G.G. Silverman: Three truths, one lie

Don't be afraid! 

G.G. Silverman is going to take the fear
out of marketing your self-published work. 

Already an accomplished author (Vegan Teenage Zombie Huntress, anthologized short stories, and many more publications), a one-woman marketing/branding/advertising specialist, and instructor at Sanford-Brown College, G.G. is going to be our first speaker at next Wednesday's monthly meeting. And she has a few things to say! Her debut has almost earned back her investment as a self-pubbed author, which is a major benchmark.

G.G. Silverman, marketing maven and self-published author.

Three Truths and One Big Fat Lie:

A Massachusetts native, G.G. wanted to share a little about herself.

• She practices archery on a compound bow, in case of the zombie apocalypse.
• She once cut herself with a butter knife.
• She can do fifty one-armed push-ups.
• She can curl her tongue into an O-shape and whistle.


In her holiday greeting to followers, friends, and fans, G.G. shared updates from her current writing projects, including:

• Book 2 (Stoners Vs. Moaners) recently came back from my editor and I have to take one last pass at edits, but I'm thinking it'll release in late spring.
   
• A possible collaboration in an anthology of post-apocalyptic zombie stories.
   
• A few short stories come out in 2015 in various places. They're in different styles and genres, as I love stretching my wings and trying new stuff. Some are dark with a horror vibe, the rest vary from gothic to sci-fi to literary. My fave is an emotional futuristic robot story that was reprinted by Pop Seagull in their ROBOTICA anthology, which just came out this fall. Links to all my shorts can be found here: http://www.ggsilverman.com/short-stories/

G.G. will speak NEXT WEDNESDAY, January 20 at SPU's Demaray Hall at 7pm. Come learn, appreciate, and let her motivate you. (And that lie? Well, she confesses she's not so great at those push-ups. She needs both arms....)

Seattle Writes! season kickoff

WHAT: Seattle Writes! Kickoff event
WHEN: Sunday, August 19 at 6:30pm
WHERE: Seattle Public Library, Central Branch, Microsoft Auditorium
COST: Free!

Thanks to Linda Johns for pointing out this upcoming freebie! SPL is hosting this event in honor of their Seattle Writes! season of events, and this is a goodie, no matter what your genre: Romance writer Jayne Ann Krentz will do a presentation on "Five Secrets to Selling Your Story."



For an earlier Seattle Writes! event, head on down this Saturday, August 8 for a Self-Publishing Workshop from 10:30-noon. Check out the above link for more information, as well as for the upcoming lineup of amazing writers.

November nudge

Are you ready for our next monthly programming meeting?


You won't be disappointed. This coming month––
Thursday, November 20, to be exact––SCBWI WWA presents:

NONFICTION IS THE NEW BLACK: a Panel Discussion moderated by Laurie Ann Thompson (Be a Changemaker) and featuring nonfiction and fiction authors Lisa L. Owens (The Great Chicago Fire), Jim Whiting (NFL Today: Seattle Seahawks), and Trudi Trueit (Stealing Popular).

As if that wasn't amazing enough on its own, Lois Brandt (Maddi's Fridge) will discuss Marketing for Introverts. It's sure to bring you out of your shell!


As before, all the magic happens at Seattle Pacific University, Demaray Hall 150.
TIME: 7–9pm

Passport holders: FREE
Non-passport holders: $9/SCBWI members; $15/non-SCBWI members




Mark your calendars! It's the second-most important Thursday of November!

Brand yourself

Check out the Graphic Artists Guild lunchtime workshop on "Your Brand, Your Way" with Susan Straub-Martin, which will be held November 19, 2014, from noon to 1:30 p.m.

Consider yourself a brand, a commodity. What would you like people to know about you? In this workshop, identify who you are as a brand, write a brand statement, and start crafting materials such as a business card or social media image.

The event will take place at the Seattle Design Center, 5701 6th Avenue South, 98108. Get tickets here.

SCBWI Northern Network: Marketing Mania!

So you have a story finished, polished, and perfected! Now… how do you market it?

