Author: selfpublishingadvisor

amazon reviews, Book Reviews, Self-Publishing Book Review of the Week, Uncategorized, weekly self published book review

Saturday Book Review: “More Heaven: Because Every Child is Special”

Book reviews are a great way for self-publishing authors to gain exposure. After all, how can someone buy your book if he or she doesn’t know it exists? Paired with other elements of your book promotion strategy, requesting reviews is a great way to get people talking about what you’ve written.

When we read good reviews, we definitely like to share them. It gives the author a few (permanent) moments of fame and allows us to let the community know about a great book. Here’s this week’s book review, courtesy of CharlesAshbacherReviews:

moreheaven

More Heaven: Because Every Child is Special

by Dr. Jo Anne White

Publisher: Outskirts Press

ISBN: 978-1478765479

Synopsis:

A Top 10 Amazon Best-Seller in 3 Categories! Autism – Special Needs – Children’s Health

Based on a true story, More Heaven: Because Every Child is Special about six children with autism and special needs and their teacher who gives them a chance at learning and life. Despite challenges and a lack of support, Miss Tina Randolph’s commitment to reach, teach, and inspire these children is unwavering.

By accepting their uniqueness and participating in their private fantasy world, while at the same time engaging them in the real world, she eventually succeeds. Tina, her teacher’s aide, Kaye, and the children mount a tireless, daily battle to shift the tide toward the acceptance of people who are different.

The experiment, begun in chaotic, uncharted waters, bridges the gap of understanding and paves the way for the inclusionary practices of education and society’s acceptance of children and adults with special needs. This is a road that continues to need paving, making the messages in More Heaven: Because Every Child Is Special equally relevant today.

The book evolved from an experiment in the Philadelphia school system in the late 1970’s in response to the 1975 Education for the Handicapped Act, ruling that public schools in the US educate all children with disabilities, despite their severity.

Previously, many of these special needs children were kept at home-isolated and denied access to the mainstream. More Heaven is a powerful story of compassion, determination, disappointment, triumph, and love.

More Heaven reaches in from the heart outward to all children; they will be heard!

Critique:

Five out of five stars

This is a work of fiction based on actual events and it is clear to the reader that it is far more actual than fiction. It is the story of a special needs teacher and her adventures and struggles in educating six children that have a lot of needs.

Given that thirteen years of daily education (K-12) is necessary to prepare the modern child to function in society, progress is almost always measured in small increments. That is even more the case with these children, in general they are in this class because nothing else has worked and their education level is much lower than their chronological age. Furthermore, they are not mentally challenged, underneath their behavior problems there is a great deal of intelligence and capability.

It is a story of struggle, frustration and very slow triumph as these children are gradually coaxed out of their self-imposed (and often defensive) bubbles. As you read this account it is clear how expensive the education of these children is and how important it is that it be attempted. For if they are not drawn out of their shells at a young age, it seems clear that they will never emerge. Leaving long-term institutionalization as the only alternative, which would be far more expensive.

[ reviewed by Charles Ashbacher ]

Here’s what other reviewers are saying:

 

“MORE HEAVEN: Because Every Child is Special” by Dr. Jo Anne White is a powerful book that is well written and heartfelt. Based on a pioneer teacher’s experience of working with children with autism and special needs, it offers rare insight into the minds and hearts of these children. It gives us an opportunity to enter into their inner world, experiencing their challenges and accomplishments. One caring teacher makes a difference in the lives of her students by never giving up and offering them more than education. Her unwavering hope, acceptance and love remain constant and through this constancy, their world enlarges and they expand into learning and trust.”

– Amazon Reviewer Dr. Joe Rubino

A heart-opening look at breakthrough work with autistic children. In these vivid stories drawn from the author’s journals, we step into the room with Dr. White: “When I look again, Eva’s outstretched on the floor, blankly staring out of a glazed smile. What magical incantations do I recite to break the spell?” And later: “Something big is taking place here—real play, non-verbal communication, one-on-one contact, and I marvel at all of it while reminding myself this is a beginning.”

Through the writer’s keen observing eye, we see so much of what is unique about each of six children—their agonies, their victories. “There are no promises though; we live in the moment here.” We come to share the author’s loving wish to nurture the children, and that is a very great thing.

– Amazon Reviewer Fran Shaw, Ph.D.

Book Trailer:

saturday self-published book review

Thanks for reading!  Keep up with the latest in the world of indie and self-published books by watching this space every Saturday!

