Contest to help launch new edition of Pope Joan

Today June 9th is the launch date of a new revised version of Donna Woolfolk Cross' novel Pope Joan. I met Donna ten years ago when she visited Sonoma County and was kind enough to offer to do a benefit signing for an organization I headed at the time.

I am happy that she has had such wonderful success with her novel and wish her well on the launch of the new edition and with the forthcoming movie adapted from her novel.


From her email updates comes this information:

Pope Joan Updates
from Donna Woolfolk Cross

Hello Pope Joan Readers!

Ready to walk the red carpet with me? See below!

Has any author has ever owed so much to her readers as I do? I doubt it. Abandoned by its previous publisher, Pope Joan, labor of my heart, the product of seven years of research and writing, should by all rights have had a shelf life somewhere between lettuce and yogurt!

The fact that it's still in print is testimony to the power of grass-roots promotion--to the kindness of readers who passed the word (not the book! never the book!) along. Heartfelt thanks to all who have supported my poor orphaned novel over the years.

At long last, Pope Joan may have her day. As I mentioned in the
March Update, I now have a wonderful new publisher, Three Rivers
Press. Together, we have created a whole new edition of Pope Joan.

The new version has:

• larger print (no need to squint to read it anymore!)

• corrections and additions to the text

• revised and updated Author's Note which includes new information in support of Joan's historical existence

• a new list of "Best of the Best" reading group questions, gleaned from my many years of chatting by speakerphone with reading and school groups all over the U.S., Canada and Europe.

The new edition will arrive in bookstores tomorrow, June 9th. And it's important that it "hit the ground running." The more briskly books sell right on/after June 9th, the more likely Pope Joan will finally "make her mark" on a U.S. bestseller list.

To help encourage summer sales, I've come up with a fun and unusual idea, which should appeal to anyone who has ever dreamed of walking a red carpet.

Join me and my family as we walk the red carpet on the night of the Pope Joan movie premiere!

... Includes two tickets to the movie premiere,
plus round trip airfare for two from any location in the continental United States or Canada, and one night hotel accommodation for you and your guest to share.

Want to participate? Simply buy the new Three Rivers Press edition of Pope Joan during the months of June or July 2009 and send me the original receipt. In August, I'll pick randomly from the pile of receipts to select someone and their guest to join me at the U.S. movie premiere in the fall (exact date still to be determined).

And... a special bonus for anyone who purchases the new edition of Pope Joan on its release date, Tuesday, June 9th.
Learn more at the link below.

*****************************

Link to the official Pope Joan Red Carpet entry information here.

*****************************

It's an innovative--even somewhat quirky-- idea, which is why I believe Joan herself would have liked it. It's also a very small gesture of appreciation to my wonderful readers who have done so much for Pope Joan. With your continued support, perhaps this inspirational woman, long forgotten to history, can finally get the recognition she deserves!

Donna Woolfolk Cross

June 2009

Setting, Scenes and Book Signings

Jean Hegland

I have mentioned before on this blog how much I enjoy belonging to a writers club. It is the process of interacting with others who share my obsession with the written word that inspires the creative flame within me.

This past weekend my club sponsored the second of three editing workshops and had its monthly meeting.

So I saw writing friends and colleagues on both Saturday and Sunday. On the drive home Sunday night I felt euphoric.

Things had gone fabulously and I had some incredible new insights that will inform my future writing and that I wanted to share with my blog readers.

Jean Hegland, author of Into the Forest, led a workshop regarding the importance of setting. She began with the situation of a person waking up from a coma and that the first thing they would ask is, "Where am I?"

That is the question that a writer needs to answer when they begin a story or a scene so that the reader will know whether it is day or night, what season, what year, whether it is indoors or outdoors and where this scene takes place geographically. Because each choice has an impact on the overall story.

Setting gives a story verisimilitude when it takes readers to a place they have not been before or if it is to a place in which they are familiar. It is vitally important to get the details right for if you choose a real location and say you put a grocery store on the wrong side of the road, those who know the area will complain.

Jean then gave an example of how important it is choosing settings for individual scenes and how by playing with your choices you can change the tone and meaning of a scene.

She referenced Jordan Rosenfeld's earlier workshop about scenes and Jordan's insistence that a scene not be comprised of "talking heads in space" and that each scene involve some action. Then Jean gave an example of an action such as a couple having sex where the setting chosen would reveal character.

The actions by the characters could be written the same, but depending on the setting the meaning and the tone of the scene would be different.

The following were the three different settings she used to illustrate her point:

1) a cemetery (ewwww)
2) a bedroom
3) a boardroom

During that discussion I could not help but blurt out my "ewwww" comment in the class, which led to a nice round of laughter from the group. Camaraderie among writers is a wonderful thing.

Jordan Rosenfeld

Now onto the subject of scenes which was Jordan Rosenfeld's topic. She described scenes as the building blocks of a story similar to beads on a wire. Meaning that each scene needs to be complete in and of itself and it is the stringing together of the scenes that create the overall story.

Each scene should be comprised of:

action
character
POV (point of view) in which the scene is communicated
new information revealed
conflict and drama
and it must take place in a tangible setting

In other words: No talking heads in space!

She also stressed that not only is the first scene in your book important to hook your readers, but that as each character of any relevance is introduced that you must take the time to recognize that this is their first scene. Writers must reveal something compelling about each important new character without resorting to a data dump summary.

Jordan feels that it is better to give such information via dialogue and action than by summary. Ye olde "show don't tell" maxim.

She described dramatic tension as a sense of danger, complexity, mystery and a sense of discovery. Each scene should have some dramatic tension. She also stressed the need for variety in the style of scenes so that there are peaks and valleys in the tempo or else the reader will become either fatigued or bored.

Plot is created in relationship to the scenes. She gave a list of 4 D's for plot revelation that each scene must include at least one of these:

Dialogue
Discovery
Demonstration (such as a flash of unexpected anger)
Devices - e.g. letters or memorabilia

She described a well balanced scene as one where the reader is:

not confused
knows the setting
knows the characters
there is tension and drama

The time to change a scene is denote a break with time, place or POV. That can be done with a full chapter break or by using a blank space within a chapter to signify the change.

