Posts filed under 'Uncategorized'
Seven Affordable Book Marketing Tips to Help Writers Sell Their Self-Published Book
So you’ve done the work, overcome a busy schedule, beaten back personal doubts and published your book. You witnessed your life dream come to fruition when you first cracked open the cover of your book and ran your finger over your name on the smooth pages.
So … what happens now?
If you’re thinking, “Now I’ll just sit back and wait for the royalty checks to pour in,” you’re going to be sadly mistaken.
Most publishers don’t offer a lot of marketing for their books, especially self-publishing companies (yes, that goes for Wordclay, too). Some authors publish for a limited audience of family, co-workers or friends, and for these authors, they don’t actually need to do anything else. However, if you’re among the majority of authors who want to compete in the book market, hoping to sell at least a handful to perfect strangers with your ultimate possible outcome being world domination, then it’s time to get to work.
The truth is, if you don’t market and promote your book, no one will know that it exists. Not librarians, bookstore owners, students, book club leaders, not people browsing for a book on Amazon – no one.
It’s time to take action with these seven easy and inexpensive book marketing tips to get started promoting your book:
1. Get with the times and get online.
Anyone can have a blog or Web site, so you’ve got no excuse. Blogs and sites are an easy way to increase your Web presence, keep readers updated with upcoming events and create a relationship with your readers. Here are a few to consider:
- Author Tree.com – Create a free author Web site at AuthorTree, an ever-growing community of writers.
- WordPress.com – Hey, they gave us a blog, and they’ll give you one too (it’s free plus you can pay extra to get cool upgrades).
- TypePad – Dynamic blog platform with affordable monthly rates.
- Blogger – A free blogging platform owned by Google.
2. Rehearse for your grocery store cameo.
6 comments April 24, 2008
Wordclay Author to Perform in Poetry Showcase in Philadelphia for Poetry Month, Promoting Literacy
We’re happy to announce that one of our very own Wordclay poets, Tamesha Hawkins, will be performing for the “Lyrical Playground” event at Kensington High School in Philadelphia, Pa.
April is National Poetry Month, and to promote literacy in public schools, Hawkins and other Philadelphia favorites will be performing their work.
The event will be hosted from 11:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. Hawkins will be performing work from her debut book Sugar Lumps and Black Eye Blues plus new work from her sophomore book, Confectionately Yours!
So, if you live in the area, grab a seat for the performance and prepare to be entertained.
“Lyrical Playground” Event Details:
Our Mission: create positive outlets for the youths in ethnic and urban communities through the form of poetry.
Event: spoken-word poetry showcase.
Date: Friday, April 11th 2008
Time: 11:00am – 1:00pm
Place: Kensington High School
2051 E Cumberland St
Philadelphia, PA 19125
Wordclay authors can submit their events and news coverage to our customer support team at customersupport@wordclay.com. So if you’ve published with Wordclay, and have some news for us, let us know the details of your event, and include links to any articles.
We’re always happy to help you out when we can.
-Angie
Add comment April 10, 2008
The Series Publication Sequel: How Print-On-Demand Can Benefit Literary Magazines and Trade Periodicals
For those of you who haven’t yet read the comments on the Periodical and ISSN blogs, Valya is thinking of starting a journal, and she’s wondering if Wordclay, a free print-on-demand publisher, is the right choice.
Who can blame her? The idea of a print-on-demand periodical is a relatively new concept, even though I’m not sure exactly why. To me at least, it just makes sense to order as many copies of a journal as you need, so you aren’t out hundreds of dollars on unused copies that end up collecting dust in your cramped office.
Still, Valya has questions, and I aim to answer them.
Valya: “You say, ‘You can always pay a small price for the Stock Cover Art and submit artwork with directions for our professional designers.’ What if I want to design my own cover with my own photography? Is there an acceptable format that I can send to you to have printed?
Justin: You can design the complete cover if you are capable of doing so. You can also contract your own designer to lay it out for you. The exact specs for each of our formats are in the FAQs toolbox. The best formats to use when sending the cover would be a layered .psd file or .tiff file, and if possible a PDF of the full cover as well.
But unless you’re an experienced designer, I don’t recommend laying the cover out yourself. The whole concept behind Wordclay is DIY publishing through being affordable.
Not only will you devote tons of time to laying out a cover, or perhaps tons of money hiring a designer (and you’ll still have to pay Wordclay a custom quoted fee to use the cover you provide anyway), but often times the smallest formatting error can throw the whole design off for the printers.
For example, you may miss a trim line or you may not leave enough room for the imprint or barcode – what then? Your cover looks only half as good as it could have – that’s what.
That said, the two best options (in my opinion), are either (more…)
9 comments March 26, 2008
