Rob Bignell's Blog, page 304

Pitch book through Back of Room sales

One of the best way to sell your books is through Back of Room sales. This occurs when you give a presentation and have copies of your book(s) for sale on a table nearby – usually at the back or side of the room or just outside it.

Back of Room sales work because those attending your presentation are interested in your book’s topic. They are naturally ready to purchase your book. If you’ve done a good job during the presentation, then you’ve got them even more excited about the topic, increasing the odds of a sale.

A book signing or book reading is a form of a Back of Room sales. But think about what might attract more attendees to your reading and instead give a presentation at a seminar or workshop about a topic covered in your book.

For example, I write hiking guidebooks. While interesting to read if you’re a backpacker who wants to hike the region covered in the book, the trail entries otherwise are a dry read and not ideal for a standard book reading. However, if I give a presentation about “The 10 Best Hiking Trails in Denver” and offer my own passionate summaries of the trails and include pictures of the scenery on a large screen, I’ll attract more attention.

You can use this approach to extend the shelf life of your book. For example, I can do a presentation in September about “Denver’s Best Autumn Leaf Trails,” one before Valentine’s Day about “Denver’s Most Romantic Trails,” then one in spring about “Denver’s Best Wildflower Trails,” all culling information from one trail guidebook.

Set up and promote the presentation the same way that you would a book signing/reading. However, you’re not limited to bookstores. Presentations can be given almost anywhere, such as the local library, coffee houses with stages, or at conventions.

Be sure to make your table where the books are available is attractive. A single-colored tablecloth is a good idea, as is a poster about yourself or your books. In addition, if handling the sales yourself, make sure you bring enough money in different denominations to make change. You also may want to have business cards or freebies (such as bookmarks) related to your book that those attending the event can pick up.

Need an editor? Having your book, business document or academic paper proofread or edited before submitting it can prove invaluable. In an economic climate where you face heavy competition, your writing needs a second eye to give you the edge. Whether you come from a big city like Atlanta, Georgia, or a small town like Atlanta, Idaho, I can provide that second eye.

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Editing tip: Has it been done before?

Do you sometimes find yourself saying, “This has all been done before” as writing a draft? You’re probably right. How can your plot, setting and characters differ from those in the books you’ve enjoyed the most?

Need an editor? Having your book, business document or academic paper proofread or edited before submitting it can prove invaluable. In an economic climate where you face heavy competition, your writing needs a second eye to give you the edge. Whether you come from a big city like Dayton, Ohio, or a small town like Why, Arizona, I can provide that second eye.

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A typical error: Abhorrent vs. aberrant

The number of writers who confuse these two adjectives is frightening.

Abhorrent is something that is horrifying, that would cause you to at least jump back because you’re startled. To wit, She found the dead cockroach floating in her soup absolutely abhorrent.

Aberrant, however, is something that is a little weird. For example, The culmination of her aberrant behavior came with the wearing of a long, trailing wedding dress to the funeral.

Now that you know the difference between these two words, readers of your books never should have to shudder or recoil in horror over their misuse.

Need an editor? Having your book, business document or academic paper proofread or edited before submitting it can prove invaluable. In an economic climate where you face heavy competition, your writing needs a second eye to give you the edge. Whether you come from a big city like Portland, Maine, or a small town like Bantam, Connecticut, I can provide that second eye.

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Writing Prompt: Observe your thoughts

Suffering from writer’s block or need to add some spunk to your writing? The problem may be that you need to change up your routine. To that end, try this tip: For five minutes, write down the thoughts going through your head. Then read what you wrote. Spend another five minutes writing down your observations about your thoughts.

Need an editor? Having your book, business document or academic paper proofread or edited before submitting it can prove invaluable. In an economic climate where you face heavy competition, your writing needs a second eye to give you the edge. Whether you come from a big city like Allentown, Pennsylvania, or a small town like Chugwater, Wyoming, I can provide that second eye.

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What are your characters’ motivations?

One of the major problems with early drafts of stories is that the characters’ motivations haven’t yet been fully worked out. Can you identify you characters’ goals and the reasons they want to attain them? Did your characters’ goals change from what was presented in the story’s introduction?

Need an editor? Having your book, business document or academic paper proofread or edited before submitting it can prove invaluable. In an economic climate where you face heavy competition, your writing needs a second eye to give you the edge. Whether you come from a big city like El Paso, Texas, or a small town like Wanderoos, Wisconsin, I can provide that second eye.

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Five Great Quotations about Craft of Writing

“Most people use twenty verbs to describe everything from a run in their stocking to the explosion of an atomic bomb. You know the ones: Was, did, had, made, went, looked… One-size-fits-all looks like crap on anyone. Sew yourself a custom made suit. Pick a better verb. Challenge all those verbs to really lift some weight for you.” - Janet Fitch

“Details are the Life of Prose.” — Jack Kerouac

“Compose in the sequence of the musical phrase, not in sequence of a metronome.” - Ezra Pound

“Easy writing makes hard reading.” - Ernest Hemingway

“The craft of writing is all the stuff that you can learn through school; go to workshops and read books. Learn characterization, plot and dialogue and pacing and word choice and point of view. Then there's also the art of it which is sort of the unknown, the inspiration, the stuff that is noncerebral.” - Garth Stein

Need an editor? Having your book, business document or academic paper proofread or edited before submitting it can prove invaluable. In an economic climate where you face heavy competition, your writing needs a second eye to give you the edge. Whether you come from a big city like Ventura, California, or a small town like Big Ugly Creek, West Virginia, I can provide that second eye.

