MSI Press Blog

  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

  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 addresses two distinct and different paths to decent book sales. One is via author's reputation and the other through direct promotion and marketing efforts. The former has a choice of using the latter approach as well, but that does not work in reverse. Authors with well-rcognized names definitely have a leg up in the book sales department for a number of reasons: Readers are pulled to read books by famous people; fame often comes from position in life (social class) or political power -- something about the lives and thoughts of successful people are attractive (well, I think we all know why). Writers who have achieve

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 post discusses the difficulties in getting book reviews -- from the publisher perspective and the author perspective. Sometimes, those perspectives are the same. Reference here is not to paid reviews; those are pretty easy to get -- put up your money, and back comes a review. Reference here is to unpaid, professional reviews, what every publisher wants and expects and what every author should, too. Lost in the Haystack of Pre-Publication Reviews Pre-publication reviews are hard to get because there are very few reviewers out there, and they are overwhelmed with books being sent to them. One reviewer who wanted to review one of our

  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, again, marketing. We address the question: What should authors be doing for marketing?  There are a couple ways to answer that question. There is an expensive answer and there is a hard answer. As with anything else in life, the choice is between money and time.  Choosing money, marketing efforts can be delegated to paid support: Hiring a full-time or full-fledged publicist is the most expensive and the most expansive. While some publicists are less expensive than others, hiring knowledge, experience, and contacts is never cheap. (And, often, like other things in life, you get what you pay for though bargains exist.) H

  (photo by Frank Perez) 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 is about launching a book, especially for authors without universal name recognition. It is a follow-on to our December 29, 2020 blog post . The model that many new authors have in mind are the events and actions that famous authors take. Unfortunately, those are not the most effective for unknown authors. Here are some things to think about. Book signings: Book signings at book stores can fail more often than succeed where the author is an unknown.  The current status at many bookstores is that there is insufficient staff to set up and support signings. That aside, even before the

  Because we work with first-time authors, we are exposed to some "interesting" ideas about how best to promote a book. Reality is often counterintuitive to assumption, perception, and imagination. Let's look, then, at reality. What new authors often expect from promotion--and why they are either unrealistic or undesirable or both:  Book tours from city to city; one new author asked if we would be flying her around the country on a private plane (honest to goodness, she really expected that although she was an unknown person with a first book). Clearly, city book tours do occur--but for people like Dog the Bounty Hunter, not for Joe Blow in Smalltown, America with no platform. The name of the author is what attracts people to these tours, not the title of the book.  Book tours like this -- and we have had some authors do them, usually with the help of a publicist -- are generally a dollar-losing proposition; however, if you can afford the cost, have other things to do in

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 post looks at the difference between book marketing and book promotion, two terms that are frequently confused. Leading to the confusion is that some of the same activities are needed for both. In fact, good marketing is dependent upon good promotion. Perhaps the essential difference is that marketing focuses on sales, and promotion focuses on awareness --  noting that without awareness, sales generally do not happen. Book Marketing Book marketing includes promotion, sales, and increasing awareness of the availability of the book. It generally starts with a marketing plan that identifies the target audiences and selects marketing t

  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 advertising, i.e. spending money on getting your book enough attention for it to soar, or at least to fly. There is no end to advertising opportunities. The question becomes then, where do you best spend your money if you have it and what do you do if you are broke. I have money. Good for you!  You have options, depending upon how much you have and want to spend. There are print-based ads that can cost a little or cost a lot. Some (but far from all) include Catalogues: Book World Dealer is one example. Book magazines: Foreword Reviews is an example. If you cannot afford a part-page ad, they off