Book Marketing Tip of the Week
November 18, 2009: Antarctica Discovery Day, Bonfires Can Be Dangerous to Your Health Day, National Educational Support Professionals Day, English Book Publishing Day, Mickey Mouse's BirthdayDetails on these days — and 18,800 others! — can be found in
John Kremer's Celebrate Today Special Events Data Files.In this issue . . .
-- John Kremer's People You Should Know Teleseminar Series
-- Frankfurt Book Fair: first time visitor tips
-- What is April? a Jeopardy answer
-- specialty retailers
-- Buy a Book - Support a Good Cause
-- Using eWorkshops to build a revenue model for your writing
-- Kindle and ebook formatting ... more infoJohn Kremer's People You Should Know Teleseminar Series
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Over the years I've met many people who offer products and services that can help authors and publishers sell more books. During the past two months, after attending several conferences where I renewed many friendships, I realized that I should introduce these people to readers of my newsletter and customers of Open Horizons.So, starting on Wednesday, December 2nd, I'm going to be hosting a weekly teleseminar where I will interview someone I think you should know - 1. Because you will learn some useful tips from them and 2. because they offer a service or product I think might help you market your books more effectively. The primary purpose of the teleseminars will be to teach you practical and effective book marketing tips.
This series of teleseminars will take place every Wednesday at 8:00 p.m. Eastern, 5:00 p.m. Pacific, for the next 12 months. If you can make the live teleseminars, you'll be able to ask questions. But every teleseminar will be available for you to listen to any time during the next two years.
Here are the first two people I'll be featuring in this series . . .
December 2nd - Liora Mendeloff, founder of InstantMediaKit.com - What do media people look for in a great pitch, that is, one that gets the author booked? Also the truth about online media kits.
December 9th - Bob Burg, author of Endless Referrals, The Success Formula, and The Go-Giver - How to build a relationship leveraging machine and create Personal Walking Ambassadors for your books
If you'd like to take part in this incredible series of teleseminars (there will be at least 52 of them), you can sign up for less than $1 per seminar by clicking here: http://bit.ly/jwu6K (that's $37 total for a year's worth of money-making seminars for you!).
Why am I charging for these seminars? 1. These seminars will be loaded with great tips you will be able to implement right away. 2. I want to ensure a large audience for each seminar without doing tons of promos each week. 3. I'm opening up my rolodex so you'll be introduced to smart people who can make a difference in marketing your books.
Again, the teleseminar series starts on Wednesday, December 2nd, so sign up soon. Each teleseminar will start at 8:00 p.m. Eastern and last no more than one hour. And there will be time for you to ask questions of me as well as my guest.
Sign up now by clicking here: http://bit.ly/jwu6K
Frankfurt Book Fair: first time visitor tips
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The following article is copyrighted by Tom T. Moore, but he was gracious enough to share his tips with me (and you!).I attended the Frankfurt Book Fair for the first time this past October. These tips are designed to help self-publishers or authors whose publishers are doing little in the way of foreign book rights sales.
I’m now the author of two books - The Gentle Way: A Self-Help Guide for Those Who Believe in Angels and The Gentle Way II: The Story Continues (http://www.TheGentleWayBook.com). In my case I felt that with 27 years of doing international film distribution I could do a better job of selling my books than the agent of my publisher who seemed to be more of an order taker.
Here are my tips if you’re going for the first time.
1. Go on the Frankfurt Book Fair website (http://www.book-fair.com) and pay around 28 Euros for the Premium Service that gives you all the exhibitor contacts and what genre books they’re publishing. Begin setting up appointments in advance, but group the appointments by Hall if at all possible, as this is a huge exhibition with 7,200 exhibitors. You can also buy your ticket to the whole fair in advance for 55 Euros or so (mine was given to me by my German publisher so not sure of the exact price).
2. Unless you’ve been to Frankfurt before, book a hotel somewhere close to the Fair Grounds. It’s certainly more costly (a single room in a two-star hotel costs 710 Euros for four days) and the street my hotel was on shared the street not only with two other hotels but also peep shows, strip clubs and basically clip joints. Request a room at the back of the hotel to be quieter. My hotel was the Angel Hotel (very appropriate). The other hotels on the street were City Place and the Crown. All were only one block from the main train station.
