Why did you write a book?

The amount of effort that goes into crafting a manuscript, revising it, sharing it, eating some humble pie while you revise it again, and then entering into the publishing process ... it can be a huge burden for normal humans.

What is it about writers that drives them to not only begin a manuscript but to actually see it through to the end product: a book?

Why do we do it?

For some writers, particularly fiction, it's the incessant voice of the muse pushing them to tell a story. They cannot help but write. If they have an audience already waiting for the next installment, they've not only created a fictional world where their imagination has been able to develop, but they've created a real world of people who want to share that imagination because it sparks something in them: emotional memory, living vicariously through the characters, or maybe just the entertainment of an alternate world. They connect through stories.

For other authors, the need to share a message with the world is so strong that a book -- or two or three -- is the place they can place all their thoughts and have those ideas reach an audience. Not only do these tomes offer a place of expression to share a passion, but they help the author and the readers connect with each other over a message. If a book's message is strong enough and is shared by many, it can create change. Nothing is more powerful than a message supported by passion and connection.

For business people, a book is a way to share expertise. It is a format that potential clients can take home with them, study, read, and learn from an expert. It can even be a way to prime a client before they embark on hiring you for your specialty. For example, a company that sells knitting supplies: yarn, needles, patterns, and that even offers classes, would benefit from having a book about knitting for beginners. How? Not only will the beginning knitter be better informed about the process, the need for practice, the tools they'll require, and exactly what to expect, but the book will have them already believing in the knitting store as their source for all their questions and supplies. They'll trust the store because they wrote the book on the subject.

We often get bogged down in the idea of how to sell a book, how to market it and find an audience--all incredibly important details to the success of the work. However, with all the time and effort that goes into a project as determined as a book, it is good to remember what your intentions were, are, and will be.

Meaningful Cover Images

So you've written a book, and the time has come to pick an image for your cover. Luckily, you know exactly what you want. The image you have in mind is eye-catching. More importantly, it's deeply meaningful.

That's great, right?

Well, maybe. The key question is, meaningful to whom?

Consider the following hypothetical scenario.

* * *

When you were seven, you got yelled at in school for not paying attention. Lots of kids laughed. The girl in front of you turned around and saw that you were holding back tears of humiliation. You thought she'd laugh too.

"That teacher's just mean," the girl said. She took off the star of David necklace she'd been wearing and gave it to you. "Here. Don't be sad."

You moved away the following year. But you always remembered the girl, and her gesture of kindness. And you always kept the necklace.

During your senior year of college, you noticed someone staring at you from across the quad. She walked toward you, smiling. It was the girl from first grade! She had matured into a striking young woman. The two of you began dating. A year after graduation, you were married.

But your marriage fell on hard times after the initial honeymoon period. You argued about everything. After one particularly bad fight, you stormed into the bedroom and started packing. Who were you kidding? You were never going to make this work. You took off your wedding ring and opened the top drawer of your end table, intending to store the ring there. Then you saw it. The necklace she'd given you so many years ago.

Suddenly the memories came flooding back. You thought about everything that made you fall in love in the first place. Her compassion. Her giving nature.

You put your wedding ring back on and resolved to work things out.

Now, years later, you've written a book about how to better communicate with your spouse. The book is called What Really Matters: How Couples Can Work Through the Tough Times, and you've used your own experiences as examples throughout. The necklace story, naturally, is key.

And for your cover image—one of your book's top marketing tools—you have chosen ...

Wait for it ...

A picture of the star of David necklace.

* * *

At this point, you're quite possibly enjoying a good giggle. That's because you aren't emotionally attached to the events that led our author to think the necklace image was a good idea in the first place.

If you don't see the problem, however, read on. Here's a conversation a Wheatmark account manager might have with this author.

Wheatmark account manager: "Let's talk about your cover image. Can you tell me why you picked this one?"

Author: "Yes!" [He enthusiastically launches into the epic tale.]

WAM: "Hmm. What a wonderful story! But your potential readers won't get the significance ..."

Author: "They will understand when they get to chapter 5. I explain everything there."

WAM: "That's great, but before they read it, you have to convince them that they want to read it. Also, the star of David is already loaded with considerable cultural significance. If you put that on the cover, readers will think What Really Matters is about how Judaism is what really matters, or about how Jewish people can have a good marriage as long as they let God into it."

