Your Online Presence

We’ve talked before about building your author platform, which in today’s world involves a strong online presence. We recently discussed Facebook (and my efforts to create a profile and understand Facebook). I started a series on Building Your Platform over on a blog I contribute to, The Blood-Red Pencil (although I’m thinking about stopping that series since that blog is supposed to focus on editing and I don’t think the readers there are especially interested in platforms).

And, of course, I am not the only one interested in Building a Platform. Most of you who are authors or are working toward being published are interested in this topic, since it’s vital to your career as a writer. I know some of you are feeling like I am - overwhelmed at the idea.

Not long ago, The Philadelphia Inquirer had an article devoted to this very topic and it focused on some of the authors at The Free Library of Philadelphia’s book festival…like Jim Zervanos who is underwriting his own pretty much physical (as opposed to virtual) tour. Over 11 months, he’s gone to conferences, book festivals, and writer’s workshops (including paying to have an exhibitor’s table). He’s spent $10,000. He’s not a writer with a big publisher, but one with a “tiny” publisher. He’s out there working and trying to sell his book.

Although the publishers will tell you that marketing your book is a co-op between you and the publisher, the truth is that more and more the author must do the heavy lifting and pushing. Ben Laurro, founder of Pure Publicity, says that authors have to find new methods to market their books because book stores and libraries won’t get you where you want to be.

"Facebook and Twitter have become powerful avenues to reach readers," he says. "The media wasn't the same as it was even two years ago . . . [and authors] need to realize that we need to reinvent the wheel."

Jonathan Maberry, author of The Dragon Factory said:

 "It's such a large part of the marketing plan. It's huge. . . . You can't really get anything done in publishing without social media."

He and some other writers created a Philly-based literary collective where they meet to discuss the publishing industry and have worked together on projects that help local causes (and at the same time, get their names out to the public and give them a platform for speaking engagements).

It’s an interesting article, so click over and read it if you have time. Before you go, I’m wondering if any of you have become part of or created a coalition of authors to discuss the industry and strategize on ways to work together to promote your books. I have groups of writer friends that I socialize with, but we don’t discuss writing. I think it would be interesting to have a “business” group of writer friends. Do you have one?

Children’s Books

I thought about titling this post “Bringing Children’s Books into the Twenty-First Century,” but it seemed too long.

There’s been a lot going on this week, including L. Diane Wolfe’s fabulous post yesterday. Thank you, Diane for stopping by! So, this is the first chance I’ve had to write about a Washington Post article I read from last Sunday. The title of that article was “The Future of Children’s Book Publishing.” (Except without the capitalization - has anybody else noticed that article titles online no longer capitalize except for the first word? I’m probably the only person this bugs.)

The article covered some things we already know, like:

Publishers are trying to entice kids to read books by offering companion Web sites that are graphic-rich and able to plunge young readers into the story. Along with the tale on the page, kids can dip into online videos and games, win prizes, create Internet identities and get into social networking.

You may wonder why publishers would put so much money into the online presence when what they want to do is sell the print book. Michael Norris, an analyst for the media research firm Simba Information, said:

"If you think about the long-term future of the industry, the people who are reading 'The Very Hungry Caterpillar' today will hopefully be reading a thick piece of literature in a few years."

Publishers are aware of the attraction of the Internet and know that “entertaining the kids with the printed page seems to grow more difficult by the year.” Kids, even young kids, are turning to computers, games, television and even cell phones for entertainment.

In January, a Kaiser Family Foundation report found that the time spent on all entertainment by kids from 8 to 18 rose from 6.5 hours a day five years ago to 7.5 hours a day. But only 25 minutes were typically spent reading a book.

So publishers are going where the kids go. Online. With online games that include giveaways like collectible cards or fun gadgets like Disney’s Digital Book site where kids can turn pages with a “magic pen.” HarperCollins published a missing-girl mystery, "The Amanda Project," with a major online social networking component. And they’re, of course, releasing e-books.

Jeff Kinney, author of the best-selling series, Diary of a Wimpy Kid, summed it all up:

"At the heart, you still have to have good storytelling," Kinney said. "You can't resort to gimmickry and hope to retain an audience."

