In the Tools for Writers category, I want to make sure that everyone out there knows about Google Alerts. Indeed, as Google moves forward in its plan for world domination, there are quite a few helpful applications it offers its willing subjects (I love Google Earth, for example), and one of them, Google Alerts, is almost indispensable as a marketing tool, a research tool, and a general find-out-what’s-going-on tool.
Google Alerts––still, surprisingly, in beta––sends you notices any time the keywords you’ve chosen get mentioned on the web. You can input your name as a Google Alert, your book title, or your general topic. I have a Google Alert for the word “stepmother,” for example, since I am one and hope someday to write something about it; it’s a great way to do research and accumulate resources.
If you have something specific you’re looking for, no problem. You can put the title of an article, for example, in quotation marks, and that brings in more results.
And it’s a marvelous marketing tool. When you’re sending out articles or press releases, Google Alerts will tell you where they’re being picked up. You can set up alerts for your name, for clients’ names, for various topics, etc., and it helps you see how successful you marketing efforts are. One other way to use Google Alerts in terms of marketing is to respond to reporters who are writing on topics similar to your own. Often if they just did a story on a topic, they might be willing to do a follow-up. It doesn’t always work, but it’s been fairly effective for me.
There are no limits on the number of Google Alerts you can set up, and they’re fairly easy to terminate at the end of a project or when your interest in a given topic wanes.
To try out Google Alerts for yourself, go here and fill in the form. And then you’ll be … beyond the elements of style!
Posted in Publicity, Tools, Creativity, Technology on June 19th, 2008
I want to post a very short note today for both readers and authors, alerting you (should you not already know about it) to the online presence of Book Tour, where, as the tagline would have it, “authors and audiences meet.”
Book Tour is a free online clearinghouse for information about authors who are touring. It was started by Chris Anderson, the author of NYT bestseller The Long Tail, who knows a thing or two about marketing.
If you’re a reader, you can sign up to be alerted when authors visit your local booksellers. If you’re an author, you can list all of your appearances, show a picture of your latest book cover, and other nice perks.
From the Book Tour website:
As the world’s largest, 100% free directory of author events, BookTour.com makes book tours better.In just a few minutes any author can create a page showcasing their biography, books, and upcoming engagements. Listing new events is as easy as answering a few questions. Publishers, booksellers, and events managers can upload tour dates en masse using a simple Excel spreadsheet.
Most importantly, readers can peruse our database of author events for the best of what’s nearby, or they can track their favorite authors on tour.
Readers can invite faraway authors to their town, or get in touch with authors already scheduled to appear locally to address additional groups, from company speaker series to book group meetings.
For authors, BookTour.com serves as a one-stop tool for book promotion, allowing authors at all levels of their careers to locate receptive live audiences.
For readers and audiences, BookTour.com makes finding when a favorite author is coming to your town as easy as checking the weather.
BookTour is based in San Francisco, the city that buys more books (and wine) per capita than any in America.
Check out Book Tour, and you’ll be … beyond the elements of style!
Posted in Publicity, Books, Tools, The Writing Life, Reading on May 22nd, 2008
All authors know that a good book review is worth its reviewer’s weight in gold. Reviews can be posted on the web at bookselling sites to encourage potential readers to buy; they can be used on book jackets as blurbs to encourage potential readers to buy; they can be quoted in sig lines to encourage potential readers to buy. Yeah, there’s a theme here: while it’s great ego candy to read a terrific review of one’s work, the bottom line is still, always, the bottom line: to keep selling, to stay in print, to make a living.
And reviews help. One of my publishers, in fact, absolutely swears by reviews, believing that they, more than anything else, are what sell the book. Whether reality is that extreme or whether success is a mix of many factors, book reviews still count.
Getting a reviewer to look at your book, however, may be a lot easier said than done.
There are certain good places to start. Your local newspaper or regional magazine is best: be sure to obtain the name of the correct person to send a review copy to, and add a very big note that says, “LOCAL AUTHOR.” Short of already being on the bestseller list, this is your best bet for reviews.
Don’t overlook Amazon. Amazon has a list of top-hundred reviewers, whose reviews carry more weight than those of your Aunt Edna who was “happy, dear, to write something nice about your little book.” With a little sleuthing, you can obtain their email addresses and politely request a review (and, of course, offer to send a review copy!).