For those interested in knowing more about Jordan's thoughts on scenes, you can buy her excellent book Make a Scene

by Writers Digest Books at your local bookstore or available online.

Then on Sunday at the monthly meeting of my writers club we had Stephanie Deignan the events coordinator of Copperfield's Books come and speak.

Stephanie Deignan

For several years now I had wanted to schedule a speaker who could give the bookstore's point of view in regard to author appearances. I had approached two other events coordinators in the past to give such a talk, but they declined. So I was excited when last summer I spoke with Stephanie on the phone and she accepted.

I wanted our members to know how to go about getting an event scheduled, what to expect in regard to publicizing from the bookstore, and what their responsibilities are in order to have a successful event.

Stephanie started by saying that we should all be aware that bookstores are understaffed and underpaid and so when you approach a bookseller in the hopes of arranging a signing, you need to be understanding and patient. The information that you need is to discover the name of the events coordinator, their phone number and email address. Do not bother the harried bookseller with the information about you or your book as it will probably get lost in the shuffle.

In your initial contact via phone (most likely a voice mail message) and email you should include your name, your contact information, the title of your book, the publisher information, give a brief synopsis about what the book is about, any publicity information such as radio interviews scheduled, any published reviews, as well as book distribution information. Mention if it is carried by Ingram, Baker and Taylor or a smaller independent publishing distributor or if it is a POD title (print on demand) which would necessitate being on consignment.

Then be patient and wait for a few days or so to hear back. Be professional and be willing to call back if necessary. Again, they are short staffed and bookstore employees are trying their best.

Stephanie at some point discussed the difficulty bookstores have with PODs titles because generally they are non-returnable. Bookstores will order POD titles for customers if it is paid at the time of ordering, but they do not want to be stuck with books they cannot return and might never be able to sell.

The different kinds of author events were described as "traditional author talks" where an author talks about their book, does a short reading, a question and answer session and then signs books versus "meet and greets" where a table is set up and an author can interact with customers in a more informal setting and talk one on one instead of to a group.

She said that for authors who are not yet established would find it easier to have a "meet and greet" scheduled than an "author talk." If for no other reason than it causes less havoc for booksellers since they do not have to rearrange the bookshelves in the store to make room for chairs for people who may or may not show up to the signing.

She admitted that the emphasis that bookstores give to publicizing their author events is tiered depending on the name recognition of the authors. Those who are big named authors are given "A list" treatment and more time is spent on trying to generate crowds. Then publicizing for "B list" and "C list" authors are by necessity given less time and energy. This comes back to the reality of being understaffed.

That means that a large onus of publicizing the events rests on the shoulders of authors. Once you have a scheduled event, you must do as much to publicize as you can by utilizing the old tried and true methods of fliers, posters, and postcards, as well as newer media such as online events calendars, keeping an up-to-date website with your events listings, and social media such as Facebook and blogs.

She also stressed the influence that radio interviews can have in making the events a success. If you should be lucky enough to score a radio interview with someone like Michael Krasny of KQED Radio - who has an audience known for being book buying fiends - be sure to let a bookstore know so that they can buy adequate stock. Recently an author returned for a signing and after having been interviewed on Krasny's show and he drew a significantly larger crowd than the had the year before with a previous title. The problem was that the publicist did not alert the store and there were not enough books on hand to meet demand.

Which is why authors should always carry at least a box of books with them to signings...just in case. You never know when a bookstore's order might not come through on time due to blizzards in the midwest or strikes by UPS, etc.

(A few side notes: if you are lucky enough to score a radio interview prior to a book signing, do not forget to mention your scheduled book store event including the date, time and location. That is what will bring people into the store and get their butts in the seats for your signing! And if you want to know more about what to expect with talk radio and radio interviews you can read an old post of mine on the subject of the Do's and Don'ts of Talk Radio.)

On the day of your event you should call the store early in the day to confirm, arrive early and check in with a bookseller. You should bring a sign up sheet for those who would like to be on your mailing list as well as fliers to any upcoming events such as workshops or conferences. You should also bring postcards with the cover of your book, business cards and even book marks with your website and blog addresses. Make it easy for people who are interested in you to follow your career.

Stephanie suggested an event drawing between five to ten people for small authors is doing good. She also said that if there is a ratio of 30%-50% of books sold to the number of attendees present than it is a successful signing.

During the discussion with our members, Persia Woolley mentioned another reason for authors to always be prepared. One time she went to a signing and the author never showed. The audience was getting restless and being a trooper - she offered to pitch in and give a talk about her book. The events coordinator was thrilled to have someone save the day and she had the opportunity to talk to an audience she otherwise would not have had.

Stephanie thought that was great of Persia to help out in that manner.

Persia then said that the favor wound up being returned by another author when she got lost trying to find a small venue. She arrived late after finally getting directions from someone at a gas station and discovered that another author had warmed up the crowd in the interim. (Another reason for authors to keep a box of books in the trunk of your car. You just never know when you will get a chance to sign and sell them!)

Stephanie was asked about timing of when to start trying to schedule events at bookstores and she thought that two months before publication would be a good time to start. Then on the other end is how long you have before the books start getting returned. That happens at about three months post publication for hardcovers and six months for everything else. So after about a year of publication unless your book has really taken off, it will be hard to interest a bookstore in doing an event.

Her last words of wisdom on the subject was to enjoy yourself and make it fun.

Joan Price: What I've Learned About Book Publicity Since Wasting $1,000

My friend Joan Price shared with me an article she wrote for the American Society of Journalists and Authors about online marketing. She thought that members of my writers club might benefit from this and she allowed me to share this with others as long as I kept her words and her links intact.

The only changes I made was to make some of her links into hyperlinks for this blog post.

Enjoy!

-Linda

What I've Learned About Book Publicity Since Wasting $1,000

By Joan Price

When Seal Press published my book, Better Than I Ever Expected: Straight Talk about Sex After Sixty, at the beginning of 2006, the small publisher could only allot $1,000 for a publicity budget. I had been invited to speak at woman-friendly sex shops in the Midwest and Canada -- I live in California -- and I thought, what a perfect way to get my publicity and book sales rolling!

