I was stuck in Professor Uptight’s class against my will. It was a mandatory class I needed to obtain my degree, I was in my second to the last semester before graduating, and the time it was going to be offered the following semester just didn’t work. So I couldn’t drop it like my instincts told me to after the first day of class when I suspected our personalities were not going to mesh well.

The class was a literary criticism class, which, as an English lit major, came pretty easy to me at this point in my college career. But regardless of what I wrote, Professor Uptight hated it and graded accordingly. When I made an appointment to discuss this with him–after all, this was my major and I could not afford a C or a (gasp!) D in the class–I will never forget the way he looked with disdain at my outfit (early glam rock circa 1985) and my Walkman (the cassette version, for those of you who even remember those) upon learning I was listening to Billy Idol (he asked!). I kind of knew right then and there that I didn’t have a chance in his class.

My point after this long-winded narrative? As the old adage says, you just can’t please all of the people all of the time. As an author now, I am learning that there are people who will criticize my work—some of them like to do it over and over again. They will have a list of reasons–some of them valid, I admit–why my book sucks. So what to do when they tell the world about it?

You have two basic choices: You can ignore it. Or you can pay attention to it. (Well, I guess the third choice is to freak out about it, but I definitely don’t recommend that!)

I like to pay attention to it. My book is nonfiction, so I tend to respond (literally) to critical reviews when I can because I have real hard time keeping my mouth (keyboard?) quiet. I often agree with some of the criticism (my book was traditionally published, so some of the points of contention are about things that were out of my hands–a testament to one of the reasons why self-publishing can be a good idea), and I will generally mention that. Other points I will adamantly disagree with, and I like to say so. But I keep my tone professional, and I don’t bear a grudge against the reviewer. If you are going to put a book out there, you need to put on your big girl panties (er, big boy boxers?) and suck it up when someone doesn’t like it.

Another reason to listen to harsh criticism is because you can learn from it. Try to see your book from the reviewer’s point of view. There are probably areas you can work on in your next book. Essentially, a reviewer might be providing a valuable service in helping you improve your writing and your next book.

It’s tough not to take bad reviews personally. But it’s helpful to remember that the review is (usually) about the work not the person. You can’t be all things to all people, and neither can your book. Plus, reviews (like grades for literary criticism papers) are subjective. Repeat. Reviews are subjective. Just because one person doesn’t like your work doesn’t mean it’s bad or that everyone will dislike it.

Incidentally, I got a C in Professor Uptight’s class; it was the only C I got in any class in my major and brought down my entire college GPA. I got an A in Professor Flannel’s class. But I also learned a valuable life lesson beyond the course work: You cannot control a person’s perception of you, but you can control how you react to it.

Before you write it

1. Have a unique approach to a relevant topic. There are a lot of books published every year. Make sure yours stands out from the crowd for the right reasons.

2. Decide why you are writing a book. To make money? To establish expertise? To see yourself in print? All are valid reasons that may impact how you publish as well as market the book.

3. Make sure you have an audience for the book. And make sure you know how to reach them. If you plan to market strictly online and your audience is made up of non–Internet savvy readers, you may have a problem.

4. Build a following via social media sites. It’s never too early to start making connections with potential readers and relevant professionals via social media. There are many sites out there, but Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn are the most common. You may also want to check out sites such as book marketing expert John Kremer’s Book Marketing Network.

Before you launch it

5. Create a website that features your (forthcoming) book. This one is a no-brainer.

6. Start building your email list. Publish an ezine and offer a free report, free chapter, or some other bonus for people to opt-in with. When you attend events, collect business cards and email addresses. Send them an email or a copy of your ezine, and invite them to opt-in. 

7. Start blogging. This is the best way to keep your website content fresh. It’s also a great way to stay in touch with potential readers and professionals within your industry. You can also use it to establish your credibility well before your book is published.

8.  Use your blog to ask for feedback on your book’s content. Then promise to acknowledge everyone who comments in your book. These people will feel an “ownership” in your book and will help spread the word after it launches.

9. Create a list of important bloggers in your field. Start interacting with them by commenting on their blogs.

10. Get testimonials and endorsements from pertinent people in your field. These are great promotional tools that can then go on the book cover and/or inside the book. Post them on your website and use them in news releases.

11. Approach associations relevant to your book’s content. Suggest ways you can work together. Perhaps you can put on a workshop or seminar, speak at an event, or write an article for their newsletter or blog.

12. Set up Google alerts. Stay abreast of industry news by setting up an alert in your name, your competitors’ names, and other key terms. This will enable you to jump into the online conversation in a timely manner.

