Blog Entries for rkelly

The Virtual Book Tour

rkelly

Cheryl Kaye Tardif, the author of The River, Divine Intervention and the Amazon bestseller Whale Song in this blog post, writes about the virtual book tour.

Lots of cool ideas there:

Virtual book tours (also known as virtual author tours, guest blogging, blog tours, or VBTs are a simple concept. The author "tours" various blogs and sites that pertain to a theme in the book or to writing in general. This way, you can potentially reach thousands of avid readers each tour d [...]

Ways to increase book sales

rkelly

Want to increase book sales dramatically? Then shift your book sales focus from attracting new readers to enticing your proven readers to purchase again. The best new title prospect is a prospect that's already converted-in other words, one of your current readers.

Think of it this way; if your small press is located in a small town with a population of 1,000 people and you sell a book to everyone in that town, man, woman, and child, you've sold 1,000 books-and saturated your ma [...]

Make Facebook Work For You

rkelly

With the advent of web social networking sites such as Facebook & MySpace, more small press publishers are taking advantage of the benefits of social networking in new ways. Social networks aren't limited to the web sphere though; remember that they're just a copy of the real-world concept of advertising, & this is the basis of many successful referral-based systems used by advertising gurus of publishers of diverse sizes & industries.

When you're working with a [...]

How to sell your books

rkelly

Born, raised and a resident in Illinois for most of her life, Valerie Connelly now lives with her husband, Michael, in Wisconsin north of Milwaukee. She divides her time between publishing, writing, teaching, painting landscapes and waterscapes, and traveling to visit her grown children.

Valerie shares her experience as a publisher:

I am a realist. As a publisher of books, this is an essential personality trait. So many of the authors I work with and for are purely dreamers that [...]

Designing Book Fair Promotional Literature

rkelly

Although your promtoional handouts should have relatively little text - your Book Fair literature should be engaging and informative. The pronotional literature you distribute at your next show will probably be the only part of your press that follows your prospective readership back to their home. Make sure that your literature is well-designed and easy to understand.

What to Include in your Literature

Every publisher is different, so be sure to tailor your literature to the part [...]

Small Press Contracts

rkelly

Just happened across a good post that's pertinent to the small press, in regards to contracts, etc. It's from 'Miss Snark' — an unidentified blogging literary agent:

First, anyone who writes to me and says "I have a contract in hand and I need an agent" gets a call back that day. Many times I've not taken the author on, but I've looked at the contract and given a few pointers. It's the very least I can do - sort of like banking some good will [...]

Publishing for Small Press Runs

rkelly

I received this via email from Gary Michael Smith and thought that people on the site migh enjoy it. I would like to introduce a book that may be a useful resource to would-be authors on this blog.

Publishing for Small Press Runs is a pioneering book promoting quick and affordable short press run book publication using the latest digital technology for producing covers and text. This 372-page guide currently is being used as the course text for a class at the University of New Orleans. [...]

Thinks to think about before going PODDING

rkelly

Often print-on-demand (POD) looks great. You can publish one book at a time when it's ordered.

But, think again. After many years of writers coming to me saying they did not make the return on their investment going with a POD, and my research noticing the poor returns from POD, I say consider all the options.

Some Things to consider before you go with POD

Take notice how many other writers and books are listed on the POD webpage. Like a store, your audien [...]

Why Do Book Fairs? Revisited!

rkelly

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 sour [...]

DOs and DONTs for marketing your small press titles

rkelly

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 [...]

Press kits and marketing packages

rkelly

I get asked a lot about marketing packages for media. People want to know how to present them, what's in them, etc. I have been asked over and over again to write articles on the subject, so here you are: a brief crash course on marketing packages for media. Your marketing package is your calling card. It will introduce you and your small press to the people you need to help move your press forward. Make it interesting, exciting and entertaining. Capture their attention and make them want [...]

The Importance of Book Fairs

rkelly

Regardless of your genre, whether it's westerns or crime fiction. romance or non-fiction, decidely you will share something with writers of other genres: the need for promtotion of what you have written.

While the world wide web has made available new sytems of marketing to authors, from websites and weblogs to sites like myspace, facebook, and the small press exchange, there is still something to be said for meeting readership where they make themselves available -- small press boo [...]

How small press publishers can use blogs to get the message out

rkelly

Publishing a book is something many would-be small presses start-ups have done only to quickly realize that the more difficult task is to get folks to buy it and read it. Even giving it away free is no guarantee that you will get respectable audience for your new title. Compare this to a weblog, where you will start getting hits in a few hours! Small presses should fully appreciate and understand the power of weblogs to attract interest quickly and to deliver their message with more efficienc [...]