This is my follow up to a post a few weeks ago on the importance of book fairs. 

Exhibiting at a book fair provides you one of the best ways to get in front of a lot of readers and prospective readers in a relatively short amount of time. Book Fairs provide the chance to not only fair your book, but also create that all important first impression. According to a Simmons Market Research Bureau study, 85% of respondents ranked Book Fairs as "extremely useful" as a source for book purchasing info. This was higher than any other source, including on-site visits from reps. Also, nearly half of the respondents had purchased books at the book fair.
 
At a typical regional book fair, with 1,000 attendees and 100 exhibitors, you can realistically have 300 visitors per day. Granted, you don't always have the chance to go into as much detail in your sales pitch as you would like, but it opens the door for future communications.

So for most publishers, Book Fairs are worth the effort. In fact, before you decide to drop a fair you have attended for years, think about what that might say to your current readers who expect to see you there. This doesn't mean you can't ever stop attending a fair, but just be sure you think about whom you see there and what your company's absence may lead them to believe. If necessary, send a postcard to your readership and let them know why you didn't attend that particular fair, and explain your decision to attend fair B rather than fair A.

Before you even start looking for fairs, you need to set your goals. To help you do this, there are four questions you need to ask yourself:

Why are you exhibiting?

• Are you trying to extend your relationship with existing readers? Introducing a new book? Generating qualified leads for new sales?

Who is your target demo?

• What is the message you want to convey?
• What do you want to get out of the fair?
• Do you want to bring home leads, sell your book, or create/improve/build upon your rep as a publisher?

Here are a few marketing tips to keep in mind when you're considering launching a new campaign to support that new title!

DO NOTS
Do not spend a lot on paid ads. I've yet to see it pay off. The only ads I'm paying for now is a online, and that's an inexpensive gamble.

Do not spend a lot on paid tables at conventions. Maybe it's just me, but I haven't found them to be a break-even proposition. You can argue that the exposure is good regardless, but you also can argue for spending the same time firing off materials to reviewers or potential outlets.

DOs
Do get as much free publicity as you can.

Do create a slogan or catch-phrase or theme for your titles and repeat it constantly. Keep it simple, silly.

Do hype all the unique features of your titles, whatever they may be.

Do post messages to newsgroups and mailing lists about your titles and related subjects. If your messages are interesting or informative, people will pass them along.

Do print extra copies for review purposes and send them out unstintingly. Creating word of mouth or "buzz" should be your long-term goal. Good reviews won't guarantee "buzz," but they're one key building block.

Do create a professional image with polished press releases, stationery, and other materials.

Do establish a website and refer people to it constantly. It's infinitely easier than mailing or faxing them information.

Do collect all the positive reviews you get and use them in your marketing materials and on your website. Do not neglect to gather comments from readers, even one-sentence comments. Plaster the positive comments everywhere you can.

Do try to auction your titles on eBay. Most of my auctions have been successful, and the bids often top the cover price. Even if your titles Do not sell, you're essentially posting an ad for thousands to see for $0.25 a week.

Do put out a quality titles that's worth all the trouble. Something fresh and innovative may not pay off, but you can bet the hundredth me-too product isn't going to pay off.

Bonus tips!
Build traffic on your website and thus interest in your titles. As someone once said, content is king. Do keep people coming back to your website with fresh content. In this case, people will visit to enter the contest and to see who won each month.

Do link everything on your site to everything else, as much as possible. Your goal should be to get people to stay awhile and become familiar with you. The more they browse your site, the more they'll become committed. It probably won't translate to a sale-at least not right away-but it'll make an impression. Studies show you have to expose people to your message an average of seven times before they become comfortable enough to buy.

Do consider using a tool like Google Analytics (www.goog.com/analytics) to monitor visitors to your site. This lets you see who's visiting your site, how long they stay, and where they came from. It also lets you chat with them if they're so inclined. Again, the basic service is free.

Do take advantage of the many mailing lists that exist just to announce lists, sites, and promotional freebies. Again, Yahoo probably has the biggest collection of them.

Do put your name, your titles' name, and an e-mail link on every page. People may visit a page without knowing its ultimate purpose.

