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$uccess

Your Path to a Successful Book

Our $uccess blog will feature writing, marketing, and publishing tips we continue to learn since writing our 2009 INDIE Finalist workbook $uccess, Your Path to a Successful Book keeping our readers abreast of the everchanging skills required to write, publish and sell a successful book. We will also have guest commentators. Achieving your goals as a writer is what matters. Anything we can do to help you get there is our goal. We welcome your comments and hope you will sign up for our bi-monthly (or whenever we have enough material) newsletter.

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Posts Tagged ‘Authors’

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Promo Day Offers for Book Expo America, BEA

Friday, February 10th, 2012

Would you like a boost with your marketing and promotion efforts for your book(s) at BookExpo America (BEA), the nation’s largest publishing tradeshow? The BEA takes place June 5–7 at the Jacob Javits Center in New York City.

Here are five ways Cypress House can help:

  1. Pre-show and Onsite Orientation. We’ll provide you with orientation materials and suggestions before the show, then walk you around the show, focussing on marketing, packaging, and distribution possibilities for your books.
  2. Badges to attend BEA.

    3. No time or patience with paperwork? We can take care of it for you. Or, see below for how you can do it yourself.

  3. Rights Representation to Agents and Publishers: We can include your book(s) in our print and electronic international catalog. We do several pre- and post-show email blasts, too. We can meet on your behalf at our table in the International Rights Center.
  4. Autographing Your Book at BEA. If you’d like to be considered for an author signing at BEA, submissions are already underway. We can assist with submissions and liaison before the show.
  5. Full Representation by Cypress House Staff Plus Display of Your Book(s)

Please read on for pricing, details, and deadlines for each option.

1. Pre-show and Onsite Orientation with Walk-Around

Deadline: April 27, 2012

Price: $225

This offer includes orientation materials, maps, and a walk-around of the show floor. This package does not include display, badge, or representation.

2. Badge to attend BEA

Deadline: March 23, 2012

To attend BEA you need an admission badge, and neither Cypress House representation nor an autographing slot provides one. You can purchase a badge directly from BEA convention management at: www.bookexpoamerica.com. Publishers who are members of IBPA (Independent Book Publishers Association) may also contact IBPA directly to obtain a badge at: www.ibpa-online.org./

or

Cypress House can obtain a badge for you. The cost is $180 plus postage, shipping, and photocopying. This price includes display of your book at the IBPA booth. Cypress House will handle the submission forms and send a copy of your book for the display to make sure your badge is waiting for you at the convention center. Please be sure your display copy arrives at Cypress House by the March 23rd deadline.

Note

: If you have also chosen Full Representation by Cypress House Staff Plus Display, your book will be displayed in two venues. If you would like a badge for another person, we can provide two badges for $260 plus postage, shipping, and photocopying.

3. Cypress House 2011 Book Expo America Rights Representation with Agents and Publishers for Translation and Other Subsidiary Rights

Deadline: April 20, 2012

Price: $300.

Representation includes an ad in our foreign-rights catalog (both print and electronic versions feature cover image, book description, and publisher contact information); inclusion in at least two email blasts to foreign rights agencies, agents, and publishers prior to BEA; meetings on your behalf at BEA; with a verbal report after the show. If queries come to us after the show, we’ll pass them along to you. Cypress House has already reserved a rights table at BEA for this year and will be listed in the program.

What we need from you: filled-out questionnaire, an electronic image of your book cover (72 dpi, 200 pixels wide, TIF or jpeg file), five sample copies of your book (these can be slightly damaged copies), and a PDF file of your book’s text, if available. (We recommend the PDF be watermarked. When offered a locked PDF in our outreach, most potential recipients requested a hard copy instead.)

For a written report after the show, please add $75. If you’d like us to negotiate on your behalf after the show, we will bill you $75 per hour plus any attendant postage, shipping, and photocopying. We do not take any percentage of rights sales or licensing.

4. Autographing Your Book at BEA

Deadline: March 1, 2012

Price: $75 per hour.

If you would like us to pitch you for an autographing at BEA, liaison time is billed at $75 per hour. If you’re given an autographing slot, BEA charges a $125 fee. You’ll need to provide 60 copies of your book for the signing. These may be prepublication galleys or finished books. Cypress House will bill you for any staff time and shipping required to get your books to BEA.

