Article Reivew "Speak More, Sell More" by Diana Gravemen from "Guide to Self-Publishing 2015"

The book I’m dissecting is Writer’s Digest Guide to Self-Publishing 2015 . Writer’s Digest aims its publications at the aspiring and the emerging writer. It produces how-to and guidance books as well as reference books—not to mention webinars —or those newbie writers whose pockets ring with more change than peasants like myself. Many of its volumes are the effort of multiple authors writing different sections or are compendiums of many articles.

Writer’s Digest Guide to Self-Publishing 2015 is the latter. The articles are short. The book is edited by Robert Lee Brewer, who also contributed a few articles.

Writer’s Digest Guide to Self-Publishing 2015 is divided into three main subject areas: 1) Production 2) Management and 3) Promotion. Other sections include author interviews, listings of professional services to the self-publishing author, resources such as conferences and book fairs, and an index.

The present article, “Speak More, Sell More” is in the Promotions section. According to the contributor’s notes, author Diana Graveman “is a former corporate training designer,” (whatever that is) “teacher, staff editor, and MFA faculty member whose portfolio includes over 160 publishing credits, 22 awards, and coauthorship of four regional histories.”

The idea of public speaking is, of course, to sell books, but Graveman points out that the author should not be obvious about this. It is more important to build goodwill among potential readers. Target your audience. It may be worth accepting engagements where you’re not allowed to sell books for the interaction. She gives several resources where you can find interest groups that might fit a book. This is valuable to the indie author without a publishing house behind him/her.

Other means of building goodwill are donating a certain percentage of the proceeds to the sales to the organization or to some charity, offering a copy of the book as a door prize or through a goodreads giveaway.

Once an event is booked, she also points out ways to announce it via Facebook, to send out Evite and other ways to build interest. This is something the author has to work at constantly beyond simply writing a book.

There are quite a number of tools offered in this article. It is among the more helpful in the book.

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Title: “Speak More, Sell More”

Author: Diana Graveman”

Writer’s Digest Guide to Self-Publishing 2015

Section: Promotion

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writing

publicspeaking

promotion

selfpublishing

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© 2015 Denise Longrie

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