Book Marketing, Book Promotion, Book Reviews, Networking, Self-Publishing, Self-Publishing Book Review of the Week

The Dont’s of Pitching Your Self-Published Book to Producers

After your book is published, here are 5 things to avoid when pitching to a radio or television producer:

1 – Don’t pitch your book. Pitch an idea for a show.
2 – Don’t over promise. Be able to deliver what you say.
3 – Don’t be dull. Your letter has to communicate how vivacious you are.
4 – Don’t hide your message. Make sure it’s clear what you are suggesting.
5 – Don’t be annoying. Producers are busy. Bombarding the with correspondence or emails will hinder your chances for success.

– Karl Scrhoeder



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Have fun and keep writing.

Networking, Self-Publishing

Self-publishing and Your Blog

When it comes to writing a book, nothing necessitates production like demand. Whether that demand is real or imaginary is irrelevant when it comes to motivation. Of course, “real” demand is certainly better in terms of promotion and readership. But “imaginary” demand also accomplishes the same goal — incentive for you to write a certain amount within a certain period of time.

You’ve found this blog. Do you have one and would like to share? If note, think about starting one.  Short for web-log, blogs are online diaries that allow you to post content quickly and conveniently for the world to see. Each blog posting is time-stamped with the date and time of your entry. Other readers can post comments to your blog if you allow them to.

Blogs that are updated consistently and frequently are more popular than those that languish. There’s your demand. If you want a blog with “buzz” you will find yourself motivated to add to it every day. Even if you’re only adding a paragraph with every posting — those entries add up.  Keeping ahead of your public’s expectations is a great motivator to write!

– Karl Schroeder


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Book Marketing, Book Promotion, Choosing a Publisher, Self-Publishing

Self-publishing: Rice, Corn, & Beans

Retailers like Amazon, blogs, online forums and countless other products of the digital world have introduced over the last decade a unique new element in the way readers find books: less expensive, open source consumer information. No longer are large advertising and marketing dollars spent on a small portion of books targeted at the largest audience possible through traditional brick-and-mortar outlets. At least not on the level of decades past when readers had no choice but to visit these stores to learn about and buy new books. What does this mean for how writers produce books?

To help explain, let’s take a look at the example of the bean farmer, corn farmer, and rice farmer, all three of whom farm all 3 crops to sell at the farmers market. However,

The bean farmer is better at bean farming.
The corn farmer is better at corn farming.
And the wheat farmer better at rice farming.

One day the bean farmer decides to turn his entire field to beans, and in result brings the best beans at a higher volume to the market. This farmer may only be serving those consumers who like beans, and will lose those that prefer corn and rice. But he will accomplish at taking in the whole bean market because his beans are the best.

Are a rice, corn, or bean farmer? In other words, how specific is your audience (the tighter the better) and how pertinent your content? Once this has been identified and the self-publisher search begins, look for one that has marketing services and support to most effectively reach those readers.

– Karl Schroeder

Have fun and keep writing!


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Self-Publishing Book Review of the Week

Self-Published Book Review of the Week: Pajama School

banner250400Natalie Wickham submitted the following review she received for her self-published book. Here is the link to review online: http://blissfullydomestic.com/homeschool-bliss/pajama-school-review-and-giveaway/

Pajama School is the autobiographical journey of Natalie Wickham, a homeschool graduate who chronicles her journey through honest, vivid, and candid stories.

While chronicling her journey, Wickham provides a strong message that God’s plan for her family far surpassed what her parents could ever have planned for their children. As she willingly tells all, Wickham discloses the reality of her educational experience and its relationship to the many challenges she faced growing up.

She illustrates how God took her classmates (her sisters) and transformed their relationship into that of best friends. She expresses the highs and lows of switching churches, finding a curriculum, living with an ailing grandmother, living with a sister with a disability, mending relationships with family members (including her father), and surviving terrible tragedy.

And as she tells her stories of being homeschooled, she seems to be expressing thanks to her mother, father, and sisters who made her journey more complete.

One of my favorite passages in the book is this:

“That’s what the world of homeschooling is like. It stretches far beyond the boundaries of a single family, a community, or one local church. It is comprised of all sorts of people, from varied backgrounds and different walks of life, but who are united in a common goal – to take seriously the upbringing of their children and provide them with the best education possible. That will mean different things for different people. But that’s the beauty of homeschooling. Stereotyped as we may be, no two homeschool families are exactly alike. A peek into any homeschool will quickly reveal that. But still, there persists a familial bond of sorts as we are brought together as part of a bigger community for events such as these.” (p.57)

Wickham’s book is entertaining, but more importantly, it is a ministry. As she expresses in her own words, “Homeschooling has prepared me for a life of learning, because one of the most valuable things I’ve learned is that true education is not limited to the walls of a classroom. True education takes place every day as I learn from the expertise and experience of those whom God has placed in my life. This understanding is what has helped me learn and grow, even through the difficult life lessons that God has allowed me to experience.” (p.204)

Pajama School is a delightful book that I would recommend to anyone, not just a homeschooler.

Book Promotion, Book Reviews, Choosing a Publisher, Networking, Self-Publishing

Self-publishing, Literature and Pop Culture

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.

Karl Schroeder


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