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#5 Remember Tomorrow Never Comes

OK, here’s the deal, tomorrow will never come. That sounds like a very philosophical statement coming from me and I’m not normally a philosophical writer, but hear me out. To prove my point check out my waistline. I know, what does that have to do with writing!? EVERYTHING! I keep telling myself that I will diet, and I will exercise, but I’ll do it tomorrow. I’ll do it tomorrow because I’m too tired, or that roast beast (beef) looks too good to only have one helping. I can’t diet today because that Almond Joy cake Momma made for dessert can’t possibly be left for her to eat! She’s a diabetic for crying out loud. I’m saving her from herself. I must save her and I must do it twice TODAY! So TOMORROW I will diet. But for some strange reason it is always today. Today is the only day that we have to think about, so let’s make the most of it.

You need to make yourself write sometimes. At first it will come easily. You are going to be so stoked by a great story. You are going to do nothing but write, write, write. They ideas are going to flow from your fingers. The sparks will fly, and your significant other will be standing nearby with a fire extinguisher to make sure that no fires are started. Then your darling child comes up to you and says, “I’m hungry!” or my personal favorite, “I’m bored!” So you get up quickly and run to the kitchen to make a quick PB&J and then you are headed back to write. You then see the mail on the table that has to be put away. Dang is that the credit card bill that was due last week? Why didn’t that get paid? Now you are making a mad dash for the check book to pay it before too many late fees get added. Hold up, the check book’s not balanced? It’s always balanced, do you have enough to pay the bill? By this time, you have forgotten that you were writing in the first place.

It’s especially hard on a nice sunny day. But you need to set a goal, even if it’s small.

* My goal for today is 400 words, in other words, you can set a word count goal!

So if you decide that you are going to write that 400 words act like the Nike commercial and Just Do It! Sit down and write 400 words. It needs to be something. It doesn’t have to be the most wonderful thing you have ever written and if you are stuck on the story that you are writing, start on something else. Don’t force the words to come that will only frustrate you and drive a very painful and potentially LONG writers block into your near future. (I hate writers block! In the infamous words of my children, “It sooooo sucks!”)

* My goal is 5 pages, I’m sure you get where this is going, a page goal right!?

It’s time to be selfish. Have your spouse watch the kids. Go somewhere quiet, or semi-quiet if you live in my house and close the door. Put several full laundry baskets in front of the door and sit down to write. You have to take the time to do this.If you don’t take the time to be selfish with your writing, no one else is going to do this for you. If you don’t take care of this child, (Yes, your writing is your baby too! Don’t believe me? Wait till your first not so good review when you want to beat the heck out of some reviewer for having an opinion. And do remember folks, it’s just an opinion. OK?) no one is going to do it for you. So you need to get off your duff and take time for it. You can not blame anyone but yourself if you don’t get it done.

* My goal is to write for 30 minutes and last but not least…a timed goal!

I know you’ve heard it before but use a timer. The advice is sound, tried and true guys. If you don’t have an egg timer, a timer on your microwave, your stove, your phone, or an alarm clock, I do have solutions. I absolutely love this site: http://www.nakedalarmclock.com/ because you can set it and have it go off whenever your goal time is complete. Besides, the name is fun. (I bet over half of you have already clicked on the link thinking you would find something naked on there, HA fooled you.) Make sure if you set a timer for yourself, that you are not punishing yourself. Try not to make this a time out like you would give your child. So, don’t do it for 3 straight hours in a row. When I tutored college Accounting, I always told students never to study for more than an hour at a time, take a 10-15 minute break and then go back to studying. That way your brain doesn’t go into overload. If you force your brain to work non-stop for 3-4 hours then you may end up resenting the time that you are sitting there, and won’t enjoy what you are doing. Another fun thing that I can tell you about is http://lab.drwicked.com/writeordie.html. You can go to that site and put in your word goal, a time limit, and if you would prefer the program it to go easy on you, be strict or just be plain evil. It’s a little difficult to explain, so you may want to go there and play with it just for fun! If nothing else, it kicks you in the butt and gets your mind working and breaks the monotony of a brain fart or writers block.

Make sure to come back next week when we talk about organizational skills! It’s a great thing baby!

Most of the authors reading this blog have their book published in ebook format prior to getting into print and don’t even consider getting out there into the real world to promo. It is very important to get some face time with your readers and/or potential readers. So you need to get up, get out and talk, talk, talk.

You must get out there face to face and hand to hand to meet people. It is the real life person that is going to buy your book. Just like you aren’t the boogie man behind the computer that wrote that book, they are not the nameless face behind the credit card that brings you your royalty checks. I’m not sure about you, but I would be more likely to buy a book from someone I have met than from someone I have not.

Imagine this….You are a writer from Georgia, your book isn’t due out for several months, but there is a book fair or conference coming up in about 83 days. All you have to do is email a chairperson on some committee and you can have fifteen minutes of fame. Fifteen whole minutes to read a piece from your book. Guess what? Hundreds of people, who are now fans, have just heard your book and want more. Do you have business cards? Maybe some post cards with information about your old books on them? You web address? Anything? Come on, now’s the time!

Stop by your local library, let them know that you are a local writer and you would be interested in donating a copy of your book to their local authors collection. And while you’re there, would they mind if you did a book signing in the near future? You can do the same thing with local book stores. They enjoy having local authors in and showing that even people from your home town can make it. Now let’s say that your book has a scene in it that is set in a hair salon, would your local salon be interested in holding a book signing for you? Use the resources that are at hand. You never know what possible networking contacts you may come up with while you are at one of these face to face events. Until you are out there and are ready to catch the bug (possibly in the literal fashion, sniff sniff, can you pass me a tissue?) you may never know the extent to what you have passed by.

