And now…the continuation of that publishing research

Let’s forge ahead with tips on finding that right publishing company for your work.

If you decide to query, pay special attention to the response you receive if it’s via e-mail. Is correct grammar and punctuation used? Are the sentences clear and concise?

What type of distribution is offered for its books? Are the book only sold through its website? If it’s a paperback book, is distribution available through national wholesalers like Ingram or Baker & Taylor? Have you seen any of their books on bookstore shelves? If not, can you place an order for one in a major chain bookstore?

Purchase two or three of the publisher’s books in different genres and inspect for quality. (Alternatively, if the books are in paperback, you should be able to check them out from your local library.) Are the covers clear and crisp? Are they error-free? Is the alignment consistent within the pages of the book? Is this a book you would be proud to have your name on?

What about the prices? Are they reasonable? Are they competitive in today’s market? Do keep in mind that non-fiction books are generally higher-priced than fiction.

Has the publisher lost many authors over the past six months to a year? In case of a smaller publisher, if authors are leaving the company like rats off a sinking ship, there is definite cause for concern. While a company cannot possibly please all of its authors, it should certainly not be losing authors left and right. The right kind of publishing company will attempt to resolve any issues and to make the author want to stay.

You can discover this information, though, it might take some more in-depth research. For larger publishers, this probably won’t be too big of a concern, but for smaller publishers, you need to know, if there is a mass exodus, why it’s happening.

You might also want to check the county in which the company is located for current lawsuits. All lawsuits are matters of public record and are usually accessible by county records. First, you will need to locate the company address which should be available on the website. It’s easy enough to find the county after that. Then a quick search of the county Clerk of Court’s website or a call will provide the answer to this question. Also check the Secretary of State if the company is an LLC or incorporated. You also might want to check the Better Business Bureau as well. Not all publishers are listed with the BBB, but it never hurts to double-check.

How does the company market itself? You should know, in advance, what the company does to market itself. A quick way is to Google its name. Has the company been interviewed? Do they advertise? Hold sales? Have any of their books been reviewed by reputable review sites? What does the company do to promote both its authors and its books? Though it is not the publisher’s sole responsibility to promote one single author, it should actively market its entire catalog. Another question you can ask their authors: How much participation does the publisher give you in your marketing endeavors? Do they offer tips? Provide avenues you might not be aware of? What do they do to help you promote?

Have there been many customer service complaints? This is especially important if the company is an e-publisher. Again, this is another bit of information which might take some research, but the last thing you want is to tie yourself to a publisher which clearly has no customer service skills. If you’re members of any groups, you can post a question asking if anyone has purchased a book from that publisher and his/her comments about the purchase.

Customer complaints can range from editing to inability to purchase the book. Weigh the complaints carefully. Another option is to buy a copy of the book yourself to see how smoothly the transaction goes if it’s an online publisher.

These are just few of the many ways to make sure you find the right publisher. Just pay attention, do your homework, and enter into any publishing relationship armed with knowledge!

Technorati Tags: books,complaints,authors,research,customer service,promoting,marketing,members,purchase,paperback,e-publisher,homework,relationship,knowledge

Speaking of book videos…

While this isn’t a book video, per se, Vintage does have a new commercial just created specifically for YouTube and the various other online sites. So our campaign begins this week.

Take a look and tell us what you think! Everyone who comments here and on YouTube will be entered in a drawing for a chance to win your choice of three books from Vintage!

Technorati Tags:
commercial, videos, YouTube, giveaways, contests, books, Vintage, Highlanders, mysteries, love stories, children, young adult, adventure, escape, reading, website, publishing, authors

Book Videos–The Final Determination

Now we come to the end of the journey, or, the end of the month-long trial run. Let’s see how well this campaign has worked for you and whether it is something you will try again.

Remember all those sites you visited when you were determining the current sales rank of your book as well as your ratings? Well, get ready to revisit them. By the way, if you’ve already gotten your royalty statement now, that’s going to be a big help as well.

Now it’s time to go back to your web stats and review the list of external sites. Write down the places where you know you had your video uploaded. Tally up how many direct click-throughs you received as a result.

Next, go back to Amazon and check for reviews. Did you receive any more? Does your book have more ratings? What is your sales ranking? The lower the number, the better the sales.