It wasn't. Although I got some good newspaper publicity at several of the cities I visited, attendance at my events was pitiful, and sales were underwhelming. I returned home knowing I had wasted Seal's $1,000 publicity budget.

Seal’s publicist continued to assist me with her admirable skill and a portion of her time for the first few months after the book’s release. The Seal team explained that our goal was to position me as an expert on senior sexuality rather than just promote the book itself. The book would only be “new” for three months, but my credibility as an interview source would make me the go-to “senior sexpert” for months or years. This proved to be true, and I think it applies to all of us who write nonfiction. At three years post-publication, I’m still interviewed regularly on a variety of aging and/or sexuality topics, and each time my Amazon sales and blog traffic spike.

I've become an eager student of book publicity and author self-promotion, reading the most recent books (because they give full attention to online opportunities) and attending conference sessions. I'm convinced that self-promotion in this new world has to be targeted at the Internet first. That’s the fastest, easiest, and most efficient and far-reaching way to get in front of readers, and it doesn’t cost a thing… except, of course, time, at least a few hours a week.

Here are some tips from my experience and that of other ASJA authors that can help you jumpstart your own book publicity and keep it alive for years.

1. Aim your efforts at pumping up your online presence. Have an attractive, professional looking website for the important information about you, your book, and particularly how readers can benefit from your expertise. Also create a dynamic blog filled with compelling information on your topic. Don’t fall into the seductive trap of using it for random ramblings about this and that – stay on topic, and make your blog the place your readers will want to keep visiting because the quality of information drives them there.

2. Be sure your blog is topical to attract media, and make it easy for media to find and contact you. When ABC Nightline was seeking an expert on senior sexual health, they Googled the topic and found a blog entry where my readers and I discussed this controversial topic in detail. This led to my appearance on the show and in fact I was shown blogging and reading readers’ comments, my book strategically placed by my computer.

3. Find the other experts in your field and treat them as your valued colleagues and allies, not your competition. When I find an expert in an area of senior sexuality that would interest my blog readers, I ask for an interview, include a photo and bio, and link to the person’s website or blog.

4. Review other books on your topic on your blog. When I hear about a book that might interest my readers, I request a review copy (publicists are eager to provide review copies for active, on-topic bloggers, I’ve discovered), blog about the book, send a friendly note to the author with a link. Frequently this leads to a link to my blog from the author’s website, or a reciprocal review. Even when it doesn’t, my blog becomes a better and more credible resource for my readers because I’m not just promoting my own book.

5. Read other blogs and websites on your topic, and contribute thoughtful comments. I find most bloggers welcome comments and don’t mind that I identify myself with my book title and blog URL, as long as my comments are specific to their topic and beneficial to readers.

6. Increase readership of your blog by finding major sites that already attract your potential readers (in my case, http://www.SuddenlySenior.com and http://www.ELDR.com) and offer them a column or the opportunity to co-publish your blog. Be sure they agree that you retain all rights to your content, and each entry they publish will carry your bio and byline and link back to you.

7. Subscribe to HARO (Help a Reporter Out, http://www.helpareporter.com ), a free service that emails summaries of reporter needs to publicists and experts.

8. Subscribe to several Google Alerts : your own name, your book title, and your topic and its variations. You’ll get emails with links to any online mention of whatever words you selected. You’ll find out, for example, when an interview with you was syndicated in another newspaper, or when your book was reviewed by a freelancer, or when someone blogged about your topic (when that happens, do #5 above).

9. Even if your book release was long ago, let your publisher’s publicists know whenever you score any publicity. They’ll be grateful, and might be open to small requests from you, like continuing to fill review copy requests so these don’t have to come out of the books you’ve purchased.

10. Read books about book promotion, particularly those written or updated in the last few years so that they cover online strategies adequately. Here are some that have helped me particularly and are filled with Post-Its for future use:

a. Penny C. Sansevieri http://www.amarketingexpert.com , Red Hot Internet Publicity: An Insider’s Guide to Marketing Your Book on the Internet. Indispensable guide to making your website and blog work most effectively to attract customers and sell your book.

b. Patrice-Anne Rutledge, http://www.websavvywriter.com , The Web-Savvy Writer: Book Promotion with a High-Tech Twist . Whether you’re just starting with Web promotion or you think you know it all, you’ll find suggestions you can put into action immediately.

c. Sandra Beckwith http://www.buildbookbuzz.com, Build Book Buzz Publicity Forms & Templates workbook. This eBook gives you templates for do-it-yourself publicity: press releases, tip sheets, virtual book tour, and much more.

d. John Kremer http://www.bookmarket.com, 1001 Ways to Market Your Books, 6^th ed. Although this 700-page book has only 80 pages specifically about online marketing, it is so full of helpful information that you’ll find plenty of tips that apply to your book.

e. M.J. Rose and Angela Adair-Hoy, How to Publish and Promote Online . Although the authors both insist that this 2001 book is outdated, I found plenty of marvelous strategies that I hadn’t seen elsewhere.

More tips for online publicity from ASJA authors:

· Tina Tessina (http://www.tinatessina.com) gets good results by listing with PRleads ($100/month) and ProfNet, which have led to “a whole lot of press,” several paid columns, and free PR by answering questions on Yahoo!Personals dating site, and being a Redbook Love Network Expert. Tina has a huge online presence, including her blog, website, advice columns, psychotherapy and author listings, Amazon Connect, Facebook, and LinkedIn. She recommends several books that have helped her develop her promotion strategy: Author 101 by Rick Fishman and Robyn Freedman Spizman; The Frugal Book Promoter by Carolyn Howard-Johnson; and Blogwild! by Andy Wibbels.

· Jean Fain (http://www.jeanfain.com ) reports that her YouTube videos, especially her "Why A Twinkie?" video and a press release about it to her favorite editors got her coverage in her local newspapers, including the The Boston Globe , which then got syndicated nationwide. “From that, my audio CD sales increased, and I had to start a waiting list for my private psychotherapy practice,” says Jean. “And The Twinkie video keeps on giving. The Globe is making a video about my very interesting job as a hypnotherapist and including footage from the Twinkie video, which I expect will do more of the same to my burgeoning business.”

