Category: News

Writers Circle Speaker Series: Literary Publicist Claire McKinney

Posted on by CMPR

TWC’s 2015-16 Speaker Series

What Is a Brand and Where Can I Get One?
Contemporary publicity and marketing strategies for authors and their books

with literary publicist Claire McKinney

October 25, 2-4 PM
MONDO Summit

Whether you are traditionally published or publishing on your own, as an author you’ll be responsible for promoting your book. In this workshop, publishing veteran and public relations strategist Claire McKinney will:

  • Explain branding in terms of books and writersClaire McKinney Headshot - Writers Circle Speaker Series
  • How and when you should start your promotion efforts
  • Finding different angles to target markets for your work
  • Keeping a pre-publication checklist, what needs to be on it, and why
  • The fundamental differences between publicity for a traditionally published or indie book
  • Creating a timeline of activities that will keep you on track for the best marketing opportunities throughout the publication process
  • Digital versus traditional marketing and publicity
  • Social media; content marketing; and bookstores and other retail opportunities-what you need to know about how they work

Claire McKinney has been working in public relations and publicity for twenty years. She has written about publishing for websites and blogs; Publishers weekly; and recently was on the Today Show to provide expert commentary on indie publishing.

Prior to starting her own company she was the VP, Director of Publicity for Henry Holt and Company and the Director of Publicity for Miramax Books. Some of the authors and personalities she has worked with include Della Reese, Madeleine Albright, Cheryl Ladd, James Patterson, Walter Mosley, Tim Russert, Rick Moody, George Pelecanos, Heidi Julavits, and Kristin Gore.

Fee $75

Seats are limited. Register today at the link below:

http://www.writerscircleworkshops.com/cmp/events.html

Are services like Bookbub worth the price?

Posted on by Keely Flanagan

Every morning, I receive an email from Bookbub with a slew of 99 cent deals that I may be interested in, and every morning I scroll through the list of books that are tailored to my interests. More often than not I find a book worth purchasing—how can I say no to a New York Times bestseller for $1.99? Websites like Bookbub and Freebooksy, a similar service that alerts you to daily free e-book deals, are a great tool for readers who like bargains.

But for indie authors, are websites like Bookbub and Freebooksy worth their price? Bookbub is not a cheap service, and it’s a very selective one at that. Depending on the genre of your book and length of promotion, you might be dropping anywhere from $300 to $700 to be listed on their daily newsletters and website for your bargain. Freebooksy costs less and has a wide audience as well—a listing on their site won’t break your bank, and they are nowhere near as selective as Bookbub. That being said, we used both BookBub and Freebooksy for authors, and they both delivered.

bookbub logoBookBub, although amazing, is more complicated. We worked with an indie author who had a great medical thriller e-book that we thought BookBub would immediately grab, because his book was glowingly reviewed by Publishers Weekly, even receiving a starred review. But BookBub rejected our request to pay $600 to have his book listed—twice. (Note: BookBub does not ask you to pay upfront. You select the genre and price listed, but only if they accept do they then bill you.)

Each time your book is rejected by BookBub, you must wait a month before requesting a listing again. Although it’s disappointing, that rejection gives you a 30 day window to receive more editorial and Amazon reviews, which is exactly what we did.  Third time was the charm, and we were invited to list our book on the Thrillers/Mysteries page for one week on BookBub.

Our author’s book did amazing on Amazon—the thriller ended up in the top ten e-books on its first day of listing. As the days wore by for his week-long promotion, the book dropped from the top 10 to the top 15th bestselling book, the 40th, etc…It stayed in the top 100 e-books for the entire week, and as the weeks wore by the book gained many Amazon reviews. He sold a few thousand books through the BookBub promotion too, from what I remember. However, once the promotion was over, we were back to a few e-book sales a day.

freebooksy logoOur promotion on FreeBooksy for an author who had a contemporary mystery had similar luck—his book received many downloads and was a bestseller in free contemporary fiction, but the author and his publisher made virtually no money. The goal, however, was different: we submitted the book and paid a nominal fee to be listed for a single day, and we were focused on the idea that people would download the book and review it on Amazon, which they did.

So, are promotional marketing tools like BookBub and FreeBooksy worth their price? Depending on what you’re looking for, yes—but keep in mind services like these provide quick fixes, and can’t be relied on for building consistent sales or a loyal audience for authors.

Cult of Celebrity Series 101: Do You Need to Write a Book?

Posted on by Claire McKinney

I’ve said it before: American culture is all about celebrity, and how famous you are in any group on any level.  How do you get famous?  That’s a good question, and the answers vary depending on what your area of expertise is and what you are doing.