3. Arrive as early on the day before the opening as possible. I was able to check into my hotel early and immediately left for the 10-minute walk to the Book Fair. That was the last time I walked, as I discovered I was only two minutes from the escalator down under the street directly by the subway track to the fairgrounds—and the Book Fair station is much closer to the Halls I needed to visit.
4. At the Book Fair I asked to enter to drop off 50 press releases I had prepared. At first they said no, but I persisted and they let me in. At the press office they first said the charge was 156 Euros for the press releases, and I pleaded for something special for a poor author. They said come back at 9:00 am the next day. This did allow me to roam around the Halls I was planning to visit to get the lay of the land. The next day I was told they didn't accept press releases from authors.
5. Before departing the USA, I had prepared my own badge with my name, my book cover, and the name of the book. It stood out, as most people simply put their ticket in a badge, or the publishing company had small metal badges for their personnel.
6. There is a thick catalog I highly recommend buying the first day. It costs 50+ Euros and lists all the publishers in the back by genre of the books they publish. You can spend your nights making a list of each country’s publishers to visit in the 3, 4, 5, and 6 series of halls (there are multiple floors). You can add Hall 8 if you wish to contact the English language publishers too.
7. You’ll find many publishers who don’t attend, but the country booths (they call them stands in Europe) will give you lists of publishers in their country to contact after the Book Fair.
8. I didn’t discover until the last day that if you go down to ground level, there are mini-buses, which shuttle from one complex to the other. I did walk a LOT even with the moving sidewalks.
9. Crowds are HUGE (49,000 the first day alone and the figures went up from there), so be sure to arrive in the mornings no later than 8:45 am, as they typically open up earlier than the listed 9:00 am times.
10. Follow up on all your meetings after the Book Fair. You will have to be persistent.
I wish you a most benevolent sales trip, if you decide to attend next year's Frankfurt Book Fair in October of 2010.
What is April? Jeopardy category: Months of the year
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If you were a Jeopardy contestant a few weeks ago, you had a chance to answer this question: What is April? under the category of months of the year. The answer? International Daffynitions Month.That month was founded a few years ago by Rock and Roll guru Joe Heuer, author of Everything I Know I Learned from Rock and Roll (http://www.rockandrollguru.com).
You never know when one of your creative promotional ideas will draw national attention. That's why you should keep knocking on doors, sending out news releases, and creating new promotions.
If you do start up a month of your own, please let me know so I can add you to the National Special Events Registry and the Celebrate Today special events database. Email: johnkremer@bookmarket.com.
The special days I feature every issue at the top of this newsletter are taken from the Celebrate Today special events database. You can order a copy of this database featuring more than 18,500 events at http://www.bookmarket.com/orderform.htm
specialty retailers
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Here are a few more specialty retailers that carry books, DVDs, audios, gifts, and more.Explore Store, Exploration Place, 300 N McLean Boulevard, Wichita, Kansas 67203; 316-660-0630; Fax: 316-660-0670. Web: http://www.exploration.org. Science and nature books, gifts.
Mid-America All-Indian Center Gift Shop, 650 N Seneca, Wichita, Kansas 67203; 316-350-3340. Web: http://www.theindiancenter.org. Native American books, gifts, music, etc.
Pandemonium Books & Games, Tyler Stewart, Owner, 4 Pleasant Street, Cambridge MA 02139; 617-547-3721. Email: events@pandemoniumbooks. com. Web: http://www.pandemoniumbooks.com. 50% new, 50% used. Specializes in science fiction, fantasy, and horror.
Twist Yarn Shop, Shelly Stilger, 607 W Douglas Avenue, Wichita, Kansas 67213; 316-262-9276. Email: contact@twistyarnshop.com. Web: http://www.twistyarnshop.com. Yarn supplies and books.