Then it’s time to visit Barnes and Noble to do the same thing. (Or other online places your book is available for purchases if it’s a print book). Always look at your sales rank. It does help give you a general idea of your current sales.

If you have an e-book, your travels will take you to All Romance once again. Did your book make best-seller status? If not, where is it in the line-up of your publisher’s books? Has it climbed up a few notches since before your campaign began? What about the rating? Has it improved? Have you gotten any reviews?

How about Mobipocket? Any ratings there?

Stop in at your publisher’s website. If your publisher uses an e-commerce site, you should be able to see the top-selling books. Did your book make the list?

Now, head on over to Fictionwise and retrace your steps from my last post. Where is your book in your publisher’s list of books? Are you on the best-seller list this time? If not, have you moved up the list since the campaign began? How many reader ratings do you have now? Is your book on the highest rated list? Ratings mean sales so that’s a definite sign of progress!

Finally, it’s time to ask some questions. Ask your readers via your blog, Facebook, or however you talk to them, if they purchased your book because of the video or if they were in any way influenced by it. Nudge them for answers because this could very well be a major deciding factor in whether or not you choose to utilize book videos again.

Now that your campaign is complete, do you feel the extra work was worth any additional money you made? Can you see how beneficial the video was? Weigh the pros and the cons before making your decision, and you might even want to consider talking to other authors you use videos to see if they believe their sales have been directly impacted. Perhaps they could even give you some additional tips that will elevate your sales.

Good luck, and if you do have positive results with your book video campaign, please let us know! We’ d love to congratulate you!

Technorati Tags:
book videos, trailers, marketing, promotions, tools, YouTube, editors, authors, previews, sneak peek, snapshot, royalty-free images, royalty-free music, tagline, advertising, contests

Buzzing into Sales with Book Videos (Part V)

Now let’s talk about those sales. Before you can begin to track if your video is increasing your sales, you have to have a point of reference. How were your sales before you began the campaign? You’ll need much more than just your current royalty statement if you want to keep real-time track so you’re going to need to do several things which you might consider tedious. However, you’ll soon discover why these are necessary tasks.

Once you’ve uploaded your video and followed the steps in my previous posts, prepare a list of distributors your publisher utilizes. Though I’ll only be including information from the top distribution sites, you can use these tips to track your sales at other sites as well.

You’re going to visit each of these sites and check for the following:

Amazon

Customer reviews if you have any which were written before your book video campaign. If you have reviews, were they Amazon Verified purchases (you can discover this below the reviewer’s name)? Write down the date of the review.

Your current sales rank. Don’t be discouraged by the number; just write it down.

Your book’s rating.

You can follow basically the same steps at Barnes and Noble, Books a Million, and Borders if your book is available in print.

If your book is available as an e-book and your publisher utilizes distributors, you’ve got a bit more work to do. You’ll want to visit those sites as follows:

All Romance

Search for your publisher and click on Best Selling. Find your book. Where is your book in the list? Write it down and then check for top-rated. Make a note of the rating as well. Remember that right now, all you’re doing is charting your current stats.

Mobipocket

At present, all you can do for Mobipocket is to check your book’s rating. That will suffice for now, but remember that many times a customer will buy a book and not take the time to rate it. So don’t spend too much time focusing on whether or not your book has been rated.

Fictionwise

On the left hand side of the page, click on Publisher list. Find your publisher.

Is your book listed in the bestseller list or highest rated list at the top of the page? If so, write down your current status. If not, where is it on the list of your publisher’s books? How many reader ratings does your book have?

One note I need to make here is that Fictionwise bases its bestselling books upon the previous twenty days sales. That means that if a book sold only ten copies in the past twenty days, but no other book sold more than that, it is listed as a best seller. So don’t assume that bestselling means your book has sold hundreds of copies. I don’t want you to be disappointed should that not be the case.

Now, go back to your web stats and review the list of external/referral sites. Where is most of your traffic coming from? Write down the names of the places because you’re going to need to know at the end of the month if you’ve received referrals from any places where you’ve placed your book video.

Once you’ve done all of this, put the information aside and wait for the month to end. I’ll be back soon to talk about the results of the campaign and making a final determination.

