Book Review, ISBNs, and Frustration! January 2006 Newsletter!

Welcome to the second Write and Publish Fiction Newsletter - Book Review, ISBNs, and Frustration! First of all MERRY CHRISTMAS and HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE! 2005 was a wonderful year, let's make 2006 even better!

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Jason Moser

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Book Review, ISBNs, and Frustration!
by Jason W. Moser
and a question asked by Winona

Here is a question/article about Book Review, ISBNs, and Frustration! Hope it helps everyone.

Winona "Nona" Question: a. Do you have any information that deals with getting your book review, for print books and e-books [to help with writing]?

b. Since my books are on Lulu.com and they don't have the ISBN#, my stories only sell on that site. Do you have any other suggestions to get my work out there?

c. I have had promises of people purchasing my books, but so far.........NATA. I think people do a lot of talking and nothing else, meantime, my books are just sitting. I can't afford to pay someone to publish my work. Besides, you have to watch out for that too. I have more stories that I would like to put up on LULU, but if the first four aren't doing so well, and not because they are poorly written or lack illustrations, I find it hard to keep adding more books to my site.

What kind of advice would you give to writers who are in the same situation to [help with writing]? Boy, I am so full of questions today. Hope you don't mind?

Jason Moser Answer: [I never mind long winded questions to help with writing since I'm long winded myself.] I'm still experimenting with my first book right now, seeing what works and what doesn't. I made $64 with four book sales after emailing all of my friends and family. Of course this was through my personal website I created for my book, but some of the things I am trying as promotional perks are bringing in a good sales response as well. Getting a good book review is a whole different ball of wax since people don't like to voice their opinions all the time.

[I'll answer the last question to help with writing first!] c. What I have done is created a website for my individual book [using keywords] and basically use that site to tell people about the book and to give them incentive to buy it. My incentive is to receive a personally signed copy of my book along with an electronic copy and lifetime discounts of up to thirty percent on future publications. Here's my book's website [so you can see the example]: www.fiction-novel-spy-among-spies.com.

[Still going backwards!] b. I've spent many hours researching publishers and discovered that even though they print your book and put a professional label on it, YOU as a writer still have to promote it. Publishers will submit your ISBN to major bookstores, but THEY DO NOT SELL YOUR BOOK! That is a huge misconception many writers have. YOU are the one that sells your book. If you do nothing to promote it, your book will do nothing. Most publishers are just looking out for themselves, only arranging the sale of your book until they match how much they put into it so they don't lose any money. After that, they seem to have better things to do and you are on your own.

That's the main reason I created Write and Publish Fiction. I'm going to prove to the world that you don't have to go through a professional publisher to make it big with your book. It's all in the promotion. The difficult part is finding where your book is going to sell, which I am currently working on with the site. Promotion is a key area I want to explore and will greatly help other writers sell their books. There are so many methods out there and finding the best ones is very difficult.

Let's see, ISBNs. I suggest taking your best book and purchasing Lulu's Basic Distribution Service for $34.95, which includes a unique ISBN for your book, a scannable Bookland-EAN bar code automatically printed on the back cover (not applicable to one-piece covers), your book listed in Books In Print, the searchable database that librarians, booksellers, publishers, students, faculty, researchers, library patrons and bookstore customers use to find the exact titles they need, and the ability to take your books into the local bookstore for them to sell. This service will get you on the map, you will then need to do some creative promoting. Some of the things I am in the process of trying right now is printing out post cards or brochures and going to the malls with them.

Ask Barnes and Noble or Walden-Books if you can hand them out at the entrance to their store or actually have a book signing at their store. Book signings usually bring a lot of people into their store (people love to meet authors...even us unknown ones right now) thus bringing them business. You can maybe even get the store to purchase twenty books to display in their store. I'm still working on all this, but I believe the handout flyers and brochures will bring quite a few sales.

Offer to give them a signed copy, offer them discounts on other books... be creative and offer something that will give them more incentive to buy. Once you get some profit built up from sales, take your efforts up a level and purchase the upgrade from Lulu.com for even more promotional help.

It's basically a one-step-at-a-time process. You have to be patient and work your way into the industry. You will receive an email in a few days on my thoughts about going through a professional publisher. Yeah, it's great to have a professional publishing label on your book, but does that really sell your book? As a new author, if you got your book published through Signet, you will sell some books, but you won't see any profit for years without a lot of promotional efforts on your part. That's why the publishers all offer book signing packages. They expect the author to promote. It's your book. They only do what they need to do so they don't lose any money.

[Finally, back at the beginning!] a. Getting a book review can be easy with a little work. Since you write children's books, I suggest searching for children book websites that offer story posts that people can do a book review. Also, the cheaper package at Lulu.com ($40) will get a description of your book posted at Amazon where people can submit a book review. Also, start a blog at Lulu.com and ask visitors to submit a book review after reading your book. Friends and family also count for a book review [so please encourage them to provide feedback]. Myspace is another great place to display your work in Blog format. Ask readers to place a comment for your book review.

My finance is my tester, proofreader, and brainstorm partner. It helps to get advice and book review or two from her, but it is more difficult to get a book review from other people. What I suggest is to create your own website for your writing that you control and can capture information on your buyers. When they go to your website, you should have a form they must fill out with their name, address, email... before or during the purchase so YOU can send them a copy of your book. I use Paypal and Stormpay for online purchases and you can name the price.

With the ebook, you can save a copy of your book from Lulu.com and upload it to your website where your buyers can download it. Even put a page asking your readers to mail you a book review. If they purchase a hard-copy book, they send you the money and you buy the book yourself from Lulu.com. You already have the profit in hand and pay cost for the book to be printed. You can have it sent directly to them or have it sent to you and you resend it to them. It's a little more work, but you control the information that the buyers supply and you can use that information to follow up with your buyers. By follow up, I mean send them a quick email asking them for feedback or testimonials on your book.

Also, direct mail is 100 times better than email for marketing your book and sending follow up correspondence. It's important to get customer's information for future book promotions...if they like one, they will like future books.

Submit your web-site's link to directories, children's book websites, etc... Hit the malls and hand out a hundred fliers to people walking around the mall (ask the mall for permission first). Go to local bookstores to see if they will put a few of your books on the shelf or allow you to do a book signing.

Thank you for asking the questions. I know the journey can be long, but keep the faith. Don't ever lose hope that your books won't sell. They will. Don't wait for people to come to your book, take your book to the people. - Jason.

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