We all know that authors have to have an online presence in today’s world. Whether you write for the adult, teen, ‘tween or children’s market, what things do you add to your site to help with promotion?

A Toast to the Geeks

Think about the Internet for a moment. I blog; you blog; millions of people blog. I tweet; you tweet; the world has gone Twitter crazy. Probably just about all of you who stop by Straight From Hel have a website and email. We socialize on the Internet via Facebook, YouTube, Shelfari, and GoodReads. We make business connections through LinkedIn. I, one among millions, am on the Internet about 16 hours a day. I research via the Internet. I keep in contact with my publisher, my friends, my family, my editing clients via the Internet.

And, yet, I never give the Internet a second thought. It’s there. It takes me where I need to go. I haven’t a clue how it works. I’m just glad it does.

After reading an article on the BBC site, I won’t take it for granted anymore. In the back of my mind, I knew it was maintained by volunteers. I’d heard that somewhere at some time. But I didn’t quite understand that they work almost independently in a chain that can only see a few links down the chain on either side. When something happens, they’re not obligated to act. But they do.

In 2008, when the Pakistan government took YouTube offline, YouTube could do nothing about it. Google could do nothing about it. It was up to this chain of volunteers to come together and get it back up. And they did - restoring service within hours.

So, the next time you’re zipping around, doing book research, tweeting, answering email, or downloading a book, whisper a thank you to those volunteers, or as the BBC called them, the unsung heroes.

Learn Without Leaving Home

This seems to be the month of blogging about writing conferences. I’ve done a whole series and author Joe O’Connell ended it with his great post about getting all the benefits of a conference without paying the bucks to register.

Or at least I thought that was the end of the talk about conferences.

Then, along comes a new-to-me thing of virtual conferences. You can attend without ever leaving your computer desk. The one I heard about first (last year actually) is The Muse Online Writers Conference. This multi-day event takes place in October, but the deadline to sign up is August 1. It seems to have an extensive line-up of online workshops and chats. And this year they’re adding publishers who will be available for pitches. This conference is free. I know someone who has been to this conference and is “going” again. She gives it very high ratings.

A new one this year is the Poisoned Pen Webcon. It’s geared toward mystery/suspense writers. It’s a one-day event with audio and text presentations by mystery and crime authors around the world, live chats, and goodie bags. The Guest of Honor is Dana Stabenow and the International Guest of Honor is Lee Child. It takes place on October 24 and costs $25 USD to sign up. Since this is its first year, I have no recommendations for it.

I’ve signed up for the Poisoned Pen Webcon. I really considered The Muse conference, but decided I could probably only handle a one-day conference so close to the Texas Book Festival. This year, the Texas Book Festival is October 31-Nov 1 and, by the latter half of October, I and all the other Chairs are in high gear getting ready.

Both of these events are up on the Events page on my website. I update that page every week with new conferences, workshops and events for writers.

Is anyone else signed up for either of these? If you’re attending The Muse conference or the Poisoned Pen Webcon, I’d love it if you’d do a report on it here on Straight From Hel to let us know what you thought of it and how beneficial it was to you. What do you think about online conferences? Even if you’ve never been to one, do you think it’s a good idea?

Multimedia Publishing

In today’s issue of Doing It Write, I use an article called “The New Storytelling: Multimedia Children’s Publishing” for the “In Case You Missed This” section of the newsletter. I found the Publishers Weekly article so interesting, I thought I’d blog about it today.

Lisa Holton started a new book packaging company called Fourth Story Media. Her idea is to take the book well beyond print. If she can do it, and it looks like she may well be able to, both publishers and writers will be happy. Holton is no neophyte. She’s the past president of Scholastic Trade. Now, she’s at the helm of “a deep multimedia YA series called The Amanda Project that HarperCollins is launching this fall.”

She’s focusing on kids because they’re more likely to accept books delivered in multiple formats.

