Richard Nash, publishing savant, on how to get love from independents and the future of the book business with The Book Doctors on Huffington Post
Tag: the book doctors
The Book Doctors Bringing Pitchapalooza to Alaska!
We are so excited to be coming to Alaska to Pitchapalooza!
FridayWritingTips: Self Publishing Secrets They Don’t Want You to Know: The Mysterious ISBN
Those famous black lines, the compilation for numbers that make no sense, the coding that is on almost every book out there… This is the allusive, little understood but weirdly all-important ISBN.
The ISBN or International Standard Book Number started some thirty years ago as a way to create a computerized system for cataloging books. The number is not actually a code but literally just a number that has evolved from a 10 digit number to a 13 digit number. Although you don’t have one to print a book, it is nearly impossible to successfully publish and market without one. The number is the universal identity of the book and allows for instant recognition in bookstores, libraries, online sales platforms and databases.
When assembling your book, it’s important to obtain one for yourself. The U.S. ISBN Agency issues the numbers and purchasing one from them makes you the “publisher of record” as well as gives you all the rights to the number and your book.
(http://www.isbn.org/standards/home/index.asp )Many self-publishing companies also are willing to give you a free (or cheap) ISBN if you choose to work with them. However, this makes them the “publisher of record” and does not allow you to your print book on your own. Or much worse, be published by anyone else. The “publisher of record” automatically retains the rights to your title. Although this may not seem like a problem if you plan on sticking with the company, it can cause trouble if you decide to leave…and you don’t want to ever be stuck. Look, if your book blows up and Harper Collins/Random House/Penguin come calling, waving a checkbook, you want to be the ““publisher of record”.
Another thing to keep in mind is that ISBNs do not carry with the title across format boundaries. Print and e-book versions of the same title each need their own ISBNs.
When it comes to self-publishing and help with things such as ISBNs or topography, the self publishing guru, Joel Friedlander, “The Book Designer”, can be a great resource for information. His blog http://www.thebookdesigner.
com/ really addresses many detail oriented questions that can help the process of self publishing.If you have any questions, feel free to leave a comment, we’d love to hear from you!Want to learn more? Find this and other helpful tips in “The Essential Guide to Getting Your Book Published” by Arielle Eckstut and David Henry Sterry. Buy a copy of the book at your local bookstore or from: https://bookdoctors2.pairsite.com/our-book & get a FREE 20 minute consultation with The Book Doctors (with proof of purchase)Happy writing! See you at the bookstore. The Book Doctors
Fridaywritingtips: The Book Doctors on Not Following Trends & Seth Godin on Finding Your Tribe
Fridaywritingtips: The Book Doctors on Not Following Trends & Seth Godin on Finding Your Tribe
One chart-topping-block-buster can create an epidemic. When Stephanie Meyer’s Twilight series blew up, the market was inundated by vampire stories, vampire TV shows, vampire clothing, vampire make-up, even vampire-approved toothpaste. All trying to cash in on the seemingly unquenchable blood lust for all things vampire. As a result all manner of shoddy vampire books were pumped out, failed, and a vampire saturation point was reached and surpassed. The vampire glut became unbearable. And then came Suzanne Collins and her Hunger Games. Suddenly there was a rush to produce YA dystopian stories, shows, clothing, make-up and toothpaste. Saturation is being approached. Then along will come the next Big Thing.
But what do these fads and trends have to do with your book, especially when you are trying to be the unicorn in the vast field of donkeys? Well these books were able to create a niche by connecting with their core audience of readers and as their fans/audience grew, so did the popularity of their books, until they broke out, entered the mainstream and took over the world.
Lots of writers ask us what kind of book they should be writing, what’s “hot.” Our advice is, don’t follow trends, set them. Yes, be aware through research what’s going on in the marketplace. But write something that you’re passion about, that’s familiar yet unique, and that’s totally you.
As you’re doing that, the next most important question is: who’s your audience? Who’s going to read your book? Even more important, who’s going to buy your book? Describe your audience-and their motivation to buy- as specifically as possible. Prove to an agent or an editor that people are hungering for your book and that you’ve been actively connecting with your audience and listening to what they say through your company, your workshops, your blog, your social networks or whatever others means you have.
