The single most effective marketing method for book sales remains the power of a personal recommendation. It’s advertising you just can’t buy. Hence so much focus on reviews and endorsements for your book. This also explains the current appeal of social media marketing in an author’s marketing toolkit.  If your friend on Facebook likes a book, you might too. Pinterest, Instagram, Vine, Tumblr, and Twitter are sexy new ways to gain exposure for you and your book. LinkedIn and especially GoodReads rely on the sales principle of recommendations for books through your professional networks and social circles. But authors shouldn’t be distracted by bright shiny objects over the power of personalized email messages. Publicity is one thing. Sales are another. A personal email closes a book sales deal better than social media. Converting hits into sales is most effective with email. Email is effective because it’s permission-based. Sending out unsolicited emails is called spam. An author needs to start building a list of email contacts who opt-in to receive messages about you and your writing projects. People on your email list have given you a green light. They’ve already bought into your project and are invested in its success. Authors need to invite visitors to their website and blog to subscribe by email. All those contacts are potential customers and you and your publisher will work together toward getting your book into the hands of these readers. One of the most effective ways of converting contacts into book buyers is…

Front Matter is one of the last sections of a book manuscript for an author to complete. But it’s the first thing a reader sees. Before page 1, there are several items that appear in the front pages of any book. Some pages are mandatory: title, copyright, and table of contents. Others are optional, upon the discretion of the author and publisher. Every page before the first one in Chapter 1 is paginated using lower case roman numerals beginning with the Title Page is i. Except for the Copyright Page, all sections of the front matter begin on a recto page. Verso pages are those on the left hand side of an open book; recto pages are on the right. In the body of the book manuscript, every new chapter begins on a recto page. This means if your chapter ends on an odd-numbered page, you will have one blank page between the end of the chapter and the start of the next one. Because printed books are bound together in signatures – 32 pages constitutes a signature – the total number of book pages is always divisible by eight. This is why you often find blank pages or additional front matter at the beginning or end of a book. Title Page – [required] The title and author’s name and appears centered on the page. This is always the first printed page. Copyright Page – [required] This page contains copyright information (title, subtitle, author, publisher, date of publication, subject headings, Library…

It has been a very good year for Swenson Book Development LLC and we credit the successes and accomplishments of our clients during 2013. 1.  Did someone slip President Obama’s speechwriter an advance copy of Seymour Smidt’s manuscript? His December address riffed on pages from Sy’s chapters offering a historical analysis of growing income inequality. I am so thankful Sy has recovered from a terrible car accident last year and has returned to writing. From my initial read of Sy’s new research and theory, I predict this will be an important work. And knowing our President will want to buy his copy of Sy’s new book at Politics & Prose in D.C.next year is a gift as sweet as Christmas candy canes. 2.  Cathryn Prince celebrated the release of Death in the Baltic this past April published by Palgrave Macmillan. In September, she won the Founders Award from the Military Writers Society of America and the Military History Book Club selected her book about the WWII sinking of the Wilhelm Gustloff as their featured title last spring. This was the second book Cathryn and I worked on together. It’s a great joy to announce she successfully signed the perfect agent for her next work, Laurie Abkemier at DeFiore and Company. I look forward to working together on her fifth book in 2014. 3.  Elaine Mansfield is more than a client and for that I am thankful. She’s become a friend, neighbor on Lake Seneca, and mentor through my own lessons on loss. I’m thrilled her book, Leaning into…