I’m very pleased to welcome guest blogger Eugenia Lovett West. Eugenia has written two enthralling mysteries. The latest, Overkill, came out in December ‘09. I don’t know many people of any age who have accomplished what Eugenia has––so let’s hear what she has to say.

Eugenia Lovett West

Hi, Sandy. Thanks so much for asking me to blog about starting a career late in life. I hope my story will encourage writers of any age.

After a publishing gap of nearly thirty years, I decided to have a go at the mystery genre. When the rejection slips made too big a pile, I switched gears and self-published the manuscript as a Christmas present for family and friends. The praise was so heartwarming that I entered it in the St. Martin’s Press Malice Domestic contest for first mysteries. Months went by. Out of sight, out of mind.

Then one beautiful morning in June 2006, I sat down at my desk and turned on the computer. There, leaping from the monitor, was an email from the renowned St. Martin’s editor, Ruth Cavin. The book was too international for the contest, but she liked it and offered me a contract for two books.

Believe me, I levitated. For a wannabe published writer with nose pressed against the glass, it doesn’t get better than that. Without Warning was published by St. Martin Press Minotaur in 2007, but I wasn’t about to advertise my age for fear of losing younger readers.

Overkill, the second in the Emma Streat series, came out in December 2009. At this point it felt comfortable to come out of the age closet and admit to being 86. (Note: my editor Ruth Cavin is even older.)

When did I start to write? There was always a fascination with words, no doubt inherited from a long line of preachers and teachers. I had two undistinguished years of study at Sarah Lawrence College, and then a short career at Harper’s Bazaar and the American Red Cross. In 1944 I married a dashing fighter pilot flying out of England with the 8th Air Force. (We had been married 60 years the day he died.) Then came four children and volunteer work.

At last the youngest child was at school all day and there was time to try putting words to paper. Feeling important, I rushed around being a roving reporter for local papers in New Jersey. Journalism was great training and great fun, but suddenly churning out three hundred words wasn’t enough. Why not three hundred pages?

The first book was a disaster. Trash. I tried again, using a sugar plantation in Jamaica WI as a setting. The Ancestors Cry out, an historical suspense, was published by Doubleday and Ballantine.

Why did I start over with mysteries? Partly because they are my favorite escape reads. We know that good will always trump evil. We feel the power of the great absolutes––death, retribution, and punishment. Often there is a nice balance of plot, background, and characters, all moving along at a fast pace, teasing the mind. But, I soon learned that there’s a vast difference between reading and writing mysteries. This is a genre with strict rules: There must be red herrings, clues dropped at strategic points, and a surprising villain.

Sandy, you ask how my characters evolve. The answer is: with a lot of angst. It was hard to create, out of thin air, the main character in a series––the one who is going to investigate the hair-raising disasters. In multiple revisions, my protagonist was named Molly, Maggie, Tory, and finally Emma. She was age 60, then dropped to a median 47. I’m an opera fan, so Emma was once a rising young diva who lost her voice. Luckily, my life (so far) has not included murders, but I knew about being a hands-on mother. And, as the wife of a CEO, I could draw on travel experience––first class or private jet to places like London and Paris.

By now I have come to love my elegant, gutsy Emma. I feel I know her as well as, even better, than my own daughters and I want readers to care about her. This woman has had to dig deep to find strengths to survive, bring criminals to justice, and work thought complicated love interests. Like Emma, we are all, I think, reaching for ways to live out daily lives with strength and courage.

What are the trade-offs of being an older writer? There are pluses to high mileage. We have been around, observed people, gained insight. After endless hours of applying the seat of the pants to the seat of the chair, a style evolves. It’s easier to sense what is wrong about a phrase or a character. He/she would never have done that. Eyes never fall to the floor. Like cooking a stew, we throw in all these experiences, stir well, and  hope it’s a winner.

The downside? Even with good health, maintenance of the aging chassis cuts down on valuable writing time. There’s a sense that every day must count. I wish I had experimented with different genres in my twenties. And––I have to keep reminding myself that Emma is of a different generation. To keep current with trends, I rely on daughters and nieces.

As for future plans, children, grandchildren, and extended family take priority, but there are two ongoing projects. One is to put the final touches on an historical suspense novel. This is set in the American Revolution, and focuses on intelligence operations, spies, and threats on George Washington’s life.

The second project is, of course, the third Emma Streat mystery. Right now, new pictures are running through my head like a film, but my goal remains the same: Story is key and it must move fast. I want to catapult readers into a world of strong people working out their problems, a global thread, and high-end settings. Escape is important. I love hearing that my books helped someone through a bad time.

It’s true, I think, that age and creativity can exist happily together, but for the older writer, creativity is a real blessing. It’s great to wake up in the morning with work to do––and it can be accomplished just sitting at a computer.

OVERKILL by Eugenia Lovett West

Eugenia Lovett West’s website.

You can buy OVERKILL, An Emma Streat Mystery, and WITHOUT WARNING on Amazon and at bookstores everywhere.

I wrote this series on book selling in the Great Recession because I wanted to give my readers some concepts to help tame the beast. More than just concepts, wanted to give examples of people who are selling like crazy despite the recession. For those who haven’t read the previous articles, I am an economist with two academic degrees in the field and years of professional experience. Economics rules!

Dennis Batchelder, award winning author

The first of my guest bloggers is Dennis Batchelder. I first became aware of Dennis when someone steered me to an incredibly popular marketing forum in Amazon’s Thriller Community.