The Big Boys of book reviews are tougher to get to, and I’m going to leave it to your ingenuity to figure out how; but I’ll start you off with a gift — the venues themselves:
So there it is. Write a fabulous book, get it critiqued via an online or real-time group, get it professionally edited, interest a publisher, sign a contract –– and start getting those reviews! And then you’ll be … beyonf the elements of style!
Posted in Publicity, Books, Words on May 18th, 2008
Yes, I said it. Anyone who knows me knows how far I’ll go to impress upon people the ethical requirement to patronize one’s local independent bookseller (”or they won’t be around any longer,” is my usual tagline here). And I still believe that, with all my heart. And I love love love my local booksellers and can’t imagine life without them.
But as I get older I’m less binary in my thinking, and I don’t believe that the Amazon/local bookseller necessarily has to be an either/or proposition.
Look at it this way. The goal for any published author is to sell thousands and thousands of copies of her books in a very short time, and she needs to be willing to do whatever is necessary to work with her publisher to make that happen.
And there’s no denying that Amazon is an excellent tool. The company actually does the industry a lot of good.
I love independent booksellers, but for economic reasons they are not always able to do what Amazon can and does (giving publishers workable terms and not ship returns, for example); and the reality is that for authors as well as for publishers and independent booksellers, selling books is a business.
The other thing I’m noticing about Amazon is that it is a tremendous marketing tool. Many people search Amazon for books and then buy them from their local independent bookseller. You can’t call a local bookseller or and ask the sales people to read you the blurb, the first chapter, or the reviews; and if you don’t happen to live close to said bookseller, this can be a problem — but you can get that information from Amazon.
Yes, Amazon is an impersonal megalithic corporation, and I don’t believe for a second that corporations are our friends. But that doesn’t mean that we cannot use them to our advantage, because they’re not going away anytime soon. Buy your books whenever possible at your local independent bookseller — I stand by my signature phrase — but don’t dismiss Amazon as a great venue for selling your books, as well.
And less binary thinking would be healthy for everyone … beyond the elements of style!
Posted in Publicity, Books, Tools, Doing the Right Thing on February 27th, 2008
Many authors quake at the portion of the book proposal that asks for their platform. What’s a platform? Why is it necessary?
The two questions go hand in hand. A platform is perceived by most publishers as being necessary in order to promote and market one’s book; it’s a way of reassuring the reader that you do indeed know what you’re talking about. It’s essential for nonfiction writers, but important also for novelists, especially those whose names are not (yet!) household words.
So what can you do if you don’t currently have a platform? Don’t despair; there are a number of ways of promoting yourself and your expertise in the public eye.
- develop some short how-to articles related to your topic and submit them to local print newspapers as well as to article sites (such as Helium) on the net. Make sure that you’re not submitting the same article everywhere or you’ll run into duplicate content issues; but get a lot of them out there.
- develop and market speaking topics of interest to groups like Women in Communication (AWC), your local Association of Business Communicators (ABC), and National Speakers Association (whose members often develop books to go with their platform message).
- teach a class in your subject area at a local adult education or community college facility.
- give a free presentation at your local public or city library on your topic. Build on this exposure and give more at less-local facilities. Don’t forget schools! High schools in particular are terrific venues for presentations or workshops.
- publicize yourself. Send out press releases whenever you’re involved in anything related to your topic. Send the releases to your local newspaper.
The more your name can be associated with your topic, the more you;ll be building your platform. Make sure that you keep track of all of your articles, speaking engagements, etc. in some sort of database so that the information is at your figertips when it comes time to write about your platform.
For novelists, remember that you can (and should) build your platform on more than just your writing ability. Your books will often center around a place, an activity, an occupation, or an idea; build your platform around that more tangible information and see how it helps sell books!
Building a platform takes hard work, but its rewards are myriad. Try it, and you’ll be … beyond the elements of style!
Posted in Publicity, Books, Getting Published, The Writing Life, About Writing on February 24th, 2008
No matter what you do in the freelance world – writer, editor, SEO expert – at some point or another, you’ll need to market your work. Most of us don’t enjoy the process: we’re good at sitting in a room and writing, editing, or optimizing, and a lot less good at tooting our horns to attract more people to pay us to do that sitting in the room.
A necessary evil, at the very least.
