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What's Your Biggest Challenge with Your Book?

I'd be interested to learn what authors/publishers on this network think their biggest challenges are with their book. I wonder if there's any common, pervasive challenge we all face.

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I strongly believe in the POD idea. It means less storage, less trucking, less paper being wasted. To print 1000 books before getting one sale is heartbreaking so I believe everything should be POD.
Hello Sarah. Its ups and downs along the way and mainly downs at the moment. The Royalty Statement from my publisher does not make good reading and I just have not had the urge to continue writing the three books left in Limbo! Our favourite old dog is not well and the wife goes off on holiday without me next week. I know it will get better for you, me and any author who has the determination. There are literally millions of books out there in the wide world. I can find mine on almost every site but only because I ask for it. In bookshops, both local and in Waterstones etc they only have the book on line so few know of its existance. Alas I can only afford to purchase two or three of my books at a time. I do believe that this excellent site and Apex etc will help.
Chins up everyone!
Everything will come when you least expect it but I know the feeling. I've put a deadline on myself to break ground on so much before I go back to work full time. While I'm off raising my son for the first year of his life I'm scrambling to do so much while he naps but this little guy is exhausting and I often nap too!

Even with so many books on the market we believe in our books so strongly that the universe will find room for whatever we decide to provide.

Continue writing, editing, promoting. You never know who is watching and waiting for your books :)
Well put, 'Paradise'. It is sometimes disheartening when one sees the multitude of other writers out there all pushing their books. If we can step back and remember why we do this in the first place (I mean write, of course) it takes away some of the stress. I have been writing for twenty five years because I love to write - I NEED to write. Fame, fortune, and recgnition ( or even book sales!) will not change that. (Although sales would be nice ...!)
www.tracykraussexpressionexpress.blogspot.com
Are all of you also members of the "What's Working for You?" discussion, also here on the Book Marketing Network? If you're not, it's here:

http://bookmarket.ning.com/forum/topics/whats-working-for-you

I follow both of these discussions and get lots of ideas. Since we've been majoring on struggles lately (my sales haven't been great lately either), I thought I'd share something that looks like it may pay off. I'll be sharing the results on the other discussion as the campaign continues.

So I found the top 200 personal finance blogs and offered each of them a copy of my personal finance book for review and another for a giveaway. 45 of them responded (one out of four ain't bad), some wanting one for review and others wanting to do a giveaway. Nobody acted like I was bothering them. In fact, most seemed truly appreciative. (Hey, these are people who are passionate about the subject and desperately need more ideas to blog about.)

I think it also helped that I titled the e-mail "Idea for Timely Post and Giveaway". They're always looking for ideas for posts and with graduation season here, they'd like to recommend something as gifts for grads and newlyweds.

If you want to do something similar to market your book, here's the first review to come in, and you can see how the blogger is setting up the giveaway so that readers are encouraged to spread the word through Facebook, Twitter, etc.

http://inexpensively.com/articles/finance/debt-management/enjoy-you...

I think a campaign like this has a lot of potential, and I plan to write up a white paper on it afterwords.

Some things I've done to market my book seem good initially, but produce absolutely no sales at all. We'll see how this one goes. I can track sales daily on Amazon.

J. Steve Miller
President, Legacy Educational Resources
Author of Enjoy Your Money! How to Make It, Save It, Invest It and Give It
"The money book for people who hate money books."
http://wisdomcreekpress.com/press_kits.html
Steve . . . Don't forget to follow up again with the 3/4 that didn't respond the first time. People are busy. They miss things they really want to respond to. A second offer helps to remind them that they intended to follow up.

The best intentions to follow up often go astray because we are all busy. Something set aside to act on later, unfortunately, rarely gets acted upon. It's too easy to forget something when you set it aside.
Good point, John. Sometimes my fear that I'm bugging people gets in the way of following through with things like this. But when I do follow-up, I don't believe I've ever had someone say that I was being irritating.

I wasn't planning on following up with the 3/4 that didn't respond, but I'll consider it now.

I'm also planning to follow up later with the ones who do write reviews. If they liked my book, then their fans who'd likely be up for me doing a guest blog or doing another giveaway before graduation next year.
Yes, always follow up with people who have done something with your book. That's how you create relationships that bear fruit for many years. Offering to do a guest blog post is a great follow-up to a review.
promotion, promotion, and promotion! Trying to get my book into enough hands for it to become known in the lit world.
How'bout "10 non-techie ways to sell your book online"?

For me there is no doubt that writing the book is the easiest part. The reason why we do this is we want to communicate our ideas to the world right? I found one of the easiest and cheapest ways to sell your book is to market it online.
Now I am aware that for a lot of us this is a scary prospect, not knowing where to start... Sounds familiar?

Well I have done a little research and found something that for a modest cost will give you a step by step process to market your book online, stretching the boundaries to multiple sales!

No information overload, just a very simple and effective way to sell your book as you are guided by an expert writing coach.

Take away the guess work, stay at home and spread your book virally to the whole world!

And or $20 what better value could you ever get! Full money back guarantee applies

Click on this link and find out all about it http://tiny.cc/mlrpt


Best regards
Eric Billoud
Hello Bill,

Just want to check if this information is true about book reviews. My books have already been published and I want to get them reviewed by Foreword magazine, Kirkus and the other well known reviewers, can I get my audio versions reviewed easily by them? Visit my teen site at www.success4teens.info.
Last time I checked all the biggies, they wanted copies about 4 months before publication.

You can pay Kirkus, I believe it's called Kirkus Discoveries. Not sure if you have to get it to them prior to publication or not. But they carefully distinguish this from the regular Kirkus review, so I don't think you'd get the same clout.

I recently paid to get reviewed by ForeWord, which is one of the biggies. They'll do a digital review for $99, if you're accepted. (I suppose they put it up on an internal website and let their reviewers pick which ones they want.) If they promise to do the review, you pay them $99 and they publish it in several places. Here's the note I just got from them this month:

"Once you have confirmed that you would like us to post this review, we will post it on our own website at www.ForeWordReviews.com. We will also send it to our licensing partners: Ingram's iPage, Baker & Taylor Title Source III, Bowker's Books in Print, and Gale's and Ebsco's licensed databases under the ForeWord Reviews name. We are also developing an iPhone Book Review application which will provide your title with even more access to the consumer market.

Please feel free to use the review for editorial reference and other marketing purposes. Of course, we ask that you kindly attribute the review to its correct source: ForeWord Reviews."

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