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The Frugal Book Promoter: Second Edition: How to get nearly free publicity on your own or by partnering with your publisher. (How to Do It Frugally) [Paperback]

Carolyn Howard-Johnson , Chaz DeSimone
4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (36 customer reviews)

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Book Description

August 25, 2011 How to Do It Frugally
The second edition of The Frugal Book Promoter is an updated version of the multi award-winning first edition. It has been expanded to include simple ways to promote books using newer technology--always considering promotion and marketing techniques that are easy on the pocketbook and frugal of time. It also includes a multitude of ways for authors and publishers to promote the so-called hard-to-promote genres. The award-winning author of poetry and fiction draws on a lifetime of experience in journalism, public relations, retailing, marketing, and the marketing of her own books to give authors the basics they need for do-it-yourself promotion and fun, effective approaches that haven't been stirred and warmed over, techniques that will help rocket their books to bestselling lists. You'll also learn to write media releases, query letters and a knock 'em dead media kit--all tools that help an author find a publisher and sell their book once it's in print.


We all know that book promotion (and life!) has changed since The Frugal Book Promoter was first published in 2004--particularly in ways that have to do with the Web, but in other ways, too. As an example, the publishing world in general is more open to indie publishing now than it was then. So, this update but includes lots of information on ways to promote that were not around or were in their infancy a few short years ago. So here is what is new:
There is new information in this expanded and updated edition that answers questions like these:
· What is Carolyn's simplified method for making social networks actually work--without spending too much time away from my writing?
· How can I avoid falling into some of the scam-traps for authors?
· How can I get into one of those big tradeshows like BEA?
· What are the best "old-fashioned" ways to promote--the ones I shouldn't give up on entirely?
· There is even an updated section on how you go about writing (and publishing) an award-worthy book. And, of course, you'll find it loaded with resources you can use--but they're all updated.
· How can I use the new QR codes to promote my book to mobile users? And to others?
· What are the pitfalls of using the Web and how can I avoid them?
· What are the backdoor methods of getting reviews--even long after my book has been published?

Frequently Bought Together

The Frugal Book Promoter: Second Edition: How to get nearly free publicity on your own or by partnering with your publisher. (How to Do It Frugally) + Promote Your Book: Over 250 Proven, Low-Cost Tips and Techniques for the Enterprising Author + Sell More Books!: Book Marketing and Publishing for Low Profile and Debut Authors  Rethinking Book Publicity after the Digital Revolutions
Price for all three: $32.33

Buy the selected items together


Editorial Reviews

Review

"If you're going to read only one book to get other people to read your book, it should be this one." ~ Tim Bete, director Dayton University's Erma Bombeck Writers' Workshop

" Unlike other books and articles on the subject, this one is detailed--and it's chock full of ideas that even seasoned book promoters will not have tried."
~ Dallas Hodder Franklin, editor of SellWritingOnline.com

"Great book! My copy {of The Frugal Book Promoter} looks like a porcupine, so many pages are flagged with great tips to try."
~ Karin Ireland, author, motivational speaker


"Howard-Johnson has the comforting tone of a mentor and writes with the precision of a surgeon."
~ Francine Silverman, author and editor of Book Promotion Newsletter

"The most expensive parts of book promotion are the mistakes. This book will save you time and money." ~ Dan Poynter, author of The Self-Pubishing Manual

From the Author

I wrote The Frugal Book Promoter to keep other authors from falling into the same potholes I did when I first started writing books. The world changes so fast, it was time for a new one. So here is what is new in this second edition:
~The Second Edition has been reorganized.
~The Second Edition is almost twice as fat--read that "twice as chock full of promotions you can use."
~The Second Edition still includes the basics that make you into an on-your-own publicist or a great partner for a professional publicist. That includes everything you need to know to put together the best, most effective media releases, query letters, and media kits possible. And how to utilize what you love to do most--write--to  get the word out about what you love most--your book. If you loved the chapters like the ones on writers' conferences, getting reviews, and book fairs or tradeshows, you'll love the updated ones even more.
~You'll love the chapters on what I call the game changers. These really are game changers! There's information on using online bookstores to your benefit. And how to make your blog actually work for you. And how to save time with your blogging! And ideas for blog posts--even if you write fiction or poetry.
I hope you'll partake. And let me know how this book helps you. And, of course, what you'd like to see in the next edition. (-:

Product Details

  • Paperback: 416 pages
  • Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform; 2nd Revised & Enlarged edition (August 25, 2011)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 1463743297
  • ISBN-13: 978-1463743291
  • Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.8 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (36 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #168,030 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Hi.
I am best known as The Frugal Book Promoter, but I want to be known as a literary writer, poet, and all round smart and giving marketer. You can see I have a problem with branding, not because I don't know how to brand but because my career is so diverse. Ha!