13. Have your manuscript edited by a professional. Ensuring that your content is top-notch will go a long way in making your reputation is top-notch.

14. Have your book cover designed by a professional. Don’t skimp on this very important sales tool. A professional book cover designer will ensure your book stands proudly next to any other book on the shelf.

15. Create your own competition. Create a competition on your website or on Twitter (Tony Eldridge has written an excellent book on Twitter contests) with copies of the book as prizes. Follow up with those who entered but didn’t win and offer them a discount to purchase your book.

16. Offer the book as a prize on other websites and blogs. You should have already put together a list of blogs and websites where your book could potentially be promoted. Offer the blogger or website owner free copies of your book to be used as competition prizes.

17. Send out free copies of the book. Don’t skimp on this important aspect of promotions. It’s a great way to garner reviews and endorsements. Send out copies to influential bloggers and journalists. 

18. Pull out excerpts of the book to use as articles. Post them on free article sites that are available all over the Internet.

19. Create and post videos. Keep videos short and sweet (under 10 minutes) and publish on YouTube and your own website, as well as other sites. 

20. Schedule a launch day. Pick one specific day and make sure plenty of activity is planned around this day. Notify your email list, post some videos to YouTube, hold a webinar, plan some guest blog posts. All that activity should go a long way in creating momentum.

After you publish it

21. Offer a chapter as a downloadable PDF. Post one of your book’s chapters on your website as a free, downloadable file. Encourage readers to share it with others. Include a summary of the rest of book to encourage people to buy it.

22. Publish the book’s table of contents on your website. Include a brief overview about each chapter. Optimize the page for search engines.

23. Organize an online virtual book tour. Touring the country to physically visit bookstores is cost prohibitive for most authors—and not all that effective unless you are a celebrity.  Arrange a tour online with virtual stops at websites and blogs. You’ll gain maximum exposure for minimum costs.

24. Encourage people to write a review of your book on Amazon.com. Ask everyone who gets a copy of your book to publish a five-star review of your book on Amazon.

25. Publish reviews and testimonials of the book on your website. Include reviews from Amazon.com and other sites where your book has been reviewed, as well as any testimonials you’ve received.

26. Arrange interviews with bloggers in your genre and radio hosts interested in your subject matter. This is a win-win since it provides them with valuable content and you with valuable publicity. Include these as part of your virtual author book tour initially, but you can continue to schedule interviews even after your initial publication. As long as your book is for sale, the promotion push should be ongoing.

27. Makes sure you always have copies of your book with you. I’ve had clients sell 20 or more copies out of their trunk or waiting in line at the post office. One author I know gave away a copy of his book to an executive, who ended up ordering dozens of copies for his company.

And don’t stop with this list. There are dozens more things you can do to promote your book. Get creative, be persistent, and watch your book sales go up.

1. Stick to book topics that will appeal directly to your blog readers.

2. Ask for a review copy of the author’s book and read it ahead of time.

3. Decide whether you’d like the author to do a guest post, answer interview questions, or post a book excerpt. Let the author know if you have a word limit.

4. If you go with interview questions, develop a list of questions that will allow the author to discuss their book but which will also provide valuable content for your blog readers. Make sure you get these questions to the author so he or she has plenty of time to provide compelling responses.

5. Ask the author to provide a head shot, photo of their book cover, and a brief bio.

6. Add the author’s blog to your blog roll.

7. Decide when you’ll post the author’s “appearance,” and make sure he or she will be available that day to answer questions or respond to comments your readers post.

8. Find out whether the author has a web page listing all the stops on their virtual author book tour, along with the topics they’ll be discussing. If he or she does, post the link to this page.

9. Include a link to the book’s Amazon.com page; or if you are an Amazon affiliate, add a buy link for the book.

10. Remind the author to be sure to blog about the visit on his or her own blog—with a link back to your blog, of course.

11. Publicize the blog post once it’s up via social media groups you belong to, including any forums, discussion groups, and ListServs. If you’ve got an ezine, include a link there as well.

12. It’s recommended that you put the post up early in the morning—shoot for prior to 8 am Eastern time.

13. Check the post regularly so you can respond to comments and answer questions. (Your author should be doing that as well!)

A few final notes: Remember to thank your author for including your blog on his or her virtual tour. It’s also nice if you post a review of the book on sites such as Amazon and GoodReads.

Sounds okay on the surface, right? Finally, PW is going to acknowledge that the tides of traditional publishing have turned, and there are merits to the self-published book. Its new quarterly supplement, PW Select, will announce self-published titles and review those they deem deserving. The listing will include the name of the author, book title and brief description, along with ordering information.

Even the $149 “processing” fee is somewhat palatable since it is offered with a six-month subscription (a $90 value, however dubious).