Local radio and TV stations love to do pieces on local artists. You could contact stations and see if they have a community section that would be interested in spotlighting a local writer. BUT BE PREPARED, most of these spots are taped EARLY in the morning. Trust me I have tried. And be prepared with every answer you could possibly think of to answer, because they will ask one that you are not prepared for. If possible, ask them for a list of questions ahead of time to prepare yourself mentally for the interview. The interview I did was over the phone and I was a wreck. I stuttered and stammered and couldn’t get the answer right to save my life, but it was a very early segment and I am sure only several thousand people heard me anyway. Nothing like listening to a blubbering idiot on your commute to work.

Remember the most important piece of information that I can possibly give you. The worse thing that someone can say to you is, “No.” You will not be out anything if they do, but you will have gained more confidence by getting out there and exposed yourself to one more line of questioning. You will have one more no behind your back and are one more no closer to a yes. When you receive your nos they may actually be accompanied by a “but”….and a compromise. So don’t give up, and keep plugging. Your writing deserves to be put out there and given just as much work that you put into the writing! Now Remember, Tomorrow Never Comes! So come back next week and see what you can do about it.

PS…..have to leave you with a few that my friend Kissa told me about as she was reading this for me before posting. When she is traveling, she leaves business cards with her tips. She leaves them in book stores on the shelves. (I think I personally would put them at the register, but that’s just me!) When she sends promo items to her readers she sends extras and asks them to pass them along to their friends. Thanks so much Kissa for sending those ideas along to share with my great readers!

My all time favorite thing to do it go to my Ning groups.

• http://bookblogs.ning.com/
• http://romancereadersandwriters.ning.com/

It was here that I was able to find like-minded people. You know, those wonderful people that eat, sleep, and breathe romance books. I go into the groups and find a book blog, see if they have a contact link. If they do I might say, “Hi, My name is AJ Best and I was wondering if you do author interviews or guest blogs on your site? Because like Toby Keith says I Wanna Talk About Me!” The worst they can say to me is no. (Hopefully it’s not because they don’t like that song.) If they do, then I go to another blog and start the process over.

What will hopefully happen is a buzz will start. “Oh, some chick named AJ Best or something like that will be blogging with us sometime next week.”

Then it will build to, “OMG, AJ’s coming on Friday, I can’t wait, and let’s go tell Val!” Now let’s all hope that this is a good thing. We are trying to not scare away the readers here.

• http://groups.yahoo.com/ There are thousands of yahoo groups out there and they are varied in subject as well as in context. You can find local area writing groups, romance writing groups, sci-fi writing groups, … OK, so you get the point. And with most of these groups they have rules as to when you are permitted to promote your work. Make sure to read the rules and if they are not crystal clear and are only clear as mud, sit back and watch. See what the local yokels are up to and go with the flow. This will make sure that you aren’t stepping on any toes. There are many readers attached to these groups, so get in there and start promoting yourself and your work! If your publisher has faith in you, you should too.

• Going back to step #10 (Get Your Name Out) get your own blog, and blog consistently. You don’t have to always talk about writing and your books; you can talk about your real life. Believe it or not readers sometimes put writers up on a pedestal. They see you as “writers” and not real people. (Yeah, yeah, I hear ya!) So get on your blogs and show them your real side. (Hold on guys, maybe you don’t want to get that real!)

• Nine chances out of ten your publisher (if you’re published already) will have a blog of their own. Take advantage of the free publicity man, it doesn’t come around every day. Your publisher and their teamwork hard to get your name out there! Make sure to help them along in any way that you can. But remember, they are working with more than one author, so give them everything you possibly can. A wise man once told me (and seems he was told from Huey Lewis or Springsteen), “It’s better to have and not need, than to need and not have.” So give them a blog with cover art even though they created it, it saves them the trip. Give them your website, I know they have it on file, but that makes it one less thing for them to look up!

• Review sites are another GREAT source of free publicity. Most review sites that I am aware of will give a courtesy email to the author to say, “Hey, our site reviewed your book! Come check it out!” What they really want you to do is make a comment! Say thanks. Common courtesy goes a long way in the real world folks. And while you are thinking about the review site, hit the reply button and say, “Hi! Thanks so much for the review. I appreciate the time your reviewer took to review my book. I was wondering if your site did author interviews or guest blog posts. I am available any day that you may have available except for Sundays. Thanks in advance. AJ.” What’s the worst that they can say? NO? Guess what, you are only out a little bit of time if they say no and it’s well worth the effort to make that contact.

So get your tail out there and talk about yourself. Get out and let the world know who you are and what is going on in your life. Let them know the real you and the writer side of life as well. Get them hooked on you and your writing so when the next book comes out, they won’t be able to live without it. Stop back by next week where we will be talking about Gathering All Your Friends Around.

#9 Extra! Extra! Read All About It!

There are many sites that have great articles regarding various methods of promotion. Hopefully some of them will spark your imagination and give you some ideas that you may not have previously thought about. You may use one of their ideas and spring board it into another or your could possibly spin it in a totally different direction. Remember if you don’t like it, then do what David Bowie said and make Changes! The whole point is to get out there and research. If you’ve found this article then you are taking a step in the right direction. Now, bear in mind that I don’t promote or work for any of these promotion websites, but I do read their articles from time to time. I find some of their facts, ideas and marketing ploys interesting but some of the information has absolutely no bearing on what I’m working on at the moment.

• http://www.1stturningpoint.com, What I love most about this site is that email reminders when they have posted new articles. I swear some days I would forget my name if I didn’t have my driver’s license to refer to. Now where did I put that wallet? So, that alone makes this site worth it for me, but wait…there’s more! These articles are written by authors such as Rowena Cherry and Amber Scott and include great topics such as Email Promotion and Marketing. This is a wealth of knowledge handed to you on a silver platter, what more could you ask for? Oh, I know I could ask for chocolate, a million dollars, a three book contract and a cabana boy!

