2009’s Hot Authors
Interviews by Aggie Villanueva
Copyright © Aggie Villanueva 2009
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the author, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review for a newspaper, magazine or journal.
ISBN # 0-9825914-0-3
ISBN # 978-0-9825914-0-6
Smashwords Edition
Published by Cielos Rojos Publishing
Dedicated to
Dedicated to all the talented authors featured in this book. They are foremost in their fields, and the generosity of their sharing has enriched us all.
Forward
Everyone loves interviews. I think what we love is that feeling of sitting down for a chat with leaders in our field, while they share their secrets of success and insider tips. It’s the most entertaining form of learning that I know of.
Visual Arts Junction http://www.visualartsjunction.com is emerging as a go-to spot for insightful interviews because we have several staff writers prowling the world for interviews from several continents. For this reason, as 2009 plays out, I thought it appropriate to compile the best of the best from writers I have personally worked with to bring you their knowledge and personal magic.
Visual Arts Junction
All interviews originally posted on Visual Arts Junction and remain the sole properties of Aggie Villanueva. Bonus articles remain the sole properties of the individual authors. Visual Arts Junction: http://www.visualartsjunction.com
Input from the Interviewees
"Aggie has few peers as an interviewer. She does her homework, asks layered questions that illuminate the writer's core, and brings a fresh and positive energy to the experience for both reader and interviewee alike." Larry Brooks, critically acclaimed author and revolutionary fiction instructor.
“Aggie Villaneuva's interviews are more perspicacious than most, better researched, and more complete than most you find, even in national periodicals. You'll love her book as much as I do her blog.”
Carolyn Howard-Johnson,
award-winning novelist and author of the HowToDoItFrugally series.
Aggie Villanueva sorts through everything she can find on her interviewees, then takes that information and goes right to the heart of their expertise with her insightful questions. Answering her requires the interviewee to dig deeper and discover truths they might not have even known.
Lynne Gentry, the Susan Lucci of Genesis, writer, acting coach
“Most reviewers want to put me in pre-existing boxes and genres. It's been a wonderful pleasure to talk to someone who really gets what I'm trying to do." Bill Myers, bestselling author of Eli.
“I thoroughly enjoyed my interview with Aggie Villanueva. She seemed to know how to ask the right questions to draw out the passion within me to assist writers with achieving their publishing dreams.”
Todd Rutherford, VP Yorkshire Publishing
“Aggie's Interview for Visual Arts Junction was not only a great lesson for readers in the publication journey of a novelist, but it provided great promotion for my novels which she highlighted. Her questions allowed me to share not only my background but also things I'd learned along the way. Authors appreciate good interviewers.”
Gail Gaymer Martin, multi-award-winning novelist.
Included in this Book
Interviewees:
Bill Myers
Carolyn Howard-Johnson
Irene S. Levine
Linda Fulkerson
Gail Gaymer Martin
Larry Brooks
Joanna Penn
Mark David Gerson
Lynne Gentry
Laurie Alice Eakes
Todd Rutherford
Articles:
Smashword Breaks Through to Our World’s Soldiers, Kindle and Sony
Ten Easy Ways to Keep Dialogue Sharp
Masterwriter Writing Toold Extraordinaire
Visuwords: Online Graphical Dictionary
Writer Beware
The Dreaded Comma Dilemma
The Vanishing Stigma of Self Publishing
Don’t Taint my Talent: Rewriting
Bill Myers: Mysteries of God
B
ill
Myers’
104 books, videos and movies have sold over eight million copies,
including his many children’s series. So, most likely you are
already familiar with him. But Bill is best known for his
soul-searching suspense thrillers.
I was fortunate to be teaching with Bill at a Wichita, KS writer’s conference in the early 90’s when these thrillers were just a gleam in his eye. One night after classes we needed to unwind. Floating on the swings of the playground in the damp darkness of a Midwest summer night, Bill talked about the idea for his first suspense thriller.
I knew instantly he was on to something, not only because the plot was gripping, but I knew his very soul would be written into his words. I knew this would not be the boring, religious God-vs.-demons hack job that was popular at the time.
