Tuesday, May 6, 2008

The Secret of Selling More Books

All writers want to sell more books, regardless of whether they have had their book published by a large publisher, or whether they have self-published. Selling more, in fact, is particularly important to the self-publisher because he is responsible for all sales. So how do we sell more books? I'm not sure there is a "secret", but there is, indeed, one thing above all that you have to do to sell more, and that is create curiosity. Why do people buy a book? They see its cover (and title) at a friends home, in a bookstore, or on Amazon.com and become curious. The important thing is that curiosity has been created, and once they are curious they will want to see what is inside. Your first job, then, is to create curiosity and, of course, to do this your book has to be seen. If nobody know it exists, you can't generate curiosity. and the only way it will be seen is through publicity -- the more, the better. They say, in fact, that people don't really become curious about a book until they have seen ads about it, or its cover, at least four times. And that tells you that repeated publicity is one of the keys.
Publicity can come in many forms and most of it is expensive. Large newspapers and TV can, in fact, be very expensive, and its unlikely you would recoup your expenses in sales. The best way around this is to try to get free publicity, in other words, get a reporter to write up a news article about your book. You can do this by sending a copy of your book to some of the reporters at the paper. And if you get one interested, remember that when she interviews you that your job is to create "curiosity" about the book. Tell her things about it that will pique reader's curiosity. Make them want to buy the book.
And, as I said earlier, the more publicity, the better. Try to get publicity in all forms, and if one form doesn't seem to give results -- go on to something else. The important thing is that you keep trying. A sure way to sell "few" books is to give up after a "few" tries. Selling takes work, and it's no place for the weak-hearted. You have to keep at it. Always be thinking of new ways to get publicity.
The internet is, of course, one of the great new places to get publicity. Use social media such as Facebook and Myspace, and if your book is in any way newsworthy, send out a press release. In fact, send out several, but make sure they are, indeed, newsworthy. You want someone to take them seriously. And finally, one of the best ways to sell books is through a website; make sure you set one up and use it.
Finally, one last "secret" for selling more books and it is to give as many books away as possible. Yes, I'll admit, books are costly, and you may not want to do this, but it can bring big dividends, The important thing, however, is to give them to the right people. Anyway, good luck, and this is a topic I'll be talking about much more in this blog. Don't forget to visit my website BarryParkerbooks.com

Monday, May 5, 2008

Writing a Children's Book

I'm always surprised at the number of women who tell me they would like to write a children's book. And indeed, I thought about it for several years before I wrote one. I think a lot of people want to write a children's book because they believe it is shorter than an adult book, and therefore easier. In most cases they are, indeed, shorter (I'll except J.K Rowling here), but they may not be any easier. They are different and it takes a certain type of personality to write a good children's book. You have to be able to identify with children, but of course, you may be one of those that can. You never know until you try.
The first thing you'll have to do is select a topic and a title. I live on a small farm with three goats, two horse, a mule and some chickens, so it was perhaps natural for me to write about them. I selected a small goat that we had named "Baby" as the main character, and decided to call the book "Baby's in the Doghouse." As it had turned out earlier, we had put a small doghouse in the goat pen so that Baby would have some protection from the other goats, as they tended to be rather mean to her.
So look around and see what you can come up with. Maybe you have a dog or a cat you could use. Or think back to when you were young. What type of book did you like? Needless to say there are a lot of possibilities.
Once you have a title and subject, you need a story, and you need to be sure that it will be of interest to a child. This brings up the question: what age group are you directing your book at? Is it for 3 to 6 year olds, or 9 to 14 years olds? It makes a big difference; the story line will be quite different depending on their age.
And regardless of age, the book will have to have some pictures in it. If it is for very young children, in fact, it will likely have to have a lot of pictures. But even older children like some pictures. Are you planning on drawing your own pictures, or will you have to hire an artist. If you're only so so as an artist I would suggest hiring somebody.
Getting back to the story, one of the best ways to decide on a good story is to read several other children's books. If you have a small child, you've no doubt read many stories to them, so this may not be a problem for you. Nevertheless, I'd look over a number of books. And of course, this is where your imagination and creativity come in. Almost everything you can think up has been written about numerous times. But don't despair. One way of overcoming this is to think of a new twist on an old story. Anyway, I'll leave this to you.
Once you've finished your story, the next step is to get it published, and for this you'll have to send out what is called a "query letter." In this letter you will describe you book, explain why children would love it, and describe your qualifications. Unfortumately, as with all books, if you are a new writer, it's not easy to get a publisher to accept your book, and after a dozen or so rejections almost anyone gets rather dejected. Fortunately there is an alternative: you can publish it yourself, and with todays technology this has become relatively easy. Of course, you'll also have to sell it yourself, but you'd be surprised how many you can sell with a little work. Anyway, I'll describe some of these things in later posts.
Check out my website at BarryParkerbooks.com

