Book Marketing

Book Writing GIFs: Finding a Literary Agent

This is the second section of a multi-part blog post on the book publishing process as seen through a series of 14 GIFs. You have finished a novel. Only then do you find out that you have to find a literary agent. What the heck? So you write your query letter. And you obsess over […]

4 2

Michael Levine: Ten Commandments for Dealing with the Media

A little story first: Michael Levine once sent out a great package for his book, Lessons at the Halfway Point (Celestial Arts). The package included three pages with cartoons at the top and some brief information about the book at the bottom. The fourth page was excerpted from Reader’s Digest, which featured a quote from […]

6

Book Marketing Tips: The Rule of Five

In my experience, the major error that new book authors make is that they stop too soon in promoting their books. Other things begin to pull for their attention and, soon, their book promotion efforts fall by the wayside. I’m going to give you a basic rule — a rule that forbids excuses, a rule […]

11

Author Promotion: How Terry McMillan Got Her Bestselling Start

When Terry McMillan’s first novel Mama was published in 1987, her publisher only sent out press releases and review copies — their standard low-level effort for first-time authors. So Terry took the promotion into her own hands. She wrote more than 3,000 letters to bookstores, colleges, chain stores, African-American groups, and other groups asking them […]