The series, which she calls a “Rashomon-style” tale, follows a high schooler named Amanda who, after showing up as the new girl in town, disappears. Each book, penned by a different author (à la 39 Clues), is written from the point-of-view of a different student—all part of an enclave searching for Amanda. The online component—built heavily around girls' interest in social networking and creating their own content—is the fascinating part. Readers can go to an ancillary Web site to discuss (and create) potential fates for Amanda, and HarperCollins plans to publish storylines contributed by readers.

The meticulously designed look of the site along with the depth of its functionality—it will allow users to create online alter egos, to blog and to create and share artwork, among other things—is the product of many hands, including Web developer Happy Cog, and various designers, coders and architects.

Holton spent the last year of her life, she says, researching the possibilities, including attending game conferences.

She sees her company as a conduit for publishers that want multimedia properties but don't know how to bring them in-house or build complex digital add-ons.

We’ll see how many publishers will embrace the new technology. It’s expensive, so the payoff will have to be worth it.

Outlook on Publishing

The outlook for the publishing industry seems to be what folks in the know are talking about. Sometimes it’s doom and gloom. Other times it’s gloomy but not so doomy. Then it’s gloomy and getting doomy.

The latest word on the deep economic slump, this time from Simon & Schuster president and CEO Carolyn Reidy, was a warning that “possibly worse scenarios may be on the way.”

But it wasn’t all the-sky-is-falling talk. Ms. Reidy addressed a group of 20 religion house CEOs prior to her keynote address at the ECPA (Evangelical Christian Publishers Association) convention earlier this month. She talked about the issues and problems. Here’s a bit from the Publishers Weekly article:

Critical issues facing publishers included: significant decrease in retail traffic, less consumer purchasing, a gloomy economic forecast, declining backlist sales, brand name authors continuing to sell but “everything else is far off normal levels,” and retail partners who demand more favorable terms and concessions “as if we are the answer to their problems,” she said. Other pre-existing problems she enumerated include retailers competing with publishers, low barriers to self-publishing, and the economics of digital publishing that appear to bring in less revenue.

Okay, that was sort of the gloomy part. But the upbeat part was:

While declining readership is certainly an issue, Reidy told PW that “now we have the chance to actually find the reader where they are spending their time—in front of a screen—and cement a relationship with them through e-mail newsletters, viral marketing, mobile delivery and other tools.” Publishing survives, she noted, because readers have a fundamental need for information, inspiration, and entertainment, “and they get that in a book, directly from an author, in an unfiltered way that they cannot get from any other medium.”

She specifically had this to say to Christian publishers:

“I’m not sure that it is possible any longer to be so highly specialized and survive.” The Christian demographic has expanded, she said, “it is more diverse than it formerly was, and they want one-stop shopping where they can find books that meet their informational, financial, lifestyle and entertainment needs as well as their Christian product needs…by limiting our choices in publishing and retailing to only those books that have a direct Christian message we are effectively driving them to buy from the competition.”

Although the last was directed to specific Christian publishers, her keynote was addressed to all the publishing attendees. She was, in effect, urging publishers to take advantage of the Internet, to keep up with the times, to give the readers what they want.

Another Way to Promote Your Book

Okay, here’s a way to promote your book, but it may only work if you’re a well-known author or you have ties to a major site that can host you. But it’s worth looking at as a case study.

In this case, the author is Alexander McCall Smith (as in, No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency) and the major site is the Telegraph newspaper site (as in Great Britain).

Alexander McCall Smith is currently writing (or posting) his new novel, Corduroy Mansions, on the Telegraph site. He’s putting up the book chapter by chapter – one chapter per day. He started on September 13 and will put the last chapter online on February 13, 2009.

You can start reading now since the chapters are still available online. Heck, you don’t even have to read them since they’re available by audio – with the wonderful Andrew Sachs (Manuel in Fawlty Towers) doing the reading for you.

To make it more of an interactive experience, you can leave comments and Alexander McCall Smith responds to the comments.

And to make it easy, you don’t even have to go to the Telegraph site. You can subscribe to the daily chapters by email or feed. You can even follow the project on Twitter.

And they throw in another incentive – there’s a contest you can enter and the prize is lunch with the author.

