First Issue

Think your book would make a great Christmas gift? Being featured in a holiday gift guide could give your book sales a nice year-end bump. But you have to think ahead.

The following guest post from Corinne Liccketto of Smith Publicity offers more information.

5 Tips for Submitting Your Book to a Holiday Gift Guide

by Corinne Liccketto, Smith Publicity

If you’re interested in having your book placed in holiday gift guides, late August to early September is the time to pitch. If you wait too long, you’ll miss your chance.

Here are five tips for submitting your book to holiday gift guides:

1. Know your desired outlets and their submission guidelines. List the outlets for which you’re most interested in securing coverage and determine their submission guidelines. In most cases, along with a copy of your book, you’ll want to send a personalized cover letter, book release and author bio. Make sure you follow the guidelines! Editors won’t waste time digging up needed information on their own.
2. Know when to pitch. Deadlines are crucial. Pitch too early and your book will be forgotten; pitch too late and you won’t even be considered. Armed with your list, research the deadline dates of your most desired outlets. Magazines will likely need submissions by August (early September at the latest), whereas newspapers may require submission only two months before the holiday season. Don’t pitch every outlet at once because it’s easier for you that way. Respect the media’s deadline dates or you run the risk of annoying editors and ruining your chance at inclusion.
3. Donate a portion of your holiday sales to charity. Not only is giving back the right thing to do, but by donating a portion of your proceeds to charity you increase the appeal of your product. Media contacts can plug the cause your product benefits, giving the charity extra coverage too. It’s win-win.
4. Position your book as a ‘great gift under $30′. Or $20. Or $15. Whatever the price of your book, use it as a hook when you submit for consideration. By encouraging awareness of the cost of your book, you might inspire the editor to include your book in a featured section of the holiday gift guide.
5. Give a reason why your book is different than others. Does your book recap a hot trend of 2010? Is it eco-friendly? Telling editors why your book is different from others will give it an edge.

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Corinne Liccketto is the Sales Manager at Smith Publicity, Inc., one of the world’s leading promotional firms, specializing in book publicity. Fueled by a passion for making good things happen for clients, the company has worked with over 900 individuals and companies, from authors and entrepreneurs to publicly-held companies and businesses representing a wide range of industries. The Smith Publicity reach is international with offices in New Jersey, New York City, Los Angeles, and London.

Reader response has been positive since we launched Bright Ideas, the newsletter for Thought Stars, in February. But we’re always looking for ways to improve, so in last month’s issue we posted a survey about the topics we cover, the type of content we provide, and how often we publish.

Here are the results.

First, we asked what topics readers would most like to see in the newsletter.

• The clear leader was blogging & social media, which captured two-thirds of the votes.
• Book publishing and video creation & distribution tied for second, each with 39%.
• Audio production & distribution trailed the pack with 5% of the vote.

Second, we asked what types of content readers would like to see in the newsletter.

• More than 70% said they’d like to see reviews of helpful apps & tools.
• In second place was a selection of best articles from around the web, with almost 60% of the vote.
• Book reviews garnered a slim 18%. Eeep!

Third, we asked how frequently readers would like to receive the newsletter.

• Most thought the current monthly schedule was just fine.
• Each of the other options (quarterly, bi-weekly and weekly) garnered just a handful of votes each.

Interesting statistics, but what are we going to do about them? We’re going to listen.

Starting with the July issue of Bright Ideas, here’s what you’re going to see:

• Coverage of multiple social media tools and techniques
• More content on book publishing and video creation
• More curated content, drawing in helpful articles from a wide range of sources
• A new Resource Spotlight that takes the place of our monthly book review. We’ll sometimes feature books if we find one you should know about, but more often we’ll point you to the apps and tools you asked for.
• A new section in the right-hand column called Thought Bubbles, featuring short ideas such as links, questions, quotes and statements to spark your thinking.
• An issue on the first Tuesday of every month, just like always

If you’re not yet a Bright Ideas subscriber, you can sign up now to get the next issue, coming on July 5.

Comments or questions about the newsletter? Leave them below or send them our way: knowledge@highspotinc.com

Have a book you want to promote? A tool from author Jenny Blake just might be your new best friend.

Here’s how Blake describes it:

When I was getting ready to launch my own book, Life After College, I knew I needed a way to track the hundreds of book promotion action items and ideas floating around in my head — everything from website development to book tour planning to advance copy recipient lists, so I created a 15-tab master spreadsheet as a way of organizing the hundreds of things an author thinks about on the road to book launch.

This is one amazing resource — and it’s free. You can download a copy of the Book Marketing Spreadsheet from Blake’s website.

Publishing Perspectives posted a fascinating interview with Seth Godin about The Domino Project, the company Godin started after announcing he would no longer issue his books through a traditional publisher. The first book that Domino released was Godin’s Poke The Box.

