Below is a clip from John Kremer’s EXCELLENT newsletter—if you aren’t already a subscriber, it’s free, go to www.BookMarket.com and sign up.
“Self Pub News is a new website for making announcements about new books, upcoming conferences, book signings, special deals, and more. If you want your news included, send an email to Tom Nixon, editor, at info@SelfPubNews.com. Web: http://www.SelfPubNews.com.
Don’t simply send an email without first checking on the website and seeing what kind of info the site wants. Here are the details:
If you would like to increase the probability of your book being mentioned on this site, you should:
- Write up a book announcement of no more than 100 words.
- Include a graphic of your book cover.
- Make sure to mention the publisher’s name and when it was published. Only books published in the current year will be considered.
- Provide a link to your book on Amazon.com.
And, yes, none of this ensures a mention, but it gets you so much closer. Also, please remember it’s only me, so if you don’t get a response and it’s not posted, that probably means that the competition for space was significant.
One important note and/or fact of life: the majority of the books showcased are likely to be nonfiction. That is the reality of the publishing world.
In his SmallPress blog (http://www.SmallPress.typepad.com), Tom Nixon wrote the following, making note how important it is to be professional when looking for connections, publicity, and promotional opportunities:
Today, thus far, I have received 26 emails about making a book announcement on Self Pub News. Apparently, self publishing guru John Kremer mentioned it in his weekly newsletter (for which I am grateful).
However, out of those 26 emails, only one of them came across as professional. He used proper spelling, punctuation, and formatting. He clearly had gone to the site and gave me exactly what I asked for (and it was easy to see that he had because he even mentioned that his book announcement was 100 words, one of the parameters).
That one will get placed on Self Pub News. All of the rest, I had to send a generic email requesting further information (which makes getting into SPN that much harder for them).
Tom’s Summing Up:
- Before you go firing off emails, please check out a site. If those writers had, they would have seen a post telling them exactly what I require.
- How well you present yourself does play an important role in writing and publishing. Half of the emails I received either had significant grammatical errors and/or came across as very unprofessional. If you are a professional writer or publisher, it’s important that people see you that way.
This is in no way to take people to task, but you have to remember that, in this business, you are dealing with people who work with words for a living. Words are important and how you present those words is equally important.”