The Next Step
Book Marketing Collaboration Wins by a Mile
June 01, 2008 21:55
Book Marketing
Collaboration Wins by a Mile
Five steps for great teamwork
by Julie Ann Shapiro
Book marketing is not a solitary event. It’s not like writing a book. It’s a social process involving networking and promotions to generate buzz about your book. One of the more fun ways to get the momentum building is through marketing collaboration with other authors.
Collaboration among authors works like a track relay team where each player runs and passes the baton to the next runner. If one member of the team drops the baton and forgets to do his or her part the whole team loses.
In athletics, teamwork is a necessary component for success. The same is true in a collaborative environment like book marketing—where an idea shared can transform a good promotions effort into a great one that catches on like wild fire. Collaboration makes the sum greater than the individual components.
Instilling the attitude for true collaborative teamwork is difficult. In a way, it’s like a “think tank”—a place where ideas and strategies develop and are nurtured. Inherent in this process is acceptance of the collaborative effort without fear of recrimination or rejection. Respect is crucial.
The core elements to collaboration involve:
Setting up expectations
The collaborative process works best by setting up expectations from the getgo. Understand what each person wants and needs. Have fun exploring this and seeing how you can work together to help market each others’ books.
Developing open communication
Trust each one another. Respect the other’s viewpoints, and listen to what each other has to say. It also involves including each other in the process. Remember, they’re part of your collaborative team.
Willing to share
Brainstorm together. Test out opportunities that benefit both parties. Recognize when the other’s niche is needed, even if there’s nothing in it for you. For instance, one author might see a call for a column on mystery writing. The other might notice a call for something on magic realism. It takes all a couple of seconds to share this kind of information. When the other party knows you’re thinking of them in this way they’ll be quick to reciprocate.
Committing to teamwork
All parties need a willingness to work together. When one party pulls out of this process it’s as if a team mate drops the baton in the track and field race causing the process to fail.
How to do you get collaboration started?
Start talking to other authors. Get to know each other. Make friends in social network media environments like Facebook and writer related forums and in your local community.
Open the dialogue. For instance one author might say to another,” Hey, I admire your books. Are you looking to do more marketing? Would you be willing to brainstorm and see how we can help each other?”
An author might answer, “Wow, that sounds great. How about we do some joint book reviews? Why don’t we interview each other? Hey, what about guest blogging on each others’ blogs?”
The sharing of opportunities like this can not only be beneficial, but a joyful learning process. Once you agree to help each other out in this collaborative way, remember to always emphasize trust and comfort in the process. Remind each other,” Book marketing is not a solitary event. We’re running this race together. We’ll sell books and have fun.”
Julie Ann Shapiro is a novelist and short story author and is widely known for her magic realism style prose. She has completed two novels the first is Jen-Zen and the One Shoe Diaries, published by SynergEbooks.com in December 2007. Her second novel, Three Drop Pennies is a semifinalist in Amazon’s Breakthrough Novel Contest. Julie is a Pushcart Nominee and has published over seventy short stories, including the story collection, Flashes of the Other World, published by Pulp Bits in August 2006. The author is a recurring flash fiction workshop leader at the Southern California Writers Conference. Her website is: www.julieannshapiro.com
Five steps for great teamwork
by Julie Ann Shapiro
Book marketing is not a solitary event. It’s not like writing a book. It’s a social process involving networking and promotions to generate buzz about your book. One of the more fun ways to get the momentum building is through marketing collaboration with other authors.
Collaboration among authors works like a track relay team where each player runs and passes the baton to the next runner. If one member of the team drops the baton and forgets to do his or her part the whole team loses.
In athletics, teamwork is a necessary component for success. The same is true in a collaborative environment like book marketing—where an idea shared can transform a good promotions effort into a great one that catches on like wild fire. Collaboration makes the sum greater than the individual components.