The processing fee does not include a guaranteed review. But ostensibly, this is because of their very high standards: “We briefly considered charging for reviews, but in the end preferred to maintain our right to review what we deemed worthy. The processing fee that guarantees a listing and the chance to be reviewed accomplishes what we want: to inform the trade of what is happening in self-publishing and to present a PW selection of what has the most merit.”

But wait: “…we’ll likely invite a few agent friends and distributors to have a look at what we’ve chosen. No promises there, just letting some publishing friends take advantage of the opportunity to see the collection.”

All right. Ick. “We’ll likely”? “No promises”? So basically this is just a way to squeeze some cash out of already bootstrapped self-publishers? I’m shocked that Publishers Weekly would sink to such a low. Are they that strapped for cash? PW Select is nothing more than a thinly veiled attempt to increase revenue without offering anything of real value. Call it what it is: a paid advertisement. Agents and publishers are not going to pore over these listings to find projects. And to attempt to mislead authors into believing this is the case is low. Really low.

I’m all for Publishers Weekly acknowledging that indie authors are becoming a major force in the world of publishing. But for them to do it this way leaves a real bad taste in my mouth. I can only hope that self-publishers—and I refer to those who have not gone the vanity route—will recognize this for what it is: just one more way the traditional publishing world is attempting to draw a distinction between traditional and indie publishing. And readers really don’t care who the publisher is, as long as they like what the author has to say.

I live in South Africa and I am published in the USA. Distance has made it impossible for me to go the traditional marketing route. Online is all I have open to me. I have worked very hard to go from “Fiona Who?” to not quite “Aha, Fiona Ingram, the famous children’s author,” but to a point where I have a healthy Google profile, a nice author site, with lots of links to interviews, book reviews, articles, etc. When I began researching (as is my wont) the concept of book marketing, I still had the silly notion that as a writer, all one did was write and people would automatically rush out and get one’s books. Not at all. Nowadays, even the traditional publishers expect their authors to do their own marketing as well.

An author cannot just be an author. He or she has to be a product or a brand. Publishers are also more interested in someone who has more than just books to offer. Readers are greedy for information about the author, what inspires them, what new books are coming up, etc. Your marketing will incorporate your author online platform which leans heavily on Social Media.

The online author platform consists of: your book/s; your website; your author profile/bio; an e-zine or newsletter; a blog; a video interview (vlog); a podcast radio interview; a video preview on sites like YouTube; articles you’ve written; articles about you.

Your website is your biggest asset in your author platform. You can put up information on your book and purchasing details, as well as your press release, your bio and a good pic, your reviews, and anything written about you and your book. When you reply to people, include your website in your signature so interested parties can track you back to your site, thus creating a good stream of traffic. Been interviewed on the radio or a local television station? Ask for a copy and put these up on your site as well. The more electronic information people have available for easy access, the better. From here, you can also launch your blog or fan club, set up your Twitter and other options, and link your social network sites, such as Facebook, Myspace, Squidoo, etc, back to this. You can also launch your website on many social sites simultaneously. These create coverage and alert the industry to your presence.

Google is a fantastic tool. You can load your articles, get a Google Alert to notify you every time something comes up about you and your book, link other sites back to your own to increase your ratings and give you credibility, set up a Blogger alert, join Google’s Library page, keep track of your site’s performance with Google Analytics, and much more.

Blogging and blog tours. You can “chat” to eager readers by going on a Virtual Book Tour. Virtual book tours are a promotional tool for authors to connect with readers via book blogs. Tours usually include a minimum number of tour stops over the course of one month on a variety of blogs. Some companies offer to feature on each tour stop a photo of the book, a review, links to the author’s website and blog, and will include your purchase information. Authors who interact with tour hosts and make themselves available for guest posting, interviews, Q&A sessions with blog commenters, and who respond to comments will have the greatest success from their tour.

Book competitions. Why should you enter? It’s not so much about winning as being seen. Competitions broaden your author profile because people in the industry will read your book. Organizers also post results online to market their contests. Even if you don’t win, you may get a Best Runner-Up mention, and that’s the kind of detail you will put in your press release. You don’t have to be in print yet to enter some competitions.

Do not stop marketing. Even when your book is out there and you’ve sent off your press releases, don’t stop spreading the word! Do something every day (either online or physical) to continue your marketing thrust. Penny Sansivieri of AME says: “Remember—marketing doesn’t sell books … marketing gives you exposure and exposure sells books.”