There are other little tidbits, like a Corduroy Mansions widget you can put on your own site, or a link to Google Maps so you can locate Corduroy Mansions, or links to the illustrator of the book. The sidebar even has links to the characters, including Freddie de la Hay, the dog.

Anyway, when Lauren Fisher, Online PR Consultant, emailed me about this, I checked it out and thought it might be a good site for authors to look at to see if they could do something like it for their own books. Probably not this elaborate, but a scaled down version.

Do you think this online, chapter by chapter, with bonus features, book would work for ordinary authors? Would it work for you? Or do you already have to be a big name to draw in the readers?

Brilliant Weblog – Straight From Hel

Woo-woo! Straight From Hel was awarded the Brilliant Weblog Award by Marvin D. Wilson on Free Spirit. Here's what he wrote:

Helen Ginger http://straightfromhel.blogspot.com/
Her blog, “Straight From Hel,” is one I go to daily. Helen is a multi-published author, marketing maven, freelance writer and public speaker. She posts informative blogs that have value to anyone wanting to learn about how to become a successful published author.

Well, gracious, I’m blushing so much you’d think I was Rudolph the red-cheeked reindeer. Thank you Marvin!

In his post, Marvin gives the characteristics that he feels makes a good blog brilliant. Those include:
Timely and regular posts
First-hand information
Humor
Lots of SEX AND VIOLENCE
Links
Keep it relevant

He was kidding about the Sex and Violence, even though this was the one that most fit Straight From Hel..

Now, it’s my turn to pass the Brilliant Weblog Award to someone deserving. I hereby give it to Chez Robert Giron. Robert Giron is a writer and poet who teaches literature and creative writing. He shares his expertise on his blog and also gets the word out about awards and events. He doesn’t blog every day, but when he does, it’s worth reading. And occasionally, he throws in his thoughts on things outside of writing that interest him or riles him up.

So I hereby give this award to Chez Robert Giron and encourage him to copy the Brilliant Weblog Award jpg and add it to his blog, then pass it on to someone whom he feels is deserving of the honor.

Incidentally, tomorrow is the final day to send in your favorite blogs for the Book Blogger Appreciation Week Awards. You can email your nominations to: BbawawardsATgmailDOTcom

You can nominate in some or all categories and up to two nominations per category.

The categories are:
Best General Book Blog

Best Kidlit Blog

Best Christian/Inspirational Fiction Blog

Best Literary Fiction Blog

Best Book Club Blog

Best Romance Blog

Best Thrillers/Mystery/Suspense Blog

Best Non-fiction Blog

Best Young Adult Lit Blog

Best Book/Publishing Industry Blog

Best Challenge Host

Best Community Builder

Best Cookbook Blog

Best History/Historical Fiction Blog

Best Design

Most Chatty

Most Concise

Most Eclectic Taste

Best Name for a Blog

Best Published Author Blog

Best Book published in 2008

Best Meme/Carnival/Event

Most Extravagant Giveaways

Best Book Community site

Write In

You don’t have to nominate someone in every category. Pick the ones where you want to nominate a blog and mail your choices to: BbawawardsATgmailDOTcom
Don’t nominate Straight From Hel for the Carnival one. Clowns scare me. I’m kidding! I love clowns.

Writers: Move Into the Digital Age

How many writers finally sell a manuscript, then spend the next year writing the next book while working on edits on the first, then when the book comes out, they think, “Okay, now what? How do I sell this book?”

Hint: If you wait ‘til then, it’s too late.

But you’re so busy between the selling and the publishing time, you can’t think of much else. How do you squeeze out time to visit other blogs and post comments? Who can take thirty minutes over the course of a day to tweet on Twitter? Create and maintain a Face Book page, a MySpace space? Build a fabulous website with Reader Guidelines and a YouTube book trailer? Join GoodReads, befriend others, join discussion groups there? Sign up for various ListServs, read and post comments? Start your own blog and blog every day?

Aaakkk! It’s impossible. And yet…if you’re a savvy author, you try to do just that – or at least most of it. Because whether you’re with a small press or a major house, you’re going to have to do a great deal, if not all, of your own marketing.