Dennis started and moderates the Shameless Self Promotion by Authors (3) forum, a discussion group which facilitates authors’ and independent publishers’ sales and promotion efforts. The success of this forum might be considered an indication of Dennis’ ability to bring people together and provide a platform for information sharing.

Amazon allows discussion forums to have 10,000 posts before closing them and requiring them to begin again. The Shameless Self Promotion forum is now on its third incarnation, with a total of 22,635 posts by hundreds of authors and writers. It’s one of the places I hang out on line, with the best marketing advice I’ve found anywhere––for free. I recommend it highly.

What does Dennis Batchelder have to say about selling in the recession? I asked him to outline his marketing ideas. Dennis replied:

“I’m convinced the mix of the current financial difficulty and the growing popularity of eBook readers has handed independent authors a great opportunity to be discovered by large numbers of new readers. We aren’t shackled to fixed costs, high royalties, inefficient supply chains, and expensive publicity like larger publishers are. We have the freedom to set our prices at ‘no-brainer’ levels: where readers don’t even have to think before one-clicking into a purchase.”

If I may interject, what Dennis is doing makes perfect sense to an economist. In an earlier post, I set out the equation for profit: Profit = Total Revenue - Total Cost  A producer tries to increase revenues and decrease costs all the time, but in a recession, it’s crucial.

The decreasing cost part of the equation involves using all available technology to get the product out better and cheaper––rolling with the punches and producing smart.

In the above statement, Dennis shows us how he takes advantage of the recession and his position as the proprietor of an independent press. He skillfully keeps total costs down and utilizes new technology––eBook readers––to capture sales that mainstream publishers miss. Note that he uses price to attract demand. His overall strategy is optimizing within the opportunities presented. This is economics.

Dennis has two books in print. Here is his pricing and business strategy:

“I sell the eBook version of Soul Identity for one penny on Amazon, and I give it away at smashwords.com. This yields me more than fifty sales a day, and it keeps my book listed as Amazon’s number one technothriller. I sell its sequel, Soul Intent, for 99 cents, and that sells between 10-15 a day.

“My goal is to become known by a large audience, and so far it’s working: I’ve sold 16,000 copies of Soul Identity since April, and 1,200 copies of Soul Intent since its release in September.

“I hope to have a hundred thousand readers by the time my third book in my Soul Identity series is published. In the meantime, long live the recession!”

You may not realize how huge selling 16,000 books is. Authors and independent publishers know that selling 16,000 books in seven months is a prodigious feat, not to mention an additional 1,200 copies of a new release.

Dennis’ pricing strategy deserves a couple of comments from an economist’s point of view. Notice that he has set his eBook prices very low: zero and 99 cents. He’s essentially giving the books away.

Does this mean he’s operating outside the standard economic profit motive? Yes and no. The cost of an eBook is in the set up. A computer professional can do it for nothing. Dennis doesn’t need to recoup many fixed costs and can price his book wherever he wants. In economics, the smart producer keeps selling his product until the revenue from the last unit sold (marginal revenue) equals its cost of production (marginal cost). That’s exactly what Dennis has done and perfect economics.

A note about price elasticity. I know you’re thrilled to discover all these economic terms, but I’ve heard the question asked in different ways a dozen times on the Shameless Self Promotion by Authors (3) thread. The question is, “How do I price my eBook? If I raise the price, will I cut sales?”

Price elasticity describes the response of sales to a change in price.

If you lower a book’s price by 10%, does the quantity sold increase by 10%? More than 10%? Less? The book is price elastic if a drop in price produces an increase in sales. An item is price inelastic if a drop in price produces no change in sales.

My experience selling my books as eBooks confirms Dennis’: eBook sales are highly price elastic. Drop the price, and sales will increase. Strategically, it makes sense to drop the price to the extent of giving them away. (I haven’t been courageous enough to do this, but Dennis’ experience tells the tale.)

The question then is: How to keep sales up and flowing after the price drop? I’ve heard others report, “Well, I dropped my price; sales spiked and then dropped off.” The rest of the marketing ball of wax comes in there: On-line networking, contests, Twittering, personal appearances. Word of mouth. Reviews. There seems to be a magnetism attached to some books that fuels sales, as evidenced by Dennis’s sales. Believe it or not, “selling” a book for nothing doesn’t mean automatic success.

Another point, if an independent publisher isn’t maximizing monetary profits, then what is he or she doing? The independent publishers reading this will know this right away, but for the benefit of newbies, money may not be the first or primary motivation. Independents operate in a world where hundreds of thousands of new books are introduced every year, some by major publishers with major publicity budgets.

In that world, getting noticed is the problem. Making a monetary profit may be a possibility somewhere down the line, but getting readers is is key at the start. With sufficient steady readers, an independent publisher may opt to stay an indie and do fine financially and otherwise. He or she may also find literary agents and traditional publishers coming to call, giving entry into a different marketplace.

The number of readers is the key to this. Dennis Batchelder’s pricing strategy is aimed at that goal.

Would you like to know more about the man who achieved the great sales results and the books he wrote? Here he is:

Dennis says, “I have been writing for ten years, and I’ve spent over twenty years in the computer security industry. I grew up in New England, moved to Maryland, and survived a nineteen month stay in Hyderabad, India. Now I live with my wife, our three youngest sons, and my mother-in-law in Bellevue, Washington.

