Posts Tagged ‘Publishing’
Selecting Influencers for a Book Release: The Problem
Continuing my 3-part series on selecting influencers for a book release…
When you begin selecting influential people to help spread the word about your book, keep in mind the three qualities that you’re looking for: trusted names, contact with a large audience, and a willingness or ability to endorse your book.
In compiling my own list of influencers I worked very hard to contact those with large audiences and a trusted name, but I didn’t necessarily gauge the likelihood that they would plug my book. Keep in mind that the bigger a name, the more books he/she will receive. They can’t read every book that comes onto their desks, and so the question is, “Will this person both read and talk about my book?”
If an influencer doesn’t read your book, it’s nothing personal. There are only so many hours in a day. In addition, some may hope to read and talk about your book with their audience only for your book to fall through the cracks. Within days of receiving my book one well-meaning influencer realized he wouldn’t have time to read it and so he gave it away on his web site.
No exactly the ideal publicity you’re aiming for.
And so the challenge you face is balancing the audience size and trust of an influencer with that person’s ability to plug book whether in conversations or in an online or on-air review. However, the right kind of influencer for your book may not have that large of an audience and may even look quite different from what you expcet.
The next installments in this series…
- Selecting influencers for a book release: The Solution
Previously…
Selecting Influencers for a Book Release: The Goal
Before a book releases it is important for authors to assemble lists of influencers who can help promote and possibly add a public endorsement that will prompt others to buy their books. For instance, if a respected author, radio personality, or, in my case, pastor of a large congregation recommends a book, especially saying it’s a must-read, then a book may well receive a bump in sales.
Selling a book tends to be a very personal, one on one process. Advertising may raise awareness, but anything from a friend’s recommendation, a book seller’s comments, or an online review often makes the difference between a book staying on the shelf or ending up on the nightstand. In addition, a series of solid reviews do not guarantee brisk sales, just as negative reviews do not equal a book’s doom.
There is plenty of competition these days for not only the public’s attention, but also for the public’s disposable income. When trusted authorities recommend a book, authors have one more way to connect a book with readers. Influencers can vouch for an author’s credibility and provide a broad point of connection with potential readers.
The ideal influencers will have trusted names, contact with a large audience, and a willingness to endorse your book. Influencers may lead to direct sales or at least give readers another reason to recommend your book.
An influencer without one of these three qualities may not be a helpful contact. In the next post of this series I’ll look into some of the problems authors encounter in putting together an influencer list.
The next installments in this series…
- Selecting influencers for a book release: The Problem
- Selecting influencers for a book release: The Solution
From Idea to Editor Workshop on October 17th in Manchester, VT
The Greater Manchester Arts Council is pleased to announce a fall workshop designed to assist writers with moving their book ideas to book proposals.
Join Ed Cyzewski, author of Coffeehouse Theology: Reflecting on God in Everyday Life for a step-by-step journey into the process of transforming your book idea into a book proposal with the necessary research, style and tips that will send your proposal to the top of the pile.
From networking advice, to tips from publishing professionals, this presentation will give aspiring writers the tools they need to take the next step in the publishing process. This workshop will emphasize the nonfiction process, but will offer
valuable advice for writers in every genre.
The workshop will be held on Saturday, October 17th, from 9-12AM at the Inn at Willow Pond on Rte. 7A in Manchester, VT. Cost is $45.00 per person/$40.00 early bird registration. Fee includes a continental breakfast. Please call 802-867-0272 for registration and information or fill out the contact form.
How to Write a First Draft of a Book
Writing a book is a long, drawn-out process. It’s hard to say when you’re “done” other than that moment when the book arrives in your mail box and sits on your coffee table like a long lost friend. Nevertheless, along the way there are certain mile stones to aim for and to celebrate.
Yesterday I wrapped up the first draft of my next book Saving Evangelicals from Themselves. The first draft often entails the lion’s share of the book writing process. There is research, brainstorming, organizing, stream of consciousness writing, editing, reorganizing, more writing, and more editing and polishing.
By 5 PM yesterday I had my draft completely finished and ready for the publisher. It even came close to the 60,000 word count with a total of 61,610 words. I’d like to share a little bit about the process of writing a first draft of a book. I hope this helps as you plunge into your own projects.
Read… A Lot
You don’t need to quote directly from every book or cite everything, but read, skim, or browse as many books as you can in your topic area. You want to communicate your own ideas in fresh ways, while giving credit where it is due.