Bill is as honest and upfront as his characters. “For what really makes me tick, check my Fan Page on Facebook under ‘Daily Ramblings.’ And for what it’s worth, I think what makes me unique (the odd duck) in publishing, is I’m not necessarily interested in evangelism (as in Christian fiction) but write to explore the mysteries of God (which keeps me out of mainstream). Don’t know anyone else caught in the dilemma, but I’m having a blast.”
Aggie: So, are you content being tucked away in Christian fiction section of the bookstore? Why not try to cross over to mainstream?
BILL: Hey, I’d love to cross over, but as soon as the general market publishers get a whiff of God or Christ they run scared and shove me over in the religious section. Too bad, ‘cause I don’t think my stuff is religious. But since I love to explore God and usually include some of His supernatural elements . . . well, there I sit.
Aggie: I remember a long-ago conversation. You handed me someone’s book proposal to read and asked my opinion. I thought it was poorly written, but loved the plot. You agreed. That book became a great seller. What do you think about these phenomena that happen so often in the writing field?
BILL: I’m not sure what to think. I just whine.
Aggie: You certainly aren’t among those “phenomena.” Your writing is the proverbial page-turner. Was your writing always this good?
BILL: My writing stinks. It’s only after I beat it up seven to ten times in rewrites that it starts working. Folks like the producer who endorsed my latest, Angel of Wrath, call it “genius.” Ha! Give me a break. If they only knew the truth. I’m absolutely clueless about good writing, I just know when it’s bad and I don’t stop tinkering with it until it stops smelling and eventually passes my ADA standards for “page turner.”
Aggie: Although you say you don’t necessarily write for “evangelism,” your characters’ frank questions about reality and spirituality touch on many “mysteries of God.” What prompts the plot line for each type of mystery you explore in your different thrillers?
BILL: I just find some aspect about God that I don’t understand, then sit back and start exploring. Let me give some examples. In my novel, Eli, I wondered how I would really react if I came face to face with Christ. I mean really, without knowing how things ended. Since I couldn’t relate to the robes and sandals, I wrote it as if the entire Gospel were unfolding today in our world. Instead of “away in the manger,” he was born in the back of a Motel 6 laundry room. Instead of multiplying bread and fishes, it’s hamburger and fries; instead of a crucifixion in Jerusalem, it’s a lynching in the Bible belt. I mean it was the whole nine yards.
And apparently, I’m not the only who enjoys asking hard questions about my response. Some schools are actually making Eli part of their curriculum. I get mail from folks all the time who say, “I thought I was a Christian all my life, but now I finally get it.”
And that’s just a tame example. In The Voice, I asked myself, what would happen if you could record the actual voice of God and expose what created creation to the actual creation? (Think what happens to a water color painting whose base is water, when you dip it into water).
Or The Seeing: What would happen if you had goggles to let you see into the supernatural world around us? Or Soul Tracker: What if you could record the brain waves of the dying and get their glimpse of Heaven or Hell? Or The Presence : What would happen if we saw people the way God really sees them? Or Blood of Heaven : what would happen if you injected a serial killer with the DNA of Christ’s blood?
Aggie: Which is your favorite mystery-of-God novel?
BILL: That’s like asking me who my favorite kid is. I’m working on something called The God Hater, which will be out next year. It’s got me so excited I can hardly sleep at night.
Aggie: Like so many, I have the Kindle digital reader. I was excited to find many of your books for sale in the Kindle format. In fact, I just purchased The Voice. The sequel, Angel of Wrath, was just released. What was it about The Voice that you felt needed more?
BILL: I loved, loved, loved the characters. I mean, picture what happens when you put an old, burned-out special ops soldier (who says a grand total of 5 words a day) with a jabbering 13-year-old niece whose emotions are all over the map. Then include the added pressure of them having to work together to save the world. Anyway, their cat/dog relation was so much fun, I couldn’t let them get by with just one book.
