The Self Promoting Author

Many (usually long time and well established) authors as part of their proposal package, tell the publisher that they have a personal marketing plan. They give a few details about the plan, saying that the full plan is available if they would like to see it. Publishers love this. If they have two manuscripts and they have to choose one and reject the other, they go with the one which has an author willing to do some heavy self marketing. Authors who market themselves are the best loved of all, by editors and publishers, and they are always one step ahead of every other author out there.

The author's marketing plan for his/her book will vary from author to author, but usually it will include such things as:

A Press Release.
A Press Kit
A list of local radio stations, TV stations, book shops, schools, colleges, and libraries, where the author plans to do live interviews and/or book signings.

An author written press release, which the author will send out the all the local newspapers (10 or 20 papers at least), as well as to the big nationals (Boston Globe, New York Times, etc), and to any magazines whose readers would possibly be interested in the book (say you wrote a mystery novel, so you would want to send a press release to Ellery Queen Magazine). The press release is nothing more than a 3 or 4 paragraph review of the book, which closes by announcing the release date of the book. The review may be written by the author himself, or it may be written by some one else. The author will send these out just before the release date of the book.

Some author's prefer to send out press kits. A kit, includes the standard book release book review. It usually includes book reviews written by several different people (four or five of them). If possible, the author gets reviews from people who are fairly well known: local news reporter, the book review columnists for their local paper, local authors, local actors, local politicians, etc. In the press kit is included a copy of the book itself (which in most cases, the author had to buy off Amazon just like every one else; it is very rare that a publisher will give the author more than 2 or 3 free copies of the book.) In every press kit there is included a pre-written author interview, with the instructions: *You may choose any of the following to use in your article about me and my book.* (if for a magazine or newspaper) or *Here is a list of questions you can ask me during the interview* (if for TV or radio). If the author is available for a live interview on TV, radio, or at a bookshop/library, they will also include a list of their schedule, and dates they will be in the area.

These press release kits, like the standard press release are sent out to local and national newspapers and magazines, but these are also sent out to radio stations, TV stations, every library in the local area where the author lives, local schools (if a children's or young adult's book), local colleges, Oprah, Dave Letterman, Jay Leno, and every other place/person the author can think of the send it out to. In the end, some authors will have sent out a hundred or more of these press kits, though most will send out only ten or twenty of them.

Some authors like to send free copies of their books to nursing home libraries. Another place which some authors like to send free copies of their books is to doctors' offices and hospitals. They send these copies with a sticker across the front cover saying: Waiting Room Copy, Not For Resale

You will note here that I'm telling you that the author is the one who creates and sends out these book releases, and sample copies of the book, rather than the publisher. It is a common misconception among new writers that publishers do things like this, but they do not. Publishers send out their catalog, which is nothing more than a list of book titles, author names, and ISBNs. This list is sent out to two places: the book distributor (who passes copies of the list on to book sellers such as Boarders and Amazon.) and to the library organization (who passes the list on to local libraries). A few big publishers (Scholastic, etc) also send their list to The New York Times.

The reason behind one author's fame (Stephen King, J.K. Rowling, etc) and another author's obscurity, is completely dependant on how much self promotion the author did. Authors who went around sending out press release kits and doing interviews, became very, very famous, simply because no matter where you looked, you saw them: in the papers, in the magazines, on TV. . .no publisher promotes an author like that, that is all the author doing all of it, on their own without any help from the publisher. These authors are out there, in your face, wither you like them or not, and no matter what you do, you can not forget about them, because they are not going to let you forget about them. These authors do not sit back and what for a sales representative to promote them, they become their own sales representative instead. Of, course once you become famous enough that people start sending you requests to fly half way around the world for an interview, well than it's time to consider getting an agent, who will do all the promotion for you, but you really won't need an agent until after your book already is a best seller. The agent will be able to schedule all your tours, juggle your interview dates, create future press kits, and do such things as handle movie contracts and international rights, because that's what an agent does.

The biggest and most important thing in all of this self promoting that you will be doing, is of course your interviews. People usually skim past book reviews, but they always stop to read the interviews. People love interviews, which is why shows such as Oprah, Dave Letterman, Jerry Springer, Doctor Phil, and Jay Leno are so popular. People are curious by nature. People want to know what other people are doing. People need to tell other people what they heard about you last night. People need things to gossip about. People need to feel that they can relate to other people in order to feel part of the community of humanity. People need to feel the connection with other people. People have a deep inner most need for interviews with other people in order to feel connected.

