News Archives - Page 10 of 12

12 October, 2015

How big is your audience?

By Sam Henrie|2023-06-09T11:10:07-07:00October 12, 2015|Marketing, News, Publishing, Resources|Comments Off on How big is your audience?

A few years ago I had a weekend evening to myself, and decided to go to a play. I found a performance of the 1983 Pulitzer Prize-winning ‘night Mother by Marsha Norman showing at the Tucson Temple of Music and Art.

I arrived very early, so I wasn’t surprised that there was only one other person in the audience, but was surprised when no one else showed up. The play started, and I thought to myself: “Now I am stuck here, even if the performance is terrible. I’m 50% of the audience. I can’t just stand up and walk out.” That turned out not to be a problem. The performance was completely engrossing.

‘night Mother is a two-hour play with only two actors. I can’t even begin to imagine what it took for the actors to sustain the emotional intensity that they exhibited for those two hours, let alone what it took […]

22 September, 2015

The World’s Worst Ebook Artwork

By Grael Norton|2023-06-09T11:10:46-07:00September 22, 2015|Authors Academy, Marketing, News|Comments Off on The World’s Worst Ebook Artwork

Wheatmark client and Authors Academy member Bill Corbett sent me the link to this sobering article the other day.

It talks about how the digital era has led to a decline in income for authors.

The article cites a number of reasons for this, but another one (which the article doesn’t discuss) is increased competition.

According to recent numbers I’ve seen, there are now more than 4,500 books published every day.

That’s a heck of a lot of books vying for readers’ attention!

How do you compete with all those titles? One great way is to submit your book to—and win—contests.

But—and you can see this one coming—with all those books being published each day, far more books than ever before are being submitted to contests for consideration.

How do you ensure your book has a good chance of standing out from the crowd and getting recognized?

Some tips are obvious. Don’t make this mistake.

But there […]

3 July, 2015

“The U.S. is on the brink of total collapse…”

By Grael Norton|2016-08-02T10:13:37-07:00July 3, 2015|News|Comments Off on “The U.S. is on the brink of total collapse…”

“The United States is on the brink of total collapse. The military has been reduced to near extinction, economic turmoil saps hope, and anarchy threatens as world powers hover like vultures, eager to devour the remains.”

Sounds like the premise of the latest Hollywood sci-fi blockbuster coming to a theater near you this weekend, doesn’t it?

It’s not.

For many of us, the 4th of July holiday weekend means long days spent barbecuing and lounging by the pool.

In Arizona it’s always blazing hot—so hot that sometimes it’s even too hot to lounge by the pool!

So we’ll often go to the movies instead to escape the heat.

With so much fun to be had, it’s easy to forget why we take time out to celebrate in the first place.

In fact, I’ve received quite a few emails the last couple of days admonishing me not to take the freedoms we enjoy for granted.

I’ll spare you all […]

5 June, 2015

We’re #4!

By Grael Norton|2023-06-09T11:12:08-07:00June 5, 2015|News|Comments Off on We’re #4!

My colleague Tracy Quinn McLennan forwarded me this article from this week’s AZ Daily Star (thanks, Tracy!)

Turns out that Tucson made the list of Top 20 Most Well-Read Cities in America. In fact, not only did we make the Top 10, we made the Top 5, coming it at #4!

According to Amazon’s press release, “The ranking was determined by compiling sales data of all book, magazine and newspaper sales in both print and Kindle format from April 2014 to April 2015, on a per capita basis in cities with more than 500,000 residents.”

Also according to the release, the top most well-read cities are:

1. Seattle, Washington

2. Portland, Oregon

3. Las Vegas, Nevada

4. Tucson, Arizona

5. Washington, D.C.

6. Austin, Texas

7. San Francisco, California

8. Albuquerque, New Mexico

9. Denver, Colorado

10. Louisville, Kentucky

Here’s some additional tidbits from the Amazon news release:

* Washington, D.C. residents prefer print books, and finished ahead of Seattle as the city with […]

24 April, 2015

What should you be doing to market your book?

By Grael Norton|2023-06-09T11:12:48-07:00April 24, 2015|Authors Academy, Marketing, News|Comments Off on What should you be doing to market your book?

I received an email recently from long-time Wheatmark client Eddie Browning that invited him to display his books at Book Expo America (BEA) next month.

Eddie’s kind enough to keep me in the loop about all the different kinds of promotions authors receive on a daily basis that claim to help them market their work.

Eddie doesn’t have any intention of taking the bait, but I saw this as an opportunity to share a valuable marketing lesson with all of our readers.

The lesson is that good marketing is a process, not an event.

This is a tricky concept for many authors to grasp.

They equate “marketing” with “selling.”

They’ll often say things like “I tried marketing my book, and it didn’t work.”

Usually, what they actually mean is “I tried selling my book, and it didn’t work.”

