You Have a Book Contract. Now, what?

What have I learned from getting my first book contract that I’d do better next time?

                                                                 LOTS

I was green as an alien. 4RV Publishing offered me my first contract in July, 2011. I'm grateful they took such a newbie under their wings.

 

Here’s my top ten tips:


1. Read your contract and clarify anything you don’t understand.

2. Have a professional picture and a short bio ready to go.

      3. Read any guidelines or information given by the publisher.

 

      4. Make friends in your local area with librarians, book store owners, and newspaper columnists before your book comes out, and you want a favor.

 

      5. Stay in town or with definite internet access during the last two months before release of the book.

 

      6. .Have an acknowledgement page ready to go when requested.

 

      7. Search out like books online and in book stores for what you desire in the cover art, so you’re ready with input when asked.

 

      8. Get reviewers and guest blogs lined up before your book releases.

 

      9. Consider arranging for a blog tour to announce the book

 

     10. Publishing is a team effort. You need the publisher, but they also need you, so don’t fear speaking up about something you don’t like or asking questions on anything you don’t understand

 

      11. Be ready to work as hard on the manuscript after the contract as you did before the contract.

Okay, I gave you 11. Sue me.

Does anyone else have words of wisdom to share?

Do You Use Social Media

Do you use social media as part of your marketing and promotion?

First, what is social media?

Social Media is any online form of communicating which individuals employ; including blogs and microblogs like Twitter.  Facebook, LinkedIn, and Google+ are social networking sites, of which there are many, and are a demarcation to  "industrial media," referring to radio, television, and film produced by professionals in these areas of media.

Since we now have a basic definition of what social and network media, do you employ these on a regular basis to let readers know about you, your writing, available books, and your work in progress? If you don’t, why not?

If you are writing for yourself, social and network media may not be as important to you; but if you want to get your writing into the hands of others, social and network media should be as important to you as writing the book itself.

As an author, you need to contact reviewers to write and post reviews on blogs,as well as mention the book rating on micro-blogs and networking sites. Give reviewers a picture of the book cover for their book review blog. 

These activities should be part of your promotion and marketing. You need to begin actively working on all forms of social and network media at the same time you begin writing your first draft.

Unless you have a secondary income other than your writing or are on a limited budget, it’s up to you to handle promotion on your own, rather than paying to have it done for you.

Social and network media is the new era of publishing for authors.

Robert Medak

Freelance Writer/Blogger/Editor/Proofreader/Reviewer/Marketer

http://xeeme.com/RobertMedak

Do you help other writers?

The question is when aspiring or seasoned writers have a question, need a critique, or something else, are you there to help.

Writers should be available to help other writers of any level with question about the writing and publishing process. Writers are a special group of creative people that need to support other writers whenever they can.

As an author, do you give other writers your time on social media sites, groups, or forums? This is helpful to other writers, to build a reputation, and become wider known online. We all want recognition for our work. Online networking and social media sites are what people other than other authors search.

By connecting with other authors on sites like Facebook, Google +, Stumbleupon, Pinterest, and others where you can share links about your blog(s), books, author website(s), advice for aspiring writers, how to contact you, or just to read about your latest project.

 

Do you cross-refer?

This is a simple way to help other authors. Place a hyperlink on your website to another author's and a reciprocal link from his or her website to yours. This is a way for each of you to help with traffic and better positioning on search engines for both of you.

There are many ways for authors to help authors establishing a web presence. Authors need a web presence if they plan to build an audience for books or an event like a book signing, radio spot, anywhere an author will be out in public. You can’t sell books if readers don’t know about it.

Do your part and help other writers.

Robert Medak

Freelance Writer/Blogger/Editor/Reviewer/

http://www.authorsden.com/robertmedak

http://rjmedak.wordpress.com/

http://twitter.com/freelancewrtr

Should an Author Have a Blog? Author Marketing 101

Most businesses today are using blogs as a way to promote their products and connect with their customers. So does the same hold true for you as an author hoping to market your book? Absolutely!

One of the greatest benefits of blogging as an author is that you have the ability to create a readership for your book… before it’s even released.