Self Publishing Advisor

selfpubicon1

Conversations with a Self-Publishing Writer, Royalene Speaks, Uncategorized

Conversations: 4/22/2016

THE MUSIC OF WORDS part FOUR

 

Okay…you enjoy writing poetry. When the thoughts and words are flowing onto the page you’re having FUN! Then the ideas seem to dry up. No one finds these moments, days, or weeks enjoyable. SO what to do? Over the years I’ve heard multiple responses to this question and have shared many of them in previous blogs. However, I don’t believe I’ve talked about the concept of looking to your monthly calendar page. Now, I know that sounds weird, and I thought it was too when I first heard it. Here is explanation I received.

Whatever month you’re residing in at the time, open a web-search with the words: January (February, March, etc.) holidays and events. The topics you find there will definitely bring laughter into your voice and provide just the inspiration you need to bounce back into writing. Since this is the month of April, here are a few topics to consider—and research.

  • National Humor Month: WHO is (or has been) your favorite humorist? I have two—Red Skelton and Robin Williams. Their biographies and viewing YouTube clips of their work will definitely inspire.

 

  • International Guitar Month: Have you ever been to a café-poetry-reading session when the background sounds are beautiful guitar music? This is an environment where the music of words really explodes.
  • Keep America Beautiful Month: Most of us have yearly calendars that show us the beauty of our country. There are also amazing websites that offer photographs galore from photographers past and present that display unique “corners” of our beautiful America. Combining visual inspiration with guitar melodies will definitely set the stage for your next poem and/or series of poems.
  • April 27th is National Tell A Story Day: Although this tradition started in Scotland and the UK, folks in the U.S. quickly adopted it. Poetry-storytelling is quite popular around the world and it doesn’t matter if it’s a fiction you created, or folklore, or a true story. Libraries celebrate this day by inviting storytellers to come and tell their stories. This is a great way to get your poetry books before the listening public.
  • The last Friday in April is National Arbor Day: Celebrated since 1872, it began in the flatlands of Nebraska and is focused on helping our natural environment thrive. Millions of trees are planted on this day—by thousands of outdoor and family groups. Participating and observing these activities can certainly be inspiring. However, what a great environment to bring a cooler of drinks to share and then share some of your poetry (maybe about trees) with these hard working tree planters. Did you know that the Latin word for tree is arbor? There’s another bit of trivia to inspire you.

arbor day

The poets I know who have used this method to trigger writing ideas have really enjoyed it. I hope you will too. And remember—NEVER STOP WRITING. You have the heart and soul of someone who sees things differently than the average writer. What you give to the world is irreplaceable! So, once you’ve completed a collection of your work, PUBLISH! ⚓︎

RoyaleneABOUT ROYALENE DOYLE: Royalene has been writing something since before kindergarten days and continues to love the process. Through her small business—DOYLE WRITING SERVICES—she brings more than 40 years of writing experience to authors who need “just a little assistance” with completing their projects. This is a nice fit as she develops these blogs for Outskirts Press (OP) a leading self-publisher, and occasionally accepts a ghostwriting project from one of their clients. Her recent book release (with OP) titled FIREPROOF PROVERBS, A Writer’s Study of Words, is already receiving excellent reviews including several professional writer’s endorsements given on the book’s back cover.  

Royalene’s writing experience grew through a wide variety of positions from Office Manager and Administrative Assistant to Teacher of Literature and Advanced Writing courses and editor/writer for an International Christian ministry. Her willingness to listen to struggling authors, learn their goals and expectations and discern their writing voice has brought many manuscripts into the published books arena.
Alternative Marketing Methods, Book Marketing, Kelly Speaks, Marketing Your Self-Published Book, print-on-demand, Uncategorized

Marketing Missteps Episode 5 : Printing Anything Other Than On Demand

This series is my love letter to marketing for self-publishers.  But you know what’s more fun than reading love letters?  Reading hate mail.  So while I remain a firm advocate of thinking positively and of making as many innocent errors as is necessary to refine our techniques to perfection, I have been framing this series–now four weeks gone–in the context of the dangerous and the deadly in terms of marketing missteps. Thus far, I have addressed the following errors:

As I mentioned last week, each of these things can tank your book sales singly and for a long time, and a combination of these mistakes will leave you struggling to recover years in the future.  And while some other steps off of the narrow path to success won’t necessarily damage you irrevocably–a few mistakes are, as I said, useful for making adjustments–these ones just might.  These are the Big Bads, the missteps you don’t want to make.