Author: "Look, you don't get it. That necklace holds deep, personal meaning for me. It symbolizes the whole point of the book!"

At this juncture, it becomes impossible to press the issue without seriously offending the author. Account managers may back off when this happens, reconciling themselves to the fact that the guy will probably only sell copies of his book to friends and immediate family.

Now, back to you and YOUR book. After reading all of the above, there's a good chance that you still think your chosen image is pretty cool. People might not get the precise meaning immediately, but it's not as ridiculous as that star of David! Still, you start to wonder. Are you too close to this project to discern how your audience will react?

Here are two things you can do to gain a little objectivity.

1. Run your idea past the people helping you sell your book.
   
   Are you a Wheatmark author? Then your Wheatmark account manager is a great person to start with. Have you hired someone to do PR work for you? He or she is another good resource. Remember, these people have a vested interest in your book's success. If they're telling you there's a problem, you should listen.
   
   
2. Run your idea past other people who don't know you well.
   
   Your friends and family will probably already get your image's significance, so the "don't know you well" part is crucial. Ask acquaintances who have never heard the story behind the image. Throw the picture up on your blog (if you don't have one, you should) and solicit opinions there.
   

This book is your baby, and of course you want to be happy with how it looks. But what you ultimately need to care about is what your target audience thinks.

Because if they don't get it, they won't buy it.

Thinking about Book Titles

Over the years at Wheatmark, we've had a few titles come through that were either a mouthful that no one would be able to hold in mind long enough to order the book, confusing (careful about serial commas ... sometimes they don't read as a series), or just plain excellent.

I imagine titling a book is about as difficult as naming a child. You go through different iterations, bounce the names off of friends and family, and maybe even see how they look in print.

There are several things to think about when deciding on your book's title:

1. Does it make sense
2. Can buyers find it when browsing
3. Can it be read more than one way? Will it be OK if they read it the wrong way?
4. Can it be designed easily for a cover

Does it make sense?
This one seems fairly obvious, but let's talk about it anyway. Your title should be evocative of the content inside. If your book is about parent-child relationships and your book is entitled, "From a Great Height," that's great, but you might want to use a subtitle to help clarify what you will be talking about in the book.

Can buyers find it when browsing?
This is important. More important for independent authors because you'll be doing the bulk of your business online. OK. Here's the skinny: Unless someone knows your book title or author name and looks it up directly, you need a book title that can be found by keyword search.

If a potential reader is looking for a book, but they don't have one in particular in mind, they'll enter a search word on a site like Amazon. For example, if a reader is looking for a book on self-help, they will have a particular theme of self-help in mind. They aren't likely to enter in the term self-help. Maybe "get rich," "make money," or even "wealthy." If your book is about personal finance and has a title that includes those main words - rich, money, and wealth - you are more likely to have your book show up as an option for that search!

When titling your book, make sure the title, the subtitle, or a combination of both includes some easy to navigate key words to help potential readers find you!

Can it be read more than one way? Will it be OK if they read it the wrong way?
We have a Wheatmark title that can be read with two different inflections and results in two different meanings. Either way, it makes sense and pertains to the book.

However, that isn't always true. There are also times when a title may mean something but taken out of context is just plain wrong. This problem shows up a lot on Headlines with Jay Leno ... the unintended meanings can be a sticky problem. So have a few people read over it and make sure you aren't making an obscene joke by accident! (A memorable one from my newspaper days was "Military Gives YPG a Hummer." If you don't see the unfortunate joke, you definitely want to get someone else to check your title!

Can it be designed easily for a cover
I have been known to suggest changing a title simply because it would look better on the cover design. The look of your book cover is your most important marketing tool. The old saying goes, "You can't judge a book by it's cover." However, most people do, even if it is unintentional.

Too many words, too long of words or long words that sandwich little tiny ones are all difficult to design around. Your cover needs to be easily readable on the "thumbnail" that is displayed on web pages. Either the image or the title needs to grab a potential reader's attention. If your title is too long, it will limit the size of your font and of your image.

If you are a Wheatmark author and are unsure of your title, check with your account manager and they'll help you brainstorm some ideas to help you have the strongest title from day one!

