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BookPromo Guerrilla Style Ezine "The Ezine for Successful Book Promotions" Past Issues Archives: http://archives.zinester.com/11698 Year 2 Issue 12 January 24, 2008 http://guerrilla.clarylopez.com *************************************************** On this issue: *************************************************** 1- From My Desk 2- Book Trailers - You Can Do It Yourself 3- Useful Resources 4- Gathering Testimonials & Forewords for Your Book 5- How Do You Write To Produce A Bestseller? 6- Letters to the Editor 7- Article Submission *************************************************** From My Desk *************************************************** Welcome to a new edition of BookPromo. By the time you get this issue I will be home in Puerto Rico. I will be spending a month there with my parents and then assist to my brother’s wedding on February 23. I don’t have an internet connection there so I will do my best to keep the ezine going while I’m there by going to my brother’s home from time to time to check my emails and gather the information you are used to receive every two weeks. On this issue I included articles about book trailers, gathering testimonials and how to write to produce a bestseller. Enjoy your new issue, I would love to include some of your experiences as you put all this information to work for you. Helping, informing and empowering authors. Clary Lopez Editor-in-Chief BookPromo Guerrilla Style Ezine Guerrilla Marketers' Caf? http://guerrilla.clarylopez.com Blog http://guerrilla.clarylopez.com/blog/ You can contact us at: editor@clarylopez.com Subject: eZine *************************************************** Book Trailers - You Can Do It Yourself *************************************************** By [http://ezinearticles.com/?expert=Linda_E._Austin]Linda E. Austin Book trailers are one of the newest promotional tools on the book marketing scene. Like a movie trailer or TV commercial, it provides an audiovisual bite to entice an audience to your product. Once made, your booktrailer can be loaded onto YouTube, MySpace or onto your own website. Put a link to it in your blog and in your email signature. Dorothy Thompson, author and book marketing expert, says, "One thing we all must keep in mind when marketing our books is that visual sells." To create a good book trailer, keep the trailer short (one to two minutes), somewhat dramatic, and just hint at the characters and plot so that viewers will be intrigued enough to visit your website, which will hopefully create a sale for you. Unlike with movie trailers, book readers may prefer not to be shown clear photos of a novel's characters, particularly faces, as they may enjoy envisioning the characters themselves through the written words. Other readers don't seem to mind. Some readers like to hear or see a few snippets of the actual text, although it may be difficult to find a short bit of text that is meaningful on its own; in any case, the book trailer should lead viewers to your website and the excerpts there (you DO have excerpts, don't you?). It may take a little more creativity to make an exciting book trailer for a nonfiction book; the key will be to tell the viewer why he needs the book and what makes it special without getting too detailed. With any type of book, all photos should relate to the book and should generally play for at least five seconds, long enough to register with viewers and to allow the narrator time to speak through it. All book trailers need audio to help capture the spirit of the book. You may add music or narration, preferably both. Narration requires a calm, firm voice in an appropriate tone for the book, and it requires good timing-almost an acting skill. Many book trailers rely only on text that appears across the photos or video clips to narrate the video, but voice narration can be more powerful. You may do the narration yourself or enlist the help of a friend with a good reading voice. Use a script. Whether using text or voice narration, have music playing in the background. Remember, a book trailer is a commercial endeavor and you must generally pay royalties for music used unless you have created it yourself. Search online for sites offering royalty free music or music in the public domain. Likewise, search for free stock images or royalty-free photos, or get written permission from photographers. MS Windows comes with a free, easy-to-use program called Windows Movie Maker. Search for it in your Programs list. Movie Maker has a nice Help function to assist you in learning the ropes. By importing still photos (at low resolution for web viewing), mp3 audio files, or video loaded from your own digital video cam, all using simple click and drag, you can create your own movie clip. Using Movie Maker's tools, you can choose from various transitions between photos and from different effects-just don't overwhelm your audience using all the effects you can. You may add text and narration, titles and credits. Be sure to include a photo of the cover of your book near the beginning