50 Things Under $50 You Can Do to Promote Your Book

By [http://ezinearticles.com/?expert=Penny_Sansevieri]  Penny Sansevieri If your book marketing budget is tight (and even if it's not) you might want to consider some ideas that are powerful, and won't cost you as much as you think. Here are a few to consider! 1) Buy your domain name as soon as you have a title for your book. You can get domain names for as little as $8.95 2) Head on over to Blogger.com or Wordpress.com and start your very own blog (you can add it to your Web site later). 3) Set up an event at your neighborhood bookstore 4) Write a few articles on your topic and submit them onto the Internet for syndication 5) Check out your competition online and see if you can do some networking 6) Do some radio research and pitch yourself to at least five new stations this week 7) Ready to get some business cards? Head on over to Vistaprint.com. The cards are free if you let them put their logo on the back 8) Put together your marketing plan 9) Plan a contest. Contests are a great way to promote your book. 10) Google some topic-related online groups to see if you can network with them 11) Send thank you notes to people who have been helpful to you 12) Send your book out to at least ten book reviewers this week 13) Do a quick Internet search for writers' conferences or book festivals in your area you can attend 14) Create an email signature for every email you send; email signatures are a great way to promote your book and message. 15) Put the contents of your Web site: book description, bio, q&a, interviews, on CD to have on hand when the media comes calling! 16) Submit your Web site to the top five directories: Google, MSN, Alexa, Yahoo, and DMOZ 17) Write a great press release and submit it to free online press release sites. 18) Write your bio, you'll need it when you start pitching yourself to the media 19) Schedule your first book signing 20) Start your own email newsletter; it's a great way to keep readers, friends and family updated and informed on your success. 21) Go over to Yahoo Groups and join some online groups on your topic - it's great Internet networking! 22) Develop a set of questions that book clubs can use for your book, and post them on your Web site for handy downloads. 23) Add your book info or URL to your answering machine message 24) Join Audio Acrobat ($20 a month) and begin recording audio products you can sell on your Web site 25) See if you can get your friends to host a "book party" in their home. You come in and discuss your book and voila, a captive audience! 26) Find some catalogs you think your book would be perfect for and then submit your packet to them for consideration. 27) Go around to your local retailers and see if they'll carry your book; even if it's on consignment it might be worth it! 28) Add your book to Google Book Search 29) Research some authors with similar subjects and then offer to exchange links with them. 30) Is your book good for the MySpace market? My Space has recently started doing book reviews. 31) Write a "So You'd Like To..." article for Amazon.com 32) Ask friends and family to email five people they know and tell them about your book. 33) Leave your business card, bookmark, or book flyer wherever you go. 34) Are there any book fairs you could participate in? Look them up on the Net! 35) Pitch yourself to your local television stations. 36) Pitch yourself to your local print media. 37) Work on the Q&A for your press kit. You'll need it when you start booking media interviews! 38) Pitch Oprah. Go ahead, you know you want to. 39) Is the topic of your book in the news? Check your local paper, and write a letter to the editor to share your expertise (and promote your book!) 40) Stop by your local library and see if you can set up an event, they love local authors. 41) Do you want to get your book into your local library system? Try dropping off a copy to your main library; if they stock it chances are the other branches will too. 42) Go to Chase's Calendar of Events (www.Chases.com) and find out how to create your own holiday! 43) Going on vacation? Use your away-from-home time to schedule a book event, or two. 44) If your book is appropriate, go to local schools to see if you can do a reading. 45) Got a book that could be sold in bulk? Start with your local companies first and see if they're interested in buying some promotional copies to give away at company events. 46) Don't forget to add reviews to your Web site. Remember that what someone else has to say is one thousand times more effective than anything you could say! 47) Trying to meet the press? Search the Net for Press Clubs in your area, they meet once a month and are a great place to meet the media. 