One of the best tools I’ve found is to target and join multiple professional associations. And not just any professional associations: you need to choose ones where you will encounter the clients you’re hoping will engage your services. (Other groups — writing, editing, and SEO groups — may be great for your professional development, but don’t join them to get clients.) For example, if you want to target financial clients, research and then visit and/or join a few of their professional associations. You can take it a step further and participate in their email lists, advertise in their journals, attend their conferences, etc., but start with the professional associations: networking is king.
Other groups that exist uniquely for networking purposes are also worth exploring. Google “networking groups” or “networking associations” in your area and see what turns up. Typically this will involve attending regular local meetings and passing referrals to other group members along with accepting referrals from them.
Either or both choices are good, as are online networking opportunities such as LinkedIn and other such sites. Marketing doesn’t have to be a terrible chore, and you can end up with as many contacts as you make sales! And then you’ll be … beyond the elements of style!
Posted in Publicity, The Writing Life, search engine optimization, SEO on December 11th, 2007
The algorithms are kept so secret as to make Google’s search terms an open book. What I’m talking about, of course, is how bestseller lists are devised and maintained. Who decides? Based on what? Every author wants to know; and anyone who claims to know is deluding him or herself.
Some authors choose to take matters into their own hands. Back when the New York Times bestseller list was based on sales alone, Jacqueline Susann bought enough copies of her new book, The Valley of the Dolls to fill her garage … and launch her to the top of the bestseller list, thus making the continued status into a self-fulfilling loop. Did the book deserve such status? Of course it didn’t; but that’s not the way the lists work.
As long as there are systems, there will be people gaming the systems.
We’re seeing a similar phenomenon now, with all the marketers shilling programs to send one’s book to the top of the Amazon bestseller list. It’s one of the few lists that can still be manipulated, and authors with enough contacts (usually marketing writers themselves) are following the plan of getting a vast number of people to purchase the book at the same time, thus catapaulting it to the top of the list for a precious fifteen seconds of fame, and thereafter claiming the title of bestselling author for themselves. It’s dishonest and manipulative, but it’s — at least as of this writing — still feasible.
Yet the list from the New York Times remains the most impressive and elusive of them all. And, as we learn from the Times’s own Clark Hoyt in this op-ed, it seems that the Times’s assessments are byzantine enough to put the mystery novels that grace its list to shame.
One of the first things I learned is that much of what the publishing world thinks it knows about the list is wrong or out of date. For example: The Book Review editor, Sam Tanenhaus, has nothing to do with compiling it, though it is published weekly in his section; it is handled by the news surveys department. The list isn’t tabulated from paper questionnaires sent to booksellers; it’s entirely computerized, after a recently completed two-year project. The roster of outlets surveyed is not adjusted only once every five years; it changes constantly.
The best route? Write a good book. No; write a great book. Market the hell out of it. Speak at libraries and church fairs and conferences. Seek out reviews from reputable sources and use them as part of your marketing. Leave the rest to the gods.
And then you’ll be … beyond the elements of style!
Posted in Publicity, Books, Publishing, Getting Published, Publishers, About Writing on November 7th, 2007
Well, if I can’t do it in my own blog, where can I do it?
I’m very *very* excited about my new book, Open Your Heart with Reading. I’m excited because I think that it really is a decent book, possibly even a great book; but also because I think that it might help people get back in touch with the magic of storytelling, the sense of excitement and anticipation that grips one at the beginning of what one just knows is going to be an excellent book.
If you want just a quick glimpse, check out the Open Your Heart with Reading introduction on Squidoo. But essentially what it’s about is that very magic … that, and the fact that 90 million Americans have no access to it because they are functionally illiterate. 90 million! In a developed country like ours, that’s shameful.
What can you do? Well, read the book; there’s a whole section written by literacy expert Sharon Darling. And if you want something simple and immediate, then go over to the the literacy site, where you can give free books to children who need them.
Mixing magic with desperate need isn’t easy, and I hope that the book has accomplished that. Last night I did an interview with the inimitable Lady Di on her Friday night radio show, Leggs Up And Dancin, and we were joined by Karen MacDonald, librarian here in Provincetown, Massachusetts, talking both about the need for reading and the magic that it weaves into people’s lives. Karen pointed out the many “new” authors one can meet when reading a book such as this one, and I hope that’s true; true, also, is my sincere thanks to the Library of America for introducing me to many voices I wouldn’t otherwise have been able to hear and echo.