“My novel Soul Identity is half techno-thriller, half existential journey. It depicts an organization that helps you leave your money and memories to your own future life. Think about a God-less, business-based take on reincarnation–and the consequences this could cause.

“Soul Intent is the sequel, and it explores why people do bad things for good reasons. It’s set both in Germany during the Nuremberg trials and the present day. This is an adventure tale of stealing, hiding, and recovering Nazi Gold.”

Dennis Batchelder can be reached at dennisbatchelder.com

Sandy Nathan

Sandy Nathan

• Award winning author of Numenon & Stepping Off the Edge
• Owner & hostess of Your Shelf Life

Happy holidays, everyone! I’m taking a few weeks off. I do have more guest bloggers lined up for Your Shelf Life. We’ll hear from them in 2010.

Milton Friedman, Nobel Prize Winner and Guru of Conservative Economists

P = TR – TC

The economist’s traditional way of putting this equation is:

pi = TR – TC

What is this? It’s the equation for profit, which is what runs your life if you’re in the book business, and most others. (Economists use the Greek letter pi to indicate profit.)

Profit = Total Revenue – Total Cost.

I’m posting this article before putting up the words of my guest bloggers because my guests are are old hands in the publishing world. They jump in running with their comments. What they say might be a bit confusing if you’re not familiar with the background. I’m setting out a few basic economic formulas to establish a framework for thought.

Total revenue is all the money coming in to your publishing endeavor as a result of your books, eBooks and whatever else you sell. That might include revenue from speaking or seminars, whatever. How you define your business for tax purposes is up to you, your CPA, and your tax attorney. Whatever: TR includes all remuneration from your endeavors however broadly you define them.

From TR, we subtract Total Cost. This means the cost of everything from editing and proofing to stamps on the promotional postcards. Costs of all consultants, printing. Rent, electricity. Everything.

Profit is what’s left over after you subtract total costs from total revenue. That’s “the bottom line.” If the number is negative, you’ve made a loss.

In traditional publishing, where the publisher buys your manuscript and publishes it at his expense, this equation runs the show for a simple reason: In a capitalist society, businesses go bankrupt if they don’t make a profit pretty regularly.

If you’re a self-publisher or run an independent press (an Indie), the bottom line also matters, even if profit isn’t your total focus. How many of us can afford the time and expense to write and see our work in print decently (i.e., edited and properly typeset), when Mom is the only person who buys it? The profit equation applies to all of us.

John Maynard Keynes, Father of Modern Economics

Another equation that applies to the publishing world:

Y = C + I + G

This is the equation for national income––the big picture.

Y, used by economists to mean national income, usually called Gross Domestic Product or Gross National Product. GDP means the value of goods and services produced within the United States (in our case) during the year.

C stands for Consumption: everything we clever little shoppers buy from dinners at fancy restaurants to vintage wine to a whole lot more necessary things like brain surgery and clothes for our kids.

I means Investment, spending on goods and services intended in increase the size or efficiency of our productive capacity over time. So, spending on factories and new ways of making widgets.

G is Government Spending, which operates independently of consumer spending. Many of he functions of government (mosquito eradication, the military, our highway system) are functions benefiting society as a whole and need to be paid for by society as a whole. These are independent of private consumption, as is the cost of paying for our governmental system. (Congress, the Executive Branch, the court system … all that.)

National income equals the total of everything we spend, everything we invest, and all government spending.

What does this have to do with selling books and the Great Recession?

The definition of a recession (or depression) is that National Income is lower than it was. Economists have means of measuring these variables and comparing economic performance over time. (The most recent measurements of economic variables say we’re OUT OF THE RECESSION! Ain’t that great? Don’t you feel it?)

Since, by definition, Income is lower in a recession, that means that at least some of the other variables, C + I + G, are down, too. In the current case, off the top of my head, I’d say Investment is stalled and Consumption is depressed. Government spending is strong, which is the whole idea behind the Stimulus Package.

Lord John Maynard Keynes, the father of modern economics, was the first to notice that the government can counteract what’s going on in the private sector. If C and I are faltering, G (government expenditures) can invigorate a sluggish economy.

Thorstein Veblen, Author of The Theory of the Leisure Class (1899). Coined the phrase "conspicuous consumption", which probably explains what fueled the Great Recession. That and crime in high places.

WHAT DOES THIS MEAN FOR BOOK SELLERS?

It means that overall consumer demand is off. (Duh.) Folks have less discretionary income––money they can spend as they want. That means that every friggin’ thing that they buy with that income competes with everything else for limited dollars.

Though we book producers worship books and consider them hallowed, other folks consider them just another form of entertainment. In a recession, books compete with all other forms of amusement––movies, sports events, music, everything.

Consumers rationing scarce dollars will think twice before plunking down $20 for a book (especially from an unknown author) when they could go to the movies or hit Starbucks.

Buyers may be more aware of opportunity cost, the economist’s jargon for, “Every time you make a choice, you lose.” If you’ve spent your $20 on diapers for the baby, that coffee table book fades into the sunset.

The book is the opportunity cost of the diapers. But which do you need more???

HOW TO MANAGE THIS?

Recall the formula for profit: Profit = Total Revenue – Total Cost.

To handle today’s world, the smart book producer and seller can mess with both TR and TC. He or she can work to up Revenue and decrease Costs, or both.

This is what my guest speakers address in their comments, which begin with the next posting.