As a college freshman, I was the youngest person ever hired as a staff writer for the Salt Lake Tribune--"A Great Pulitzer Prize Winning Newspaper"--where I wrote features for the society page and a column under the name Debra Paige.

Later, in New York, I was an editorial assistant at Good Housekeeping Magazine. I also handled accounts for famous fashion publicist Eleanor Lambert. She was the one who developed the first "10 Best Dressed List," and it was my fun job to write releases for celebrity designers of the time including Pauline Trigere, Rudy Gernreich, and Christian Dior.

I have also been a consultant for the Oak Park Press in the Chicago area.

In my many former lives I have also written columns and reviews for The Pasadena Star News, Home Decor Buyer, and the Glendale News-Press. I write a "Back to Literature" column for www.Myshelf.com where I also give an annual Noble (Not Nobel!) Prize.

I studied at the University of Utah, graduated from USC (University of Southern California) and have done postgraduate work in writing at UCLA. I loved the UCLA and San Diego State Writers' Conferences I attended and I'm now an instructor for UCLA Extension Writers' Program. You can find all their classes at www.UCLAExtension.edu.

I adored studying writing at Cambridge University in the United Kingdom; Herzen University in St. Petersburg, Russia; and Charles University in Prague.

My first novel, "This Is The Place," and my book of creative nonfiction, "Harkening," are both multi award-winners. A chapbook of my poetry, published by Finishing Line Press was named a Ten Best Reads by the Compulsive Reader (www.compulsivereader.com) and the Military Writers Society of America honored it with a silver medal for excellence. I have also partnered with Magdalena Ball for the Celebration Series of poetry chapbooks including "She Wore Emerald Then," "Cherished Pulse," "Imagining the Future" "Blooming Red," and "Deeper Into the Pond," a chapbook with a feminist theme. I also wrote a screenplay, "The Killing Ground."

My stories and poems have appeared in anthologies like: "Pass/Fail," edited by Rose A. O. Kleidon, PhD; and in journals like Pear Noir, Front Range, The Pedestal Magazine and many more. One of my poems won first place in the Franklin Christoph prize, 2010.

I was given the Woman of the Year in Arts and Entertainment Award by California Legislature members, Carol Liu, Dario Frommer, and Jack Scott. I can't help but be proud of that.

In its first edition, "The Frugal Book Promoter" became an instant best seller as an e-book on ebookad.com and the paperback opened to rave reviews here on Amazon. It is now in its second edition, expanded and updated. It became the first in the How To Do It Frugally series. "The Frugal Editor: Put Your Best Book Forward to Avoid Humiliation and Ensure Success" is the next. I published a couple booklets to go with it. "Great Little Last-Minute Editing Tips" includes word trippers and other gremlins lying in wait to attack your copy. The other is "The Great First Impression Book Proposal."

The Book Publicists of Southern California honored me with their Irwin Award and the "Pasadena Weekly" for literary activism. My hometown's Character and Ethics Committee honored me for my work promoting tolerance with my writing.

Yes, I am having fun yet!

Find me at:
Sharing with Writers and Readers blog (A Writer's Digest 101 Best Websites pick!), www.sharingwithwriters.blogspot.com
www.HowToDoItFrugally.com
www.CarolynHoward-Johnson.com
Subscribe to my newsletter by sending an e-mail with "subscribe" in the subject line to HoJoNews@aol.com.