You need to do interviews, because in order to get people to buy your book, you need people to be gossiping about you. You need people to tell their friends they love you. You need people to tell their friends they hate you. You need your name to come up as part of every day conversations around the water cooler. Good or bad (but preferably mostly good) you need people to be talking about you, thinking about you, and giving you all that free word of mouth publicity, because that is the number one best way to become a best selling author. When people talk about you, other people start buying your book. To get people to start talking, you need to be doing interviews.

A trade secret among professional authors (as well as actors, musicians, politicians and other highly interviewed celebrities) is to have a pre-written interview. To start out with, ask you friends, family, and co-workers this question:

If you could interview your favorite author, what ten questions would you ask him/her?

Some of them will only give you one question, others will give you 30 or 40, others will look at you funny and say you are nuts, but in the end you will have at least a few questions to get you started at writing up your pre-written interview with yourself. Add to that list, as many questions as you can think of to ask your own favorite authors. Watch Oprah and Dave Letterman, take notice of the questions they ask when interviewing celebrities, write them down. Search out author homepages, and if they included an interview as part of the website, write those questions down too. Go to online forums and chat rooms, start asking people what questions hey would ask if given the opportunity to interview their favorite famous person. Add their questions to your list. Remember, that this is only a rough draft of your interview; a list of questions, and not your interview itself, so be certain to add every single question to this list, even if it does not apply to you. Your goal at this point is simply to compile the biggest list of questions possible. As you list gets longer, you will start to notice that some questions are getting asked over and over again. Circle those questions, because those are going to pop up in your real interviews too. Plan to spend a few weeks doing nothing but compiling up the biggest list of interview type questions, you can. When I did this, I ended up with a list of more than 400 completely different questions! It amazed me that every one had something different to ask. While you may never use all of these questions, never, ever throw them away, because you never know when at some point in your life, the irrelevant questions may become relevant.

Once you feel you have enough questions to last you a life time, it's time to start sifting through them, and start a second list of questions. First off, look for questions that got asked several times, questions that every one seemed to be asking, and add those to your list. Than look for questions that got asked more than once, maybe only twice, and add those to your list as well. Now take the rest of the questions and consider which of them apply most to you, your life, and your book, and add those to the list. If when you get done you find you have more than 100 questions on your second list, try to narrow it done to just 100 questions.

From here you have two choices: One: you can answer these hundred questions as they are, and call your interview finished, or TWO: you can narrow the list down farther. You may do well to have multiple lists; a different list for each of different situations/kinds of interviews. For your personal website, you may want to include the big list with all one hundred questions, but for TV and radio shows it is best if you keep your list down to just the 10 or 20 questions which you feel are most important/relevant. The interviewer may use only the questions you provide or they may not use any of them at all and use a list that they use for every person they interview, or they may do a little of both. In any case, having the pre-written interview tells the interviewer what type of answers they can expect to hear from you, during a live interview. For magazines, you should have a list of 30 or 40 or 50 questions, and tell them to pick as many or as few as they like from the list. Magazines like prewritten interviews, because they can pick and choose from your list, the questions that best fit their readers, and they don't have to spend valuable money on plane tickets and car rentals to send an interviewer to your home.

Remember, you do not have to answer any question, which you do not wish to answer. Some authors, include at the bottom of their pre-written interview a list of questions, which they will under no circumstances answer no matter how many times the interviewer asks them. They may even say that if one of these questions is asked, that the interview will come to an end immediately. This is done to politely inform the interviewer what line of questions are taboo, and to avoid the interviewer asking one of these questions not realizing the author is not comfortable answering them.

Once you have decided on the questions you want to include on your pre-written interview, organize them in order of importance: most important/relevant at the top, least important at the bottom. Than it's time to answer the questions on the list. Here in lays the beauty of the pre-written interview: you do not have to answer all the questions off the top of your head, during a 5 minute time slot. You can spend the entire day mulling over your answer for just one question. The pre-written interview is like a speech broken down into short segments; you can plan out what you want to say, you can even memorize it so you answer in person, the same way you wrote it. In a written interview you can get a lot longer winded than you can a spoken interview too, so your answer to question #1 on your TV show list could be different from the same question seen on your magazine list.