Instilling the attitude for true collaborative teamwork is difficult. In a way, it’s like a “think tank”—a place where ideas and strategies develop and are nurtured. Inherent in this process is acceptance of the collaborative effort without fear of recrimination or rejection. Respect is crucial.
The core elements to collaboration involve:
- Setting up expectations
- Developing open communication
- Trusting each others input
- Willing to share
- Committing to teamwork
Setting up expectations
The collaborative process works best by setting up expectations from the getgo. Understand what each person wants and needs. Have fun exploring this and seeing how you can work together to help market each others’ books.
Developing open communication
Trust each one another. Respect the other’s viewpoints, and listen to what each other has to say. It also involves including each other in the process. Remember, they’re part of your collaborative team.
Willing to share
Brainstorm together. Test out opportunities that benefit both parties. Recognize when the other’s niche is needed, even if there’s nothing in it for you. For instance, one author might see a call for a column on mystery writing. The other might notice a call for something on magic realism. It takes all a couple of seconds to share this kind of information. When the other party knows you’re thinking of them in this way they’ll be quick to reciprocate.
Committing to teamwork
All parties need a willingness to work together. When one party pulls out of this process it’s as if a team mate drops the baton in the track and field race causing the process to fail.
How to do you get collaboration started?
Start talking to other authors. Get to know each other. Make friends in social network media environments like Facebook and writer related forums and in your local community.
Open the dialogue. For instance one author might say to another,” Hey, I admire your books. Are you looking to do more marketing? Would you be willing to brainstorm and see how we can help each other?”
An author might answer, “Wow, that sounds great. How about we do some joint book reviews? Why don’t we interview each other? Hey, what about guest blogging on each others’ blogs?”
The sharing of opportunities like this can not only be beneficial, but a joyful learning process. Once you agree to help each other out in this collaborative way, remember to always emphasize trust and comfort in the process. Remind each other,” Book marketing is not a solitary event. We’re running this race together. We’ll sell books and have fun.”
Julie Ann Shapiro is a novelist and short story author and is widely known for her magic realism style prose. She has completed two novels the first is Jen-Zen and the One Shoe Diaries, published by SynergEbooks.com in December 2007. Her second novel, Three Drop Pennies is a semifinalist in Amazon’s Breakthrough Novel Contest. Julie is a Pushcart Nominee and has published over seventy short stories, including the story collection, Flashes of the Other World, published by Pulp Bits in August 2006. The author is a recurring flash fiction workshop leader at the Southern California Writers Conference. Her website is: www.julieannshapiro.com
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Why You Should Take Digital Fiction Seriously
March 03, 2008 11:54
Why You Should Take Digital Fiction Seriously
by Julie Ann Shapiro
The book publishing world is a hard if not brutal business. I know 50 outstanding writers that don’t stand a chance of getting published by the mainstream industry and of this group each writer in turn probably knows another 50 and so exponentially we’re looking at 1000 writers with books that under regular circumstances wouldn’t stand a chance of making it. But the good news is there’s a whole world of opportunities opening up in the digital publishing arena. Before I go into that I want to tell you the typical cycle from writer to literary agent to a mainstream publishing house.
The average literary agent gets 150 queries a day from writers hoping to get their book published. The agent chooses to represent roughly 1% of these books. Agents pitch these books to the publishers who get thousands of manuscripts a year to review. An editorial committee at the publishing house then decides what books to take, but that’s not the end of the cycle. The committee still has to convince marketing that the book will earn out its royalties and advances. One naysayer at a publishing house can literally kill the book’s chances of getting published.
Novels by the established, the well known, the trendy and celebrity types with ghost writers have a greater chance of getting a book published than many talented writers.
Fortunately, digital publishing has arrived on the scene and with the potential to revolutionalize the publishing industry. This means every word, image, sound, animation, and movie can be delivered as a series of digital ones and zeros. In a word, digital publishing has changed our definition of books.
