#Guest #Blog Part 2 #Marketing

The 2nd Part of this month’s Blog is continued today by our Guest

Carolyn Howard-Johnson, author of the multi award-winning

HowToDoItFrugally series of books, one for writers and one for retailers

Carolyn Howard-Johnson brings her experience as a publicist, journalist, marketer, and retailer to the advice she gives in her HowToDoItFrugally series of books for writers and the many classes she taught for nearly a decade as an instructor for UCLA Extension’s world-renown Writers’ Program. All her books for writers are multi award winners including both the first and second editions of The Frugal Book Promoter and her multi award-winning The Frugal Editor won awards from USA Book News, Readers’ Views Literary Award, the marketing award from Next Generation Indie Books and others including the coveted Irwin award.

Below is number 8-15 (but the computer won’t allow me to start with #8)

Develop new activities to publicize: Don’t do just book signings. Use your imagination for a spectacular launch. Get charities involved. Think in terms of ways to help your community.
Send professional photos with your release: Request guidelines from your target media. But it never hurts to send a Kodak (or iPhone) moment–properly labeled–along with your release.
Frequency is important: The editor who ignores your first release may pay more attention to your second or twenty-fifth. She will come to view you as a source and call you when she needs to quote an expert. This can work for novels, too. I received a nice referral in my local newspaper because I am now an “expert” on prejudice, even though my book was a novel and not a how-to book. I am now writing poetry with tolerance as a theme and that adds to my credibility as a source.
Follow Up: Shel Horowitz, author of Grassroots Marketing: Getting Noticed in a Noisy

World, reports that follow-up calls boost the chances of a press release being published. Voice contact builds relationships better than any other means of communication.
Keep clippings: Professional publicists like Debra Gold do this for their clients; you do it so you’ll know what’s working and what isn’t.
Evaluate: One year after your first release, add up the column inches. Measure the number of inches any paper gave you free including headlines and pictures. If the piece is three columns wide and each column of your story is six inches long, that is 18 column inches. How much does that newspaper charge per inch for their ads? Multiply the column inches by that rate to know what the piece is worth in advertising dollars. Now add 20% for the additional trust the reader puts in editorial material. Now compare the stories that you pitched that got published vs. the ideas you pitched that didn’t and figure out how to make that work better for you in the coming year.
Set goals: You now have a total of what your year’s efforts have reaped. New publicists should set a goal to increase that amount by 100% in the next year. If you already have a track record, aim for 20%.
Observe progress: Publicity is like planting bulbs. It proliferates even when you aren’t trying very hard. By watching for unintended results, you learn how to make them happen in the future.

Carolyn Howard-Johnson

Instructor for nearly a decade at the renowned UCLA Extension Writers’ Program

Author of the multi award-winning series of HowToDoItFrugally Series of books for writers

Amazon Profile: http://bit.ly/CarolynsAmznProfile

The Frugal Book Promoter: http://bit.ly/FrugalBookPromo

Web site: http://www.HowToDoItFrugally.com

E-mail: CarolynHowardJ@AOL.com

Facebook: http://Facebook.com/carolynhowardjohnson

Twitter: http://Twitter.com/FrugalBookPromo

Pinterest: http://Pinterest.com/chowardjohnson

You pin one of my book covers, and I’ll pin one of yours!