Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
DEMYSTIFIED, December 11, 2006
Well, she's done it again. p.m. terrell has taken a rather
complex subject and brought it to us in an easily digestable
format. And with catchy chapter titles, like "casing the joint"
and "counting the loot" the whole idea of promoting one's
book is much less daunting.
As a publicist, I was encouraged to see her continued stress
on making sure that promotional efforts were not duplicated
and that the author or their representative was relied on to
make contact and follow up to ensure that all was being taken
care of when a selling event was scheduled. As she points out
in a variety of ways, being prepared doesn't always guarantee
book sales, but it makes it much more likely.
With an easy to follow format, the addition of helpful work
sheets and even tips about what to expect when one shows
up for an early morning radio interview, I felt that I should
visit her website and order a copy for each of my clients.
Authors sell books, not publishers, not publicists. With this
book in your selling arsenal you will be strides ahead of the
competition and much more able to handle the inevitable
hiccups that go with stepping out of the safety of your
writing studio and putting on your salesman's hat.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Read cover-to-cover, December 11, 2006
Reviewed by Kathleen Dowdell for Reader Views (11/06)
"Taking the Mystery Out of Promoting Your Book" is a wonderful guide for promoting and selling your book. P.M Terrell has put together a detailed step-by-step plan that will benefit new authors who are trying to promote their books as well as authors working with publicists and agents. Chapters are written in mystery terms (planning the crime, casing the joint, breaking and entering) with the goal of getting you to "counting the dough," the money you will receive from all the books that you sell. It's a fun way of working through the book but don't be deceived, there is a lot of work to be done before you can count the dough.
First and foremost, you need to learn how to promote your book by becoming your own publicist. Tips about writing press releases, press kits, grabber sheets and bios are outlined to help you gain notoriety. Who better than you can write about your attributes!
Terrell stresses that as an author you become a brand. Once you've written a best seller, readers are more likely to remember your name so it is important to sell yourself as well as your book. Many of the tasks you will perform will be geared to consumer marketing such as reviews by other authors, institutions, and publications, with the ultimate goal of creating "buzz" for your book. Planning publicity and speaking events is often time consuming and difficult if you are doing the job yourself. Her tips will help expedite the process and make it less stressful.
As part of building a marketing package, the author gives a great description of how to write a cover letter touting your book as well as what kind of background information you should include about yourself. As I indicated earlier, this is your time to shine. The Q&A sheet consists of questions and answers you put together about yourself and your book. This is a great opportunity to ask and answer the kinds of questions that you hope people want to know. You can give readers a lot of information about the book or just enough to entice them to purchase the book. You can also use the Grabber sheet to literally grab their attention with highlights about your book. The chapters in this book are detailed and give concise information that will help you to promote your book.
P.M. Terrell, as a successful author, uses her own experiences to lay out a marketing plan that will help sell your book in a step-by-step approach that makes the whole process easy to tackle. In addition, she provides an appendix that gives links to websites for more specific information and examples. "Taking the Mystery Out of Promoting Your Book" gave me a lot of in-depth information about the publishing field. I would recommend reading it initially from cover-to-cover and then going back and targeting the areas in which you need to improve.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A VERY Useful Reference for Writers, September 14, 2006
Terrell has truly hit the jackpot with this extremely informative and useful book. She has a plethora of excellent ideas in this wonderful reference - and it aptly demonstrates that you don't have to spend a lot of money on marketing and promotion if you can just think creatively. This book deserves a lot of attention - it should be a best seller among those of us who aspire to have even a small percentage of the success Terrell has experienced with her wonderful mystery/thriller novels. She truly DOES know what she's talking about in this book and I hope everyone who writes and is "going it alone" will take advantage of her expertise and get this book.
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