Join the Northern Network for a discussion on marketing with the fabulous Barbara Jean Hicks, the author of over 20 books ranging from adult to picture books. She will give us her secrets for successfully promoting your books and getting the most bang for your publicity buck.

Date: Wednesday, November 5, 2014
Time: 7:00 p.m.
Location: Bellingham Barnes & Noble (4099 Meridian Street)

Questions? Call Rebecca Van Slyke at (360) 354-5797, or email at rebecca(underscore)vanslyke(at)hotmail(dot)com.

Classic controversy

When is a book a "classic"?


Publisher's Weekly’s ShelfTalker blog brings up the issue of publishers marketing books as “instant classics.” Elizabeth Bluemle at ShelfTalker makes a great case for there being no such thing.

What do you think? Join the discussion here.


––Contributed by Kjersten Anna Hayes

Book marketing tips from Jessica Schein

If you didn't catch Jessica Schein's illuminating discussion of marketing your books in today's social media-obsessed world, you're in luck––Jessica has very kindly permitted us to reproduce a cheat sheet for your benefit. And believe me, Jessica knows a thing or two about a thing or two....

You're welcome!

March PSM: One-week countdown!

Next week at this time, you have the chance to attend our March Professional Series Meeting, featuring two exciting speakers on two relevant and inspiring topics. Be there, or beware: This is some information you WILL NOT want to miss!


Mini-Session: STRATEGIES TO A SUCCESSFUL KICKSTARTER CAMPAIGN with Anne Belov. Many authors and illustrators are turning to Kickstarter (a crowd-sourced funding platform) to help establish community outreach or personal projects, but there’s a lot you need to know beyond your project’s end goal. Ann will share what she did right with her successful Kickstarter campaign, and what might have helped her move beyond her listed fund goal.

Main Program: BOOK MARKETING 101 with former Scholastic associate director of marketing, Jessica Schein. This presentation will include an overview of ways to successfully market one’s book without spending a lot of money. This includes using Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and other social media outlets to promote oneself and build community. It will also cover why it’s important to build one’s personal community. Today’s marketing is not necessarily book-specific, it is person-specific. There will be handout detailing what authors can do online and in-person as well as a timeline.


As always: 7pm, Seattle University, Demaray Hall



See you all there. Seriously, it's going to be good....

March PSM: Meet Jessica Schein

Mark those calendars for the March Professional Series Meeting, Thursday March 14! It's going to be a doozy!

"Book Marketing 101," with the multi-talented former Scholastic Associate Director of Marketing Jessica Schein, will include an overview of ways to successfully market one’s book without spending a lot of money. This includes using Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and other social media outlets to promote oneself and build community. It will also cover why it’s important to build one’s personal community. Today’s marketing is not necessarily book-specific, it is person-specific. There will be handout detailing what authors can do online and in-person as well as a timeline. Follow Jessica on Twitter to keep up to date on her writing, and check out her Tumblr site to stay current with all her book-related projects.

Jessica Schein

 AN INTERVIEW WITH JESSICA SCHEIN:

1) What's the biggest way in which marketing books has changed since you were at Scholastic? 

I actually think it's less of a question of how marketing has changed in the last 3+ years but how the industry itself has changed. Borders, a major retailer is gone; social media lifted the wall between reader and writer; and Amazon is now not only a publisher in its own right but has been at the forefront of self-publishing explosion. When I left Scholastic I knew of only a few self published success stories--Christopher Paolini being the first one that comes to mind--but now hardly a few weeks or a month goes by when I don't hear about someone who wrote a book, put it up on Amazon/BN.com/the iBookstore and is now pulling in thousands of dollars a month. This changing business model means books that would have died in someone's drawer are now being read by hundreds or thousands of people--and that's a wonderful thing. But this also makes it harder for new authors, especially, to find their audience.

2) What form of promoting one's own work is now considered obsolete?  

