A Holiday Gift from Favorite Publishing Smarties

I love it when my favorite smarties give me permission to reprint the wonderful tips they send to my e-mail box! Valerie Allen (see more about them by scrolling down!), Marshall Frank, and Holly Fox Vellekoop direct several Florida book fairs and I have used their fairs free (so frugal!) and very inexpensive opportunities to display my books--something I rarely do.  In fact, in my multi award-winning The Frugal Book Promoter, I warn authors against displaying a book at a fair without an agent, pr person, or the author herself on the premises to tout it. This article will show you one big reason Valerie and her team have kept me and my author husband coming back year after year!  It is a list of tips they sends to their book fair participants with tips and reminders after the fair and even the promotions they do with their local communities will give you ideas for your own promotions: 

TO: Authors and Book Sellers

RE: Meet the Authors' Book Fair – Nov. 19 & 20, 2016

FROM: Authors for Authors

Valerie Allen ~ Marshall Frank ~ Holly Fox Vellekoop

 Thank you, thank you. Great job at the book fair.
 Lots of good ideas, networking, and marketing goin’ on!

Networking opportunities are one of the best forms of marketing for all authors.
Here are some suggestions to extend your marketing after the book fair:

• Keep in touch with each other via the handout in your folder
• Send follow up email to those with whom you connected
• Join the Space Coast Writers group on FB
• Attend monthly meetings of the Space Coast Writers' Guild SCWG.org
• “Friend” each other on FB, Twitter, GooglePlus, and Linkedin
• “Like” each other's books on Amazon.com
• Go to each other's web page and make a comment
• Offer to read and review each other's books and post it online
• Find out if anyone wants to do a book trade and give it as a holiday gift
• Join a writers' group
• Attend a writers' workshop, conference, book signing, book launch etc.
• Read books by local authors, post a review online, recommend their books to others
• Request a book by a local author from the library – they will buy a copy if they don't have one
• Attend local author's presentations by the Brevard Authors' Society
• Watch for Local Author Displays in our libraries and join in

Books in the Display Only Option have been processed. Those who wanted their book returned should have them soon, as the books are being mailed within the week. Books donated by the author will be used as door prizes, gift baskets, or in the Kids Who Read Succeed projects.

There are many writers’ groups available to keep you energized, so be sure to join one.

We want to thank the Space Coast Writer’s Guild, the League of American PEN Women, Cape Canaveral Branch, and Florida Book News for representation at the book fair. We hope you took advantage of meeting these folks. A special Thank You! To Robbie Cox for helping us get up and out there on FB.

FloridaBookNews.com is hosted by Lou@LouBelcher.com. Lou Belcher is an artist and author, and a long time supporter of Florida writers. She will post your news and events. You can also take advantage of advertising your web page with a click button on her site. Contact Lou for more details.

SharingWithWriters.BlogSpot.com is an award winning site for authors written by Carolyn Howard-Johnson. She also has a site to post your book reviews. Contact Carolyn at

HoJoNews@aol.com

Authors for Authors has been working with the Brevard County Libraries to set up FREE Local Author Book Displays each month. Watch for these notices and join in to further promote your book(s).

Authors for Authors will sponsor the Brevard Authors' Book Fair in 2017.

I hear you - yes, yes, yes—we will send you an email reminder and registration form.

Keep checking online at AuthorsForAuthors.com for updates.

Authors for Authors is asking for your ideas and suggestions to make these events more beneficial to writers, readers, and visitors. Your promotion of these events is always appreciated. We thank you for all the emails and feedback we have received. We love all the pics and posts online at Twitter, FB, and Google+. What else can we do to meet your needs to better market and sell your books? We want to hear from each of you about your experience at the book fair. Let’s work together to make things better.

Looking forward to seeing each of you again at the Brevard Authors Book Fair in 2017

Thank you from Authors for Authors

AuthorsForAuthors.com

~ Valerie Allen VAllenWriter@cs.com

~ Marshall Frank MLF283@aol.com

Holly Fox Vellekoop

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MORE ABOUT THE BLOGGER


The New Book Review is blogged by Carolyn Howard-Johnson, author of the multi award-winning HowToDoItFrugally series of books for writers. It is a free service offered to those who want to encourage the reading of books they love. That includes authors who want to share their favorite reviews, reviewers who'd like to see their reviews get more exposure, and readers who want to shout out praise of books they've read. Please see submission guidelines on the left of this page. Reviews and essays are indexed by genre, reviewer names, and review sites. Writers will find the search engine handy for gleaning the names of small publishers. Find other writer-related blogs at Sharing with Writers and The Frugal, Smart and Tuned-In Editor.

On Literature, Readings and "Months and Seasons"

I had trouble deciding on where to put this report from Chris Meeks, author, friend and fellow UCLA instructor. It is a success story about promotion, cetainly, but it is also about literature. A book of short stories in particular. I hope you enjoy it as a guest post.


Carolyn--

Yesterday was a big day for me. Would people buy my book? Would they come to the reading? Yesterday morning the ranking for "Months and Seasons" on Amazon at #1,763,891--so low, it didn't really exist. I sent out a reminder to people that "today was the day," and that seemed to help. By midnight last night, Months and Seasons was ranked #9305.

All day yesterday, friends were writing e-mails that said, "Your reading has been on my calendar for weeks, but..." Things came up. People couldn't come. Would I get the 80 people I hoped for? I'm happy to say it was at least that. Most people I asked guessed it at a hundred people in the audience--which is something considering there was a $10 admission to the reading. Not only that, sales of the book there were brisk, too. I signed at least 50 books.

Marketing aside, the reading itself rocked. Each actor brought sensitivity and comic timing to each story, and the audience laughed in all the right spots. When Dracula soared into the night, for instance, the actor held out his arms and tilted his head back and said the lines from memory, and I heard people gasp. Four stories were read: "Dracula Slinks Into the Night," "A Shoe Falls," "The Wind Just Right," and "A Whisker."

While the day worked out extremely well, it was really the culmination of two-and-a-half years of planning, from agreeing to having my work presented, to writing the stories, having them edited, rewritten, reedited, proofed, and published, to writing a monthly newsletter, to getting the book designed, to printing and sending out ARCs, to e-mailing people to make sure they can come to the reading. Whew. It was a mammoth undertaking, but my book is now out in the world.

Thank you for your wonderful part in all this, not only inspiring me, but also writing reviews and offering advice. The reading was videotaped and in about a month, large chunks of it will be on YouTube. I'll let you know then.

Attached are a few photos.

Best,
Chris MeeksNoble (Not Nobel!) Prize winning author of The Middle-Aged Man and the Sea, Months and Seasons and many more including plays. His e-mail is chrismeeks@gmail.com.

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The New Book Review is blogged by Carolyn Howard-Johnson, founder of Authors' Coalition (www.authorscoalitionandredenginepress.com). It is a free service offered to those who want to encourage the reading of books they love--and that includes authors who want to share their favorite reviews and reviewers who'd like to see their reviews get more exposure. Please see submission guidelines on the left of this page.