So today, I’m writing hate mail to self-publishing packages that lock you into massive initial print runs.  The error?

Printing Anything Other Than On Demand

Some authors out there will caution you against doing a print run without already having  solid distribution deal in place, but I’ll take it one step further and caution you against buying into any publication package that locks you into an unsupportably large print run.  The average hybrid publishing company (also sometimes and misguidedly referred to as a “vanity press”) will offer a range of packages to choose from, depending on your budget, and many of them include these massive print runs in order to set you up to compete with traditional publishers and their even more massive print runs.

The problem is this: we can’t compete with traditional publishers by replicating their behaviors.  Self-publishers simply don’t have the same budget, and the same margin for error.  Traditional publishers want to flood the market with a book in order to sell as many copies as possible by simple exposure alone, but they also have the distribution deals to get their books into a lot of different markets to do so.  These distribution deals mean that if a book sells poorly in one corner of the world, Hachette or Penguin or whoever can simply bundle up all of those books and send them somewhere where they are selling well.  Or, if they’re selling poorly everywhere, the loss is attenuated by the profits from other books entirely–books that are selling well.

Campus Bookstore at University of Pennsylvania

Unless you have the reach and courier services of a traditional publishing company, I caution against these massive initial print runs.  I am a firm advocate for printing some copies of your book from the outset–they’re useful for ARCs, for book readings, and for giveaways–but they should be a tool, not a burden.  If your garage is stacked floor to ceiling with printed copies of your book that you can’t sell and can’t move, that benefits no one–and it’s a needlessly expensive price to pay in a market where ebooks continue to be a profitable source of income for the self-publishing author.

I’m not saying that there aren’t benefits to printing your books in bulk: you do save money.  But what do you lose?  You end up covering shipping expenses later, and having to manage distribution through your own personal website.  That’s a lot of work, and most authors don’t have the time or resources after that initial purchase to operate within luxurious margins.

So: keep that first print run small, until you can gauge future demand.  Better to sell out that first print run entirely and put in another order via Print on Demand (POD) copies than to end up sending your books to landfill.  (And believe me, this is such a common experience among my self-publishing acquaintance.)  Better yet, start with POD instead of turning to it as a second option.  Hybrid publishing companies like Outskirts Press, my own employer, offer several packages that allow you to cut back on the numbers–or to start without a built-in print run, with the option of going straight to POD copies purchased wholesale.  Other hybrid publishing companies offer similar deals with some variation, but the fact remains: this kind of plan helps keep initial costs down, and frees up your money for other, more carefully targeted marketing strategies.

 

 

Thank you for reading!  If you have any questions, comments, suggestions, or contributions, please use the comment field below or drop us a line at selfpublishingadvice@gmail.com.  And remember to check back each Wednesday for your weekly dose of marketing musings from one indie, hybrid, and self-published author to another. ♠

KellyABOUT KELLY SCHUKNECHT: Kelly Schuknecht is the Executive Vice President of Outskirts Press. In addition to her contributions to the Outskirts Press blog at blog.outskirtspress.com, Kelly and a group of talented marketing experts offer book marketing services, support, and products to not only published Outskirts Press authors, but to all authors and professionals who are interested in marketing their books and/or careers. Learn more about Kelly on her blog, kellyschuknecht.com. 10:00 AM
from the archives, Kelly Speaks, Uncategorized

From the Archives: Self-publishing, Literature and Pop Culture

Welcome back to our Tuesday segment, where we’ll be revisiting some of our most popular posts from the last few years.  What’s stayed the same?  And what’s changed?  We’ll be updating you on the facts, and taking a new (and hopefully refreshing) angle on a few timeless classics of Self Publishing Advisor.

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[ Originally posted: August 19th, 2009 ]

I opened the Books section in yesterday’s New York Times “Urban Eye” to read the headline, “Why Literature Doesn’t Matter.” Really? How sad. It matters to me. It matters to my family, friends, and colleagues. It matters to the self-publishing authors I work with every day. Literature doesn’t matter… I wish someone would have told me.

According to “Urban Eye,” a recent Sunday Book Review article penned buy novelist Kurt Anderson was to fill me in. Anderson writes, “During the 1960s and ’70s…people who hadn’t read a word of a first-rate contemporary novel — no Cheever, no Bellow, no Salinger, Heller, Styron, Doctorow, Updike or Roth — nevertheless knew the novelists’ names… And then everything changed.”

