Post #52 – Women’s Memoirs, Book Business – Kendra Bonnett and Matilda Butler
So much information about writing and marketing books comes across my desk that for some time now I’ve been wanting to collect the tips, links and ideas in a series of posts. Today I’m starting to do just that. I’ve tried to select a range of sources and types of information that will be useful to memoir writers, novelists and nonfiction writers. Please let us know if this is helpful.
Found on LinkedIn (Aspiring Nonfiction Authors group): Monday, August 23rd at 1PM, you can attend a free teleseminar (by phone). Melinda Copp of The Writer’s Sherpa is hosting “Finally Write Your Book–Six Secrets to Getting It Out of Your Head and Written!” If you’ve never attended a free teleseminar, I encourage you to try it. You can gather a lot of valuable information and ideas, and all you pay for is the phone call. Once you sign up for the freebie, you’ll probably start receiving occasional follow-up information from Ms Coop, but if you don’t find the information useful, it’s easy to unsubscribe from her list. Just scroll to the bottom of the email where you’ll find instructions. Unsubscribing is just a click or two away.
F+W Editorial Director, Jane Friedman, on her There Are No Rules blog, is doing a series of posts entitled “Super-Powered Book Proposals.” On Thursday, August 19th, she posted Secret #3. These are worthwhile reading. The book proposal is, in my opinion, more important than ever because it can serve as a sort of business plan that will help you market your book.
Tip: Did you know that you can evaluate the readability of your work from within MS Word? The next time you do a spelling/grammar check (within Tools) go into Options and check the box “show readability statistics.” Word is using the Flesch-Kincaid readability test, about which you can learn more at Wikipedia. I’ve found this tool very useful when writing any sort of marketing or promotional copy; not to “dumb it down” but to ensure I’m communicating my message quickly and easily.
Are you going to be handling the publicity for your forthcoming book? Are you uncertain where to start? Let me point you to a website where you can get some free tips. Go to Alex Carroll’s RadioPublicity.com. You should see a pop-up box inviting you to download a list of top nationally syndicated radio talk shows. Just give him your name and email address. Not only will you receive the list but you’ll start receiving Alex’s show-pitch formulas. These are very handy and designed for all sorts of publicity pitches. You’ll get about one a week. And he’s got a second free bonus for you–his 60 Second Radio Publicity Tips. One strategy tip from me: Practice your pitch and your promotion on local radio and TV shows first. Work out the wrinkles before you go for the big time.
Contests: There’s still time for this one. It’s the Writer’s Digest Annual Short Story Writing Competition. The deadline is December 1, 2010.
Do you get Angela Hoy’s WritersWeekly newsletter? No? Well if you’re a freelance writer, I urge you to go right over to WritersWeekly.com and sign up. It’s free and it’s a wealth of information. You’ll find lists of contests, who’s buying what, even whispers and warnings about who’s not paying. She’s got lots of good articles too. Back on August 4th, Scott Rose wrote a piece called “Horray! An Upcoming Ezine Wants You to Work for It! Now Your Job is to Avoid Getting Shafted.” Lots of value here.
Also found on LinkedIn (Writing Professionals group): Bill Ruesch points us to his blogsite, Chicken Scratchings: Self-Publishing is Self-Reliance. He asks a critical question: “What form should your book take to maximize marketability and sales?” He writes from the perspective of a graphical designer, and that’s good because the overall package (ebook, hardback or paperback) is part of the consideration. If you’re going to self-publish, you are also going to have to market your book. So think beyond your words. As he says, No Sales = No Royalties. I might add that no matter who publishes your book these days, you are going to have to take an active role in marketing.
This on Twitter: @Gromit01: “A writer is a person for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people.” -Thomas Mann
And @skribblescribe wrote: “There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.” – Ernest Hemingway
Now, aren’t you glad you decided to be a writer!
A tasty treat from YouTube and novelist John Irving: He provides an interesting insight into the craft of writing…just follow this link.
I had fun this week putting together my Writing in Five video because it clarified for me the importance of practice. Yes I know…we all know…practice makes perfect. I have no difficulty seeing the importance of practice for the musician and athlete. Muscle memory and all that. Surgeons and pilots (as well as their patients and travelers) understand the importance of practice. But until I read Ray Bradbury’s 1973 essay “Zen and the Art of Writing” I didn’t fully appreciate how critical writing every day is to writers. I just never really thought about it, I guess.
I was lucky, in a way, in that practice was forced on me early on. I started at Greenwich Academy when I was four, and began working with letters and words almost from the first day…spelling, Latin (5 years), grammar (every year except my Senior year). Almost every test was an essay question. I wrote themes, essays, compositions, the dreaded “what I did on my summer vacation” stories, even a senior source theme. I memorized poems and passages from the greats–Whitman, Frost, Chaucer, Shakespeare. I read the entire series of Dell’s Great Short Stories…Italian, French, Spanish, American, English, German, Russian. Did I miss any? I had a year of American literature and a year of English literature. All this before I got to college. One way or another, Greenwich Academy made sure I got my 10,000 hours of training. I may not have appreciated it at the time; I really didn’t even like it. But I got the practice, and one day everything just sort of clicked. It was actually very cool.
This Sunday, Ray Bradbury celebrates his 90th birthday. And according to sources who know him, he still writes every single day. I hope you’ll watch my Writing in Five video celebrating Ray Bradbury and Zen and the Art of Writing.
book marketing
getting published
writing tips
