The New Book Review

This blog, #TheNewBookReview, is "new" because it eschews #bookbigotry. It lets readers, reviewers, authors, and publishers expand the exposure of their favorite reviews, FREE. Info for submissions is in the "Send Me Your Fav Book Review" circle icon in the right column below. Find resources to help your career using the mini search engine below. #TheNewBookReview is a multi-award-winning blog including a MastersInEnglish.org recommendation.

Showing posts with label book signings. Show all posts
Showing posts with label book signings. Show all posts

Monday, July 21, 2008

Early Bird Special for LA Times Festival of Books

Dear Subscribers and Authors' Coalition Members:

Join us now as a signing author at the Authors' Coalition booth at the LA Times Festival of Books on the beautiful UCLA campus and get a substantial discount. It is the last weekend of April 2009. The book-signing portion of the fair requires that you attend but other value-added promotions do not. You'll hear more about those later.

Authors' Coalition will again be sponsoring a booth at the LA Times/UCLA Festival of Books on April 2009. We focus on making a humdrum fair into a sizzling success; we make changes every year based on what we learned the year before and the year before that.

Register before August 15th and receive an early bird discount for the signing slots. One hour signing segments (50 minutes to allow set up) cost $100 for the first and $80 for a second hour. After August 15, the fee will return to its regular $150 for the first and $100 for the second day. The fee includes display or your book, your order forms and your bookmark or business card and a poster for the full two days, Those who are not members of Authors' Coalition will be asked to join at the Silver Membership level. The regular cost is $25, but will be discounted to $20 for those signing. Participants whose memberships from last year come due in April can join for only $10 in addition to the signing fee.

Last year we had our booth televised on the Internet. Rey Ybarra from Best Selling Author Television was there to cover the event. He conducted short three-minute interviews with the several authors. The program proved to be a great success. Rey will be there with his crew again this year. (To see the 2008 video made by Rey Ybarra, go to Best Selling Author Television site at : http://www.veoh.com/channels/BSATV)

The advantages of our LA Times Booth:

1. Ongoing education on PR and promotion for participants during the planning of the booth.

2. Value-added promotions designed to draw readers to our booth (more to come on these later.)

3. Cross promotion benefits of many participating authors rather than of only a few.

4. Excellent location at the fair for a fraction of the cost of an individual booth.

5. Association with a recognized name and with other authors with recognized names.

6. A stable, high trafficked booth location and a booth with an established history among return visitors to the fair.

7. A booth with double the usual frontage of most (The booth size is subject to the number participating).

8. Assorted ways to participate, some available to authors who don't live in the area (more on those later).

9. A limited number of books and authors accepted to increase visibility.

10. Display of the books of signing authors for the full two days of the fair.

11. Display of your poster for the full two days of the fair.

12. Exposure of your name and book's title on Authors' Coalition blogs.

13. Your book listed on an Amazon Listmania.

14. The credibility of being associated with a well-planned booth sponsored by a professional organization.

15. Associated value-added promotion like our catalog for booksellers, our video special, our tote program, our slide show and our gift with purchase help attract interest in the booth, help encourage sales, and help us keep cross-promotional efforts going long after the fair.

16. You participation in signing and display, includes an ad on the Authors' Coalition website for one month at no additional charge.

17. An opportunity to have your favorite review posted at The New Book Review (www.newbookreview.blogspot.com).

Here's What's NEW In 2009
Poetry reading

Story time for kids

Promotional Tote Bags

We are planning to have a poetry-reading hour and a children's story reading hour in the afternoon slots. The cost will be approximately $25.00 for a 15 minutes-reading time. This is new and details will be provided in the subsequent issues. Please let me (Christine Alexanians) know of your interest and I'll put you on the list. I am not taking deposits at this time. Imagine, saying you read from your work at this prestigious fair!

DISPLAY:

Books on display will be shown on a bookstand, not tossed into a bin with hundreds of others. There is room near each participant's book to have a flier 4 x 5 3/4 and, to give away bookmarks or business cards--any two of the three. Each author may also supply laminated signs with grommets to be hung around the perimeter of the booth. Note: We are not offering display to anyone not signing this year. All books on display will be those of signing authors.