• http://www.epicauthors.com/, This is a great networking site. Though it is important thatyou know that you will need to join EPIC to reap most of the benefits that they offer, but you can access their blog and various articles from the main page. It’s definitely worth your time and effort for to take a look around. Make sure if you decide that you are going to try joining EPIC that you check out their membership criteria. There are two levels of membership and you may qualify for one or both of them.

• http://pumpupyouronlinebookpromotion.blogspot.com/, From what I’ve seen there are some decent tidbits here. And the fact that I am a bookaholic and they have contests also has absolutely no bearing at all in my choice to put them in this article. Honestly it was totally random.

• http://www.bauuinstitute.com/Marketing/IndieMarketingBooksWriting.html, I’ve already found one of my pet peeves brought out into the forefront here and they said I was RIGHT! Isn’t nice when you can find someone else who can validate you when you think know you are right? They have great, to the point, information that is very quick and easy to access. For finding out more about my pet peeve you need to see me in a couple of weeks when I say Gather All Your Friends Around.

• http://writersdigest.com/article/101-websites-2009-general, Now you need to remember something here, just because I or some other guy on the net says that this site or the next is the best, guess what? It might not be the best for you. Only you can determine if a site has any relevance to you at all. We all think that we are giving out the best and most relevant information to our friends and colleagues, but just because it works for me doesn’t mean it will work for you. So make sure that when you are reading up on things that you take the “latest and greatest” (even when coming from me) with a grain of salt or twelve.

• http://www.amazines.com/Publishing/article_category.cfm?catid=37, Another site that has countless topics that helps me feed my reading ADD. I can read about nearly endless topics and get new ideas almost daily. Unfortunately, as with most of of the places I love to visit, I don’t have time to go there every day and most of the time not even every other day. But it’s great to know that when I need or want them, I can look at their left side bar and pull up my topics and off to my knowledge bank they go!

Search the web for sites that you are going to like. Just because these references do something for me, doesn’t mean that they are going to do something for you. So, search out different promotional resources. Follow their advice, or don’t. Use their ideas or change them. Jump into the water with both feet, the water’s just fine!

And if you haven’t realized it yet I like to talk and, I Wanna to Talk About Me! And if you don’t believe me, come back next week to see what I have to say on the topic!

#10. Get your name out!

Now this can be done in so many ways it’s nearly ridiculous. There are so many possibilities that it actually overwhelms the normal (hmmm….normal…I used to know what that was, but have since lost the meaning) person.

“Why do I need to do the Facebook, MySpace, Linkedin, etc. thing?”

The honest answer? You don’t. You are the master of your own destiny (Unlike the Queen song states!) and you choose what you have time for and what you don’t. This is a GREAT thing. You have options, many of them, and they are all under your control.

You can create a:

• Facebook page (www.facebook.com), though I haven’t found that very helpful. I find that I am more apt to have family that know me there and want to share pictures and talk about real life and not my writing world. Though I have heard great things from other authors that use the same reasons why I don’t find it helpful as reasons why they find it helpful. Though be on guard if you write under your real name. There may be people in your life that don’t know that you write in a certain genre, and it may be a bit awkward for them to find out in this manner.

• MySpace page (www.myspace.com), several authors say that their page has gotten them pretty good traffic while some older (or should I say “more sophisticated”) authors have found MySpace to be a little “young” for their taste. I guess being hit on by young rap gods, and being proposed marriage by a Nigerian prince isn’t a popular promotional tool.

• Blogger or WordPress blog (www.blogger.com or www.wordpress.com), these can become rather time consuming and some authors do decide to pool their resources and create one blog. This creates the need to only blog once or twice per week. You can kill your blog and the interest in you if you are inconsistent in your blogging. If you start blogging every week and get your readers hooked on you and STOP! Your readers will become confused. They will not know when to come by to visit and will make little or no effort to search you out. This would be especially true if you were giving them samples of your work and were providing them tidbits of a free story to get them hooked on you and your writing. Starving readers will read elsewhere. So if you go this route, be prepared to be consistent, OR be prepared to work ahead and pre-post your posts.

• Twitter page (www.twitter.com), OK, obviously you can tell that I can’t get anything said in 140 characters or less, but with Twitter, if you are able to do it, then the world is at your fingertips. There are Twitter novelists that have a great following, and authors who mention all of their contests, and some authors who honestly mention some rather “unique” things on their Twitter pages. It’s definitely a way to get your readers to know who you are and what is happening in your world. They have even gone as far as creating Twitter groups (http://twittgroups.com/index.php) which have every single type of group you could possibly want from Barfly to Book Marketing Online.

• Create your very own website! Of course your readers want to get to learn who you are as a person and a writer, so show them! Showcase your talents and let them know exactly who you are. But keep in mind the things that niggle at your nerves when you visit other websites, and keep things to a minimum. No reader likes to have to dig through a jungle to find your latest release or your contact information. Keep everything within reach and ENJOY!

I am sure that there are thousands of other sites that you can join and network on, but I wanted to touch on some of the more popular ones and give you a few ideas as to what you could be aiming for. Shoot for the skies, this is your journey. Take it with your eyes wide open, open your wings and FLY!

Make sure you come back next week when I will be shouting like an old newspaper hawker, Extra! Extra! Read All About It!

The last time we talked about blogging, we covered the idea that simply getting involved in the blogosphere was the easiest way to get noticed and build traffic to your site. It really is just about taking the time to read what others have to say, leaving some comments around, and having some fun getting to know other bloggers.

Of course, that’s only half of the story, and if you really want to build a blog that’s valuable to you for getting noticed, there are some other things you should do.

If you take a look at our site, at the bottom of every post is a Share This button. Now the button itself isn’t what I want to point out – the networks that button connects our site to is. With a single click of a button anyone can add one of our posts to their Technorati faves, to Digg, to Delioco, StumbleUpon, etc. They can also post a portion of the content to their own blog, or then can email it to their friends.

The Share This button is a great tool, but it isn’t necessary for everyone (we use it because it makes it simple for authors to promote our reviews of their books). What is necessary is to get involved in at least some of the bigger blogging networks out there.