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Joan Price (http://www.joanprice.com/, email joan@joanprice.com) is the author of Better Than I Ever Expected: Straight Talk about Sex After Sixty and The Anytime, Anywhere Exercise Book: 300+ quick and easy exercises you can do whenever you want! Joan would be really happy if you’d visit her blog at http://www.betterthanieverexpected.blogspot.com and comment on any topic that interests you. (Yes, of course you may mention your book title and link back to your own blog or website.)

Social Networking

The other day I started working on the next installment of my France travelogue and realized that I have so many good pictures of Carcassonne that I should split my discussion into two posts. One for the city, the castle and its ramparts and another for the Basilica of Saint Nazaire. I have started cropping and resizing the photos, but those posts will have to wait until another day when I have time to chronicle it properly.

Until then, I thought I would bring up a topic about self-promotion and online social networking since it is something I have been involved with recently.

I have seen exhortations by Joe Konrath for writers to have not only websites and blogs, but to also utilize MySpace, Facebook and the like. (By the way, Joe's fabulous blog A Newbie's Guide to Publishing has been turned into a free PDF file with over 750 pages of tips and advice for writing, promotion, and hard won wisdom. Download it here.

Trying to follow literary blogs, write my own blog as well as write my novel has been challenging to find enough time, but I knew there would come a day when I would join one of those social networking sites.

I had gotten repeated invitations from several of my friends to join LinkedIn and Bebo, I had not responded.

Then I read Aaron Sorkin was going to write a movie about Facebook and that he had joined Facebook for research purposes.

I joined that morning. Because, well, I wanted the opportunity to write to Aaron. For those scratching their heads and going "Aaron who?" - he wrote the play and then screenplay for A Few Good Men, The American President, Malice, and Charlie Wilson's War.

However, I first took notice of him with his television series Sports Night. That was such a great series. It was only on for two seasons, but I loved it and own the boxed set of DVDs. If you have never watched SportsNight, rent a disc from Netflix and enjoy. His comic timing is excellent and then there is a depth to his stories that make them rise above his contemporaries.

Sorkin is truly an amazing writer.

And well, I could not pass up the opportunity to write to Aaron. I had been wanting to do so for a few years over a nitpicky thing from an episode of The West Wing that I wanted to write to him about for years, but had never done so because I did not want my letter to become lost in the NBC mailroom.

So I joined Facebook and posted my message to him on his group Aaron Sorkin & the Facebook Movie. He didn't reply to it, but then again my post was more of a statement than a question.

Either way, that was the nudge that made me join Facebook.

I discovered as I joined that I had many email addresses in my Gmail account of Facebook members. I wound up sending out invitations to them and within minutes I had received confirmations from several people to be my friends. Truly the first few people who replied were my friends.

I also started feathering my online nest with interests and joined other groups. I know this could be a major time sink, but I wanted to spend enough time so that it was more than just the bare minimum of a page.

As I accumulated friends I would look to see if I recognized any of their friends and if so, I would send a notice to add them as a friend. Soon I had a few dozen friends on Facebook. Most I know, but there are others whom I really do not know.

Some were undoubtedly email addresses that I culled from positive reviews from my Harry Potter fanfiction. I am hoping those who liked my past writing will be interested in purchasing a book once I have one published. So this is one of my attempts at cultivating a fanbase.

It was fortuitous that I joined Facebook prior to attending the East of Eden Conference for I wound up adding more friends to my profile from those I met and schmoozed with in Salinas.

One aspect that I found interesting about this social networking thing is that some of my writing colleagues who have belonged to Facebook far longer than I, have only a few friends. Some have only a handful or so.

There is a button to suggest friends for others. My ingrained networking instinct kicked in again as I would suggest those who I thought might know each other already, but were unaware that the other one was also a Facebook member.

Just spreading the love.

Then this past weekend after my writers club meeting I was chatting with Ann Wilkes and she strongly suggested that I join LinkedIn as well.

So I did.

I now have quite a few friends on Facebook and contacts on LinkedIn. If you are on either and would like to friend me, my contact name on both sites is Linda C. McCabe. Be sure to use the middle initial C. or you are likely to meet up with other Linda McCabes. One of which is my cousin Al's wife.

I uploaded the same picture from my blog taken by Cindy Pavlinac, so it should be easy to identify me.

I feel like such a newbie about these things and would love to hear people's thoughts or feedback on these and other social networking sites.

Also, does anyone Twitter? Does anyone follow Twitter? If so...why? Just because it is there does that mean that we have to avail ourselves of it?

Linda

Success in Writing and Publishing: A Mixture of Hard Work, Networking and Luck

I had been asked to write a summary of Kemble Scott's talk for my writers club, and thought I might share those efforts with my blog readers as well. Think of it as revising and extending my remarks from earlier when I posted about him and his book.

Kemble Scott was the guest speaker at the second annual Marin-Redwood Writers Joint Meeting. He is a San Francisco Chronicle Best Selling author of SoMa, a novel about the South of Market Street neighborhood in San Francisco.

Scott is a journalist, an alumnus of Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism, and has won three Emmys for his work in television news. He moved to San Francisco and wanted to live in an "urban" setting and decided against the tonier neighborhoods with Victorians and instead chose the SoMa neighborhood. He moved there without really knowing about the area's longstanding reputation. Some of the streets there were named after prostitutes from the Gold Rush era when the neighborhood first developed its own distinctive character.

After living in SoMa for awhile, Scott started becoming aware of unorthodox activities surrounding him and some of the dirtier secrets of San Francisco. Due to the sensitive nature of these human interest stories, he decided rather than use his reporting skills -- which might potentially embarrass people -- that he would take the events and situations and fictionalize them.

He also wanted to separate his fiction writing from his journalism writing and adopted the nom de plume Kemble Scott.

He couldn't find a proper venue for his stories, so he created one: the SoMa Literary Review. He was new to the literary scene in San Francisco and decided to take a leap of faith by launching how own online literary magazine and hope it would find an audience. The first issue featured ten of his stories and he used ten different pen names. Word quickly spread about his online literary journal and he soon received submissions from real writers meaning that he no longer had to hide behind multiple personas.