What’s the difference?

“Selling” is pretty straight-forward. It means asking for the sale:

“Would you like to buy my book?”

“Would you like […]

30 December, 2014

Near Field Reading

By Sam Henrie|2023-06-09T11:13:46-07:00December 30, 2014|News, Publishing|Comments Off on Near Field Reading

It’s the holidays, and no doubt many of you will be out shopping for gifts for your loved ones and friends. By next year’s season you may be paying for your holiday gifts at your favorite retailers using a tap-to-pay app on your phone.

Tap-to-pay apps utilize Near Field Communication (NFC), a technology that allows you to pay by holding your phone up to a retailer’s register and tapping a button. With the launch of Apply Pay in October and the card companies mandating all merchants accept NFC payments in 2015, we may have reached the tipping point for tap-to-pay. Near Field Communications seems to be popping up everywhere in my life lately. When I boarded my first ride on Tucson’s new light rail, all I had to do was tap my rail pass to an NFC device to pay for my ride. When I visited my phone carrier to upgrade […]

5 December, 2014

Author Interview with Will Edwinson

By Support@wheatmark.com|2023-06-09T11:14:32-07:00December 5, 2014|News, Publishing, Resources|Comments Off on Author Interview with Will Edwinson

Will Edwinson is an award-winning storyteller for his fiction and also an award-winning columnist. His second book, Buddy … His Trials and Treasures, won a first place in state competition and a second place at national. His nostalgia column, which he wrote under another name, won second and first place awards in two separate competitions from the Utah-Idaho-Spokane Associated Press Association.

Will is also one of our long-time author clients, having first published with us in 2005 and now again in 2014. I’ve asked him about his brand new book, LouIsa: Iron Dove of the Frontier.

Tell us a little bit about yourself, Will Edwinson, and how you came to be a storyteller.

Ah … where do I begin? When I was young I always aspired to be a writer. But I was just a small-town farm boy with insecurities, some of which included, “How could I ever expect […]

1 December, 2014

Taking Care of Business

By Sam Henrie|2023-06-09T11:15:45-07:00December 1, 2014|News, Publishing|Comments Off on Taking Care of Business

Earlier this year Roberta Grimes called us to order some copies of her books. She is the author of the Letters from Love series and the novel Rich and Famous. She’s also the author of the novel My Thomas: A Novel of Martha Jefferson’s Life, originally published by Doubleday in 1993 and reissued by Wheatmark this year. I answered Roberta’s phone call. “Bookstore, Sam Henrie, how may I help you?” She was surprised that the company president was taking book orders. Roberta said she’d imagined I’d be in my office thinking about the business—conceiving the next killer book marketing strategy, pondering the writing of the great American novel, or planning a leveraged buyout of Random House. But, I was taking book orders.

I like taking book orders. It keeps me in touch with our authors, especially at the times when they release new books, start new marketing campaigns, or hold […]

7 November, 2014

Is the book dead?

By Grael Norton|2023-06-09T11:16:22-07:00November 7, 2014|Authors Academy, Marketing, News|Comments Off on Is the book dead?

My friend and client at Wheatmark Frank Babb recently sent me the link to this thought-provoking essay in The Economist.

As the article notes, people have been predicting the death of the book—and even the death of reading itself—for more than a decade.

I’m not so sure about that, but one thing is certain: there are more books being published now than ever before!

According to Bowker, around 8,100 ISBNs were issued in 1960… compared to around 1.4 million in 2013!

That’s a lot of books—and that doesn’t even include all the self-published books that the author didn’t get an ISBN for.

Suffice it to say that the competition for readers is fiercer than ever!

That’s why it’s so important to invest in training programs like the Authors Academy and attend live, in-person events whenever you can.

Knowledge (and it’s application) is your greatest asset as an author.

I’ll be presenting on Choosing a Publishing Service […]

24 October, 2014

Iris Murdoch Made the List!

By Sam Henrie|2023-06-09T11:16:40-07:00October 24, 2014|News, Publishing, Writing|Comments Off on Iris Murdoch Made the List!

Thanks to all of you for your emails letting me know what a great job my staff did while I was on vacation. I received so many email that I haven’t had a chance to respond to everyone yet.

I had a wonderful trip visiting family, traveling to Prescott, AZ, Albuquerque NM, Washington, DC, Sparta, NJ, then back to Albuquerque. Of all the places visited, Sparta, which none of you will have heard of, was by far the most beautiful. Situated on Tomahawk Lake, it is lush, green, and peaceful. Forget any negative stereotypes you have of New Jersey and visit Sparta if ever you get a chance.

Last month Grael Norton, Wheatmark’s director of marketing, posted a blog that included a list from The Telegraph of the “100 novels everyone should read.” I was very happy to see that a book, Under the Net, by my favorite […]

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