and the end of your video. Hiring a company to create a trailer for you is expensive, but generally gets you a professional-looking product. You must decide if it is worth the price. By viewing other trailers and taking notes of what you liked and what you didn't, you can create your own trailer with a little research and a little practice on Windows Movie Maker. Don't be surprised if you love the experience. Linda E. Austin is the author of "Cherry Blossoms in Twilight: Memories of a Japanese Girl" http://www.moonbridgebooks.com Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Linda_E._Austin http://EzineArticles.com/?Book-Trailers---You-Can-Do-It-Yourself&id=832323 *************************************************** Uselful Resources *************************************************** Bookhomestead.com – Book Lovers Community. Have your book reviewed by readers http://bookhomestead.com Resources for Writers at Guerrilla Marketer’s Caf? http://guerrilla.clarylopez.com/tactics.html Odeo.com - Add Audio to your Website CreateSpace – Create and Sell Books, Music and Video http://www.createspace.com/Index.jsp Lulu.com – Self-Publish your book, ebook, CD, Video, Picture Book, Calendar and more the easy way http://www.lulu.com Picasa – Great photo sharing site to integrate in sites and blogs. http://picasa.google.com/ ************************************************** Gathering Testimonials & Forewords for Your Book ************************************************** By [http://ezinearticles.com/?expert=Dan_Poynter]Dan Poynter More than 800 titles are published each day. There is no way anyone can know and rank them. That is why the book industry relies so heavily on blurbs. A blurb is a short sales pitch or review of a book usually printed on the jacket or in an advertisement. The word was coined by Gelett Burgess, a Boston-born humorist and author [1866-1951). Testimonials, endorsements and quotations or "blurbs" sell books because word-of-mouth is one of the most powerful forces in marketing. Anything you say about your book is self-serving but words from another person are not. In fact, when readers see the quotation marks, it shifts their attitude and they become more receptive. Harvey Mackay placed 44 testimonials in the frontmatter of Swim with the Sharks; he had endorsements from everyone from Billy Graham to Robert Redford. Did these luminaries buy a book and write unsolicited testimonials? Of course not. Mackay asked for the words of praise. Your mission is to get the highest-placed, most influential opinion-molders in your field talking about your book. You have more control than you think over whom you quote, what they say and how you use their words. The easiest and most logical time to gather blurbs is following peer review of the manuscript. Testimonials are not difficult to get if you follow this two-step process. Most testimonials are superficial, teach the reader nothing and lack credibility. -Ron Richards, President, Venture Network. Step #1. Send parts of your book out for peer review. Smart nonfiction authors take each chapter of their nearly complete manuscript and send it off to at least four experts on that chapter's subject. Step #2. Approach your peer reviewers for a testimonial. Now the target is softened up. You are not surprising them by asking for a blurb for a book they haven't even seen. In fact, since you matched the chapter to their individual interest, they have already bought into the project and become familiar with your work. Now, draft the (suggested) testimonial yourself. In order to get what you need and in order to control the blurb, draft a suggested testimonial. Then include a cover letter like this: I know you are a busy person. Considering your position and the direction this book takes, I need a testimonial something like this: Drafting a testimonial is a creative act; it takes time and careful thought. Editing is easier than creating. Your endorser does not even know how long the blurb should be. So, provide help. Some 80% will just sign off on your words, 10% will add some superlatives and 5% will get the idea and come up with something much better. Forewords are approached in the same manner as endorsements. What you get back from the writer is just longer. Gather testimonials by putting words in their mouths. Dan Poynter, the Voice of Self-Publishing, has written more than 100 books since 1969 including Writing Nonfiction and The Self-Publishing Manual. Dan is a past vice-president of the Publishers Marketing Association. For more help on book publishing and promoting, get the free Information kit at http://parapublishing.com/sites/para/resources/infokit.cfm http://www.mackay.com Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Dan_Poynter http://EzineArticles.com/?Gathering-Testimonials-and-Forewords-for-Your-Book&id=846325 ************************************************** Visit our Blogs: Guerrilla Insight for Authors http://guerrilla.clarylopez.com/blog The Book's Den http://booksden.wordpress.com ***************************************************** How Do You