Every blogger should claim their blog in Technorati, and it will also be beneficial to use at least one or two of the other services I list below.

Technorati - Technorati is the biggest blog network out their. They are also the only site that ranks blogs. You should sign up on technorati and claim your blog. Once you do, you can add “fave” buttons to your posts, or you can use their sidebar widget to allows others to fave your blog. I also use Technorati to follow other blogs that I like to read.

Claiming your blog in technorati does two things for you. First it gives you a simple measure of how many other blogs link to you (which is your Authority ranking) and it also allows you to add fave buttons or even just links like the one below (Ask Dave Taylor has a simple explanation of how to do this):

Add eBookGuru.org to Your Technorati Favorites

Stumble Upon - Stumble Upon isn’t specifically a blog network, but it will build traffic if you add Stumble buttons to your site and to your posts. This particular site is one of our largest referrers, and all it takes is for a few pages to be Stumbled and you’ll have traffic coming on a daily basis.
When you use StumbleUpon, you can add buttons like the one below (the button will give our site a thumbs up) and allow your users to vote for your content. Occasionally your content will end up on the front page of Stumble, or in the top ratings for content related to your site, and suddenly you’ll get a few hundred extra hits over a short time frame.

Stumble It!

Blogged - There
are many different blog networks out there, one of the biggest is blogged. This particular site is the one that allows you to post buttons like the one I’ve shown below. You can allow others to rate your blog, and the more ratings you receive the higher you’ll climb within the blogged site itself. If you really get involved in this community it can be a big traffic builder.

BlogCatalog – BlogCatalog is the social network for bloggers, that is how they market themselves and in this case it really is true. There site is a huge network of blogs on any imaginable topic. It gives you tools to connect with other bloggers, and to promote your own blog. Again, if you take a little time to become involved with this site it will bring visitors to your site.

Bloglines – Is another big blogging network. This one focuses on sharing and favorites, but adding your own content to this network will help to build some traffic for your own web site.

FuelMyBlog - Fuel my blog is another social network for bloggers. This one is newer than BlogCatalog, but it is quickly gaining in popularity and you’ll see their logos on more and more blogs as they grow. A less mature site can sometimes be a great way to build traffic because there is a lot less competition (you get to grow as they do).

Digg and More – If you tend to post a lot of tips content that teaches others how to do something Digg buttons are an excellent addition to your blogging toolbox. Although content is key with this one, if you do have an article that becomes popular on a huge site like Digg, it will bring a lot of traffic and fuel your own growth.

There are really hundreds of sites that I could list that work to build traffic without costing you anything. If you have a big Twitter account, or a pile of friends on Facebook, those types of networks can also work to bring visitors to your blog. The most important thing is to get involved in at least a few of these networks. Most of us don’t have time to become active in all of them, but simply adding your blog to Technorati and Bloglines, for example, will add to the traffic you get from your own involvement in the blogosphere. Really most of these sites are just another way to become more active within the realm of blogging; which is the key to getting your own blog noticed.

Further Reading:

If you want to read more about blogging, I can recommend both of the following books. In reality, both of these books teach how to make money with a blog. But, because of that fact, they both teach the ideas behind marketing (building traffic, SEO, web 2.0 marketing, etc) which is the information you really need to grow a blog quickly.

1. Blogging to The Bank 3.0 by Rob Benwell – I have read this book in two different versions, and Rob Benwell’s latest book is well worth it’s cost. It’s likely the biggest-selling book on blogging ever, and they’ve done well keeping it up with the current state of technology/web marketing. (Clarice reviewed this one here)

2. Atomic Blogging by Alvin Phang – Don recommends this one. Personally I have never read it, but it does come with tons of bonus materials that likely make it a sound investment in learning material and in blogging in general. If Don recommends it, then I would imagine it’s just as good as the first one I listed (he’s more actively involved in the marketing side of information products, so he should know).

3. Instead of Atomic Blogging, you might want to read Web 2.0 Traffic Stampede by Chris Freville. I reviewed this book specifically for this purpose – after thinking about it, I remembered this one and thought it would be a more natural follow up to take your knowledge of Web 2.0 Marketing further. Read the review here: Web 2.0 Traffic Stampede by Chris Freville

With the last feature I wrote on e-Publishing a couple of questions came up a number of times. These questions came up both in the comments of the last article, and in my inbox. As always we’re here to help, and today we are answering your questions. The questions were:

Do you know of an e-Publisher that will publish poetry anthologies?

What should I do to get my manuscript ready to submit?

David Barber referred me to All Things that Matter Press as one e-Publisher that puts out great poetry eBooks (they do a lot more than that, but we’ll get to that). Phil, the editor from All Things that Matter, was kind enough to answer my questions so that I could share his insight and answer the other question for you.

My original intention when I interviewed Phil was to use the information he provided me to create an article on the topic. In this case though, his answers are very well written, and I don’t think I could possibly say it any better than he did himself. With that said here are the results of my query with All Things that Matter Press.

The email Interview with Phil from All Things that Matter Press:

What is All Things That Matters Press, and what types of work do you publish?

ALL THINGS THAT MATTER PRESS is a new, small press. Our goal is to help authors, new and established, get their books published and into the marketplace. There are no fees or costs to the author. We look primarily for authors with a ‘message’ who have something they would like to say to the reading public. We are pretty much open on genre, and we have published poetry, science fiction, young adult, non-fiction, and even a romance. We do not want to see ‘formula’ type books or those that are just for mindless mass appeal. If the author has something really important to say about the world we all inhabit, we will take a look. We do not do children’s books, books with a strong religious bias (Christian lit), chick lit, or any books that promote violence, hatred or pornography. We really like spiritual self-growth/transformation titles and those stories (including poetry) that reach out to the soul and touch the heart.

What do you look for the most when a new author submits a manuscript to you for publishing?