First person essay: http://www.howtodoitfrugally.com/published_works_almanac.htm


Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews
17 of 17 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars The Second Edition is a Goldmine September 4, 2011
Format:Paperback
I purchased The Frugal Book Promoter 1st Edition in 2004 and scoured it for ideas to promote my debut novel. I used it so much that its pages are worn. It's full of post-its I stuck in with reminders of what I should do and when. The countless ideas about marketing were a valuable resource for publicizing my book. I have fifty reviews on Amazon and have sold more copies than I thought possible. The Frugal Book Promoter was a gold mine!

I've recently discovered an UPDATED gold mine. Carolyn Howard Johnson's SECOND EDITION of The Frugal Book Promoter, available in eBook and print versions, is packed and twice as thick as the first version. Do you want to hit the marketing world running with your book? I highly recommend you utilize the many resources in the Second Edition. The information is completely current and easy to follow. This excellent resource puts you, the author, in the driver's seat to do what your publisher can't to promote your book. A huge plus--the tips are "nearly free" (to quote the cover subtitle).

Today's technology, social networking and marketing techniques are covered. Updated web resources abound. Advice in sync with today's Internet are incorporated:

* Blogging tips and pitfalls
* Obtaining reviews and avoiding scams
* Finding places to pitch your book
* Using the eBook explosion to promote sales
* Using Google alerts to full advantage
* Staying on top of current trends in the publishing industry
* Writing quality query, media release letters and scripts for telephone pitches
* Putting together power point and author talk presentations

Don't have deep pockets to pay a pricey publicist? Do you want your book to get maximum exposure? This book is a game-changer and the best investment in your book's future you can make. Carolyn Howard Johnson is an author who understands authors and generously shares her savvy about marketing. Highly recommended.

Review by Holly Weiss, author of Crestmont
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12 of 12 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
It doesn't matter how many books you've published. Self-published or traditionally published, gaining publicity is always tricky, always critical, and always a moving target. If your budget is limited, it's even harder, and perhaps, even more imperative. Enter Carolyn Howard-Johnson, the queen of frugal promotion. Her frugal books are pitched at the modern writer: time poor, financially persimonious, and publicity hungry. The Frugal Book Promoter is the jewel in the crown. As with the first version, The Frugal Book Promoter is full of ideas, strategies, and tips for promoting your book cheaply, in innovative and effective ways, but it has been updated with a much greater focus on new technologies, the all-important social networks, and a range of stratgies designed to help authors with less commercial offerings such as poetry and fiction.

Of course the book is rich with classic techniques too, such as media releases, query letters, and a whole fantastic chapter pulling together a media kit. There's information on using bylines, writing a biography, obtaining endorsements and blurbs, distribution of releases, obtaining reviews, tradeshows, book fairs, setting up a website, and many more 'must-do' items that have really become part and parcel of any author's promotional toolkit. Ignore this kind of stuff and unless you win some kind of book lotto, your book will almost certainly fall into the obscurity that is an ever-present risk of modern authordom. What I like best about Howard-Johnson's book is the simple, informal prose which is both warmly reassuring ('of coures you can do this'), and deceptively intelligent. The reader is encouraged and reminded of his or her own innate capabilities even as they're goaded onto to raising the bar.

The new version also contains a chapter on some of the most current topics, including information on blogging, working Amazon, using social networks, and even some common pitfalls to avoid in blogging and networking. Howard-Johnson totally practices what she preaches, so her advice comes directly from her many years of experience, and is rich with innovative ideas to minimise the time involved and maximise the input through such things as integration and cross-linking, clever use of soundbites and re-tweetable tweets, setting up a "Quotable Quotes" page on your Web site (I love that one), using RSS, and many other novel ideas. Throughout the book there are links, anecdotes, worked examples, and excellent templates including queries, a sample media release, blog entries, invitations, and even a tip sheet.

No, you don't really need a copy of The Frugal Book Promoter. You could hire a publicist for $100 an hour, or organise a retainer for anywhere from $1,500 to $20,000. But if you're looking to do your own publicity, or to augment your publishers and don't have the kind of budget that can support a publicist, or you simply want to do the legwork, connect with your reading public, and do your best to ensure that your wonderful work of art reaches a maximum audience, then this book is really the self-promoter's bible. You don't have to read it cover to cover, although it's certainly accessible and enjoyable enough to do so. The book is well-referenced and perfectly designed to enable the frugal author to dip in once a week and pull out a new publicity idea to try, or to use as a reference when it's time to pull together a marketing plan for your book, or at that moment when you need to write a press-release and want a template and guide, when you're looking for ideas to maximise your book signing. Whatever kind of promotions you want to do for your book, you're sure to find it in The Frugal Book Promoter. Howard-Johnson makes it all sound simple, and provides such easy instructions, that you'll want to go out straightaway and get to it. Put simply, The Frugal Book Promoter is the best guide around for create interesting, fresh, inexpensive, and relatively easy promotion for your book, whatever the genre.