 This is the best sci-fi related news I've read all day! Sci-fi Writers Pournelle and Niven have more imagination and brainpower in their fingernails than the Department of Defense!

Pournelle especially. The man's resume' and collaborations are a "who's who" of modern strategic warfare. Google "Project Thor" or "A Step Farther Out" to see an example of how these people think about real-world problems. Or just go to Pournelle's web blog (started in 1999) and you'll see that asking people like these their opinions is a step in the right direction. http://www.jerrypournelle.com/:

Oh, and they also happen to be excellent writers. Gotta pay the bills...

USA Today has reported in "Sci-fi writersjoin war on terror" that a small group of science fiction writers have been contacted by the U.S. government to advise on new and innovative ways that security could be improved. The group, called Sigma, was formed about 15 years ago by writer Arlan Andrews and was specifically intended to advise the government on advanced technology issues.

Their motto seems ominous in context of recent-history political trends and frighteningly nationalistic: "Science Fiction in the National Interest". I think their involvement is a bit horrifying, misguided, and more than a bit egotistically self-grandiose. Read on for more details.

Six writers - nicknamed the "Sigma Six", after "Six Sigma" (a set of practices for reducing defects through process improvements - see related Dilbert cartoon), met with the Homeland Security group with members of the government's High Impact Technology Solutions ("HITS") program leaders to speculate on innovative ways that technology could improve the government's ability to monitor individuals, identify and assess threats. The six writers involved were Greg Bear, Sage Walker, and Arlan Andrews, Jerry Pournelle, Larry Niven, and Yoji Kondo "Eric Kotani" (USA Today apparently failed to mention Kondo's involvement).

And if this doesn't work, they're going to try using romance novel writers to battle terrorism!

As a follow-up to my post on songbirds learning grammar, comes this: ABC interviews chimps.

Interestingly, I once read a National Geographic article (I think it was in the early 1990's) in which a researcher described a single conversation (in American-Sign-Language) between 3 species: a human, a gorilla, and a chimpanzee. Here's an excerpt from the ABC article:

The Great Ape Trust in Des Moines, Iowa, is home to seven bonobos -- a close relative of the chimpanzee -- and three orangutans. But if you think Iowa might be a strange place for them to live, don't say it out loud ... these apes understand English.

You can talk to the apes, and they know what you are saying.

The residents of the Great ApeTrust are part of groundbreaking language research where the apes are being taught to communicate with humans by pressing 350 lexigrams —symbols that appear on a screen and represent thoughts and objects.

The superstar is 26-year-old Kanzi, whom Bill Fields has been working with for years. To communicate, Fields speaks to Kanzi, who then points to the lexigrams to respond and demonstrate a level of understanding.

"Qualitatively, there is no difference between Kanzi's language and my language," Fields said. "It's a matter of degree."

The key to ensuring they grasp the language, the researchers said, is to start teaching them when they are young, just like you would with human babies.

In that National Geographic article, I remember the researcher also reportedly asked the chimpanzees which type of music they preferred, and they responded "Jazz".

Some of the chipanzees described in the article even made up new compound words, such as combining the word "Candy" and "Drink" to describe grape juice as "Candy-Drink".

Cool stuff...

Good news! If you're running behind on your taxes, you can always file an extension.

Many of those with editors, however, say you can file an extention. And they are wrong, wrong, wrong.

You'll find dozens of botched references to extention on Google News. For the record, it's extension. Extention isn't a variant.

My only stand is on behalf of better writing. I take no sides in the debate over capital punishment, which gives rise to today's point.

Too often, articles on Google News say someone is to be executed by lethal injection or is sentenced to be put to death by lethal injection. In each case, lethal is redundant. An injection that kills is lethal to begin with.

This type of redundancy also shows up in references to past accidents and disasters: deadly tsunami that killed ...; deadly crash that killed ...; fatal crash that killed ...; fatal accident that killed ... As awful as these events are, there is no need to point out in the same sentence that something that kills also is deadly or fatal.

I am passively considering a career change. I'm passively pursuing a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian situation. I'm passively engaging others in debate about better writing.

