The holidays are a busy time around Outskirts Press, so this posting will be short and sweet just to wish everyone a wonderful holiday season, a fantastic New Year celebration, and a banner 2019 for self-published, self-publishing, and soon-to-be-published authors everywhere and in recognition of this wonderful industry we all share, I have provided an example of a run-on sentence. See you next year!
Category: Brent Sampson
Every year Outskirts Press donates a percentage of its revenue to good causes and charities, typically revolving around literacy. One of our strongest and long-lasting alliances has been with the Colorado Humanities, and specifically the Colorado Book Awards. For the last few years I have been the presenter or co-presenter for the awards banquet that used to take place annually in Aspen until it moved to Parker, Colorado (home of Outskirts Press) a couple years ago. I believe there may even still be some videos of the previous awards ceremonies on the Colorado Humanities website.
Now the 2018 Colorado Book Award Finalists have been announced. Finalists will read select passages from their works at BookBar in Denver throughout April and May. You can see a full list of the finalists here. Congratulations to them all!
We launch one or two new options for our current and future clients about once a quarter. Some are more exciting than others. Our new upcoming option falls into the “very exciting” category! This quarter we’re launching our new Audio Book option, which has topped several surveys sent to our client-authors as the most requested service they wish we offered.
As I’ve often said in the past, I’m the “guinea pig” for many of our services, to make sure they provide the necessary value for our authors. The Audio Book option is no exception. Allow me to be the first to introduce the new Sell Your Book on Amazon Audio Book, available soon through headphones near you.
You heard it here first!
Okay, I’m not completely immune to Internet fads and trends. Check out our annual themed Christmas Party #mannequinchallenge (which explains the pajamas).
Happy holidays, one and all. Enjoy…
I’ve been quite busy over the past couple months, appearing at the CIPA EVVY Awards, the Colorado Book Festival, the Mountain & Plains Show, and most recently (this past week) at the Author University in Los Angeles. A premier event for marketing & publishing success (it even says so on its banner!), this bi-annual publishing seminar and trade show educates published and soon-to-be-published authors on publishing, marketing, and publicity options all designed to help writers make great decisions and become more successful.
There were two common themes at this year’s event: Change, and author-dependent marketing.
Change: All the speakers, panelists, and exhibitors agreed that the publishing industry continues to undergo radical changes, and we all recognize the challenges such changes present both service-providers and their clients (authors). While the publishing traditionalists continued to stress the importance of agent-representation and traditional publishing, they were far out-numbered by modern approaches to publishing, marketing, and publicity (as evidenced by the many presenters who focused largely on marketing platforms such as Facebook, Amazon, and YouTube).
Author-Dependent Marketing: In spite of these recognized changes, what we all agreed was not changing was the necessity of an author’s participation when it comes to marketing a book. If anything, this is becoming even more important, as even the traditionalists admitted that without a strong author platform, securing traditional publication (and selling books after-the-fact) is next to impossible.
As such, the publishers that excelled in helping authors market their books after publication were the ones that created the most excitement for all the authors in attendance.
Speaking of which, in follow-up to my last posting, two new Marketing Guides have been added to the Outskirts Press Publishing Center for our published authors in your Book Marketing Bookshelf.
- The Top 7 Marketing Elements to Include in Your Book – If your book contains one (or more) of these seven common elements, you already have a distinct advantage. Read this white-paper in your Publishing Center to discover what they are and plan accordingly to include as many as you can with your next book.
- The Book Marketing Guide – The definitive book marketing bullet list that takes the complex exercise of book marketing and simplifies it.
And, of course, as always it was great meeting all our current and future authors in person, including John, Greg, Gina, Francine, Dominic, Ken, Rick, Rita, Roger, and others.
Here’s to your great success!
Outskirts Press is a long-time supporter of Colorado Humanities and long-time sponsor of the Colorado Center for the Book Awards. I was a co-presenter at the 25th Anniversary Awards, encapsulated in this short video.
Outskirts Press has been a long-time sponsor and supporter of the Colorado Book Awards. Find out why in this short video, shot during the opening moments of the recent Awards Ceremony in Parker, Colorado (headquarters of Outskirts Press):
Just arrived at the Pace Center to present the awards…
Presenting the Lifetime Achievement Award to Kent Haruf’s wife (2nd from the right), along with co-presenter Charlie Bantis and Maggie Coval.
This coming Saturday The Colorado Book Awards are taking place in picturesque Parker, Colorado, on the outskirts of Denver. See the details in my previous post.
