Book Marketing Independently

Happy 4th of July from LA! — Photo Credit Kevin H. on Visual Hunt

Happy INDEPENDENCE DAY, a federal holiday commemorating the adoption of the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776, as well as the anniversary of when I started this blog on July 4^th, 2011– before I had “indie” (i.e. self-) published my book, The Therapist Writer: Helping Mental Health Professionals Get Published. I recently updated the book for 2018 so if you’re interested, please note that on Amazon the updated cover has a little blue triangle in the upper right-hand corner that says, “25 Book Marketing Ideas A-Z.”

To share both this day of independence along with the anniversary of my blog, I’m going to give you some book marketing ideas, one for each letter in I-N-D-E-P-E-N-D-E-N-C-E   D-A-Y.  I know that leaves out a lot of letters. Guess you’ll just have to check out the book on Amazon or Kindle to find out what they are!

Now, let’s go, starting with I-N-D-E-P-E-N-D-E-N-C-E   

I is for Instagram — a photo and video-sharing site owned by Facebook which now has over 800 million users. Posts can be public or shared with specified others. People with services or products (like books) to sell are finding ways to do it here. Always do your homework and read all about it first. The same goes for all marketing tips.

N is for Networking – joining and attending groups, lectures, workshops, and seminars, where you’ll meet other indie authors involved in book marketing, can be energizing and inspiring and a much faster way to get new ideas and learn more about all things DIY.

D is for Discoverability – This has become an important term in the book-marketing field. How can anyone buy your book if they don’t know it exists? You have to find ways you can do-it-yourself that get you noticed. There is so much online and on YouTube about book marketing that it’s quite overwhelming. Just look!

E is for Elevator Pitch – Memorize a 10 or 15-second pitch about your book, what it’s about and how it helps and benefits the reader — just in case anybody asks you what you’re up to.  Search online for “elevator pitch” for plenty of good tips.

P is for Pinterest – Another “hot” social media site. Users can search, upload,, sort, and manage images—known as “pins”—and then save them on their “boards.” Think of a topic and there’s a Pinterest board about it! With a “business account” (also free) users can  promote their products (such as books). One cool thing is you can link a pin about your book to your Amazon book page, website, blog, or to an article. It’s your virtual storefront. You can use a program like Canva.com to create perfect pins.

E is for E-mail List – If you haven’t started an email list already, start one now. Collect emails of people who are potential book buyers. When you publish a book, one of the first things to do is send out a “book launch” letter to your email list — so you need a list! Give people an easy way to opt out or unsubscribe.

N is for Newsletter – Sending out a book-related newsletter used to be a hassle and a big expense. Now it’s all done electronically. You can use email programs such as Constant Contact, Mail Chimp, or MadMimi. Most are free for up to 1000 to 2000 email names. If your email list is small, it will cost you only your time.

D is for DIY – The more you do-it-yourself, the less book marketing will cost you. Publicists are still out there willing to charge you, but save your money to pay hired hands for the things you can’t do or don’t want to do, and do the rest yourself.

E is for Email Signature – Create a little “ad” for yourself at the bottom of every email you send out (try “stationery” section). You can hyperlink your urls to your Amazon website, blog, or website. This isn’t in-you-face advertising. It’s subtle. People can click on your links – or not.

N is for Newspapers – Even though many newspapers have folded (meaning there’s less space for traditional book reviews), there are many  newspapers left and some are hungry for content. Think of all the “throw-away” papers just in your area. Search online for “newspapers” and you’ll get sites like: 50states.com/news; onlinenewspapers.com; thepaperboy.com, and more.

C is for Contests – Lots of contests out there to enter, but first make sure they aren’t scams. Go to the blog of janefriedman.com for her list of recommended and “safe” contests. If you win, place, or show in a legit contest, that makes you “an award-winning” author. Good for book marketing!

E is for Ezines – Ezines are online magazine. Today, most regular magazines have an online counterpart and it’s usually easier to have an article you write accepted there than it is in their paper version. Ezines have thousands of readers so it’s a good way to get the word out about your book. Some even pay a little. Try directoryofezines.com or ezinesearch.com.

You Go Girl! Market That Book! Photo credit: Visual Hunt

Now for D-A-Y:

D is for Description – Your book description is one of the most important things you’ll write. You’ll use it on your Amazon book page and in your launch letter, and in so many other marketing pieces. Write a short, medium, and long description to have on hand. Embed keywords and phrases and include benefits to readers and potential audiences.

A is for Amazon – Amazon is not only an online bookseller and publisher (CreateSpace and Kindle), it is a world unto itself when it comes to helping you market your book. It offers many marketing features – keywords, customer reviews, the Author Central page, their “look inside the book” feature, foreign sites, and so much more.

Y is for YouTube – YouTube is a candy store. You can find videos about everything on this list and you can make videos about your book to upload to YouTube, even have your own channel. Videos can be nichy, specific, and detailed. You could even make a short video on how you got the idea for your book — and people would watch it!

Okay, Independence fans, that’s it for now. Get to your independent book marketing. There’s more hints, tips and ideas where these came from. Later.

Off you go to book market independently! Photo Credit: Virtual Hunt

© The Therapist Writer: Helping Mental Health Professionals Get Published by Sylvia Cary, LMFT, Timberlake Press – recently updated for 2018.

 

Nana’s Magic Pen

Definition of Magic: The art of producing illusions by sleight of hand; the use of means (such as charms or spells) believed to have supernatural power. . .

          ― Merriam-Webster Dictionary

I’m not a fussy eater, but I am a fussy writer when it comes to pens. A pen has to be just right or it interrupts the creative flow, distracts me, and makes me go scrounging around for another. Without the right pen, I lose the muse.