Write To Produce A Bestseller? ****************************************************** By [http://ezinearticles.com/?expert=Adam_Khoo]Adam Khoo A lot of people think that for them to write a best selling book, they must be an excellent writer. That you must use flowery and complicated language, a level or standard equivalent to that of a degree or PHD holder. Let me use the following example of a friend of mine. His name is Stuart. One of the starting points in his writing was in the academic field. He was particularly good at writing his honours thesis and all that kind of stuff. Thus he did pretty well in the technical sense. But when it came to writing a book, every time he re-read his book, he got bored with his own writing. It was quite unsettling because on the one hand, he knew that he had information but on the other hand, he didn't know how to deliver it. So what he did was take a step back and started to investigate the field of copywriting. And copywriting has got really powerful ways in which you intensify emotions in an audience. He learnt about intensifiers; these are words that bring out the emotional states you are in by using the right words. What kind of words evoke emotions? For example the word "money" is a little bit more primitive and therefore attracts more attention than the word "wealth". "Wealth" tends to appeal to, slightly more sophisticated viewers and readers and so on. For example, comparing the two titles, "How To Make Money", and "How To Create Massive Wealth In 32 days". Which title sounds more captivating? The answer is the second title, because there's a lot more emotions as the title contains more visual words. For a book, words form 100% of your communication and the right words you use in your book can have a tremendous impact. You always find that the best kind of writing is not only simple but one that's very conversational. It is a way of writing that; as you write, you are also speaking to that person. The method in which you describe in quotations, that's the tone of voice in which you use it. So there are ways to add enthusiasm and tonality by using exclamation marks, question marks. All of those things are important but most people have ignored them. So what is important is that the writing has got to move the audience's hearts. Your writing has just got to be simple, that's because, the man on the street is a simple person. The trouble is that most people attempt to write in a way that is too complicated and contains too much technical jargon; most people are not going to understand, and when they do not understand they are not going to continue reading your book. So remember, your bestselling book is best when it is simple! Description A lot of people think that for them to write a best selling book, they must be an excellent writer. That you must use flowery and complicated language, a level or standard equivalent to that of a degree or PHD holder. Adam Khoo is an entrepreneur, best-selling author and a self-made millionaire by the age of 26. Discover his million dollar secrets and claim your FREE bonus CD '6 Ways To Achieve Anything In Life' at [http://www.PavingTheWayToTheTop.com]Paving The Way To The Top. Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Adam_Khoo http://EzineArticles.com/?How-Do-You-Write-To-Produce-A-Bestseller?&id=878780 *************************************************** Letters to the Editor *************************************************** Write to us about what you would like to read about, so send us your comments and suggestions to be included on this section. editor@clarylopez.com Subject: Letter to the Editor Do you have an idea for a topic on this eZine? Send it to editor@clarylopez.com Subject: Ezine idea *************************************************** Articles Submission *************************************************** If you would like to write an article for this Ezine please send your request to: editor@clarylopez.com Subject: Article Submission *************************************************** BookPromo Guerrilla Style Ezine Copyright 2006 -2008 Clary Lopez All Rights Reserved Worldwide. Clary Lopez will not be held liable for any direct or indirect losses or damages originating from the use of any information listed on our website, newsletters or eZine. By using this site and ezine you agree to indemnify and hold all owners and representatives parties of Clary Lopez/Guerrilla Marketers' Cafe harmless from any claim or demand originating out of your use of Clary Lopez/Guerrilla Marketers' Cafe website and/ newsletters or eZine. Use of our website, Newsletter and eZine is and indication of your complete understanding and acceptance of these Terms of Service. Articles can be reproduced on websites or ezines as long as the article and bylines are included without any alterations. No part of the website can't be reproduced in any form or by electronic or mechanical means including information storage or retrieval systems without the written permission from the publisher/owner. |
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