Author Support

Comment

Comment by Trina L.C. Sonnenberg on June 22, 2009 at 2:17pm

Help, I need an agent! I don't want to self-publish again.
50,000 words, romance

Comment by Trina L.C. Sonnenberg on April 12, 2009 at 7:04am

Warning about PublishAmerica... My good friend lives down the road from the man who runs PA, and tells me that he is a scam and a rip-off.

Comment by Author Patricia Yarbrough on April 11, 2009 at 9:00pm

From the desk of my publishing company..
We are pleased to inform you that Spring Arbor, Ingram's Christian wing, has elected to list your book "Will My Morning Ever Come"in their database. By doing so, your book will be available to order by those retailers who focus on Christian oriented books in addition to other stores.
Congratulations,
PublishAmerica Support

Comment by Typing Monkey on March 15, 2009 at 7:10pm

PS I would like to trade "new" books with you. My Tarot book is being pub'ed this Friday (hmm... Spring Equinox, new book on metaphysics, how convenient!) I want to read your book. I am an Amazon Vine reviewer, so hopefully a good review from me will carry a little weight--well, one would hope ;-)

email me or join my group and email me. Or Tweet me at http://twitter.com/AstrologyLesson

Comment by Typing Monkey on March 15, 2009 at 7:07pm

Aha! Okay, so that is a repository of advice, including a long rant I did earlier today on just this subject.

Also, your topic would be GRREAT on NPR (libreal media central, or as I call it "home" :-) and on various non-right-wing-wacko talk stations. CBS just killed off many of their talk radio shows, but the Internet has just exploded with podcasts, many of whom used to be radio hosts. Adam Carolla was on in the mornings in LA and just got the axe. Three days later he has a podcast and instantly zoomed to #1 on iTunes, with over 2 million downloads every week. That is some serious power to tap into for an interview. So the trick is to be creative and find people who CAN and WILL help you, but not the ones who will help themselves to your wallet.

BTW, I emailed Kremmer about his ten million eyeballs package and got a non-response. (Pure generic formula). I would have signed up, but I don't want to spend money I can barely afford for canned information. If I am spending hundreds or thousands of dollars, I want specific help. I have been around enough to learn the value of one on one advice from a pro, like Cindy Cashman or Marilyn Ross, versus a Book Marketing Universty seminar (not mentioning any particular one by name of course).

Comment by Typing Monkey on March 15, 2009 at 7:02pm

Sign up at my author group (it's free and we NEVER charge anyone for advice)

let's see if this works:



style="border: 0px;"
alt="Click to join onlineauthorsandartists"/&...

Click to join onlineauthorsandartists

Comment by Priscilla Herochik on March 15, 2009 at 5:21pm

Typing Monkey, you rock!! I just wrote my first fictional novel. That is not to say I'm a novice. I've been writing for years and thinking of writing a novel for years. However, before now, I always had a million other things in my life that came first. I am now retired from my law career, my kids are grown and I'm ready to rumble!

I am in the process of self publishing with Booksurge. So far, I've been satisfied with what they've done. The book will be sold on Amazon (POD) and promoted there. It will be on Kindle as well. I don't think I could have found a publisher who would have let me do my book the way I want to do it. To me, that's a real plus with self publishing but the downside is most promoting is on us.

However, you are right about the overpricing (or should we say gouging) going on in many areas of trying to get published. I'm fortunate to have put some money away for this, but I don't intend to use it to make a seminarist (if there's not such a word, there is now) rich.

But here's my situation. My book, entitled The Final War and 3001, the Birth of a Political Renaissance, will be out in the spring. It's a fiction about a war between Christian theocracies (US, etc.) and Islam theocracies (Mideast). Most living things are killed. The book tracks the survivors and how their world ultimately evolves into something other than what it is now.

Here's the thing--I know that this book would really appeal to liberals and the nonreligious. However, I live in the Midwest and most seculars are in the West and East. How do I reach them? How do I get my book publicized in those areas?

I did order John Kremer's book. I think just having a guide will help immensely. And the $20 it cost will be a good investment if it gives me some direction.
Fortunately, I had a small business (my law firm) and I know it takes tim(and usually some infusions of cash) to grow it. At this point, if I just sold a lot of books and broke even, I'd be quite happy because that would get my brand out into the public. Because I plan to write for the next 30 plus years.

By the way, I should read one of your books. I like your "take no prisoners" writing style.

Cilla

Comment by Typing Monkey on March 14, 2009 at 2:27pm

Guru.com and elance are good places to post that info as well Kim :-)

Comment by Typing Monkey on March 14, 2009 at 1:16pm

Well, we have one professional weighing in. This is far from the salesy "Come to my overpriced seminar" response I expected. Books are indeed a product, and I have been fortunate enough to run a few businesses (some of them into the ground! :-)

In fact, I was going to write a book called "How to FAIL in Business!" what a title! So many people tell you how to make millions in (insert generic business) here (formula) but so many people fail, and the reasons are always the same, that a book on what to avoid would be an instant sensation.

