Re: Author Earnings

**B* M* <b*@verizon.net>**

Ah, book marketing and author/publisher income.

In my lengthy career in these areas, I have a few observations and recommendations. If you do as well as I do, you will be far from rich but maybe you'll be happy. It helps that I am naturally frugal. This forced me to become adept at Photoshop and passable at other digital stuff. 

1. Get all the free publicity you can. Do a one-page press release and email it to people who are likely to look at it. Give away review copies freely and pay the postage. But beware of purchased ads. They never worked well for me. Doug?

2. Doing an ebook has always helped my print sales of the same book. Every now and then giving the Kindle edition away free for a day or two gives the book's digital and its paper sales a boost for the next couple of weeks and lifts it to a higher position in the lists. It has helped get Amazon reviewer stars, too. Ebook picture books are the future now that so many people read on pads. You can have all the color you want and at no extra cost.

3. If you do five books with so-so sales and then come up with a hit book, it will soon outshine all the rest put together. So, only publish best sellers (laugh here). Or just keep trying.

4. Do all the marketing you can do. Radio is great and you can be on the air from home. Guests should use landline phones if possible because they are preferred by the interviewer. Direct mail sometimes works. One good market found makes up for a lot of wasted mailing pieces. Email marketing is often considered spam, but if you take the time to make it personal rather than bulk, it can help. Either way, it is just hot air that does not inflate the waste stream.

For instance in December I emailed a press release tip sheet on using citrus for the holiday with quotes from the author of a little book I publish (Citrus). I meant to send out more than I did, but was very pleased that many of those sent were picked up and used. I'm sure those who acted on it were glad that the same info was not repeated everywhere else.

5. Social media. I am not good at this but I really love Pinterest. Look me up: http://www.pinterest.com/bbmackey/ . Twitter seems to require constant tweeting and I will never start doing that even though I have over a thousand followers. Whatever I say seems to get lost in the constant river of tweets. Ask someone else about Facebook. I hear that having a Facebook page for each book is good and does not intrude on one's personal life.

6. Go to garden writer events and be friendly. Give out your book to people with blogs and columns who want to take a look but don't force it on them. Even an older book can still get reviewed if it is a good match with a reviewer or a garden trend.

7. Make a great website or update the one you have. I am reworking mine, but not right this minute.

Cheers, everyone, 

Betty

www.mackeybooks.com
betty@mackeybooks.com

________________________________
 From: Doug Green <gardeningemail@gmail.com>

All the marketing data and stuff anybody needs is out on the Net or in
ebooks for sure - and much of it works for non-fiction as well as fiction.
I have a worksheet of to-do's that would choke that proverbial horse. :-)

It's a great time to be a writer quite frankly. :-)

Doug
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