Aggie: Angel of Wrath is in essence about the power of worship. Most of us are familiar with worship services where we sit or stand and sing songs. What do you mean by the power of worship?
“Book signing after speaking to a high school in VA”
BILL: One time in my life, and only one time, I was involved in a situation right out of The Exorcist. And what happened when I got tired and simply started singing something to God was off-the-chart crazy.
Of course those aren’t the only elements in Angel of Wrath. There are little things like a serial killer shooting members of a megachurch that is trying way too hard to increase membership, an entity released from a portal leading to hell, and those types of incidentals.
Aggie: Wow. Can you reveal a little more about your Exorcist experience?
BILL: Let’s just say Jesus Christ knows how to kick serious butt. And whenever we read something from the Bible or worshiped, it was like pouring acid on the little creeps. The whole experience gave me a healthier respect for Christ, scripture, and the power released when we worship Him.
Aggie: You’re getting me too anxious to wait to read Angel of Wrath. Can you give us a sneak preview?
BILL: (See below for two sample chapters.)
Aggie: We know that meditation/chant/trance are central to a major percentage of major religions. What is the difference between that and worship as you write about it in Angel of Wrath?
BILL: One encourages you to give up your identity and empty your mind (which can really be dangerous ’cause there’s stuff out there you don’t want to come inside and fill it). The other encourages you to keep your identity and fill your mind with adoration of God. Huge difference.
Aggie: Do you have a favorite character in Angel of Wrath?
BILL: It would have to be both the special ops curmudgeon (who the girl claims to have “constipated emotions”) and the thirteen year old with all the wonderful emotional schizophrenia that comes with that age. I loved throwing them together in a bag, shaking it, and seeing what would happen.
Aggie: There is a general difficulty in categorizing your thrillers. In fact, I think you created a new genre. So, from the point of view of the “odd duck in publishing that isn’t interested in evangelism (as in Christian fiction),” do you have an ulterior motive in exploring the mysteries of God in your work?
BILL: Ulterior motive? Just to get to know Him better. I know that sounds cliché, but I’m not talking about the Sunday School Jesus on the flannel graph board. I’m afraid most of us have Aslan defanged, declawed and caged up nice and safe and tidy.
I’m talking about the ultimate Super Mind that created everything around us. Let me give an example. How many of us have read the section in the Bible where the angels are around the throne singing “Holy, holy, holy.”?
I don’t know about you, but I’m thinking that’s a real bore and if Heaven is 24/7 of that, then maybe the other place ain’t so bad after all. but . . . what if we’re talking about an infinite God and every time they say “Holy,” it’s because there’s no other word to describe some incredible new aspect they’ve just discovered of an astonishing Being? Now that’s a God I can get into and want to explore with my readers.
Aggie: Please share anything you want that would help writers just starting out in your field.
BILL: Write, write, and write. It’s just like ice skating. The more you practice, the better you get. No one gets to the Olympics overnight. It’s practice, practice, practice. And study other authors by reading, reading, reading.
Learn
more about Bill
http://www.billmyers.com/
Two
Sample Chapters From Angel
of Wrath
by
Bill Myers
BILL:
I wanted to include two sections. This first captures the chemistry
between the 13-year-old girl and her uncle when he tries to wake her
for school…
“Why are you always being so mean to me?” Jazmin
mumbled from beneath her blankets.
“I’m not being-”
The kid was good. Even though she was deaf and unable to read Charlie’s lips from under the covers, she instinctively knew his response. “Yes, you are! Mean, mean, mean!” He reached down and shook her leg.
“Don’t touch me.”
“Jaz.”
Another shake.
“I’m awake! Quit harassing me!”
Charlie took a breath, grateful for the self-control all those years in Delta Force had taught him. If she had been anyone else-a fellow soldier, a new recruit-her insubordination would be met with a bucket of ice water followed by orders shouted into her face to get down and give him fifty or one hundred. (The twenty-mile run would be optional.) But this creature, with so much emotion and so little logic, seemed unable to grasp even the basics of discipline and chain of command. He shook his niece’s leg again.