So, there are three keys:

Start Early
Pick and Choose
Keep Track

Start Early: Don’t wait until you’re published. Don’t even wait until you’ve sold the manuscript. Start now building up your presence on the Internet.

Pick and Choose: You can’t do everything. You just can’t. There are too many roads on the Cyber Highway and not all of them will lead you where you want to be.

Keep Track: Things have to be updated and some blogs/sites/resources will give you more bang for your buck. But if you don’t maintain records of user names, passwords, dates of last update, blogs you think would be good to be on during your blog book tour, etc., how will all this work pay off in the end?

To get you started, here’s an article to read. It’s geared toward publishers but is important for authors to read. So, give it a read, then tell me your thoughts.

10 Twitter Tips

Here are a few things I’ve learned since I started Twittering. Some I gathered on my own. Most I learned from others. If you’re thinking about taking up Twittering, I hope these will help.

1. Don’t get frustrated if you try to sign on and you get a page telling you there are too many people already tweeting. Try again in a minute or so – a lot of times I just hold Ctrl and click the refresh button and it comes right up.

2. If you’re just tweeting family, co-workers or friends, tweet whatever you want. But if you’re promoting your book, try to always include a URL. And make it a different URL, not always the same one.

3. Give URLs for other people, not just yourself. If you get a good review, mention it and link to the review. If you’ve found an interesting blog or listserv, tweet it and give its URL.

4. If you have Follow Me On Twitter widgets on your blog (I have them on my blog and on my website), you’re going to have to be a bit more “professional” than if you were just tweeting friends and co-workers. What you tweet shows up in those widgets. Although your buds might think it funny that you drank so much last night you fell asleep face down in your sugar-free chocolate pudding, your blog readers may not.

5. Don’t go weeks without tweeting. People will drop you off their follow list.

6. You only have 140 characters, but try to make a little sense. I have one person I’m following and all she ever writes, it seems like, is a name and a URL, name and URL, name and URL. I have no clue what it’s about and it doesn’t in any way compel me to click through and find out.

7. If someone says something interesting, give them a quick reply. This is, after all, a site designed for interaction.

8. Find people to follow. You can search by topic. Or you can find someone who you’d like to follow and who follows a bunch of people, then scroll through the list of people they’re following. You’ll probably find some people there whom you’d want to follow.

9. Don’t worry that you’re following a lot more people than you have followers. I know that when I searched for people to follow, I liked the people who were big followers. I figured they were more likely to follow me back.

10. Check with people you already know, either in person or online or in listservs or discussion groups. Find out if they’re tweeters. If they are, add them to your list. And give them your Twitter address: http://twitter.com/MermaidHel

Twitter This

Ever heard of Twitter? I admit I hadn’t until a few weeks ago. Now I twitter. This past week, Twitter seemed to be all over the news – both on TV and in the papers. According to USA Today,

Web measurement firm Compete says Twitter's audience grew to 2 million users in May from 200,000 in May 2007.

It has, in fact, grown so fast that its main problem is keeping its network from crashing. Sometimes you can’t sign on because there are so many people tweeting. Last week, it had something of a meltdown, although I’m not sure of the cause. Everyone (at least all the ones I know on Twitter) lost their “followers” and “following” people. (If you are “following” someone, you’re keeping up with their Tweets. If others are “followers” of you, they’re seeing your Tweets.) That wasn’t a big scare for me because I’m new so I was only following about 40 people. But there are some Tweeters who are following hundreds even thousands. But the good news is that within 24 hours Twitter had everything back where it belonged. (I envision a warehouse of brilliant Twitter nerds furiously working their magic to restore all the data for 2 million users!)

Twitter started out as a way for friends, family, and co-workers to keep up with what each other was doing via short (no more than 140 characters in any one Tweet) notes. Now it has grown into breaking news alerts and a way to promote yourself, your cause, your books, rants, raves and more. Companies cruise the Twitter world to find out what consumers are saying about them.

I hesitated joining the group because I thought the tweets of the people you were following would come via email. I dreaded the thought of a mass of emails coming in. But it doesn’t come in the form of emails. You log onto the Twitter site and your Tweets are there waiting. You can scan quickly through your messages, decide which ones you want to send a reply Tweet to, post a quick Tweet of your own and sign off.