* Joe Shaw, our editor and marketing manager, can provide additional help to promote your autograph session, including story pitches to the PW Show Daily. Please inquire.

Joe can be reached at: joeshaw@cypresshouse.com or phone 800 773-7782. Signups for the limited number of autographing slots available are already underway, so please contact Joe no later than March 1.

* You are responsible for making all travel, lodging, and other arrangements.

* Note: This package does not include an admission badge.

5. Full Representation by Cypress House Staff Plus Display

Deadline: April 20, 2012

Price: $900 per title

* Discounted rates are available for multiple-title representation. Please inquire.

Our services include pre-show author/publisher orientation materials, face-out display in the New Title Showcase (NTS) cooperative display, inclusion in the NTS print and online catalogs, placement of your promotional materials in the BEA pressroom, and representation of your title by Cypress House staff at the show and at the BEA Rights Center. We also provide an email blast to international rights agents before the show and a display ad in our International Rights catalog. Our rights catalog is distributed throughout the year in print and electronic versions.

If you choose to attend BEA, this package will also include a one-hour author/publisher orientation walk-around on the show floor. We pass inquiries from prospective translation agencies and publishers along to you. If you’d like us to negotiate on your behalf, you will be billed $75 per hour plus the cost of postage, shipping, and photocopying. We do not take any percentage of rights sales or licensing.

* If your book is still in the editorial phase, it is nonetheless available for representation.

Note: This package does not include an admission badge.

Please contact Dolores McBroom regarding all of these Cypress House offers for BEA 2012. Dolores can be reached at Dolores@cypresshouse.com or 800-773-7782

Cypress House, Lost Coast Press, QED Press
155 Cypress Street, Fort Bragg, CA 95437
800-773-7782 * www.cypresshouse.com
Publishers of award-winning books and ebooks
CityRoom, JustLuxe, The Epoch Times, Big Blend, Spa Review Magazine, Global Writes

Finalist in the Writing and Publishing category of the 2009 Next Generation Indie Book Awards, ”$uccess, Your Path to a Successful Book,”

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Proofing Your Book – It’s Important

Thursday, September 22nd, 2011

Proof time. There is nothing quite like the feeling of seeing your proof copy of your new book. What’s better, the final published copy.

When Brenda, Norm and I were in the midst of editing our proof of $uccess, Your Path to a Successful Book it was exciting. Naturally, we were hoping for just a few edits. The count went to 44. It reinforced the need for editing. Brenda and I don’t begin to catch what Norm does. It looks different in print than on the screen or just a document copy.

Our first book had over 150 changes, so we did improve.

Based on seminars and workshops Brenda and I have given and people asking us for a book, we decided to write $uccess. We’ve ended up with a book that we wish we would have been able to read before we wrote our first book together, Our Love Affairs with Food & Travel.

We want to thank all of those who urged us to write this book.

We don’t profess to be experts, but have learned a great deal from experience and our book reflects it. The section that is not covered in detail would be E-Books. They have rapidly evolved. I know a post is due soon on E-Books.  If anyone would like to make a post on E-Books, we would welcome it.

We invite comments and we are happy to feature tips from others.

CityRoom, JustLuxe, The Epoch Times, Big Blend, Spa Review Magazine, Global Writes

Finalist in the Writing and Publishing category of the 2009 Next Generation Indie Book Awards, “$uccess, Your Path to a Successful Book,”

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Great Ways for Writers, Authors, Speakers, and Readers to Use Google+ by Carly Willsie

Thursday, September 1st, 2011

This post is from “The Big Bad Bad Book Blog.”

Gaga for Google

by Carly Willsie

Disclaimer: This post has nothing to do with Lady Gaga, so don’t get your hopes up.

Just when you finally figured out how to correctly use a hashtag, Google+ made its debut on the social networking stage. Perhaps you cheered the opening, quickly adding anyone and everyone on your Google+ radar. Or maybe you’re disillusioned with social networking and simply can’t take another alert on your smartphone, consequently letting out a resounding “Boo.”