Marketing guru Seth Godin puts it this way: “If you don’t have a better strategy for your book promotion than, ‘Let‘s get on Oprah,’ you should stop now. If you don‘t have an asset already–a permission base of thousands or tens of thousands of people, a popular blog, thousands of employees, a personal relationship with Willard Scott . . . then it’s too late to start building that asset once you start working on a book.”
You can use a famous book as a model for creating your own readership and audience. And that’s what it’s all about these days. Connecting with and cultivating your tribe of people. Nowadays, a great way to do that is social media. Sadly, right now, in 2012, the best pitch you could have for book is:
“I have 1,000,000 Twitter followers and they all want to buy my book.”
If this is true, it doesn’t even matter what your book is about, you will have a book deal in a nanosecond. Because then you and your book have the potential to be the new trend.
Want to learn more? Find this and other helpful tips in “The Essential Guide to Getting Your Book Published” by Arielle Eckstut and David Henry Sterry. Buy a copy of the book at your local bookstore or from: https://bookdoctors2.pairsite.com/our-book & get a FREE 20 minute consultation with The Book Doctors (with proof of purchase)
Happy writing! See you at the bookstore. The Book Doctors
Fridaywritingtips: A Great Title Can Sell Your Book, Find Out How
Silence of the Lambs, Who Moved My Cheese? What Color Is Your Parachute? Women Are from Venus, Men are from Mars. As an agent for over 20 years, Arielle saw time and again how a great title alone can sell a book to a major publisher, a bookseller, and of course to a reader. One of the books on that list of titles above is quite frankly not a very good book. And yet, it sold millions and millions and millions of copies. A great title has to be poetic and informative, familiar yet unique, attention grabbing but not offputting. And of course it has to display accurately what your book is, while the same time compelling a reader with a force they can’t control to read your book. Road test your title. Test market it. Run it up the flagpole and see if the money salutes. If you’re having trouble coming up with the right title, we have a great parlor game that always works. It helps if you add alcohol to the mix, but it’s not necessary. Hopefully you have some smart, literate, fun, quick witted, and articulate friends. If you do, invite those people over to your house for a party. If you don’t, try to get some new friends, but until you do, invite the ones you have. Get a large chalkboard or dry erase board. Start writing down every single word you can think of that relates to your book. Plot, characters, themes, little phrases. Write down as many different iterations of words as you can. Brave, bravery, bravest, braving, bravosity, bravitude, bravitude. Then start mixing and matching, and having people brainstorm. It’s great fun, and it always works.Also, in this new electronic era, when one of the best ways to get a book deal is to create a successful blog, it’s important to make sure that your title is BSF (Book-Store-Friendly) especially when you are moving from blog to book.
“If you’d like to go from blog to book, make sure you have a name that’s bookstore-friendly. Matthew Gasteier’s blog enjoyed so much success that it was snapped up by a division of Random House. But he ended up having to change the title of his book to FU Penguin (and F*** You Penguin for the British edition) because some bookstores won’t carry books with curses on the cover. Bummer”
Want to learn more? Find this and other helpful tips in “The Essential Guide to Getting Your Book Published” by Arielle Eckstut and David Henry Sterry. Buy a copy of the book at your local bookstore or from: https://bookdoctors2.pairsite.com/
our-book & get a FREE 20 minute consultation with The Book Doctors (with proof of purchase)Happy writing! See you at the bookstore. The Book Doctors
Dawn Smith’s take on Pitchapalooza
A great article by Dawn Smith om Westhampton‘s Pitchapalooza.
David Henry Sterry on Dawn Smith: How to Get Published, Reading, Writing & Confessions of a Sex Maniac
Interview about how to get published, reading, writing, sex and life on Dawn Smith Books. Buy the printed version of my new novella Confessions of a Sex Maniac for $4.99 & get a free 20 minute consultation for your writing worth $100 from The Book Doctors. (with proof of purchase)
David Henry Sterry & The Book Doctors on Mama Plus
Blogging, writing, publishing. Oh yeah! Mama Plus.