 

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Writing Inspiration: The energy your writing brings to readers is directly proportional to the amount of energy you bring to your writing.

Too many would-be authors believe that if they’re talented, the book they write will come easily and naturally.

When writing, though, effort – vigorous and determined work – always counts the most.

Effort is the one thing you can control when writing and publishing a book. Other variables – how many books on the same topic are coming out at the same time as your title, those authors’ level of expertise and writing abilities, if someone clicks "buy" on your Amazon.com page – are nothing you can really influence. If those variables you can’t control work do in your favor, then you’ve simply enjoyed some good luck.

Effort matters at every stage of the writing process. When brainstorming, it means tossing around a lot of ideas and a willingness to explore ones that are off-the-wall. It means concerted work in creating a detailed outline. When penning the first draft, it means putting in the hard, day-by-day sessions needed to constructing your book word-by-word with all of the necessary research (especially if writing nonfiction). It means penning several drafts of the book until you get it right. And when a final draft is arrived at, it means ensuring the formatting and book cover are professional and that you put in the long but necessary hours of marketing it.

Of course, no matter how hard you work, uncertainty exists in every writing project. Many questions will remain unanswered: How will readers react to the story? Will a critic trash my book and ruin my sales? Will the cover look good to readers? But if you only hope for the best, you’re fatalistic. Effort ensures you’ll assess and determine how to best address those areas of uncertainty.

And sure, efficiency and expertise are important. Effort, however, includes learning how not to waste time and in becoming ever more competent with your writing skills.

In writing, there are no shortcuts. Put the necessary energy and passion into your work, and your readers will recognize it – and your talent!

Need an editor? Having your book, business document or academic paper proofread or edited before submitting it can prove invaluable. In an economic climate where you face heavy competition, your writing needs a second eye to give you the edge. Whether you come from a big city like Greenville, South Carolina, or a small town like Cocklebiddy, Washington, I can provide that second eye.

Amazon.com Widgets

Add ‘click to tweet’ button to your promotions

With Twitter one of the most used social media services, indie authors obviously are smart to use it. But creating buzz – that is, getting your tweet to be seen by more than a few random people who might be online within a few seconds of when you’ve tweeted a message, is difficult.

To solution is simple. Have others tweet the same message at several times of the day for you.

Getting that done is as simple as adding a “click to tweet” button on your messages to other people.

That is easier to accomplish than you might think. A number of independent companies offer the service; type “click to tweet” into a search engine to locate them.

Once you’ve signed up for such a service, all you need to do is compose the message that you want tweeted. Most of the services have a simple on-screen box in which you can do this. Be sure to follow principles of good tweet writing to ensure your message will be most successful. Usually you can add hashtags to the message.

Once you’ve composed the message, the service generates html coding that you then can cut and paste into various outreach efforts, such as newsletters, websites, or greeting cards that are created with html coding.

When sending those promotional materials to others, ask them to tweet your message. Because it’s one click, it’s easy for readers to do, and a number of them will. The end result isn’t a single message that receives 10,000 clicks over a few hours but 10,000 messages that say the same thing spread out over several months.

Arguably, the latter is just as beneficial – if not more so – than the former. Think of it this way: a radio commercial broadcast hundreds of times over several weeks will attract more attention than a commercial broadcast just once.

Many of the click to tweet services also allow you to create multiple message buttons that can be accessed via a dashboard and modified later.

Need an editor? Having your book, business document or academic paper proofread or edited before submitting it can prove invaluable. In an economic climate where you face heavy competition, your writing needs a second eye to give you the edge. Whether you come from a big city like Knoxville, Tennessee, or a small town like Lick Skillet, Virginia, I can provide that second eye.

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Don’t copy favorite characters, settings

Who are your favorite characters and what are you favorite settings from books you’ve read? In what way are the characters and settings in your stories similar to them? For example, if you write science fiction, is your main character like Captain James T. Kirk and the interstellar community like the United Federation of Planets?

Need an editor? Having your book, business document or academic paper proofread or edited before submitting it can prove invaluable. In an economic climate where you face heavy competition, your writing needs a second eye to give you the edge. Whether you come from a big city like Bakersfield, California, or a small town like Mosquitoville, Vermont, I can provide that second eye.

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A change in the weather: Climactic vs. climatic

Once you know the difference between climactic and climatic, fireworks will go off.

Climactic refers to the high point of something, such as the climax of a novel or something that’s orgasmic. It comes from the noun climax, except the x has been turned to a ct to get an adjective: Suddenly, a climactic crash of thunder reverberated across Chicago.

Climatic refers to the weather. It comes from the noun climate, as in: The years-long drought across Southern California is a climatic disaster.

Hopefully, such knowledge now will bring about a wind of change in some writers’ word usage.

Need an editor? Having your book, business document or academic paper proofread or edited before submitting it can prove invaluable. In an economic climate where you face heavy competition, your writing needs a second eye to give you the edge. Whether you come from a big city like New Haven, Connecticut, or a small town like Bullfrog, Utah, I can provide that second eye.

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