Not a Wheatmark author but want to be? Fill out our Project Assessment Form to get started! You can also enroll in our free minicourse: 7 Steps to Self-Publishing Success on our home page!

New How-To Blog Tutorials

Struggling to get your blog site started? Read the instructions sent to you by email several times and still can't picture what we're instructing you to do?

We now have a video tutorial on our site that takes you through the Blogger.com process from very start to end. Screen by screen, click by click!

It's done in a handy four-part series so you can choose the section where you are getting stuck!

Check it out at www.wheatmark.com/tutorials

How to Manage Book Sales

One of the questions we try to help authors answer is whether they should direct their book buying traffic to the Wheatmark bookstore or to an online retailer such as Amazon.

My short, possibly not that helpful, answer to this is: Both.

The long answer to this is still both, but with some added explanation!

The Wheatmark bookstore, for Wheatmark authors, is where the book is available for the full retail price and offers a higher royalty to the author.

On the surface, this seems like a great way to earn back the publishing investment. Which it is, particularly if you are selling your book to only a few people or to a one buyer who is buying a LOT of copies, like a textbook being purchased by a school.

Many authors find that they sell more books on Amazon and are concerned that the traffic driven there is buying the book at a discount and thus the author isn't seeing as much royalty cash from each sale. Although that is true, there are are advantages to selling on Amazon.

I argue that if you are going to try to sell your book to a greater population, you should focus a lot of your effort on your Amazon sales. The reason is pretty simple: People (and I mean just about everyone at some point) buy books on Amazon. As consumers, they are familiar with the format, probably have a gift card from the CoinStar machine at the grocery store or an aunt that they have a few pennies left on, and it is part of their buying pattern. Not to mention the fact that the price on Amazon is lower.

The reduced price may cut into royalties, but, if you can sell more books on Amazon at the discounted price, then you'll be making more money in the end than if you only sold books on Wheatmark's store for full price and sold a third of what you did on Amazon. Right?

There is another element that makes Amazon a great place to sell your book: Functionality.

You can have a Kindle version for sale there, you can have multiple titles that pull together to boost your sales rank, people can leave reviews, and the tagging function also assists with visibility. These are things that are great for marketing.

What the Amazon site can't do is offer bulk discounts, which Wheatmark can. Our bulk author discounts are a great advantage. For example, if you are going to market to book clubs, you could drive the sales to yourself, buy bulk copies through us with your author discount and then sell them directly to the book club and make profit!

You could, of course, only sell through yourself all the time to make the highest profit per copy of book, but then you'd also have to handle the shipping. Trust me, as someone who has to do a lot of shipping, you want to try to skirt that responsibility whenever possible!

Also, we offer discounts on large book orders, like when a university buys a textbook or a book store buys a lot of them, so buying through Wheatmark is a better deal over Amazon or BarnesandNoble.com.

There are many ways to begin making money on your book. The bottom line is to know your goals as an author and to work towards those goals with your marketing. In the end, when you are selling copies of books, it won't make much of a difference where people buy them.

Just sell more copies this month than you did last month and you'll be on the track to success!

What is an Editorial Analysis and Why Do You Need One?

One of the first steps many of our author manuscripts go through is an Editorial Analysis (for those who want to geek out Wheatmark-style, we call it an EA around the office).

What is an Editorial Analysis and why do you need one?

An Editorial Analysis helps determine what the likely usability of an author's book, in its current form, will be by identifying its strengths and weaknesses.

The EA is designed to determine if the book is written in a way that will speak to its intended readership, if the book is written with excellent English usage, proper grammar, punctuation, and if it is written in an organized manner. It also looks at how well the book follows Chicago Manual of Style (CMS) formatting. Successful, correctly done books are formatted to a particular style that dictates how parts of the book are formatted, including even how commas are used and where the preface goes.

By having an Editorial Analysis done on your manuscript, it is easy to determine how much more work should be done on the book before it goes to layout. The EA will tell the author what level of copyediting they should have: if they need a light copy edit or maybe a more intensive developmental edit. All which should be done before your book designer begins styling your pages for print.

