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The Frugal Book Promoter by Carolyn Howard-Johnson

29 Jul

Previously on my Self-Printing Bookclub which isn’t actually a bookclub, I hated Dan Poynter’s Self-Publishing Manual for its double duty as self-publishing evangelist propaganda, but really liked Aaron Shepard’s more ethical, sensible and modest approach which he detailed in his book, Aiming at Amazon.

Today I’m going to tell you about my latest ‘how to’ read, The Frugal Book Promoter: How to Do What Your Publisher Won’t by Carolyn Howard-Johnson.

I’ll start with the bad stuff.

First, the book is way out of date. It was published in 2004 and of course since then we’ve had a social media revolution which presents a whole new way – and possibly the best way – for authors to get free publicity and promote their books. Secondly, it constantly refers to websites, blogs, online articles, mailing lists and email addresses. Since it was written six years ago I think it’s safe to assume at least some of these are now defunct and moreover, I bought the book. I want the information promised to me by the title to be in the book. I don’t want to go to the trouble of ordering it, buying it and reading it only to find out that most of its content is in fact available online and for free. Thirdly, it made my eyes bleed. (more…)

Bye-Bye Bookshops: Aiming at Amazon by Aaron Shepard

21 Jul

Last time on my Self-Printing Bookclub – which, I should point out, isn’t really a bookclub; it just sounds nice – I didn’t glean anything but frustration from Dan Poytner’s Self-Publishing Manual. This week we’re at the other end of the moral scale with the very ethical Aaron Shepard and his popular self-publishing book, Aiming at Amazon: How to Publish Your Books with Print on Demand and Online Book Marketing on Amazon.com, and hoping for something a little more useful than a rant about agents, publishers and bookstores.

Things are off to a good start with the author’s CV. Shepard is an award-winning children’s author who has written several books about this ‘new business’ of self-publishing, he created that god-awful obsession for published authors, Sales Rank Express, and most importantly, he makes a living from selling his self-published books, many of which are about self-publishing. He’s even been in The New York Times. Shepard’s ideal student is about to produce their non-fiction book using a Print on Demand service like Lulu or CreateSpace, is computer literate and willing to focus solely on online sales. Shepard has nothing against bookshops, per se – he simply points out that it’s far, far easier to shift copies of your book from a free listing on Amazon.com. (more…)

Why Can’t We All Just Get Along? – Dan Poynter’s Self-Publishing Manual

9 Jul

When I decide to do something in life – start a diet, work abroad, write a novel, learn a language, take up a new hobby – the first thing I normally do is buy a book that tells me how to. This is why I’ve a vast collection of How To Write Books Books and why I spent much of May 1998 studying things like newsgroups and Yahoo! chat rooms in the pages of The Internet for Dummies; the arrival of our first PC and home internet connection loomed and I wanted to get a head start on how to use it.

Oddly, when it came to self-publishing Mousetrapped, I didn’t read any How To books. This was partly because I was trying to keep costs to a minimum, and partly because a wealth of information on the subject is available online, for free. I also struggled to find titles that didn’t read like self-publishing propaganda. (If I never see the word ‘gatekeepers’ again, that’s fine with me.) But now that the job is done and I’ve reached an impasse on the promotional front (anyone got any ideas? ‘Cause I’m all out!), I figured I’d order up a few, read them and see what I could glean. I was particularly interested to know if I’d have benefited from them before I went ahead, or if the free online information sprinkled with a light dusting of common sense did just as well. Over the next few weeks I’ll be sharing my thoughts on the ones I did read, starting today with The Self-Publishing Manual by Dan Poynter (Para Publishing, 16th Edition 2007). (more…)