“Let’s go.”
With a heavy sigh, she threw back the covers, sat up, and glared at him. Well, as much as a single, half-opened eye can glare. “You have to be the rudest human being on the face of the planet.”
“Tell that to your first-period teacher.”
“She’s a Nazi.”
“One more tardy and you get Saturday detention.”
The thirteen-year-old plopped back down on her pillow. “Right, like that’s my fault.” Before he could answer, she changed the playing field. “You blew it with Lisa, didn’t you?”
He hesitated. Ever since Jazmin was exposed to the Voice of God the previous year, she had developed an uncanny ability to sense situations. “To hear deeper things,” she said. “Sometimes I even know what people are thinking.” Of course Charlie was skeptical, but there were those times. . . .
Pushing the strawberry blonde hair from her eyes, she continued. “How many times have I told you, women want what they can’t have.”
Charlie started to reply, but she cut him off. “You just can’t go around throwing yourself at us.”
“Nobody’s throwing themselves at-”
“And telling us whatever’s on your mind.”
“People appreciate honesty.”
“Excuse me? Excuse me? We’re talking women here.”
Charlie shifted topics to something he understood. “Do you want oatmeal or eggs?”
“I want you to leave me alone.” She reached for the covers, but he’d learned a few tricks from their months together. He’d already gripped the blankets, making it impossible for her to pull them back.
“Oatmeal or eggs?”
“I’ll eat at school.”
“Oatmeal or eggs?”
“Eggs! All right?” Her heavy sigh made it clear she was dealing with a moron.
“Eggs it is.” He dragged the blankets off her. Now she would either lie there and freeze or get up and storm toward the bathroom. She did neither.
Pulling into a fetal position, she moaned pitifully. When he didn’t respond (another trick he’d learned), she yelled, “I wouldn’t have all those detentions if you’d drive me to school like all the other parents. You can be such a Nazi sometimes.”
Charlie knew he should let it go. He could outthink and outmaneuver any enemy in the field, but win an argument with her? Never. Even when he won, he somehow lost. No, he should just drop it, walk away. But the comeback was so obvious, the life lesson to be imparted so clear. Against his better judgment, he waited until she was looking at him and said, “We live five blocks from the school.”
“What’s that got to do with anything?”
“Five blocks. You can walk.”
“Walk? With these blisters?” She raised a foot a couple of sizes too big for her child body.
“You’re the one who wanted to buy those silly thongs.”
“Flip-flops. They’re called flip-flops. Thongs are what you won’t let me buy. Even though everybody wears them.”
“Thongs?”
“Flip-flops,” she sighed. “The subject is flip-flops.” It was happening again. Like some prehistoric mammoth, Charlie’s lumbering legs of reason were being wrapped around and around by the rope of her lightning-quick irrationality. Still, this time he could break the cords. The logic was so clear.
“The choice is yours, Jazmin, not mine.”
“Right. I can choose to become some fashion geek, just ’cause you’re too lazy to drive me to school.” The mammoth staggered. “You can buy whatever clothes you want, as long as you deal with the consequences.”
“Except thongs.”
“Young ladies don’t wear thongs.”
“My point exactly.”
The mammoth dropped to his knees. But he was strong; he could rise. “We’re talking about you being late for school.”
“You’re talking about me being late for school.” The cord wrapped tighter.
“And that’s my whole point.”
“No. The point we’re
discussing is you being late
for-”
“The point is, we’re always ‘discussing’ what you want to discuss. Never what I want to discuss. You, you, you. It’s always about you.”
“Jazmin, if you’re late one more day, you’ll have to make it up in Saturday detention.” There. He couldn’t have made it any clearer.
With sufficient melodrama, she rose to her feet, his army sweatshirt hanging around skinny arms and boney knees. Was it possible? Had he won? Before he could stop himself, he had to add a final word: “Right?”
She rolled her eyes and pushed past him with her own final word: “Nazi.”