Print ads--and to some extent online banner ads. They're costly and hard to measure the impact of. We're also constantly bombarded with ads that unless they're very targeted, or clever, or both, they're generally ineffective. Today it's all about social media impact and integrated marketing/branding--what I think of as "suggestive" and not overt marketing.


3) What is a newly published author's greatest challenge when it comes to marketing their work?  

Getting themselves seen and heard. As I mentioned earlier there are so many people self-publishing now, making the market a crowded one. It's important for authors, both newbies and veterans, to think of marketing as a long term investment. Getting one's name out there shouldn't start when his/her book is about to or has just come out. It's never too early to build relationships with others in the publishing/reading community. It's these relationships that can make or break a writer's career.


4) What are you working on right now?  

I'm revising a YA dual-perspective novel with my writing partner, Kristiana Gregory, and my agent, whose comments have been invaluable. It's about two girls who live in the same Brooklyn house 200 years apart and the secrets they discover about their shared family. I'm also working on a series of e-novellas for more mature teens about a girl who goes missing after a night of partying in NYC.


5) What is your favorite a) thing to cook, b) recent novel read, and c) place to hang out and write in Seattle?  

My favorite thing to cook salmon (the fish in the PNW is so good), but I'm also obsessed with the Smitten Kitchen blog and I've tried a bunch of her recipes (all of which are pretty easy and amazing). The last novel I finished is Where'd You Go, Bernadette. It was hysterical and captured the Seattle vibe so, so well. And as for where I write--I tend to work at Porchlight or Tougo in Capitol Hill/the CD (where I live)--or my dining room table. I recently moved into a larger apartment and the fact that I have a dining room is the best thing that's happened to me in a long while. A dining room was so off the table (pun intended) in NYC, given the cost of an apartment larger than 300 square feet.

Online Seminar: Selling Your Book in Today's Marketplace

Want to know how to get a publisher's attention with your proposal...in a good way? 


Twolocal industry experts are hosting an online seminar this week that can help you get that proposal ready to match current expectations.




What Every Publisher Wants You to Know: Selling Your Book in Today's Marketplace


Kerry Colburn and Jen Worick are fresh back from BEA, where they got all of the latestintel from publishers and agents. 


The 90 minute seminar on June 27th will cover:

• The proposal components that are crucial to landing a publishing deal

• Rookie mistakes to avoid during the submission process

• The aspects of an author platform that matter most

• Fine-tuning your proposal to address today’s publishing climate

• The one thing that agents and editors want you to know

More information can be found on their website, The Business of Books!

The Bison v. Woman Skating Contest

Check out Darcy Pattison's new book trailer for PRARIE STORMS, a nonfiction picture book about how animals survive the storms on the prairies.

This new video is an example of a YouTube Aesthetic Book Trailer, an informal, humorous video that only addresses the content of the book tangentially, but nevertheless, creates interest. The humor is meant to be shared! So please send your friends to see it.

Darcy will be speaking at the 13th Annual Winter SCBWI Conference in New York City on January 27 at the preconference Marketing Intensive on the topic of book trailers. Join her in a discussion of appropriate aesthetics for your book trailer and many more practical tips.

The Author-Indie Bookstore Connection: Eric Luper Talks Promotion

Great post on Publisher's Weekly (thanks to Laurie for the link!).

YA and MG author Eric Luper (Jeremy Bender and the Cupcake Cadets, HarperCollins/Balzer + Bray, May 2011) is such an author, with a knack for coming up with creative ways to get out the word about his books.

Eric shares about promotion (radio and t.v. coverage, book signings, cross promotion, and working with indie bookstores). Good article to check out!!

50 things you can do to promote your book for less than $50

Here's the top of the list that's running on Huffington Post (and thanks to Lee Wind) for the link:

These days it seems like everyone's book marketing budget is a little tighter. If you're feeling the pinch, or if you're just looking for some great free stuff to do on your own, here are some tips that could help keep you on track.

1) Buy your domain name as soon as you have a title for your book. You can get domain names for as little as $8.95. Tip: When buying a domain always try to get a .com and stay away from hyphens, i.e. penny-sansevieri.com - surfers rarely remember to insert hyphens.