Scott also created the San Francisco Bay Area Literary Arts which sends out email blasts every Friday to publicize literary events and book signings. This effort has helped him generate many contacts within the literary community which came in handy when he sought venues for book signings.

He joined the Sanchez Annex Writers Grotto as well as the San Francisco Writers Workshop where he has connected with many authors such as Erika Mailman, Tamim Ansary, and Khaled Hosseini.

At one point, Scott was approached by an editor and suggested he turn the SoMa Literary Review into a book. He took the man at his word and printed out his favorites and stapled them together and sent it off. However, the editor did not want a collection of short stories, he wanted a novel with an overarching theme that wove those stories together in a compelling narrative. Scott had never written a novel before and it took him a while to figure out how to do it.

By the time he had something to show, the editor was no longer at that publisher. Scott "lucked out" and one of his manuscripts at the house of a trusted reader happened to be spotted by an agent who picked it up, started reading and liked it. The young agent contacted Scott and offered to represent him. Scott thought it was the break he needed. As it turned out, the agent was unable to sell the book and after a year, Scott fired him.

He decided to strike out on his own and identified an editor at Kensington Press who had published several offbeat travel books and thought it might be a good fit. Not only did he send off a manuscript, but he included blurbs from his writing friends and even one from the notorious JT LeRoy. Then Luck played a part. The editor was on vacation at the time SoMa arrived in the slush pile. The editor's assistant read the manuscript and fell in love it. The day the editor returned from vacation, his assistant sprang at him and passionately insisted that he buy this book.

Getting published was one hurdle, but spreading the word about his book was going to be an even greater hurdle since getting reviews for his book would be a difficult proposition. Newspapers have been cutting back on their book reviews and his novel's subject matter deals with kinky sex making it less likely to be reviewed.

One of his neighbors worked for YouTube and suggested he make a video about the book and post it online. Scott decided to make a series of short promos showing some of the locations mentioned in his book. Along with showing the places, he uses suggestive language to reference some of the unusual behavior in those places which are represented in his book. The video clips preceded the publication of his book and his novel appeared on the San Francisco Chronicle's best seller list the first week it was released, and according to Google he was the first author to publicize a novel on YouTube.

His video promos were panned on an online Silicon Valley gossip site named ValleyWag, but they spelled his name right and they included weblinks to help promote his book.

Because SoMa was listed as a best seller by a nationally recognized newspaper, even though it was not a New York Times best seller, his book has been purchased by libraries and has been sold in venues such his local Costco and even airports in Singapore that otherwise would never have carried his book.

Overall Scott's advice is to become part of your local writing community, network with other writers, create your own opportunities when you need to, be persistent and hope for a little luck.

YouTube and Book Trailers: a Success Story

Yesterday, agent Lucienne Diver made a guest appearance on my friend Lee Lofland’s blog. Her topic was how writers can create buzz for their work and she brings up a lot of great ideas.

On the comment trail there was a question posed about book trailers and whether or not they were a valuable marketing tool for authors.

I replied to him, but thought this was a topic I could expand upon and make my own blog entry.

This past Sunday my writers club meeting had Kemble Scott as our guest speaker. He has the distinction of being the first author to use YouTube to launch a novel.

His novel SoMa is about the South of Market neighborhood in San Francisco and it has subject matter that is sexually explicit in nature. He knew that it was going to be near impossible for his book to be reviewed in mainstream publications and so he was casting about for ideas as to how to publicize his book. One of his neighbors worked for YouTube and suggested that he make some short films.

Scott has had a career as a television journalist for years, but he was initially stumped at the suggestion. She then challenged him that with all his TV experience, he should be able to come up with something.

He decided on a series of short promos showing some of the locations mentioned in his book. Along with showing the locales, he uses suggestive language to reference some of the unusual behavior in those places which are represented in his book.

At first he had a professional help him with the filming, but when he viewed it he thought it looked too slick for YouTube. So he bought a $600 video camera and handed it to someone with no experience. He also changed it to black and white to give those short videos a grittier feel to match the tone of the book.

The video clips preceded the publication of his book and his novel appeared on the San Francisco Chronicle’s best seller list the first week it was released.

You can see him talking at Google’s corporate headquarters in the Authors@Google series. This video is about 42 minutes in total length, but he credits YouTube for the successful launch of his book at about 29:40 and he includes one of his videos as part of a demonstration.

Those video clips didn’t generate a million hits like the Drama Squirrel video, but they did help generate word of mouth which translated into sales. And because he made a major newspaper’s best seller list, his book has been sold in places he would never have expected including an airport in Singapore.

I finished reading his book, it is laugh out loud funny in parts, but it is blue. Very blue. It is not for those who are easily offended.

Please tell me if you know of other authors who have successfully used video clips to promote their books. I would love to see more of them to get ideas for my own future reference.

Talk Radio - Part II Redux

I found an article by Valerie Connelly confirming most of my advice in my previous post, but she as a radio talk show host goes a bit further.

I had not considered that someone might feel so comfortable in being interviewed by phone that they would multi-task by either working on their computer or washing dishes.

Ohhhhh, I have to agree that unless you want to appear unprofessional you should not have anything in the background going on. Your interview should be your sole focus for that period of time as well as making yourself and your host look good.

Her article was also cross posted on Ezine articles.

Talk Radio - Part II

Holly Kennedy and Patricia Wood wanted to know more about talk radio and I meant to post again sooner, but I got waylaid by the Norovirus.

:shudders:

Word to the wise: avoid getting that virus at all costs.

Back to the subject of radio:

Last time I discussed the do's and don'ts of how to be a good talk radio caller. Once you have mastered being a caller, then you can move on to trying to be a guest.

But how you ask, do you secure the gig in the first place?

The same way you find an agent. You have to do your homework, otherwise you'll be wasting a lot of time and energy.

You need to know the format of a show before attempting to contact them. It would be a supreme waste of time to call the producer of a sports talk show and offer to go on the air talking about a novel set in Elizabethan England. Whereas that same show and producer might be receptive to have you as a guest if your novel featured hockey players or if you wrote a biography of a sports legend. It all depends on what they are looking for and what you have to offer.