If you’re interested in learning about Twitter, let me know. I’ll post some tips that I’ve learned since signing on.

Book Trailers

More and more authors are creating book trailers (those mini two or three minute videos or slide shows set to music to advertise a book). They of course cost time and money to produce. But are they effective?

“Effective” depends on the quality of the trailer and where the trailer is posted, of course.

There are bad ones – too dark lighting, scratchy sound, someone reading and reading, too long, too short, doesn’t fit the mood of the book, and so on.

The Lulu Blog gives you some do’s and don’t’s. So you can start your research there.

If you’d like to see some of those book trailers, go to, you guessed it, Book Trailers. You can search by categories. You can even submit your own trailer.

Another place to do some research is at HarperCollins. Check out their page of Book Trailers for their authors.

Then you have to decide. Is it worth your time and money? Can you do a professional job yourself or will you have to hire a professional? Will it create buzz and sales? Is this a wave that you’re too late to jump on before it crashes to the shore?

New Ways Authors Can Use the Web

If you’re an author who’s neither Internet savvy nor a computer geek, you may find it intimidating to try to promote your books online. But that doesn’t mean the Internet can be ignored. Nowadays, almost all authors have at least a website. And many authors are going well beyond that. They’re going multi-media. They’re doing elaborate blog book tours with book giveaways. They target the Internet from different angles -- websites, MySpace, YouTube, and other social sites.

Just the thought of having to do that can be exhausting and scary to those without degrees in computer science or a little brother who has grown up with his hands and mind in the cyber world..

The bad news is that online promotion is almost a must. The good news is that you can hire someone to do it for you.

NPR has an article about an author who has taken that step beyond the threshold of the ordinary webpage.

Author Marisha Pessl hired Freedom Interactive Design to build an elaborate website to promote her book. and to compliment her MySpage page.

Visitors can pick up objects, zoom in on pictures and newspaper clippings, visit Blue's MySpace page or unfold a map of the Great Smoky Mountains, where the story takes place. A distracting June bug buzzes around a bright blue desk lamp.

According to the NPR article,

It's more and more common for a debut novel to have elaborate homes on the Web, complete with blogs, chatrooms, videos and games. Oftentimes the sites are richly illustrated, almost cinematic.

Another author, Charles Bock, not only created a website, he asked musician friends to write and record songs based on his story. Then he offered free downloads of his book – 15,000 people took him up on his offer.

The world of book promotion is changing almost faster than we can keep up with it.

BookMooch Doesn’t Have to Mooch

Considering BookMooch has an inventory of about 480,000 books among its 70,000 trading members, I may be one of the few people who had never heard of them before reading an article in CNet News.

BookMooch is less than two years old, is free to its members, and has no ads and no fees. The members trade books.

BookMooch accomplishes that by asking people to put up 10 books of their own to receive one point, which will allow them to get their first book for free. In that deal, the new member must be willing to send off three of their own books to other BookMooch members. Unlike Lala.com and Peerflix.com--sites which have fallen down on paying postage for members--BookMooch requires that members pay to send the book. People who have more points than they can use on BookMooch, known as power moochers, can donate their points to charity groups on the site.

Apparently, the average BookMooch member swaps 3.5 books per month. The most-traded books?

The most-traded books on the site, whose membership consists largely of older moms, include Memory Keeper's Daughter by Kim Edwards (traded 780 times) and The Kite Runner (traded 585 times).

BookMooch has only two employees and was funded solely by John Buckman.

Also worth noting:

Even though BookMooch is free to members, the site generates an estimated half-million dollars in annual book sales for Amazon because of a browser plug-in called the Moochbar, which matches members' book wish lists to Amazon's retail inventory. For every 25 books swapped on BookMooch, at least one person buys a new book on Amazon through the Moochbar.

Story-Telling in a New Format

Publishers and writers are trying to find new ways to reach the reading public. You’ve most likely heard about publishing via cellphone. I even blogged about it.

