CHAPTER II, Blog # 14

SET UP A CONFERENCE WITH YOUR PUBLISHER'S PUBLICIST

With your basic battle plan outline in hand, now is the time to talk to your publisher. Set up a telephone conference with your publisher’s publicist. Find out what they will do for you. Since your book’s budget is not set in stone at this time you might get a bit more out of them especially if they see you are enthusiastic and willing to take an active part in promoting your book. You do not want to plan anything that will duplicate their efforts or worst interfere with their sales people efforts to get your book into the bookstores. Their sales people are putting together a catalogue of their Spring or Fall list. They have already decided what the price will be and have an idea what the first printing will be which in turn will dictate how much time and money they invest in promotion. They have done this thousands of times and there is little you can do to change. Except for a SELL-IN tour.

If you are planning a book tour on your own let your publisher know about it. Ask what can they do to help you in each city.

Don’t be disappointed if your publisher does not plan a book tour for you. Well it’s okay to be disappointed but don’t get depressed over it. See Book Tour below.

Do Keep your agent informed about your publicity plans.

Ask your publisher how large is the first run, the number of books they plan to print. Ask when is the publication date. While they will give you a publication date, it is not set in stone but can be used as a good yard stick to begin your publicity campaign. Ask about press kits and posters.

DESIGN YOUR WEB PAGE
Today every author needs a personal web page. People who invest time and emotin in your books want to know more about you. Your web page is a way to give them more information make them part of your, what I like to call ‘family-fan base.” Visit other author web pages to cull ideas. A basic web site should have a minium of four pages. The lead page should have a picture of the cover of the book near the top and gripping text from your book. Your site should have a biographical page about you, and a page to gather information from your fans – a guest book for them to sign-in.
If you have a interesting hobby or skill, especially one that either relates to you book or will bring in people to your site, you might want to make a separate page with direct links to you book and bio page.
Make a list of all the all relevant web pages you want to link with. Web rings may be helpful.

Don’t get into a chat room just to promote your book. You will wear out your welcome and create resentment.

Blog # 13A

STONE READER
A critically acclaimed book vanishes and its author forgotten. One reader is determined to find out why.
This is a movie that delves into (by the back door) many aspects of writing and publishing. It is a must-see by all authors.
Below is a list of books and authors mentioned in STONE READER (or shown on shelves) in the movie and/or cut from it and/or read and thought about while making it.

The authors and books in bold I’ve read.

* William Wordsworth, Tintern Abbey
* James Joyce, Poems
* John Seelye, The Kid & Beautiful Machine
* Dr. Seuss, The Cat in the Hat
* Lord Byron, Collected Works
* Howard Mosher, Northern Borders (coming of age story set in Vermont)
* John Frederick, The Darkened Sky
* Doris Lessing, The Golden Notebook (& introduction to the 1972 10th anniversary edition)
* R.A. Lafferty, Fourth Mansions (SF)
* Vladimir Nabokov, Invitation to a Beheading
* John Barth, The Floating Opera (Leslie Fiedler’s favorite modern American 1st novel)
* William Kotzwinkle, The Fan Man
* Crocket Johnson, Harold and the Purple Crayon
* Ben Hogan’s Power Golf
* Claire Bee’s Chip Hilton series
* Dan Guenther, China Wind
* John Kennedy Toole, A Confederacy of Dunces
* Ross Lockridge, Raintree County
* Thomas Hegan, Mr. Roberts
* Siri Hustvedt, The Blindfold
* William Manchester, The Last Lion
* Ferol Egan, Fremont
* A. Yehoshua, Five Seasons
* Janet Hobhouse, The Furies
* Christopher Isherwood, Berlin Stories
* Peter Taylor, A Summons to Memphis
* Virginia Woolf, A Voyage Out
* James Lord, Picasso and Dora
* Franklin W. Dixon’s Hardy Boys books
* Colin Wilson
* Mark Twain Puddinhead Wilson, Huckleberry Finn, A *Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court
* Madeline L’Engle, A Wrinkle in Time
* Ernest Hemingway, Old Man and the Sea
* Henry Roth, Call It Sleep