48) Want a celebrity endorsement? Find celebs in your market with an interest in your topic and then for it. Remember all they can say is no. 49) Ready to get some magazine exposure? Why not pitch some regional and national magazines with your topic or submit a freelance article for reprint consideration. 50) Work on your next book. Sometimes the best way to sell your first book is by promoting your second. Penny C. Sansevieri is a book marketing and media relations specialist who coaches authors on projects, manuscripts and marketing plans and instructs a variety of coursing on publishing and promotion. To learn more about her books or her promotional services, visit <a target="_new" href="http://www.amarketingexpert.com/">http://www.amarketingexpert.com</A> To subscribe to her free ezine, send a blank email to: <a href="mailto:subscribe@booksbypen.com">mailto:subscribe@booksbypen.com</A> Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Penny_Sansevieri [http://ezinearticles.com/?50-Things-Under-$50-You-Can-Do-to-Promote-Your-Book&id=2065609 ]http://EzineArticles.com/?50-Things-Under-$50-You-Can-Do-to-Promote-Your-Book&id=2065609

Overworked Phrases and Clichés

Let Them Rest! Overworked Phrases and Story Elements By Jenna Glatzer At one time, they were clever. That’s why clichés catch on. Problem is, by the time they do catch on, writers have to work harder to avoid them. When you attempt to describe something that’s flat, the first thought that comes to mind is probably "flat as a pancake." Something that’s smooth? "Smooth as a baby’s bottom." An ugly old theatre that puts on the best shows in town? "Don’t judge a book by its cover." Advice for a jilted lover? "There are other fish in the sea." As a writer, it’s your job not to take the easy road. You add nothing to literature by copying expressions that everyone’s already heard. If you love words, certainly you can work to find new combinations of them that will fit your purpose divinely. When you’re writing a first draft, it’s inevitable that clichés and tired elements will find their way into your story. But that’s one of the prime reasons for editing. When you’re revising your work, be sure to ruthlessly hunt for this sort of dead weight and delete with fervor. On Steroids I was going over the copyedits of my next book, The Street-Smart Writer, when I came upon this sentence in a sidebar I wrote about Craigslist: “It’s like a newspaper classified section on steroids.” Blech. I deleted it before it could make it to print and show everyone what an unoriginal writer I am. Why? Because everything’s "on steroids." Check Google for the phrase. You’ll find NASA describing "solar flares on steroids" and the next moon mission as "Apollo on steroids," a prison described as "Guantanamo on steroids," OpenTV as "TiVo on steroids"... heck, I was watching a gardening show on NBC the other day and heard a flower described as looking like another flower on steroids. Certainly we can dig deep and come up with another way to describe "large" or "super-charged." That Person Is Me How many times have you read a story that’s ostensibly in third person, then by the end the writer reveals that he or she is the person the story was about? It’s usually a traumatic story of some sort-- abuse, violence, rape, death of a child, drug addiction, prison-- and throughout the story, you’re clearly supposed to sympathize with the person who’s being written about. Then, a paragraph or two before the end, the writer says, in effect, "Ha ha, fooled you! It’s really all about me!" Well, usually with more dignity than that. But it’s still an overused story device. First, readers can usually see it coming, and second, readers don’t typically like feeling "tricked" or manipulated. Every now and then it works, when it’s a real shocker-- like when the reader is led to believe that the person in the story is going to die, or when it seems inevitable that the story will not end happily. Those are exceptions, though. In general, just write it in first person (or third person) and don’t go for the "big twist ending." Enough Food to Feed an Army When someone cooks for the holidays, someone else is going to say, "There’s enough food here to feed an army!" Why always an army? I mean, if there’s enough food to feed an army, there’s also enough to feed: a school full of kids, a concert audience, a sports team, the U.S. Senate, a choir... Don’t fall back on this one in your writing. Pick something that hasn’t been done to death. The Energizer Bunny On that same note, when someone