4 New Year’s Resolutions for Aspiring Writers

So another year has passed and you still have not completed the great American novel you resolved to finish (or start) last year?  Don’t be too hard on yourself. I didn’t lose a pound or get on that treadmill I put in my garage once last year.

While setting goals and making resolutions are good ways to motivate you and are also a nice way to gauge success and progress, remember they should not send you into a depressing shame spiral when you don’t achieve them.

So give yourself a break if you didn’t complete all of last year’s resolutions but keep moving forward and yes, make these new resolutions to become a better writer.

1) Read more

What inspired you to become a writer in the first place? I’m guessing a love and appreciation of books. So carve out 30 minutes every day to read a book and I promise you it will inspire you to write more.

Reread the classics you love and read the ones you’ve always wanted to. There’s no better way to learn about character development, structure, and good storytelling than by reading the masters of it.

Take a look at the current bestseller list and read some of those too. Find out how the competition is doing it, not to necessarily copy them but to know the market. Remember marketing is a huge part of success as an author today.

Added bonus: reading good books is fun.

2) Network with other writers in person

Yes, I said “in person.” Writers tend to be introverts (myself included) and you may need to force yourself to do this but it is worthwhile to find writer’s groups in your area and get involved with them.

Share your work; give praise and constructive criticism to others, make friends with a common interest who may have more knowledge than you and can teach you valuable things about the industry and the craft of writing. You may even hear something that inspires you.

I suggest you join a site like www.meetup.com to find groups in your area.

You may even find someone new to have a beer with or someone who shares your love of “furry” culture (look it up, it’s funny)

3) Study the craft of writing

The beauty of the Internet age is that you can go online and find all kinds of info on any topic that interests you.

A site like www.writersdigest.com is an excellent source of information on all things writing including a tip of the day and even writing competitions you can submit your work to.

There are other great sources as well. I’d suggest creating a Twitter account and doing a search for writing, publishing, and other related terms and at the very least just follow a bunch of people who come up in the search. You’ll get a lot of great links to informative articles doing this.

So go online and poke around (the google search engine is your friend) and take some time to read what the experts have to say about the process and business of writing.

And I know it sounds tedious and nobody likes to “study” and your time is limited but if you want to be a musician–you study music, if you want to open a hat shop–you should probably learn some stuff about hats. Just saying.

4) Grow a thicker skin

Anybody working in a creative space is going to get criticized. It’s an occupational hazard. Of course, it’s difficult to see something you’ve poured your heart and soul into lambasted but you need to get over it.

That manuscript gathering dust on your desk isn’t doing anybody any good. You need to share your work.

Start with family and friends but realize they love you (or at least like you) and might not always give you the most honest response to your work.

So take the plunge (see #2 resolution) and share your work with people you don’t know. Prepare to take the hits but think about how great it’s going to feel when the rewards start coming in and people love your work.

How to create a basic publicity pitch for any media

Here are some very basic guidelines to follow when crafting any pitch to get media (radio/TV/print) interviews.

No blatant product pitches or promotion.

No producer or editor is ever going to respond positively to blatant self-promotion. Media outlets prefer to sell advertising; they won’t do it for you for free.

A show producers #1 goal is to entertain or inform their audience. They want good content that their audience is interested in; in short, they are only as successful as their ratings.

That being said, they understand that any author or promoter’s ultimate goal is to plug something and will absolutely let you do that (within reason) if you first give them the good content they want/need

Research any outlet you plan to pitch first.

This can take a little time and if you are sending out a mass pitch email it is troublesome but it behooves you to do this.

Producers are very busy and have an email box full of pitches. They hate off topic pitches. So for example: if you have a woman’s heath topic geared towards senior citizens don’t pitch your local sports/talk station. It wastes your time and theirs.

You might want to consider hiring an intern to do research for you if you can’t do it yourself or purchase placements with a company like http://www.radioguestlist.com/ who for a fee will get your pitch to radio stations (Disclaimer–I have no experience with them and have no idea what kind of results they get).