Research
Set up Google Alerts for your subject areas, read and tag articles using del.icio.us, dig through surveys, and look up articles in key papers and magazines such as Time, The Atlantic, The New Yorker, The New York Times, and any other magazine closely related to your topic. For myself I keep a close eye on Christianity Today.
Organize and Outline
You need to know where your book is going, and so a rough outline is necessary. Don’t be afraid to delete, add, or reorder chapters as you set out. Better now than later. Set up a rough idea of each chapter’s trajectory.
Write, Write, Write
I like to just cut loose and write a ton once I have some research and outlines to provide general guidance. I end up scrapping at least 25-35% of what I write, but the core that remains is generally pretty solid. Let your mind wander, write about things you care about, and think deeply about your topic. Always keep in mind your one-two sentence summary of your book from your proposal (you did put together a proposal first, right? If not, do that NOW!)
Fill In Gaps
After you have a good chunk of material together, you need to fill in the gaps with more research, quotes, and stories. Try to get a sense of the flow of your chapter. Are you on target? Can readers follow with you? Are they still interested? Have you backed up your claims? This is the time to ask hard questions and to be critical of your work. I have a scrap folder for each book with a document that matches each chapter. Many scrap documents have at least 7 pages of material in them. That means you need to keep adding content to your chapters, making sure you’ve sharpened your points.
Seek Opinions
When you’re relatively confident you have a solid chunk of chapter, seek out a friend or two to read it. Ask them to point out places where stories don’t work, ideas need to be developed, or the whole thing falls off course. I recommend at least two different readers since people can be very different in how they read something.
Never Stop Researching
Hopefully you’ve been keeping up on your field while you’re doing the heavy part of the writing. By saving key stories and articles on del.icio.us I have saved myself on several occasions. You never know when a crucial piece of information will surface.
The Critical Read-Through
Keeping in mind your book’s focus, reader-benefits, and goals, read through each chapter with a critical eye to anything that doesn’t fit, discredits you as a writer, loses your readers, or doesn’t sound quite right. Kill adverbs without mercy, tighten up sentence structure, delete a lot, insert strong verbs, and make sure you begin and end with bang.
Hit Send, Tell a Friend, and Buy Yourself a Treat
It’s a wonderful feeling to hit the send button when you’re done with a key phase of a book project. Celebrate the moment, treat yourself to something you enjoy, and share the joy of the moment with your friends. Chances are you won’t be celebrating when your editor writes back in two months with the revisions you need to make… 
Lessons from the Past Six Months on Writing
By the time Coffeehouse Theology was released in September 2008, I was well on my way with my next book project—writing stories, searching for articles, and testing out ideas. I had one foot in marketing and the other in a new project on evangelicals: Saving Evangelicals from Themselves: Where We’ve Gone Wrong and Why We Have Hope. Without the head start seminary afforded on Coffeehouse Theology, I learned a few lessons in the course of writing a first draft for a book completely from scratch.
Using del.icio.us to not only tag and organize links, but to also set aside material worthy of a quotation made the research process much easier. At first I just tagged everything that looked relevant, but soon I realized that it helps to read the articles first rather than assuming I’d read them later. I rarely did that! So I read through, highlighted the section I wanted to quote, and then tagged them. By highlighting a section, I could then find it on my del.icio.us bookmarks without have to reread the whole article.
Small sticky notes make it much easier to find quotations from books. I had a system of using small sticky notes as tabs sticking out of books. I’d typically stick the note to the page, make a bracket around the relevant text, and then jot a few words connecting the quote with a particular chapter. I later found that many of my quotes didn’t fit, but without taking the time to mark everything that seemed important, I doubt I would have been able to find enough helpful quotations to pull from the many books I read.
Lining up readers for your drafts is absolutely essential. I received invaluable advice from my readers who soldiered through my early drafts. One chapter needed to be deleted, while another began with too much intensity. In both cases my readers helped prompt significant changes to my book that I believe will make it more successful.
Writing down many of my stories and anecdotes months before I began seriously working on the chapters helped me sort through the most important topics to be covered in the book. This book could have taken a couple of different directions, but I wanted it to unfold as organically as possible, letting my stories direct and shape the overall direction and point of the book. By starting with a solid core of stories totaling 30,000 words, I quickly ruled out certain chapters that would not have enough substance to work within the parameters I had established for the book.
Anything written can be deleted. I have found that I am continually amazed at what ends up working and what ends up being tossing into the “scraps” folder. Never tire of using the delete button.
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