John Kenneth Galbraith, Keynesian Economist, Presidential Adviser, Prolific Author

A NOTE: I haven’t mentioned CREDIT and CREDIT CARDS in the discussion above, treating disposable income and the other variables as though they were fixed amounts.

In reality, consumers have plastic. For years, we financed our lives using deficit spending, just like the government. We use credit cards instead of printing money.

This is fine, until the credit card’s limit becomes binding or the monthly payments of multiple cards take us such a large portion of our income that we can’t pay the rent. Or something happens. Like the loss of a job or a company going under.

The natural tendency to defer payment to some (much) later time by borrowing on future income does have a limit. Many of us have experienced that limit. Personal bankruptcies have soared along with corporate disasters.

So the equations above do apply, but they’re elastic. A consumer can go a long time before the crunch happens.

Next up are some of our book marketing all stars!

Sandy Nathan Back in the Day When I Was an Economist!

All the best,

Sandy Nathan
award winning author of Numenon &
Stepping Off the Edge

“I didn’t know you were an economist,” one of my friends said when she heard about this series.

Yep. I hold a BA and MA in economics. I was on my way to a PhD at the Graduate School of Business at Stanford when I had an “Ahah!” moment and realized that I couldn’t do the math. I slunk back to doing what I knew how to do––being an economist.

I was the Economic Analyst for Santa Clara County (the heart of Silicon Valley), among other positions. My first publications were in economics, including some written in a joint study of the Santa Clara County Planning Department and the RAND Corporation.

Even though I’m an author and proprietor of a small press today, the current situation keeps shoving concepts from economics in my face. I felt compelled to write down a few insights, throwing in ideas from business theory and psychology. (I also have an MA in Marriage, Family, and Child Counseling. I’m not bragging as I mention the alphabet soup behind my name: I’m from Silicon Valley, where multiple degrees are as common as downsizing and excess is barely enough.)

What do I see for booksellers and everyone else?

1. WE’RE IN THE GREAT RECESSION. IT DOESN’T SEEM TO BE GETTING ANY BETTER.

Well, duh. A real economic analysis would back up this assertion with studies and statistics. But we don’t really need that. We all know that we’re in a bad way. If we don’t feel it in our personal lives, we can go to out local mall and look at all the empty retail space.

Is that space ever going to be filled? Beats me. In the old days, economists thought that unemployment and under-utilization of productive capacity were short-term phenomena. Everything would be cool in the long run.

John Maynard Keynes

John Maynard Keynes, the father of modern economics, exploded this myth by observing, “In the long run, gentlemen, we are all dead.”

Lord Keynes explained that the economy was like an elevator. Previous generations of theorists thought the economy would automatically rise to the top floor and stay there, at a natural equilibrium and full employment.

Keynes said, “Not so; the economy can get be stuck below the top and at less than full employment for a long time–-forever, maybe.” He also came up with the idea of government stimulus: direct government expenditures to get the economy going again.

2. MONEY, PROFITS, AND SMALL PRESSES

How does this affect book sales? The way you’d expect. This series of articles was motivated by a friend lamenting his recent lousy book sales and by other friends asking, “How are you doing? What are you doing? Help!”

In the discussion below, I focus on the financial aspect of publication: Books and book sales as moneymakers. The situation has changed greatly over the years. I recall a publisher friend remarking, “Back in the 70s, you could make money publishing books.” Now the book market has thousands of small presses with more being formed every day. Hundreds of thousands of new books are released every year. Major publishers are cutting back. Except for the mega best sellers, making a profit as a publisher or author is hard.

So that this discussion doesn’t become a downer, I’m going to share a few thoughts, and then open up the series to the red-hot marketers in the next installment. We’ll hear from people who are selling books, making money, and attaining their personal goals in this recession.

3. WHAT BUSINESS ARE YOU IN? KNOWING WHAT YOU’RE REALLY SELLING IS A FUNDAMENTAL OF BUSINESS THEORY.

“I’ve never made money with any of my books,” said my most illustrious boss, an internationally known business consultant and professor who has taught at Harvard and Oxford. He’s written classic books about business theory, which were published by the top publishers in the world.

“My books never made any money, but they got me consulting jobs that did.”

This bit of information is probably more valuable than any in this article. As a life success guide, it’s as valuable as the statistic that 90% of small businesses fail within the first five years. Of the 10% that make it, 90% fail in the next five.

People should imbibe my boss’s words before releasing books and memorize the failure rates of small business before starting small presses.

What business are you in? Selling books, or something else? What business should you be in, given your skills and what you write about?

4. ARE YOU IN THE RIGHT PLACE?

An adage in applied psychology is: “If you want something, go to where it is.”

If you want money, you should be where it is. Here I’ll call upon that venerable enlightenment organization, the Bureau of Labor Statistics, to help us. Where does the money live?

The BLS table May 2008 National Occupational Employment and Wage, a distribution of income by occupation, tells us. The table presents “estimates … calculated with data collected from employers in all industry sectors in metropolitan and nonmetropolitan areas in every State and the District of Columbia.” The numbers are based on a sample, but a very good sample. The table links to another table giving percentile rankings and the employment percent relative standard error.

The data shows the high income jobs are exactly where you’d expect them: at the CEO level of management, high level technical and scientific professions, and in the medical field. MDs in various specialties received the highest income, with surgeons showing the greatest mean income of any profession, $206,700.