Create a hook or show idea to pitch to the producers.

Here’s the hard part. You need to break down your area of expertise and come up with a list of topics you can address in an interview then you need to come up with hooks to pitch the media.

The best way I can describe a hook is to think of it as being like the teasers shows use right before they go to a commercial. It consists of a statement designed to get you to not change the channel.

For example: “When we come back, Joe Blow will be here to teach you the 5 things you need to do to protect yourself from identity theft this holiday season.”

That’s a strong hook as consumer advice is always a hot topic.

The best hooks are timely. Take a look at the news every day and try to tie your topic into something going on in current events. What are people talking about on social media? What is trending on Twitter?

For example: there have been protests and unrest throughout the country because of grand jury decisions in Missouri and New York relating to alleged police brutality/unnecessary force.

Maybe you are a child psychologist with a book about bullying—although technically you don’t talk about police brutality, you could pitch a show on “how to talk to your child about the unrest in Ferguson.”

Perhaps you’ve written a novel but you happen to be an ex-policeman. Even though your novel is science fiction, your background in law enforcement enables you to pitch knowledgably about law enforcement.

Effective pitches are often controversial so if you wanted to go that route you could pitch something like “Ex-Cop says America is on the verge of becoming a police state.”

The media love controversial pitches but just be prepared to take some heat and get in some on-air arguments if you use pitches like this.

I could write a whole book on writing hooks but for brevity sake I will move on.

To sum it up: Break down your expertise and come up with hooks that tie into current events, consumer advice, controversial opinions, or things that scare or entertain people.

Making those first few pitches will be a bit nerve-wracking but once you get used to it, it’s a piece of cake.

Make the pitch.

Once you’ve come up with some great show ideas you are ready to pitch.

Most pitching these days is done via email but for local radio I suggest you make a phone call (but make sure you don’t call when the show is on the air). The reason for this is that obviously radio producers want to hear how you’ll sound on their station.

Keep your pitch short and to the point and tell producers how you’ll inform or entertain their audience.

5 reasons to include radio in your marketing/publicity plans

According to Nielson’s annual “Audio Today” report, 242 million Americans listen to the radio each week, with 64 percent of that listening time outside of the home and 62 percent of listeners (age 18 to 64) full-time workers. There are more than 16,000 radio stations nationwide spanning 50 different formats.

Now of course not all those stations have a talk/news format but it does capture 11.4% of the total audience. The only format with more listeners is country.

The point is there are plenty of ears out there and authors (especially those with limited budgets) can get a lot of bang for their buck doing radio interviews to get publicity.

5 reasons to promote your book or product on the radio

1. Talk radio stations have a lot of time to fill so there are plenty of opportunities to appear on them. They need you to help them fill all that air time.

2. Radio is still at its heart a local medium, meaning your hometown probably has a station somewhere near it and they want guests that tie into that local scene. This is great news for beginners trying to get their first interview.

3. If you can get on during the coveted morning and afternoon drive times you literally have a captive audience in their cars listening.

4. People listening to radio during the above-mentioned drive times all have jobs which make them viable consumers.

5. You can do the bulk of the interviews on radio from your home (yes, you can wear your PJs) and do multiple interviews in a short period of time.

 So make sure to include radio promotion in your 2015 marketing budgets.

Stay tuned for future posts that will go deeper into techniques to pitch radio stations and do great interviews that will get you asked back.

How book marketing can be a lot like Thanksgiving

This is NOT, I repeat, NOT what our Thanksgiving looks like.

Oh Thanksgiving, you conflict me.

I love your delicious hot turkey and buttery, creamy mashed potatoes, your stuffing, cranberry sauce, and pumpkin pie. I love eating so much I have to undo the top button on my pants as I nap through your slate of pro football games.

What I don’t love is my house full of my wife’s relatives, sucking down my booze, invading my personal space with their curious political and religious views and generally overstaying their welcome.

