If you’re interested in tuning in to my live radio interview Friday, March 13 at 4:00 p.m. Central Time, you can do so at kcfn.afr.net. It will be part of the program “The Home Stretch” by Thomas A. If you’re in the Wichita, Kansas area, you can tune in to 91.1. It’s kind of hard to know how to prepare, but here are a few things I’ve done:

1. Typed a list of sample questions (I sent these to the show host as well). I’ve been thinking through and writing out answers to the questions, trying to figure out what I want the heart of my message to be.

2. Scoured the Internet for advice from others on how to give a successful radio interview.

3. Meditated on Colossians 4:6 “Let your speech be always with grace, seasoned with salt, that ye may know how ye ought to answer every man.” I’ve been praying this for myself and have also asked others to pray it for me.

4. Printed out and reviewed a list of 40 suggestions/tips that my Marketing Manager sent me (have I mentioned how incredible she is? – thanks, Olivia!). This is helping me gain clarity in my thoughts and prepare some things I hadn’t previously considered.

The thing about radio interviews is that you can’t do them in writing…kind of a bummer for us writers, huh? 🙂 I’m not a very good “off-the-cuff” speaker, so the prospect of a live radio interview is rather intimidating terrifying. I think I’m beginning to see more of the big picture as to why God took me through the School of Contentment earlier this year. It’s certainly not pleasant, but I do believe that it’s good for me to be forced into situations that I’m not particularly good at in order to increase my faith and help me develop better skills. What a journey this continues to be!

I just came across this interesting post that outlines 7 Ways Authors Can Avoid Being Scammed by Online Book Promotion. It is a response to an author’s article about problems she encountered trying to promote her book online. These are the seven lessons the blogger highlights in the post:

Lesson #1: Don’t spread yourself too thin.
Lesson #2: Don’t wait until the book is out to build community.
Lesson #3: Need to manage expectations and time.
Lesson #4: Clarify your goals.
Lesson #5: Community leads to sales, not necessarily vice versa.
Lesson #6: All traffic is not the same.
Lesson #7: Social networking sites don’t sell books. You sell books.

Read the full post for the full explanation of each lesson.

There are some helpful additional remarks in the comments section of the post. In particular, I appreciated this thought, “You need to develop a clear message that is compelling and memorable and one that will spark interest in your book. You can spend an enormous amount of time marketing your book, but if you don’t spend the time preparing a great message, your efforts will fall flat.”

I’m lined up to do a radio interview next week – my first ever, which is both thrilling and scary! So, this is what I really need to spend some time thinking about and preparing. What is the main message that I want to communicate? What are my “talking points”?

HT: @John Kremer

One of the best marketing strategies for a self-published book (or any product) is to generate buzz. In a nutshell, you want to get people talking about your book. I just read an informative question and answer post on The Art of Generating Buzz. I really have no experience yet in this area (at least not enough to know if what I’ve done will be effective or not), but I thought I’d list some of the steps I’ve taken toward this end:

1. Create an e-mail list of friends and other interested parties to keep them informed about the progress of your book. I’m just using a free list software that works in conjunction with my free website software (find out more about these options here). I imported my personal e-mail address book, and then add new contacts as people express interest. About once a month I send out a personal update letting people know how the progress is going and what new developments have taken place since the last update. This generates good feedback – both via e-mail and when I visit with people in person.

2. Involve others in the process. As much as I like to think that I can do everything myself (that’s why we’re self-publishing in the first place, right?!), I cannot express strongly enough how much it has increased the quality and value of my book by tapping into the expertise of friends to help me with various aspects of the project. I also implemented a unique idea I’m really excited about that involved 26 close friends (more on that another time, though!). One of the benefits of this is that more people have a vested interest in the book and thus their desire to see it succeed is increased even more. Plus, they have a greater level of confidence in the product and are more eager to talk about it and recommend it to friends.