The Reason You Need An EA and Why You Should Listen
Successful authors have several things going for them. The first step to being a successful author is having an excellent book. This is an area to not let hubris get in the way (and quite often it does). Here are the most frequent excuses we hear for not having a completed EA done and for not listening and acting on the results:

• I've already edited my book, it's fine.
• I had my friend, who is an English teacher, proofread it already.
• No one cares if the commas are CMS formatted.
• Readers will know what I mean. They aren't stupid.
• I don't want to spend the money.

First of all, an EA comes with nearly every package that Wheatmark offers, and, if you have one done before committing to a package, that cost will be deducted from your final sign-up fee. The cost of copyediting is more, but the final product will be worth it. It would be a shame to spend money on publishing a book, only to have it not perform because of some elements that could easily have been fixed for a few dollars more.

Two, you and your friend the English teacher are not professional book editors. It isn't a reflection on your skills, it's a reflection on how well-trained professional book editors are. They read tons of pages a year and are trained to know what to look for, how to look for it, and how to expertly make the correction.

And thirdly, your readers do actually care about the commas. They may not be fully aware of it, but it will bother them as they scan lines if they have been done incorrectly. Book readers have been trained for decades to expect certain guidelines to be followed and when you ignore that expectation, you frustrate them. It slows them down. Which is also why, just because you think your readers will understand a muddled concept in your book, it will be a hindrance. It will slow your readers down. Slow them down too much and they'll stop reading the book entirely.

You've taken the time and energy to write a book you would like to be a success. Don't sell it short by not using the resources available to help it be the most excellent book possible!

Shameless Plug: Want to know more about the steps to success? Sign up for our free 7 Steps to Self-Publishing Success minicourse!

How to Market a Book: About The Book

You've got your contact information figured out, started writing press releases, gathered up some images to provide to media outlets, but what about the actual book?

With your book you'll want to have a tantalizing book description, a strong excerpt to draw in readers, information on where to buy your book, and also a "Review Copy" request form.

Book Description
Your book description should be well-written. Actually, everything you write publicly should be well-written. Potential readers will be making judgements about your book based on their experiences with your writing. So make sure to have your description copyedited by another person!

Your book description's goal is to convert potential readers into readers. By making your book sound interesting, without giving too much away, you'll be sure to lure in readers. Think about how movie previews work when you go to a theater. They try to build suspense, excitement, and a sense that a story will be laid out that you will enjoy. Use those same techniques to build a "must-read" book description.

Book Excerpt
Often authors are more than happy to give readers a taste of their book by offering up an excerpt from their book. This is a great way to introduce reader to your book and help them make the decision to buy your book. However, be careful not to give them too much! Choose a page or two from a key chapter that you think is one of your best. That's all you need. Some authors will offer up a free PDF of a full chapter from their book to entice readers: that's a great idea! But for a press kit, website, or blog you'll want to keep it short.

Online readers aren't often ready to invest the time it takes to get through a full chapter if they haven't elected to do so by downloading it. If you just have a page that continues to scroll for ages on a site, you're likely to lose the thing you want: them to buy your book. They are likely to just click on their next bookmark and move along to another site.

Review Copy Request Form
A form like this allows you to screen who is reviewing your book. There are lots of people out there who would be willing to take a free copy of your book under the guise of being a "reviewer."

By making your reviewers do a touch bit more work and also providing a papertrail so you know who is reading your book and where they'll talk about it, you make it easy to select appropriate reviewers.

In our free book marketing guide, we talk about figuring out who your core audience is going to be. You'll want book reviewers who are going to understand the genre you write it, who are read by those interested in books like yours, and who will help you spread the word about your book.

Here is a sample form you can take and personalize!

Book_Review_Copy_Request_Form.doc

How to Market a Book: Gathering Your Images

One of the key elements to a successful book marketing campaign, I believe, is being organized. Knowing what you will need and having it ready at a moment's notice.

Getting your images together in the beginning will make all your publicity efforts smoother as you roll them out.

You don't necessarily need to have printed versions. In fact, digital versions that you can email are preferable. You can always print out a digital version, but having to scan in a printed version when you need to email it to someone can be a real hassle.

For all your images, you should have a high-resolution image (300 dpi) as well as a smaller version that is 72 dpi.

DPI for the less tech-savvy means dots per inch and reflects the quality of the image (nearly all websites use 72 so they load faster, magazines and other print media need high quality images).

