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Why You Should Publish Articles: Part 2

I also recommend to writers in my different egroups that they spend some of the time waiting for their book to get published by writing articles for high traffic websites. Picking a topic that is in the news is a good starting point. Another could be writing about "How to" do something. Many websites don't pay, but they do allow you to write a sentence or two at the end about yourself and you can include a website-blog addy etc.

Creating a Blog (free) and putting some dynamite content on it.. then steering people to the blog and encouraging comments and emails can help with the Name recognition issue, also.

Getting a short story published in a print magazine that has a large/national readership is also helpful.

A friend of mine started a letter writing campaign in his hometown by responding to Letters to the Editor in the local newspapers. By the time his book was published and he was ready for book signing events.. people knew his name and flocked to meet him and buy his book!

Part of the problem too is that new authors don't know what to do or how to do it...and many publishers don't have the time or inclination to assist the new author... too bad they don't because opportunities are missed. I know.. most here will say it is the author's responsibility... but how can the author be responsible for something they don't know anything about?

Participating in community-national fund raising events on a regular basis and being available when the press shows up is also one way the author can get his/her name in the news and also do a good deed!

I want my authors to sell books-promote themselves and their books and most of my authors will be first time or published only a couple of times so I think they can use this kind of help.

I know some of the authors who want to publish with me won't know zilch about marketing plans etc.. so to address this issue I am having them use a standardized form to create a marketing plan and then I will have a marketing consultant review it and provide feedback to the author. I think that this will stimulate the marketing-promoting process and give my authors a leg up ... before their books are published.

Well I am new to the business so I could be wrong... time will tell. At least I won't be turning down good manuscripts because the author is ignorant about the business end of the book industry. :)

Linda


James A. Cox
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