Discovering and Uncovering the Marketing Power Within Your Manuscript
Deborah Riley-Magnus
Change in the publishing industry is everywhere and publishers are leaving marketing and promotion up to the author. Many authors are aware they need to promote and market their book, but have no clue how to go about it. There are hundreds of resources on how to create characters and develop plot, format book proposals and pitch; but very few on how an author implements success after the book is finished. The questions can be overwhelming and locating the answers is tricky. Deborah Riley-Magnus, an author success coach with years of successful marketing and promotion experience, takes tried and true marketing, publicity and promotional strategies and tailors them for the unique needs of today’s author. Even the odds of your success with this unique resource for all authors.
ISBN Trade Paperback: 978-1-926760-66-7
ISBN ebook: 978-1-926760-57-5
REFERENCE | Writing Skills
154 pages
List Price: $9.95 | $4.99
Published: November 5, 2011
Praise
"The book is exceptionally well organized, and the information is easy to locate and understand. It’s written for authors with a very small budget or no budget at all. Riley-Magnus offers a wealth of knowledge and experience that each author can tailor to suit his/her own needs." Lisette Brodey - Author
Excerpt
At the age of forty and after a lucrative twenty-year career in advertising, marketing and public relations, I decided that it was time for a change. That career had served me well but I’d grown tired of the back-biting, negative aspects of it so of all things, I decided to become a chef. I went to culinary school, worked physically harder than I ever had in my life and loved every moment of it. After graduating, I was a salad girl, then a line cook, a sous chef and finally an executive chef and through it all I parlayed what I knew of the advertising biz to market both myself and whichever restaurant or banquet facility I worked for. Over ten years I found terrific pleasure in that career – hot, grueling and tiring as it was – until one day a few herniated discs chose to end it. This five-foot-nothing woman with back problems could hardly lift those three gallon stock pots any longer and I chose to return to my original secret love, writing.
Back in culinary school, I learned a few vital things that work in just about any career a person could find themselves. I learned to always use the correct tool for the job, and if I didn’t have it, to create something that would work. No four inch cookie cutter? The top of a cleaned, empty tomato soup can work just fine. I always had with me a cool spoon I found in my grandmother’s kitchen drawer. It had a very pointy tip and was perfect for drizzling just the right amount of sauce for my plating. I learned to always carry a ruler in my knife bag because inevitably, I’d need to measure something perfectly, and I discovered that layering flavors and textures created the best recipes. But the most important lesson I ever learned came from Chef Chuck Baux, my favorite chef instructor at school. As we all stood like deer in the headlights and terrified to begin our first assignment in a professional kitchen, he simply raised an eyebrow and looked at us over his specs. “It’s only a meatball,” he said. “Some ground beef, eggs, cheese, breadcrumbs and spices. Roll it and cook it. Not brain surgery, only a meatball.”
These days I’m an author and an author success coach. I layer old and new concepts with unique and proven ideas for platform building, promotion and publicity. The goal is to create the best possible solutions for author success, no matter how the author is published. Books don’t just sell themselves in this crazy time within the publishing industry. Author support from publishers has greatly diminished and it’s time for you to step up to the plate. Anything is possible – but only if one looks for the possibilities.
I want you to think about that meatball as you approach this book and begin to create your own effective author success strategies. It may seem daunting and scary but really, it’s not brain surgery. It’s only a meatball. Get all your tools and ingredients together and begin the journey into planning your successful career as an author.
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