But book sales in the US have remained strong, and are even growing over previous years in Europe. Despite the current recession effects, statistics show that readers are still buying books. Not matter? Anderson goes on to claim, “But irony of ironies, after literature was evicted from mass culture, pop culture itself began to fragment and lose its heretofore defining quality as the ubiqui­tous stuff that everybody consumed.”

Ah, I’m seeing to whom, or rather to what, Literature doesn’t matter to – pop culture. Wait, then this is a good thing for authors and readers. The fragmentation that Anderson talks about is the segmenting of consumers into smaller, more clearly defined profiles. What that means to self-publishing authors of fiction, non-fiction, etc., is not that your work doesn’t matter, that Literature doesn’t matter, but that it doesn’t matter to everyone. Perfect, now you can coordinate and focus your subject matter and marketing efforts to readers who will benefit from, and buy your books.

Talk to your self-publisher early on about your custom marketing plan.

– by Karl Schroeder

These days, when someone refers to “Literature,” most people think of only one thing:
third folio

But the Classics, I would argue, are not the sole proprietors of the word “Literature”–and they never have been.  And “Literature,” as defined by Merriam-Webster, can mean “written works (such as poems, plays, and novels) that are considered to be very good and to have lasting importance” or simply “books, articles, etc., about a particular subject.”  I know some of my professors in years past would argue that there’s a profound distinction between “literature” (with a lower-case “l”) and “Literature” (with an upper-case “L”)–but then we’re getting into that dreaded world of semantics, where words are bent to match whichever connotations the arguing parties need them to.

I think there are two primary reasons why books become classics:

  1. Someone in a position of power decides they’re worth preserving, and
  2. They continue to make a lasting impression on readers, across cultures and decades.

The first item explains why a great number of quality works (by women, or people of color, and so forth) have been excluded from what is considered “Canon Literature,” and which even today comprises a large part of every American schoolkid’s reading list.  And the second item explains the gaps in the first: many works that were not considered appropriate for lasting acclaim have survived through the centuries for seemingly no other reason than they still connect with people.  The first item is an exercise in the mind, and the second in the heart. I have a couple of examples in mind, but I don’t want to turn today’s post into an exercise in literary theory.  (As much as I love it!)

uncle tom's cabin

The fact of the matter is, books mean a lot to people.  Today.  In the here-and-now. The generation lauded as bringing about the “end of literature”–the generation that cut its teeth on supposedly un-literary books like Harry Potter and The Hunger Games–reads more than any generation prior.  And they not only read, they write.  That’s right–they have created a vast market for new stories, and they have stepped up to flood that market with material.  Best of all, they understand one simple and very important truth: a self-published book like The Martian or Wool or Eragon can move them in ways that “Canon Literature” sometimes can’t.  Stigma has lost its power over “kids these days,” and they’re proud to be voracious readers of books that mean something to them, not to the folks putting together SAT reading lists.

I can’t tell you the last time I cried over Vanity Fair or The Adventures of Tristram Shandy.  I appreciate a good dollop of Jane Austen and Charles Dickens and Shakespeare, but I haven’t wept over them recently.  I have wept over The Martian.  (I won’t even hint at my reaction to Harry Potter when I re-read the series this last winter.)  I don’t think there’s room to despair over the “Death of Literature,” or any more support for the argument that literature “doesn’t matter” today than there was when Karl wrote this post back in 2009.  Our definitions of literature have been too narrow, and our expectations of the current generations of readers have been wrong.  Literature is more diverse, more colorful, and more exciting than anyone ever gave it credit for–and it means more now than ever!

And … I’ve made this post run long.  Next week I’ll revisit it, because there’s one crucial component I’ve failed to address today: How literature’s continued “mattering” impacts you as an author, and how you can use it to your advantage!

