I just read the entire article, “A Word (Or Two, Or Three) About Persistence” by Lucas Conley. If you are in the process of promoting your book, it’d be good for you to read it, too.
And I used the word “entire” not because it is long, but because Lucas kept me interested the whole piece, and that doesn’t usually happen.
This is a recount of a persistent author’s attempts to get his book reviewed by Fast Company. FROM THE MAGAZINE SIDE. We hardly ever get to hear what editors think of us authors pimping our books. And here is the book in lights:
Corporate Canaries : Avoid Business Disasters with a Coal Miner’s Secrets
Gary Sutton was ambitous, determined, and crafty in his efforts to get his book reviewed. There are several ideas to take away from this, but the key piece of info that I found most valuable to pass on to authors is “At this point, there was no chance I was going to review the book – it had been on the shelves for a few months…”
Authors, if you have a hard cover book that you want reviewed in a magazine, you HAVE to get it into galley form and send it to the book reviewers six months a head of pub date. Magazines work 4-6 months in advance. And if you plan on selling first serial rights, you could even start earlier.
That said, kudos to Gary Sutton for pushing on and getting his book mentioned in such a high level blog. I love the check list idea. Love it!
Lets also mention a few other things that Sutton did right. He got an editor at the Wall Street Journal to write an endorsement which he used on the cover of the book. This is no easy feat unless you have contacts or work leagues ahead of time. And his marketing efforts led to Corporate Canaries getting selected for the Forbes book club. And that’s just what I found on the first page of Google. I’m sure there’s more…good job, Gary.
I didn’t know you had this blog. But I guess that’s what Google is for! When I finally convince Otis to commit to a book, I’ll send him here for advice!!!
Oh, and the second listing in Google is your Valentine’s Day 2005 auction post. Will there be a 2006 auction? 😉
Ah look, for the first time my poker world finds my travel writing world. You know, CJ, it was funny—at the 2005 WSOP I ended up doing so little poker writing, and that nobody had heard of the website I was blogging for—that by mid Summer my friends were introducing me as a travel writer. At least now I have the BLUFF and Woman Poker Player titles to my credit.
Re Brad, yeah, we can talk. I’ve already got Pauly and Jeremiah lined up to have their books looked at by a develompental editor friends of mine.
Now, how do I buy a piece of the Luckbox?
Re: Valentine’s Day, I’ll have to introduce you to yet another blog for that.