But I love my wife, so to keep the peace I put on my best smile and put up with it. And yes, I’m exaggerating a little; her relatives are not all that bad (except for the curious political thought).

So how does that relate to being an author and book marketer?

Because both the process of writing a book and promoting it (like my Thanksgivings) have wondrous highs (actually finishing your book, sending it to the printer) and tedious lows (writer’s block, composing query letters to literary agents and publishers).

Unfortunately, you’ve got to master the tedious chores to be successful.

So make a vow to yourself, pledge to do one thing, two things, five things, whatever you can manage–to either promote or finish your book every day.

It can be a very small thing.

• You could write an article that ties into your book’s subject and post it up on ezinearticles.com or numerous other article sharing sites.
• You could build your social media presence up by posting positive comments on other people’s blogs or websites.
• Join a site like Good Reads and start networking and list building with other authors.
• Find some blogs you really like that focus on subjects you are knowledgeable about and offer to write guest blogs for them.
• Write and distribute a press release about you and your book to try to interest the media.

Above all, keep your chin up and keep promoting yourself and your work.

And be thankful, those pesky relatives will go home eventually.

Veterans Day: A Member of the Greatest Generation Speaks

I’m linking to an editorial that appeared in today’s Philadelphia Inquirer not only because I thought it was a good read to celebrate Veterans Day but also because it’s a lesson in getting publicity.

It was written by LaVonne Camp who is a veteran of WWII and the author of Lingering Fever: A World War II Nurse’s Memoir.

LaVonne is obviously a perfect fit for an editorial on Veterans Day. Being a member of the dwindling “Greatest Generation” and a veteran gives her the gravitas to be taken seriously on the topic.

I don’t know if the paper approached her or if she has a publicist but note that she imparts her wisdom without any mention of her book. She gets her plug at the end of the article and hopefully sold some books.

The lesson for the publicity seeker is to try to think a little outside of the box. What topic could you write a credible editorial on to get some free publicity?

Thank you for your service LaVonne.

Her editorial follows:

“Because I am a veteran of World War II, and because I have lived in this magnificent nation for more than 91 years, I thought Veterans Day might be an appropriate time to express some thoughts and memories that invade my quiet life. I do not want to be mired in the past, but to speak out about the things that have had a significant impact on the health and well-being of our country. ”

Read more at http://www.philly.com/philly/opinion/inquirer/20141111_Each_generation_stood_up_to_face_its_challenges.html

When it comes to publicity, start local

The number one complaint I’ve heard over the years from clients is that the only publicity they received from our services were small market radio stations and Internet radio.

This is a valid complaint when you are paying a PR agency thousands of dollars a month and the unnamed company I work for is very good at marketing and trotting out testimonials from people who got on Oprah or Good Morning America.

Unfortunately, it’s never that easy and most people are not getting on national TV, so all I can say is “buyer beware” when you sign up for any publicity program.

Believe it or not, it can be worthwhile to appear on these guys podcast (and their mom may just give you a cookie).

But don’t knock local and small market coverage.

Trust me if you are just starting out you don’t want your first interview to be in front of millions of people because you are most likely going to be terrible.

Think of local and small media outlets as your proving ground. You’ll hone your craft on them.

You’ll learn:

• What parts of your book or topic are most mediagenic (attractive to the media).
• You’ll learn the ropes of how the media works (how they book, how they will promote you, etc.).
• You’ll learn how to talk on the radio (you’ll be stunned at the “ughs” and “ums” you will hear yourself saying when you listen back to your first interview).
• You’ll learn how to plug your book or product in a subtle way that doesn’t turn people off.

Jack Canfield always tells the story of how he and his co-author Mark Victor Hansen made a pact when they first started promoting Chicken Soup for the Soul to do 5 things every day to promote the book.

This included book signings, press releases and many other things but a huge component of their strategy was doing radio interviews (and not just large market stations).