What impresses us the most is if the author seems really excited about their book. Even if the manuscript is submitted elsewhere, they have taken the time to gear their letter to us. It is not that we want the author to tell us how great their book may be, but rather they present a tone that says “I have something really important to say to the world and I have done my best to put it into words.” It is also crucial that the author follows the submission guidelines and appears to have read our web site. A turn off is when someone asks questions that are ‘clearly’ posted on our web page. We also have received emails that start out saying something like, “Before I send my manuscript you need to answer these questions.” Well, while we do not at all mind answering questions, an attitude that our press may not be worthy of their submission is not the best way to start. So if an author sends a submission that shows excitement and clearly demonstrates they are attuned to who we are as a publisher, the door opens a bit wider.

What are your suggestions to those new authors when preparing their manuscript for submission?

You would be amazed at how many authors have not even done a simple spelling and grammar check. I saw a post on a web site where they were all upset that we wanted the manuscript to be edited prior to submission. Go to any publisher’s site and count the times you see the word “edit.” Go to any book marketing site or read any article on how to submit a manuscript; lack of ‘editing’ is top on the list of major mistakes that an author makes. We even get queries with typos. If an author does not take the time to do editing of their own work then any publisher will question that author’s commitment to their project. Does this mean that the ms must be perfect? No. We edit all books that we publish for both mechanics and content (consistency, time lines, etc.). No editing is perfect as there are many way to say the same thing, and even grammar is not really an exact science. We always send a ‘redlined’ edit to the author for review and approval. Finally, it is important that a submission be sent in the format required by the publisher. Each publisher is different so if the author has not made the effort to follow simple submission formats they are not starting off on the right foot.

What do you look for in a query letter?

No errors and a sincere desire to get the book published. We need to know that the author ‘backs’ the book and that once published, they will not just sit back and hopes it sells. For both large and small presses, the author is the key to the books success. The work really begins once the title is in print and authors that appear aware of this fact stand a better chance of having their manuscript reviewed.

What percentage of manuscripts do you accept (approximately), and how many get rejected (and for what reasons)?

As a new publisher we do not have a solid set of numbers on this issue. At this point it is running at about a one third rejection rate. Reasons for rejection have included:

• The book did not seem complete or well thought out. A good idea that was not executed properly.
• Too short. We do not really do novellas or just one short story. We will do an anthology, but do not submit a 60 page manuscript. This happened with a couple of poetry submissions. They were great poems, but there were far too few of them.
• Not a genre we want to publish. That is why it is very important to read our web site.
• The author was more concerned with the mechanics than the project. Like we said, questions are great and they are encouraged. But if the author seems to be consumed by the mechanics of publishing the book at the expense of why the book should be published, it raises a red flag. There needs to a rapport between author and publisher. We are all learning and growing to meet the challenges of a rapidly changing market. We have to feel that we can work with an author, and vice versa, so there needs to be some level of chemistry or the project will not be a success.

What would you describe as the single most important element to getting accepted, and ultimately getting published with your company?

Aside from being passionate about the book and writing, potential ALL THINGS THAT MATTER PRESS authors need to know what we are about. We see the internet as the future of publishing and promoting. Read any of the trade literature and it is clear that from Random House to small presses, from chain retailers to the corner bookstore, publishing is changing. Book sale are way down, there are store and publisher layoffs, and many independent bookstores are closing. While this is bad news, what it really means is that there are new opportunities open to market books. There have been titles that have hit the NY Times bestseller list without ever being in a ‘brick and mortar’ store. All the sales have been on-line. To us, this is the future of publishing and marketing. So if we think that the author understands that they will have to have a web site, participate in social networking, blog, and to generally be ‘out there’ on the internet, they stand a much greater chance of being accepted. If an author’s primary concern is will they be in a Barnes & Noble bookstore, they would be better off seeking another publisher.

For more information on All Things that Matter Press please use the links below to reach their website or their blog:

Web Site: http://allthingsthatmatterpress.com

Blog : http://allthingsthatmatterpress.blogspot.com

Be sure to subscribe to our RSS feed, this is only one of many great articles on e-Publishing, and you also won’t want to miss the other great articles that we have coming up for both new and experienced authors.

If you took the time to read Charlee’s article the other day, on building your E-Authors web site, then it’s very likely your on the road to getting set up with your own site. Today it’s time to talk about building traffic and getting noticed. In my experience the simplest way to do this (short of spending a pile of money on advertising) is to install a WordPress blog.

WordPress is a simple too that is easy to install on your site, quite easy to use once you know your way around, and even with that simplicity it is the best way to gain a readership quickly. One thing to note before we move on: I am referring to the WordPress software that can be found on http://www.wordpress.org, and not a free wordpress.com blog. You can actually build just as much traffic with the free blog that doesn’t require a web host, but then you wouldn’t be bringing that traffic to your author’s site.

Why Blogging Works

Before we talk about how to build traffic with a blog, let’s first discuss why it works for traffic building. There are actually a few reasons why a blog will work to build a fan base faster than a web site, some of them are obviously clear, and other’s you may not have known.

1. Blogs are more personal. With a blog you not only have a method to reach out to people but you also have a way of becoming a person and not just another author. More than than you have a way to build relationships (in a way) with your readers. According to the Technorati’s last State of the Blogosphere report, 67% of of bloggers have built relationships with people who they’ve never met in person through their blogs – that fact alone speaks for the personal nature of a blog.
2. Search engines love blogs. The blog on your site will get rated higher, and be updated more often than any other section of your web site. If you have a term that you want to be rated for (your name, your book titles, etc), all it takes is including those terms in the title of a post and you’ll gain search engine rankings quickly.
3. A blog gives you a connection to the world. Your web site is a static page. It’s there but people have to find it before anyone will ever see it. With a blog, you can post comments on one of the other 184 million blogs out their, and each comment includes a link back to your site. In other words you just gained a way to potentially put a link to your own site in front of the 346 million people who read blogs regularly.