SALES

No books will be sold out of the booth except by signing authors at the time of their signing. Books will be displayed with order forms when they are not signing. (See above.).

BLOG

Our Authors' Coalition fair-focused blog is open to all. It further exposes our participants' books. We use the blog as a kind of journal of our experiences and the blog comments as a way to share promotion ideas and ask questions. It is an ideal way to keep a record but also to share with other writers who might be planning a fair booth elsewhere.
We also offer a free review blog (www.TheNewBookReview.blogspot.com) where participants can have their favorite reviews (with permission from the reviewer) posted.

SIGNING SEGMENTS AT THE FAIR

Local authors or authors willing to travel may purchase one hour segments of signing time. Signings will be posted in the booth (Sorry, but the LA Times Festival of Books administration does not provide a way to list multiple authors in the brochures, etc. that the LA Times sends out.) Thus signing authors will be responsible for their own promotions including media releases and invitations to drive traffic to their signing. In fact, for everyone to benefit we will ask for a pledge that each of them will do so.)

One hour (50 minutes to allow set up) signing segments cost $150 for the first and $100 for a second hour. We offer a discounted cost of $100 and $80 for authors signing before August 15th, 2008. The fee includes display in the booth for the full two days. If you choose to sign, we strongly recommend that participants consider the stands and banners we tested last year to make their signing times a standout. (Information on these amazingly-effective stands to come and at www.authorscoalitionandredenginepress.com )

All signing positions are available on a first-come, first-served basis. We have had authors with books traditionally published as well as subsidy--and self-published. We only ask that no one with pornographic material apply because we are located near the children's section and sometimes have children's authors as signers. Those who are not members of Authors' Coalition will be asked to join at the Silver Membership level. The regular cost is $25, but will be discounted to $20 for those signing or reading. Participants whose memberships come due in April can join for only $10 in addition to the signing fee.

Training:

It is our policy to supply ideas, templates and resources for book fair promotion. We begin early which is one reason to take advantage of this early bird special. Many find this an educational experience equivalent to taking an expensive class in promotion.

Disposal of Fair Materials and Limitations:

Books and promotion materials will not be returned. Display books will be donated to a library after the fair.

Other terms: Because of the training process and because we must pay our expenses early, fees must be paid upon signing and cannot be refunded. There are also no refunds for natural or unnatural disasters and, yes, that includes rain. An author must participate in the signing segment to actually sell books. They sell their own books in our booth only during their signing time and handle their own sales (or bring an assistant to do that for them.)

PAYMENT

To participate send an e-mail to Christine Alexanians at chalexwrite@yahoo.com. She can invoice you for PayPal or give you an address to send a check. Please put "LA Times Fair" in the subject line and please let her know the programs you would like to participate in so she will know how to bill you. (As an example, you should tell her if you are already a CURRENT paid member of AC or if you need to be billed for your membership.) She will then send you details for participation and answer other questions regarding this show. The fair booth is under the auspices of Authors' Coalition and booth promotion will be handled by Christine and Carolyn Howard-Johnson.


-----
The New Book Review is blogged by Carolyn Howard-Johnson, founder of Authors' Coalition (www.authorscoalitionandredenginepress.com). It is a free service offered to those who want to encourage the reading of books they love. That includes authors who want to share their favorite reviews and reviewers who'd like to see their reviews get more exposure and readers who want to shout out praise of books they've loved. Please see submission guidelines on the left of this page.

Tuesday, February 19, 2008

Publishing Consultant Reviews Frugal Book Promoter


The Frugal Book Promoter
Author: Carolyn Howard-Johnson
Available on Amazon.com in paperback or as a Kindle book
Star Publish
Available as an e-book at Star Publish
Number 1 in the HowToDoItFrugally series of books for writers


Reviewed by Dana Lynn Smith, publishing consultant, Texana Publishing

Become a master at the book publicity game

Carolyn Howard-Johnson’s PR background shines through as she shares dozens and dozens tips for preparing media materials and working successfully with the media.

The Frugal Book Promoter also offers advice on the effective use of galleys and ARCs, tips for getting blurbs, information on using Amazon’s promotional tools, ideas for book launch announcements and parties, tips for jump-starting sales of books that have been out for a while, and more.