Remember, there are no right or wrong answers, just answer from your heart.

Author Intro:



Name:
Place of Birth:
Date of Birth:
Home Base:
Education:
Career Highlights:
Title of Your Latest Book:
Titles of Other Books You've Published:


Why do you become a story writer?


Tell us a day in the life of a writer:


Readers of your books would say your stories are______?


After the story ends%u2026


What makes you, you?


Where did the initial idea for *title of story/book* come from?


Was it easier writing *title of story/book* than *title of story/book* ?


What sort of work schedule do you keep?


How closely do you work with your cover artist?


On average, how long does it take you to complete a story?


How involved does your editor get with your writing?


On average, how many drafts do your write for each story?


Do you ever have problems meeting your deadlines?


Do you ever struggle with writer's block?


Where would you like to see your career head in the future?


What would you say is your favorite part of writing?


Can you describe what your typical work day is like?


How did you first break into writing?


Has an editor ever stopped you from doing something that you really wanted to do?


Does your personal life come through in your writing?


What tips would you give to aspiring writers out there?


Were you always hell-bent on becoming a writer?


How organized and focused are you as a writer?


Do you have an office in your home?


What kind of research do you do before writing a story?


What do you read in your spare time?


What is your work environment like?


Typing or longhand?


Music or silence?


What type of character do you enjoy writing about the most?


What strikes you as bad writing?


Are you a stickler for accuracy when it comes to writing?


What associations do you belong to, and why?


Have any pets?


If you use background music, what do you listen to?


Before the story starts%u2026


Breaking the rules%u2026


What are some good reasons to write?


What are some bad reasons to write?


Who are the people you must deal with, like it or not?


What advice do you have for someone wishing to write *genre type* ?


What type of atmosphere do you need to write in?


Where do you get your ideas?


What clichés do you as a writer try to avoid at all costs?


What writer cop-outs irk you the most?


What is your favorite activity?


Do you have a guilty pleasure?


What motivates you?


How do you create your characters?


How does having *name of illness/disease/disability* effect your writing?


How to plot a story when you see it?


You write a lot of stories about *_____*, why?


What inspires you?


Mistakes writers should avoid and why?


What is your life's greatest passion?


What talents and abilities do you have?


What are you trying to accomplish with your life?


What makes you unique?


How does being *name of religion* effect you as a writer?


As a teenager did you enjoy attending religious services?


Do you find that many people have false misconceptions about you?


How did you come to choose this career?


Is spirituality an important concept for you?


Who influenced you most in your life?


What is your career (other than writing)?


When did you first know you wanted to be a writer?


What is your greatest fear?


Where do you see your life heading?


What goals do you have for the future?


Selecting the correct point of view; how do you choice your main character?


How has working with *name of publisher/editor/agent/co-author* changed your life?


What are your hobbies?


What do you stand for?


What do you want to say to your readers?


What is your writing's biggest flaw?


What kind of world were you born into?


Why did you choose *name of publisher/editor/agent/co-author* ?


Why did you choose to self-publish?


What is on your revision check list?


What are you responsibilities as a writer?


How do you handle it when you know that what you're fighting for is right, but everyone around you is telling you that you are wrong?


What is your ideal girlfriend/boyfriend/spouse?


How do you define your writing?


Does your family have any traditions?


Do you ever find yourself escaping through fiction?


Flashbacks and are they necessary? Some writers feel they are needed, and use them always. Other writers avoid them like the plague. Where do you stand on using flashbacks?


Why do you spend time with the people you do?


What problems in life, have you had to overcome?


How do you choose character occupations?


What genre do you read?


Who is your favorite author? Why?


Are you a member of any writing groups?


Out on a limb-extreme steps you've taken to do research or promote one of your books?


Do you ever use character profiles or character interviews?


First job?


What tools of the trade do you use?


What was your favorite toy as a child?


What was your favorite book as a child?


Are there any specific titles or creators that influenced your work?


The solution to your toughest writing challenge:


What did you want to be when you grew up?


What activities keep you centered?


Who's at home?


Where are we likely to find you most evenings?


Favorite book of all time?


Would you like a photo of you on your book? Why or why not?


Ebooks or print books. Which do you prefer?


Learned the most from (any writing mentor)?


How has being a writer changed you?


Tips for those considering the writing life?