Wichita Art Museum Store, Kevin Bishop, Store Manager, 1400 W Museum Boulevard, Wichita, Kansas; 316-268-4922. Email: bishop@wichitaart museum.org. Web: http://www.wichitaartmuseum.org. Art books, clothing, and gifts.
Buy a Book - Support a Good Cause
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This past week I received the following email from Cheryl Morgan, founder of the First Time Authors Only Book Club on Facebook.I wanted to give you a bit of a follow-up on my First Time Authors Only Book Club on Facebook and some of the activities we're involved in right now.
Our most important activity right now is our Buy a Book - Support a Good Cause fundraiser to raise money for food pantries across the U.S. Right now we have 15 participating authors, but are still recruiting within the group. Each participating author has agreed to donate a portion of their book sales through Dec 31st to a local food pantry.
Pantries will be selected based on the location of our readers, not the authors. So if we get a lot of sales for my book from Texas, I will send my donation to the Texas representative who will then send one combined check to the pantry selected in that area. There is no minimum donation required. All details on the program and all the participating authors and their books are located on my website at http://www.c-a-morgan.com under the products link. Readers will see a scrolling marquee in the middle of the page featuring the participating authors.
Our other big project right now is clearing out the group. For the authors who are participating, we are accomplishing what we set out to do, which is get additional sales and notice for our books. But we have a lot of members who don't seem to understand the focus of the group and are not participating. So, I will be contacting each and every member between now and year end to determine if they understand the participating requirements and if they are going to be willing to participate. If not, I will then remove them from the group. In the meantime, I will also be recruiting new members who will understand from day one how the group works.
John's note: As a participant in Weight Watchers, I donated my current weight loss to a local food bank. Since I've lost 20 pounds in the past six months, I donated a 20-lb. bag of pinto beans to the local food bank. You don't know how heavy 20 lbs. is until you try carrying it around outside yourself. Glad to be rid of that 20 lbs. And now I'm working on losing another 20 lbs.
Using eWorkshops to build a revenue model for your writing
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Most writers work only toward the sale of their books, but the more successful writers combine other products into their business plan, such as consulting, speaking and educational events.eWorkshops are designed to create an additional revenue source through online videos to bring your stories and educational programs to the global market. eWorkshops also fit in as a new product for your sales funnel. As video has become an expected part of your web presence by most web users, eWorkshops can provide access to a large audience that might not otherwise hear about you or your book.
You can find out more about eWorkshops at:
http://eworkshops.eventbrite.comKindle and ebook formatting ... more info
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Joshua Tallent, a professional ebook converter, sent the following note in response to last issue's comments on formatting books for Kindle:I want to comment on the reader's advice about converting your book yourself into the various eBook formats. While I am an advocate of the DIY approach (I even wrote a book on it called Kindle Formatting: The Complete Guide), the fact is that the process of formatting an eBook is hard. That is especially true when you are converting it from a PDF.
PDF files are intended to be a print archive, not a foundational format that can be easily converted into other formats. The tools provided by Amazon and others will always create issues in the eBook files, some of which will be difficult to figure out without a clear understanding of the ins and outs of the different eBook formats.
Having a professional eBook developer format your eBook for you does not have to be very expensive. My average rate for converting fiction books into the Kindle format is under $200, and non-fiction is usually under $400. Considering the time and frustration an author is saving, that cost is certainly manageable. I also provide as much free guidance and help as I can to my clients, giving them the benefit of my 7 years in the eBook industry.
If you have any questions about eBooks, please do not hesitate to ask me. I am always available to chat on the phone and I love helping people understand the eBook world.
Joshua Tallent; 512-939-3466. Email: joshua@ebookarchitects.com. Web:
http://www.ebookarchitects.com and http://www.kindleformatting.comQuotable Books
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Everything you are against weakens you. Everything you are for empowers you. — Wayne Dyer, psychologist
More great quotes and quotable books at http://www.quotablebooks.com
Index: http://www.bookmarket.com/tipsindex.htm
Copyright © 2010 by book marketing expert John Kremer
Email: JohnKremer@bookmarket.com
Open Horizons, P O Box 2887, Taos NM 87571