Is your e-mail signature working hard enough for you?
A Fortune 500 company hired me to provide a press release writing workshop for its corporate media relations staff after one of them noticed the title of one of my publicity books in my e-mail signature and asked me for a proposal.
Pretty inexpensive advertising, isn’t it?
I loved reading to my daughters when they were little. As they got older, the only thing that warmed my heart more than a carefully lettered “I love you Mommy” note was seeing them reading on their own. Now that they’re young adults, I still smile every time I see either one of them curled up with a book — and I grin when they pass books back and forth.
So . . . there’s a special place in my heart for children’s books and the people who create them. I do as much as I can to help them get the word out about their books through my newsletter, this blog, and my participation in a group on LinkedIn for authors of children’s books. I’m happy to say that I can do a little more today by reviewing a new training program offered by one of my favorite sources of excellent book marketing information, Dana Lynn Smith of the Savvy Book Marketer site.
HARO – “Help a Reporter Out” – is a free service that links journalists with sources. It’s a helpful resource for authors looking for book publicity. (That’s a portion of a typical HARO e-mail message on the right.)
HARO’s publisher batches source requests from journalists and sends them to subscribers via e-mail three times a day. The queries are grouped by categories that include biotech and healthcare, education, general, lifestyle and fitness, and several others. The query titles are listed at the top of each HARO e-mail; click on the one that interests you and you’ll jump down to the full query.
When Patricia Fry, executive director of the Small Publishers, Artists, and Writers Network (SPAWN), asked me to provide input to her newest book, I was happy to oblige. It’s on a topic I think is important for authors –using public speaking for book promotion.
While Talk Up Your Book: How to Sell Your Book Through Public Speaking, Interviews, Signings, Festivals, Conferences, and More draws primarily on Fry’s experiences as an author, it includes interviews with me and many other authors who talk about their books in an effort to reach key audience with their messages.
I first met Heather Shumaker last year when she took my “Book Publicity 101: How to Build Book Buzz” e-course. Here’s what really struck me about her: Heather got a contract with a traditional publisher (Tarcher/Penguin) without a platform. She literally sold her renegade parenting book on the strength of the concept and her ability to execute it. Whoohoo!
Heather knew that she’d have to build a platform and learn how to leverage it, so she took my course as part of the learning process. In Part 1 of a two-part series here, Heather shares some of what she learned while promoting her book, It’s OK Not to Share…And Other Renegade Rules for Raising Competent and Compassionate Kids (She learned enough to get her book featured in USA Weekend not long after it launched!) Learn more about this advocate for free play and conflict mediation skills for kids on her website and Starlighting Mama blog. Part 2 will run on Thursday.