This book is a great tool for both new and experienced authors. New authors will especially benefit from Howard-Johnson’s refreshingly realistic look at the not-always-glamorous world of book signings and book fairs.

-----
The New Book Review is blogged by Carolyn Howard-Johnson, founder of Authors' Coaliition (www.authorscoalitionandredenginepress.com). It is a free service offered to those who want to encourage the reading of books they love--and that includes authors who want to share their favorite reviews and reviewers who'd like to see their reviews get more exposure. Please see submission guidelines on the left of this page.

Monday, September 10, 2007

Promoting: Giving In to the Human Animal

The Frugal Book Promoter
Copyright: By Carolyn Howard-Johnson 2004
Pages: 243(Includes Index)
ISBN: 1-932993-10-X
Price. $17.95
Published by Star Publish 2004

Reviewed by Judith Woolcock Colombo

Humans are social animals. We like to associate with others to share our thoughts, blessings, and woes. But above all this, we love to express our opinions and demonstrate our knowledge about matters both mundane and extraordinary. Over the eons our penchant for giving advice has led to a phenomenon called the how to book. There are how to books on subjects ranging from the simplest household tasks to how to be a good parent or an amazing lover.

Authors are no exception to the rule, and are very eager to give advice to each other from how to write and publish your first novel to publicizing that novel and promoting yourself. Being an author, I know how important publicizing ones work is and how necessary it is to promote oneself. Because other writers know how eager their colleagues are to place themselves in the public eye, there are many books in the market place that offer publicity and promotion tips. More often than not, these suggestions require great expenditure and that is something most underpaid writers can’t afford.

However, The Frugal Book Promoter by Carolyn Howard –Johnson offers solutions that cost more in time than money, and time is something any committed writer must be prepared to spend. The author admits at the start of the book that some of her advice is based on her opinion, but this is an opinion garnered from years of being in public relations and from successfully promoting and publicizing her first two books.

The book starts off with some simple and helpful hints. The author speaks about branding yourself instead of publicizing yourself. Later she goes on to explain this more fully. Every time an author writes an article, short story, or book review and publishes it in a magazine, newspaper, ezine or website, he or she should end with their tagline. A tagline can be the author’s name and works, for example, Gloria Fox author of One Missing Shoe along with email and website address.

In the first chapters, Howard-Johnson addresses normal author concerns such as plagiarism: how often it is really done and how to guard against it by copyrighting. She also discusses P.R or how to publicize your book through media releases, publishing excerpts from your book, and author interviews among other things.

The Frugal Book Promoter is so filled with information that it would take several pages to describe. Howard-Johnson spends time elaborating on the things to do before the book comes out, building a Media Kit, entering contests, making contacts by attending conferences and how to decide which ones to attend and what to do while there. She discusses the importance of having your own website and how to have one built for a reasonable fee. She gives you a list of websites to go to that will teach you how to build one or help you get ones for free. She also explains the necessity of making a personal mailing list of family, friends, co-workers, your church group and so on.

The author takes you through the process of what to do when you get a publisher’s contract, the questions to ask and the pitfalls to avoid. She also gives advice on what to do after the book is published, how to get reviews, the importance of book signings and book fares, how to use the media including internet radio and public announcements in local papers. Her section on Amazon.Com is excellent. She explains how to establish a free account and how to use tools such as Listamania, book reviews, and the All About Me section.

One of the aspects of this book that I thought most valuable was the list of websites included in every chapter. They ranged from websites that help you with the mechanics of writing to review sites, and sites that help you sell and promote the book. There is also an appendix filled with wonderful things, like sample query letters.

As a writer, I found this book a very useful tool. Even if you don’t agree with some of the author’s opinions, the share amount of research that went into this book will awe you. One of the results of this extensive research though, is that the book can seem overwhelming. The solution to this is to treat it as a toolbox. When you need a tool, open the box and take it out, or study the specific chapter or chapters in this case. Beginning authors will find this an enlightening how to book and even old veterans might learn some things they never knew. I did.

Judith Woolcock Colombo: Author of The Fablesinger, Night Crimes, The Gasman & The Death of Betty Pinto
Visit my web site at http://odin.prohosting.com/~night01 Or email
judithcolombo@hotmail.com for info & sample chapters/