John 3:16 Networking Book Launch .....Sell More Books……By: J. Steve Miller

John 3:16 Networking Book Launch

Sell More Books……By: J. Steve Miller

Sell More Books……By: J. Steve Miller

Book Description
Atlanta: May, 2011. Wisdom Creek Press released a new book for authors titled Sell More Books! Book Marketing and Publishing for Low Profile and Debut Authors: Rethinking Book Publicity after the Digital Revolutions.

Sell More Books gives writers:

•  Insider tips on writing and publishing a marketable book.
• The latest on publishing options, social networking, and “tried and true” book marketing tactics.
• Hundreds of practical book-selling strategies that authors can implement immediately, whether they’re self-published or traditionally published.
• An analysis of which methods will most likely work for specific books, and which methods might be a complete waste of time.
• Ideas for marketing on a low budget.

According to Dr. Robert E. McGinnis, author of 15 young adult novels, Sell More Books! is “filled with useful tips I don’t find elsewhere. A masterpiece of research, wisdom, and encouragement.”

Paperback: 332 pages
Price: $14.95
Publisher: Wisdom Creek Press, LLC (May 15, 2011)
Interview with J. Steve Miller

WCPress: Why another book on book marketing?
JSM: While many books are available, few take into account the latest in publishing and marketing. We find that most authors are confused and overwhelmed by all the options. Thus, there’s a need to simplify the task and help authors narrow down their best choices.
WCP: Why target low profile authors?
JSM: Because publishing and marketing are different for them in many ways. Typically, low profile authors discover that bookstores and big media want the big names. It’s easy to get discouraged. But I found success in marketing my books, even though I lacked a platform. I wrote an award-winning personal finance book when I had no degrees in personal finance and no vocational experience as a financial planner. My book on music was published by a respected traditional publisher, Tyndale House, even though I held no degrees in music; neither was I a professional musician. I think I’ve picked up some tricks along the way that can help other low profile authors.
WCP: So is this all about your personal experience?
JSM: No. Although I describe what’s worked for me (and what totally failed!) I read widely in book marketing and ran my ideas by many authors and publishers. Real experience from a wide variety of people has a way of making a mess of tidy formulas! I saw that what sold tons of books for one author may not work at all for another, and what works for one book may be totally inappropriate for another.
WCP: Do you recommend social networking, such as Twitter and Facebook?
JSM: For some authors and for some books, they work great. Other authors may be wasting their time. To me, it boils down to finding and connecting with the readers and influencers on your topic/genre. I try to help authors understand whether or not these will work for their books.
WCP: What about blogging?
JSM: A blog can be a great hub for many authors – the first place to send people who want to find out more about you and your books and your social media presence. Also consider a blog for maintaining a press page, much like the page we’re on now. But I’d suggest that many people who are trying to post several substantive blogs per week in order to build a following, if it’s solely to sell your books, you may be wasting valuable time. Again, each topic and each author will have to think through an appropriate strategy. I try to cover that as well in the book.
WCP: Thanks for your time and good luck helping fellow authors with their publishing and marketing!
JSM: Thanks so much!
Table of Contents
Part I
Rethink Book Marketing in Light of the Revolutions

Chapter 1: Four Digital Revolutions that Can Make Nobodies Awesome
Part II
From Nobody to Somebody
Build Platforms with a Marketable Book and a Cool Online Presence
Chapter 2 – Why Market Your Book?
Chapter 3 – Write a Marketable Book
Chapter 4 – Write a Title and Subtitle That Attracts Audiences
Chapter 5 – Attract People with your Cover
Chapter 6 – Publish through the Most Marketable Channel
Chapter 7 – Get Lots of Blurbs from All Kinds of People
Chapter 8 – Optimize Your Amazon and Barnes & Noble Pages
Chapter 9 – Build a Professional Online Presence
Chapter 10 – Submit Your Book to Contests