Now a publisher is trying something new and, to me anyway, interesting – publishing via Google Maps.

Say what?

Leave it to the Brits to come up with this one.

ReadWriteWeb had an article on the thriller, The 21 Steps, being published by Penguin in conjunction with Google Maps. You navigate around the map to read the chapters.

Booklist’s Keir Graff wrote:

... it can be fun to look at a map and imagine what the places really look like, but here, the Google satellite view just made me frustrated because I wanted to see what the place really looks like at street level and inside the buildings.

I believe I’d have to agree with Graff. On the other hand, have any of you tried out MapJack? It’s currently available only in limited cities, but you get an on-the-street view. That would be much better. Someone real inventive could take it even further and do inside photography so that it would be closer to a movie, except not live action and clickable so that readers could come and go and read at their leisure.

Online Book Promotion

Okay, here’s a press release worth reading – and you can do it online. Scott Lorenz, President of Westwind Communications, gives his list of his favorite books on marketing your book.

I’m going to give you the list here, but you’ll want to go read his article to get all the details so you can decide for yourself if you want to buy, check out or borrow any of them.

1. Plug Your Book! Online Book Marketing for Authors by Steve Weber

2. PyroMarketing by Greg Stielstra

3. The Web-Savvy Writer: Book Promotion with a High-Tech Twist by Patrice-Anne Rutledge

4. 1001 Ways To Market Your Books by John Kremer

5. Author! Screenwriter! How to Succeed as a Writer in New York and Hollywood by Peter Miller

6. MAXIMUM EXPOSURE Marketing System Book Marketing Training Program for Publishers and Authors by Tami DePalma and Kim Dushinski

7. How to Write, Publish & Sell Your Book and Turn it Into a Never-ending Money Machine by Jim Donovan

8. The 7 Keys To Publishing Success by Eric Kampmann

9. The Insider’s Guide to Large Quantity Book Sales by Jerrold Jenkins

10. Author 101 Bestselling Book Publicity: The Insider's Guide to Promoting Your Book--and Yourself by Rick Frishman

11. Beyond The Bookstore by Brian Jud

12. Book Marketing A-Z by Francine Silverman

Of course, the author of this article and the man recommending these books recommends you read up on marketing your book, but hire a publicist. He is, after all, the president of a public relations firm that specializes in book marketing.

Book-Based Digital Movies

Just when you think you've got a handle on book promotion, something new springs up. You've probably already seen the mini "movies" authors put up on sites like MySpace or YouTube - sort of a trailer for the coming book. And, of course, the thought of having to make one of those based on your book can send you into a depression, especially, if like most ordinary authors, you haven't a clue how to do it.

Now comes Robin Cook (best-selling author) and Michael Eisner (former Disney CEO). The two have joined forces to make a digital movie based on Cook's upcoming book, Foreign Body.

The New York Post reported:

Under the deal, Vuguru, in partnership with Cyber Group Animation and online entertainment company Big Fantastic, will script out 50 two-minute Webisodes that will feature the same characters as "Foreign Body" and serve as a prequel to the book's plot.

G.P. Putnam president Ivan Held hopes the digital movie will build enough buzz to set up Foreign Body for a blockbuster opening weekend. Clearly, this is beyond even the dreams of most authors. But it is something to keep in mind, since books seem to be going digital, one way or the other.

Authors and the Internet

One of the big topics in today’s world is the Internet and how it affects books and readers. I know I’ve talked about many of the topics here on Straight From Hel – ebooks, rights of authors whose books are downloaded, virtual book tours, the current writers strike, etc.

Today, book promotion via the Internet is pretty much a must. The old way of reading a book review in the newspaper is disappearing. Now reviews are done on the Internet. Authors often attend book club meetings via phone or Internet cameras. Authors use their website to put up discussion guides for their books. They do podcasts. They produce videos to promote their books like movie trailers. They have MySpace pages, YouTube videos. They participate in live Web events. They host contests on their websites or give away prizes or books on their blog tours. They have blogs of their own.

Publishers are creating space for authors to promote their books on the publisher’s website. Some have dedicated websites for reading groups to have live chats with authors.