Bill: And then, a few hundred pages later, Jaz is deep in the mountains with some of her friends having this little encounter…
Will woke up to singing. It was pretty bad. Actually, it was barely a song. But he recognized the words: “Praise Him, all creatures here below.” He rolled his head to the right and saw Jaz. She stood three feet away, her back to him. Directly in front of her was the creature. It seemed a lot mistier than the last time he saw it.
“Praise Him something-or-other la, la, la. . . .”
The thing tilted its head quizzically
but came no closer.
“Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost!”
“Will! Get in here!”
He rolled his head to the left and saw his family’s Volvo with the passenger door open. Jason sat behind the wheel motioning to him and shouting, “Get in!” as Jaz continued to sing:
“Praise God from whom all blessings flow.”
“Will!”
He struggled to sit up, his head feeling full of cotton. He turned back to Jaz.
“Praise Him, all creatures here below.”
“Will!”
With effort, he
struggled to rise, fighting through a wave of dizziness.
“In the back with Heather!”
He obeyed, stumbling toward the car. “Hurry! She can’t do that forever!” He opened the back door and fell inside. Only then did he see Heather leaning against the opposite door, unconscious, her shirt ripped and soaked in blood.
“Praise something, something, ’cause God is cool.”
He turned back to Jaz, saw her stealing
a look over her shoulder at them.
“Come on!” Jason
shouted to her.
She backed away from the creature, inching toward the Volvo.
“Praise Father, Son, and Holy-” She spun around and dashed for the car. “Ghost!”
The creature screamed as Jaz leaped into the front seat. It dove at her and she slammed the door just before the car rocked under its impact.
“Go!” she screamed. “Go, go, go!”
Jason hit the gas and they spun out. He glanced at her and shouted, “What were you doing back there?”
“I don’t know!” She turned to her window, then twirled around and looked out the back.
“You don’t know?!”
The car rocked again, so violently that
Jason almost lost control.
“It’s a song!”
“No kidding!”
“I used to sing it in church-as a little girl!” Above her shouting and the roaring engine, Will heard the thing give another long, loud shriek.
“Whatever it was,” Jason yelled, “it did the trick!” Another slam. This time the roof briefly buckled.
“Go!” Jaz yelled. “Faster!”
Jason pushed the accelerator to the floor. Heather moaned and he glanced into the rearview mirror. “Put your hand on her wound!” he shouted at Will. “Stop the bleeding!”
Will gave a dubious look at the girl’s wet shirt.
“Do it!”
He leaned toward her, searching for the exact source of blood, when the thing crashed into the back window so hard that the glass spiderwebbed. He ducked, hearing Jaz scream and Jason swear. Another crash followed.
Will spun around and looked through the crinkled glass to see the thing kneeling on the trunk. It was raising the very branch he had used earlier. Once again, it crashed it into the window. This time the glass shattered, raining hundreds of pellets over them.
Will threw himself across Heather, protecting her as the thing reached in, groping at his back. He hunkered lower, but a vaporous, claw found his neck and wrapped around it. The other hand appeared from the opposite side. Then it began to pull.
Will reached up, slipping his fingers underneath the claws, pushing at the vapors. Though mist, they had a substance that gripped so tightly he could barely breathe. He fought like a madman, kicking and thrashing as it yanked him upright. A moment later it dragged him through the opening. Glass broke away, scraping his shoulders and arms, his hips and legs.
Once he was out the window, the arms wrapped around his chest, pulled him off the car and down onto the road. He twisted and squirmed, digging his heels into the gravel, but it did no good. The creature raced forty feet down the road before cutting to the right, crossing the ditch, and dragging him into the forest.
© Copyright Bill Myers 2009
The Frugal Book Promoter
How to do What Your Publisher Won’t
As you can imagine I’m not able to purchase the book(s) of everyone I interview, and I hardly ever do. But this time I did. Researching for my interview with Carolyn Howard-Johnson was so informative (and got me so excited about promoting) that I simply had to get this book for my Kindle 2.
