In Memoriam—Jennifer Rardin
Jennifer Rardin, a truly creative author, passed away on September 20, 2010. As a writer’s legacy, she leaves behind an army of readers and fans, her written works that will live on forever in print, and gratitude for those who used her books to escape into a fantasy world for the sheer pleasure of reading.
May she rest in peace, and may future generations continue to enjoy the Jaz Parks series of books for years to come.
Her family is in our thoughts and prayers.
What An Author Doesn’t Deserve
As I mentioned in yesterday’s post, there are many things an author deserves when working with a publishing company. On the other side, there are things an author doesn’t deserve. Take a look.
You don’t deserve to be ridiculed, berated, or intimidated by your editor or any member of the publisher’s staff.
You don’t deserve to be cheated.
You don’t deserve to have your e-mails and/or other written correspondence to your publisher made public.
You don’t deserve to be called out publicly for any disagreements you may have with your publisher.
You don’t deserve to be treated unfairly.
You don’t deserve to be ignored.
Demand the best from your publisher because without authors, a publisher is nothing more than a business without products.
author confidentiality publisher editor ridicule disagreements staff
Your Submissions Questions Answered
Questions and Answers about Submissions
by Dawn Carrington, Editor-in-Chief
Lately, I’ve received many questions (some of which are quite interesting) in my inbox regarding submissions, and since the answers can apply to a large audience, I’m going to post them here.
How often do you publish your books?
We release a book a month because we like to be able to devote that month to marketing the book released. At present, our publishing schedule is filled through July 2012.
Couldn’t you grow more if you released more books?
Possibly, but we don’t want to crowd our release schedule because we like to focus on our authors and each book we release. We’ve been in business since February 2004, and we believe that slow and steady wins the race.
What are my chances of getting published with Vintage if I do submit?
Our current acceptance rate is less than 2% of submissions. Yes, we’re choosy, but we do give every submission a thorough read.
I just got a rejection. Can I resubmit?
You’re always free to resubmit, especially if we’ve given you some revision suggestions. However, please understand that we do not have high turnaround for our editors. In other words, if you submit the same novel you submitted two months ago in the hopes you’ll catch a different editor’s eye, it’s not going to happen. And we do keep track of all submissions along with the decision so it really wouldn’t be beneficial to you to resubmit.
Do you always give form rejections?
No. If we feel a book has promise and just needs some changes to fit our guidelines, we’ll offer suggestions on how to improve the novel.
My book is longer than what is listed in your guidelines, but I feel the length is necessary. Can I still submit?
You’re always free to submit; however, if your book does not meet our guidelines, it will be rejected. I know it sounds harsh, but we have the guidelines in place for a reason. And, no, we can’t make an exception for you.
I’d like my book to be released within the next six months. It’s important because (insert reason here). Can we make that happen?
Unfortunately, no. Our release schedule has been chiseled in stone, and unless there is an emergency, it doesn’t change.
You don’t accept my type of book, but I know it will be a bestseller. Would you consider making an exception?
No. We have chosen genres we accept because we’re familiar with those genres, know how to promote them, and have developed a target audience. That doesn’t mean we won’t make changes in the future, but, for now, it’s safe to say we won’t accept anything outside of our stated genres.
I submitted my book last year, but it was rejected. Since it’s possible your tastes have changed, can I resubmit?
If we rejected your book previously, we did so after a thorough read, and we have notated our decision in our log. Our tastes in books don’t change. If we hate broccoli today, we’re going to hate it a year from now.
How long will I have to wait for a response after I submit my book?
Our turnaround time for a partial read (first three chapters) is usually three to four weeks. For a full manuscript, it’s usually six to eight weeks. If we need more time, we’ll let you know, but it’s quite rare that we don’t respond back by then.
To be continued…
Book Giveaway
We’ll be drawing the winner for our three book giveaway on May 15th so if you haven’t checked out our commercial, you still have time to do it! See post below!
Buzzing Into Sales with Book Videos (Part III of Book Video Series)
Once you’ve generated some buzz with your book video, you’ll want to concentrate on making the buzz make money for you. This where creativity comes in. You’ve heard the phrase “think outside the box”; this couldn’t be truer when it comes to marketing.
There is one thing you need to learn first: Research is your friend. Get really close to a search engine, one you trust. You’ll be using it quite often as you’ll find that one idea will create others.
Okay, so the next month will be your test run for sales, but it’s going to be a busy one. So busy, in fact, I’m going to detail the sales portion of using book videos using two separate posts. This post will focus on advertising and more uploads.
First, you’ll want to upload your video to a few more places because you need to make sure it’s in the public eye as much as possible. Check out some places like: http://ratemybookvideo.com, www.watchthebook.com, www.revver.com, and www.veoh.com to name a few. Research some other places that would be beneficial for book videos. Remember that you’re not trying to sell the video; you’re trying to sell the book. So it’s important that you look at the hits/stats the websites get before you upload your video.