I once heard Bruce Springsteen say that one of the secrets of his great success as a live performer was the fact that whether there were 10,000 people in the audience or 10 he always played with the same passion and commitment.

That’s a mindset people respect and a mindset that most successful people have.

Last, you never know who is listening.

• Maybe some literary agent is driving through flipping through local radio stations and he loves what you have to say.
• Maybe some CEO is listening to his favorite podcast and loves your message so much that he decides he wants to buy your book in bulk to give to his employees.
• Maybe that kid hosting that tiny podcast is destined for greater things and he’s going to remember the solid you did him when you appeared on his show when a bunch of other people turned him down.
• And maybe you just might inspire, inform, or entertain some fine people in that small market.

—and isn’t that why you wrote your book in the first place.

Why your Christmas pitch is already late

If you have:

• The greatest gift-giving ideas…
• An inspirational holiday-themed novel…
• The best gluten-free holiday cookie recipes…
• Killer diet and fitness advice for the Xmas season…

Congratulations, you have what it takes to get publicity this holiday season.

Your late pitch has even made Santa sad.

Unfortunately, if you are looking for coverage in major magazines your pitch is 5 or 6 months late.

Magazines like Good Housekeeping, O: The Oprah Magazine, More, and Martha Stewart Living all work between 4 to 6 months in advance, ergo—your holiday pitches should have been sent in back in June.

Now the good news is that local magazines do have shorter deadlines (although remember anything in print always requires more lead time as the publication needs to be sent to an actual outside printer).

Websites, blogs, local TV and radio are still attainable and open to holiday pitches as they don’t book or write as far in advance but you still need to hurry because the beginning of November is even pushing it for them.

So how do we prevent our brilliant pitch from being late next year?

The two magic words are “editorial calendar.”

Definition: An editorial calendar is the listing of planned themes, features and needs for upcoming issues of a magazine. These calendars are often made available for advertisers (so that ads can be targeted), and may also be made with freelance writers in mind.

All publications use them but that doesn’t mean they just hand them out to anybody who asks for them.

Now you can certainly try to contact a specific editor and try to get some information on what topics they are working on but be very careful if you do and for the record I don’t recommend it if you are just starting out.

They are busy folks and don’t have time to hold anybody’s hand. These editors are getting lots of pitches every day and a bad interaction with one of them is not what you want to have.

You also should be at least familiar with these magazines before you even think of pitching one a story idea. Go the library and look at last year’s December issue or order a back issue from their website and get familiar with their style so you’ll know what to pitch next June.

Most publishers do not post entire editorial calendars on their websites but here is one that does.

This is from Fitness magazine’s media kit and it lists their entire 2014 editorial calendar on page 2.

http://www.meredith.com/mediakit/2014FITNESS_MediaKit.pdf

Also, if you do some online research (specific/creative google searches) and hunt around these magazines websites (quite often you have to scroll to the very bottom or use the “contact us” form) you can usually find guidelines for submissions or story ideas.

An example of that from Good Housekeeping is this link

http://www.goodhousekeeping.com/about/good-housekeeping-contributors-guidelines

Here’s a form I found to submit to O Magazine simply by googling “o magazine submission guidelines.”

https://www.oprah.com/plug_form.html?plug_id=505

Ladies’ Home Journal has morphed into Divine Caroline and I found a link on their website that literally says “write for us,” which gives very detailed guidelines of what they want.

http://www.divinecaroline.com/write-us

So put in the time and effort to do this research and you could land yourself some free publicity in major magazines. Just be sure to read the magazine’s guidelines and terms of service before you submit anything.

How does “free publicity” really work?

We all hear a lot these days about “free publicity.” But is it a real thing?

Well, yes and no.

First, let’s talk about the concept.

Every single media outlet needs content. You wouldn’t buy a magazine with blank pages. You would not watch a TV show that was just white digital snow. You wouldn’t listen to a radio station that was just dead air.