Just as you shouldn't send your murder mystery novel to an agent who only handles memoir and nonfiction, you should also avoid contacting the producers of shows whose format is a bad fit.

Before you try contacting shows outside of your area, you should first master your local market. If you only listen to music stations, then you are in for a surprise by scrolling on your dial to find talk radio stations. Identify the stations whose format is talk and then start listening. You'll want to figure out which hosts and which shows you think might be interested in what you have to offer.

Different hosts have different personalities and different interests. By listening to their shows you'll soon figure out whether or not they are Howard Stern wannabes or some variation on that theme. Some hosts will have audiences that will definitely not be interested in hearing anything you have to say. That is fine. Move on and listen to another show and another host.

You cannot know your radio market in a day or even a week. Some hosts you will quickly learn are not ones you want to approach. Others you might have to listen to for a while to get a feel for what they like. Since talk radio is a slave to current events, what is cause célèbre one day can become passé the next.

You should also check out the websites of your local radio stations because you might overlook a show appearing on weekends that might be the perfect show for you if it specializes covering the literary scene. Just as there might be an hour on gardening and cooking on Saturday, they might have someone covering local authors. Don't forget to check out your National Public Radio stations as well in your survey.

Once you have a figured out which host and show you'd like to approach, you'll have a better idea of how to successfully bait your hook. Call the station and ask for the producer of the show on which you want to appear. Try calling several hours before the day's show is set to start. They'll be doing prep work for the day's show, but you certainly do not want to call and ask for them immediately before or during the show. That will make you look like you don't listen to the show or that you don't understand radio.

You might get the producer's voice mail or if you are lucky you might get them to answer the phone directly. Get ready because now you need to sell yourself with your elevator speech. The one or two minute pitch that will grab the producer to yourself and why they need to have you as a guest. You're not pitching your book, you're pitching yourself as a guest.

I suggest doing this by phone rather than email or snail mail because radio is by definition a spoken medium. They don't care if you can write well, they want to know how well you speak. By talking to you on the phone they'll instantly judge whether they think you will be good on-air. Try not to stumble or ramble. Have your pitch polished and rehearsed. Have follow up documentation ready to send them by fax or email if they should ask for something.

If you are trying to pimp your book, there is a good chance they'll want a free copy of your book to review before they commit. See if you can get away with sending them to an extensive website instead or send them sample chapters. There are no guarantees that they'll interview you and it can get expensive if you give out a book to every host or producer who asks for one. Use your best judgment as to when to give away books, because it will be coming out of your pocket.

The producer will most likely discuss your proposal with the host before any scheduling decision is made. After all, it will be the host who will be filling the air with scintillating talk and if they think your topic will be a yawner, it won't do anyone any good.

Being prepared for cancellation of your guest appearance

Talk radio as a genre is a slave to current events. Things happening in the world can cause the abrupt alteration of whatever programming was planned. It doesn't even have to be a calamitous event, a small article in the morning paper might make the host livid and they will want to use their microphone to vent on the subject. So that means a scheduled interview can be abruptly canceled because XYZ happened and the host wants to talk about that and not talk with you.

It's their microphone. They get to chose what they want on the agenda and sometimes it means scuttling guests in order to vent about the latest scandal.

Don't take it personally.

You are only certain that you will be a guest once you are actually on the air. Then again, should something dramatic happen during your interview, the show might be interrupted. As Steve Winwood croons, "Roll with it."

Once you are successful in securing an interview on a radio station you will either be an in-studio or an on-air guest. Meaning, you can either drive down to the station or doing it elsewhere via telephone. If you have the choice and the opportunity, I recommend being an in-studio guest.

In-studio guest

You should show up to the studio at least half an hour before you are scheduled to go on-air. This will eliminate worries from the staff about whether or not the host will have to fill air time while they’re waiting for you to arrive.

When you get to the station, you’ll need to sign in with either a receptionist or security before you are shown to either a “green room” or a reception area to wait.

Bring a bottle of water with you to drink. You’ll be talking and you don’t want to lose your voice.

As soon as you’ve signed in at the station, ask to use their rest room. By making yourself as comfortable as possible, you are more likely to last throughout the half hour or hour interview slot without having to cross your legs because your back teeth are floating.

By showing up ahead of time, you can also review your notes. Be sure to bring contact information to give out over the air at the end of the show. If you will be appearing somewhere have the name of the place, the location, as well as the date and time. You should also have your webpage address, so people who are interested but cannot attend your appearance can learn more about you. Have it written down so that you don't have to worry about your mind going blank or giving out the wrong information by mistake because you remembered the wrong date.

One of the benefits of in-studio interviews is that you get to meet the host and when you are talking on-air, you will both be able to see each other’s non-verbal signals. An example is the host making a point and then raising their finger to tell you that they’ll be done shortly and then you can jump in with your response. You do not want to interrupt the host when you are the guest, not unless you want to come across as being combative or argumentative. You can still disagree with a host depending on your subject matter, but you are better served to sound reasoned in your approach than to be angry. If you’d like to establish a good working relationship with the host and asked back in the future, it’s best to treat them with respect. One of the reasons you were asked as a guest was to enlighten the host and the audience about subjects that you are considered to be an expert.

Try to be informative, but don’t get too bogged down with minutiae. Use humor whenever possible. Radio's main purpose is to entertain. You can be informative while entertaining, but audiences don’t like people who lecture them, scold them or bore them.

It is best to prepare your arguments in your head before hand, but don’t have speeches you want to deliver. The host will ask questions they want to ask, and you need to answer them.

Remote location guest

One big drawback of doing an interview remotely is that you always run the risk of interruption. Think of any important phone call you’ve made in your life where you didn’t want any interruptions and how that hasn’t always worked out the way you planned. You don’t want dogs barking, kids screaming or door bells in the background and you do not want call waiting to kick in.

Sometimes you will have no choice but do an interview by phone, so for those cases you should do the following:

Be sure to find a quiet space and tell everyone around you that you will be on the phone and cannot be disturbed for X period of time.

Have a reliable phone that does not have call waiting. If it is a cell phone or battery operated phone, be sure it is fully charged.