But I am tired of that market. I write good books with great titles. I hope I am writing great books with even better titles, but I should let others decide the quality, after I do everything I can to make them great.

My point is this: I know business. My books sell, even though I really have not had the resources and connections to make a big splash. I would like to see a small handful of REAL professionals who truly HELP authors, rather than lining their own pockets dispensing generic watershed information. I have seen that. I have been to the seminars--and some of the biggest names in the business, if not the world (and they know who they are and they don't read these forums--perhaps the interns to their assistants might). I have seen these people charge thousands of dollars per person to sell you/me on spending tens of thousands of dollars to have their assistants sell me on something else. I write books. In those books (which you can buy for about $20) I teach everything I can on a subject. If you want me to hold your hand that will cost more.

THAT is value. That is honest marketing. If I am paying several hundred dollars, I don't want the same information I got from a $20 book attached to a sales pitch to spend $3-5,000. I know the idea of a modern seminar is simply to corral a bunch of suckers into a captive collective audience and pull the whales out and take them for huge amounts of money (and hopefully provide value), and I am okay with that. I see it happening all the time. I am not here to top anyone from making a buck.

But I am here to find out WHO will give real value for that money, and who will not. I m here to find out who will help an author start building real sales (through blogs, media training, reviews, articles, interviews, I really could go on, but we all know the core techniques) at an affordable price.

If I invest a few hundred dollars with a "book marketing expert" I want to see progress. I want to see my website or blog coming together. I want to learn how to give good interviews and how to land them. I want to learn how to approach my local (tiny) newspapers and magazines and make friend with the local media and get some press. I want to know that as I invest more with my "book marketing expert" we will grow my fame and fortune.

For twenty bucks I can pick up any of dozen great books on book marketing. I have read them all, and am always looking for more. but these books generally present a scattergun of ideas, not concrete, step-by-step plans to follow. THAT is what I am willing to pay for. If I found an expert who said, "Buy a copy of kremmer's book (1,001 Ways...) and we will go through it and do this and this and this--this month, and that and that other thing next month," I would feel vry comfortable paying them a monthly fee to be my wet-nurse.

This makes so much sense that it is criminally insane what is REALLY happening out there in seminarland. The core information is out there, and it is written in books I can list here right now. I HAVE these books, but being n author is a solitary venture, and anyone who is not an author cannot and does not and WILL not ever understand the depths of the implications of this. SELLING your (hopefully quality) book requires teamwork, and this is why the old system worked so well. Well, the old system has been bought and sold and resold until the true professionals have all been fired or died. The corporate bean counters have ruined the book business from source to sales point. Now we have authors and Amazon. the world has changed, but authors still need someone to help them get dressed in the morning and get their books noticed and selling.

So, where is the smart publicist? Where is the affordable (professional) publicist who starts an author out with small tasks, showing real results, and grooms said authors into superstars, so that over time, said publicist has a stable of superstar authors? If I were a publicist (and I would rather eat hot coals than ever become one) I would cast my nets wide, searching out talented authors who are hungry to sell books, but have been scammed by the "experts" who take thousands of dollars to regurgitate empty promises and sales pitches. I would lay out a program for them to follow an I would MAKE THEM FOLLOW IT!. After all, that is what they are paying me for, and I would not waste my time scrounging for nickels.

I would take no-name authors and find the Cinderellas who will work work work and I would work with them, and in a few years we would all be relaxing on the Riviera while the paparazzi flies over in helicopters trying to get candid photos of our wild parties.

mark my words: The SMART publicist will come in cheap, and gather up talent and work with it until that publicist OWNS the next JKR and Steven King. These idiots who are only looking at the short game, overcharging non-authors who have at best one book in them, and no desire to publish beyond the stretch of their ego, are only chasing their tails.

I say start small and keep charging. More results = bigger fees. teach the author to fish and then charge them fish to learn how to catch whales. (figuratively speaking--I am an animal rights activist so don't get all twisty over this analogy) Then charge them whales to conquer the oceans. this is how empires are built, versus chasing a few shiny coins that will end up spent anyway.

Comment by Typing Monkey on March 14, 2009 at 11:30am

Fair warning to all "book marketing experts."

As of Friday (the Spring Equinox) I am going to be calling people out. I will be PUBLICLY looking for results. If you say you can help authors sell more books and you charge several hundred or several thousands of dollars, be prepared to prove it--AND show how new authors can get the same or better results than people have in the past.

I am tired of spending money with "book marketing experts" (seminars, books, teleseminars, web seminars, online courses, off-line courses, CDs, DVD's, mugs, bugs, thugs) and finding out that I have just paid to attend a sales pitch. I know of other authors who have been victimized by these practices as well.

IF YOU SAY YOU CAN SELL BOOKS you should know that I am on the hunt. I will tell the world how great you are if you can get results for authors now and in the near future, and prove that your input helped. And if I find scam artists I will make sure the world knows.

I am standing up for the authors once and for all--and I am far from alone on this.

• ‹ Previous
• 1
• …
• 16
• 17
• 18
• 19
• Next ›
• Page