In the modern publishing world, there are many new challenges authors face in promoting their books, but there are also many new avenues to aid in digital marketing of forthcoming releases. NetGalley provides a resource for authors and publishers to accumulate quality reviews from relevant readers, an essential pre-publishing marketing step. Strong early praise from a notable reviewer can draw in significantly more readers once a title is released. Rather than sending galleys the traditional way (an advance review copy right to a reviewer’s doorstep) NetGalley offers promotion through digital galleys, which eradicates the costs of printing and shipping. When a publisher or author establishes an account with NetGalley, the titles they post become available to NetGalley’s network of what they call “professional readers,” or book reviewers, journalists, bloggers, librarians, and others in the book world who can access and review these titles for free. Since many of the reviewers are already involved in book promotion, a glowing review could also lead to further collaboration and marketing opportunities down the road. When professional readers look for titles to review, they can search by publisher or by title or browse by genre. When they find a title of interest and submit a request for a digital galley, the corresponding owner can decide if there is a good fit based on the reader’s member profile. Authors or publishers must approve all galley requests before readers can receive them. And beyond NetGalley’s expansive network, they can also send requests for review to contacts within their own…
Have you ever disagreed with someone (friend, family member, stranger, bookseller) about a book? Have you ever hotly argued over the quality, or lack thereof, of one? No way! You couldn’t possibly love Freedom! What do you mean it’s a must-read? You say you couldn’t put it down? I loathed picking it up! It was awful! The characters aren’t likable, the ending sucked, and the… [Read More]
Filed Under: 1960s Ireland, abused orphans, bad writing, Catholic institutions, debut author, e-book formatting, fiction book review, good writing, guilt and betrayal, interfaith marriage, NetGalley, reading experience, Shakespeare, shifting perspectives, The Whipping Club, weak character development
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The best reference you can buy on the subject of publishing children’s books is the Writer’s Digest publication, 2012 Children’s Writer’s & Illustrator’s Market, edited by Chuck Sambuchino. For the best publishing tips, the first 175 pages are a gold mine. In the 2012 edition of CWIM (the acronym used for this desk reference for the past 20 years), Sambuchino added lots of new instructional… [Read More]
If you are an author, you ought to be in at least one good reading group or book club. Writers read good writing. You’ve heard that before. You know it’s true. And yet, you’re afraid reading a lot of good books right now might be just one more way to procrastinate the hard work of writing. At least you’re honest. But I want to urge… [Read More]
Happy 6th Birthday to Twitter. The social media platform based on messages of 140 characters is growing up and it’s time to take it seriously, authors. As a recovering academic who studied communications history, I’ve spent decades observing how new communication technologies come and go. Remember 8-track tapes? Beta-video? Reel-to-reel and cassette tapes? Anyone remember the TV show “Car 54 Where Are You?”? Twitter is… [Read More]
Filed Under: Anne Lamott, Car 54 Where Are You, Green Acres, Petticoat Junction, Salman Rushdie, Twitter
Yes, it is Tuesday. Yes, I am late in posting this blog. Yes, I owe my sanity to the digital divas I work with at Swenson Book Development, LLC. Like many authors, I just want to write. When things go awry, I want to cry. In the last 10 days, the email server went down, my webhost crashed its system, my company email account popped… [Read More]