Getting Started – Setting Up Your Blog

Since we’re covering traffic building I’m not going to go into technical detail on installing a blog. Wordpress.org has great documentation, if you need to learn the how of it. If your still confused you can always hire someone on Rent a Coder to install if for you (and it probably won’t cost you more than $50). With that said, you will need the Wordpress Software and you’ll also need the Wordpress.com com stats plugin.

Install both of those to your server. Generally you would create a new folder called blog, and install them there. This will allow you to have you new blog hosted at www.authorsdomain.com/blog/. To activate the Wordpress stats plugin, you will need to signup for a WordPress.com account. Be sure to link that account to the URL of your new blog (it will allow you to comment on other blogs and have the link back to your site).

Getting Noticed With a Blog

Now we get to the part you’ve been waiting for – the big secret to building traffic with a blog. This one really is a big secret so pay attention! To build traffic with a blog, all it takes is commenting on other blogs.

Update your blog 2 – 3 times per week and every time you post head over to Wordpress.com. Use “Right Now in Tags” section, on the right side of that page, to find a tag that is related to your site (I almost always comment on writing or book related blogs). With each post to your blog, take the time to comment on five to ten other blogs around the world of WordPress. With your Wordpress.com account being linked back to to your own blog, on your own site, every comment includes a link to your site.

If you take the time to do this something wondrous begins to happen.

First you’ll see immediate results from the owners and common readers of the blogs you comment on. The blog owner will click the link to see who you are before approving the comment, and regular readers will click the link to see who the new person is (popular blogs are like small communities). As time goes on, those links will bring you even more traffic. Other people find the blog post you commented on from other links, or through search engines, and they see your comment and will often click that link to.

The most important part of this whole traffic building method, besides ensuring you stick with it, is to actually get involved. Don’t just comment on someone’s blog for the sake of leaving a link. Read what they had to say and post a relevant comment – get involved, build relationships, make some friends, and have some fun! Soon not only will you find that you have hundreds of links back to your site as time goes on, but you’ll also meet real people who like you and your writing, and who are willing to promote your work as well.

This is the first of two posts I will be writing on promoting yourself with a blog. In the next article I will cover tools to take your blog to the next level. Be sure to subscribe to our RSS feed so that you catch the next article, and also so you don’t miss Don’s upcoming series on email marketing.

This article was written for us by Charlotte Boyett-Compo, an award-winning author who has published over 70 books. The first 10 books are part of the ever-popular WindLegends Saga series. To learn more about this author, and to grab a copy of her latest book, in eBook or paperback format, please visit her site at http://www.windlegends.org. Charlee is also the founder of Infinite Worlds of Fantasy Authors (http://www.iwofa.net), a site that houses a group of over 300 fantasy-fiction authors.”

There are two things every e-author must have: a working computer and reliable access to the Internet. Think of the computer as a lifebuoy and the Internet the rope attached to it. While it is possible to have one without the other, the two functioning together are how an author creates and submits work to an e-publisher.

Likewise, there are two things every e-author needs in order to have a successful career in e-publishing: a functional, informative website and creative patience.

Often the first introduction a reader has to an e-author is on a webpage. Perhaps he’s seen the author’s name on a review, an interview, the cover of a book while browsing a genre-specific website. Maybe he saw the name on a Yahoo group when the author dropped by to promote the latest release. Or it could have been on Fictionwise or Amazon or any number of bookseller websites. If the reader is interested enough in what he read, wants to learn more about the author, the next thing he’s likely to do is look for a URL to the author’s website. He might want to see the back list if there is one or simply wishes to satisfy his curiosity about the author. He’ll spend a bit of time looking for that URL on the website he’s already on and if he doesn’t find it, he might Google the author’s name. If there’s a website, he’ll go straight to it because his interest has been tweaked. If there isn’t a webpage for that author, oh well. Chances are he’ll simply lose interest and look for an author who does have a web presence.

The worst thing an author can do is to have a crappy website. Nowhere does the Will Rogers adage of “You never get a second chance to make a first impression” hold more power than when it comes to that initial sight the reader will have when he lands on the author’s webpage. If what greets him is a mishmash of garish colors, a font either too large or too small for comfortable reading, and an amateurish conglomeration of foolish-looking graphics the author thinks are ‘cool’, there won’t be much time spent perusing what the author has to offer. Instead, the reader will hightail it off that site and it’s a good bet he won’t return.

What that happens, there are two consequences to the reader’s dismissal of the website: the author has most likely lost not only a potential reader and sale but has gained a very unfavorable impression that will stay with the reader longer than that reader stayed on the author’s poorly designed website.

An author doesn’t have to be a genius to have a professional looking website. He doesn’t need a degree in computer language or be a graphic artist in order to present a website that is pleasing to the eye yet contains the essential information needed to promote his work. All he needs is the desire to put forth the best informational website he can and make it work for him. The two key words in this paragraph are PROFESSIONAL and INFORMATIONAL. A good website needs both. You can’t have one without the other and expect the website to adequately promote you.

There are several ways to obtain a website that grabs the reader’s attention and hold it. The first is to hire a professional to build the site, incorporate all the necessary things needed to present a strong promotion. If money’s no object you can have a website with all the bells and whistles and have someone who will maintain the site for you. All you need to do is shoot off an email whenever you need information updated and you’re good to go. Everything is a-okay if money’s not a problem.

But let’s say that isn’t the case. Let’s say you have a day job and some discretionary cash with which you can part without too much hardship. Maybe you’ve saved a few dollars here and there and you can shell out up to $300 for a simple website. And perhaps you can send $25 a month to PayPal for whoever creates your website to do the updates for you.

Bear in mind the above figures are just for the creation of the website. It doesn’t include the web host where the webpage will be located. That’s an additional expenditure per month if you don’t pay by the entire year. There is also the domain name in which you really should invest. That’s a yearly expense to keep the domain active. Some web hosts provide a domain name as part of the package which is a good deal.