The following are the images you should include in your arsenal:

• cover
• author photo
• images from your book's interior if you have them
  
• candid shots - from book signings, award ceremonies, writers groups, book clubs, speaking engagements, etc.

Each item should be in an easily transferable format such as a .jpg or .pdf versions.

Having these on hand not only makes it easier to send them out to bloggers, reviewers, and other media outlets, but it also can help give you a leg up in the free publicity area. Having quality, available art makes you more viable as a story because you have something most media outlets need: something to look at.

Also, anytime you want to create a flyer, button, name tag, etc., you'll always have the images available whether you do the materials yourself or hire them out.

By having these images ready to go from the start, you'll be able to meet deadlines, get more coverage, and not have to fuss with technology or calling editors for the pieces when it really counts!

How to Market a Book: Publicity Support - Contact Information

Many authors sign their proof approval forms and are waiting for their box of books to arrive, but haven't thought about the business of selling books. By writing a book and having it distributed to book retailers, you've essentially made yourself a business and your readers are your customers. By thinking this way, you'll realize there is a lot to think about in terms of marketing books.

One thing to consider early on is how you want readers and media outlets to communicate with you.

For example, do you want your personal email to be where you receive your review copy requests? Or do you want to set up a separate email account for messages strictly about your book? If people need to mail you things, do you want them sent to your home address? Many authors feel more comfortable using a P.O. Box for their book operations.

Also, if you are going to take phone calls, do you want them coming to your home line? And if so, is your outgoing message appropriate? If you are going to drive your marketing efforts to online retailers such as Amazon.com, you may not want to accept phone calls at all. Or you can choose to post the phone number for the Wheatmark bookstore for sales and only offer your email for additional queries.

There is a lot to mull and it would be best to decide earlier than later so that you can use the contact information on all your marketing materials and get your author platforms started!

How to Market a Book: Publicity Kit Shopping List

For many authors, for their first book or their fifth, getting their marketing plans organized can be overwhelming.

As authors you will need to develop a basic set of support materials for yourbook in order to market it well.

Wheatmark emphasizes using online resources, such as blogs and social networking tools, to help spread the word about your book. But we should take a step back and review what kind of content you'll want to have ready to go when the time comes.

When developing your publicity kit, whether it is printed versions you hand to the newspaper reporter or tabs on your website, there are some basic pieces you'll want to have in support of your book.

Here is a list, taken from our marketing workbook, that we recommend!

• Contact Info
• Press Releases
• Author Profile
• Book Cover
• Author Photo
• Additional Images
• About the Book
• Excerpt from book
• Endorsements/Testimonials
• Fast Facts, Quizzes, Background information
• Radio Interviews/TV clips
• Story ideas for media pieces
• List of Media Coverage
• Available Articles by author
• Suggested Interview Questions
• Additional Resources
• Book Availability and Purchase Information
• List of Events
• Review Copy Request Form

This week, check in with the Wheatmark Blog for some more in depth looks at the items on the list and how to best prepare them!

Using Google Reader

Reading blogs and using them to help promote a book is new to many authors. Sure, there may be a few blogs that your daily computer usage you come across, but a lot of authors still aren't comfortable with the idea of surfing the Internet looking for content to read and comment on to promote their book.

Finding blogs to read can be time consuming.

One way to cut the time is to find blogs with blog lists down the side that you can explore. It's easier than simply Googling a topic and hoping something will surface.

One of the difficulties, after you found several blogs to read, is organizing them in a manner that won't drive you crazy.

Some blogs aren't updated frequently and it can be exhausting entering in the URL or clicking on your bookmark, waiting for the page to load, only to find it is the same entry you read there last week.

Google Reader is a great way to help you organize your blog reading.
Attached to your Google account, you can enter in RSS feeds from websites and blogs, but you can also cut and paste in URL addresses for it to track even if the site isn't set up for subscription.

Here's how to set up your account.