3. Solicit endorsers and reviewers liberally. So far I’ve sent out 23 Advance Review Copies (ARC) of Pajama School – stories from the life of a homeschool graduate. Eleven of those are for potential endorsements; nine have been sent to bloggers who have agreed to post a review and host a giveaway of one or more copies of my book. My goal is to hit my target market from a variety of places and hopefully start to create some buzz. I’m still hoping to find some more homes for my remaining ARCs – my Marketing Manager is hard at work in that department. The books certainly won’t accomplish anything sitting in a box in my basement!

4. Maximize Social Networking Utilities. I know I could do much, much better in this area. But I do have a Facebook Page that imports notes from the Pajama School Blog. And I just recently started Twittering – I’d love to have you come Follow Me! I’m also in a couple of self-publishing e-mail groups (that I haven’t done a very good job of keeping up with lately!) that have helped me connect with and learn from some wonderful people.

No doubt there are many more ideas for effectively generating buzz, but these are four primary steps I’ve taken in regards to my book so far. More ideas are always welcome! I’m trying to be more alert to what’s buzzing in the world around me, too, so that I can learn from the effective strategies of others. Now if I could just figure out what the secret is behind Twilight… 🙂

Last week this large box of 200 bubble mailers arrived. It fits just fine under the table in the back corner of my studio.

But there’s a problem. That’s where I was planning to store the cases of books. 2,500 books to be exact. I think I have a problem. The bubble mailers are 1/4-inch thick. My book is 3/4-inch thick. Now I know why my business-savvy friend raised her eyebrows when she asked me where I was planning to store my books and I said “a back corner of my studio.” I don’t think I really have any concept of how much space these books are going to require. But I’m starting to get the picture that maybe I should formulate a Plan B.

So, Plan B – Please, everyone go pre-order Pajama School – stories from the life of a homeschool graduate so that I don’t have to find a place to store 2,500 of them!!! Do you think that will work? 🙂

In case it doesn’t, uh, help!? Anyone have any brilliant suggestions for storing an inventory of this many books?

All the bubble mailers and labels arrived at the end of last week, so I designed a shipping label template and printed off several dozen. Over the last couple of months, I’ve been contacting people (and people who know people!) to line up potential endorsers for my book, Pajama School – stories from the life of a homeschool graduate. I printed off all the letters yesterday, wrote names and addresses on the shipping labels, and got the packages ready to go.

Now all I have to do is…wait. The short run of books should arrive today or tomorrow. When they do, I’ll be ready to drop them in each package, and run them over to the post office. Then, all I’ll have to do is…wait. I’ve set a deadline of March 15 for the endorsements. Whatever I receive back by then will be incorporated into the final design, and everything will be off to the off-set printer. Then all I’ll have to do is…wait. About one month, to be approximate, until the books are all printed and ready for distribution. I really want everything to be done right now. But instead, I’m working on developing patience. I’m learning that successful self-publishing requires lots of praying, lots of working, and lots of…waiting. 🙂

Just think, as a self-publisher, by the time you finish all the writing, editing, re-writing, proofing, designing, laying out, securing endorsements, developing a marketing plan, and generating publicity, the work has only begun! Next comes the day-in-day-out job of processing all the orders and making sure that you provide prompt and excellent service for your customers. Since I have never had any involvement in a product-based business, I am pretty clueless about how to set all of this up for the greatest level of efficiency. I’ve met with several friends who have experience in this area, and received some helpful tips, but I have a suspicion that the bulk of my learning will come from actually doing it. (Why do so many things in life have to be that way?!)

For starters, I just finished ordering bubble mailers and labels. I still don’t have an actual book yet, so I determined what size to order by perusing my bookshelves until I found a book that is the same dimensions and has approximately the same number of pages as my book. Then I dug through my Dad’s stash of mailers (the ones he has received over many years and saved for reuse – I guess being a pack rat does have some advantages…) until I found one that seemed like the ideal fit for the book. Plenty of room for it to slide in without bending the cover, but tight enough so that it won’t get beaten up during the delivery process.