The complete interview is well worth a read. Below, I’ve highlighted a couple of choice excerpts that might get you thinking about how you write your book.

“So what I’m thinking about when I write a book like Poke the Box is not “How do I write this for the person who will be easy for me to sell it to?” but “How do I write it so once that person reads it, they’re likely to give it to someone else?” And that second order sale, that idea that books are actually manifestos organized to spread, really changes the way you think about writing a book.”

“…my chapters are now down to 2-pages long, or 3-pages long, and the reason is that’s the way we have trained people to think. We think clearly at a different rate than we did 80 or 90 years ago.

No one buys a book anymore if they don’t know what the book is about, if they don’t know what the idea in the book is before they even got it. And so what that requires authors to do is figure how to make their ideas spread so that they get a chance to hammer those ideas home in book form.”

Godin takes a lot of flak for producing books that others don’t consider worthy of the name — books that are small and short, with miniscule chapters or no chapters at all. And yet his sales are through the roof, outstripping, as Godin notes in the interview, even New York Times bestsellers.

Godin focuses on making his ideas sharable: succinct, easily explained, easily accessible. If you started with sharing as your focus, what might you do with your information?

Publishing a book is easier now than it’s ever been—but it’s still not easy. So many options, so many variables. How do you choose?

To help, we’ve pulled together some of our best and most popular posts about publishing options.

You might also want to grab a free copy of The Author’s Guide to Publishing Options. Take the 10-question quiz inside and see where it points you.

And if there’s a burning question you still can’t find the answer to, you can always pop a note into the question box.

Best Posts
Let’s start with a review of the three main publishing models: royalty (traditional) publishing, self-publishing and subsidy publishing.

• Publishing: Are You Traditional?
• Do You Have What It Takes to Self-Publish?
• Subsidy Publishing: Managing the Minefield

Amazon has recently made big moves into publishing. Amazon is a royalty publisher but with some definite advantages over the usual model.

• Amazon’s Publishing Program Picks Up Steam
• Barry Eisler Reveals Details of Amazon Publishing Deal

Is one publishing model better than the other? These posts give food for thought.

• Would You Turn Down a $500,000 Book Deal?
• “I’d Rather Pour Bleach in My Eyes,” or What You’re Up Against as a Self-Published Author
• Should You Self-Publish on Your Way to a Book Deal?

Ask us a question about content marketing or self-publishing a book. No need to leave your name if you’re shy. We’ll answer in a blog post.

Remember Barry Eisler? He’s the bestselling thriller author who in March turned down a $500,000 deal with St. Martin’s Press in favor of self-publishing.

Last week, at Book Expo America, Eisler announced he’d just signed a deal for Amazon to publish his next book. The traditional publishing crowd sniffed their disapproval over his perceived turncoat behavior.

But as Eisler points out, the point wasn’t to self-publish. The point was to get the terms he wanted. Along came Amazon offering those terms, so he took them. In Eisler’s words:

“…it’s the terms that are important to me, not the means by which I achieve them. If these terms are a destination, self-publishing is undeniably an excellent vehicle for getting there. But it isn’t the only vehicle. And if another vehicle comes along that offers all these terms, plus a substantial advance, plus a retail wing that can reach millions of customers in my demographic… then, as a non-ideological businessman, I’m going to change rides.”

In a recent conversation with fellow author Joe Konrath, Eisler revealed some of the details that drew him to sign with Amazon:

• An advance “comparable” to that offered by St. Martin’s
• “Much better” digital royalties (one source says 70%)
• “Comparable” print royalties
• A three-month turnaround from submission to release
• Full control over the title and cover art
• No DRM on the e-book
• E-book released first, followed by paper

This deal shows that Amazon, as a publisher, is poised to cause major industry disruption, coming to market much faster and sharing royalties more equitably than traditional publishers, while bringing huge distribution and marketing muscle. Great news for authors, not so great for the old guard publishers.

The full conversation between Eisler & Konrath is a tremendously long but fascinating perspective on the current publishing industry and the changes that are occurring.

The newsletter, that is.

We launched the publication four shortsmonths ago, covering topics such as the power of web video, dwindling shelf space for self-published authors and what agents look for in a manuscript. Have a dig through the archives and let us know what you think by leaving a comment on this post.

The next issue will hit email in-boxes everywhere on June  7.

If you’re not a subscriber, here’s your chance to get in on the mailing AND scoop a product from the Highspot store. Between now and June 7, we’re offering every new newsletter subscriber a $9.95 coupon. Use it to buy whatever you want from the store.

Maybe you’ll grab this 60-minute recording on developing audio products.

Or maybe you’ll choose the first module in our report on how to successfully self-publish.

You decide.

Here’s the sign-up page.