What about writers and authors? According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates, the writers and authors occupation (a sample of 44,170, about the same number as surgeons) showed a mean annual income of $64,560. (Anybody make that much with their books? This obviously includes all the people writing articles and doing seminars about making money with writing.)

What does this mean? The data show that some writers make a living from their craft. On the other hand, millions of better paying jobs in other fields exist.

If making money is your primary motivation, it will probably be easier to become a brain surgeon or CEO than a financially successful writer in the current market.

5. DO WHAT YOU DO DIFFERENTLY, OR DO SOMETHING ELSE

All of this is to establish that maybe writing for money isn’t the best use of your time. I was going to add an appendix of articles about writing for money, because many people would say the exact opposite. Tons of “make money writing” sites and courses and books exist. Google the topic, you’ll see. You may want to work with those ideas, in addition to what I’m saying. (However, none of the writers heralding the possibility of fortune through scribbling can get around the Bureau of Labor Statistics data presented above.)

Meanwhile, have you considered your writing a springboard to another career, as it was for my professor friend? You might augment your income by adding speaking gigs, leading workshops, consulting, teaching writing skills, self-expression, and the gamut of things related to writing that may prove lucrative. Stretch your creativity beyond “I’m an author.” Or just keep your day job.

This writing/publishing world is a rough place to survive, even without a recession. Consumers are jaded: What used to work doesn’t any more. Emailed offers get ignored, book signings aren’t attended, and contests and reduced prices don’t increase sales. (If I get one more notice of a contest or special event from another excessively smiley person selling books, I’ll scream. And get off their mailing list immediately.)

We need to do things differently.

IN CLOSING

In future articles, I’ll discuss thrilling and very relevant concepts like price elasticity, opportunity cost, and use of influence. I’m turning the next article over to the guest bloggers.

Our first guest blogger is Dennis Batchelder. A computer security expert, Dennis has been writing for ten years. He has sold 16,000 copies of his first novel since April, and 1,200 copies of its sequel since it’s release in September ’09. How has he done it? He’ll explain.

Sandy Nathan

Sandy Nathan is the award winning author of Numenon and Stepping Off the Edge. Her two books have won twelve national awards, including the 2009 Silver Nautilus Award, which recognizes books promoting conscious living.

Operation Desert Swap

Operation Desert Swap provides a way for authors to support our troops with more than bumper stickers. If you are an author and join Operation Desert Swap , you’ll be paired with a soldier. You’ll send him or her a copy of your book. You’ll also agree to write “your” solder at least once a month, send him or her at least one care package during deployment, along with a Christmas card and possibly a birthday card.

The soldier receiving your book agrees to read it and pass it on to others when finished. The book will be passed on and on, and on, as long as it holds together and keeps people interested.

I was moved to join Operation Desert Swap because it provides a hands-on way of supporting our soldiers. I look forward to perhaps providing motivation or an uplifting word to people in the most difficult of circumstances. Could I make a difference to someone whose life is on the line to defend me and our civilization?

That’s what I’m going to try to do.

I also wanted people in the military to read my book. It’s about warriors––warriors in the corporate and personal world. Courage is required for daily living. I hope the book makes a difference, too.

If you’re interested in Operation Desert Swap, click away. Links take you to their web site. Here’s info about what’s required. You must become a member of ODS to participate, which means signing up for their site.

If this program intrigues you the way it does me, I urge you to join. All books will be mailed on the same date: October 23, 2009. ODS is getting organized to pair authors and soldiers, so I urge you to act quickly and join the effort.

The site has author forums and ways for us scribblers to communicate––you’ll get to meet some interesting and committed people like yourself.

Hoping to “meet” you with Operation Desert Swap!

Award Winning Author of Numenon & Stepping Off the Edge

All the best,

Sandy Nathan

Cookies make a difference. These are French macaroons, or Luxembourgers, made by Burdick Chocolates of Northhampton, MA. Photo courtesy of Burdick Chocolates.

I recently posted an article by super publicist Susan Schwartzman about working with a publicist and the importance of sending cookies once in a while.

This seems like a small thing––maybe even a bribe––but it’s not. What Ms. Schwartzman introduces is the very large topic of use of influence. Use of influence means what authors can do to maximize their impact in an intensely competitive world. Ms. Schwartzman’s message applies not only to publicists, but to everyone the author touches in a publishing endeavor.

The author’s problem is BEING NOTICED. Whether self published or published by the majors, an author needs to get the attention of  his or her literary agent, book shepherd, cover and interior designers, publisher, publicist, editor, and especially intended readers.

Can you do it? Don’t think the quality of your book alone will catapult you to the front lines––you need negotiation skills here. You need communication skills and more.

Do you know how to listen to another person and deeply understand that person’s point of view? Can you send messages about your wants and needs that don’t feel like threats? Can you formulate a solution to the problem that benefits all participants?

If you can’t do these things, take a communication skills course. Add a negotiation skills course on top of that. You don’t have to spend a fortune doing it––most community rec departments offer them. Local junior colleges and high school adult ed departments give such courses. Learn personal skills, in addition to “How to write a perfect query letter.”

I once led a T-group at Stanford’s Graduate School of Business. A T-group is like a therapy group, except it focuses on personal skills as they impact business situations. Studies have shown that students who do well in T-groups at the major business schools excel in their professional and personal lives. These are the movers and shakers: They make the most money and win life’s prizes.

