I’m super proud to be speaking at this year’s The Word On The Street Festival in Vancouver, BC. On Sunday, September 26th, the other two Book Broads and I will be hosting a FREE panel titled “Build it and they will come – NAH!” It’s all about book marketing, publicity, and generally being in people’s faces.

The description of our talk goes something like this: “Many writers assume once the book is complete, it will sell itself, right? Wrong. No matter the method of publication — traditionally published, entrepreneurially published, or electronically published — the onus of promotion falls on the author. The Book Broads offer practical advice for writers (published or not) to raise their profiles, extend their reach and build their fan base.
Join Angela Crocker, Kimberly Plumley, and Peggy Richardson as they take the sting out of the overwhelming prospect of media interviews, blog posts, Facebook updates, podcasting, and so much more.”

Queue up early! We start at 1:45pm downstairs in the Peter Kaye room of the main branch of the Vancouver Public Library. (Yeah, that building that looks like the Roman Colloseum.)

See you there!

Read this fantastic blog post by Tim Ferriss; book marketing guru, world traveler, and Author of The 4-Hour Workweek. Please pay special attention to the part where he mentions, “First off, writing books is a terrible revenue model for authors.”

His summary of the opportunities in eBook marketing are very clearly pointing to using affiliate marketing as the way to make that huge hit really happen. This is the important component that I see missing from almost every single plan that every Author has put in front of me, like, ever. If you want to make money from eBooks, learn every little thing you can about affiliate marketing, and then do it for a couple of years before you decide to get serious about the details.

I love this guy.

Don’t spend valuable time creating your viral marketing video until you examine these simple-but-important tips. All of them are FREE, but essential.

If you’ve heard about video marketing, but are unsure how to really hit the streets with it, all that we’re talking about is creating a small video that helps to generate awareness and enthusiasm around your book, ebook, or other product. You can easily create videos yourself, or hire the pros to do it for you. The video is then distributed through social media channels like YouTube (and other video outlets), FaceBook, Twitter, on blogs, etc. The idea is to use the video as an automated sales device, driving buyers back directly to you or your retailers. You can read an earlier article I wrote about this subject by clicking here.

1. Display the URL on every single frame. Any simple video editing software (yes, including Windows Movie Maker) will allow you to do this in one way or another such as a simple band across the bottom of every frame that displays the URL where people can go to purchase the book.

2.Be sure you have a landing page in place before you release the video. It’s no use inviting traffic unless you have a place to drive that traffic. Simply driving traffic to your standard website is not enough – be sure that you create a page or mini-site especially designed to sell your book.

3. Keep it short and sweet. Videos with long, useless intros or dragging scenes that frustrate the viewer are wasted screen time. Chop them out. The entire video should be less than 90 seconds, and 30 seconds is ideal.

4. Include the techy stuff. In the book universe, people need to know stuff like page count, ISBN, distributors, etc. A teeny splash page at the end is enough to convey this clearly. All products have some sort of techy details, like pricing, style and size choices, etc. Be sure to give the basics for interested potential buyers.

5. Take into account multiple audiences. Authors need to direct the video at not just readers, but also booksellers, reviewers, librarians, etc. These may have many of the same needs, but including a few different details to address each of these viewers is important. This can be done carefully without diversifying too much.

6. Use humour. Who wants to watch a boring, dry, video? Unless your video is about the stress of bankruptcy or the death of a loved one, there’s always a way to use a gentle hand with a bit of a smile. Your goal is to keep them watching until the end. (And in the case of death or bankruptcy, the smile comes from the relief you provide.)

7. Don’t neglect the metadata fields. In YouTube (98% of all viral web videos are distributed by YouTube*) there are fields that you can add a description, keywords, and other behind-the-scenes stuff that gets picked up by the search engines. This is what makes the video viral – it gets found when people search. Do your keyword research and get that stuff nailed down before you even start creating the video.