As a result, I’ve owned a lot of pens over the course of my writing career, but never one as lovely as the pen I caught sight of one day at the discount store, Tuesday Morning. It was clear lucite―you could see right into its very soul―and only $18 instead of the original $80.  I bought it. I was not disappointed. It wrote “smooth as butter.” No skipping or yucky ink blobs.

When my granddaughter, Lily, then 6, came over one afternoon she went right for the pen. She immediately named it “Nana’s Magic Pen.”

“Can I use it, Nana?” she asked.

She cut up and folded some papers into a tiny book and wrote a story called “Nana Wants a Cat.” The story had the perfect three-act structure: The main character, Nana, loses her beloved cat. Now she wants a new one really badly, so she goes off on a quest to find a replacement cat. Her journey takes her to many animal shelters (where you should always get your cats) and she meets a lot of not-right cats and a lot of just-okay cats, which makes Nana so sad she’s about to give up — but then one day she finally finds a black and white rescue kitten and brings her home and names her Diamond.”

Lily proudly handed me her “book.”

I am sure you will all agree that this is proof positive that whenever a writer uses a magic pen, well-told tales with happy endings are the result.

Every writer should have a magic pen.

 (c) Sylvia Cary, LMFT; Photo credit: Sylvia Cary

Keeping up to Date Can Get You Down

 

My book had been out for 5 years, so I started looking for just a few now-dated references and marking them with sticky-notes. I used a whole lot of  sticky-notes!    Photo by Sylvia Cary

Ever bite off more than you could chew? I did that recently. I made the mistake of re-reading my own book, “The Therapist Writer: Helping Mental Health Professionals Get Published,” which I  had indie-published on Amazon and Kindle, as well as on LightningSource, five years ago. While reading, I was stunned to realize that while I was out there marketing the book, publishing gremlins had been sneaking into it and making it sound dated! Dated! Imagine that! How the heck did that happen?

Well, it happened because during that five years the publishing industry had been rushing ahead and making changes, hundreds of changes, big and small. For example, there was no IngramSpark under the LightningSource umbrella when I published my book, so I had no mention of it.  At the time, a self-publishing author could get an ISBN number for $10 from Amazon’s CreateSpace. Today you can’t. It’s $99. “No wonder I’ve been reluctant to market my book the last couple of years,” I said to myself. “There are now mistakes in it and I’m embarrassed. Obviously, they were put there by those publishing gremlins!”

I made the decision right then and there to “update” my book, tweak the cover, and market it all over again. Then I upped the challenge to myself: “No, I’ll come out with a Second Edition with new chapters, which of course means I’ll have to get another ISBN and a new cover, front and back — but then I can really go to town marketing it in all the ways I neglected to market it before! I’ll be a changed author/promoter.”

I took a second pass through the book and put a sticky note wherever I caught something that was dated or needed fixing (see photo above). I set forth with great determination to track down every change in the publishing industry over the last five years and document each one.

Trying to keep up. . .

Within weeks my apartment had every surface stacked with books, notebooks, and printouts. To catch up with “the latest” I was watching YouTube videos, listening to webinars, writing new chapters, and driving around town to panels and workshops. I began to feel overwhelmed and sick at my stomach when I looked at the months of work ahead of me, not to mention my new, about-to-be-created re-publishing expenses.

My bed of research books became a nightmare.  Photo by Visualhunt.com

And for what? I finally asked myself that all-important question: Why was I doing this? It was stupid. Why compete with all the hundreds of new books, Kindles, newsletters, webinars and videos about “the publishing industry” when I already had a unique niche audience (therapists who want to write) that I should be focusing on in a more laser-like fashion. I’d been making that mistake authors are warned about of trying to sell to everybody. “Stick with the shrinks, Sylvia,” I said and felt better already.

Knowing when to hold and when to fold       

So I walked back my plan for an update or a snazzy Second Edition and decided to Keep It Simple. I went through the book a third time just to tidy it up enough so I’m not embarrassed by statements of facts that are no longer facts. They’ve changed. I deleted some things, corrected some things, switched the first two chapters around, but it’s basically the same book, same cover, same number of pages, minus the errors (or most of them I hope). I’m about to upload it to CreateSpace as a “correction,” not a reinvention!

Getting good ideas is great, but knowing when to quit helps you sleep at night.

(c) Sylvia Cary, The Therapist Writer

 

 

 

 

 

The Declaration of Independence – A Document for Writers and Cats Alike

My rescue cat, Pearl, reading The Declaration of Independence that was printed in the New York Times today. She is appreciating no longer being in a cage.

JULY 4th, 2017 – The country’s birthday and my blog’s birthday. I started it on July 4th, 2011, and even though I’ve neglected it terribly the last few years, I do always blog on July 4th.  This morning when I picked up my New York Times from my doorstep, I discovered that they’d printed a copy of the Declaration of Independence. I read it twice. What a great piece of writing that is — brief, clear, well-structured, moving — the kind of writing that always takes the longest to write!

As a writer — as a human being — I am grateful for what this document means. Pearl, at this moment looking a tad anxious because fireworks are going off outside, I’m sure agrees.

Happy 4th!

(c) Sylvia Cary, LMFT, author of The Therapist Writer

Writing for Your “Inner Circle” – And Skip the Book Marketing

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How to Get Published and Skip Book Marketing  Getting a book published is a big job, but the biggest part of it isn’t the writing or even the publishing; it’s the book marketing. For many authors, book marketing is a … Continue reading →

8 “Starter”Book Marketing Tools

GUEST BLOG:

“The First 8 Things to Do to Start Marketing Your Book”

by Catherine Auman, LMFT, Author of Shortcuts to Mindfulness: 100 Ways to Personal and Spiritual Growth, Publisher – Green Tara Press, www.greentarapress.com

8 “Starter” Books Marketing Ideas

You didn’t know that becoming an author meant becoming a marketer, did you? That’s okay; neither did I. The fact is, you’ll need to become actively involved in the marketing of your book because if you don’t, no one but a few friends and family will buy it. Then again, even they might not.