So in theory, this creates an opportunity for you, the author, the expert, the guy in the YouTube video doing something stupid and viral, to appear in these various media outlets to promote your book, product, or cause.

Now bear in mind that not all media use guests or sources. Many radio stations only play music and many talk shows only interview celebrities or people in the news. But plenty are open to guest experts and content.

So this seems like the simplest win-win situation in the world. They fill their air-time and magazine pages and you get publicity for your book or product.

Unfortunately, it’s not quite that simple. There is a ton of competition and there are rules of the road you need to learn before you even send a pitch out.

Now here’s the “no” that I referred to in the second sentence of this post. Publicity is free if you do all the legwork (create the pitch and press materials, locate viable sources to pitch, book yourself on the shows, etc.) but most people either don’t know how to do all this or don’t want to do the work involved.

In that case, publicity is not free. You’ll need to hire a PR firm or at the very least an intern or virtual assistant to do research and set up your interviews.

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Here are three basic things you need to know about the media before you send your first pitch.

1. The media do not pay you to do interviews unless you are someone notorious or someone involved with a hot story (ABC recently paid one of the women who was involved in the Anthony Weiner scandal) or a celebrity selling pictures of your baby or wedding. In fact, I’d be very wary of any media outlet that would offer you money to appear as it is considered unethical (especially if it is a news outlet).

2. There are “pay to play” media outlets out there that want to charge you to appear on their media outlet. Many also will try to sell you your own show or air time. I’m not saying all these outlets are unworthy but I’m warning you to be cautious as a consumer because most things that sound too good to be true usually are. My advice is to avoid any outlet that wants you to pay them to interview you.

3. People in the media are very busy. The worst thing you can do is waste their time with off-target pitches so don’t pitch ESPN your book on menopause. Research all media before you pitch them.

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   I’ll be discussing more in-depth PR strategy in upcoming posts.

Hang on to your ego (but don’t lose your mind)

In my line of work I come into contact with three kinds of people—let’s call them:

Group A: People who’ve written a book

Group B: People who are afraid to write a book

Group C: People who’ve written a book and think they are the next incarnation of Stephen King or Jack Canfield

Now the majority (thankfully) does fall into Group A and to be clear they are not fear free but they have the basic thing they need to start promoting and building their platforms (the finished book).

They are fearful now of things like promoting themselves, never finding an audience, public speaking, and a whole cavalcade of stuff that most often culminates in the fear of running out of money.

The group B people I encounter fall into two categories:

Total newbies who don’t have confidence in their abilities.

These folks actually suffer from an affliction that all artists have to deal with—the fear that you are not good enough and you don’t really have anything to say that anybody wants to hear.

And it’s actually a very valid fear. Most self-published books I’ve come across are terrible in design and content. There are way too many people writing books that have no business writing books.

But you know what, that’s just my opinion and I’m entitled to it but it is just one opinion. Don’t let me or anyone else dissuade you from following your muse and writing that book.

People who are very successful in business and want to write a book to enhance that.

Writing a book is the best way to get credibility as an expert on a topic (whether you really are one or not). People automatically assume “if he wrote a book about it, he must know what he’s talking about.” Many professionals do this precisely for this reason.

That brings me to Group C… Oh, God help us.

The smallest of the three groups but the one you generally want to strangle, these folks have deluded themselves into thinking they are very special. Their ideas are groundbreaking and revolutionary and all they need is to get their idea in front of (*insert guru’s name here*) and they will be both revered and rich.

Trust me, you don’t want to be in Group C, because in my experience they get really bitter when they don’t achieve the success they think they deserve.

But let’s get to the point of this post:

Confidence is a real problem in all walks of life but particularly to a budding artist (Full disclosure: I’m not an author but am a musician/songwriter and I suffer from these same issues).

I was recently listening to a specialty radio show about The Beatles and it happened to be John Lennon’s birthday. An interview was played with Lennon being interviewed by Tom Snyder in the mid-seventies on The Tomorrow Show.

