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- The Frugal Book Promoter
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- Author: Carolyn Howard-Johnson
- Reviewer: Joyce Faulkner
- Publisher: Star Publish (2004)
- ISBN: 193299310X
- Rating: * * * * Quills
- www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/asin/193299310X/scriquil
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- It's finally happened. That beautiful book is in your hot little hands. You hold it to your chest and do a quick little dance of triumph. You are an author. Now what? You sell them, of course — the more the better. How do you do that? Most of us don't have a clue. After you’ve contacted the roughly two hundred people that you know, then what? You can look to your publisher for guidance, but unless you are a top-ranked author in a big house, the publicity budget will probably be limited. You can hire your own publicist, but there are lots of folks out there looking to separate you from your money while giving you very little in return. Separating the "scams" from the "legits" is almost impossible for a newbie; figuring out what works and doesn't work is even worse.
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- Into this "new author dilemma" waltzes Carolyn Howard-Johnson with her new book, The Frugal Book Promoter: How to do What Your Publisher Won't. What makes this book different from the half dozen other book marketing tomes? Simplicity. A "let's get together and figure this thing out" spirit of generosity. An "I've been there and got the T-shirt" feel. Most especially, it’s got a ton of practical tips backed up with the names and addresses of resources.
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- Being a former publicist for a New York City public relations firm and a marketing instructor for the UCLA Extension Writers' Program, Ms. Howard-Johnson knows her stuff. Having published both fiction and nonfiction, she knows that new authors can feel overwhelmed. She approaches this book with a "can-do" sense of fun and adventure. It's the kind of manual that you can fold down the corners of important pages and highlight in yellow the paragraphs that speak to you. Within days of buying my copy, it was as dog-eared as a half-read paperback version of Gone with the Wind.
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- I particularly loved Ms. Howard-Johnson's "19 Commandments for getting free publicity." In fact, my book falls open to that page, because I need to remind myself of those principles often. Her ideas on how to use the web to reach readers is practical and informative: Don't just scan that section, read it thoroughly several times. However, her most useful chapter is on how to use Amazon's features to promote your books.
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- A friend of mine once told me that he'd log on every night to admire his book on Amazon. Bookless at the time, I figured he'd caught a nasty Internet virus that would wear off as he became used to his new status as published novelist. Now I know that I was wrong. The Amazon bug doesn't go away with time or with antibiotics. It's an illness fed by royalty checks and rankings. The savvy author should put that virus-induced fever to work selling books, but most of us don't know where to start.
Fortunately, Ms. Howard-Johnson works in Amazon-eze as a painter works in oils. From cooperatively using the "listmania" function to promoting your own work and that of others to exploiting the "So You'd Like to" function, Ms. Howard-Johnson teaches and inspires with one good idea after another.
- The Frugal Book Promoter is a must-read for anyone about to embark on the book-selling journey. The only negative I have to report is that it took Amazon several weeks to get me my copy. I'm not sure what the hold up was, but the book itself was worth the wait. However, I would recommend buying the volume sooner rather than later for that reason. It would never do to jump into a launch without this little dandy tucked into your resource kit.
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