Really, it can be fun. Here are 8 BRIGHT IDEAS you can get started on before publication:

1) First, gather the items you’ll need to market your book:

• Author photos/headshots – professionally done, please
• Author bios of varying lengths – 100 words, 200 words
• Book synopsis, about 100 words, written to entice readers
• A jpg of your cover
• Your elevator speech – a 30-second verbal summary of your book for use at cocktail and other parties when someone asks you, “What’s your book about?”
• If you don’t have a website, get one. If you do have one, redesign it to promote your books as well as yourself.

2)  Create an Amazon Author Profile. This establishes you as a legitimate author. You can link your website, blog, videos, the promotional tools above and the ones you will develop in the future. Go to authorcentral.amazon.com and it will walk you through the steps.

3)  Create a Facebook Page for your book. Invite all your friends to Like (or Love). Start posting the items above and anything you can think of to create buzz. People prefer it if you try to educate, enlighten, or amuse them rather than just sell.

4)  Create a Goodreads Author Profile. Goodreads is where the avid readers hang out. Go to the Goodreads Author Program tutorial which will teach you how. Later you will be sponsoring book giveaways as promotions.

5)  Go to Vistaprint.com and make some inexpensive postcards using the jpg of the cover of your book. You can use these in any number of ways: send out by snail mail, leave at coffee houses, tack up on bulletin boards, and many uses you will come up with as you go along. I always keep some in my bag – you never know who might want one.

6)  Start identifying people and places to ask for book reviews. You will want to get as many as possible, and you’ll be able to use the reviews later for further marketing.

7)  Identify local stores that are likely to sell your book – not just bookstores, but gift stores and specialty shops.

8)   Schedule and plan your Book Release Party. Congratulations! You’re a published author.

© 2016 Catherine Auman

(c) The Therapist Writer Blog by Sylvia Cary, LMFT, author of The Therapist Writer: Helping Mental Health Professionals Get Published. Timberlake Press – TimberlakePress.com.

 

My Valentine to the Adirondack Chair

Love Song to the Adirondack Chair

It’s VALENTINE’S DAY. Roses are nice. Chocolates are yummy. But what really makes my heart sing is the sight of an Adirondack chair.  Wood only, never plastic. They come in all colors, although white is my favorite — memories of Cape Cod summers as a kid and rolling green lawns with white Adirondack chairs plopped down in the middle of them. While I don’t happen to own a rolling green lawn at the moment, if I did, it would most certainly feature a couple of Adirondack chairs facing out towards the world.

Two Rustic Adirondak Chairs in Vermont with Special Meaning

About a year before my sister Evie died of ovarian cancer, while she was in remission, we took a road trip to Vermont and stayed in a charming Bed and Breakfast run by friends of hers. Oftentimes during the day, we would sit out on the back porch in these two rustic Adirondack chairs (see below) and talk. And we would look out at the serenity of this view. That experience, that view, those talks, and those Adirondack chairs are precious to me still.

A Chair “Stars” on a Book Cover

When I returned to California and wrote my book called “The Therapist Writer,” I wanted to use the Vermont photo (above) where my sister and I had sat and had our last lengthy sister-to-sister talk together. Unfortunately, my book cover designer said my photo didn’t have enough “pixels” to look sharp on a book cover, so she went searching for a replacement. I now had very specific requirements: “I want a photo of a single Adirondack chair, under a tree, facing away towards a lovely scene. I want a writer to be able to picture themselves sitting in the Adirondack chair, contemplating nature and coming up with a great idea for a book.” This is what my graphic designer came up with after she had to buy a photo first and crop it way down in order to focus on the chair and tree:

The Therapist Writer by Sylvia Cary, LMFT

You Can’t Please Everybody

I loved my created-to-order book cover, but a therapist colleague of my said, “Oh, no, that’s all wrong. That’s bad ‘feng shui.’ You can’t have just one chair facing away. You have to have two chairs facing forward towards the readers, in communication with each other and with the reader!” I said no, this chair is for solo contemplation to allow the creative mind to pop out a book idea without distraction. I’m sure the writers among you will understand. Besides, I also find Adirondack chairs to be beautiful from the back.

Since my book turned out to be divided into four sections, I included a drawing in between each section — of guess what? an Adirondack chair:

Another Loss and a Pair of Lavender Adirondack Chairs

In January 2014, on the first anniversary of the death of my husband of 28 years, Lance Wolstrup, I felt the need to get out of LA and find a quiet place to go for the weekend. I discovered the charming Lavender Inn in Ojai. From my window, I looked down into the garden and saw a pair of Adirondack  chairs in a soft lavender color.

Oh, how Lance would have loved to have his morning coffee sitting in one of those chairs and read his computer magazines. So I took my morning coffee and pastry, and a notebook and mechanical pencil (favorite writing tool) and sat in one of the lavender chairs and tried a daring new writing experiment — turning an historical screenplay written years ago into a novel and, more daring still, using the first person which forces you into feelings. Had Lance been there I’d have asked his opinion, as I always did. This time I was on my own. And I’m still working on that novel!

Over the last few years I’ve given a lot of workshops on the subject of writing and publishing, especially self-publishing, and I’ve also led writing groups. A while back I marketing a small writing group using a photo of colorful Adirondack chairs that made my heart swell, it was so beautiful. I got it from morguefile.com (write that down; free photos to use for book covers and marketing).