It wasn’t just the rave reviews in her press kit from professional promoters claiming to have noted 100 new ideas to use for their own authors, nor the fact that some call it an “author’s lifeline,” a “reliable life-support system,” “The Frugal Promo Bible,” “ingenious and generous,” and refer to Carolyn as a “marketing maestro.”
Jayce Crawford, Cup of Comfort, said, “finally a solid, sensible, systematic guide to the ins and outs of promotion and publicity written by a writer, for writers.” I would take it step further and call Carolyn’s book, The Frugal Book Promoter, the indie publisher’s declaration of independence.
Still, it was none of the above that prompted me to purchase The Frugal Book Promoter. What hooked me, prompted me to ask for this interview and purchase the book is the free sample chapter Carolyn offers, “15 Commandments for Getting FREE Publicity,” which actually is one of the promotion techniques she teaches. This one excerpt convinced me I need her book. For one thing, it opened my mind to possible niche markets I would never have thought of.
“Keep an open mind for promotion ideas: Look at the different themes in your book. There are angles there you can exploit when you’re talking to editors. My first book, This is the Place, is sort of romantic (a romance Web site will like it) but it is also set in Salt Lake City, the site where the winter games were played in 2002 and, though that’s a reach, I found sports desks and feature editors open to it as Olympics © fervor grew and even as it waned because they were desperate for material as the zeal for the games wound down.”
And this information on Gebbie Press alone is valuable beyond measure for any frugal book promoter. Carolyn Howard-Johnson generously sprinkles the book with links we can use the rest of our careers.
“Cull contacts: Develop your Rolodex by adding quality recipients from media directories. The Web site http://www.gebbieinc.com/ has an All-in-One Directory that gives links to others such as Editor, Publisher Year Book, and Burrell’s. Some partial directories on the web are free and so are your yellow pages. Ask for help from your librarian—a good research librarian is like a shark; she’ll keep biting until she’s got exactly what she wants.”
Ms.
Howard-Johnson winds practical insights in succinct summaries such
as:
“Publicity is like planting bulbs. It proliferates even when you aren’t trying very hard. By watching for unintended results, you learn how to make them happen in the future.”
Her technique hits hard and fast, but with humor, sensitivity and lots of experience to bring it over home plate.
Carolyn’s experience spans from being the youngest person ever hired as a staff writer for the Salt Lake Tribune, to a position as Good Housekeeping Magazines’ editorial assistant. She’s also handled accounts for fashion publicist Eleanor Lambert who instituted the first Ten Best Dressed List, where she wrote releases for celebrity designers of the time including Pauline Trigere, Rudy Gernreich and Christian Dior. She was also a consultant for the Oak Park Press in the Chicago area.
Carolyn’s fiction and nonfiction books are award winning, including USA Book News’ Best Professional Book of 2004 and Book Publicists of southern California’s Irwin Award, and Woman of the Year in Arts and Entertainment Award by California Legislature members, to name a few.
She is a journalist, author of fiction and nonfiction, poet, speaker, teacher, college instructor, editor, columnist, anthologist, and of course, publicist. Which brings us to Ms. Howard-Johnson’s How To Do It Frugally series of books, which have helped writers and retailers worldwide.
Aggie: I’ve listed many of your accomplishments and I only touched on them. We don’t just suddenly burst into success. It’s a process. With all your creative successes, I have to wonder what kind of child were you? Precocious? Social or solitary? Did you always write?
CAROLYN: I’ve never been asked that before. I think prissy-with-a-repressed-drive-for-independence would define me. It was the times. It was what was expected for girls back then.
Aggie: Do you feel there was anything in particular about your childhood that helped shape you as a writer?
CAROLYN: My mother read to me and showed she loved books by swiping the ones I brought home from the library to read for herself. Interesting, they say that’s the number one way to encourage kids in their schoolwork today.
Aggie: Your lists of awards are seemingly endless for poetry, fiction and nonfiction. Have you always written in such a wide variety of genres?
CAROLYN: Aggie, I started in journalism. It’s a great training ground for writers. Organization. Ethics. I only took up poetry in the last couple of years. Though I had been known to write a couple of poems--and I do mean a couple--before that.
