Rachel & Judy’s Letter to My Lover Valentine’s Day Contest!

Would you like to become involved in Rachel Greene Baldino and Judy Ford’s virtual book tour? Read below how you can!

Since February is the time for cupids and hearts and all things romantic and sometimes not-so-romantic, what better time than to write a letter to your lover?

On February 1, 2008, Rachel Greene Baldino and Judy Ford, authors of the book, The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Enhancing Sexual Desire, are embarking on a virtual book tour around the world collecting letters from bloggers who would like to tell their lovers how they really feel about them – the good and the bad – and become a part of their tour!

If you would like to become involved in their contest, this is how it works:

1. Think of the things you would like to say to your lover, but haven’t had the time or the reason, whether it’s to say how much you love them or how they drive you up the wall. Yes, the good and the bad and the funnier or more outrageous the better! Let everything hang out!

2. Do not use names. Name your blog post “Letter to My Lover” and begin your post with “Dear Lover…” They’ll have to guess who it’s for!

3. Post your message on your blog between now and February 14th and send us the exact link to thewriterslife(at)yahoo.com. Please put “Letter to my Lover” in your subject line.

4. When we receive your link, we will add it to Rachel and Judy’s tour page.

5. But, that’s not all! Rachel and Judy will pick one of the bloggers who participate a FREE copy of The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Enhancing Sexual Desire! That’s their Valentine’s Day present to you!

6. And…we will promote your blog through our daily promotions using your blog post as part of their virtual book tour, thus bringing you lots of traffic during February!

7. We also ask that you include a jpeg copy of Rachel and Judy’s book, The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Enhancing Sexual Desire, in your blog post. You can find their book cover here (you are welcome to copy and paste from there).

8. All participants will be listed on Rachel and Judy’s tour page so that everyone can read YOUR letters to your lover!

That’s all there is to it! Hurry before time runs out. Become involved in a nationwide campaign to tell the world what you think about your lover and see how much fun it will be to read the letters of others. Share your letters and become involved in RACHEL AND JUDY’S “LETTER TO MY LOVER” VALENTINE’S DAY CONTEST!

Rachel and Judy’s virtual book tour will be highly publicized including press releases and other promotions and is brought to you by Pump Up Your Book Promotion, an innovative public relations agency specializing in online book promotion. You can visit their website at http://www.pumpupyourbookpromotion.com/.

Tags: virtual book tour, Valentine’s Day, letter to my lover, Valentine’s Day contest, Rachel Greene Baldino, Judy Ford, The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Enhancing Sexual Desire, Pump Up Your Book Promotion

When Presenting a Book to a Reviewer, Do What Amanda Ford Does

I get books for review practically every day. Some of these are from a company that sends me press releases and it is up to me to choose which ones I’d like. The others are books from my authors going out on virtual book tours at Pump Up Your Book Promotion.

So you can say I get a pretty good supply of reading material that would take me until doomsday to read them all which is a pretty cool thing because I love reading the works of various authors and, hopefully, giving them a glowing review.

Now, the politically correct way to get these books read so that I can write the review would be to take them as they come in, from first to last. It reminds me of those infamous slush piles that you often hear about that are piled up in the corners of the rooms of publishers and agents, and it makes me wonder if some books that come into their office have that gotta-be-read-now appeal such as the book I received today and it makes me wonder if that slush pile ever gets read at all.

The book I received today is Amanda Ford’s Kiss Me, I’m Single: An Ode to the Solo Life. Okay, so she’s one of my authors and that does give her precedence, but that wasn’t the main reason. The main reason I had to stop what I was doing was the way Amanda presented her book to me.

I wish I had taken a picture, but it came with a pink ribbon around it, much like you’d wrap a present, and on the “bow” part, there was a tiny pink pin with the word, “single” on it. It was so cute, I didn’t want to take the ribbon off, but I was dying to tear into the book, so off it went.

But can you see how you can make your book stand out? I get hundreds of books; yet, this one really made my day. I could tell this author had taken the time to really impress me and that really made a difference, whether I will admit to being lured into her book with such impressive packaging. Hey, it worked for me.

And the inside was just as impressive. Amanda will be on tour in March, so you’ll have to keep an eye out (www.virtualbooktoursforauthors.blogspot.com)  for her tour page so you can learn more about her. She’s definitely an author to watch.

If you can’t wait for her tour to buy her book, Kiss Me, I’m Single: An Ode to the Solo Life, you can pick up your copy by clicking on the cover or the title above. Seriously, it’s a fun book with her witty, delightful wisdom on why it’s okay to be single. I’m enjoying it immensely. And that little pink pin with “single” on top looks really good pinned to my shirt. Wonder how it will look on pajamas…hmmm….