Spend a few minutes every day researching ways to promote using a book video. Here’s one article I just found today: http://websavvywriter.com/articles/video-book-trailer. After you do that, spend another few minutes following the steps in the article if possible. For instance, in this article, the author suggests including the link to the book video in your signature line. You could add that really quickly.
Now, on to advertising. The saying “you have to spend money to make money” is so accurate when it comes to selling a book. I know you’re probably wondering why you would spend advertising dollars promoting a video when you need to be promoting your book. Quite simply because you can advertise your video on places like YouTube which, in January 2010, had over 100 million viewers. So just imagine if you could get a small percentage of those viewers to see your video, like your video so much they go to your website, and then buy your book. Quite a coup.
YouTube lets you set the amount you want to spend when you advertise so your budget is up to you. Since you’re in a test-run phase, I’d suggest starting off small. (Remember to keep track of your video views, website hits, and now you’ll be keeping track of your sales, too.
You might also want to look for other advertising venues such as Daily Motion and Veoh. Just remember to look at the number of visitors each website gets to know if your advertising dollars should be put to work elsewhere. The search engine is your friend here because you can type in “number of visitors Daily Motion receives” to find your easy answers.
Now on to contests. Entering your book video in contests is a great way to get more people to watch it. Even if you don’t win, you’ve gotten more traffic which means more people have learned about your book. Most of the time, it’s free to enter, and all you have to do is wait for the results. Of course, you’ll want to let your Facebook (and other social networking) friends know you’ve entered.
And finally today, make sure to Twitter, blog, and update your Facebook status with everything you’re doing. Make sure the online community hears the buzz. More people translates into more sales.
In the next post, I’ll talk about more ways to utilize your book video and how to determine if your sales are increasing.
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Your Book Video-A Test Run (Part II of Video series)
Now that your video has been created to your satisfaction, you’re ready to start your one-month test run. There are actually two parts to this process. The first is generating buzz. The second is generating sales from the buzz. This post will focus on buzzing your video.
Before you do anything with your video, check your website or blog stats. You want to notate how many hits you’ve already received that week or that month because this information is going to come in handy.
Now, upload your video to YouTube (you’ll need an account which is free), Facebook (I’m sure by now you have a Fan page, right?), your website, your blog, and at least two other video sites such as Vimeo and Daily Motion. You’ll also want to post it to place you frequent such as My Space. Please make a note of when you posted the video.
When you do upload the video, you’ll be using tags to help people find it in the sea of other book videos. Please don’t just put the title of your book and your name. This is a shot for people to find your book video amidst thousands, so you’re going to have to make yours easy to find. You’re going to want to think of anything and everything associated with your book, including the genre, the storyline, information about yourself, your publisher, and where your book is available for sale.
Now that you’ve uploaded the video, prepare an announcement that will really entice readers/viewers to take a look. Don’t just say “come take a look” because that’s not inviting enough. Give them a reason to view it, and post it on Twitter, Facebook, your blog, and other places across the webs to which you normally post. Word of caution: If you don’t ordinarily post to a group, don’t join just to make your announcement. You’ll only create ill will.
You don’t want this to just be a “buy my book” promo. You want to get people interested in the story and in you as an author. That’s what is going to help create a buzz. So think creatively. Why should people watch your video? (The next paragraph will give you an idea!)
Now, provide readers with encouragement to comment on your video because feedback is important. Consider holding a quick contest to draw more attention. Ask your readers to tell you what was good or bad about the video. You want honesty, and believe me, you’ll get it from your readers/viewers. Keep track of the comments so you can use them to improve future videos/campaigns.
Set up a poll or survey at Facebook or your blog with the main question being: Would this video entice you to buy this book? You might want to add one or two more questions, but don’t make it so long that it takes up too much of your reader’s time.
Check your stats on your website and blog pages weekly to determine if you are receiving more hits/visits.
Make sure to consistently check the places you’ve uploaded video and respond to comments.
Update Facebook/Twitter with comments you get on the video. Keep it simple with something like: my book video for my book is getting great feedback! Then you link to the video.
One of the keys to a successful campaign/test run is communication. Talk with those who post comments. It’s important to acknowledge their thoughts.
At the end of the month, calculate the increase in web stats or traffic to other sites you frequent. How successful was the buzz? If it’s really good, the next question is: how can you translate this traffic into sales. If the buzz hasn’t been all that successful, review the comments. Is there something you could have done differently? Or is is possible your readers simply want something different than another book video?
Take the time to ask follow-up questions before starting on the next stage of the test run journey which is generating sales for your book!
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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.
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Shuffling a Writing Career
Most every author I know has a full time job along with the responsibility of family and home. It’s only natural that we’d get stressed out trying to keep up with the additional influx of deadlines, edits, and submissions.
And, in today’s economy, money is tight and getting tighter so we must direct are focus to what is bringing in the money. So what if that isn’t the writing right now? What if we’re so busy working to keep food on the table and the electricity on that we don’t have time to write a word much less an entire sentence?
The desire is still there, but, at the end of the day, you’re lucky to grab a shower and fall into bed for a few hours of sleep before the day starts all over again. So what then? How is an author supposed to build a career when he/she literally doesn’t have time to write, and when he/she does find the time, the words won’t come?
