We CAN! promote our books

Free Photos for Your Book Trailer

Jill Elizabeth Nelson here to provide you with a handy-dandy list of sites to check out for free photos for your homemade book trailer. For details on how to construct a trailer from start to finish, see my blog post of February 17, 2007, and Virginia Smith's posts of April 28, 2008, and May 5, 2008. Since photos are such an intergral part of the process, it's essential to have a number of sites to check out in order to find just the right ones.

Decide where to spend marketing time

Aloha from Karen,

    I am still driving between Connecticut where my Dad is still in the hospital and Maryland. That shifts the day I blog as it can be hard for me to get online in Connecticut at time.

   With so many choices of where to spend time and money marketing, it’s important to make good decisions before allocating the time, effort, and cash.  We can become overwhelmed with too many marketing ideas. Let’s chat about how to make wise choices.

People Moving and Shaking

Someone recently asked me this about a post I wrote about the industry. I said (in point number three) that editors and agents and publicists and marketing folks move around a lot.

Here's the question: Hi Mary, I'm wondering if you could clarify number three? I apologize for my ignorance, but by 'move' do you mean come into the market or leave it, or change positions within?

The answer to your questions is YES on all fronts. This is a very elastic, dynamic business:

Laying the Groundwork with Teasers

Kathi Macias here, back from my incredible vacation/ministry time in beautiful Kalispell, Montana. Thanks to fellow CANner Tricia Goyer, I had the opportunity to speak at her church one evening and to meet some of the nicest people on the planet. If all goes well, I'll have a chance to return to that charming area one day soon! Meanwhile, I want to share with you what I consider one of the best ways to hook potential readers of your about-to-be-released book.

Did I Miss My Calling?

Hi, Jeanette is here again. Over the past week we’ve had a lot of drama in our house—pet drama to be exact. In the process I discovered that I might have missed my calling.

Authors & Library Summer Reading Programs

Judy here, rejoicing that after a long, wet winter spring has finally arrived in the Pacific Northwest. Azaleas and rhododendrons are blooming. Later this week we're supposed to get a tease of warm summer weather. But, as a children's librarian, the harbinger of spring and summer was my annual trek to the schools to promote the summer reading program--something I miss in my current job as a substiute librarian. But what do summer reading programs have to do with authors promoting their books to libraries--especially those of us who write for adults? Today we'll look at an often overlooked promotional opportunity--the library's summer reading program.

When you can't be there in person

Susan Meissner here with an idea to chew on. There are a handful of key events that precede a book's release into the wild. Your stellar idea that lands a contract is one. Your timely completion of a stellar manuscript is another. And the sales meeting that takes place in your publisher's conference room five to six months out is another. You're there for the first two (obviously) but unless you live in the same state as your publisher or have oodles of time and travel money at your disposal, you miss that third key event. Yikes. How can you keep from missing out on a key opportunity to communicate your vision for this book to the people who will be selling it?  Here's an idea.

Arrange Your Own Blog Tour

Jill Elizabeth Nelson here, hosting writer Cara Putman as she explains her method of arranging blog tours. The lovely lady in the photo to the left is Cara, not me. Here are simple blog tour instructions from Cara:

Difference between Publicity and Marketing?

There's a great post over at Novel Journey about what a publicist does, how it differs from marketing, and what would be a waste of publicity dollars. You can read it here.

Marketing Push

On my Wannabepublished blog, I often answer reader's questions. This one comes on the heels of a great post by David Gregory, the author of Dinner with a Perfect Stranger.

Reader Katy McKenna asks: Great interview, Mary and David (Gregory)!! A very non-spiritual question arises in my mind as a result of reading this. David says Waterbrook chose to give a big marketing push to "Dinner." At what point in the publishing process does the author become aware that the publisher has planned this? Is it something that doesn't begin (with a new author) until initial sales figures start to roll in? Or do sales happen because a pre-emptive decision to push the book was made? And what does "a big push" actually look like? Those coveted displays in the front of the store? Magazine ad space? Is there ANYTHING an author can do (besides hope and pray) that might encourage her publisher to made a big push? Furthermore, if a big push on the publisher's part resulted in correspondingly big sales, why wouldn't publishers use this tactic more often?I am clueless about how such things happen in the real world.Perhaps this is a subject for another post? Enquiring authors want to know!! :)