Tags: book marketing, online book promotion, Pump Up Your Book Promotion, virtual book tour, Amanda Ford, Kiss Me, I’m Single: An Ode to the Solo Life

Offline Sales Vs. Online Sales

There’s an interesting conversation happening over at one of my e-groups over whether an author makes more sales online vs. offline. 

As I deal with authors on a daily basis and I specialize in online book promotion, my answer to this would be obvious - online book promotion is where it’s at.  But, am I wrong?

The only way to find out would be to ask you - the author - if your sales are greater online (Amazon, publisher’s website, your own website where you are selling your book, etc.) is more or less than you are selling offline (Barnes & Noble, your neighborhood bookstore, etc.).

Inquiring minds want to know.  Leave a comment below to give your experiences so that we all will find out the million dollar secret to fantastic book sales.

So, what is it - offline or online?

Tags: book marketing, online book promotion, online book sales, offline book sales

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Would you like free books?

As part of my unwinding process during the day and to distance myself from coordinating tours for awhile, I spend it in google alerts.  If you haven’t discovered google alerts, you’ve been living under a rock because it’s one of my most loved tools for “checking up” on different things I put in there.  I have a special box set up just for google alerts and when you see me heading over there, you know I’m on a brain break and I may be there for awhile.

Tonight, one such google alert came in and I knew I had to blog about this.  It was a reviewer blog called The Written Word - a very attractive blog with a full set of archives, not to mention people commenting.  A virtual book tour coordinator’s dream. 

Aside from the wonderful qualities this blog had, it also had a recent blog post about something I thought was rather cute.  I felt like I was eavesdropping, but the blogger was talking about ways she got books to review - publishers, publicists, etc.  You can read what she had to say about it here.

It was sort of like how we get clients.  Publicists and publishers find our company in google, much like they find her.  And how many used google alerts to do this?  You’d be surprised.

Reviewers make up about 1/3 of our stops so I’m always on the lookout for them.  Already we have great review blogs - J. Kaye’s Book Blog, Virtual Wordsmith gives us reviews AND interviews, Families.com (again review and interview) to name a few…I know I’m leaving out a lot but without those them, I feel a tour wouldn’t be complete.

As a matter of fact, we just signed up a new reviewer today - UponFurtherReview.org.  A wonderful reviewer who was ecstatic to be getting free books as reading was one of her pleasures.

And we’re always on the lookout for more because I can see these poor reviewers doing nothing but reading for the next decade and that’s just from what we’ve been sending them.

If you are reviewer and you have a blog with a good amount of traffic, there’s a graphic to the top right that says “Would you like to be a blog host?”  Click on it.  Contact us.  It’s a great way to get some good reading material and totally free. ;o)

Tags: free books, blog host, virtual book tour, book reviewers

“They treat your book like it’s their book”

I got the most delightful email from Cheryl Malandrinos, one of my tour coordinators, this morning.

One of her clients, Garasamo Maccagnone, author of St. John of the Midfield, and who is touring in February, sent her this email in which I’d like to share:

“The Pump Up Your Book Promotion staff is a remarkable group of professional people who babysit you through your entire tour.  I highly recommend them.  They treat your book like it’s their book.”

I emailed Cheryl and told her that whatever she’s doing, keep doing it.

The staff of Pump Up Your Book Promotion and I strongly believe that even though there are many authors going out in any given month, and some of us have four, five tours at one time, and I’d be lying if I told you we don’t get stressed, but the reason why it can be stressing at times is that we strongly believe that even though we are handling more than one author in any given month, we must make each author feel special, unique, one-of-a-kind, which they are rightly due.

The way we are set up - being is because there are so many authors wanting tours each month - is to take each author’s tour and judge it separately.  While it may appear that we place our authors on the same blogs each month, there is a reason for that, too.  Each blog we are contracted with fulfills a certain purpose.  While one blogger might be great for hits, another blogger might be great for promoting that stop.  We have one blogger who posts the interview or guest post on their blog, then turns around and announces the stop on other blogs.  They are not paid to do this, either.  That’s why they are valuable to us, and we keep them aboard.

With that said, once we add these blogs to our authors’ tour sheets according to what genre they are, etc.., we go on a man hunt to find blogs that would increase their publicity.  It’s a variety of stops which, when added up, creates enormous online presence and added visibility to their potential book buyers.

But, what most people think, because that’s what they see, that’s not all there is to it.

We take your book and read it in order to get into the mindset of the author writing it and understand the point they are making with it.  We find hooks that we can use in our promotion which can then be used to make the author stand out - whether it’s a news hook or a general interest hook - and we use these hooks to create an even more powerful campaign.