If you could write your own question, what would you ask yourself?


Do you believe an author should stick to one genre?


Okay, tell us what *title of current book* is all about.


Do you have a *_____* of your own?


Are parts of *the story/book title* based on real-life events?


Are any of the characters based on people you know?


Your main character(s) often (do, have, go to) *____*. Was this intentional?


In *title of story/book*, you wrote, '____'. What did you mean by that?


What about the finances of writing? What are they? How do you deal with them?


How many words do you usually write a day?


How often do you write? Do you write every day?


When and where do you write?


Where are you from?


When and why did you begin writing?


When did you first consider yourself a writer?


What inspired you to pen your first novel?


Who or what has influenced your writing, and in what way?

How has your environment/upbringing colored your writing?


Do you have a specific writing style?


What genre are you most comfortable writing?


How did you come up with the title for your book(s)?


Is there a message in your stories that you want readers to grasp?


How much of your stories are realistic?


Are experiences based on someone you know, or events in your life?


What books have most influenced your life?


If you had to choose, which writer would you consider a mentor?


What are you reading now?


What new author has grasped your interest?


What are your current projects?


Name one entity that you feel supported you outside of family members.


How does your family and/or friends feel about your books or writing ventures in general?


Do you see writing as a long- or short-term career?


If you had to do it all over again, would you change anything?


Is there anything additional you would like to share with your readers?


How do you feel overall about self-publishing?


What are the strengths and weaknesses of promotion for self-published authors?


What do you feel is one major benefit to self-publishing your book?


Would you encourage or mentor someone?


When did you first realize you wanted to be a writer?


How long does it take you to write a book?


What is your work schedule like when you're writing?


What would you say is your interesting writing quirk?


How do books get published?


Where do you get your information or ideas for your books?


When did you write your first book and how old were you?


What do you like to do when you're not writing?


What does your family think of your writing?


What was one of the most surprising things you learned in creating your books?


What was your favorite subject (in school) and why and how did school effect you as a writer?


How many books have you written? Which is your favorite?


How Long Are Your Chapters?


Do you have any suggestions to help me become a better writer? If so, what are they?


Do you hear from your readers much? What kinds of things do they say?


Do you like to create books for adults?


You Are Considered a Renegade Writer. What Exactly is it that Makes Your Stories So Unconventional?


What do you think makes a good story?


As a child, what did you want to do when you grew up?


Do you know what makes one book outsell another?


How do you attract new readers to buy your books in droves?


Are you still trying to find a way to get your book published and onto those shelves, in front of readers where it belongs?


What are some good creative writing short story prompts?


Could you read my creative writing/short story and tell me what you think of it?


Tell me what you like/hate. Is anything too cliché?


Computer or longhand? (or typewriter?)


Do you know the ending before you type Chapter One? Or do you let the story evolve as you write?


Does what's selling in the market influence how and what you write?


Editing/Revision - love it or hate it?


Can you be both an editor and a writer?


How many hours a day do you write?


Do you read/write poetry?


Have you ever wondered why some writers earn millions of dollars and sell tens of thousands of books, while others struggle to earn back even the smallest advances?


When you were a teen, what did you think of novels for teens?


What kind of books did you read when you were a kid?


What is your favorite part of writing?


Do you find books on plotting useful or harmful?


Are you a procrastinator or does the itch to write keep at you until you sit down and work?


Why do you write what you write?


My Writing Process: Why I Write What I Write


How do you come up with ideas?


What techniques do you use?


A writer doesn't solve problems. He allows them to emerge. Do you think this is true?


Do you write fiction or non-fiction? Or both?
.

Do you keep a journal or a writing notebook?


When you write fiction, do you know your characters' goals, motivations, and conflicts before you start writing
or is that something else you discover only after you start writing?


Do you write with music/the noise of children/in a cafe or other public setting, or do you need complete silence to concentrate?


Are you a morning or afternoon or evening writer?


Do you write in short bursts of creative energy, or can you sit down and write for hours at a time?


How do you get past all the frustrations that come with trying to be a successful writer?


Does having a metal illness affect the way you write?


You've written stories about talking *cars/animals/toasters/etc*, but I've read that talking objects in books is a no-no. What do you think?


I have too many book ideas! I jump from one to the other, and never get anything done. . .
Do you ever have this problem and what do you do about it?