Today digital publishing is anything from an electronic (e-Book), CD-ROM, to a paper-based book or hybrid with Internet inactivity. Many of you have heard the term print on demand. This utilizes digital technology. It’s a means many independent and small presses have adopted to get their books out there and so have the likes of Harper Collins. Often times when book stores today purchase books they are printed on demand to keep costs of production down. It’s a little known cost saving secret and how the publishing industry is evolving.
What digital publishing has done for the book world is to level the playing field and give independent presses a chance to publish the kinds of books they want. More importantly it gives readers a chance to read books beyond just what the mega-conglomerate publishing houses produce.
Most of the mainstream publishers go with what’s safe and proven to make money. It’s less and less about art and more and more about dollars. This is where small digital presses have a chance to offer readers something different and to in turn give new generations of talented writers a chance.
Yes, talent, that’s what you’ll find in the digital realm in my not so humble opinion. It’s fast becoming a home for bold fiction that’s not afraid to take chances much like independent films. As more and more legions of writers are shut out by the main stream publishing conglomerates they will have no choice, but to seek out other avenues. For this reason some may liken digital publishing to self-publishing. While it’s true that anyone can publish something digitally, it doesn’t mean that by association digital book publishers are places to shun or disrespect.
This neglects the marketplace and the recognition that there are a plethora of well respected independent publishers such as Double Dragon Press, Zumaya, Mundania Press, SynergEbooks, New Concepts Publishing, Boson Books, C & M Online, Samhain Publishing, Echelon Press, Silk’s Vault and countless others who choose to offer books digitally. Not to mention the major distribution channels established for ebooks, including Fictionwise, and Mobipocket.
Even the mainstream publishers recognize the dynamic medium that digital books offer. Most of them now have ebook divisions and are seeking to capitalize on the vast Internet audience, the massive amounts of people using PDAs and other mobile devices that support ebook readers. Last fall, Harlequin announced that 40% of its new titles would be issued as ebooks.
The September 5, 2007 article in the New York Times, Envisioning the Next Chapter for Electronic Books, talked about Amazon.com's Kindle
,
an electronic book reader priced at $400 to
$500. It
mentioned that the Kindle’s ability to wirelessly
connect to an e-book store on Amazon’s site is a
significant advance over older e-book devices, which
must be connected to a computer to download books or
articles.Google also has plans to start charging users for digital copies of books in their database. Despite these two major Internet leaders’ plans to further their reach in the digital publishing market along with the respected publishers in the ebook marketplace, legions of consumers still don’t view digital books as real books. Many consumers in turn are hesitant to purchase ebooks, even though they are vastly cheaper than their paperback counterparts, not to mention the environmental factor of saving trees. In turn many traditional book reviewers will not consider reviewing a digital book. The authors of ebook, digital produced print on demand bookss and even epublishers at times feel like Rodney Dangerfield uttering his famous refrain, “I don’t get no respect.”
It’s time to recognize digital books as real books and applaud digital publishers for giving talented authors a chance. Let’s recognize that they are entrepreneurs living out the American Dream and carving a niche in a difficult market. After all, thousands of very good books are turned down by the mainstream publishers every year for the basic reason that they are not commercial enough…i.e. they won’t generate enough cash.
If you love books, support a digital literary writer by reading and reviewing their books. Good books deserve to be given a chance. This is your literary future, your legacy.
Julie Ann Shapiro is a novelist and short story author and is widely known for her magic realism style prose. She has completed two novels the first is Jen-Zen and the One Shoe Diaries, published by SynergEbooks.com in December 2007. Her second novel, Three Drop Pennies is a semifinalist in Amazon’s Breakthrough Novel Contest. Julie is a Pushcart Nominee and has published over seventy short stories, including the story collection, Flashes of the Other World, published by Pulp Bits in August 2006. The author is a recurring flash fiction workshop leader at the Southern California Writers Conference. Her website is: www.julieannshapiro.com