Sunday, May 4, 2008

Writing Faster, but Accurately

One of my heros is Isaac Asimov. I even had the honor of having him endorse my first book "Einstein's Dream." He referred to it as "An up-to-date view of the universe ... beautifully written. Every page is a pleasure." My editor told me about taking him to lunch, and that he had told her that he really enjoyed the book.
One of the main reasons Asimov is my hero is that he was one of the most prolific writers of all time, and of course, he was also mainly a popular science writer, as I am. Over his lifetime he wrote over 300 books; in 1957, for example, he wrote a book every two months. I remember him mentioning that he had completed a book in ten days, and thought that he had better wait a while before sending it to his publisher because he was worried that they would think it was done too fast.
To be prolific he obviously had to be a very fast writer. What was his secret? For one thing, his first drafts were almost perfect (he no doubt perfected this by writing as much as he did); he said he only read what he had written through once and usually only made a few changes. It was then ready for the publsher. And according to his publishers his writing required little editing.
All of us would like to write faster, but I don't think many of us could match Asimov. Nevertheless we would like to improve our speed, but of course, writing fast can't be our only goal. You have to write accurately, clear, and better at the same time. If you write fast and nobody wants to read what you've written because it is so bad, you haven't achieved much.
One of the first things you will have to do to write faster is get better organized. A certain number of steps are needed in writing an article or a chapter in a book. You have to begin by doing some research, and it's not a good idea to try to skip this stage, It will soon become obvious that you don't know what you are talking about. You can use reference material (books and magazines) and the internet for research, but one of the things I've found to be very helpful is to copy out all the information you will need (at least the critical points). This helps plant it firmly in your mind. You may think this is slowing you down, but in the long run, it isn't.
Once you've finished your research, you have to get things organized. First, try to get them organized in your head. Think about what you have learned. Go through it in your mind several times. Then you're ready to organize it on paper; in other words, you're ready for an outline, and again, this is not a step you should skip. Do a good job, and it is best to do it in stages; start with a rough outline, then go back over it and fill in more topics. And when you're finished, go through it again, adding even more topics, until you're finally satisfied.
The last stage is writing it up, and you should be well-primed by now. You've thought everything over thoroughly and in the process of making up an outline you've got things organized in your mind. The next step, then, is to write, and for this, try to write the entire article without making any changes. Just let it flow out. The changes will come with the revisions.
I have a lot more to say about this process in my book "Your Book" which will be out in a couple of months. Visit my website at BarryParkerbooks.com to read more about it. I'll also have more to say about "writing fast, but accurately" in future posts.

Saturday, May 3, 2008

My New Book: "Your Book: Writing it With Style and Clarity, Publishing Beautiful Pages, Selling Thousands of Copies

I taught a writing class at ISU for several years and wrote a book (text) for use in the class. I never did get it publish and thought it was about time. But I know that today's writers want to learn a lot more than just writing, and many of them would like to self-publish their books. So I've added two sections to the book: one on publishing and one on selling the book.

I have 22 published books over the years and most of them were published by relatively large publishers, but like many writers I became interested in self-publishing a few years ago. I found it to be an interesting process, and like many self publishers I found the selling of the books is the biggest challenge. I discovered quickly that if you advertize a little and get your book on Amazon.com you sell a few books ... in other words, the orders "dribble" in. But what you really want is for them to come in a "flood." At least that would be nice. But for most people, the cost of the advertizing that it would take to sell thousands, is prohibitive. Luckily, there are now several channels beyond the usual newspaper, TV and radio ads, that are much less expensive. And as I'm sure you know, one of the best of them is the internet.

In my book I talk about my experiences in trying to sell books on my own, and what worked best for me. Maybe you can share some of your experiences, so I can pass them on.

A detailed overview of the contents of "Your Book" is posted on my webpage BarryParkerbooks.com. I hope you'll look at it. I'll talk more about the book in future posts. It should be out in a couple of months