See a future article very soon about keyword research, which should be the first thing you do before you even think about creating your video.

* See this additional article for similar stats and info.

Here’s a checklist to help you create a project timeline for your self-published book or ebook, and understand how long to allocate for each stage of the process.

There are two philosophies about when to release your book. One dictates that you should pre-determine a particular event or time of year with which to coincide the release of the book for best effect. This means picking a release date well in advance, and then counting backwards on your calendar in order to determine when you need to have certain milestones completed.

The second philosophy suggests that if your book is “timeless”, you can simply release the book on your own self-determined timeline, and take a more long-term, big-picture approach, because you’re in this for the long haul.

I suggest a compromise between the two: rather than just working along as in the second philosophy, pick a date that is practical for you to achieve, because otherwise, the book won’t ever happen. After all, every book project is for the long haul. Then follow this checklist to get the book ready in time. Rushing it rarely offers a concrete advantage, but dawdling doesn’t make you any money, either.

For a print book, the timeline must include printing, which frighteningly, relies heavily on someone other than you and your core team: Your Printer. Your printer will be your best friend on this project, so be certain that you call them as early in the project as possible (see #3 below for the best time to call them) and see what their press schedule is like. Press time can be booked over a year in advance for some large companies, but for small jobs, many companies adopt a “we’ll fit you in” sort of attitude. The print timeline is also determined by the style of book you choose, including options like hardcover vs. perfect-bound, paper choices, and so on. Your printer should prepare a clearly laid out quote with all of these options and discuss them with you in detail.

I love my printer so much that I feel I should tell you about Friesens, based in Manitoba, Canada. They have grown to become one of the largest book printers in North America, (the world?) and frequently print for the big publishing houses and many other American companies as well as their native Canadian market. My rep is an amazing guy named Gerhard Aichelberger, on Vancouver Island. (Reps are determined by where you live.) He’d love to talk to you about your print needs, and no, I’m not being compensated in any way for saying that. He’s just an extraordinarily nice guy who has repeatedly bent over backwards to make my Authors happy. All of the Friesens reps are great, and the company is made up of people that are more like a huge family than employees. There is no style of book that they cannot print, stock, and ship, and their quality controls are ISO certified.

Here are the basic timeline elements, with a sample time frame below in [brackets], based on an imaginary project where; there is only one Author, the subject is one with which they are already familiar, there is a marginal amount of additional research to be done, a simple design will be chosen, the book will be simultaneously paper and ebook published, and the Author intends to perform a combination of self-marketing and traditional print book marketing through retail channels.

1. Market Research

The most important thing in the entire project. This might take minutes, or it might take months. Don’t over-do it, but you should have a clear idea as to the size and viability of the market, how they are currently receiving information in this topic area (ebook vs. book, styles of either…) and what niches are still available for you in the market. Be sure to include keyword research in this section, and purchasing of appropriate domain names. (See my earlier post for choosing a domain name, which tightly steers your book titling process.) Secure your social media outlets, like your Twitter account and YouTube channel, along with your Facebook fan page. Brainstorm about more stuff like this day and night.
[2 weeks, including time to bounce the idea off a few people in your network. Future posts will tell you a bit about how I do this with my clients.]

2. Outlining

This feels like a grade school nightmare, but it is essential. Don’t skip it. It is almost as important as #1, because this is how you will know how many pages your book will be, how you can modularize it, how you will format/design it, what associated products you will create, how large a team you will need to help you, how much research help you will need, and much more. I can often complete an outline in a day-long marathon session, with the Author’s core team involved if necessary. This is also the time to secure things like your ISBN number, your UPC code, and so on. Get the technical and legal crap out of the way so you can get to the fun stuff. Set up your initial website, and start blogging. Make a video for YouTube – you’ll make more specific ones later, but start to build your audience.
[3 days, including adjustments to the marathon plan.]