Cult of Celebrity SeriesLet me qualify all of this first by saying this is not a road map to getting famous like George Clooney.  That’s the entertainment business, which is a whole other story (trust me, I’ve been in it most of my life).
But if you want to share your knowledge or idea, and you want the opportunity to join the greater conversation and ultimately find your audience, then you might want to think about writing your own book.

It’s daunting, I know. I mean, didn’t Tolstoy write a big book?  Didn’t J.K. Rowling live for years as an underling before she got the big prize and the success that came with her brain child, Harry Potter?

I’m no Hillary or Bill or Obama, could I really do it? These (and other) questions may be roiling around in your mind.  Just tell those voices to quiet down, and take a second to consider why people are coming out of the woodwork with their own books.

Cult of Celebrity SeriesHillary Clinton launched a memoir of herself when she first ran for president.  This was a purposeful way to use the book as a marketing tool so she could get herself out there to a mass audience in a non-partisan way; at first. Dr. Oz, king of daytime television started with the “YOU” series of books (e.g. YOU: The Owner’s Manual). Malcolm Gladwell of The Tipping Point wrote for The New Yorker magazine with lots of ideas about how people think.  Fast forward to the present, and Gladwell’s series of catchy-titled books has made him rich and sought after internationally to speak to thousands.  Imagine being paid for the way you think!

Cult of Celebrity SeriesThese are major examples of people using books as marketing tools, and I could point to many more including celebrities like: Snooki, Lena Dunham, Tina Fey, Ellen DeGeneres…all who have put their stories on paper to grow their personal brands (and make money for themselves and their publishers along the way).  But the real concern is do YOU really need to write your own book?  Ask yourself these questions:

  • Have I been building my expertise in a field or industry where I am respected for my ideas and what I have to say?
  • Am I an academic, teaching at a university?
  • Am I an innovative entrepreneur or CEO who has achieved success with my methods?
  • Am I a doctor who has research to share in an important area that could help a mass audience, if the information appeared outside of a medical journal or health facility?
  • Would I like to be paid and/or invited to speak to audiences?
  • Do I have a product or service to sell?
  • Am I a writer who wants to take an idea and expand on it in a broader medium?

If you relate to any of the above then it might be time for you to consider taking a big step forward and think about writing a book.  A book can help you reach a wider audience, and it can get you a bigger stage on which to present yourself and your positions.  Call it a conversation opener, a calling card, a foundation.

Will your book make you an overnight sensation?  Not necessarily.  Will you have to publish it on your own?  Possibly, but that’s what e-books are for.  Will the book limit the rest of what you have to say or share?  No, that’s why you write more books.

I’ll admit I’m considering taking the leap myself.  My reasons are business-oriented on the one hand, and on the other I see a need for information I have that could help a larger audience and sharing feels like the right thing to do.

I’ll keep you posted on that.

Language is important: Don’t call me “stupid”!

Posted on by Claire McKinney
2016 Presidential Election
Image via someecards.com

As a PR person I am trained to manipulate the English language to express what I need  to, at any given moment.  As a kid I was pushed by parents who spoke foreign languages and insisted on proper verb agreement and other basic grammatical sentence structures. Since I spend so much time glued to the words I hear, it’s very depressing to find nearly every newscaster and public speaker having trouble with “there is” and “there are”.  For all of you out there who know what I mean, thank you!  For everyone else, “there is” is to be used when speaking of a single item; “there are” is for more than one.  There is a storm brewing.  There are a lot of storms in the Midwest at this time of year.  Slurring the words together in a slack form of “there’s” is not acceptable and does not excuse anyone from knowing that “is” relates to one thing.

It has been particularly interesting to watch the Presidential races of the past decade.  First Obama’s team put together a brilliant campaign aimed at those people who are heard less in this country.  Many of them are on the internet, and between using social media well, and papering low-income neighborhoods, Obama was able to win the election…twice.

2016 is shaping up to be a different animal altogether.  This is the age of referring to the words of co-candidates as “stupid” and telling your constituents to “sit down and shut up”.  If I thought our problems rested in the way we put together sentences, I was so wrong.  We seem to have fallen into a schoolyard, junior-high world where sounding like you just came out of the local pub on the corner and you are yelling at a guy who ran the stop sign, is the way to express yourself.

Who cares if your suit costs $5000? If you comb your hair or even take a shower?  Gee whiz, how debasing it is to watch potential world leaders practically pull out “nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, naaahhhh” (again, schoolyard).

And even funnier is to hear them actually put each other down.  A newscaster recently pointed out that “sit down and shut up” didn’t think  “stupid” has the proper “temperament” for the presidency.  Meanwhile another candidate from the other party decided to go all out and label a domestic terrorist a religious zealot commonly found in occupied territories in the Middle East.