What that happens if you are like most e-authors just starting out and you don’t have $300 to pay a web designer right off the bat? There are genre-specific websites that will host a single webpage for you for a modest monthly or yearly fee. That can range from $20 a month upwards depending on the website and what is included in the package. The average seems to run $35.00 a month or $420.00 a year.

Too much? Well, there are some very good web hosts out there. Freeservers.com has a starter package for $3.95 a month. For $47.40 a year paid upfront you get no intrusive ads clamoring for the reader’s attention and 1 gb of web space. That’s about all you really need to begin promoting your work. You can always upgrade to a more disk space as you go along. You’ll still need to buy a domain but you can get one for $8.99 at Name.com. (You can shop around for domain registers and probably find an even better deal.)

Spend a little more money and go with hostmonster.com and you can get unlimited hosting space and bandwidth for $5.95 a month or $71.40 a year upfront. This is a pretty good deal because it also includes a free domain name forever.

Website, webhost, and domain name: the three most important assets needed to promote an author on the Internet.

Free website, ad-infested webhost, and a generic webhost name + your own: three things guaranteed to let a reader know you aren’t serious about either your profession or the impression you are putting forth.

Nothing screams amateur louder than an author’s website that is advertizing someone else. It looks cheap and it sends the wrong message. If an author is serious about wanting to make writing a career and make that career a successful one, he isn’t going to settle for a crass, ugly, ad-flashing website that takes the spotlight from his work and puts it on Gerard Butler ringtones.

If an author wants to be a professional, that author should act like a professional. The old saying-you have to spend money to make money-is very true in the publishing world. Beg, borrow or steal but come up with $100 that can be invested in a webhost and a domain name and have a professional and informational website of which to be proud.

One of the things about which many e-authors will lament is that they have no expertise to put together a webpage. It isn’t rocket science. Most webhosts have simple templates into which the author can drop the necessary information, add a book cover or two, a photo of himself, and an excerpt. Add to that a hotlink to where the book can be purchased and there’s a simple, uncluttered website. That’s a heck of a lot better than a freebie website where the author has discovered bars and buttons and graphics galore and slaps them willy-nilly all over the page.

An author who has the desire to put forth a little extra effort to do his own webpage has an advantage the author who pays to have it done doesn’t have. He can do updates whenever he has a spare moment. He can add pages without it costing him anything. He can change colors and fonts or add graphics that will enhance the site and catch a surfer’s eye. He can experiment with things that would otherwise cost him some serious cash if he had to leave it up to a web designer.

That is the person this article is aimed at reaching-the author who wants to do it himself. Things to remember when putting together the webpage: COLOR, FONT, GRAPHICS, and SIMPLE HTML.

First things first.

There are certain websites to be bookmarked

• NotePro. An html editor. Drop in what you write and convert it to html code! There’s a free version but the Pro version is one of those essential things every author should have if for the tab filing alone!
• ASCII Character Code. Yes, you have this in Word, but why have to open Word every time you need a special code? Print this out, laminate it or stick it into a sheet protector and keep it handy on your desk. It’s great for general use as well as web design. Why have strange symbols on your webpage. USE the correct coding.
• IrfanView. A terrific free graphics re-sizer!
• Pixeur. This free little tool is worth its weight in gold. You can find the code for
  ANY color from any website you see.
• CoolText . This is a graphics generator where you can make logos, buttons, and headers for your webpage. Individualize it; spruce it up; make it stand out with textured headers and an appropriate font.
• HTML Tutorial . Learn the basics and apply them.
• Eos Clip Art. Here you can find truly expressive backgrounds for your webpage as well as navigation buttons, divider bars, and page bullets. A beautiful site.
• Simply the Best Fonts. Dozens of font categories.
• Fotolia. For $20 paid through PayPal, you can purchase twenty truly outstanding stock photos to use rather than the geeky, Pozer crap you can pick up for free.
• GRSites. Thousands of backgrounds, graphics, but—most important of all—menu builders and webpage templates! This is a must have for every web designer.
• HYPE’s Color Specifier. Find just the right color and the coding for your backgrounds and fonts.
• IconBAZAAR. If you’re looking for icons, this is the place to go.
• StatCounter. An invisible web tracker so you can find out if anyone’s visiting your webpage.
• Triple Borders. When you want to try your hand and something extra.

Last but not least is what SHOULD be incorporated into your webpage, what CAN BE and what SHOULD NOT be there.

Use colors that are pleasing to the eye. Show the background and font to others to see what they think. Remember: sight-impaired people also surf the web and if they can’t read what’s on the webpage, chances are they might not investigate the author’s work, either. Avoid garish colors…especially bright yellow and infant-puke green. Those are very unsettling to the eye as is bright red and neon blue.

When using a background, stay away from paisley or something that clutters, detracts from the font, and overwhelms the visitor. Make sure the font can be seen and isn’t lost in swirls or checks or something equally annoying. By carefully picking the background and/or borders, the author can insure his visitor will stay longer than it takes to shout: “MY EYES! MY EYES!”

When building headers or logos, keep the font crisp and clean. While some fonts look really kewl, if the visitor can’t distinguish between the letters, his impression of the site might not be a good one. Outline fonts are great but make sure what’s inside the outline compliments what’s outside. Putting plaid in the letters and having polka dots on the page background is a good example of what not to use.

Menus are a necessity! If not a dropdown menu then at least buttons that stand out, look professional and tidy. At the very least, these should direct the visitor to the author’s home page, bio page, links page, and book page. Depending on how in-depth the author is willing to make his website, he can add other information specific to his works. Visitors need to be able to find the important things on the webpage easily and without having to hunt for them. Easy navigation, professional-looking layout that says what it needs to crisply and cleanly, elements that include pleasing colors in background and font (size 4 and 5 and NO bigger for everything except maybe the occasional size 6 for a header), the latest release with purchase link, the author’s bio page and back list, and a free story are things readers say they want to see on an author’s webpage.