If you’re anticipating the release of your debut novel in a few months, you can start blogging on any topic related to your genre now. You may want to blog on how to write a children’s book as a children’s author, or even the ins and outs of the publishing process as a romance novelist. You can also use your blog for pure fiction to provide interested readers with free short stories related to your genre. Yes, it really will work.

But blogging can never reach its fullest potential if you don’t already have a presence in social media. Google views blogs as fresh content, so they’ll often rise to the top of the search results for specific keywords. But you can make it even easier for interested readers to find your blog by automatically syncing your blog to your social media profiles like Twitter and Facebook. This way, your friends and fans can read your new content and pass it around to other friends who may also be interested.

Keep Them Coming Back for More

The key to successful blogging is to use your fresh content as bait. If you’ve written an interesting blog post that has attracted reader traffic to your blog, you can’t just stop there. You need to write more and more interesting, compelling posts that will encourage readers to comment, join in the conversation, and pass links to your blog along to their friends.

In short, as an author with a blog, you are giving a valuable gift to potential readers. You are giving your readers useful content at no charge to help them put their trust in you. This is an effective and virtually free way for readers to get to know you to become part of your loyal audience. And the next time that they’re at a bookstore or browsing on Amazon, they’ll be more likely to remember your name and buy your book.

Bethany Ramos is an author and full-time freelance writer with experience in Internet marketing, social media marketing, and SEO. She is passionate about writing captivating children's books and witty chick lit. For more information, you can visit her blog at http://chicklit-books.com/.

Promotion - Why blog?

by Vivian Zabel   

            As far as we are concerned as an author, illustrator, editor, or publisher, a blog is a way to build an audience who will purchase our work, another way to promote ourselves, build our platform.

            Blogging creates excitement. It’s a way to get people interested in what we have to say. As we begin to generate the excitement, we begin to be recognized as a possible authority in the field we write about both in our blogs and in our books. People want to know more about us and our creative endeavors.

            Many of us begin to blog to attract people to our work, readers to our books, clients for our illustrations. However, we can begin to enjoy the process of blogging, since it is a creative way to show ourselves to others.

            Quoting The Internet Writing Journal’s article called “The Authors Dilemma – To Blog or Not to Blog”:  “The business of being an author has changed considerably over the last ten years. No longer is it sufficient to write a brilliant manuscript and manage to get it published. Authors now need to be excellent promoters of their own work. And for the intrinsically shy, that can be problematic. But an Internet trend has the potential to revolutionize author marketing, even for those who despise public speaking: blogging.”

            A few questions pop up, such as how often should we post on our blog, what subjects should we use, or how much advertising should we do?

            Let’s look at how often first: We should blog often enough to keep people interested, but not so often that we allow blogging to take the place of our other creative endeavors. Some people blog once a week; some every day. One suggestion for authors is to use a short blog post as a warm-up for the day’s writing.

            What subjects should we blog about?

1. We can write about an arena in which we excel or know much about. I can write about writing because I’ve studied it for most of my life and taught the subject for nearly 30 years.
2. We can write about a work in progress. We don’t want to give too much away, but enough so that people would be interested.
3. We can share excerpts and/or reviews of a published work. Illustrators can give samples of art work.

      How much should we advertise ourselves or our work? Any advertisement should be subtle. The majority of any post needs to be about something that might lead into promoting a particular work. Aidana WillowRaven and Ginger Nielson explain how they create something, which indirectly promotes a book – the main topic is the creation of the art work. The post should generate an interest in what we’re selling, not make people tired of our “hard sell.”

            Now, where do we find a blog site or platform?

Blogging Platforms

Blogger – http://www.blogspot.com (free, and they have a paid option)

LiveJournal – http://www.livejournal.com (ad-supported & paid options)

MySpace – http://www.myspace.com (free, not recommended for professional blogs)

Typepad – http://www.typepad.com (paid)

Vox – http://www.vox.com (free & paid options)

WordPress – http://www.wordpress.com (free & paid options)

Xanga – http://www.xanga.com (paid)

            Once we have site, how do we add some of the site visits and such, track activity on our blogs?