Regardless of your relationship with social media—and before you either delete your invite or start posting dozens of photos of your grandma’s birthday party—consider using Google+ primarily as a networking tool.

Whether you’re a writer, reader, or presenter, Google+ likely has something to offer you. Read on for suggestions on how you can utilize G+ to your advantage.

G+ for Writers

G+ Hangouts is a great way to keep in touch with fellow writers, especially if you’ve attended a writers’ conference and want to continue getting feedback from participants you particularly clicked with. Hangouts is essentially a videoconferencing tool. You can connect with up to ten people, and G+ recognizes when someone is talking, focusing the video stream on that person until someone else speaks up.

The feature also offers excellent networking opportunities if you participate in NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month, which takes place in November), or any other sort of marathon writing event.

Hundreds of writers are already organizing cowriting events on G+, rejecting the solitary nature of writing in exchange for interaction and peer motivation. Creeped out by the idea of watching others write but still want the feedback? You can minimize your screen and mute your microphone while writing, and then rejoin your group during chat breaks.

Mary Robinette Kowal suggests the following steps to create a writing meetup on Google+ Hangouts:
1. Put up a post saying that you are going to have a writing date at [x] time OR just spontaneously open a hangout.

2. As soon as the hangout is open, place a comment on it that states that it is a writing date and what the parameters are.

3. Suggested parameters: “We’ll chat for fifteen minutes. Then at quarter past we’ll start writing for forty-five minutes. On the hour, there’s another fifteen-minute break for chat . . . Rinse and repeat. If you want to join in mid-way, that’s fine, but we’ll just wave at you until the next break.”

4. Continue until you need to log off. If the other participants are still going, they will be able to keep writing after you leave.

If you’re at all nostalgic about your college workshop days of wacky writing prompts and open sharing, you should definitely find a G+ writer’s group to join.

GalleyCat is collecting a list of writers interested in connecting on Google+. If you want an easy way to find dozens of new friends, check it out.

G+ for Authors

Authors, consider using Google+ to organize initial readers of your manuscripts. Use your blog or newsletter to choose a group of three to ten beta readers and send them your piece. Ask them to read it over the course of the week and decide on a time to chat about their reactions and suggestions.

Google+’s main claim to fame is its personalized sharing features; authors should use this to their advantage. Unlike Facebook, Google+ allows you to easily group people and decide what you share with particular groups. This feature, called Circles, enables you to share a link with a specific group—say “readers”—but not with another—say “family.” Target your fan base by posting news to them without spamming your family and friends.

You could also organize virtual book events to interact more directly with your readers. If you have a good blog or fan following, announce a G+ “book tour” date. Encourage fans to post questions and connect with them via Hangouts or Circle posts.

G+ for Readers

Virtual book clubbing is another great way to use G+. If you have a club on GoodReads or a virtual club over email, migrate the group to Google+. Instead of simply messaging or emailing about the book, get onto Hangouts to have a face-to-face conversation.

If you are involved in any genre reading groups, fan clubs, academic conferences, literary holidays (like Bloomsday), or reading events (like  the thirty-hour reading of Moby Dick that happened earlier this year in Portland) you could also organize Circles to facilitate sharing of interesting research and articles related to your topic of choice.

G+ for Speakers

Professional speakers can also use Google+ to expand their reach. Use blogs and forums to identify influential people in the expertise circle you should be connecting with. Add them on G+ (unlike Facebook, it’s not taboo to add people on G+ you’ve never actually met) and position yourself as a pro by hosting workshops, webinars, or live tutorials to select circles through Google+ Hangouts. Offer cooking classes, marketing webinars, or personal finance workshops—whatever will build your online platform in the arena of your personal expertise.

Google+ may not be as insanely popular as Facebook yet, but it’s never a bad idea to get in on the ground floor of a social media movement. If you’re a little timid about getting started on Google+, check out this collection of fifty helpful get-started links.

I want to thank Carly for writing such a great article. I encourage you to read other posts on her BigBadBookBlog.

CityRoom, JustLuxe, The Epoch Times, Big Blend, Spa Review Magazine, Global Writes

Finalist in the Writing and Publishing category of the 2009 Next Generation Indie Book Awards, “$uccess, Your Path to a Successful Book,”

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