Technorati Tags:
book videos, trailers, marketing, promotions, tools, YouTube, editors, authors, previews, sneak peek, snapshot, royalty-free images, royalty-free music, tagline, advertising, contests, sales, All Romance E-books, Amazon, Mobipocket, Fictionwise, distribution

Buzzing into Book Sales (Part IV)

Originally, the sales portion of this series was supposed to be only in two parts, but the more I wrote, the more I realized I needed to add. So here is part four which includes more ways to utilize your book video to increase sales of your books.

Now that you’ve been uploading your book videos to the various sites around the web, it’s time to get a bit more creative if you want to bump up those sales.

First, ask your friends to post a link to your video on their Facebook or other social networking page. (Okay, not so creative, but keep reading!)

Offer a free copy of your book once your video is viewed 1,000 on YouTube or twenty-five comments. You can add the information to the YouTube content section and let your fans know about it on your other sites. You’ll hold a drawing, and anyone who has posted will be considered for the drawing. Change the numbers once you’ve reached 1,000–the possibilities are limitless–and you’ll more than likely have people wanting to know what the buzz is all about.

Create your own contest asking other people to participate in your next video. Tell them you need something different. Ask them to put together a list of interview questions and ask them on camera. The most creative interviewer gets a prize of your choosing. You’ll need to let them know what the prize is, and, of course, this might be a bit more costly, but it’ll definitely create a buzz and draw attention to your book.

Encourage your readers to blog about your video openly and honestly. Tell them you want feedback, the more comments the better because you need to be able to correct what needs to be correct or use what seems to be working.

On your blog, start a topic that relates to videos-not about the video itself but something about the body of the video, i.e., royalty-free music (why do they give it away) or the photographers behind the free photos. You could even e-mail some of the photographers and ask them for input. You could also talk about video editing programs, what you use, and why. And don’t forget to mention your book cover. You could write an entire blog topic about your cover artist and/or book covers that relate to your books subject. This is another section where the possibilities are endless.

Don’t forget to keep track of your blog stats, your web stats, and your Facebook Fan page. (You do have one of those, right? If not, now’s definitely the time!) You need to know what’s working with your video and what isn’t. So watch those numbers.

The next post will detail how to start following your sales. It’s a lot of work, but it pays off in the end!

Technorati Tags:
book videos, trailers, marketing, promotions, tools, YouTube, editors, authors, previews, sneak peek, snapshot, royalty-free images, royalty-free music, tagline, stats, Facebook, Twitter, contests, posts, sales, video editing programs, feedback

Can A Sneak Peek Help Your Book Sales? (Part One)

If you’re an avid movie-goer, you’re probably a fan of the previews shown before each new release. It helps you decide the future movies you’ll see, sparks your interest, and makes you look forward to that release.

By now, everyone has heard about book trailers/book peeks/or whatever you want to call a teaser about your book. They’re supposed to act much like a movie trailer and entice readers to try your book. But do they work? And is there a quantifiable way to measure whether or not you’ll get a good return on your investment if you purchase one of these snazzy videos?

You could ask different people and get different answers to those questions. Some swear by the book videos, and others say they just don’t work. Having spent much time researching the subject, I can tell you the jury is still out. Some readers love them; others hate them. So deciding whether or not to use one is really up to you; however, you can do a short test-run to determine whether or not this is a viable marketing tool for you.

In this test-run, you’re going to create or have created a book video that you’re going to use for your newest book, and you’re going to utilize this video creatively. But first, there is one thing you must know: If you intend to make use of your book video to, hopefully, enhance your sales, you must make sure it is a high-quality, streamlined video. It can be cute, funny, whimsical, serious, dark, or whatever tone you choose, but you cannot skimp on quality and still attract readers. Does this mean you’re going to have to spend a lot of money? Not necessarily, especially since you’re going to first do a test run to see if these videos help your sales.

There are many amateur video editors getting started creating these videos, and they’re likely to give you a good deal, but you should do some research first. Spend some time on YouTube watching some videos. Pick out some of your favorites and write down the name of the creator.

Next, put together an outline for your video. Yes, you could leave this in the hands of the editor, but it’s your book, and you know more about it than anyone else. So think about what would be the best selling tools. What attracts you to buy a book? How can that be incorporated into the video? Do you want to use dialogue from your characters or just snippets from the synopsis? Write down a few hooks and tag-lines.

Now, what about music? What is the tone of your book? Head on over to www.incompetech.com and listen to some of Kevin MacLeod’s royalty-free tunes. Remember, this is a test-run so you want to keep the costs low.