What is it that possesses bureaucrats to say they are actively considering, actively pursuing, actively engaging? For example, the paper told me this week my governor is actively considering a tax on 401k plans.

Is this like a submarine movie in which the captain searches with active and passive sonar? Can the governor passively consider a tax hike and then—ping!—switch to active consideration?

Of course not. It's bureaucratic jargon, garbage that's invading our language. You consider or don't consider, engage or don't engage, pursue or don't pursue. It's redundant and silly to say actively before any of these. To illustrate, try saying passively, the antonym of actively, instead.

Don't blame the bureaucrats. They can't help it. But there's no excuse for this junk appearing in articles, most of them—surprise, surprise—about government.

Here are some examples from Google News: actively considering; actively pursuing; actively engaging.

"Worst of all is the kind of jargon employed as an obfuscating technique in bureaucratic or political contexts," Fowler's Modern English Usage says in its lengthy entry on jargon. "Genuine communication in such areas of life has never been more important in our inflammatory and dangerous times."

I'm actively considering sending the author a thank you letter.

It's called the wayward apostrophe, the superfluous apostrophe or the errant apostrophe. I call it the #@%*&$@ apostrophe. It's the erroneous use of an apostrophe in common plural words and in other contexts.

You've seen it: a carved sign declaring The Smith's live in the home; a scrawled banana's for sale; a menu listing fresh prawn's. Some usage guides call this a greengrocer's apostrophe, as it shows up so often in the produce section (orange's, grape's, apple's).

Fowler's Modern English Usage says it once was proper to use an apostrophe to create a plural when a noun ended in a vowel. Since the mid-1800s, it says, grammarians have condemned this. "But it continues to appear, to the amusement of educated people, in signs and notices," it says.

"Superfluous apostrophes are a symptom of unedited prose and of the inexperienced writer," The Cambridge Guide to English Usage says. "As applicationsof the apostrophe begin to shrink, expert writers and editors are also less certain about its use."

Garner's Modern American Usage notes the wayward apostrophe often finds its way into the word says. Google News turns up plenty of articles with say's.

"The only possible cure is increased literacy," Garner's says.

After a storm, tornado, hurricane, flood, etc., bureaucrats assess damages. Speakers of English assess damage.

After a flood, one bureaucrat was quoted in the newspaper offering "a statement of damages from the storm events we had." He added that more money "would help us to recover some of the costs for the damages that occurred."

This kind of bureaucrat-speak is why God created paraphrasing, GrammarHell.com suggests. We'll simply wince at storm events and deal with damage/damages.

Garner's Modern American Usage notes that "the singular damage refers to loss or injury to person or property; the plural damages refers to monetary compensation for such a loss or injury."

The Associated Press Stylebooksays simply, "Damage is from destruction ... Damages are awarded as compensation for injury, loss, etc."

A tornado causes damage, followed by lawsuits seeking damages over shoddy construction.

Damage/damages errors are distressingly common as people follow the bureaucrats spewing this jargon. A quick run through Google News finds many, many examples of flood damages, storm damages, hurricane damages, tornado damages, tsunami damages, etc., etc., etc.

What a disaster.

Trying to bloc out time for a vacation? It'll never happen.

An alliance or alignment of people, groups, nations, investors, voters, etc., is a bloc. Block applies in any other case in which block or bloc is used. 

Odds are when you read voting block, Soviet block, communist block, Eastern block, economic block or political block, someone has made a boo-boo. 

Block as a noun covers "a quantity, number, or section of things dealt with as a unit," such as a block of time, according to Mirriam-Webster OnLine. 

The New York Times Manual of Style and Usage lists people among the things that can be dealt with as a unit. Thus GrammarHell.com can't complain when the newspaper, as it did recently, says that candidates are "divvying up blocks of support." It's correct if the people within the blocks aren't aligned.

Among other meanings for block: a solid piece of material (block of wood); a heavy stand used for chopping; an obstruction. Block as a verb means, among other things, to obstruct, to mount or mold on a block or to sketch roughly.

It might help to keep in mind that bloc is never a verb. You'll never bloc out time.