2) Head on over to Blogger.com or Wordpress.com and start your very own blog (you can add it to your Web site later).

3) Set up an event at your neighborhood bookstore. Do an event and not a signing, book signings are boring!

Read the rest.

When do you start promoting your book?

Not too long ago, writers promoted their books after they came out by going on publisher-funded book tours. That doesn't happen so much any more.

Savvy writers today are getting the word out--sometimes even before they have deals.

Beth Revis is one; she's been blogging about the writing process, among other things, for a while. Now that she has this book deal to announce, she's holding a celebratory contest:

High school teacher Beth Revis's debut ACROSS THE UNIVERSE, in the near-future, a reluctant teenage girl and her pioneer parents are cryogenically frozen for a 300-year trip to a new planet; she awakens 50 years early on a vast spaceship with a murderer on board, to Ben Schrank at Razorbill, in a major deal, in a pre-empt, in a three-book deal, for publication in spring 2011, by Merrilee Heifetz at Writers House (world English).

Not everyone will take this approach, but if you can, it's very smart. She's racked up more than 300 followers--way more than the average bookstore appearance, although those are great, too. Check it out.

Skype an author

Hey, authors. Here's a cool way to visit schools without leaving your office. There are some steps you need to take to get set up, but it sounds like a great way to get your work into schools.

Check it out here.

Simon & Schuster: how to promote yourself online

Simon & Schuster explains how to set up a blog, what you can do on social networking sites, the differences between the book-related social networking sites like GoodReads and Shelfari, and how you can get your pretty face on YouTube.

Check it out here.

Are you an author 2.0?

Simon & Schuster thinks you should be. The Creative Penn blog tells you how.

Let's hope this trend dies a quick death

Found this on Kristin Nelson's blog:

This is the latest rally cry in publishing. One of my authors just found out today that her publisher is not going to be doing ARCs for her book. But it’s not just for her title but for all the mass market titles at this house.

Gone. They’ve decided that it’s too costly to continue with the current economic conditions.

For those of you who don’t know, ARC stands for Advanced Reading Copy. This is the main tool in terms of getting reviews and influential blog posts about the upcoming release. Savvy authors can use those ARCs in a variety of ways such as making them available for special promos or having them handy at events or conferences where booksellers attend. And this is just the tip of the ice berg of uses for the ARC.

Read the rest.

Having published a couple of books, I can tell you that people notice when a publisher is unwilling to spend money on a title. It means no reviews, no publisher-set-up book events...which means no one talks about the book, few stores order it, and your work fades into the mists unless you happen to be a genius at self promotion.

How should authors market themselves?

Nathan Bransford, as usual, has good insights:

Instead: do what you're best at. Don't make yourself miserable doing what you think you should be doing, do what you enjoy doing. Utilize your time where it's best spent:

- If you have a talent and passion for blogging: do that.
- If you enjoy Twitter and know the ins and outs: do that.
- If you are a great public speaker and love attending writers conferences: do that.
- If you have media connections and can utilize them: do that.
- If you love pounding the pavement and meeting with local bookstores to arrange signings and events: do that.
- If you are an amateur filmmaker on the side and have an idea for a killer book trailer: do that.
- If you think creatively and enjoy thinking of wacky publicity events: do that.
- If you are fabulously wealthy and you want to drop books from an airplane with $100 bills attached: do that, and please make sure to stop by San Francisco.

Read the whole thing.

Twitter: the go-to buzz-builder for authors?

You'll no doubt remember the great information Lisa Schroeder shared with us in December about life as a novelist. She posted last week about how Twitter helped her launch CHASING BROOKLYN. If you're still thinking about joining the fray, this will probably make you take the leap.

While you're getting started, you can find Lisa here: http://twitter.com/lisa_schroeder. And you can find the SCBWI Western Washington here: http://twitter.com/scbwiwwa.

Meanwhile, here's a piece by Harold Underdown (author of the Idiot's Guide to Children's Publishing) on social networking and online promotion, and what authors are expected to do these days.