Thanks for reading.  If you have any other ideas, I’d love to hear them.  Drop me a line in the comments section below and I’ll respond as quickly as I can.  ♠

KellyABOUT KELLY SCHUKNECHT: Kelly Schuknecht is the Executive Vice President of Outskirts Press. In addition to her contributions to the Outskirts Press blog at blog.outskirtspress.com, Kelly and a group of talented marketing experts offer book marketing services, support, and products to not only published Outskirts Press authors, but to all authors and professionals who are interested in marketing their books and/or careers. Learn more about Kelly on her blog, kellyschuknecht.com.
Kelly Speaks, news from the self publishing world, self publishing news, Uncategorized

Self-Publishing News: 4.18.2016

This week in the world of self-publishing:

“The past few weeks have been a busy period for the publishing industry,” write Publisher’s Weekly correspondents Jim Milliot, Andrew Albanese, and Diane Roback in this April 15th article. Milliot, Albanese, and Roback report from the far afield as they cover the events taking place at the Bologna Children’s Book Fair and the London Book Fair as well as the 28th Independent Book Publishers of America (IBPA) Publishing University, held in Salt Lake City. While the book fairs are not themselves specifically focused on indie, hybrid, and self-publishing authors, certain self-publishing-related events proved extremely popular, “with the popular Authors HQ once again facing overflowing audiences for its presentations on best practices and services, how to find an agent, and more. Emerging technology was also prominent, with sessions on virtual reality, and on artificial intelligence,” write Milliot, Albanese, and Roback. The IBPA’s Publishing University, unlike the two book fairs, is all to do with independent publishing–and “approximately 230 independent publishers and self-published authors turned out,” cutting across all demographics and disciplines.  Newbery-winner Kwame Alexander delivered a keynote on his own road to success as a self-publishing author running his own small press.  For the full report from Publisher’s Weekly on these international book festivals, visit the original article here.

“Everybody has a novel in them, so they say,” begins this April 15th article by Guy Kelly for the Telegraph: “Yet even if the idea for a book comes easily, the challenge of having that dormant masterpiece accepted by iron-clad publishing houses has long seemed a Herculean task, even for the most promising manuscripts.”  Kelly goes on to explain how this landscape is slowly but irrevocably shifting under the influence of self-publishing, a process which removes obstacles and allows “anybody to become an entirely self-reliant, published author in a matter of minutes. And if you’re prepared to be shrewd about it, the move could prove extremely lucrative.”  He goes on to paint a portrait of Mark Dawson, a 42-year-old self-publishing author whose books have been downloaded over two million times, and whose sales are in excess of six figures–each year. Dawson, writes Kelly, has now launched something called “The Self-Publishing Formula, a range of courses designed to advise others on how best to monetise their writing in the modern, internet-driven world.”  His journey to success was a long one, giving him plenty of insight into the traditional publishing model which he left in order to pursue his own course.  To follow that entire journey, follow the link.

 

In this April 15th article for the South China Morning Post, contributor CNBC writes that “The e-book business is thriving, despite the competition between digital, print and audible books, according to the boss of an e-reader company.” The “boss” CNBC mentions is Michael Tamblyn, the CEO of Kobo, “which sells e-reader apps and devices, as well as e-books.” And importantly, the market CNBC mentions is the international e-book market, giving us insight into a world much larger and much more diverse than the standard American publishing outlook.  Tamblyn, according to the article, “also discussed the increasing success of self-published books on the market. Last year, 22 per cent of e-books sold in the U.K. were self-published.” 2015 was in many ways a recovery year for the international book market–not just in terms of ebooks, but in terms of overall print and digital sales, traditionally or independently published–after a two-year slump. “Agents and publishers still dominate the market but self-published has become a real, viable channel,” CNBC quotes Tamblyn as saying: “More often than not the customer who’s buying this doesn’t necessarily know they are buying a self-published book. They are so well produced, so well edited, so well designed that they just sit on the shelf with everything else.” The fact is this: self-published books are beginning to lose their stigma, and that’s a very good thing for everyone.  Well, everyone who is invested in making sure authors get their due.  For more of CNBC’s article, you can find the South China Morning News piece here.

spa-news

As a self-publishing author, you may find it helpful to stay up-to-date on the trends and news related to the self-publishing industry.This will help you make informed decisions before, during and after the self-publishing process, which will lead to a greater self-publishing experience. To help you stay current on self-publishing topics, simply visit our blog every Monday to find out the hottest news. If you have other big news to share, please comment below.

KellyABOUT KELLY SCHUKNECHT: Kelly Schuknecht is the Executive Vice President of Outskirts Press. In addition to her contributions to the Outskirts Press blog at blog.outskirtspress.com, Kelly and a group of talented marketing experts offer book marketing services, support, and products to not only published Outskirts Press authors, but to all authors and professionals who are interested in marketing their books and/or careers. Learn more about Kelly on her blog, kellyschuknecht.com.