Traditional Vs. Non Traditional Publishing… Reviews, Awards & Other Marketing

THE REVIEWS:

Reviews are the goals and the bane of a writer. We need reviews to sell a book, and we need reviews for our own self-confidence. It’s great when friends tell us our work is fabulous, but to hear it from professional reviewers is incredibly important.

With Traditional publishing, the publisher handles the review submissions, so for the author it is a transparent process; however, with Non Traditional publishing, it is the author’s job to get reviews.

In my last blog, I told you that my novel, Angels In Mourning, was not accepted by Foreword magazine, because it was submitted to late. I also explained that with 99% of Non-Traditional POD books, when the first copy is printed, it is now considered published, so this can disqualify most POD’s from reviews by many of the Industry Standard Review sources.

However, there are many other avenues that a book Non Traditionally published book must follow. There are dozens of Internet book review sites. Most of them do not charge, some of them do, and others will charge for rush reviews.

Following this necessary path, I sent out 30 copies of my novel to the various review sources - both Internet and print. Of course I disregarded the fact that most print medium will not take it, on the off chance that it would be considered. (To date the three major print based players - PW, The NY Times Review of Books and ALA’s Booklist have not taken it on.)

I did have several reviews go through, for local papers and magazines, but nothing nationally. While this is good for the ego – to be recognized by your own community – it is a limited market.
While the Internet proved to be rich in resources, it’s still tough, but not quite as tough as the print resources. Book Ideas (http://www.bookideas.com) was the first to review Angels In Mourning. One of their senior reviewers, Kelly Davis, gave Angels a glowing review and featured it on their home page. (http://www.bookideas.com/reviews/index.cfm?fuseaction=displayReview&id=4339)

PopSyndicate (http://www.popsyndicate.com) is another great outlet for reviews and marketing. Angela Wilson of PopSyndicate did both a Virtual Sit Down Interview (http://www.popsyndicate.com/books/story/introducing_david_wind/ ) and a “Sneak Peek”, which featured a short excerpt followed by a short review. (http://www.popsyndicate.com/books/story/sneak_peek_angels_in_mourning_by_david_wind) Both of which have been very helpful. I have included a short list of Internet review sites at the bottom of this blog.

AUTHOR QUOTES:

Another type of review type marketing and help comes from fellow authors in the form of quotes & reviews. Roberta Gellis and Ken Isaacson were both kind enough to give me this style of quote/review for Angels, and while these can be used for advertising/marketing and cover quotes, because of the nature of Non Traditional POD publishing, they usually come after publication and to use them on the cover can require redoing the artwork with all associated costs. I chose to use them on both of my websites and made sure they were used on Amazon, in the editorial review section of the products page. You can see how that works by clicking on http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1439203512/ref=cm_pdp_arms_dp_img_1

BOOK AWARD MARKETING:

Another avenue of marketing that is open to Non Standard published authors is via the book awards route. Be warned, this method takes time, as the awards come out in the Spring months of April May and June. They all carry entry fees ranging from $25 - $100 plus the cost of your book. The upside to this is that if you win, you get to promote the book as the winner of the award. While there are a ton of awards out there, I tried to be as selective as possible and entered 4 award contests: (IPPY) Independent Publishers award; Foreword Magazine - Book of the Year Award; Books and authors net award and, the (NIEA) Indie Book Awards.

A WORD OF CAUTION:

One thing my experience had taught me at this point is there is a huge difference between marketing Non Traditional Published nonfiction and fiction. Nonfiction seems to have more outlets and an easier pathway through the Non Traditional world than does fiction, so please beware that when marketing fiction, it will take some doing.

ONE MORE IMPORTANT MARKETING VENUE:

A veritable world is open to you when you use social networking. It means you must keep up and keep pace with everything, but it can pay off in added sales. These outlets are, Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn and a dozen others. Do not hesitate to utilize these sources.

And that’s it for this post. More to come, for sure!
David

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SOME BOOK REVIEW SOURCES:
bookideas.com
PopSyndicate.com
reviewingtheevidence.com
forewordmagazine.com
compulsivereader.com
Biblioreveiw.com
thebestreviews.com
bookforum.com