Aggie: You were honored by your city’s Character and Ethics committee for promoting tolerance with your writing and named to Pasadena Weekly’s list of 14 women of “San Gabriel Valley women who make life happen.” Carolyn, what’s your secret? How do you “make life happen”?
CAROLYN: I’m not sure, actually. Not individually. But generally, you follow your star. When you are enthusiastic and deliberate about what you do, the rest follows.
Aggie: You have written many fiction and nonfiction books, including poetry. What prompted you to write your Do It Frugally series, particularly The Frugal Book Promoter, which already hit the Amazon top ten list?
CAROLYN: I just couldn’t bear watching the new author friends I was making fall into the same deep, dark, black potholes I had fallen into--out of ignorance about the publishing world. So many of us are still operating on the old model and the new model(s) are just so, well, new! And infinite!
Aggie: Your books are acclaimed for being easy to read and easy to follow. Do you have any advice on how to make our writings as digestible?
CAROLYN: Write like you talk. Then edit like crazy. Because something is nonfiction, it shouldn’t have to sound like a business letter. In fact, a business letter needn’t sound like a business letter.
Aggie: Your tagline for The Frugal Book Promoter, How to do What Your Publisher Won’t, is very telling. What is it about doing our own book marketing that prompted that subtitle?
CAROLYN: My novel This Is the Place--my first book--was published by what some would consider a traditional press, meaning that they gave me an advance and royalties. But they didn’t give me any kind of a marketing budget. I had no idea! Now, lots of publishers are coming around and adding small marketing perks, but it’s also true that the big guys are offering their midlist authors less and less. It’s all about that ugly (but essential) bottom line. Authors who can’t afford to pay to have their marketing done had better learn to do it themselves. Even the ones who go get a marketing budget or hire a great publicist will do better if they have some marketing skills.
Aggie: Your book, Put Your Best Book Forward to Avoid Humiliation and Ensure Success, won a nod from USA Book News and won “Reader Views Literary Award”. It was your marketing campaign for that book that won the marketing award from Next Generation Indie Book Awards. Tell us about that marketing campaign and why it was so successful.
CAROLYN: Well for one thing, that campaign was built on the backs of networking that had gone before. That is one of the big secrets to great marketing. You keep at it. You keep records (and lists!--which I also cover in The Frugal Book Promoter) and you know--in your gut you know--that even when you’re not seeing results, the work will pay off.
Aggie: I’ve just self-published a book. How can I make people take it as seriously as the traditionally published book?
CAROLYN: You can’t. You work around the ones with closed minds.
Aggie: Wow. That’s straightforward. I like that. Why answer with such conviction?
CAROLYN: I guess that goes back to my studies in psychology. We have control over changes in ourselves, but almost never over others. Usually we can only lead by example. Our efforts are much better spent working with people who are receptive to our ideas and even more successful when we work at changing ourselves.
Aggie: One of your chapters covers the use of e-books for promotion. I know we use e-books as another form of publishing our books, but what do you mean by using them as promotional tool for our published books?
CAROLYN: In The Frugal Book Promoter is a chapter on how I cross-promoted with other authors from twenty-six countries on an e-cookbook and gave it away free. I will soon have an e-booklet with additional editing tips that I couldn’t cover entirely in The Frugal Editor. In fact, there may eventually be several of those. Some people, like James Patterson, put up a free book on Kindle to entice new readers to read their new books--and pay for them.
Aggie: Could you explain a little about how to build our own media kit? I found this section invaluable.
CAROLYN: I fear one really needs to know this subject inside and out to build a great kit. That’s why I dedicated so much space to the subject in The Frugal Book Promoter. Know, though, that the job of a media kit is to make it very, very, very easy for an editor or agent or publisher to do their jobs. And to use you to help them do it. Your readers can download some samples kits from my media room at http://www.carolynhowardjohnson.redenginepress.com/media_room1.htm Do note, however, that not every item in it gets sent to everyone I send a kit to.