I did some price comparing on-line at different office and mailing stores, and eventually ended up at ebay where I ordered a case of 200 #2 Poly 8.5″ x 12″ Self-Seal Bubble Mailers. While I was checking out, I also decided to add a package of 200 mailing labels that were considerably less expensive than several other outlets I checked. I really have no idea if these items are going to best meet my shipping needs or not, but I’m eager to give them a try in a couple of weeks when I start sending out the Advance Review Copies of Pajama School – stories from the life of a homeschool graduate. Hopefully I’ll get the system tweaked at that time so that I am ready to roll when all the other orders start pouring in! 🙂

Like any good child of the 20th/21st century, I’ve grown up depending on e-mail as my primary mode of communication. It’s so convenient – you can do it at any time of day or night, it can be personal or formal, and best of all, it can help you avoid the awkwardness of “cold calling.” For some reason, it just doesn’t seem as painful to be rejected by e-mail as it is over the phone. But that’s the catch. For some reason, it also seems easier to reject the requests of others via e-mail. The handy delete key can be dutifully employed and no one’s feelings have to be hurt. Instead, one is left wondering whether the e-mail was properly transmitted, whether the intended recipient viewed it, whether they are just busy and haven’t gotten around to replying yet, or whether they have indeed rejected the request and deleted it altogether.

Thus I have learned the value of a simple phone call. In my process of soliciting endorsements for Pajama School – stories from the life of a homeschool graduate, I’ve sent out numerous e-mails. Most went unanswered. However, last week, due to a tip from a friend, I made a phone call to an organization where a person from whom I was hoping to secure an endorsement works. After a brief conversation with his assistant, I sent a follow-up e-mail with the promised additional information and links. Later that afternoon, an endorsement arrived in my inbox. I was shocked! And regretful of my frequent hesitation/refusal to make phone calls.

So yesterday morning, I performed the much-disliked task of calling all the other endorsers from whom I had not heard to follow-up on the e-mail I sent weeks ago. And you know what? I didn’t get a single rejection. Every person with whom I spoke was friendly and receptive. But best of all, now I have a full list of names and addresses of people who are eagerly waiting to receive an Advance Review Copy of my book as soon as it’s printed and ready to go! 🙂

Check out this article at Self Publishing Advice with five helpful editing tips for self-publishers. I can vouch for the absolute importance of having an editor – multiple editors, actually! When I finished my first draft of Pajama School, I gave a copy of the manuscript to each member of my family for them to read and edit. (I think we must be a little bit on the geeky side, because just about everyone in our family enjoys editing…or at least pointing out errors in other people’s writing!) Once I inputted all of those edits and changes, I gave copies to the other four people I recruited to do editing for me. One of them is still finishing up his editing. (Note: Editing is a LONG process! Be sure you don’t underestimate the time it will take!)

Once I receive the final edits this week, I plan to do one more read-through to incorporate all of the edits, suggestions, etc. Then we’ll be ready to move forward with the final page layout before printing. Hooray! It’s getting close!

Tonight, I spent a good deal of time making adjustments to my Sibro Publishing website. You probably won’t see any of them, though, because they are all in the backend! I’m using the Open Source Joomla CMS for the website, and have installed the VirtueMart Shopping Cart component to handle the orders. I highly recommend both of these! They have a bit of a learning curve, but it can be done. It’s well worth it in the long run for a variety of reasons:

1. It is free!

2. It is a very customizable and flexible structure that allows for expansion if you decide to grow your self-publishing business.

3. Both of these have excellent support communities where you are almost guaranteed to find answers to your questions.

4. There are tons of additional components and plugins that can be installed. (I’m also using the free Acajoom mailing list component to manage subscribers, and send out a regular e-newsletter.)

I will say, this option is best suited for the more serious web developer. I’m a huge fan of Open Source (when it suits my purposes), so I don’t mind investing the time to work through some of the headaches involved with getting everything set up, customized, and ready for business. The real test will come, though, once the orders start pouring in! 🙂

(I have been trying to work through some cross-browser inconsistency issues, so if you see anything that doesn’t look quite right, please don’t hesitate to let me know!)