The professor in charge made a devastating comment: “If you can’t motivate this group, how do you expect to attain your life goals?”

If you can’t move those closest to you, how to you expect to end up the CEO of a major corporation? Or save lives in Africa? Or get anyone to read your book, much less buy it?”

How can you motivate others? With cookies.

Of course, your publicist will work hard for you without them, but how do you make sure your job is the one that gets done at the end of the day?

Good manners is part of it. Assertive good manners. [Take an assertiveness training, too.] I’ll go over assertive techniques in later posts. Be kind and understand the point of view of the person you’re dealing with. That’s why I liked Susan Schwartzman’s article so much: Though she’s a top publicist, she reveals herself as a person in her blog post.

[Nathan Bransford is a blog writer who gives his audience a clear view of what a literary agent's life is like. This is very useful information for one attempting to be represented by an agent. Mr. Bransford talks about the joys of coming to work on Monday and finding 400 queries in his in-box. How do you approach someone in this situation? This is an opportunity to practice communication and negotiation skills.]

Life as a publishing industry professional is rough. How does one keep going?

Raj looks cute, doesn't he? Hah! This 30 pound dog flipped an 80 pound Aussie on her back and terrorized a German shepherd.

Cookies really help. Positive reinforcement, behavioral psychologists call it. Here’s a story about positive reinforcement, also known as operant conditioning.

As a lifelong horsewoman, I’ve known about positive reinforcement for a long time. The “horse whisperer” type trainers use it. But when we got a “special needs” Cocker spaniel from the pound, I understood the real power of positive reinforcement. [Click for an article about this problem dog.]

Raj was a frigging nightmare, the attack Cocker from hell. Within days of our rescuing him, he’d terrorized our much larger dogs and dominated our household. He made me a nervous wreck and caused my husband to rave about sending him back from whence he came. So what if they’d off him? He was killing us.

In desperation, I called my vet, who said, “Call Amanda!” Amanda is a dog trainer who uses only positive techniques. She was so nice that I couldn’t imagine her handing an aggressive dog, much less our stone cold killer.

Raj adored her. By the end of our sessions, she had him eating out of her hand (not eating her hand). He became a positive member of our social unit. Today, the human and canine Nathan pack loves Amanda––and Raj. [I wrote a series of articles about this transformation. Here's a link.]

What was the secret? Amanda rewarded-–in a currency that the Raj appreciated (bits of hot dogs)––everything he did that was desirable and IGNORED the rest. This sounds like it would take forever, but it’s actually very fast.

Find the currency the person you’re relating with wants and give it to them. (Subject to moral and legal constraints, of course.)

POSITIVE REINFORCEMENT IS 9 TIMES AS EFFECTIVE AS NEGATIVE. (Maybe even more. I forget the statistics Amanda cited.) Praise, cookies, acknowledgment, kindness––all of these work better than hostility, blame, rank pulling and abuse, physical or verbal abuse.

You can get noticed being a bad guy. Poor Sumo was so scared he wouldn't get out of the cart when Raj was around. Is this good? No. Raj is lucky he's alive.

You’re in a negotiation called life. You want your world to notice you. You can get noticed by being the meanest, most foul mouthed, bad-patootie on the block. By getting full-body implants and flaunting them. By setting yourself on fire in public––metaphorically or in reality.

Do these tactics buy you what you want? Why not figure out what those on your team want and give it to them? Why not figure out what the guys on the other team want and see areas of commonality? Why not use all your skills, including those of your heart and soul, to attain your goals?

Cookies are a tie breaker. Give cookies and you’ll get noticed in a positive way. Undoubtedly, the good wishes and intentions behind such gifts are what motivate theor recipient to expend that little extra bit of energy––that puts you in Time Magazine.

One more story on the value of positive reinforcement:

My daughter Zoe went to school in New York.  On one trip home, her plane had some problem and was taken out of service.  Everyone had to be rerouted. It was a mess; inconvenient, irritating.

Zoe stood in line at the airline’s counter and watched her fellow passengers REAM the airline employee who was working hard to put them on different, hopefully functional, planes. They acted as though the employee had personally disabled the first plane.

When she finally reached the desk, Zoe said, “Everyone’s acting like it’s your fault, but I think you’re doing a great job. Thank you!”

The woman gave her first class tickets all the way home.

You think cookies matter?

Award Winning Author of Numenon & Stepping Off the Edge

Sandy Nathan
Award winning author of Numenon and Stepping Off the Edge. (And negotiation coach, as well as teacher/coach of communications and assertiveness trainings!)

Would you like some of the cookies up top? They’re all the rage in Paris––lines form to purchase “les macarons”––and now Burdicks is shipping them! These hand-piped, tender meringue treats are filled with flavored buttercreams. All natural flavorings of chocolate, coffee, pistachio, raspberry, lavender, almond-citrus and ginger. The assortment of fifteen is presented in a unique polka-dotted box. Click here for a review. Click to go to  LA Burdick Chocolate’s website to order.

I'd work for these cookies––French macaroons, or Luxembourgers, made by Burdick Chocolates of Northhampton, MA. Photo courtesy of Burdick Chocolates.

From Sandy Nathan: We have a great treat today: an article on working with a publicist by guest blogger, Susan Schwartzman of Susan Schwartzman Public Relations. Susan has been called “The Navy SEAL of Publicity” by the publicity director of a well-known publisher. She specializes in book publicity campaigns for publishers and authors and is known for garnering more media attention for her clients than they dreamed possible.