1. Go to the site.
2. On the right-hand side of your screen, you'll see a login window. If you already have a Google account (gmail and blogger are both Google products that give you an automatic Google account), you can simply login. If you don't have a Google account, click the blue Create Account button.
3. The home page has a handy "take a tour" feature you can use to better understand the site. Or you can just jump in if you are comfortable.
4. After you login, you're taken to your display page. The page is split into three sections. On the left is your list of sites you are subscribed to. The center is an overview of the recent blog updates. The right side is just stuff. Google provides info here you may never look at (I hadn't until starting this post).
5. To begin viewing blog entries here, you have to subscribe to a few. Let's add our blog first as practice! First will do it the long way: entering in a URL string.
   
6. On the upper left side is a blue square with a plus sign in it and next to it says "Add a subscription."
7. Click that.
8. A fillable window will open and you can type in an address for a site to follow. Our blog URL is: http://www.wheatmark.com/blog/
9. The easy way is to use the subscription button from a blog itself. Go to the Wheatmark blog page at http://www.wheatmark.com/blog/
   
10. You'll notice on the upper right hand side, under our Wheatmark logo, there is a button with a plus sign that says "subscribe" next to it, and several other icons.
11. Click it!
12. An "Add This" window will pop up and you'll see several icons.
13. To add it to your Google reader, you'll choose "Add to Google" (right column, second one down). This automatically puts this in your reader. That's it! Most sites have options like this so that you never have to remember the URL, you can simply surf around the Internet adding bits here and there at your leisure.
    

Pros to the Google Reader screen:

• Easy to view
• Keeps everything in the same place
• You never have to guess if something has updated
• Easy to add sites to it
• If you use gmail for your email, you'll even be able to check your email AND your Google Reader at the same time!

Cons:

• No pictures
• In order to read the full post or the comments you often have to navigate away from the Reader page (however it will do it for you when you click on the Reader entry

Google Reader is a great way to organize and stay on top of your blog reading. By reading blogs, commenting on the posts, and becoming a knowledgeable presence you'll drive traffic to your own blog and hopefully to sales of your book!

Alternative Virtual Book Sales Sites

This morning an excited tweet came across my Twitter stream from a friend who is preparing for her first trip to Ireland. Some people buy maps and plan events for their big trip. She's buying accessories. She wants to be the most fashionable tourist in all the pubs.

She tweeted the link for me to go check out her purchase on Etsy. Intrigued by the boutique name, ShrunkenCatHeads (yes, dear readers, I'm intrigued by such things) I was poking around the jewelry for sale on the site and lo and behold, there amongst the Mexican tile earrings and rings, was a book for sale.

I've seen many things for sale on Etsy, a free-for-all boutique site that is like a virtual flea market online, but this was the first time I'd come across an author who was hocking their written wares along with their crafts.

A quick search through the Etsy catalog turned up pages and pages of books for sale that authors, on their own and looking for a place to sell, had begun touting on the site I had normally considered a place to buy cool posters, cheap art prints, and uncommon objects of wonder.

Wheatmark, as part of our basic services that we offer, makes sure your book is distributed to online retailers such as barnesandnoble.com and Amazon. Etsy, being a little more on the fringe of book selling, is further than our fingers reach.

Admittedly, for many authors Etsy wouldn't be a viable marketing option. The site isn't generally a draw for people who are shopping for books. However, Etsy could be a great option for some.

For example, if you have written a book, but you also enjoy making letterpress cards, knitting, quilting, painting, or any other type of activity that results in a consumer good, starting your own Etsy boutique might be a fun way to not only sell your crafts and collectibles, but to also put your books up for sale.

Etsy won't ship the book out for you, you have to do that yourself, but if you are one of our many authors that has bought copies of your book with our awesome author discount, it becomes one more place to market your book.

Etsy would be a great place for the following types of books when coupled with supporting goods like posters, T-shirts, and other things you might like to sell there:

• Children's books -- particularly books with characters you've turned into sock puppets for sale so parents can use them along with the narrative
  
• Memoirs
• Science books
• YA books
• How-to Books (particularly if it is a how to on something you make that you also sell on your site!)

Etsy is not great for:

• authors with nothing else to sell

The idea is to have a boutique that offers you up as a creative package and shows that, by the way, you have written a book. There are lots of ways to personalize your site, your profile, and to help drive traffic to your author website and blog!

The other nice thing about Etsy is that it is a community with seller support. You can join in virtual tutorials on being an Etsy seller that include tips and techniques you translate well for use on your blog, website, and Facebook accounts. The virtual labs are full of helpful people joining together to make a community of successful virtual boutique owners.

