MSI Press Blog

  Today's tip for parents from two talented teachers comes from  365 Teacher Secrets for Parents  by Cindy McKinley Alder and Patti Trombly.                                                      #136 Be a Movie-Reviewer   You can have anything you want—if you want it badly enough. You can be anything you want to be, do anything you set out to accomplish if you hold to that desire with singleness of purpose. ~Abraham Lincoln             You’ve probably told your child that when she grows up she can be anything she wants to be. In activity #135, your child needed to pretend to be a moviemaker. Today, allow her to try to be a movie- reviewer in an activity that is sure to help increase writing skills in a motivational way. Together, read some movie reviews in the newsp...

  It is Tuesday. Monday's madness is over, and Wednesday will take us over the hump, so Tuesday it is--for some serious discussion with authors. Tuesday talks mean to address authors in waiting and self-published authors who would like to go a more traditional route or who would at least like to take their steps with a publisher by their side. Today's topic is one that you do not see discussed very often, and it should be . Authors are always faced with the question of when to release a book. Release does not have to happen immediately. It can come after a period of putting out an Advance Review Copy (ARC). Some publishers routinely put out ARCs, but that may not be the right answer for any given author. So, let's take a look at each option. ARC  As with anything else in life, there are both upsides and downsides to producing an ARC and waiting through a 6-month or so period prior to releasing a book. Here are some of them; you might be able to think of others (or have expe...

  It is Tuesday. Time to tall turkey. Monday's madness is over, and Wednesday will take us over the hump, so Tuesday it is for some serious discussion with authors. Tuesday talks mean to address authors in waiting and self-published authors who would like to go a more traditional route or who would at least like to take their steps with a publisher by their side. Today's topic  addresses an issue critical for planning your book promotion/marketing activities -- understanding the reasons people buy books. Without that understanding, you are shotting at a target blindfolded. It does not matter how good your weapon is if you do not know where the target is. So, let's look at what approaches are most effective and less effective, based on recent research as to how readers make a decision to buy a book, derived from a 355-person survey by Gigi . Personal Connections The #1 reported reason why someone purchased a book is that the buyer loved the author; this would apply to subseq...