Part III
Let the World Know About Your Book
Chapter 11 – Check Your Attitudes toward Marketing
Chapter 12 – Use Guiding Principles to Prioritize Initiatives
Chapter 13 – Seek Early Reviews from Respected Book Review Sources
Chapter 14 – Seek Reviews and Endorsements from Busy Blogs
Chapter 15 – Seek Reviews and Endorsements from Other Publications
Chapter 16 – Attract Attention through Social Media
Chapter 17 – Optimize Digital Sales
Chapter 18 – Sell Your Book in Brick and Mortar Stores
Chapter 19 – Help Reporters and Journalists with their Articles
Chapter 20 – Consider Radio (Even if You’re Shy!)
Chapter 21 – Consider Speaking (Even if You’re Shy!)   
Chapter 22 – John Kremer’s Twelve Tips for Low-Profile Authors
Chapter 23 – Bulk Sales Beyond the Bookstore: An Interview with Brian Jud
Chapter 24 – Consider Press (News) Releases
Chapter 25 – Sell Even More Books!
Appendix 1 – Never Stop Learning! (Further Reading and Resources)
Appendix 2 – 200+ Ways that Low Profile Authors Can Market Their Books
Index
 
About the Authors

J. Steve Miller loves to write and sell his books. As founder and president of Legacy Educational Resources, he publishes resources that are used by educators in every state and over 30 countries. His book on contemporary church music was used as a text and translated into Dutch, German, Romanian, Spanish and Russian. His book on personal finance has won multiple awards. Steve has spoken from Atlanta to Moscow.  Find him at www.jstevemiller.com or www.enjoyyourwriting.com.
Cherie K. Miller is the founder and president of Wisdom Creek Press and works with the Masters in American Studies program at Kennesaw State University. She is the current President of the Georgia Writers Association, a state-wide nonprofit organization promoting authorship in Georgia. She has published books, written for national magazines and written a newspaper column for a Chicago newspaper. She earned her MA in Professional Writing from Kennesaw State University in 2007.  For more information on Cherie, visit www.cheriekmiller.com.
John Kremer and Brian Jud each contributed chapters. They’re two of today’s most highly respected names in book marketing.
Blythe Daniel and Stephanie Richards are book publicists who contributed significantly to Steve and Cherie’s understanding of marketing books.
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The Queen’s Gamble Virtual Book Tour

Join Barbara Kyle, author of the historical novel, The Queen’s Gamble (Kensington Books, August 30, 2011) as she virtually tours the blogosphere in September on her first virtual book tour with Pump Up Your Book!

About Barbara Kyle

Barbara Kyle is the author of the Tudor-era “Thornleigh” series of novels, which have been published internationally: The Queen’s Captive, The Queen’s Lady, and The King’s Daughter, praised by Publishers Weekly as “a complex and fast-paced plot, mixing history with vibrant characters.” Her new novel, The Queen’s Gamble, will be released on 30 August 2011.
Barbara previously won acclaim for her contemporary novels under pen name ‘Stephen Kyle’, including Beyond Recall (a Literary Guild Selection), After Shock and The Experiment. Over 400,000 copies of her books have been sold.
Barbara has taught courses for writers at the University of Toronto School of Continuing Studies, and is known for her dynamic workshops for many writers organizations. Her popular series of video workshops “Writing Fiction That Sells” is available through her website. Before becoming an author, Barbara enjoyed a twenty-year acting career in television, film, and stage productions in Canada and the U.S.
Visit www.BarbaraKyle.com.

About The Queen’s Gamble

Young Queen Elizabeth I’s path to the throne has been a perilous one, and already she faces a dangerous crisis. French troops have landed in Scotland to quell a rebel Protestant army, and Elizabeth fears that once they are entrenched on the border, they will invade England.
Isabel Thornleigh has returned to London from the New World with her Spanish husband, Carlos Valverde, and their young son. Ever the queen’s loyal servant, Isabel is recruited to smuggle money to the Scottish rebels. Yet Elizabeth’s trust only goes so far—Isabel’s son will be the queen’s pampered hostage until she completes her mission. Matters grow worse when Isabel’s husband is engaged as military advisor to the French, putting the couple on opposite sides in a deadly cold war.
Set against a lush, vibrant backdrop peopled with unforgettable characters and historical figures, The Queen’s Gamble is a story of courage, greed, passion, and the high price of loyalty…