Whole websites/Internet companies have been created just to help authors promote their books. Take a look at AuthorBuzz, two years old and already selling out its 10 spots for book club promotions three to four months in advance.

For some of us, this whole concept of Internet promotion is scary, over-whelming. There is so much to learn and know and do. On the other hand, the Internet represents the chance for authors to take the reins into their own hands, to guide their own destinies. We now have so much more control over our publishing lives than we have ever had.

For some, the Internet is scary. For others it’s an adventure full of possibilities. No matter how you look at it, it’s a road we now must take.

NY's Taxes Likely to Affect All Authors

If you sell your books through Amazon or some other e-retailer, you’ll want to learn about the memo just issued by New York’s Department of Taxation and Finance. According to yesterday’s Publishers Lunch, it has “effectively killed bookselling "affiliate" relationships for Amazon and any other e-tailers that do not currently have a presence in the state.”

E-tailers don’t have to be based in New York to be subject to this. The tie could be as tentative as an author having a link from his site to Amazon for the purpose of selling his book. As an “associate” of Amazon, the author receives a commission or referral fee for the click through.

The memo gives Internet-based retailers until December 7th to register and begin paying sales tax on all sales of taxable products and services in New York. If they don’t register and comply, they face an assessment of taxes, penalties and interest on all past sales.

The first blog to catch onto this memo was I Can’t Believe It’s Not a Democracy. He was so struck by it that he asked Maud Newton to check into it. Maud has tax experience on the government level. She agreed with “I Can’t Believe It’s Not a Democracy.” You can read her entire post. Here is her conclusion:

… while there will undoubtedly be arguments about what constitutes an agent or representative, and other aspects of the state’s position, I think New York ultimately wins on this.

Does this mean that you, the author, are suddenly going to have to start paying taxes or somehow go back through your records and pay back taxes and penalties? No. New York is going after the e-tailers, not you. But stop and think what this might do to Amazon or any other e-retailer. Then think what it might do to your own book sales.

You can read the memo for yourself. This is something for all authors to keep up with.

It's Raining on my Internet

I haven’t posted in a few days, but with good reason. Last Thursday we had a storm hit that blew out our Internet connection.

Since, unlike our neighbors, we can’t get cable, i.e. roadrunner (Grrr, don’t get me started on Time Warner), we have DSL with AT&T. DSL is not bad except that watching any kind of video online takes forever since every fifteen seconds you have to wait thirty seconds for buffering. Anywho… we lost DSL for the first time. Gone. Kaput.

They got it re-established on Saturday, but we, personally, are still down. Something went haywire. From what I understand – and, mind you, that’s very little – the DSL comes in at my husband’s upstairs PC, then his computer acts as the server so that the rest of the house is wireless, specifically, my laptop. Well, after hours of re-connecting things in every configuration conceivable, my husband came to the scientific conclusion that things were screwed up.

As it stands now, he can set things up so that one of us can connect, but not both. And since he has a business Internet phone, guess who gets the connection?

Did you know Starbucks is wireless, but not free? Drove into town Saturday, thinking I could have a non-fat Chai while I cruised hyperspace only to discover that all four of their available wireless connections required either a pre-paid card or an account. Another Grrr.

But it looks like I’ll be able to get on a couple of times a day by kicking off my husband. So, I may be slower than usual to respond to emails. Sorry.

Speaking of storms, we had a doozy last night. The wind was blowing like a hurricane coming in, or, in this part of the country far from the coast, a tornado. Despite the fact that this past winter my husband re-sealed the doors, we had water pouring in every window and door on the west side of the house. At our upstairs bedroom door, water was waterfalling around the top. Downstairs in the living room, it took three beach towels to soak up the pool on the floor. We could hear shingles breaking loose. Checked this morning and found shingles lying around the yard, front to back. Looks like we were fairly lucky, though, since they all seem to have come from the overhang over the back upstairs deck. We’ll see how lucky we are once we get a repair estimate.

Man, we’ve had rain in central Texas over the past month or so!

Tomorrow, I’ll tell you about the workshop I went to this past weekend. Right now, I gotta go wash towels.