For instance, one of the clients I am representing right now has experience in television and has co-written a book with a well-known celebrity.  Had I not picked up on that in her bio, I would have overlooked one of the best hooks for her book possible in terms of what a virtual book tour can do for her.

But, every tour is different.  Every tour has that special quality that makes it stand out and it’s all because of the work we put behind the scenes in creating a virtual book tour to be proud of.

A virtual book tour is a vehicle.  It’s a vehicle to get the readers to the blog to where the author is appearing so that they may purchase the authors’ book.  If that interview or guest post or book review does nothing but to waste the readers’ time, then what’s the point?

There is a lot going on at Pump Up that the general viewer might not pick up on, but if you study one of our clients’ tours, you might pick up on what we do.  We don’t just send your book out on tour, we treat your book like it’s our book because that’s the only way we can convey to our reader that this book is worth buying.

I want to personally thank Gary for his endorsement and let him know that it didn’t take but a second and a half to get it up on our endorsement page.  ;o)

Tags: author publicity, book publicity, book endorsements, Garasamo Maccagnone, virtual book tour

Pre-Buzzing Aram Schefrin, Author of MARWAN: THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A 911 TERRORIST

I am reading the most fantastic book.  It’s called Marwan: The Autobiography of a 911 Terrorist by Aram Schefrin.

Since it’s so fantastic, I want to create a little pre-buzz for Aram since he’s going out on tour in February (check out his tour page at www.virtualbooktoursforauthors.blogspot.com) because this guy you won’t want to miss as his subject matter deals with something that personally affected everyone in America (and world-wide) on that dreaded day, September 11, 2001.

In case you have been living under a rock, this was the day America mourned as suicidal bombers decided to have a field day in New York City, crashing into the Twin Towers at the New York Trade Center, killing thousands, and then another suicidal bomber headed for the Pentagon in Washington, D.C.

How can anyone not remember that day?  War was declared and everyone feared for their lives because we didn’t know what was going to happen next.

But, who were these bombers and why did they do  what they did?

I’ve been talking to Aram, asking him loads of questions to prepare for his tour next month, and this is the most interesting fellow I have talked to about this subject.

His book, Marwan: The Autobiography of a 911 Terrorist, is written from the terrorists’ point of view.  And no NY publishing house would touch it.  In fact, some of them were mortified to even think about publishing it.

Well, they should have given this book a chance because as I am really really really busy with tours and everything, it’s hard to sit back and enjoy a good book.  I knew his tour was coming up, and we had had several conversations about the subject matter, I decided I better start on it.

If you could only imagine how hooked I am on this book.  Of course, I know the ending, but what about the beginning?  Who was this Marwan and why was he involved?

According to Schefrin (who changed the main character’s last name, but kept the first), Marwan was influenced by his cousin Atta, who was totally appalled at what he saw when he arrived in New York in June 2000. 

Shefrin starts off the book by having Marwan saying, “I looked down through a haze of smog from the top of the Empire State.  The ‘greatest city in the world’ was an ugly jumble of buildings, for the most part dreary, more like Dickens’ London, as I imagined it, than the  clean, airy symmetry of the skyline of Dubai…”

He goes on to describe New York…”no matter where we looked that day, we found filth - not just wrappers and cigarette butts but a coating of grime on everything, which only a flood like Noah’s could have cleansed away.”

He asks Atta why did he take him to such a horrible place and Atta responds, “I didn’t bring you here.  Allah did.”

And so it ends the first chapter.

The reason why this book is affecting me the way it does is because I believe it’s human nature to invest some time to find out why someone does what they do, if it is something so horrible and tragic.  Once you do understand it, it helps you prevent the same thing from happening, or at least, try to.

As 911 deeply affected me and as I had personally witnessed the disaster site just six months afterwards, this book will definitely be in my hands over the next day or two.  Sure, there were religious indifferences, but there was so much more that you and I never even considered before and in which Schefrin does an excellent job in portraying.

I’ll be doing a follow-up in a few days.  The writing is excellent and keeps you on the edge of your seat…believe me…I can’t put the book down.  If you’d like to order your copy, click on his book cover.

I will be interviewing Aram at Book Marketing Buzz during his tour in February and you can find out what kind of research he had to do to prepare himself and his views on how he thinks we could have stopped 911 from ever happening.

Tags: book marketing, pre-buzz, 911, New York, terrorist, Aram Schefrin, Marwan

Pump Up Your Book Promotion Names Tristi Pinkston January Blog Host of the Month!

Pump Up Your Book Promotion, an innovative public relations agency specializing in online book promotion has named Tristi Pinkston Blog Host of the Month for the month of January!