This is just one more way to gain notice on the Internet, one site at a time!

Writing Contests: The Good, The Bad, and the Waste of Time

Many writers hope that by winning a writing contest you will gain entry to the book industry and begin the trajectory towards author fame.

Although this can be true of some prestigious contests, there are tons of contests out there and not all of them are going to boost your profile.

Here is a "what it's good for/what will sneak up on you and thrash you" list on entering writing contests.

Why you should enter a writing contest

• get feedback about your writing
  
• if you win, that's very positive feedback
  
• if you don't win, you can see what they chose and compare
  
• resume building: even being able to say you're a finalist has cache
  
• winners sometimes get stuff: book contracts, representation, cash, etc.
  

Why you shouldn't enter a writing contest

• many of them are not legitimate. Beware of the contest that promises to include your winning work in an anthology for a fee--those are not real writing contests
• takes up a ton of time. Getting submissions together is a pain. All that work for something that means, in many cases, nothing. If no one knows the contest, they probably won't care if you won it.
• some contests snag ownership of the written material. Contests that do this are not good contests.

Here are a few things to watch for when deciding to enter the contest:

Read the fine print.

• Legitimate contests may charge fees for entry, but they don't charge you a fee for the award.
  
• Take care to read the directions. Some contests require you to be unpublished, or not traditionally published, or to send a hard copy, etc. The rules are usually very specific.
  
• Do not send your work to a contest that attempts to retain ownership of your work for simply entering.
  

The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, Inc. has a great "Writer Beware" article on contests. Check out their site for the full article.

Wheatmark Author Interview

James Best, one of the Wheatmark authors, has taught us a lot about being awesome. Not only is he a fantastic writer and a savvy book marketer, but he's an all around cool guy.

That said, the word is spreading. Here's a link to a recent interview with him on whohub.com where they talk to him about his storytelling skills and what makes him tick.

Check out the interview here.

The Secret of El Barto: Getting a Book Deal as a Self-Published Author

When Steven Keslowitz was an undergraduate at City University of New York in Brooklyn, just about every class paper he wrote used The Simpsons as the foundation for his thesis.

Keslowitz, at 19, then turned to Wheatmark to publish his first book The Simpsons and Society: An Independent Analysis of Our Favorite TV Family and Its Influence in Contemporary Society based on a compilation of those papers.

With chapters entitle things like "To Speak or Not to Speak: Maggie Simpson vs. Stewie Griffin" and "Bart the Genius: And the Value of Standardized Tests," Keslowitz took the concept of "Everything I know I learned from my ..." posters a step further and used the iconic cartoon family as a way to explore many perceptions from real life.

The Simpsons and Society quickly sold enough copies to qualify for our Great Expectations program.

One of the few self-published authors to get his book shelf space at Barnes and Noble Booksellers, Keslowitz famously wouldn't take no for an answer. As the oral history around Wheatmark tells it, he focused all his energy on Barnes and Noble. Calling individual stores in an ever-increasing radius from his college residence, and never giving up until they took a book or two, The Simpsons and Society gained ground simply through its author's tenacity.

When he entered the Great Expectations program, it was decided that Wheatmark would do several things to help the book. The first was to do a revision that would include additional chapters and a more thorough editing job. The second thing that was done was some legal work. Because The Simpsons is a trademarked sitcom, there were some questions about using some of the material. Wheatmark hired a well-known lawyer, Jonathan Kirsch, on behalf of the author to comb through the book and make sure it was legally tight for continued publication.

After selling nearly 3,000 (2,929 to be exact) copies of his book, Keslowitz was offered a book deal through the largest independent book publisher, Sourcebooks, Inc.

Over the years, Keslowitz's book has continued to sell and has even been used as a classroom text book at Tufts University and Carnegie Melon. Harvard may not be far behind (just kidding ... maybe).

His resume now includes having been featured on cnn.com and being listed on Ingrams Hot 100 book list.

Kewlowitz's story is not necessarily the norm. However, his inability to give up wasn't really the norm either.

It does show that by self-publishing you are helping make yourself a viable commodity in the book-buying world.

Never give up!