What does a top publicist want from a client? Cookies. Susan explains here, showing once again that attention to the personal aspects of professional relationships works:

I was on a panel recently with an in-house publicist from Penguin when she was asked by a member of the audience what an author can do to help a publicist.

“Send cookies,” she said. She further explained that when you are promoting many authors, the one who sends cookies will be the one who you work hardest for. “It’s just human nature,” she said. “Be kind to your publicist,” she added.

I remembered her comments when I mentioned to my clients that I was closing early on a Friday this past July to celebrate my birthday on Saturday.

The previous year, when my birthday actually fell on a Friday in July, I had closed for the entire day, as many firms generally do on Fridays in the summer.

One client complained that I absolutely could not take off on Friday because she was taking off the next day for an extended vacation. She made a list of things she wanted me to do on that particular Friday. Her book was not due out for four months and the publisher had not even printed advance reading copies yet. Even so, I had already written press materials: a press release, pitch letter, and a draft of the bio.

She still insisted, however, that I spend my birthday re-working the bio she already had posted on her website––and that I was planning to use––along with other demands.

This year, I received an e-mail wishing me a happy birthday from a best-selling author whose book I had promoted ten years ago. Like clockwork, he always remembers my birthday. He had, in fact, hired me for a small campaign this year to promote a television show he was hosting, but during the past ten years when I was not promoting any of his books, he still always remembered my birthday.

A few days after my birthday a package arrived. Although I regularly receive packages of books I was not expecting any books that week. I let the package sit in my vestibule for several hours before tackling the sturdy cardboard box with my box cutter.

Inside was a lovely looking brown and black box tied with a beautiful silky brown ribbon flecked with gold. How beautiful I thought. And then I opened the box. Inside were delicate looking wafers, macaroons, actually. They were Luxembourgers, small round wafers filled with delicious coffee, chocolate and fruit-flavored meringues that are popular in Europe. Their French cousins, the macaroon, are not as light and airy in consistency.

I popped one into my mouth. And then another, and another, until the box was almost empty. Guilt rescued me from devouring the entire box.  I saved the several remaining cookies for my husband.

The day the Luxembourgers arrived was a humid, rainy afternoon and I was feeling sluggish even with the air conditioning. No one in the media was returning my calls and e-mails were bouncing back with vacation notices. Isolated in my home-office, I felt like I was the only one in town working on this July afternoon. It was one of those days that really test the endurance and motivation of a publicist.

But, after savoring those cookies, I picked up the phone, determined to get my client the publicity she deserved. And I did.

Days later I received several e-mails assuring me that this author’s book would be reviewed. And the magazine that I had pitched for a profile story was strongly considering interviewing my author. What more could a publicist ask for––five months before the book’s pub date?

The cookies worked their magic, both for me and for the author. And the author who always remembers my birthdays? I got nothing less than Entertainment Weekly to review his show, and People Magazine to mention both his show and the book I had promoted ten years ago, which the publisher had released in it’s 10th Anniversary Edition.

Susan Schwartzman

Susan Schwartzman Public Relations specializes in book publicity campaigns for publishers and authors. Dynamic, aggressive yet affordable book publicity campaigns designed to enhance visibility in today’s extremely competitive market are her hallmark. Contact Susan to find out how she can help your book succeed.

Susan Schwartzman
Susan Schwartzman Public Relations
914-776-1380
www.susanschwartzmanpublicity.com
sjschwa@aol.com

Would you like some of those cookies? They’re all the rage in Paris––lines form to purchase “les macarons”––and now Burdicks is shipping them! These hand-piped, tender meringue treats are filled with flavored buttercreams. All natural flavorings of chocolate, coffee, pistachio, raspberry, lavender, almond-citrus and ginger. The assortment of fifteen is presented in a unique polka-dotted box. Click here for a review. Click to go to  LA Burdick Chocolate’s website to order.

It was just a bad day, okay? Not the end of the world, really.

Blogging the rewrite of my novel,  Mogollon:

Yesterday morning I woke up with a red hot love scene from Mogollon raging in my brain. I’m rewriting my manuscript and realized what I’d written previously was NOT ENOUGH. The scene demanded fleshing out, so to speak. I piled down the stairs full of enthusiasm, the words crackling through my synapses. I pulled up the Word file and sat with my fingers poised over the keys, ready to let ‘er rip.

I heard my husband on the phone in his office. He was using his business voice.

“I’ll get her. She’s right here.”

No. I’m not right there. I’m busy. Not available.

But it was our distributor. She needed a forty word description of my award winning book, Numenon, to go to Ingram NOW. (Ingram is one of major book wholesalers and our entree in to bookstores.) I’d known about the need for the synopsis, but I’d forgotten. OMIGOD. I jumped onto that task, love scene pushed into the background. (This is the joy of independent publishing: You get to do it all.)

In many ways, describing a book in 40 words is harder than writing it in 100,000.

Some time and many versions later, I zapped the thing off to her. While I worked, my husband asked our distributor why Barnes & Noble (corporate) said we aren’t in their system. The distributor said we are, and gave us some tips about approaching the corporation for a broader relationship.

“Write a one page letter of intent and a one page marketing plan, send that and your marketing marterials to their corporate headquarters.” (Those materials are a “one sheet” and some other pretty stuff. A press kit. Things that took many hours of work to create.)

