inspiration, marketing

Marketing isn’t just about selling books

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taken from Sheila’s talk in May 2014

Why should we care about marketing?

Quite a few people wanted a talk on marketing, but I’m guessing the rest of you might think, I don’t want to sell stuff, I’m just writing for me. Why do I care about marketing? But marketing isn’t just getting your book into stores and selling lots of copies. It’s also what you’re doing when:

  1. You tell your grandkids, “You should care about this; it’s your family history”
  2. You tell your spouse, “No, I’m not wasting my time”
  3. You tell yourself, “I know what I’m doing and I’m going to get this thing written.”

A marketing exercise for everyone Continue reading Marketing isn’t just about selling books →

publishing, self-publishing

Self-publishing for the Writers’ Mill Journal

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What do you need to decide if you’re going to produce a journal, poetry book, picture book, birthday gift book, etc…?

Taken from a talk in preparation for producing our next Writers’ Mill Journal

  1. Format
    1. Hand-made books
      1.   Good for small quantities, short books, gifts
      2. Bad for life expectancy of your printer and sanity of the person putting copies together
    2. Locally copied and printed
      1.   Good for getting a good price on a fixed number of copies
      2.   Individual price might be higher. Probably spiral bound rather than “perfect bound.”
    3.  Espresso machine at Powells
      1.   Good for quality, writing on spine, easy availability (just go to Powells to buy another copy)
      2.  Print cost might be higher than online self-publishing
      3.  For a fee, they will give you lots of great help and advice
    4.  Internet, privately at createspace.com
      1.  Good quality. Cheap, especially if we order in bulk from the account owner (cuts down postage)
      2.  Good availability—createspace address where more copies can be ordered (https://www.createspace.com/4068825 for our last journal)
      3.  Might have some “bleed” on cover, and no writing on spine (unless it’s a thick book), so not quite as good as the espresso machine.
    5.     Internet publicly, on Amazon via Createspace
      1.    Good because we become authors, get author pages on Amazon, and claim publishing credit
      2.    Problem is, it increases internet sale price (because of hosting and distribution fees) but
      3.     price to us, bulk purchase via the account owner, remains the same
    6.   Distribution to Barnes and Noble and Powells
      1. Good because they might even put it on the shelf at Powells!
      2.  Increases internet sale price again (because of more distribution fees) but price to us is same.
      3.  Doesn’t take much more effort once the book’s been done
  1. ebooks via smashwords, kindle, kobo, ibookstore…?

Continue reading Self-publishing for the Writers’ Mill Journal →

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