The producer will tell you what time they will be calling you to be on the show. Be sure to have gone to the bathroom prior to that time.

Have a glass of water nearby. You’ll be talking and you don’t want to lose your voice.

Have your notes handy and review them while waiting for your phone call.

You’ll notice the last few pieces of advice were similar to ones above for in-studio. The same applies for not being argumentative with the host. You should be polite, charming and funny, or risk alienating the host and never being invited back.

Morning Shows

Morning drive time programming is different than traditional talk radio formats. Some are with shock jocks who find scatological references to be a source of infinite laughs. I would avoid those shows, unless that is your target audience.

There are other morning shows focusing on the local community and have a mix of news, sports, traffic, weather and do not spend any great length of time on any topic. Those shows you can be a guest on without a lot of time involvement. If you do secure a time slot for being interviewed it will probably only be about five minutes total (if that long.) You'll have a promo or two mentioned before commercials that you will be coming up and then the host will introduce you and ask a question or two.

If you get a gig like this: make the most of it! You've got about the same amount of time that most callers do for talk radio, but you've got a platform. Answer the questions, flatter your host and be sure to seal the deal with giving information to the listeners as to where they can visit your website, buy your books, see you in person, etc.

Alternately, you might try just calling when the show is on the air and saying that you had an announcement you hoped to share with the listening audience. If you sound gracious enough, they're likely to go along. You'll be squeezed in the margins between traffic, weather, sports and headlines. That's when you can chime in to say you're an author who will be appearing at XYZ Bookstore that night and hope to meet their listeners.

I'd suggest doing this if you are on a road trip and doing book signings. Just do a Google search of talk radio stations in the larger cities, use that to narrow down your search on the radio dial, listen in and then call. Try to sound as cheerful and engaging as possible and you might get on the air.

Morning show formats are more amenable to that kind of spontaneity. Otherwise the hosts are left filling air time with oddball stories in the hopes of getting a chuckle or two from their audience who are either getting ready for work or stuck in traffic.

Being gracious

Regardless of whether you are in-studio or a remote guest, be sure to thank your host for allowing you to be a guest on their show. They are giving you free air time for whatever it is that you are selling, whether it be your opinions or your book. Do this either after you have finished your on-air plug. If you are in the studio you can do it off-air to not waste precious air-time with pleasantries. Otherwise, say your gratitude after you've finished the information you wanted to impart such as the time and place of your speaking engagement, website address, etc.

On Cold calling

Should you decide to try marketing your book by calling talk radio shows outside of your area and hoping to score interviews expect that any book you get on the subject is likely to be out-of-date. This is similar to buying a copy of Writers Market. Some of the listings will stay the same while others are obsolete by the time the ink hits the page.

If you use any compilation, you should verify things via the internet first before taking the trouble to call. Radio stations are notorious for changing their format as well as their line ups with little or no advance warning. A friend of mine in college told me about waking up one morning and being shocked when his clock radio blared out country and western rather than rock and roll. The station had changed its format literally overnight.

I've also heard talk radio hosts talk about former employers and realizing that they were without a job when they showed up for work and their picture was no longer hanging in the entrance hall. Radio stations will then immediately change their website and scrub any mention of fired hosts, as if they were never there.

Tom Leykis once said that the management at KFI Radio in LA changed their line up more often than he changed his underwear. Having seen what Tom Leykis looked like, it was a visual that has been irreparably seared to my brain.

So the lesson is, don't trust any book on the subject: check the web for updated information of hosts for a station. If you are going to try and call cold, I would look over each host's bio page carefully to try and glean any information before calling the producer to try and hook them. You can at least try to avoid calling sports talk hosts to try and pimp your Elizabethan England novel.

I think that's all. Let me know if you have any questions.

Good luck.

Talk Radio - Do's and Don'ts Part I

After reflecting on my last posting about Joan Price being on the receiving end of nasty talk radio, I thought I should share some of my hard found knowledge of that media.

Radio has its own rules, some of them are unwritten but you don’t want to violate them. Authors are frequently given the advice to promote themselves on radio shows, but if you don’t understand what you are getting into – it could be a disaster or just an unpleasant and unprofitable experience. Before ever trying to become a guest on talk radio, you should understand how it works by listening and by experiencing the medium by being a caller. Only when you've mastered that should you try and graduate to becoming a guest.

First off, I want to explain a little of my own experience with radio so that when I start expounding on what you should and shouldn’t do that you’ll know how I learned this knowledge.

I’ve listened to talk radio for over fifteen years. I’ve been a caller to hosts in the Los Angeles and San Francisco markets as well as cultivated a professional friendship with Pat Thurston at my local station that has lasted a decade.

I’ve been an in-studio guest at KABC-Radio in LA, KSRO in Santa Rosa and have also been an on-air guest for KFI Radio in LA and KSRO in Santa Rosa.

One of the first things you need to know about talk radio is that the host is a slave to the clock. The show is to provide an entertaining experience for the listening audience and not as a courtesy to callers. That means as a caller you may sit for close to an hour on the phone and never go on the air. Or you might get twenty seconds to speak after waiting for 50 minutes. You might get hung up on, shouted at, or have your sound turned off.

It all depends on what the host thinks makes good radio. Don’t take it personally.

Talk radio is not like the deli line where first come – first served. Nope. You can be waiting forever online and someone calls in with a snazzy comeback to what the host just said, they can be bumped to being the next caller on-air.

So here are the Do’s and Don’ts.

Do: Be prepared to wait.

You will be waiting for someone to answer the phone, you’ll be waiting to get on the air. You’ll be waiting a lot. If the phone rings and rings and rings, know that you got through. There are a limited number of lines to the radio station and you might not get another chance to get on air because if you try back again you might get busy signals.

Hang on until someone answers the phone.

Don’t: ever express annoyance to the producer for anything. Not the seventy rings before they picked up – because they might be juggling five lines at once. They handle one caller at a time. If you don’t have the patience to manage the waiting for the phone to be picked up hurdle, you’ll never be fit to be an on-air caller.

Do: Shut off your radio as soon as the producer answers the phone. You can hear the show on the phone while you are on hold.