When the subject of why The Beatles stopped touring came up, Snyder asked if it was a confidence issue and Lennon said no (and very emphatically)  “We knew we were good.” Now that may seem like an arrogant answer but the fact of the matter is no artist, whether it’s The Rolling Stones or U2 or that terrible cover band playing at your local bar can do what they do without thinking and acting like they are “the shit.”

I’m not suggesting you put on some wrap around shades and start acting like Bono, but I’m telling you that you need to find that middle ground.

You need to walk the fine line between timid and obnoxious. You need to have enough ego to get your work out there and not be demoralized when you get turned down by literary agents and publishing houses. You need to believe in yourself and your work to fairly and properly promote it.

When The Boss makes a point, people listen.

Yet, you don’t want to have so much ego that people don’t want to work with you. You don’t want to alienate anybody cause you never know who you may encounter that can help get your work noticed and moving forward.

Bruce Springsteen was the keynote speaker a couple years back at the South by Southwest Festival and he gave a great speech that totally contradicted itself yet made perfect sense. He addressed musicians but it applies to any artist.

And I quote from Mr. Springsteen:

“So, rumble, young musicians, rumble. Open your ears and open your hearts. Don’t take yourself too seriously, and take yourself as seriously as death itself. Don’t worry. Worry your ass off. Have ironclad confidence, but doubt – it keeps you awake and alert. Believe you are the baddest ass in town, and, you suck!”

So hang on to your ego, cause you are going to need it but don’t lose your head (you’ll need that too).

So you’re an author…

Some of you aren’t going to like this but here’s the skinny on being an author in 2014.

First, if you’ve actually completed writing a book, congratulations. You took the time and put in the effort and got it done. Practically everybody in America believes they’ve got a book in them (one survey way back in 2002 had that number at 81%) but most don’t ever get around to writing one.

This guy is not special.

But here’s the hard truth, you really aren’t that special.

Today anybody with a computer can write and self-publish a book (in 2010 more than 2.7 million “non-traditional” titles were published, including self-published books) but the average non-fiction title in the U.S. will sell less than 250 copies a year.

So despite an increase in the number of titles being published every year, sales are dismal.

POD (print on demand) self-publishing models have revolutionized and leveled the playing field of the book publishing industry but it’s both a blessing and a curse.

It’s a blessing because it’s made getting published accessible to anyone. Now Grandma can write her memoirs and share them with her family and won’t need to find an agent and $10,000 to get it done.

It’s a curse because everyone in the family will lie to Grandma and tell her what a fine writer she is and how it would be a tragedy if the rest of the world were denied a chance to read this compelling masterpiece (spoiler alert—chapter 6 is about her biscuit recipe).

(The epilogue is that Grandma will likely be swindled out of her nest egg by a self-publishing company that shall remain nameless here but that’s another blog post.)

So to sum up the publishing age we live in:

Easy self-publishing and print on demand = good for aspiring authors and companies selling author services

But also…

Easy self-publishing and print on demand = lots of poorly written, ill conceived, and badly designed books

Remember just because you can write and easily publish a book doesn’t mean you should.

Here are the facts new authors must face:

• Yes, you are swimming in a very crowded, competitive pool.
• Yes, the days of big publishing advances combined with massive publicity blitzes on your behalf are over.
• Yes, you need to build your own platform and list to be successful now.
• Yes, it’s hard to breakthrough in a world with thousands of media outlets (many of them highly specialized).
• Yes, success as an author seems time consuming, overwhelming, and out of reach for most people.

All of the above statements are true but before you ceremonially burn your manuscript, take a deep breath and think about how bad you want to be a successful author.

If you decide it all sounds like too much work, I’d bail now before you waste a lot of time and money.

But if you’ve got a burning desire in your belly to get your work/art/message out there; an open mind to new ideas; and aren’t afraid of a lot of hard work–stay tuned cause I’m going to do my best to share some marketing and publicity strategy that will help you succeed as an author.