Magdalena Ball is the author of Repulsion Thrust and Sleep Before Evening
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9 of 9 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars A Smorgasbord of Options for Promoting Your Book October 18, 2011
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
The Frugal Book Promoter answers the question that most of us ask after writing a book. How do I get readers? The question is particularly important for self-published authors and authors who have little to spend to help their publisher promote their book. The book publishing industry looks particularly daunting when you're trying to break in. So many authors, so many books, what can I do to get noticed?

Carolyn Howard-Johnson gives excellent advice on this dilemma. It feel like you have a knowledgeable consultant sitting in the room with you. The book is filled with classic techniques, such as writing releases, query letters, obtaining interviews, and much more. My favorites, however, are the chapters on the new techniques: blogging, using social media, taking advantage of the tools offered by Amazon, and your web page.

My favorite chapter is on why writers worry. Writers worry about many things including plagiarism, pirating of ebooks, being sued, and the big one: success or rejection. I think that once an author gets by these hurdles the rest becomes, if not easy, at least a mountain it's possible to scale.

I highly recommend this book. If you've written a book, it's got wonderful suggestions on what to do next. If you're afraid to let your book see the light of day, Carolyn's discussion of worries will make you less afraid. In the long run, this book will save you money and sleepless nights.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
4.0 out of 5 stars Useful but general background on book promotion
The book was recommended by the poetry press publishing my first poetry book. It covers a wide range of book projects, gives useful information, and helps authors broaden their... Read more
Published 6 days ago by Eleni Bastea
5.0 out of 5 stars Perfect!
I'm not a known writer but I've written two books. (See Below). I've tried to do it the self-publishing way as well as the "logical"route with agent/publisher/publicist. Read more
Published 1 month ago by Sprague Theobald
5.0 out of 5 stars Read and enjoyed the first edition and LOVE the second edition too!
The information in the second edition of this book is truly fantastic. It is very personal in tone and obviously based on a lot of experience, which will help me promote my current... Read more
Published 1 month ago by Andrew Darlow
5.0 out of 5 stars Frugal Book Promoter is the very best marketing work for any author
I have made my living in the advertising, marketing and public relations world while writing books on the side. Read more
Published 6 months ago by jim84103
5.0 out of 5 stars Absolutly awe-some!
I just finished reading, highlighting, & bookmarking The Frugal Book Promoter. My head feels like Carolyn cracked it open, stuffed knowledge in it, & sewed it closed--which is what... Read more
Published 6 months ago by Linda Bell Brighton
5.0 out of 5 stars There Is No Better Book About How to Generate Book Buzz On a Budget
Just take one look at the TOC and you'll know that this book is a must-read for the self-published author. Read more
Published 6 months ago by Mark Harmon
5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent book!
Would you spend a nickel for the best advice you could ever receive?

If you are a writer, spending 5˘ a page for a 395-page book packed to the seams with the most... Read more
Published 6 months ago by David W. Menefee
5.0 out of 5 stars Outstanding Resource!
Penny-wise authors rejoice! Packed with excellent free and low cost ideas, this may be the only guide you need to promote your book. Read more
Published 6 months ago by barngoddess56
4.0 out of 5 stars Plethora of Publicizing, Promoting & Public Relations
Title: The Frugal Book Promoter
Author: Carolyn Howard-Johnson
Publisher: HowToDoItFrugally Publishing
ISBN-13: 978-1463743291

"Knowing the rules of... Read more
Published 6 months ago by connywithay
5.0 out of 5 stars A Must-Have for All Authors
I've owned the 1st Edition of this book for a while now, and I love it! This 2nd Edition contains quite a bit of new and updated material. Read more
Published 13 months ago by Helen H. David
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