Mark Twain once said, “I sat down and wrote you a long letter. I didn’t have time to write a short one.” Shorter takes much more effort. I wonder if he ever wrote a one page marketing plan?

“I can’t do it NOW!” I shrieked to my husband. “I’m trying to write a love scene!” My steaming characters were about to riot in my head.

I did take time to look at BN.com and discovered that both my books are listed there and I have a profile set up already. What was the problem we were having with BN corporate???? Argh. I noticed that BN.com has a lot of cool book groups, so I joined a few, then wrote a long introductory post about myself on the Religion & Spirituality group. I unfortunately punched some button and erased the whole thing. Screaming, I rewrote and posted it.

This was on-line marketing, after all, not a bloody waste of time the way it seemed.

It’s hot in California, anywhere but on the beach. You know that, yes? We don’t live on the beach. The thermometer had hit about  100 by this time and my brain went south. I began to obsess on my current life puzzles: Should I divide Mogollon into three normal sized books or should it come out as a phone book sized tome that no one can lift? What should I do to with the rest of my life? Or just that afternoon?

I wrote to my editor. She wants to talk to me. I was losing it, I know.

But not as badly as the lovers in the scene that I didn’t write. If you think I’m frustrated …

I don’t know about other writers, but I tend to turn into Sandrina the Witch at such times and turn my malice on––oh, everyone around, but especially myself.

Snake-eyes, a cow skull painted and decorated by moi. This is one of the things I've done when not writing. That's a California king snake slithering down the skull. Painted version.

So yesterday was a bad day. I wrote one friggin’ paragraph of the love scene before emerging into the light and air of real life and going to a barbecue/concert the local health store puts on every Thursday.

That helped. Seeing people, hearing the tunes, catching the rhythm. Eatin’ the sauce.

Life exists without writing. Professor Leonard Tourney, who led a terrific writing group that I was lucky enough to be art of for  couple of years said words to the effect of: “Not everyone can’t sleep at night because they haven’t been published.” Or have been published and are trying to do it again.

It takes a special kind of person to be that nutty.

If you’re as frustrated as your characters, take a hike. Get some air. Write about it tomorrow. Which is today. Now.

Sayonara, amigos and amigas.

Sandy Nathan

The River by Cheryl Kaye Tardif

From Sandy Nathan: We have a great treat today. Cheryl Kaye Tardif, author of The River, Divine Intervention, and Whale Song, is our guest blogger. Cheryl shares with us ways that contests––not the kind you enter, but the type you create––can enhance your novel’s visibility and sales. Great tips from a real pro.

Here’s Cheryl:

As a writer, you can enter contests for just about every aspect of writing, from postcard/flash fiction to short stories to poetry to novels to non-fiction. But what about holding your own contests for your readers? It’s a great way to keep them engaged and to promote your work.

Over the years I’ve witnessed many ingenious contests held by authors and I’ve learned some things along the way. People don’t really want to just ‘enter’ a contest, they want to participate, interact, be part of the action. If a contest asks them to do more than submit their name, they tend to take more of an
interest. So make your contest entertaining and interactive!

Divine Intervention by Cheryl Kaye Tardif

Here are some examples that might help you create your own contests:

I’ve held 2 main contests for future novels that have been quite successful and a lot of fun for everyone involved: my ‘Create a Corpse Contest’, where entrants send in a name (could be fictional or their high school bully or boss or ex-friend) and I “kill off” the character in a novel. Trust me, it’s not only amusing, it’s very therapeutic!

And my ‘Become a Character Contest’, where entrants submit their own name and their character gets to live but might be a good guy/gal or a bad one. Part of the incentive for people to enter is that they get to choose a character’s name. The other part is that they usually get a signed copy after the book is published and a mention (name or initials) on my acknowledgment page.

How exciting is that?

I’ve also held contests on Twitter. Here’s a great way to get your name out, get people re-tweeting for you and create some excitement. I asked other authors to sponsor the prizes. In exchange, I promoted them on my contest page on my website. One of the most important things I learned from Twitter is
everything is automatic. Get their attention now and get them interacting by asking for a reply. My winners usually had to reply with: “Pick me!” The first correct reply won.

Lancelot's Lady (Cover for Lancelot's Lady is a mock cover for the author's inspiration only and will not be the published cover.)

Recently I entered the “America’s Next Best Celler Contest” on Textnovel.com. The prize is a decent advance and a publishing contract with Dorchester Publishing. My new novel in progress, Lancelot’s Lady, is currently #1 Most Popular (and I need more votes). To make things more exciting for my readers and fans, I decided to throw in my own contest. “Create a Corpse” is now open for entries and the lucky ‘corpse’ will become a character in Lancelot’s Lady. You can find the rules at: Cheryl’s deadly ‘Create a Corpse Contest’

These are just a few of the contests I’ve held over the years, each one helping me promote my novels or my name, creating interactivity with my readers and allowing me to extend my own “shelf life” as an author. You can pump new life back into your career or into an older novel by doing something innovative and creative. Where you go with it is up to your imagination. Promotion is hard work, but it should be fun too!

Cheryl Kaye Tardif, Author of The River, Divine Intervention and Whale Song

Cheryl Kaye Tardif, Suspense Author
http://www.cherylktardif.com

© 2009 Cheryl Kaye Tardif
Author of The River, Divine Intervention and Whale Song