Buy a copy and let me know what you think!
And then we’ll all be .. beyond the elements of style!
Posted in Publicity, Books, Words, Reading on November 3rd, 2007
As writers, we’re often also called upon to be public speakers. There’s the rub – since writers, almost by definition, like to sit alone in a room and write. But promoting one’s work involves interacting with the public … and the public can be unforgiving.
Surveys show that people decide in the first seven seconds whether they are interested in what you are saying – seven seconds! The bottom line is that you have a small window to captivate your audience. Are they going to listen – or work on their grocery lists?
Grabbing listeners’ attention in any kind of presentation depends on answering the following questions:
- So what? I want to make a presentation on X; the immediate question has to be: so what? what meaning does this presentation have for its listeners?
- Who cares? Why this particular audience for this particular presentation? I’ve chosen to give it to you for a reason, and I’d better be able to articulate that reason.
- What’s in it for me? If people don’t know what they’re getting – how it will improve their lives or work, what advantage they’ll have from having heard it – then they’ll tune out fast. The farm report? Yawn.
Once you have people’s attention, however, your work is far from done.
Here’s the issue: humans have a short attention span, and are able to retain three – yes: only three – points from any presentation. Try to fit any more in and you’re going to lose your audience; and, worse, they won’t retain anything that you said.
Make this handicap work to your advantage! Craft your presentation around three main points, and keep coming back to them – if they have catchy taglines, so much the better. Twenty minutes after your presentation is over, attendees should be able to easily and quickly articulate your three main points to a colleague, and that will only happen if you make sure that they’re well embedded in your audience’s minds.
This doesn’t mean that you have to be simplistic – far from it. Make your (well-written) notes available to your audience, so that later they can go back and remember other points, ancillary details, lists, illustrations. Be as detailed and sophisticated as you can in these notes and make sure that they’re widely available; include them in your website or newsletter; remind people of them throughout conversations you have in the industry.
If you can catch your audience’s attention immediately by telling them why they should listen; if you keep the presentation itself to three main points that you reinforce throughout the talk; and if you provide follow-up materials, then you’ll be making stellar, memorable, and useful presentations!
And then you’ll be … beyond the elements of style!
Posted in Publicity, Words on July 1st, 2007
Being creative entails more than just having a good idea. Much of the creativity is in the execution.
For some reason, people with little writing experience tend to overestimate the value of their ideas. Reasonably good ideas are a dime a dozen, even in these inflated times; brilliant ideas can be priced accordingly as well. The point is that having an idea is the beginning of a long road to success, not the end of it.
I’ve encountered this sort of thing before: “I had this great idea for a book and then this other guy wrote it and is making a fortune an it’s not fair!” And then more recently this issue came up in one of the many Internet lists to which I subscribe. A list-member believed that his concept for a commercial blog – along with the title for said blog – had been stolen from him, and he was contemplating legal action.
Which shows, of course, not only a lack of understanding of how things work, but also a rather inflated sense of the importance of an idea all by itself.
We all know that branding is valuable — priceless, in fact, as the Mastercard television advertisements remind us. But branding doesn’t happen because of a sole idea. Brand owners took a long route to success: trademarking the brand, making enormous investments that:
- tie the brand to the product in question;
- introduce collateral branding (creative designs, like the bottle shape of Coca-Cola);
- market and advertise the brand and product;
- offer ongoing support
Most reasonable people recognize the value of a good idea — but they also recognize the value of someone who is good at putting ideas into action. They would rather honor your idea if it’s worthwhile, and possibly have you generate more good ideas in the future, than steal it from you. And a good idea is more than a name: it’s a specific, detailed, and well-researched plan or product that can be put to use.
Whether is business or publishing, you can’t copyright a title: that’s why you occasionally see books or movies with names that are identical or almost-identical to others that are completely unrelated. You can trademark a unique identifier, such as a product name or logo, but only for a specific use. Thus we can have both Apple Computers and Apple Records.
In any case, keep thinking of good ideas. Collect your good ideas. They’re a wonderful place to start. But be sure to take the next step - implement the ideas. That’s how you’ll move … beyond the elements of style!
Posted in Publicity, The Writing Life, About Writing, Creativity on June 25th, 2007
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