Don’t: have the radio going on in the background. There’s generally a ten second time delay so that they can bleep out any FCC fine inducing comments before they make it on air. If the host hears the radio playing when through your phone, you’ll annoy the snot out of them. They’ll have to tell you to turn off your radio and when you get back, they’ll know that you’re a newbie who doesn’t know how radio works. They’ll treat you like dirt and toy with you, if they are of such a mind.

Do: Think of something pithy to say to add to the conversation. It must be summarized in a few words because it will be typed onto a computer screen by the producer. For example:

John from Kokomo “Adores sliced bread.”

Marty from Chicago “Crusty sourdough is better than sex!”

The producer might not think that your comment is entertaining enough to get on the air, and even if they do put you on hold for the host - if your comment line doesn’t sound intriguing enough, you might never get on air.

Don’t: try to have a meaningful conversation with the producer. They’ve got a lot of things they have to do. Be succinct. They want to put callers on hold as quickly as possible so they can get back to paying attention to what is being said on-air.

Do: Have a clock nearby and watch it zealously throughout the time you are on the phone. Knowing when the show breaks for the news and commercials will help you guage how much time you will have when you get on the air to make your point.

Don’t: use your speaker phone. Hosts hate that with a passion. Also do not leave your phone, if you need to use the bathroom make it quick and do it during one of the long breaks like the newsbreak at the bottom of the hour.

Do: Pay attention to what is being said. Listen for a hissing noise before the host says your name and announces you are on the air.

Don’t: say “am I on the air?” Most times you will only talk to the producer once, then the next voice you hear is the host. Be prepared to go on the air at any time.

Do: listen attentively because sometimes the producer will come back to tell you that “you’ll be up next” or something to that effect. If you are daydreaming and don’t respond, the producer might hang up on you. That’s preferable to the host saying, “John from Kokomo you’re on the air…..John are you there?...Hello, John!…Marty from Chicago, hello!”

Don’t: Waste any time with niceties. Do not thank the host for taking your call. It’s a waste of airtime. Taking calls from listeners is what the talk radio format is about. Thanking the host obligates them to respond and wastes more time. Similarly don’t ask the host how they are. Tom Leykis hates it so much when callers ask “how are you?” he has responded, “Do you care?”
Do: Springload your argument. Start off with a bang. What was it that made you want to call and respond to the topic? Was it to set the host straight in regards to a faulty assumption? Or was it to give your feedback on their opinion? Whatever it was, start with that first. That might be the only thing you get to say on air. Hosts will many times hang up on a caller and then respond on air to what was said. A lot of times it sounds as if the caller might still be there, but they aren’t. That way, the host doesn’t have to worry about annoying “uh huhs” on the other end of the line that would detract from the listeners enjoying the show.

Don’t: Ramble. Don’t start talking about something else other than what you stated to the producer and then say, “but what I called in to say was…”

Do: Use logic when you are making an argument. If try to state something as a fact, be sure you can back it up. Broad brush opinion strokes will work if you are on a show that preaches to the choir and you are agreeing with the host. Otherwise, if you call a host with integrity and not just a polemicist, you need to be able to cite your information and have it be from a credible source.

Don’t: Read from a study. It sounds boring and it irritates the host. If they ask you “are you reading?” stop immediately because it is bad radio. It’s better to say something like “Kathleen Hall Jamison from the Annenberg School of Communication did a study on college students and the effects of pornography and it was found that…”

Do: Follow up with a host if you make such a claim. Use email, fax or snail mail. Show them the study you cited, links to it, etc. Prove your own worth and reliability as a caller. I had made a claim on-air to “The Joel Roberts Show” on KABC Radio regarding the political topic of violence against women and followed that up with a letter to the talk show host a few days later. Included was not only the Senate Judiciary Report that I cited, but an op-ed I had written that was published in the Los Angeles Times. Joel was so impressed that he called me and asking me to be a guest on his show a week later.

Don’t: Call a host you are unfamiliar with. Listen to the show for at least a day or two before you call. If you call after becoming enraged by a host’s commentary and do not know anything about them you are setting yourself up for being embarrassed on-air. I used to listen to Tom Leykis when he was the afternoon drive host on KFI radio and his show was about politics and current events. (Not like his current style which is sleaze.) It was amazing to hear callers try to take Tom to task and not know how to make their points in a logical fashion. He eviscerated callers by using their own logic against them, and it often made for cruel sounding radio. I likened it to watching someone walking into a buzz saw.

I called Tom on-air back when he was in LA and some of the times I disagreed with him. However, I knew exactly how to put forth my points in a manner that was respectful and logical and I emerged unscathed.

Do: Understand that if you contradict what the host says that you need to control the argument as long as possible up-front. That means that you have to have your argument prepared and say as much without breathing. As soon as you take a pause, they might just cut you off. Unless you are shouting profanities in the phone, they generally won’t cut off a caller mid-sentence. So if you have a point that is hostile to the host you must try to filibuster your thought as much as possible before you have to breathe, because once you do you are letting them have the floor back.

There might not be a give-and-take. Be prepared for that strong possibility.

Don’t: filibuster once you’ve made your initial argument. The host may ask you questions about your logic or facts. Listen to what they are asking you and answer them. I hate it when callers try to avoid answering the host’s questions and there becomes a shouting match. It’s bad radio and you look like a fool.

Once you are off the air, the host can make fun of you with future callers for the rest of the hour. Or you might appear on commercials for the host as a promotion, making your embarrassment be something that people will hear over and over.

Do: Realize that most talk radio shows change topics every hour. If the host never got you on the air and the news at the top of the hour starts, hang up the phone and go about your life. You wasted time with a phone to your ear, but there are worse ways to spend an hour. Next time resolve to come up with a better and more engaging topic phrase for the producer to get you on-air.

Don’t: squander any time if you are the last caller of the hour. If the host says, “you’ve got twenty seconds” then use it wisely. The news will cut in and you’ll be off the air in twenty seconds. Make your point and make it well. You will have the last word on that subject.

That’s enough for now. I’ll revisit this topic again and talk about what it was like to be a guest on a show and how I’ve successfully and unsuccessfully pitched show topics.

If you think I've forgotten anything or have questions about talk radio, please be sure to leave a comment.

Linda