Comments on: Tips for Promoting Your Own Book

By: Loay

Loay — Sun, 22 Feb 2009 08:39:17 +0000

Thank you for the insight. My book is due out May 30th 2009. It is a deep look into the attempt at inner peace and external wealth creation via closing the heedless void. I have been in sales for over 14 years. This gives me the motivation to be optimistic. I have already created a 20 point list to follow. My goal is 1,000,000 copies sold in 30 months.

By: Lise Funderburg

Lise Funderburg — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 12:35:52 +0000

Phew. I read this piece right on the heels of reading the recent NY Mag doom-n–gloom feature about the tanking book industry, and Henkin’s reasonable approach and generous advice are all that kept me from jumping out of my home office window.

My own latest book (Pig Candy, out for four months now) has had great reviews and great responses….but the sales don’t indicate either. I actually fell into some despair for a time. Weren’t the seven years I spent working on the book enough? Hadn’t I done my part? As Henkin testifies: No and no. So now I’m embracing a marketing approach much along the lines of what Henkin suggests–the new, value-added website…the efforts that directly connect me to readers…some facsimile of a blog (fortunately, one theme in my book is foods from the South, and I have plenty of entries to make about foods I have known)–and trying to be very efficient in it all so that I have a little time left to, um, write. If I start to slip back into darkness, I just remind myself of why I wrote the book in the first place, how satisfying it’s been to hear from people who read it and connected to it in so many different ways, what a pleasure it was to create, word by word. Good luck to us all.

By: Sybil Baker

Sybil Baker — Sun, 28 Sep 2008 15:06:25 +0000

Zedque–thanks for the tip–I live in Chattanooga Tennesee, but I’ll look into this for the future!

By: Zedque

Zedque — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 15:56:16 +0000

PS Thanks for the great article, Josh! I found it extremely helpful.

By: Zedque

Zedque — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 15:55:17 +0000

Sybil, I’m not sure where you live, but one of the authors I do publicity for is going to BookClub Expo in San Jose next month: http://www.bookgroupexpo.com/. If you’re not in Cali, I’m sure there’s other types of events like these. There’s also a ton of book club websites and blogs out there, which have provided me with great resources. Good luck, and let me know if you find any other ideas!

By: Sybil Baker

Sybil Baker — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 13:12:54 +0000

Great article! My own first novel is coming out with a small press in early spring and I’m already working on most of those things you cited. My biggest question is, how do you find book clubs in the first place? Thanks!

By: Sarah

Sarah — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 03:49:13 +0000

Wow, your book group comments were a bit, shall we say, harsh?

“Not everyone who’s in a book group is a genius, but then there aren’t a lot of geniuses out there. ”

Thanks God. From what I can tell, most “geniuses” are hard to live with, and I wouldn’t want them in my book group.

“And I’ve been struck by how many smart, sensitive, insightful readers I’ve encountered in places I wouldn’t have expected. ”

What does this mean, exactly? In which places wouldn’t you expect to find smart, sensitive, insightful readers? Hmmm?

And then you wrote:
“Book groups are a chance for you to meet ordinary readers when for most writers of literary fiction the only readers we’ve ever encountered are our friends and fellow writers, and book critics.” Um, who do you think reads books? Just book critics and your literary, smart, sensitive friends? How about “ordinary readers” who you don’t happen to know? Sounds like you need to get out more!