You can purchase your own copy of the current version of Keslowitz's book on Amazon.com

One Satisfied Customer

Laurens Maas, an osteopathic and homeopathic physician and author of The Hidden Cure: The 5 Laws of Perfect Health, recently left his book editor (the incomparable Lori Sellstrom) a voicemail message that just gave us warm fuzzies in the best possible way.

Whenever an author publishes a book with us, we want them to feel THIS excited about the end result and the service they receive when working with Wheatmark.

Maas's book incorporates spiritual, nutritional, and lifestyle tips to help you enhance your energy levels, your overall health, and your enjoyment of life.

If his enthusiasm for life and the project are any indicator, he may be on to something!

We wanted to share his message with everyone: to share his enthusiasm and the joy of a really great job well done! Click on the play button below to hear the 30-second message:

Why You Should Start a Blog Today

One of the essential ingredients to a successful book marketing plan is a blog.

A blog will allow you to post “journal” entries about your process during the book writing stage, to post entries about your publishing timeline, to write about your published book, and to write about everything else you are interested in in between.

On the Wheatmark web site we have a blog post that includes step-by-step instructions on how to start a blog using Blogger – one of the free blogging sites available.

How does blogging for book marketing work?

It works by establishing a home base for your marketing efforts. As you read other people’s blogs, you can comment from your blog identity allowing them to follow back to your blog. When you use Twitter, you can put up tweets about new blog posts and also put the link to your blog in your profile so Twitter users can read more about you. This will drive traffic to your blog site.

On your blog site, make sure to add a link to where prospective readers can buy your book.

Why does blogging for book marketing work?

It works because it creates a virtual world where you can be the expert on your book’s topic and allows people with similar interests to interact with you. The more you gain readers to your blog, the more readers you are likely to gain for your book! By allowing readers to be a part of your journey as an author, from first inspiration to the exciting book launch, you can form a community of people invested in your project and your success!

It can be difficult getting going. So here is a list of topic types to get you started

List of 5 ideas or thoughts – numbered lists are always winners. It helps the blog reader understand what they are going to be reading and helps them get to the end. This works in a blog about business very easily. You can write about one of your chapters, offer tips, etc. But it could also work for fiction! Say you are writing a young adult fiction book about a battling a demon. Your numbered list could be “Things You Need to Battle a Demon.” It’s entertaining and it brings people into your book.

Publish a list of links – Can’t think of anything to write? Someone else has written it already and better? Post a link to the articles on your blog. They’ll appreciate the favor and also your blog readers won’t feel like you’ve abandoned your blog for the day!

Take a recent experience and share it – Maybe it is obvious, but writing about something that made you have an emotion is always good fodder for a blog. It lets other people into your world and also allows them to share their own experiences in the comments forum. It may even inspire you!

Outstanding Author Support

I've been working on the revisions to the author guide for next year. It's our information piece that we send out (or you can look at by clicking the link there) to our prospective authors that are thinking about publishing their book with us.

Under our Basic Publishing Services, our baseline for all our publishing packages, we list all of the things you get by signing with Wheatmark. We start it out by saying we offer Outstanding Personal Author Support.

This, of course, makes me giggle because it sounds rather silly, like we offer a hotline or free hugs for our authors. (Actually, I have personally hugged several of our authors that have come by the office. Wheatmark authors are some of the best people!)

But what does it really mean to offer "outstanding personal author support?" What it means is always having someone willing to listen to your ideas, help you solve your book-related problems, and to guide you to the best possible version of your book--whether it means suggesting more editing, different cover photos, or just high-fiving you on your accomplishment. We are here to assist our authors through the publishing process.

Most independently published authors are coming into the process as newbies. There is a vocabulary to book publishing--trim size, front matter, etc. -- that is just the tip of the iceberg of things that may not be understood. (Trust me! When I started working at Wheatmark my background was in newspaper design. It was liking listening to a foreign language being spoken around the office!)

That's where our amazing staff comes in (you can read about them on our website). They are here to help authors navigate the process. They aren't here to judge your work, review your book, or make decisions for you. They are here to support you throughout the process to get the end result that you have worked towards.

And we will find someone to give you a hug, if you really need it. Remote authors, as one of the editors pointed out, can get virtual hand-holding if required.