3. Specification

This is the stage where you determine how long your book / ebook will be , how it will be printed (if at all), how it will be graphically designed (work with the designer to get a quote at this stage), how it will be marketed, how it will be sold (that is, the technical or real-world logistics), and many other items. Now that you know how long it’s going to be, you can calculate how many pages it will take up, based on a calculation involving page size, number of words designated or estimated per section, and how many words / illustrations / diagrams fit on the chosen page size. This means that you can now get a quote from your printer, and book your press time well in advance.
[1 day to 2 weeks, including a small amount of additional sales research. Our sample will be 2 weeks.]

4. Initial Content Development

Here’s where you start actually writing. Most clients who work through my process are extremely frustrated by the fact that they don’t get to start writing until now. My answer is: do you want to write, or do you want to make money?
[Time varies widely based on the working speed of the Author. Some people can write an entire book in a long weekend - I once wrote a 30-page ebook overnight, but I don't recommend that! For some, it can take months, but let's hope for something in-between. For our sample project, let's call it 6 weeks.]

5. Editorial Stage

There’s a lot of back-and-forth at this stage. Do not let this frustrate you. Your Editor’s job is to preserve your voice, but to make the data as saleable as possible. They should remain objective and be representative of your designated market. Usually, the book will be shorter when you get it back from your Editor, and you may have up to about 6 revisions on some areas, though more than 3 is not typically efficient. Do not indulge in dangerous emotional attachment to your content – it is only a product.
[7-10 days is often enough for a medium-length book that is essentially well-written to start with.]

6. Design

Once the content has been completely, 1000% revised, there are no more changes or spelling errors, no bits that you forgot, and your diagrams or tables have been laid out for the designer to re-create, you hand the manuscript over to your typesetter/designer. See other posts for tips for working with designers, but just be sure that there are no more changes to the content before you hand it to them, as changes after the design has started can be costly both in terms of money and lost time. Be sure to include time to design an appropriate website, hopefully in tune with your book’s design, to create wholistic and congruent communication with your reader base.
[1 to 3 weeks and up, depending on the length of the book and how clear you were in stage 3 with your design choices. Our example project will be 2 weeks.]

Tip: If you feel qualified to perform your own typesetting and design, it is often a good idea to actually write the book in the design template. Adobe InDesign and InCopy is especially good for this, but I have also successfully used open-source applications like OpenOffice.org. Writing in the design template allows you to see how words flow, gives insight into subtle things like aligning style and content, allows you to create flyouts and featured content more easily, and may help you spot trouble before you’ve gone too far.

7. Pre-Press

Some might say that this stage is not really worthy of a numbered point by itself, except that if there are any problems with the file that is uploaded to your printer, it can mess up a lot of other time frames. Ideally, this should be an invisible part of the process that takes minutes, but I’m adding this in as part of my “hope for the best, but plan for the worst” philosophy.
[Ideally, minutes. Possibly, a couple of days to figure it out and correct the problem. Keep in good contact with your printer during this time to ensure that you don't lose your press booking and that they are still on schedule. Our example project will not include any time for this.]

8. Printing

The day you send the book to the printer, you will not sleep that night, and will instead spend the night staring at the ceiling, wondering what you forgot, misspelled, left out, etc. I advise you to have a glass of wine or go to a movie and just try to get through it.
But remember, this is *not* the time to sit on your hands! If you have an ebook that was created at the same time as your print book, get that sucker out there are start hawking it – hard. Call the book distributors and retailers that you’ve been talking up and give them an update. Plan events. Create downloads for your website. Blog till your fingers bleed. Start doing interviews. Tweet like a songbird. Just keep building the momentum until it comes back from the printer and lands on your doorstep.
[2-3 weeks including freight, but this depends heavily on your printer's press schedule. The earlier you book, the less time you need to budget. Our example project will be 3 weeks.]

9. Safety Margin

It’s rare, but print errors happen. Freight gets lost, snowstorms tie up deliveries, and sometimes people just catch the flu. This time is your margin for error that ensures if you have promised delivery of the books to someone, you can deliver them early and look like a genius, or you have time to fix the mistake / wait for the snow to melt. Planning this time into your calendar at the outset will reduce a lot of stress, but if you end up with the books without delay, consider it bonus marketing time. Send out more review copies, get more last-minute interviews, do a few more talks or lectures, and just work it baby, work it.
[2 weeks in summer, 3 weeks if in winter, not because of weather, but because if you are printing at a busy time of year, you will need more time to get back on track. Our example project will be 2 weeks.]

10. Book Release Date

This date is not the end of your book journey, but the beginning. A well-designed book should have an active life span of 2-5 years, and perhaps a great deal more for an ebook, as it is a living document and can be revised to a new version any time, replacing the previous version on your website. You now have a full-time job of being an Author, and should continue to perform all of the marketing activities that you’ve been ramping up before this time, adjusting for market fluctuations and actively marketing your personal services alongside the book.

All of these time blocks, including the Safety Margin add up to: 19 weeks, or about 5 months. That sounds like a lot of time, and it is. I’ve seen Authors who work solo do it in less than 3 weeks plus press time, and it is of course possible to produce an elemental ebook overnight. 2-3 months is still practical for a paper book all in, assuming that there are no problems, and that the Author is decisive and well-prepared.

It’s up to you to process each of these stages and design a timeline of your own, but just be sure that you give yourself enough time to include proper market research up front, and a margin for error. The market research will guide you for the length of the project and steer every decision from content to design to printing to marketing. It’s first on the list because it is most important.

This was a long article, but I hope it’s encouraged you to think of your project in terms of the big picture – the picture where you are a successful, independent, and slightly wacky Self-Published Author.

I’m being interviewed on July 2nd by Sheri Kaye Hoff, regarding eBooks and the video trailers to sell them. I’ve compiled a list of good and bad examples of video book trailers to make a few of my points clear.

Love, Stargirl

This one was the winner of the 2007 Teen Book Video Awards. (Like, if there’s an award, we should all make sure this is top on our priority list for book marketing, right?) Even though this example comes from a highly-niched fiction market, the comments still apply for business and non-fiction books.

Things I like about this one:
- extremely involving sequence, tone, etc. to draw in the watcher
- cool imagery appeals to the designated audience; in this case, teen girls
- a little weird and makes good use of “creepy” element
- it’s well-edited and looks very Hollywood-quality (essential here to foster the fantasy, but not essential in every case)
- kudos to them for finding an appropriate contest to enter and gain additional publicity

Things I think could be done better:
- more visibility of a URL or book title throughout production
- a clickable purchase link at the end (YouTube allows you to do a lot of custom stuff with a bit of research – see a future post about how to manipulate YouTube)
- I don’t see this in a lot of other locations, distributed on blogs, etc., which means somebody didn’t do the legwork

Duma Key

You may be surprised that this is my least favourite video of the bunch, and not just because this is a Stephen King cookie-cutter product: blood and gore, etc., etc. Loyal readers like my husband love this stuff, and the video gives them what they want. This is also the shortest – only just over 30 seconds.

Things I like about this one:
- short and to-the-point
- high-contrast graphic imagery makes it easy to see on the smallest of screens, like iPods, etc.
- the book graphic at the end makes it clear what’s being sold, as this is still new for many readers
- release date stated clearly at the end

Things I think could be done better:
- again, no direct link for ordering (Like, haven’t any of these people heard of affiliate programs?)
- perhaps this is too “corporate”, in the sense that it is rather predictable: a new author may consider taking bigger risks to gain an audience
- the imagery is somewhat disjointed, in that there is no “story” to this video – it’s just a bunch of scary stuff with a splash of blood, with nothing to involve the reader and link to something in their own lives (this is really about “features” vs. “benefits” again)

Nineteen Minutes

This video for popular Author Jodi Picoult was produced by AuthorBytes.com, a company that specializes in this type of media – and it shows. I’ve never read any of Picoult’s work because I thought it was something I wouldn’t be interested in. I think I may have been wrong.

Things I like about this one:
- the Author herself narrates the entire video, and there are photos of her periodically that help readers connect with her
- the shock value of the commentary is quite powerful, demonstrating contrast that I suspect will also be present in the Author’s work
- the commentary asks us to think of ourselves in perspective of the book’s subject matter
- the accompanying copy (“Details” in YouTube) is well-composed and easy for bloggers and others to use
- the narration and imagery reference other works by the same Author that have been highly successful and are easily recognized
- this doesn’t need full-motion video throughout to make the message work, and still images are used extremely well
- all the technical gunk is there at the end, such as ISBN number, cover format, page count, etc. which means this video is not just useful for consumers – it’s also very useful for booksellers and other markets

Things I think could be done better:
- again, no direct purchase link (How many times do I need to say this?)
- could be a lot shorter and still tell the story well
- the “clock” intro at the beginning drags a fair bit
- the music selection is not appropriate or powerful, and a better choice would make all the difference in the world
- this has 36k views and yet no comments, so perhaps a few “plants” would attract more viewers, and this may also signify a lack of effort to distribute and make use of this valuable resource

I’m really looking forward to our conference call about eBooks and video book trailers on Thursday, July 2nd, 2009. Click to Author Sheri Kaye Hoff’s page to register for this free call. Hear you there!

There are many reasons why getting someone else to ship your books, CD’s or other products makes good business sense.

What is “fulfillment”?

Fulfillment is the act of shipping, or fulfilling orders from Readers who purchase your book or product off your website or through your company. Fulfillment providers will sometimes even manage your entire inventory for you, keeping monthly counts, packing, documenting, and of course shipping orders, sending out larger shipments to retail stores, and then billing you at the end of the month for that service.

There may be some confusion between the terms fulfillment providers, and those who call themselves “drop shippers”, which does not really apply to self-publishing Authors. A drop shipper owns the product until you tell them to send it to your customer. Drop shippers will then typically send you a check at the end of the month for the difference between your cost on the product, and what it was sold for to the consumer. In the case of a fulfillment provider, YOU own the product, be it a book, CD, or whatever. Somebody else is just warehousing it for you, and sending it out when  you send them a packing slip. At the end of the month, you pay them a fee based on volume.

Perhaps you’re casually saying to yourself right now, “But I have plenty of time – I can easily ship my own orders for now.” That may be true – for the short term. But be honest with yourself: how many hours a day are you spending managing logistics instead of creating new products? Do you even enjoy shipping? Does it take time away from your family? Does the money you save equal what you could have earned in the time it took you to do all of that work? (Experience tells me that no, it didn’t.)

Even if time and enjoyment were not issues, perhaps ask yourself if you should be shipping your own products, when your time is better spent running your business. After all, what is your “real job”? Instead, what would happen to your business if you spent that time setting up affiliate relationships to sell your products for you?

(By the way, if you’re looking for the plug in this post, here it is: I have used Michael Bickler of EG Liquidation in Washington State for a number of years. He’s amazing! He ships anywhere in the world for me at an unreal price, and he actually *cares* about his customers. You can email him through info_at_egliquidation.com and tell him I sent you.)

What does it cost?

Fulfillment providers will typically charge a fee based on orders that leave their warehouse, plus a pallet fee for storing your product for each monthly cycle.

Here’s a cost worksheet based on a provider that shipped 100 books for you last month:

Basic pallet storage fee:                                         $____.____

Packing cost per book:                                           $__.____*
Label/envelope cost** per book shipped:     $__.____
Actual freight or postage per book:                  $__.____***

Cost per book:                                                            $__.____ (caution – heavily estimated)
Times 100 books:                                                      $______.____
Plus pallet charge:                                                     $____.____
Total monthly charge:                                             $______.____

Charge per book to ship (revenue):                   $__.____
Times 100 books:                                                      $______.____

Remaining profit:                                                       $____.____

The idea would be to leave a small additional overhead to cover things like returns, delivery problems, etc. A provider should agree with you in advance on a specific cost for things like accepting returns, replacement shipments, and forwarding shipments to you at your own address. While this worksheet assumes that the last line would be two digits, this really shouldn’t be thought of a profit center – it’s more like a slush fund for “just in case” situations.

* This cost can vary widely, and fluctuate from time to time. This can be much lower or much greater depending on volume, item type, packaging, etc.

**Often the post office or courier will provide envelopes or even cardboard boxes at no charge to ensure consistency for their agents.

** Bear in mind that postage rates vary widely based on things like weight, dimensions, book thickness and so on.

The next time you’re thinking about where to store your books, CD’s or other products, why not think instead about what you could create in that extra couple of hours per day.

I find this blog post from the Society of Authors in France interesting because it’s what many of us perceive as the main points of debate on self-publishing.

Here’s what I agree with in this post:

- Every Author needs help. It’s real work – you can’t do it all yourself.
- Every Author is afraid of selling. We all get over it, and the faster you do, the more you’ll sell.
- Hire an Editor. I don’t care if it’s me or not, but almost nobody can edit their own work. (I should know – I’ve tried for years and it always sucks when I edit my own stuff.)
- It’s true that more people are reading eBooks, and for some, that’s definitely the way to go. (BUT: see note below.)
- Write because you have something new, groundbreaking or truly useful to say, not because you think you can make money writing about a particular topic. It is twisted but true that writing just to make money will make you poor.
- Finding alternative or unusual markets for your self-published material can be your greatest success. In fact, any truly great self-publishing success that I’ve personally experienced or witnessed has happened in this way. Don’t think bookstores – they are rarely profitable.
- A new breed of professional is definitely developing (ahem – such as Yours Truly) who is all about helping self-published Authors get their stuff out there.
- All self-published Authors need to get serious about selling from a quality website which includes an affiliate marketing plan.

Here’s what I don’t agree with:

- You don’t lose out on anything such as editing, graphic design, or quality printing if you self-publish. Anything is available to anybody these days.
- eBooks are not a direct alternative to printed book publishing. They are a different market altogether, and anyone considering the eBook route should perform market research to see if an eBook is appropriate for their market and materials. (See a future post for details.)
- You do not lose out on marketing, publicity, distribution, or reviews in the press if you self-publish. (Who ever said a traditional publisher got you all that stuff, anyway? All Authors end up doing tons of work in this area whether self-published or not. You may need help, but it’s no harder than for a traditionally-published Author.)
- Being self-published does not mean that you are not going to be of interest to agents. It means that you are going to have to approach them differently, but they will probably be just as interested if not more, because they know they’re working with an Author who is committed and hungry.
- Shipping your own books is rarely practical. There are plenty of fulfillment providers that will do this for you, and I can recommend a great guy who ships for me worldwide if you need one.
- Self-publishing does not rule out any opportunities to sell foreign rights. I don’t know where anybody got that idea, actually.
- I don’t know why an Author would want to sell their eBook to a publisher. The bulk of the cost of self-publishing is in the printing, so once that is out of the picture, why wouldn’t you self-publish?
- Here I go again, but print-on-demand is not usually the way for most Authors to publish their books. (For my reasons, just read some of my old posts.)

Every Author wants to produce the best book that they can. For some of us, self-publishing seems difficult to navigate, and we’re worried about being forced to accept sub-standard results. We worry about things like learning to sell and how we can afford to launch a national marketing campaign. The reality is that if we are treating our books as a business, we won’t have any trouble selling it. This means doing proper market research, writing very well (ie. saying something really valuable), and performing due diligence on things like quality graphic design and product creation.

In conversations with plenty of authors, self-published or otherwise, I have heard many of the same concerns over and over again. But with help, anything is possible. Always remember that another Author has been there before you, and if they did it, so can you.

I can’t count how many times I’ve heard an author say to me lately, “With all that my publisher is making me do to promote my book, I’m not sure why I needed them at all.”

Check out this very revealing and plain-facts Globe and Mail article (with the appropriately defeatist title, “Publish, and Your Book Will Probably Perish”) about the modern world of traditional publishing. Every single complaint in this article has a painfully obvious cure in self-publishing.

Basically, the article describes how when tough times happen, major publishers are no different than any other company. They usually cut back on the last activity they should ever skimp on: sales. The reason for this is simple – any entrepreneur will tell you that sales are usually the most expensive part of any business, whether it be in publicity, customer acquisition, payment for sales services, or more generally, in marketing. Accountants see dollars going out the door, and they look for the biggest column. That’s the one they chop.

One fiction author is anonymously quoted as saying, “[there has been a] …steady erosion of [publishers'] services toward creators. … [They] no longer edit or proofread as they once did, buy advertising, employ a sales force … and tour authors as they once did” – and this at a time when the books they publish have climbed in price to “the edge of affordability for most readers.” Hmm. Sounds like the only difference between a self-publishing author and a traditionally-published author is now the imprint on the title page.

Self-published or not, there is (let’s be frank here) plenty of work to promote a book and get copies sold. I’ve said before that authors often imagine that a traditional publisher will take on a significant portion of the cost involved in the promotion, thereby relieving them of the work. It’s just not true: a major publisher won’t even look at your book unless you can demonstrate that you’re really prepared to do the legwork required to promote it.

A book is a business. Micro or major, it involves about the same amount of work. If you’re going to do most of the work anyway, why not keep most of the profit? In an economic downturn, authors are actually better off to self-publish than any other time, because all authors are finally calling themselves entrepreneurs. As stated by Margaret Atwood, “The term ‘relentless self-promoter’ used to be an insult in publishing circles. Now it will be a necessity.”

The article seems to suggest (to me, at least) that major publishers are now performing services no differently than many of the print houses now marketing themselves as “publishing houses” – they hand over the book and get out. Too bad: if I had Margaret Atwood on my roster, I’d at least be paying for the wine and cheese party.

Listen LIVE this Wednesday and call in with your questions for Rick Passek, author of The Freshman FlyFisher. We’ll talk about niche marketing for self-publishers.

To listen, simply click to:

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/Peggy-Richardson/2008/12/17/Successful-Self-Publishing-Interview-with-Rick-Passek

You can call in LIVE with your questions at (347) 205-9352 during the show, which runs from 3:30 to 4:40 Pacific Time on Wednesday December 17th, 2008.

Rick is a really entertaining personality, and I was very proud to edit his book. Anyone who is thinking of self-publishing a niche title really should listen to this interview, as Rick really will tell it like it is, warts and all. See you on the air!

I’ll be going LIVE again at 3:30 Pacific time this afternoon with Kim Plumley, or “KimPossible”, the CEO of Publicity Mavens. Call in LIVE at (347) 205-9352.

Get answers right away to your questions about publicity for Authors and other solopreneurs. To listen, just click to: http://www.blogtalkradio.com/Peggy-Richardson/2008/11/19/Publicity-for-Solopreneurs-Interview-with-Kim-Plumley.

We had such excellent feedback about our podcasts with Kim earlier this fall that I was thrilled when she agreed to answer your questions on the air. This is your opportunity to get FREE advice from an expert in the area of literary publicity. Don’t want to call in? Just send your question right here using the “Join the Conversation” blue comment bar below, or email them to us at info@humanuspublishing.com.

Catch you on the air!