Tristi Pinkston has been a blogger for Families.com since August of 2006. She’s a stay-at-home mom, LDS historical fiction author of two published novels, and the mother of four (wife of one). She enjoys scrapbooking, watching good movies, and taking naps. She homeschools her children and takes a great deal of joy in watching them learn. When she’s not compulsively checking her e-mail or hiding her laundry in weird places so she doesn’t have to fold it, she enjoys trying new recipies that no one will eat. She also owns her own business making bath salts, lip gloss and lotion.

Visit her blog at Families.com at http://members.families.com/tristipie/blog.   

Thank you for this interview, Tristi, and congratulations on Pump Up’s Blog Host of the Month!

Thank you for having me.

You write for Families.com, a phenomenal blog. Can you tell us what role you have there?

I blog in three different categories — LDS, Movie Reviews, and Media Reviews. These three areas are right up my alley as I feel passionately about all of them, and I’m able to put a lot of myself into every blog I write. I really couldn’t ask for a better job, especially as it allows me to stay home with my children.

What kind of hits would you say Families.com gets on any given day?

Doing a little conjecturing, I would say that the entire site gets around 35,000 hits a day — we have blog categories in everything from pregnancy and parenting to education and popular culture, so there’s a lot to read. We also have a third of a million members, which is really impressive. My blogs get around 1,000 hits a day.

What aspect of writing for Families.com do you enjoy the most?

As I mentioned, I really like staying at home and being able to workat the same time. Granted, sometimes it’s difficult to type when Legos are being shoved in your hands and little fingers are reaching in to hit the letter “A” while a little voice properly identifies it. I love encouraging people to read and helping them find worthwhile reading material. It’s also fun for me to meet new people, even if it is “just” online.

You review and interview authors. Can you tell us what your submission guidelines are?

The first and most important guideline is that the subject matter must be suitable for my readers. We are a family-oriented site, hence the name, and we don’t promote heavy violence or any form of erotica. This is fine with me — I wouldn’t want to read that either! I also try not to enter into debates with the authors I interview. If I discover that we have widely differing opinions on a certain topic, I’ll steer the conversation so there’s no danger of creating an uncomfortable atmosphere for either of us. Beyond that, I’m interested in fiction, nonfiction — you name it. The field is wide open. I do like to have a copy of the book so I can review it, but that’s not necessary for an author interview — it’s only necessary if you’d like a review for the book itself.

Do you write for any other websites or blogs?

I don’t write professionally for any other blogs — my contract with Families.com is exclusive. I am a published historical fiction author, so I do maintain a personal website as well as a personal blog which I use for promotional purposes, but my reviews are exclusive to Families.com.

What do you do in your off time?

Well, if I had some . . . I really enjoy reading. This is part of what makes the job so suited to me — I’m not reading because I have to, I’m reading because I love it. I also love watching good movies, taking naps, and scrapbooking. I own my own bath and beauty products company and some of my time is taken that way. But mostly I read and watch movies. That makes me sound like a real couch potato – but I’m so busy all the time that when I do have a minute, I’d better be doing something relaxing or you might as well just ship me off to the looney bin and wrap me up in a straight jacket. I’ll take a mauve one, please, or maybe a nice sage, to match my eyes . . .

Thank you for your interview, Tristi, and we’ll see you on the tour circuit!

Tags: book marketing, book promotion, online book promotion, virtual book tours, Pump Up Your Book Promotion, Tristi Pinkston, Families

Are you a California author?

I just found this.  It looks to me that it’s a place where you can submit your book FREE if you’re a California author.  Look in the sidebar for directions.

http://www.californiaauthors.com/index.shtml

Tags: Book Marketing Buzz, book marketing, free book promotion, California

HowToDoThings.com

I was over on Storycrafters a few minutes ago and I saw something that I must pass on to my fellow bloggers.

If you read Jean’s post there, you will see that she got an email from a site called HowToDoThings.com.  I got that same email and I never signed up for their email list to my knowledge.

The website is attractive and tempting, I must say.  From what I could make out, you could submit your “how to” articles, I think.  After Jean’s post, I didn’t do much more exploring than that; but according to Jean, these people take all the rights to whatever you send in to them.  They can change it, revise it, do whatever they want to it, and SELL it. 

Ouch.

Just thought I would pass this on just in case you get one of their unsolicited emails, too. 

FREE Book Promotional Opportunity

The Story Behind the Book has a new home!  I decided to move it from Blogger to WordPress and it is now located at www.thestorybehindthebook.wordpress.com. 

If you would like to tell your book’s backstory, visit that link and find out how!