Once you’ve chosen your music, it’s time to choose your images unless you just want to use your book cover. In my opinion, I would advise against just using your cover on your test run unless your copy is really magnetic. There are so many image sites on the Internet that I’m not going to list any. You can simply Google “royalty free images”, and a host of sites will appear.

One word of caution, before you start choosing your images, make sure you have your copy written first. You need to know which images will work with your one-liners or dialogue. Now, look for images that match your characters and your copy. Please be careful not to have two different woman standing in for your heroine or some other noticeable errors. Viewers do notice those things.

Okay, now that you have everything, compile it all into one zip file and start getting some quotes from video editors. Start with the ones on your list, but if they are too expensive, utilize Google again. Make sure you tell the editor that you have everything together right up front. See if that will lessen your expense, especially since this is your first video. Also, ask the editor how many changes will be allowed or if he/she will allow you to see the video in separate stages of completion, or, at the very least, give you an idea of his/her idea.

Some other questions you can ask:

Is the video mine to do with as I please?

Does your copyright information need to be in the video at all times?

Can the video be spliced/edited at any time?

What happens if I don’t like the completed project even after the allotted changes?

Once you’re satisfied that all of your questions have been answered and you’ve chosen your editor, just sit back and await the results.

In Part Two of this topic, I’ll tell you what you can do with that video for the next stage of your test run.

Technorati Tags:
book videos, trailers, marketing, promotions, tools, YouTube, editors, authors, previews, sneak peek, snapshot, royalty-free images, royalty-free music, tagline

Your Website’s Up! Where are all your visitors?

Your Website’s Up! Where are All Your Visitors???

By Terry Spear

You probably have already heard how important a website is. When I first made my tripod.members site, all free and easy to create, I realized I had no one visiting! Now I have between 100 and a record high of 295 visitors in a day. So what happened?

The key is to have tags for your pages—key words that will help fans find your webpages. Like historical, inspirational, medieval, romance, romantic suspense. Whatever your stories are about, include some of these key words.

Have Stat.counter or some such counter that shows who all is visiting your site and where they’re coming from. This helps to see where your links are that are drawing the numbers.

Link with other authors, review groups, your publisher, anywhere that you can. As more and more people click on the link to your site, your site has a higher ranking on Google searches and a number of other search engine sites. Like for my site, if you just put in “Terry Spear,” several pages will come up with: my site, blogs I’ve done, guest blogs, reviews, all of which have the link to my website on them. Other sites begin to pick up your website. I’ve been picked up by UK sites, and just recently several Canadian sites and a Finland fantasy site also. I’m having tons of views from Australia and New Zealand. A French online site asked for an interview! I even saw a Japanese translation of my Young Adult website! If I look at a Google search in these countries, several pages come up with my name there too.

So how does that happen?

Include your website in your signature line on emails. Include it in guest blogs, and your own blogs. Add it to Myspace, Facebook, and other networking sites. Add an author page to Amazon.connect if your books are there and include your website.

When I did guest interviews and guest blogs, I didn’t use to give a list of sites where fans could reach me—Facebook, Myspace, Twitter, the blogs where I am at regularly. But now I have a list and add them each time to the end of the guest blog/interview.

The more your name/website gets out there, the more you’ll have visitors to your site. The more you have visitors to your site, the more your name will be remembered, and passed along. Which means? You need to update your site regularly also.

So creating a site is only the beginning. Getting the word out about it is the next big step. And from then on, updating it to keep it current makes a big difference too! Some day I might be able to afford a fancy website designer. But for now…I love to maintain my own.

Have fun with yours too! And if you feel all alone…just try some of the things I’ve done, and before you know it, the number of visitors to your site will grow. It can take time. My personal blog only gets maybe 7-16 hits a day, but I only just began to advertise it and blog regularly on it. Another blog I do daily has 120-190 hits a day, maybe dipping down to a low of 80 on a slow day.

So that’s what we want—to advertise, get the word out, and keep after it! And have fun watching the stats grow. 

Terry Spear, Award-winning Author of Medieval Historicals and Urban Fantasy Romance, www.terryspear.com

Technorati Tags:
websites, traffic, blog, site, tags, authors, writing, stats, historical, romance, key, words, signature, advertise, writing, publishing