Have these public figures spent too much time on Instagram and Snapchat?  Or have they made too many appearances on late night television? I’m not sure what’s happening, but it is sad to watch “stupid”, “sit down and shut up” and “religious zealot” standing at their podiums trying to tell us that they are going to take the country in a direction that will provide for the common welfare and keep us safe.  I mean, really, it isn’t proper for us to be pointing and laughing behind our hands when our national leaders are trying to be serious.

 

Where can I get service around here?

Posted on by Claire McKinney

In the words of a frustrated business and homeowner, where have all of the conscientious service people gone?

Granted, they probably have been missing all along, it’s just now that I need them, they still are nowhere to be found.

I wrote about this long ago—how important it is to provide excellent customer service to your clients.  I have even represented clients who have made a living counseling big companies on what service is, and how to promote the practice of excellence among their employees.  Recently, I’ve been amazed at what I’ve observed, so I’m going to go off the blog’s topic for a bit to share a couple of stories with you.

I have computers in my office.  No big deal, right?  Well, in smaller businesses we don’t have the luxury of calling up the IT department to come fix a problem—we have to find a reliable contractor or do it ourselves.  I finally found the time to get a “professional” in to set up a network, cloud drive, backup systems, and the like.  Did he come on time?  Yes, he sent a tech over at the assigned time.  Did he know what he was doing?  I’m not sure.  Did he have a fight with the tech in the office over what solution he should employ to fix my problems?  Oh, yes.  Did said tech call me later to try and get my business, thereby undercutting the “friend” and contractor I originally hired?  Yes he did.  Did my problem get fixed?  Yes, after three days, and although the fight and pursuant phone call from the tech were a bit uncomfortable, I was charged under the original agreement even though it took twice the time (no doubt in part because of in fighting among personnel).

Where can I get service around here?At home, I have a dog.  She’s my first dog ever, and I love her to bits.  However, she runs like the wind and needed an electric fence to keep her penned in before the town dog catcher found her miles from my house.  I fell victim to a direct mail coupon and called that company to ask what I would need to do to get the fence I already had up and working.  They sent a person over a couple of weeks later and basically they upgraded my system and implemented their technology in place of the old that had probably been at the house since the early 2000s.  Then came the training portion of the deal, which was very pricey, but knowing that I am a newbie when it comes to dogs, I felt that it would be prudent to have the professionals guide me in the process.

The first guy who fixed my system walked me through the initial training session which is all about getting your dog used to the flags that indicate where the fencing is.  Fine.  The second guy came about a week later and obviously had a different style, in fact he was a bit disappointed in trainer #1 who had not given me a proper leash, and maybe wasn’t as effective as he could have been.  Okay.  The second training was about luring the dog to get “shocked” by the collar and then calming her down.  A negative response system they call “The Correction”.  The third day came and the guy who had come on day 1 appeared with a colleague along for the ride.  He wasn’t particularly impressed with what trainer #2 had done and made it clear that it would have been better to do things a bit differently.  Well, to make it short, they let the dog go and she saw her “boyfriend” next door on his lawn; she bolted; was zapped profusely; and came crying back to our yard.  Oh my goodness was the trainer unhappy about this.  He must have said at least four times “I wish I had known that other dog was out there”;  “That wasn’t the way it was supposed to happen”; etc. 

For my part I thought it worked perfectly, but I could tell that Katie (my dog) and I had disappointed him.  He left shortly thereafter and alas, that was my third and final session.  So $400+ later I was left feeling a big deflated by the training process and vowed to follow the rules left by the company.  Then my husband said one night, “I would just let her run around and figure it out”, and I said “Me too.”  That’s what we did and slowly she is figuring out what her boundaries are.

Dog trainers and tech support throwing each other under the bus in front of a customer?  Overpaying for training during for which you, the customer, are chastised and left feeling like you didn’t get the proper instruction for your money?  What is that all about?

I won’t go into the many calls I make to contractors that don’t get returned.  Or the people who come out for estimates and then I call back to start work and they never resurface.  It goes on and on.  Back to business, I’ve been told by media people that publicists don’t return their calls, and that is just unfathomable to me.  I mean, we spend our days trying to get a returned email or call with expressed interest—to have someone call me and not call back?

All I can say is, service is in part about manners and respect.  If you don’t respect your customers then you really should do something else.   I’ll keep getting things fixed, installed, up-to-speed, and will consider every strange or unpleasant experience one to learn from.  I will treasure the ones that go well, and I will keep those businesses on speed dial.