Read an Excerpt

Chapter One Isabel Valverde was coming home. The brief, terrible letter from her brother had brought her across five thousand miles of ocean, from the New World to the Old, and during the long voyage she thought she had prepared herself for the worst. But now that London lay just beyond the next bend of the River Thames, she dreaded what awaited her. The not knowing – that was the hardest. Would she find her mother still a prisoner awaiting execution? Horrifying though that was, Isabel could at least hope to see her one last time. Or had her mother already been hanged? The ship was Spanish, the San Juan Bautista, the cabin snug and warm, its elegant teak paneling a cocoon that almost muffled the brutal beat of England’s winter rain on the deck above. Isabel stood by the berth, buttoning her cloak, steeling herself. The captain had said they were less than an hour from London’s customs wharf and she would soon have to prepare to disembark. Everything was packed; three trunks sat waiting by the open door, and behind her she could hear her servant, sixteen-year-old Pedro, closing the lid of the fourth and last one. She listened to the rain’s faint drumbeat, knowing that she heard it in a way the Spanish passengers could not – heard it as a call, connecting her to her past, to her family’s roots. The Spaniards would not understand. England meant nothing to them other than a market for their goods, and she had to admit it was a backward place compared to the magnificence of their empire. The gold and silver of the New World flowed back to the Old like a river with the treasure fleets that sailed twice a year from Peru and Mexico, making Philip of Spain the richest and most powerful monarch in Europe. Isabel felt the tug of both worlds, for a part of her lived in each, her young self in the Old, her adult self in the New. She had left England at twenty with her Spanish husband and almost nothing else, but he had done well in Peru, and after five years among its wealthy Spaniards, Isabel was one of them. Money, she thought. It’s how the world turns. Can it turn Mother’s fate? She had clung to that hope for the voyage, and now, listening to the English rain, she was seized by a panicky need to have the gold in her hands. She heard her servant clicking a key into the lock of the last trunk. She whirled around. “Pedro, my gold,” she said. She grabbed his arm to stop him turning the key. “Where is it?” He looked at her, puzzled. “Señora?” “The gold I set aside. In the blue leather pouch.” She snatched the ring of keys from him and unlocked the trunk. She rummaged among her gowns, searching for the pouch. The soft silks and velvets slid through her hands. She dug down into the layers of linen smocks and stockings and night-dresses. No pouch. Abandoning the rucked-up clothes, she unlocked another trunk and pawed through her husband’s things, his doublets and breeches and capes and boots. The pouch was not here either. “Open that one,” she said, tossing the keys to Pedro. “We have to find it.” She went to the brocade satchel that lay at the foot of the berth and flipped its clasps and dug inside. “Señora, it’s not in there. Just papers.” “Look for it!” she ordered. He flinched at her tone, and she felt like a tyrant. Not for the first time. He was a Peruvian with the small build of his Indian people which made him look more like a child than a lad of sixteen. He had the placid nature of his people, too, and a deference to authority that had been bred into his ancestors by the rigid Inca culture. When the Spaniards had invaded thirty years ago they had exploited that deference, easily making the Indians their slaves and themselves rich. Isabel hated slavery. Pedro was her servant, but a free person nonetheless. English justice said so. But his docile ways sometimes sparked her impatience, goading her to take the tone of his Spanish overlords, and when she did so she hated herself. “Take out everything,” she told him, less sharply. “Look at the bottom.” “Si, Señora,” he said, obeying. His native tongue was Quechua.

My Thoughts
The Queen’s Gamble
The young Queen Elizabeth faces a dangerous crisis, fearing French troops will invade England since they have landed in Scotland. In the meantime, Isabel and Carlos Thornleigh have returned to England with their young son Nicolas. Isabel and her husband Carlos find themselves in a unusual situation. Isabel is a loyal servant to Queen Elizabeth and becomes really involved in the dealings of the Queen and Scotland. Then her husband Carlos is sent to join the troops as military advisor to the French. This causes circumstances beyond their control and Carlos will be against his own wife in the war. How will they handle this difficult time? Will their love stand the trials they will now be facing against each other? And how about their four year old son Nicolas, what is happening to him during all of this turmoil?
It took a while for me to get into this book, just started out very slow for me. Maybe because this is the 4^th book in the series! After a while though it did get interesting and was hard to put down! The era of the story was an interesting era, and the author tells the story in a way that you feel like you are back in the times of Young Queen Elizabeth I. With the continuing drama and the twist and turns in the story, Along with a cast of characters created to play their part so well, The Queen’s Gamble is a wonderful thriller filled with so much drama you will keep reading to the very last word!!
This book was provided by the author through PUYB blog tours. I was not expected to give a positive review, only an honest one. The opinions in this review are mine only.