9 News

A busy and productive day today. The president of CIPA and I discussed some possible joint-publication opportunities. I also visited 9 News with some CIPA members where their Communications Coordinator Randy took us on a tour and provided some insight into getting television exposure for books. This included listed some of their most likely shows, producer names, demographics, and tips on submitting manuscript and press kits. All very informative and information I will see gets passed to applicable people who publishing with Outskirts Press.

Author Portrait

Here's the front-runner for the author portrait I'll use on the back of Publishing Gems. Since that's the back of the book, that one can be in color. The inside of Adventures of Publishing will also have a photo, but it'll be in black and white. I've posed both here. The only concern is that it may not be close enough to my face. Although, there are those who might think that's a good thing.

More work than I can handle

How long has it been since I've updated? A few days at least. A lot is going on. Trying to secure some mutual partnerships with New Novelist and other writing sites and affiliates. Also, the Writer's Digest publication for 2004 is complete, although I can't gauge F & W Publication's interest in promoting it -- which is odd.

Adventures in Publishing and Publishing Gems, the two books I've written that will be published simultaneously at the end of March, continue to march toward their printing dates. I need to have them both finished and "producing" by the end of February. Half a month. That's what's been keeping me so busy. The front of Adventures in Publishing is complete although I don't have a smaller image to share. I'll get on uploaded to this blog soon. The back copy of Publishing Gems is conceptualized, just needs to be laid out. The back copy of Adventures in Publishing takes care of itself -- full color thumbnail images of our 25 cover choices to authors can see the selection. -- These won't include the 18 different color varieties for each one, or the textures that we're adding as an additional sub-option before the book is released.

SEO is a big concern of mine and will start to occupy more of my time once these books are written. A third book has been conceptualized and I'll start on that, too. But in the meantime, just to keep it going, here's the .net and .com links.

I sent the rest of the pre-publication galleys out to reviewers. I was going to include newspapers in that list, but since their turn-around is so quick anyway, I figured it might be more beneficial to send the actual published book (the interior looks SOOO much better). We'll see if that pans out. Who knows.

This blog is jumping all over the place -- so's my brain. I can't decide when/if I want to include this blog on the Author's Center of our website. Is there "too" much information in this thing?

A Board of Directors meeting is this week. I have to get ready for that.

Amazon.com working for you

I've read several articles where some of the "tools" or "resources" available on Amazon.com help drive traffic to books, and secure people as experts. In the interest of experimenting with this phenomenon first-hand, I've established an Amazon.com "personality" with the screen name of outskirtspress. I'm creating some lists in "listmania" and writing some articles under the "So you'd like...." section. Like all things SEO related, this could take some time and it'll be 6 months or more before I know whether or not it was time well spent -- kind of like this blog thing.

Publishing Gems Testimonials

I contacted Dan Poynter with a request to offer a testimonial for my upcoming book Publishing Gems: Insider Information for the Self-Publishing Writer. Dan Poynter is the best selling author of The Self-Publishing Manual, as well as a highly sought after public speaker and wildly acclaimed expert on self-publishing. (He "literally wrote the book" so to speak).

So, in given an opportunity to have his name and his book title associated with another book that would be marketed to the same audience (ie, my book), Mr. Poynter graciously offered a generous testimonial for my book. I plan on placing it above the title. After all, Publishing Gems is not yet know, but Dan Poynter is. Thank you Dan.

More later about the other blurb I got from the President of CIPA.

Publishing Gems Cover Quote

Work continues to progress on the Publishing Gems and Publishing Guide. I got the review copies sent out for Publishing Gems, so hopefully we'll be able to secure some reviews or editorials in the trade when it's published in April. I'm going to have advance copies ready at the CIPA College in March. I need to get a Kinko's banner created. I don't know if I'll have time to do that.

Interior layout of Publishing Gems is nearly complete. We'll have the size of the book finalized and then can finalize the cover. We have a great quote to put on the front -- a testimonial blurb from Dan Poynter. He was very gracious to provide it. I'm considering asking him if he's inclined to write the forward. I'll be catching him with him at a CIPA meeting soon, but probably after the book is published. When we have the final cover, I'll post it here.