is energetic or shows great stamina, why does the Energizer Bunny always have to be the comparison? Irvine World News says 2003’s police officer of the year is the Energizer Bunny (http://www.irvineworldnews.com/Astories/feb27/officer.html). Henrico County Board of Supervisors call themselves "better than the Energizer Bunny" (http://www.co.henrico.va.us/manager/hen901/page6.htm). Tonya Harding compares herself to the Energizer Bunny, too (http://www.boston.com/sports/other_sports/boxing/articles/2005/01/26/from_the_rink_to_the_ring/). I’m sure Energizer’s ad team is thrilled by how their creation has infiltrated our daily language, but really, we can do better than this. Let the bunny rest. God Works in Mysterious Ways This is a cop-out phrase for most things we can’t explain. Leave it out. It’s not "deep" and it doesn’t add anything to the story. Hate It When That Happens I accidentally superglued my finger to my face today. I hate it when that happens. Did you laugh? No? Neither will your readers. This expression was probably funny the first two or three times you heard it or read it. After that, it’s not surprising anymore-- and therefore, not effective. The best you’ll get is a smirk, and if your goal is to be funny, aim higher than a smirk. The Moral of the Story If you’re going to tell a story that has a moral, don’t spell out the moral, especially with a cliché. For example, if you’ve just written an essay about surviving a horrible situation and finding a way to use that experience to help others, don’t end it with "What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger." That cheapens the story you just told. Trust your reader to "get" the moral, provided you told the story well. Don’t lean on clichés to make your point for you. Lean on the strength of the story itself, and the lesson you want to impart will be clear to the reader. Better yet, readers will feel more respected if you trust them to interpret, rather than feeding them the point as if you think they’re too dumb to get it. Ungodly Hour If you have to wake up really early (or stay up really late), please find another phrase to express your annoyance about it. "Ungodly hour" has been used and abused. Let’s help it retire. * Clichés in Fiction Dogs as Goodness Meters If there is a dog in a movie or novel, this dog will always know who is good and who is bad. The dog will bark at the bad person (or bite, or chase) and snuggle up to the good person, hence helping our hero figure out whether to (a) date the person, or (b) trust the person with boatloads of money. Can we take this high responsibility away from the dog, please? Throwing Alarm Clocks I can’t count how many screenplays I’ve read where the first scene begins with the hero grumpily awakening and throwing the alarm clock across the room. Honestly, if the hero did this, he’d need to buy a new alarm clock every day-- which makes me think he must be rich and have an anger management problem. Yes, we all get the urge to smash our alarm clocks. But really, how many times have you physically done it? Also, unless you’re going to do something really original with it, we don’t need to see the scene where the hero wakes up, stumbles around his dirty room, brushes his teeth, and scratches his butt. Take us right to the action. People Don’t Vomit That Much One of the things that irks me most in fiction is the exaggeration of vomit. I’ve noticed this trend most in screenplays, but also in novels. I don’t like it, but I accept it when vomit scenes occur during situations when people really are likely to get sick (when they’re drunk, on a plane, going through chemotherapy, etc.). However, the emotion-induced vomiting has to go. Like the alarm clock example, you may feel sick when you see something disgusting, or when something awful happens, or when you get nervous, but how often do you actually throw up due to a strong emotion? Drug References "Are you on crack?" "What are you smoking?" "Are you high?" Really, people do surprising things for reasons other than being stoned. Yet when someone says something shocking, a common reaction is to question whether that person is on drugs. Resist the urge to do this in dialogue. It’s overplayed. Whether you’re writing a novel or a newspaper article, earn your right to call yourself a writer. Take the time to find the overused words in your work, replace them with your insights, and prove your dedication to the craft. Jenna Glatzer is the editor in chief of www.AbsoluteWrite.com and the author of a bunch of books. Her latest is the children’s picture book Hattie, Get a Haircut! Check it out at www.jennaglatzer.com. Ebooks!