Take a look at this writer’s website at WindLegends. It was designed, created and is maintained by the writer. There are over 500 pages on the website and all of them are informational in one form or another. Bear in mind the site has grown over a ten year period; it wasn’t built in a day. As inspiration and need hit, the website has grown.

Separate pages for full-length novels and short stories, books by publishers, books at Amazon and Fictionwise with links to each, other places to purchase the books, individual synopsis pages for EACH book as well as pages for that book’s reviews and an excerpt make the website so large. There are templates for book page, review page, and excerpt page in place on the webhost so when a new book comes out, all that is necessary is to drop in the information and three new pages go up in less than half an hour. Book covers are sized in IrfanView when received and saved in pixel sizes at 300 dpi as main cover (375 x 228), promo (159 x 97), intro (109 x 66), MySpace (200 x 121), and buy link (82 x 50) then uploaded to the webhost. The book cover should NEVER be more than 375 x 228 or it will overpower the page.

Little Johnny may be the apple of an author’s eye but he doesn’t need to be on mommy or daddy’s professional webpage. The same holds true of Fido or Felix. While having a pet’s photo for all to see seems like a fuzzy warm thing, some visitors will see that photo and think: “Huh?” Likewise photos of the author at conventions, receiving awards, picking his nose…whatever. Such pictures are fine in the Photos section of the author’s webpage but NOT on the intro page. NEVER on the intro page. Think of the intro page as the cover letter being sent to ask for work. It goes back to that first impressions admonition. To appear professional, one must LOOK professional. Little Franny grinning maniacally bears no resemblance whatsoever to a professional look. Keep the photo in the wallet where it belongs.

Don’t crowd your page, plaster extraneous graphics across it, line up divider bars or have a page that goes on and on and on so the visitor has to keep scrolling down. Break up the page. Several pages are better than one if you have a lot of information to give.

Don’t confuse a blog with a webpage. A blog is a blog and it’s just another promotional tool in your arsenal. A webpage is a professional presence. A blog is for blogging.

Don’t use MySpace or Facebook as your webpage. They weren’t designed to be used in that fashion. (A word of caution when using Facebook: There are TWO kinds of presence on this website—a profile and a page. A profile is what you must have to have a Facebook presence but authors should never use it to promote their books. Don’t put your covers on your profile page. Don’t put your book videos on your profile page. Do not put buying links on your profile page. Why? Because authors have had their Facebook profiles deleted for doing so. That’s why Facebook has pages. A page is for you to gain FANS. You MUST have two separate email accounts to take advantage of both the profile and fan page. The reason for this is because Facebook doesn’t want artists/authors spamming the profile friends. Ignore this warning at your peril or…better yet…ask an author who has had to start over after having his page deleted by Facebook.)

While webrings can bring traffic, having a whole gobble of them only clutters the page and makes it look unprofessional…and needy. If using a few genre-specific ones to bring in visitors is high on the priority list at least learn to use the little code to push the webring banners/graphics down as far as possible on the page. The “<br>” used at least twenty times will put it far enough down that it doesn’t show unless the visitor is curious to see what’s down there. Having the webrings down at the bottom of the page will satisfy the requirement of the webring owner while still bringing hits to the page.

DON’T USE MIDIS! They tend to crash some browsers and a visitor who has that happen to him most likely won’t return to have it happen again. Music doesn’t really enhance the webpage. It tends to distract. While Nights in White Satin is a beautiful, haunting song, it has no place on an author’s ‘professional’ website.

When building your website, make sure you have the three top browsers installed on your computer and check that website in each: IE, Firefox, and Chrome (don’t know about Chrome? It’s the Google browser and you can download it at Chrome. It’s a great browser for two reasons: it isn’t as wobbly as IE and doesn’t hog CPU use as does Firefox plus it has a cleaner interface. Try it out.

After you’ve built your webpage, start promoting it. You need to list your domain name with all the major search engines. Hit all the genre-specific websites and announce your new webpage. Plaster the domain name everywhere you can. Unless Google can find you, you’ll have done all that work for nothing. For search engines to find you, you need to use meta tags that will have those little crawlers sitting up and taking notice. So be sure not to forget to make use of the power of meta tags.

So build a website that is powerful, professional, and informational. It’s your calling card. How readers see you will go a long way in helping your career to grow.

For the last week of eBook publishers, I wanted to share some more Romance and Erotica Publishers. Being my favorite genre, I love it when knew authors find success with their romance writing. Although this is the last week I will be publishing links to ePublisher, be sure to subscribe to our RSS feed. After a question that has arisen from my articles (What is the advantage of using an ePublisher, rather than publishing an eBook yourself?), Trevas has interviewed one of the publishers from Champagne books, and will be posting an article that answers that question.

1. Black Velvet Seductions- http://www.blackvelvetseductions.com – Publishers of Romance and sub-genres. They prefer romance-suspense novels.
2. BDSM Books – http://www.bdsmlibrarybooks.com (eroticexcursions.net) – Publishes erotica and the steamiest of romance novels.
3. Dark Roast Press – http://www.darkroastpress.com – Publishes erotica and steamy romance novels. Preference is given to books that are grounded in reality, and they don’t publish alot of fiction that crosses genres (no romance-fantasy, etc).
4. Siren Publishing – http://www.sirenpublishing.com – Publishes erotic romance novels. This is one of the larger ePublishers for Romance.
5. Atlantic Bridge - http://atlanticbridge.net – Publishes both paperpack and eBook versions of many genres.

That finishes my four weeks of e-Publishing series. If you haven’t quite found the right one yet though, don’t worry. I am developing an extensive list of over 300 publishes, and I will be posting it in about one months time. Also be sure to check back next week. Trevas’s feature article on Champagne eBook will be one that anyone interested in ePublishing will want to read!