The photo caused one woman to email me to say that the picture alone was enough for her to sign up for the writing group. Another Adirondack chair lover for sure!

Happy Valentine’s Day!

* The History of the Adirondack Chair —The first Adirondack Chair was invented in 1903 by Thomas Lee in Westport, New York, a small town on Lake Champlain at the foot of the Adirondack Mountains. He wanted to be able to enjoy the view and not have to keep standing up. Using his family members as “test sitters,” he settled on a chair constructed from eleven pieces of wood cut from one single plank. It was a low-slung, spacious design with a high back and extra-wide armrests for that all-important summer beverage. The chair was originally called the “Westport Plank Chair.” Modern Adirondack chair manufacturers have at times created chairs that closely resemble these early creations, with modifications designed to increase comfort and durability. — from Wikipedia and other Internet sources

 

 

 

 

 

“It’s Too Nichy”^

Sylvia Cary, LMFT, received an IRWIN AWARD from the Book Publicists of Southern California (BPSC)  for “Best Niche Campaign” for her book, The Therapist Writer: Helping Mental Health Professionals Get Published (Timberlake Press). The award is named for the group’s founder, Irwin Zucker, and was introduced in 1995 as a way to formally and publicly recognize BPSC members who conduct the best book promotion campaigns. Each honoree shared with the audience the steps they took that led to the success of their book promotion campaign. (See video clip of Sylvia’s acceptance remarks below.) The event took place October 15th, 2015, at the Sportsmen’s Lodge in Studio City, California, http://www.sylviacary.com.

Nailing Your Niche*

Definition of niche:  A French word meaning “a situation or activity suited to a person’s interests, ability, or nature.” 

“Nail your niche and own it.”   — Dan Poynter

In the old days of publishing, before digital, before the Internet, before Amazon, before Google, and before Kindle, big publishers didn’t want to touch books on small topics because most didn’t sell . Publishing them just didn’t pay off. Authors of books in niche areas were more likely to find homes with academic or university presses or with little publishers with no money for publicity or marketing.  The readers of these books often had to find out about them through obscure newsletters, specialty bookstores, or by word-of-mouth from other folks interested in the same subjects.

I went that route myself “back in the day” when I was researching my book called Jolted Sober: Getting to the Moment of Clarity in the Recovery of Addiction. I became a long-distance member of the Alister Hardy Research Centre in the U.K. (Oxford) in order to receive their snail-mailed newsletter which contained information of interest to me for my book. They were studying spontaneous healings and religious experiences. My book contained numerous stories about sudden “Aha!” moments of clarity in the addiction recovery. What they were researching was right up my alley. Today, niche publications like this one are easy to find. In fact, I Googled the Centre to see if it still exists — and it does, but with a new name. Now it’s the Alister Hardy Religious Experience Research Centre.

What all this means for you is that, as an author, you no longer have to be afraid that your topic or specialty is too narrowly focused (i.e. “too nichy”)  to write about. There are people out there looking for what you have to say. And while it’s unlikely that you’ll get a contract with a mainstream publisher where “No Niches Need Apply,” you may be accepted by a small press or you can self-publish on Amazon’s CreateSpace for free. You’ll find some buyers. Or they’ll find you. And they’ll be thrilled.

Tofu Takes Off

Here’s one of my favorite stories about writing a book for a niche market: For many years I’ve been running a free drop-in writers group at a bookstore in Woodland Hills, California. It is sponsored by the Independent Writers of Southern California (iwosc.org). One of our regular members, Lisa, told us how years earlier she’d accidentally stumbled upon an idea for a niche book while waiting in the check-out line at a local market. In her shopping cart she had a couple of packages of tofu. “How do you cook that stuff?” the woman behind her in line asked her. “Tofu is so tasteless.” Because Lisa really knows her tofu, she answered, “”It picks up the flavor of what you cook it in.” The woman was intrigued: “I didn’t know that.”  Lisa shared a few recipes with her; the woman was delighted.

This little conversation triggered an “Aha!” moment in Lisa’s brain. She went home and put together a cookbook on tofu, which included family cooking stories and, on each page, she placed a thought-provoking quote. She had copies made and sold them to friends, family and neighbors. She got requests for more. She had additional copies printed, this time bound with a plastic spiral. She took some of these to a local health food store. They bought a few, sold them, and ordered more. Then they ordered even more. By the end of the year the health food store had sold a total of 250 of Lisa’s tofu cookbook.

The following year, Lisa branched out to other health food stores and even a few pharmacies and it was the same story. They bought books, sold out, and ordered more. Next, Lisa bought her own spiral machine and printed copies at home for less money, and started doing a little local advertising. This resulted in a total of 5,000 cookbook sales, a decent number–  even if it had been a traditionally published book. But it was a lot of work! Had self-publishing on Amazon’s CreateSpace been available at the time Lisa started this project, who knows how many sales she’d have made as the result of people typing “cooking tofu” into their search engines!

Weightier Subjects

While it may still be possible to put everything that’s known about cooking tofu inside a single book, the body of knowledge in other fields is too vast for that. If you are, say,  a mental health professional and want to write a book on your specialty, you are probably going to have to “niche it down” so it’s not too broad and so it doesn’t repeat what’s already been done. In other words, you can’t just write “about alcoholism.” However, a book on alcoholism and the elderly is another story. By “niching it down,” you’ll be appealing to a few specific audiences, such as physicians, mental health professionals working with this population, and family members.  Try to think of another audience or two.

Here are just some of the subjects therapists have picked as specialties. Any one of them could be developed into a book:  Abuse, addiction, adoption, aging, anger management, ADHD, animal assisted therapy, anxiety, art therapy, Aspergers, autism, biofeedback, bipolar disorder, children/adolescents/teens, Christian counseling, cognitive behavioral, couples, creativity, depression, divorce and custody, eating disorders,  employee assistance (EAP), gay / lesbian/transgender issues, HIV/AIDS, Jungian analysis, Gestalt, grief recovery, learning disabilities, life coaching, meditation, mental illness, men’s issues, metaphysics, military culture, neuroscience, online counseling, parenting, phobias, play therapy, postpartum, private practice marketing, psychoanalysis, relationships, religious counseling, retirement counseling, rockstar therapy (yes, really!), short-term therapy, sex therapy, singles, sleep disorders, special needs – and hundreds more!

Start thinking about how you might give your special topic that special twist to make it different and unique. That’s how you get literary agents interested in representing you, publishers interesting in publishing you, and readers interested in buying you, whether it’s a traditionally or self-published book. Readers don’t care. They just want the information. The trick is to jump on a niche when it is still fairly new so, as the late publishing guru Dan Poynter said, you “own” it.

Finding a Home for The Therapist Writer

When I first came up with the idea for The Therapist Writer, I wrote a standard book proposal and started sending it out to literary agents. I kept getting back the same response: “It’s too nichy.” The agents didn’t think  there were enough mental health professionals who wanted to write who’d be interested in buying a book on the subject.  In fact, well-known literary agent Michael Larsen from San Francisco even phoned me to tell me this, and added that if I’d expand the focus from therapists to include other professions, he might consider it. That was tempting, but it wasn’t the book I wanted to write or felt capable of writing. I know my “tribe,” my fellow mental health professionals, very well, but I don’t know about other professional “tribes,” so I didn’t think I’d sound like I knew what I was talking about. I said no.

The Therapist Writer by Sylvia Cary, LMFT

That’s when I realized I didn’t have a clue how big my market was. How many mental health professionals are there are in this country, anyhow, and how many of them want to write a book? I consulted the Occupational Outlook Handbook and came up with 750,000 mental health professionals, so I figured that if I could sell The Therapist Writer to just 1% of these therapists, that would end up being 7,500 books.  I also realized that while this figure might make me happy, it wouldn’t make me rich, and it wouldn’t impress a mainstream publisher.

I gave up on the idea of traditional publishing and self-published through Lightning Source (after first becoming a publisher — their rule at the time), and once the paper version was up on Amazon, I published it as a Kindle E-book.

Doc, What’s Your Line?

The conversation with agent Larsen made me really clear on the fact that I didn’t want to give up my niche audience (mental health professionals who want to write) and write for all writers. There were already plenty of books on writing and publishing for the general public. I also felt it was a plus that I was a licensed psychotherapist because I had chapters in the book on special issues that therapist-writers face, such as the important issue of patient confidentiality: How can a therapist write about a client’s case without getting sued? I talk in the book about “the art of disguise” in writing about others, which means a lot more than just changing names.

I now understood that by “niching down” my book I was probably limiting my readership and profits, but that’s just one of the many decisions an author must make. I also knew that when I started marketing my book, I’d have a chance to point out the benefits in the book for all writers, not just therapist writers. One big marketing shift I had to make was to treat therapist-writers as therapists, not writers. Most therapists don’t want to be writers, which is why they haven’t bought books on writing, and why they know less about the writing business than the average bear. They just want to keep on being therapists who have written a book. My book, I point out in my marketing, understands this and works with it so the therapists can reach their publishing goals in spite of their discomfort. The therapists who do want to be writers (and there are some!) already act like writers, and have read books and know about publishing trends. They are ripe and ready to press on.

The majority of the time, in marketing to therapists, I stress therapy careers, not writing careers. I  list the perks for therapists in being “the author of ” a book. It means instant credibility; being seen as an “expert in the field.” They might even become the “go-to” shrink for colleagues to refer to for specific psychological issues, like one therapist I know whose self-published book on his personal bipolar struggle has made him the therapist that other therapists think of as a referral resource. When I’d speak at therapy-related events and meetings, I’d take the same approach. I’d  talk to the audience as “therapists,” not “writers,”  and stress the career perks of getting published.

Becoming Niche Savvy

It’s important to know why your niche audience wants your book. For my niche audience, my book is business, not pleasure. Some therapists want to publish in order to have a carton of books in the trunk of their car to sell when they give talks or give workshops, or to have on hand for clients, clients’ families, and colleagues. Nothing more. They hate marketing.

I learned how to market The Therapist Writer (and I’m still learning) and how deal with a niche audience on the job, mostly by correcting mistakes —  such as starting out with no idea of the size, or whereabouts, of my audience! Next time out, I’ll know.

I didn’t get rich or famous marketing my book, but I learned a bunch and I got this award for my efforts. Cool experience. And the award  is pretty, isn’t it?

The IRWIN Award for “Best Niche Campaign”

Below, FYI, is a video clip of my award acceptance remarks:

 

*Copyright 2015  Sylvia Cary, LMFT.  Portions of this blog post are taken from the chapter on “Nailing Your Niche” in The Therapist Writer.

Getting Self-Published is Actually Doable – A Guest Blogger’s Story

Compared to the way it used to be, self-publishing today is easy. Just imagine writing a whole book on this little gizmo!          Photo credit: Morguefile.com

The story goes that Mark Twain bought one of the first typewriters ever made and hated it so much he traded it in for a buggy whip.

For those of you who think self-publishing is just too complicated to even consider — and are about to give up on it — hold it right there! Self-publishing gets easier every year and it has also become “cool,” so if you’ve got a book in you, or you have a tale or even a collection of tales to tell, or there’s a subject you know a little something about and you want to share it with others, then consider doing a book or e-book  via the two biggest and best, Amazon’s CreateSpace and/or LightningSource’s Ingram Spark. Besides. “Getting published is good for business — no matter what business you’re in.”

I’ve been giving workshops on the HOW TO of self-publishing for years, complete with a Power Point demonstration so you can SEE what self-publishing looks like. My next workshop (in Sherman Oaks, California) is coming up soon on Saturday October 17th, 2015 (see below for details). One of the people who took f my workshop a number of years ago and put what she learned to use is my guest blogger for this post — so let me introduce Catherine Auman, LMFT, author and publisher:

Becoming a Published Author with Sylvia Cary’s Help 

Catherine Auman, LMFT, author of  Shortcuts to Mindfulness: 100 Ways to Personal and Spiritual Growth

Little did I know when I attended Sylvia Cary’s self-publishing workshop that it would turn out to be a seminal day for my career and life. Sylvia’s calm demeanor and her enthusiasm made it all sound so easily doable, and while I wouldn’t say it’s been easy, I am now the author of a book that has sold over 500 copies, and a publisher with a small press helping other authors make their dreams come true.

My book, Shortcuts to Mindfulness: 100 Ways to Personal and Spiritual Growth, was rejected by two publishers, both of whom said that no one would be interested in a book of short essays. Of course, Chicken Soup for the Soul, one of the most successful books in history, is a collection of short essays, but I took no for an answer. To even try to get an agent for a non-fiction book requires writing a 40-page book proposal, and since writing is not easy for me in the first place, I decided I’d rather spend the time and effort working on my next project.

I had also recently attended a panel discussion on changes in the book publishing industry, in which I heard a speaker say that one’s chances of getting published as an unknown author by one of the Big Six (now Big Five) companies was equal odds to that of winning the lottery. The panelists also said that self-publishing has lost its poor reputation and is now the way to go, much like what has happened for musicians with the recording industry.

I set up my publishing company as Sylvia directed. This took a fair bit of commitment, as you have to decide on a name, get a DBA, open a separate checking account, and have a website made. After that, I had to find a book designer to do the layouts for print and e-book, design the front and back covers, and post to CreateSpace where it would be published-on-demand.

The mission statement that I wrote for my press is: “At Green Tara Press, we are dedicated to publishing works that promote compassion, healing and love, and awaken and inspire readers to enlightened action.”

We are now looking for authors whose work fits in with our mission to promote compassion and love in the world, so it could be any genre with this intention: self help, poetry, fiction, essays, biography, memoir, and nonfiction which helps people become more effective.

I learned all this publishing stuff the hard way, so it is my delight to take the guesswork out of it for authors who just want to see their books published. We don’t make any money from our authors; it’s a labor of love. Our authors only pay for the costs of the book designer who does the cover design and the layouts for print and e-book. Quality book designers who are easy to work with can be a challenge to find, and the one I chose for Green Tara Press had been a delight.

We help you set up your Createspace account where you can order print copies for yourself and your clients, or they can order themselves from Amazon. (It’s quite exciting when you first see your name and your book listed on Amazon!) You then are also able to receive royalties deposited right into your bank account. We also will have joint marketing options available, all optional. What you get is our experience and advice, a second opinion, use of our book designer, promotion on our website and Facebook page. We’d love for you to work with us. Check us out at www.greentarapress.com. © 2015 Catherine Auman

Catherine Auman, LMFT is a licensed therapist with advanced training in both traditional and spiritual psychology with thirty years of successful professional experience helping thousands of clients. She has headed nationally-based psychiatric hospital programs as well as worked through alternative methodologies based on ancient traditions and wisdom teachings. Visit her online at www.catherineauman.com

If Catherine’s blog inspires you to give it a go, then start by attending my next workshop on Saturday October 17th, 10 am – noon. Here are the details:

HOW TO SELF-PUBLISH WITH AMAZON’S CREATESPACE & LIGHTNINGSOURCE’S INGRAM SPARK

CreateSpace (www.createspace.com) is Amazon’s publishing wing. Once you upload your formatted book and cover, your book goes worldwide. IngramSpark is LightningSource’s (www.lightningsource.com) site for smaller publishers.

DATE Sat. Oct. 17th, 2015
TIME: 10 AM – Noon
PLACE: OfficeSlice Coworking, 15165 Ventura Blvd., #245, Sherman Oaks, CA 91403
PARKING: Free
FOOD: Snacks
COST: $60.00
REGISTER: www.eventbrite.com (You may have to cut and paste this link): (https://www.eventbrite.com/myevent?eid=17964495289)

For more information, CONTACT: sylviacary1@gmail.com

 You’ll Learn…

• What the self-publishing process looks like ON-SCREEN
• The 7 Perks of Getting Published
• All about formatting, fonts, trim size, imprints, covers, ISBNs, copyrights, E-books, and more
• The differences between Amazon’s CreateSpace and LightningSource’s IngramSpark – pros, cons, costs, and why do BOTH!
• How to market your newly published book: Top 15 ways to start.
• You’ll leave feeling inspired and confident that you now have the skills to self-publish your book and get it up on Amazon.com, B&N.com, and other online booksellers for sale. You might even make some money! Bring your questions.

Sylvia Cary, LMFT, is the author of The Therapist Writer and four other books. On October 15th she is to get the Irwin Award from the Book Publicists of Southern California for the category of “Best Niche Campaign.”

(c) 2015 Sylvia Cary

STUFF

STUFF by Sylvia Cary

This is what “stuff” looks like.   This happens to be mine all mine as I unpack from a recent move.                              Photos: Sylvia Cary

I love stuff. I love pretty stuff, practical stuff and decorative stuff.  I love stationary supplies, hardware store items, dishes, glasses, books, and containers of all kinds. I love cooking appliances even though I don’t like to cook — but how can anyone resist a brand new rice cooker for $4, even if you already have two others?

Where to Get Stuff

I don’t get my stuff at stores. I go to garage sales, Goodwill, Salvation Army, and the Discovery Shop (a chain of stores that raises money for breast cancer research), so at least my stuff is helping a good cause. I would never go to an actual store to buy some of the items I end up buying at Goodwill or garage sales. I do it “Forrest Gump” style – I drop in to Goodwill and it’s like a box of chocolates, “You never know what you’re going to get.” I’d sure like to take all my stuff with me when I leave this world, like those people who get buried with their sports cars. I’m going to be really upset if it turns out there’s no stuff in heaven. Hell? Hmm.

A Writer’s Stuff

My “writer” stuff is a story in itself. I have my laptop computer and the box it came in, which I’m keeping because it has information on it which I should probably read. I’m also keeping my very old desktop computer because what if there’s something on it I need? I have a bunch of removable hard drives, too, mostly back-ups of my old computer. I know I’ll never use them because they’re outdated. Newer desktops don’t even have slots for them. I have printers that don’t work — but they might if they were fixed.

And files – OMG – files! I have two 4-drawer file cabinets, a desk with three more file drawers, a single wood file cabinet that doubles as an end table, and I have a bunch of those files boxes with handles that you can carry around, plus two files on wheels that I can roll into another room. Worst of all are the wire baskets of paperwork “To File” and stacks of papers that haven’t yet made it to the “To File” basket. A perfect set-up for losing important documents.

Books

And books, books, books! Many I’ve read. Many I’ve read and forgotten so I need to keep them to read again. Many of them I’ve read and have even taken notes  — but where are the notes?  The hardest thing for me to let go of as a writer is my research – boxes full of 3×5-inch cards and stacks of print-outs from the Internet along with typed notes on topics I’m writing about — or have written about. I can’t let go of them because maybe I’ll write about those topics again. And finally, drafts. I’m drowning in drafts – fourteen versions of a single screenplay. I’m hanging onto them all because each one is just slightly different from the earlier version.

Moving Your Stuff

Much as I love my stuff, it has its downside. When you have a lot of stuff it’s hard to move it from place to place. Recently I moved from a tiny one-bedroom apartment to a two-bedroom apartment to share with one of my adult daughters, herself a collector of stuff.

My cat, Smokey, nervously makes his way through Box Canyon looking for the kitchen

Prior to the move I spent weeks packing boxes – books, papers, china and all the rest of it. When the movers arrived and saw all my boxes of books, one of them said, “Ever think about getting a Kindle?”

It took eleven hours for the movers to move my stuff to the new place, and cost a fortune. I probably could  have bought most of those books as Kindles for less than it cost me to box them and transport them.

Once I’d boxed up my apartment, I tackled my daughter’s one-bedroom apartment with her thirteen years’ worth of “stuff.” She has, for example, kept every greeting card ever given or sent to her, even if it’s just a gift tag — the “To”/“From” kind, as well as every stuffed animal since childhood, some falling apart at the touch, like pages of an old book, and VCR tapes by the hundreds, all numbered and alphabetized: “I’m OCD,” she explained to the movers.

Got Junk?

My Heroes of Got Junk. When they drove off with the dirty white couch and a truckload of other stuff I felt relief

I called Got Junk, a service that removes the junk in your life, and we spent the next day putting signs “4 Got Junk” on things, starting with the dirty white couch and the four tall, swaying bookcases, and we took it from there. They came the following day and in only two hours they whisked away an entire truckload of stuff. As they drove off, I felt a huge sense of relief. A burden was lifted.

Arrival: Once we got into the new apartment, the stack of boxes three-deep once again seemed overwhelming. We’d never get them unpacked!

Weeks later we’re still unpacking those boxes.  Now my back hurts.

The Solution to Overwhelm is almost always the same — the Twelve-Step way — “One box at a time,” 5 or 10 boxes a day. Here are the opened boxes, piling up!

Lessons Learned about Stuff

Affording your stuff isn’t the issue. The “cost” of having too much stuff is high, no matter how much you paid for it.

Goodwill or Tiffany’s, it’s all the same. It’s stuff.

1. Stuff gets in the way of writing;
2. Stuff drains you of creative energy;
3. Stuff is a ball and chain;
4. Stuff means somebody else will have to clean up after you when you kick the bucket;
5. Stuff is hard to move around, like those homeless people who’ve acquired too many shopping carts;
6. Stuff needs too much personal attention – even if it’s only dusting it;
7. Stuff just plain takes up too much time;

Last Saturday to test myself I “dropped in” to Goodwill and there was no stuff there I wanted. I left empty handed. It felt good.

Too bad you can’t put your whole life on a Kindle.

Almost There:  Smokey, now a happy cat, sits on my lap with his tail up to let the world know it’s beginning to feel like home again. There’s even a Danish flag to honor my late husband’s spirit stuck in the bookcase. Just a few more boxes to unpack, some pictures to put up on the walls, books and china to put away, framed photos to place around, and we’re done! And not an inch of space left for any new “stuff.”

Copyright 2015 by Sylvia Cary, LMFT, author of The Therapist Writer, Timberlake Press

Pocket Writing Guide: Brainstoming Book Angles

Getting the right “angle” or “hook” for your book makes all the difference. It determines whether or not the book “works” and is marketable. The answer is in there somewhere! You just have to find ways of getting to it. –photo by Morguefile

by Sylvia Cary, LMFT

Brainstorming (def): The uncensored offering of ideas or suggestions.

Angle (def):  To examine a problem from all angles; to give a specific bias, or point of view.

Writers say the hardest part of writing is knowing what to write. Once you nail down your topic, the next hardest part is zeroing in on your angle — i.e., figuring out what approach to take. For those of you who are mental health professionals, you may want to write a book about your area of expertise, such as addiction, post-traumatic stress, anger management, neuroscience, men’s issues, aging, eating disorders, abuse, bi-polar disorder, or depression.  I read somewhere that there are about 1000 specialties in the mental health field, so it’s not like the topics are going to give out!

However, since most of these topics have already been written about, some of them a lot, it’s not enough to simply write “about addiction” or “about abuse.” You’ll need to come up with a new twist/angle/hook in order to get the potential book buyer’s attention. For example, instead of writing “about depression” you might zero in on a niche aspect of it and write about depression in children.

Trend Tree
Think of the special topic that you want to write about as a branch on a tree, a rapidly growing, ever-evolving, living thing. What seems like a fresh, trendy, or “green” idea one year feels kind of old hat the next. The zeitgeist (or cultural atmosphere) just keeps on rolling along so you have to keep up by pushing out on your particular tree branch until you’ve come up with a fresh, new leafy take on your topic that makes others say, “Oh, I’d like to read that!”

Looking at a peaceful scene often quiets the mind and allows us to push out further on our particular branch or niche.  — photo by Morguefile

7 Ways to Brainstorm Angles
Writers use tricks to help them brainstorm their topics and tweak them into something fresh and appealing.

1. Cruise the Online Bookstores:  First, see what’s already out there. Search for your book’s topic online, go on Amazon and Barnes and Noble, look at the titles and subtitles, read the Tables of Contents when you can. The last time I searched for books on “alcoholism” (my specialty as a therapist), I found thousands of them! That’s pretty daunting and discouraging if alcoholism is what you really want to write about. Don’t fret. New books on alcoholism are still being published and are still selling, so the market obviously isn’t dead yet. Come up with a fresh angle, and you’ll have a chance. Look for “holes” in the topic that need filling; look for aspects that haven’t been explored yet. They are there.

2.  Cruise the Real-Life Bookstores: Though many bookstores have gone belly-up, others are still out there peddling books.  Go visit some. Looking through an existing book on your topic can be a great way to get ideas. Sometimes just a single paragraph from a book can trigger an idea in your head that you can actually turn into a quality book.

3.  Read / Talk About Your Subject:  Read everything you can on your pet topic. Ideas beget ideas. What’s hot? What’s not? What trends seems to be coming down the pike? Share your enthusiasm about your topic with others. Start discussions. Ask others for their opinions and views. Sometimes people ask a question that can lead you to a solution.  Ask, “If a book on X, Y or Z were to be published, would you want to read it?” And, “If not, why not?”

4.  Yellow Pad; Sharpened Pencil:  I must admit that my favorite brainstorming technique is writing things down on paper. I write down my topic and then I start scribbling down all the ideas that occur to me about that topic. It’s a free-association process that helps me decide if it’s a good idea or not. If I get lots of associations, it’s a good idea. If I get two and then run dry, it’s probably not, so I’m likely to drop it.  There are other times when I don’t know what my angle is until I’m already writing. I may think I’ve got a good angle or hook, and then a better one presents itself and I have to change horses in midstream.  Writing is easier if you have your angle in mind up front, but if a better one comes along, grab it and make the necessary adjustments in what you’ve already written.

5.  Shower Power:  There are writers (I don’t happen to be one of them) who get ideas while in motion (running, jogging, walking), or while being quiet (meditating, contemplating), or even while they are showering. My late husband, a computer programmer, got solutions to programming problems in the shower when the hot water hit the back of his neck. Other folks say they can “instruct” their brains to give them answers in dreams: “I want to write about Freud but I need a Fresh angle.”  So, whether it’s staring into space, meditating, walking, showering — or sleeping — the answers can obviously pop into your head at the most unexpected times.

6.  Professional vs Personal Perspective:  No matter what subject you know enough about to write a book, it doesn’t always have to be from the point of view of an expert or scholar. Maybe the best angle for you is the personal,  writing a memoir or taking the narrative non-fiction approach where there’s dialogue in the book so it reads more like a novel. Many therapists are “wounded healers,” people who have become professionals and have an area of expertise as the result of some personal or family experience. Numerous compelling and important books are by authors who have had personal experiences with addiction, child abuse, bipolar disorder, and so on.

7. The “10 Things” Angle: Think about your topic and ask yourself, “What are the top 10 things I’d like the world to know about this subject? What hasn’t been said yet? What’s missing?”  For example, “10 Things Your Clients Should Know About Obsessive Compulsive Disorder;” “10 Ways to Help People with Phobias” (or 7 Things or 15 Things); “10 Symptoms of Sex Addiction;” or “10 Misconceptions about Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.”  Your list of 10 can grow into a unique and solid book. There can be an Introduction, then a chapter on each of the 10 things you came up with — and then a Conclusion.

So count to ten, and you’ve got yourself a book!

You can rest your mind anywhere.

There are many other ways to brainstorm angles and hooks. Not surprisingly, there are even books on the subject of how to help your brain trigger an “Aha!” which gives you the angle you were looking for. Once you get that angle and write that book, there are people out there who will want to read it.

Do you think animals think?
photo credit – Morguefile

Copyright 2015 by Sylvia Cary, LMFT –  The Therapist Writer