All of you know Amazon as a seller of books. What you may not have heard outside of book circles is that Amazon is moving into publisher territory. Over the past two years, it has launched several imprints. Three announcements have come in quick succession this month, showing that Amazon’s publishing program is picking up steam. All signs indicate the company is just getting started.

Amazon’s publishing debut came in May 2009, when it launched AmazonEncore and announced its first title, a previously self-published fantasy novel by 16-year-old Cayla Kluver. According to Jeff Belle, Vice President of Books for Amazon, the purpose of AmazonEncore was “to connect readers with great books that were overlooked the first time they were released.”

In May 2010, the company added AmazonCrossing, an imprint for translated works. Just as with AmazonEncore, Amazon announced its intention to monitor sales data to select the books it wanted to publish. Says Belle, “Our international customers have made us aware of exciting established and emerging voices from other cultures and countries that have not been translated for English-language readers.”

This past month, Amazon unveiled two genre imprints: Montlake for romance titles and Thomas & Mercer for mysteries and thrillers.

Now comes news that Amazon has hired Larry Kirshbaum, former CEO of the Time-Warner Book Group, to “assemble an editorial team that will develop and manage new Amazon imprints ‘with a focus on acquiring the highest quality books in literary and commercial fiction, YA, business and general non-fiction.’”

The careers page for Amazon Publishing currently shows 10 open positions ranging from Senior Acquisitions Editor to Publicity Manager. Very clearly, Amazon intends to continue developing imprints beyond the ones already launched, and it’s heartening to see business and non-fiction being specifically mentioned since so much of the current focus is on fiction.

What does all this mean for you as a non-fiction author?

To date, Amazon has not accepted manuscript submissions, instead using the power of its retail algorithms to cherry-pick existing books that are popular with readers but have so far not received widespread recognition or distribution. I can’t imagine its approach will change anytime soon. To open its doors to general submissions would flood the company with unimaginable numbers of unvetted manuscripts. Amazon’s retail data is its advantage over traditional publishers, who must assess manuscripts on gut instinct and best guess forecasts.

That means you won’t be able to actively pitch your book for Amazon to pick up. It does mean, however, that if you’re promoting your self-published book effectively, getting lots of positive reader feedback and achieving decent sales numbers, the Amazon eye might fall on you.

So far, there’s been very little available information about the terms Amazon offers as a publisher, so it’s unclear how an Amazon contract might stack up against a deal from a traditional publisher. More favorable? About the same? (If anyone knows details, please leave a comment.) Amazon’s press releases promise authors “marketing support and distribution into multiple channels and formats, such as the Amazon Books Store, Amazon Kindle Store, Audible.com, and national and independent bookstores via third-party wholesalers.”

Definitely a development to watch.

What happens to your content when you die?

As we rapidly shift so much of our working and private lives online, questions are being raised about who owns what, how content can be passed to heirs, and how to effectively archive and preserve what’s important.

First, there’s content generated by your digital profile, the stuff that isn’t necessarily packaged and sold but that you create day after day: things like your Facebook feed, emails, Twitter updates, Flickr photos and more.

It’s important to know what will happen to this content, of course. But for knowledge product creators, the issues go deeper. Creating revenue from a book, an audio series or a member-based website takes hard work and commitment. It makes sense to protect that revenue stream. Here are a few questions to prompt your thinking.

• Have you legally registered and protected your products? Know the basics of copyright and trademark law. File the appropriate forms. Consult with an intellectual property lawyer if necessary.
• Are your contracts with suppliers and collaborators legally prepared or reviewed? Avoid future legal battles over ownership by having clear and solid contracts with editors, designers, illustrators, translators, co-authors, contributors and others.
• Do you understand each clause of your contracts? Know what rights you own and what you may be signing away. For example, do you have a contract with your publisher that grants them full audio and electronic rights to your print book?
• What happens if you’re hit by a bus tomorrow? Make sure your will includes mention of your intellectual property so that it passes to the person or people you wish to own it.
• If you pass away, would you want someone to continue development of any products in progress? Would you want someone to continue selling your products or to withdraw them from the market? Would you feel OK about having the new copyright holder make changes to your material, create additional products in a series you started, or use your name to brand a new product?

One way to ensure your wishes are known and can be carried out it is to create a manual on how to continue or shut down your knowledge product empire. Include log-in details and passwords to your various online accounts, such as your shopping cart, PayPal account, Twitter feed, newsletter management system and so on. Make sure at least one person is familiar with the manual’s contents and have them keep an extra copy.

Knowledge products are a wonderful way to create a lasting legacy of your life’s work. Not only do knowledge products capture your expertise so that current and future consumers can benefit even in your absence, they’re also a form of intellectual property. Don’t let it slip through the fingers of future generations or fade away unnecessarily into obscurity.