I wish I could say there was a magical, easy way, but there isn’t. The only way I know how is slowly. This isn’t a race. You don’t have to really be published before you turn forty or have ten books published before you turn fifty. Those are self-imposed deadlines/goals that may just be strangling you right now.
Recently, I spoke with a close friend of mine who is so exhausted she can barely keep her eyes open when she sits down to write at three in the morning. That’s because she’s just gotten off from work. She wanted to know how she was ever going to have a writing career when the only time she had to write was maybe an hour on the weekends. I told her what I’m telling you right now. Slowly.
If she’s determined enough and wants it badly enough, she’ll be a writer. So it might take her a few years. The publishing industry isn’t going anywhere, and there isn’t a cut-off age. You don’t have to be published before you’re thirty-five or you’ll never be allowed to write.
Several years ago, I met a lady who’d gotten her first book published at seventy-two. Since then, she’s published three more books. I asked her why she’d waited until she was in her seventies to start writing, and she told me she hadn’t. She’d started much earlier, but she had a big family and being there for them had taken up a big portion of her time. She didn’t regret giving that time to her family, but now she had it to give to her writing career. She said it was all about making the tough decisions. And sometimes, you just have to know what to shuffle where.
I would never tell a writer to stop writing, stop trying, stop reaching for the brass ring, but I will tell anyone who asks that it’s not wrong to shuffle the writing to the background when your family, loved ones, your regular job, your full-time life is demanding so much from you. Because, let’s face it, there are only a few things you can shuffle in this life, and if it has to be your dream for a few days or weeks, it isn’t the end of the world. The dream will still be there, and you’ll never regret any extra time you’ve given to your family or loved ones. Never.
Facing the Future with Facebook
Facebook is one of the best ways (if not the best) to connect with people you’ve lost track of, to stay in contact with family and friends around the globe, and to keep people up-to-date with your business. If you’re a writer, there are myriad ways to use Facebook to help you promote and get your name known as a writer.
One major way of using Facebook is creating a fan page. After all, you’re a published author (or you’re going to be one), and sooner or later, you’ll have fans. Once you’ve created it, you can invite all your friends and ask your friends to invite their friends. It’s an easy way to keep your readers in the know about what you’re doing without having to utilize a Yahoo Group or any other type group online.
Once you’ve created the Fan Page, you can advertise the page on Facebook. You set the budget so you stay in control of how much money you spend.
Another way is to use Facebook’s Event Calendar. Just click on Events and Create an Event. Once you’ve created the event, you can invite all of your friends. The event can be an online event or an in-person event. It’s a great way to invite people to your booksignings.
If you Twitter (and you should), then you should link Twitter and Facebook. It’s an easy way to keep your updates fresh. I use TweetDeck which keeps everything simple because you can integrate both Twitter and Facebook on multiple accounts.
Most of all, if you want to use Facebook to get your name out there, you need to get active. Join other fan pages and participate. Learn what the owners of those pages do to attract people. Set up quizzes, games, and other activities that will keep people coming back.
Don’t let your Facebook page languish, and don’t just use it for games! If you want to get known, Facebook is an excellent way to do it, but you have to be active with it. It can be more useful than a website and much more fun!
Every Writer Needs Them…
Sooner or later, if you write for any length of time, you’re going to need promotional items. These days, every one I know is on a budget which doesn’t include extra cash for expensive bookmarks, business cards, and/or posters, but that doesn’t change the fact that they are a necessary part of the process of promoting. And what if you’re not graphically talented? How in the world do you create those beautiful bookmarks you see at writers and readers conferences across the nation?
One of the first places you should investigate is Vista Print (www.vistaprint.com). Vintage Romance orders most, if not all, of our promotional items from Vista Print, and we haven’t been disappointed yet. The best part about Vista Print are the free items you can get for just the cost of shipping. Recently, for a little less than $24.00, we ordered 100 postcards, 25 brochures, 250 business cards, a printed t-shirt, a printed hat, 10 sheets of letterhead, 10 notecards with accompanying envelopes, a calendar, and 25 magnets. And Vista Print has so many templates to choose from (you can even design your own), and the editing is really simplistic. So graphically talented or not, you can design your promotional items at Vista Print.
Now, if you’re looking for bookmarks, we’re biased, but we would recommend our very own author, Delia Latham. She designs some of the most fabulous bookmarks we’ve seen, and her fees are reasonable. You can visit her website at www.freewebs.com/deliadesigns to see her samples, and she’ll guide you to the best place to get your bookmarks printed. She also designs other items so be sure to ask her if you don’t see what you’re looking for.
And for a very special promotional item, you can’t go wrong with another one of our authors who has an amazing talent with stuffed bears. Check out her website at: terryspear.tripod.com/bears.htm. These adorable collectible bears are very reasonable and work wonders if you’re looking for a giveaway item to celebrate the release of your newest book!
That gets the most used promotional items out of the way, and we’ll be back to talk about videos for your books, commercials, and more later on this week. Until then…happy writing!
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