Blogging Tools

Blog Catalog – http://www.blogcatalog.com

Technorati – http://www.technorati.com

Digg It – http://www.diggit.com

Site Meter – http://www.sitemeter.com

            Yes, we need a website and a blog, unless we have a website that has a blog option. Remember we need to promote ourselves and our work, build and maintain a platform.

Vivian Zabel, author of Midnight Hours 

4RV Publishing 

4RV Catalog    

A Writer's Platform: Why is it important? How to Create One with Websites and/or Blogs

By Joan Y. Edwards

Publishers want to know your Writer’s Platform (Marketing Platform) – They want to know: “Who is going to buy your book? Who is going to entrust their money to purchase what you have written?”

What Readers Are You Bringing to the Selling/Buying Table?

The following are articles that tell a little more about the Writer's Platform (Marketing Platform):

1. Rebekah Sabek http://savvy-writer.com/2010/12/writers-must-have-a-marketing-platform-for-their-books/

2. Book Marketing Experts http://workingwritersandbloggers.com/2011/02/28/what-is-a-platform-and-how-can-you-identify-it/

3. Joel Friedlander http://www.thebookdesigner.com/2010/03/author-platform-what-are-you-waiting-for/

4. Bill Henderson http://writeabetternovel.net/a-writer%E2%80%99s-platform-want-to-publish-start-building-yours

Who Knows You?

In other words, publishers want to know how many people have heard or seen your name in person, in books, or on the internet. The number of people who know you increases your chances of selling your book.

Jonathan Fields http://tribalauthor.com/author-platform/ says publishers want to know the answers to the following questions:

How many people are on your email list or subscribers to your blog?

How many followers do you have on Twitter? (You want thousands.)

How many Facebook friends or fans do you have? (You want hundreds.)

How many monthly visitors do you get? (I think you want to have a steadily increasing number.)

Blog or Website

• A blog is a website.

• A website does not necessarily have a blog.

• A website is not necessarily a blog.

• A website has static pages that look the same and have few changes.

• A blog is technically, a guest book with posts and comments.

• A blog is not static; it changes with new posts and/or new comments.

Websites and Blogs Are Part of a Writer’s Platform

Read Jenny B's article, "Why All Writers Should Have Their Own Website:" http://www.bukisa.com/articles/321187_why-all-writers-should-have-their-own-website

Makes them known by more people.

Gives a place to market the writer’s books or products thus making a plus for publishers to publish their works.

Web Presence Is Part of a Writer’s Platform

Search on the internet for your name. It’ll show webpages, blogs, comments on blogs, facebook, twitter, and other links.

Each time you create a blog, website page, or leave a comment, you create a listing for Google’s Search. You are increasing your web presence.

My Web Presence-Website and Blogs

A search on the internet for Joan Y. Edwards today gives you thousands of possible links. It didn’t start out that way. In 2001, I started out with one link on our church’s website. I wrote devotionals and puzzles for children’s liturgy for children who might not be able to get to church.

In 2002 I took an online course at CPCC to learn how to create my own website. Because I had a website, I got a job writing and consulting for Liturgical Publications for four years. My website and my writing got the editor’s attention. He liked my style of writing.

Because I started my Never Give Up blog, writers joined me in submitting their work to publishers and/or agents on a monthly basis in a group called PubSub3rdFri. Submitting more often, increased our chances of getting published. I’ve been a guest blogger on other blogs. My ideas have appeared in the SCBWI-Carolinas Pen & Palette. A college writing instructor shares my blogposts with her students. I was chosen to interview Jeff Herman, author of Jeff Herman’s Guide to Publishers, Editors, and Literary Agents 2011. The number of visitors has grown from 1 to 8,316. All of these things increased my web presence. Now more people know me or about me.

Why am I telling you this? I want you to know it doesn’t happen all at once. It all happens one click at a time. One word at a time. One learning venture at a time. Believe in yourself. Begin that website. Start that blog. Take a step to increase your web presence and make your writing platform stronger today.

Joan Y. Edwards