then you really have to be careful.
The second thing you should inquire about is the person or company’s background, experience, and qualifications as an “expert.” When someone tells you they have been in publishing for 20 years, does that really qualify them to sell you their product or service? You need to dig deeper and find out the names of the companies they worked for? In what capacity, what was their job? What were their responsibilities? What were their successes in the business? Let them give you the names of the authors and titles with which they worked. Again, if this information is unavailable, then are they really experts?
If you dig deep before you buy, complete your due diligence with regard to the product or service, and ask for proof of the success, then you stand a good chance of saving lots of money and plenty of time. Ask the tough questions and it will serve you well, don‘t allow yourself to become a victim of these “experts.”
Too Good to Be True Sales Offers
By Jerry D. Simmons | February 24th, 2010 | No Comments » (Click to add yours!)
When you run across an email with a marketing pitch that offers an “incredible sales opportunity,” or some other verbiage that sounds too good to be true, well it probably is too good to be true. I’ve written about knowing the questions to ask before you make a purchase of a product or service. Warning you about companies that are slow to respond to emails, fail to provide key executives background or experience and those that offer no contact information such as a phone number in their correspondence, as companies you should stay far away from.
When the offer sounds intriguing and the price is right, but you get to the small print and discover there are “hidden fees” then stop right there and move on, it’s not worth it. If you manage to work past the small print and agree with paying the “hidden fees” and find the web site is, shall we say, less than credible in appearance, then run the other way. If a legitimate company cannot give you (1) biographies of the principles of the company, (2) phone numbers or contact numbers besides a mere email address, or (3) a web site that looks like it was created by a ten year-old, then folks, you are not going to get what you think you are getting.
People and companies that offer products and services to writers and authors that fail to meet these minimum of standards, don’t belong in the business. Their claim to fame is making money off your desire to sell books! Don’t buy it! Remember, if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.
Authors Can’t Succeed if They Don’t Participate
By Jerry D. Simmons | February 22nd, 2010 | 1 Comment » (Click to add yours!)
Too many times I hear authors complain about the fact they created a Facebook page and are writing on Twitter and nothing has happened to the sale of their book. Well the fact is you have to actively participate before anything will happen. Actively being the key word meaning consistently over a long period of time. If your page is static and you don’t provide new content then nothing will happen. It’s called the Law of Action.
The same goes for your web site, the fact is readers, those who actually buy books, will not shop a site that isn’t interesting or lacks rich content. You have to participate, you have to add to your personal profile, your bio, you need to create content for your site such as articles you have written about the subject you are familiar that should tie-into your book. Video or audio placed on your Facebook and other free sites is also recommended.
The more you create content as Independent authors, the more readers will pay attention. The Nothing Binding web site is free and has thousands of links to that site. If nothing happens and there is no new content to your web site, Facebook, Twitter page, or Nothing Binding profile consumers won’t react. Make your site and social network pages your stage, you must participate and make it happen for yourself and your book. Give an author an online presence and stage—who knows what will happen?
Hardworking Authors
By Jerry D. Simmons | February 18th, 2010 | No Comments » (Click to add yours!)
Every day I receive emails from authors who are busting their backs marketing their books. They are serious, hardworking, and leave few stones unturned. Many times the problem with lack of sales is that the author has not attracted attention to their book(s). That means that your message, book, or you are not being adequately marketed. Don’t allow this short term frustration move you in the direction of the scam artist who will charge you hundreds if not thousands of dollars for so-called “guaranteed” programs, products or services they attempt to sell to unsuspecting writers and authors.
Don’t buy before you know the questions to ask! This rule of thumb will save you precious time and money on programs, products and services that do not work. I don’t have all the answers but I know the questions. If books were easy to market and sell then every author would be successful. The fact is, marketing and selling books is hard, but if you remain consistent, don’t give up, and always, always ASK QUESTIONS BEFORE YOU BUY ANYTHING, you’ll be better off and have more money in your pocket.
What is a Virtual Tour? by Stephanie Barko
By Jerry D. Simmons | February 15th, 2010 | 1 Comment » (Click to add yours!)
A virtual tour takes a book through online sites that feature content about the author and title during a finite length of time. Blogs and websites where content appears are called Tour Stops. The blogger or website owner at the Stops is called the Tour Stop Host. The person arranging the Tour Stops is called the Tour Provider.
What happens during a Tour? Depending on the topic, the book is toured on blogs, forums, social networking pages, frequently updated websites, and video sites. Sometimes the content submitted by the Provider is passive, meaning no action is necessary by the author after it posts, and sometimes the content is active. With active content, the author has the opportunity to interact with a site’s followers, as in a chat room or a site with comments enabled. Content during a tour may include interviews, excerpts, author videos, book trailers, podcasts, review snippets, endorsements, cover art, headshots, candids, author essays, articles and guest blog posts.
How long does a Tour last? Density of content over time is important in a tour, so stops are usually completed within a 30-45 day time frame.
Where does the Tour go? It goes to both genre-specific and general book blogs & websites.
What does an author need to do to prepare for a Tour? The author must email any interview responses or files that are requested by the Tour Provider and check in online when active content is running.
What are the benefits of a Virtual Tour? First off, the author is going directly to hisor her audience. Secondly, everything on the net leaves a footprint, so unlike print media which is here today and gone tomorrow, your blog, podcast, or book review will stay on the net forever – or as long as the site archives exist -which means new visitors to a site will still be exposed to your message months down the road. Over 79% of the media now find their experts online, so virtual tours have the power to attract the media to (especially nonfiction) authors. With a virtual tour, you are leaving a bread trail for the media and new readers to find you.
For more information about custom Virtual Tours, visit Stephanie Barko, Literary Publicist. www.authorsassistant.com/Barko.htm
Getting Book Distribution Into Bookstores
By Jerry D. Simmons | February 15th, 2010 | No Comments » (Click to add yours!)
For most independently published authors, the idea of having their book placed on the shelves of a major bookstore is the ultimate. The major retail chains have a system of inventory where new titles arrive and unsold are returned, every title is guaranteed to sell or face removal. The window of opportunity to sell a newly published title is ever so small, perhaps six weeks at most. While bookstores place newly arriving books onto store shelves they take the unsold ones off and send them back to the publisher. Each megastore carries around 120,000 unique titles, but only 25-35,000 are newly published, the rest are steady sellers called backlist titles. Due to the volume of new titles arriving daily, stores are forced to constantly turn their inventory. If you are fortunate to get your title placed you must have a marketing plan that will hopefully drive the consumer to your particular category and find your individual title. It’s a good idea to have a plan to make that happen before you seek publication and distribution. Bookstores are one sales channel but not necessarily the ultimate.
