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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.

Archive for the ‘Book Reviews’ Category

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You Have a Good Book Review, You Still Need to Market It

Tuesday, August 2nd, 2011

Frequently, I quote Jim Cox from Midwest Book Reviews. In sharing part of his newsletter, you will see the importance of using a book review effectively. You have to market a book for it to sell.
Dear Publisher Folk, Friends & Family:
Getting reviews for your book from reputable sources is an essential element in any marketing plan. To obtain a review there is a capital investment comprised of the production costs of the book your provide the reviewer gratis, plus the postage , plus your time (which also has a monetary value).
So now that you’ve got a good review for your book what do you do with it? There have been entire books written on the subject and you’ll find reviews for a great number of them archived on the Midwest Book Review website at:
In this issue of the “Jim Cox Report” I want to share with you two ‘real world’ examples of publisher folk who’ve made very good use of a review as illustrations of what you can do.
This is a snail-mail letter I received from Kathy Cecala who on July 14th wrote me as follows:
Dear Mr. Cox:
I just wanted to thank you so much for the two reviews of”The Raven Girl” which appear in this month’s MBR. Self-publishing is truly a struggle, but your recognition of my book and good words about it were immensely helpful, not only in bolstering my self-confidence, but in winning additional reviews. The book editor of our daily newspaper, the Star-Ledger of Newark, NJ, does not generally review self-published works, but I was told she chose mine based on the MBR review posted on Amazon! So your reviews are quite influential! (Not that I doubted it!) As a gesture of thanks, I’m enclosing a book of stamps. Keep up this good work!
Sincerely
Kathy Cecala
Kathy’s reference to ‘this month’s MBR’ refers to the July 2011 issue of our “MBR Bookwatch”, one of our nine monthly book review publications.
Then this came in:
Thank you for your very kind words and your gesture of support for what we here at the Midwest Book Review attempt to achieve in behalf of folks like yourself and your clientele.

I’d like to include your email in my monthly “Jim Cox Report” as an excellent example of how to maximize the effect of reviews. Well done!

Jim Cox


Midwest Book Review

In a message dated 7/15/2011 1:25:53 P.M. Central Daylight Time,

karent@thomas-pr.com writes:

James,

Thanks for your excellent review of The Great Kat’s “Beethoven Shreds” CD in Midwest Book Review’s Wisonsin Bookwatch.

Also posted on The Great Kat Fan Pages on FACEBOOK http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Great-Kat/296984350242http://twitter.com/greatkatguitar and TWITTER

Thanks!

-Karen


Thomas PR
karent@thomas-pr.com
http://www.greatkat.com

What I wanted to point out is how Karen utilized pretty much every electronic age social networking tool there is to give our review of her book as wide an audience as possible.
Of course you don’t need to donate postage stamps as a gesture of support for the Midwest Book Review as did Kathy and Karen — but it is always much appreciated!
CityRoom, JustLuxe, 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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Posted in Book Reviews, Books, Marketing, Writing | 4 Comments »

Sending Your Book to be Reviewed?

Saturday, June 18th, 2011

Check out what can happen if you send your book to be reviewed and do not provide accurate information.

I have quoted Jim Cox of Midwest Book Reviews before, as I consider his company quite reputable and fair. His love of books and providing this service is second to none. This month’s newsletter from Jim included some interesting stats.

Dear Publisher Folk, Friends & Family:

Spring has now well and truly sprung in my little part of the world. The spring titles for and about gardening are currently getting my personal attention — as they usually do around this time of year.

But it’s not that I wish to comment upon today. Instead I want to bring to your attention as an author and/or publisher how important your contact information is with respect to your investment in sending out review copies to freelance book reviewers, book review publications, book review web sites generally, and to the Midwest Book Review in particular.

Here at the Midwest Book Review we continue to average about 2,300 titles a month coming in seeking review. We are able to generate around 700 to 800 reviews a month — roughly one out of every three submissions makes the cut and gets reviewed.

When a book is reviewed it is our policy to notify the publisher (who is responsible, in turn, for notifying their authors, editors, illustrators, publicists, and anyone else they deem appropriate) and along with that publisher notification letter we also include a copy of the review for their records.

That means once a month in a letter writing process that takes a full week to complete, we mail out publisher notifications and reviews to 600+ publishers.

Unfortunately, every month we get “returns” from the post office with such stamped messages as “Return to Sender, Attempted – Not Known – Unable to Forward”; “Return for Better Address”; “Return to Sender – No Such Number – Unable to Forward”; “Box Closed – Unable to Forward – Return to Sender”; and the ever popular “Forward Time Expired – Return to Sender”.

So for the publisher review notification letters I sent out for our May reviews last month I got the following “bounce backs” from the post office:

Gold Mountain Ventures
BlueBridge
Spellbinder Press
Atlatl Press
Aqueous Books
Alternative Views Publishing
Echelon Press Publishing
A&E Videos
Aric Davis
Conciliar press

Fortunately for Conciliar Press the post office return notification included a new post office box address for them so I was able to re-send the publisher notification letter to the new address. As for the others, the only way they will ever know that their books make the final cut and got reviewed is if those titles are to be found on Amazon where our reviews are automatically posted in our role as a content provider for the largest on-line bookseller in the business.

You may think that 10 out of 700+ isn’t such a bad track record. But the same thing (in about the same numbers) continues to happen month after month after month.

So the moral of the story is — always be sure that the reviewer or review publication to which you’ve made a financial expenditure to provide them with a copy of your book for review has a current address for you so that they can provide you with a copy of the review for your own marketing and promotion campaign.

Otherwise what’s the point?

Jim Cox
Midwest Book Review
278 Orchard Drive, Oregon, WI, 53575
http://www.midwestbookreview.com

CityRoom, JustLuxe, 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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Posted in Book Reviews, Newsletters, Tips, Writing | No Comments »

Book Review: Traveling with Pain

Saturday, June 11th, 2011

Traveling with Pain

Traveling with Pain by Liz Hamill is a must read for anyone who enjoys travel. In addition to covering tips on how and why; packing and preparing; getting there; sleeping and eating; sightseeing; outdoor adventures; shopping; night life; resting; recovery time after the trip; Hamill provides a list of resources that any traveler will find useful. Having travelled with pain at different times, as well as being a caregiver, I wish I would have had half these tips. Travelling with Pain will help you make that trip you’ve always feared you couldn’t take, as well as improve those you do take.

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CityRoom, JustLuxe, 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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