Speaking of awards, The Colorado Independent Publishers Association has selected their finalists for the upcoming EVVY Awards this summer. As usual, Outskirts Press led the pack among all participating publishers with 50 finalists. See all the Outskirts Press finalists in this blog posting on the Self Publishing News blog. Congratulations to all our talented awards finalists!
Becoming an EVVY Finalist is one of the steps toward securing the Outskirts Press BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR Award. In a post I wrote a number of years ago, I detailed how the Outskirts Press EVVY Nominees are determined. I also wrote about how the EVVY Awards are judged.
You can read all my posts relevant to the EVVY Awards by following hashtag #EVVY.
But first thing’s first: Honoring the Colorado Book Award finalists this Saturday night at the Pace Center. Good luck!
In 2007 I wrote a little book titled Sell Your Book on Amazon, which immediately climbed to #29 on the overall Amazon bestseller list, and won multiple awards, including the BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR award from the Royal Palms Literary Awards. (It also won First Place in that contest’s Educational/Informational category).
The problem with writing about a topic like Amazon is that their website changes so quickly and frequently. So, by 2010, a revision to the book was necessary, and the second edition was published that year.
Now, the “newly revised for 2016” paperback edition of Sell Your Book on Amazon is available at both Amazon and Barnes & Noble.
Say good-bye to forgotten features on Amazon like “So You’d Like to… Guides”, “Amapedia”, and “Listmania.”
Say hello to new opportunities like Amazon Giveaways, Author Central, and Kindle Unlimited (which is more of an obstacle than a benefit … unless you handle it properly — and this book tells you how!).
I hope you enjoy this new edition. Please let me know what you think by writing a review.
My new book has been published and is available in its unabridged paperback edition from Amazon and Barnes & Noble for $14.95, or from Outskirts Press for a 10% discount ($13.46). The abridged Kindle edition is also available from Amazon for $2.99.
A book marketing primer ten years in the making.
From the award-winning author of the Amazon best seller, Sell Your Book on Amazon, comes a book marketing primer ten years in the making. As the president and CEO of Outskirts Press, publishing and marketing coach Brent Sampson has seen first-hand what leads to successful self-published books and self-publishing writers.
Companies like Outskirts Press make publishing a book easier than ever. But then what? It is the marketing, promotion, and publicity efforts that separate the runaway successes from the rest. Authors who self-publish may have a general sense of which marketing efforts to pursue, but rarely understand the specifics well enough to approach their book marketing efforts with an effective strategy. Until now.
For the very first time, The Book Marketing COACH collects the best of the free marketing advice shared with Outskirts Press authors over the past decade and makes it available to everyone, no matter where you published.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction
7 tactics of successfully published authors
Understanding “the long tail”
Book reviews: What, where, when, why, how?
9 steps to a getting a book review
Putting together a “Pitch Packet”
How to write a good cover letter
What is a sales sheet?
9 tips for a top-notch press release
Guaranteed book reviews
It’s time to get quoted!
5 Do’s and Don’ts for pitching radio
7 tips to land a radio interview
6 tips to interview successfully on the radio
6 national advertising opportunities
Top 4 book fairs
Finding public libraries to market your book
Locating Barnes & Noble bookstores
Updating your Barnes & Noble listing
Locating independent bookstores
Locating every bookstore
Using mailing lists for book marketing
9 steps to scheduling a book signing
Stocking your book at Powell’s
How to get stocked in independent bookstores
“Bookstores are a lousy place to sell books.”
Understanding Amazon Marketplace
Getting to know your Amazon listing
Understanding your Amazon “Best Sellers Rank”
Amazon’s review guidelines
Writing Amazon book reviews
Getting Amazon book reviews
Amazon’s top reviewers
Creating activity around Amazon reviews
How to “Share” your book on Amazon
Become a social butterfly
How to market your book on YouTube
How to make a book video trailer
Is a virtual book tour right for you?
How to submit your author webpage to search engines
Advance your online search efforts
Is your book on Google Books?
Have you heard of Goodreads?
Are you on Shelfari?
What is a webring?
List your book on book review websites
Get your message heard
Creating a podcast for your book
How to participate in author podcast interviews
How to establish your expertise as an author
How to write articles to promote your book
Promoting your book through ezines
Marketing through newspapers and magazines
How niche magazines can help you
Have you published an award-winning book?
Mom knows best
Is your book personal and uplifting?
Maximize your profits with multiple formats
Help other writers get published
Appendix
What is “vertical marketing?”
The C-Suite vertical
Engineer vertical
Food service vertical
Hospitality vertical
Human resources vertical
Insurance vertical
Information technology vertical
Attorney vertical
Pharmaceutical vertical
Small business vertical
President of Outskirts Press 