To get something done … you have to do it yourself. You only get reviews if you ask for them; you have to make a huge effort to engage with potential readers through blogs, tours, tweets, Facebook, all the social media tools freely available at every writer’s fingertips. There is so much free information that there’s no excuse for writers to moan about not getting publicity. Author sites abound, and if you’re not sure what to do, many marketing newsletters and e-zines offer load of free information. 

* * * * *

Fiona Ingram (B.A., Hons. (Natal), M.A., (Wits)) was born and educated in South Africa. Her interest in ancient history, mystery, and legends, and her enjoyment of travel has resulted in The Secret of the Sacred Scarab, the first in her exciting children’s adventure series—Chronicles of the Stone. The first book was inspired by an actual trip the author took to Egypt with her two young nephews (then aged 10 and 12).

Please visit Fiona’s author site http://www.fionaingram.com/ for more articles on marketing. For her book site, visit http://www.secretofthesacredscarab.com/.

 Authors: Joe Gregory and Debbie Jenkins

 Publishing Academy, 2009

Back cover synopsis: Renegade publishers, Debbie Jenkins and Joe Gregory, share their hard-won experience to show you exactly how to make a fast and impressive income as a non-fiction author in six easy-to-follow steps. This book obliterates the outdated “truths” of the publishing business and shows you what it really takes to succeed in the new publishing economy. Whether you’re a budding author looking for your first break or a published author wanting to take your sales, profile, and income to the next level, you’ll love what you’re going to learn when you read this book.

Traditionally published and self-published authors alike will benefit from this handy guide. It provides a realistic plan for authors who truly want to sell books and make money. I enjoyed the irreverent tone of this easy-to-read book.

Divided into six practical steps, the first three cover coming up with a winning book idea and then getting it down on paper. Even those with a book already in hand will benefit from the tips on creativity, including the WWWD (What Would Walt Disney Do) approach. Word association and Mind-Mapping are also discussed at length. If you don’t already have a finished manuscript but just an idea, this chapter will help you determine whether or not it has bestseller potential.

Step four thrashes out the options for getting your book published. The authors go over the pros and cons of traditional publishing, self-publishing, and subsidy/vanity publishing. (I think my favorite line in the whole book is “I’d basically said, ‘Vanity presses are a complete waste of space!’”) They weigh-in highly in favor of self-publishing for nonfiction books, and they explain why—basically because authors retain intellectual control and they have the potential to make a lot more money this way. The practicalities of self-publishing are also covered, such as obtaining an ISBN, using Lightning Source as a printer, and getting distribution.

Final chapters get into the specifics of “selling loads of books.” There are a lot of lists (the authors seem to favor these and they are peppered throughout the book), such as “3 Reasons Why Brick and Mortar Stores Aren’t Worth It,” “5 Reasons Why Self-Publishers Should Focus On Selling Through Online Bookstores Instead,” and “44 High Impact Book Marketing Tactics That Work.”

Final sections of the book list useful publishing and promotion links, as well as a bibliography. Although the table of contents is quite extensive, that does not take the place of an index, which the book doesn’t have. I am a strong proponent of all nonfiction books having an index.

This book should be on the shelf of every author who wants to make money instead of mistakes.

1. Well in advance of your publication date (at least two or three months), gather your list of potential reviewers in print, broadcast, and electronic outlets. Double-check that contact information is correct and be sure to address your request to a person—by name.
2. Write a great letter or email, emphasizing the benefits to your reviewers’ readers, and be sure to include a picture of your book cover. We’re finding that there are very few sources who don’t want to accept emails these days, so that’s usually the route we take. However, there are a group of book trade reviewers who have very specific requirements for review requests. Be sure to follow the instructions on their websites.
3. Follow up on all requests the week after you’ve sent them out. Continue to follow up until you have either gotten a “yay” or “nay” from everyone, or until you’ve made at least three attempts to touch base. We use an Excel Spreaksheet to keep track.
4. When the responses start coming in, send review copies within a day or two of receiving the request. Include with the review copy of the book your press kit, which should minimally include a press release, an author bio, a mock review (This is a favorable review written for your book.), and a galley information sheet.
5. After two to three weeks, send an inquiry to the potential reviewer, ensuring your book has arrived and asking when they might make a decision as to whether or not a review will appear in their publication.
6. If you don’t hear back from them, follow up a couple more times, emphasizing how your book provides a benefit for their readers.
7. If you do hear back, be sure to follow up, based on the response you receive. Always express your appreciation for their consideration.
8. Continue to follow up each week until you’ve exhausted your list.
9. Keep track of the favorable responses you receive and make sure you get a copy of every review—or article, story, or interview. You can use these pieces to obtain even more publicity.
10. Post the links to the reviews/stories in your media room on your website and mention them in your blog or newsletter, and on social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook.