The Big Bad Book Blog

It’s a problem that most of us haven’t considered. More writers than ever before look to the ease of the computer and word processing to practice their craft with an unprecedented ease. The days of scribbling notes in margins and scratching through lines has, except for a few nostalgic stalwarts, become a quaint reminder of life sans the digital.

But the problem comes not during the process, but after it: during the preservation.

You might imagine that saving files on computers—say, a Microsoft Word .doc on a flashdrive—would present easy access and storage for an archivist. Surely much more so than dusty, half-decayed papers in an early 20^th-century writer’s old desk. But what about when .doc becomes redundant and flash drives are as antiquated as floppy drives? How do previous drafts and notes and sketches of writers become preserved for future generations, when they may be stored on a piece of technology destined to become outmoded by the end of the month?

In Patricia Cohen’s New York Times article “Fending Off Digital Decay, Bit by Bit,” she examines just this problem. The line that sums it up best: “Imagine having a record but no record player.” This is forcing museums and archives to get creative in how they save and display digital works. Emory University, for example, has created an exhibit that emulates Salman Rushdie’s 90s-style ‘electronic universe’, with interactive technology that allows visitors to experience how Rushdie worked.

And even more exciting ideas are already being tossed around with regards to the writers of today: viewing websites an author browsed while writing, for instance.

But problems abound: how to convert old technology when many of today’s archivists are unfamiliar with the processes involved? (In fact, Cohen states that mostly it is police archivists who are able to work with old files and covert them into usable formats.) What to do if one accidentally deletes a precious file? (If you’ve ever done that, then you’ll recall the panic it causes.) How to protect something with no physical form, when the elements can destroy what it is being saved on? (For all that pen and paper may seem quaint, acid-free paper is much easier to store in bulk over time than a CD.)

It will be up to preservationists and archivists and curators to find new and inventive ways to capture the world of the writer, when so much of the formerly physical has become the intangibly digital. But you as a writer can certainly take steps toward preserving your own works and processes through fun and inventive ways. Take photographs of your writing space (and create physical copies!). Keep a journal (in an old-fashioned spiral journal, perhaps!). Make lists of websites you visit and articles you scan through. Make videos (burn them to a DVD, and keep the original digital file for when the next big video format comes through!). Keep a blog, then create your own POD book of the entries.

Exhausting, but writers interested in leaving behind legacies of more than just their books should certainly be interested in how the world of writing and its preservation continues to evolve.

Sort of makes you nostalgic for the typewriter, doesn’t it?

This post is part of the Guest Post Giveaway at the blog Unready and Willing. If you think articles about writing or personal development (or personal development for writers) sounds like a good fit for your blog, please take a look at the Guest Post Giveaway page and see if any of the articles spark your interest.

Continuing where Part II left off:

1.    Build Your Brand – Your personal brand is the combination of you and your product. You must establish your mission and identity as a writer, and this should be reflected by the writing that you produce.
2.    Make Connections – Marketing is all about making connections. It’s not just about making connections with the right people, but also making connections with the wrong people who know the right people.
3.    Build Relationships- You must make strangers into acquaintances and acquaintances into friends. You must build trust and affinity with your personal brand.

Build Relationships

How many of your good friends would say no if you asked them to read your writing? Probably not many. Even if you write science fiction novels and your friend isn’t a science fiction fan, they’ll still probably read it. To be a successful marketer you must not only make connections but you must also make friends. Although you might make a “miracle connection” with a magazine publisher or a book-reviewer, connections with these people mean nothing until they come to trust you and see you as a friend.

Not only must you must turn strangers into friends but you have to make sure your friends stay your friends. Many millions of marketing dollars are not spent on promoting new brands, but keeping people loyal to old brands. The reason for this is because it costs less to keep a customer than to make a new one. If you have loyal and devoted readers, it’s very important that they stay devoted. Your loyal readers are the most important marketing tool you have as they’re the most likely to talk about and recommend your work. It’s important to keep these readers happy because you want to keep them talking and keep them recommending. In the end, word-of-mouth advertising will always reign supreme.

For the purposes of marketing your writing, there are three levels of relationship. They are the unfamiliar, the acquainted, and the fans. It’s our job to turn the unfamiliar into the acquainted and the acquainted into our fans. Continue reading Guest Post: Marketing Your Writing (Part III)

Calling all indie authors and publishers–including small and mid-size independent publishers, university presses, e-book publishers, and self-published authors. Enter the Next Generation Indie Book Awards now to have your book considered for cash prizes of $1,500, awards, exposure, and recognition as one of the top independently published books of the year! The deadline is March 10, 2010, so get your submissions in today!

The top 60 books will be reviewed by New York literary agent Marilyn Allen or her co-agents for possible representation in areas such as distribution, foreign rights, and film rights. Ms. Allen has served as Senior Vice President of HarperCollins, directed sales and marketing teams for Simon & Schuster and Penguin Books, and worked with authors such as Stephen King, Ken Follett, and Barbara Kingsolver.

Visit www.IndieBookAwards.com for more information or to enter.

This post is part of the Guest Post Giveaway at the blog Unready and Willing. If you think articles about writing or personal development (or personal development for writers) sounds like a good fit for your blog, please take a look at the Guest Post Giveaway page and see if any of the articles spark your interest.

Continuing where Part I left off:

1.    Build Your Brand – Your personal brand is the combination of you and your product. You must establish your mission and identity as a writer, and this should be reflected by the writing that you produce.
2.    Make Connections – Marketing is all about making connections. It’s not just about making connections with the right people, but also making connections with the wrong people who know the right people.
3.    Build Relationships- You must make strangers into acquaintances and acquaintances into friends. You must build trust and affinity with your personal brand.

Make Connections

Only a few people that you know, if any, are members of your target audience. Most people that you know, however, are certain to know people who are members of your target audience. That’s why it’s important to make connections.

Not all connections are to be treated equally, of course. Making a single connection with one person could be worth making connections with 20 others. You could, for example, make a connection with the editor of a popular magazine with thousands of readers. You may know a college professor who’s willing to pass your name on to students that might benefit from reading your work. You may run into a talented web designer who’s so impressed with your writing that he or she offers to revamp your website for free. You might establish a connection with someone who runs a book of the month club with 50 readers, and each of those readers may have five friends each who are interested in what you’re writing. A wealthy philanthropist might come across your website, be impressed by your work, and give you a $10,000 donation. All of these connections could be a phone call, an email or a mouse click away.

Making connections like those listed above are not a matter of luck, but a matter of persistence. It’s quite possible you could make 100 connections before running into someone that could really help you out. What the skilled marketer must do then is see beyond any single person and do their best to get in touch with all the people they know and all the people that those people know. If you continue to do this, It’s only a matter of time before you make that “miracle” connection.

So how should you make these connections? Believe it or not, you already have a lot of connection building tools in your arsenal. In order to be a master marketer, you must become familiar with them all. You may, for example, be the most terrible cold caller in the world, but if you’re persistent, and improve your skills in that area, it may become your best connection maker.

Here’s a list of some connection making tools:

• You
• Your writing
• Your website
• RSS feeds and directories
• Internet bulletin boards and forums
• Emails
• Newsletters
• Affiliate programs
• Link building programs (link exchanges, blogrolls)
• Online contests
• Your own e-zine
• Other peoples e-zines
• Webinars
• Live seminars
• Advertisements (from Craigslist to Google Ads to print media)
• Writers conferences
• Interviews (both being interviewed and interviewing others)
• Speaking or reading stories at events
• Business cards
• E-books
• Podcasts
• Vlogging
• Snail mail
• Asking for referrals
• The phone
• Print media
• Social networking sites (Facebook, Myspace, Linked In)
• Slogans
• Memes
• Word-of-Mouth
• Alternative web navigation tools (delicious.com, Stumbleupon)
• Other websites and blogs
• Elevator pitch
• Personal PR

As you can see, the amount of options you have to build connections with your audience are almost endless. As it’d be a Herculean task to master all of these at once. It’d be best to focus on one at a time until you get the hang of each. Try as many as you can, especially the ones that scare you, as those can be indications of where you can grow.

For starters, choose some of these weapons and make a full frontal assault on your target audience. Don’t depend on any single tool for your marketing success. It’s important to take advantage of several tools at once. You must not, for example, rely on your website as the only way to make connections. Use your other connection making tools to leverage each other. Send letters to publishers and tack your website address in the letter. Make cold-calls or write emails to people who might be interested in your site and send them a link. The key to good marketing is repetition. The more people hear about you and your writing the more they’ll be curious about it. If you approach your audience using all the tools in your arsenal, chances are the right people will see your name enough times to want to know what you’re all about.

Kenji Crosland is a creative writing major who, scared of becoming a starving artist, became a corporate headhunter in Tokyo. Since then he’s regained his sanity, quit his job, and now blogs about creating an ideal career at unreadyandwilling.com. He is also developing a web application that just might change the internet. Follow him on Twitter: @KenjiCrosland.

If you don’t give your book a good name, it will get teased on the playground, and grow up to resent you because of it. A title is how people know and remember a book, much as they know and remember a person. At Greenleaf, work on a book’s cover design does not begin until the title is set. The title is the beginning, the introduction, the opening statement, and it sets the tone for the reader. So make it good.

But also make it useful. You have more leeway with a novel, but for non-fiction especially, the title must set a reader’s expectations. Momma’s Big Book of Classic Sewing Patterns does this pretty well, whereas Sew Be It is (arguably) wittier, but a reader would probably have to read the back of the book before knowing exactly how the book related to his or her favorite hobby. Warm Meals for “Chili” Days . . . and Nights! is both direct and (arguably) witty.

Pay attention to the interaction between title and subtitle. If your book has a punchy, one-word title, your subtitle needs to be long enough to provide clear explanation (Ka-BOOM!: 13 Strategies for Explosive Revenue Growth in the Mining Industry). Conversely, if you have a longer title, you don’t necessarily need a long subtitle (The Only Guide to Revenue Growth You’ll Ever Need: 13 Successful Strategies).

If you’re having difficulty deciding on a title, tell people about your book in your own words, and describe what you want your readers to come away with. Sometimes that will shake loose some important key words or phrases, and you can build from there. If all else fails . . . just go for it.