1911, 2013

The Cheapskate’s Guide to SF/F cons: A Guest Post

Beverly Bambury/ November 19, 2013/ Budget, Conventions, Guest Post/ 5 comments

Today’s guest post by Effie Seiberg goes through some handy tips on travelling to conventions on a tight budget. It would be easy to extrapolate some of these tips into general travel on a budget, too. Part of why I put out a call for this topic is that beginning in January I’ll be full-time freelance, and paradoxically, this means I’ll need to go to more conventions in a professional capacity. But. You know. With less income. So thanks again to Effie for all of her tips, and I’ll be seeing you around at as many conventions as I can manage in 2014. I’ve always wanted to be a writer, so in January I did the exact thing people tell you not to do:

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1611, 2013

Coming Soon: Calls for Submission Column

Beverly Bambury/ November 16, 2013/ Announcements, Facebook, Guest Post, Publishing, Submissions, Useful Stuff/ 0 comments

In the next week or two I’ll have the first of a reoccurring column aggregating calls for submission. It will be by Selene MacLeod who also administers the successful Facebook group Calls for Submissions (Poetry, Fiction, Art). If this is what you like to see, sign up for email notifications of new posts so that you don’t miss a thing!

1511, 2013

Changing/Correcting Guest Posts or Interviews, and More Replying to Reviews: Book Marketing without B.S. #3

Beverly Bambury/ November 15, 2013/ authors, Blog Tour, BookMarketingWithoutBS, Guest Post, Interviews, Publicity, Self-Promotion, Social Skills, writers/ 0 comments

Book Marketing without B.S. is a weekly publicity and marketing advice column for writers and other creators who prefer a realistic, clear, and no-nonsense approach. My goal is to help you cut through the bullshit with direct, understandable advice you won’t be embarrassed to follow. Send your questions to beverly@beverlybambury.com. Today there are two related questions. The first person asked “What if I want to change an interview or guest blog post reply after it’s already gone up?” Naturally, if there is an error of some kind–whether factual or typographical–you should politely ask the journalist or blogger to make the change and explain why if it isn’t obvious. I can’t think of any other reason you should ask to change something you’ve already vetted

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0711, 2013

Social Media for the Misanthropic and the Anti-Social: Book Marketing without B.S. #2

Beverly Bambury/ November 7, 2013/ authors, BookMarketingWithoutBS, comic creators, DIY, Self-Promotion, Social Skills, Twitter, writers/ 3 comments

Book Marketing without B.S. is a weekly publicity and marketing advice column for writers and other creators who prefer a realistic, clear, and no-nonsense approach. My goal is to help you cut through the bullshit with direct, understandable advice you won’t be embarrassed to follow. Send your questions to beverly@beverlybambury.com. One of the best things about being a publicist, is that I get to do all the social, extrovert, asking-for-things work that my clients usually don’t want to do. I get to give them more time to create, and take away the stress of putting themselves directly out there. Also, given that my clients are overwhelmingly writers of dark fiction of some kind or another, they’re frequently put off by other social media tone

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0111, 2013

Guest Blog: Small Press Tips & Lessons from the Booksburgh Book Store Hop

Beverly Bambury/ November 1, 2013/ Author Readings, Book Marketing, Book Signings, Book Tours, DIY, Guest Post, Marketing, Publicity/ 0 comments

Today’s guest blog is by Jennifer Barnes, of small publisher Raw Dog Screaming Press (RDSP). She organizes social media and events, and today she’s come by to share her experience organizing a madcap day in which RDSP took over Pittsburgh, doing a reading/signing each hour for five hours, at five different locations. Even if you aren’t a publisher, you may find some of these hints useful in organizing events with your writing group or other writer friends. Enjoy! Over the years RDSP has done all kinds of events from gigantic book fairs like BEA to readings in a decommissioned lunatic asylum. It takes a lot of planning to get the most out of events and you can learn from each one. We recently did

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3110, 2013

Why You Shouldn’t Buy Followers: Book Marketing without B.S. #1

Beverly Bambury/ October 31, 2013/ BookMarketingWithoutBS, Facebook, Marketing, Publicity, Self-Promotion, Social Skills, Twitter/ 0 comments

Book Marketing without B.S. is a weekly publicity and marketing advice column for writers and other creators who prefer a realistic, clear, and no-nonsense approach. The marketing and publicity worlds are important for understanding audience and customers, and getting the right word out to the right people; but, let’s be honest. There’s also a lot of bullshit. My goal is to help you cut through the B.S. with direct, understandable advice you won’t be embarrassed to follow. Welcome to my inaugural Book Marketing withouth BS column. Today’s question was asked anonymously, and it’s about purchasing followers on Twitter (and by extension, purchasing likes/on other blogs and social media such as Facebook, Pinterest, etc.). The short answer to this is “Don’t do it”. Below is

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2310, 2013

The Secret to Contacting Traditional Media for Book Publicity

Beverly Bambury/ October 23, 2013/ Book Marketing, DIY, Product Placement in Books, Queries, Self-Promotion, Social Skills, Traditional Media/ 0 comments

I haven’t contacted as many traditional media outlets as I have websites and bloggers for publicity–if for no other reason than traditional media is on a decline or integrating with online media–but, as it turns out, the secret is that there isn’t much of a secret. It still remains connections, politeness, reading directions, and being an all-around good human being. I go into some of this in my earlier article 5 Steps to a Quality Blog Tour, but here is more info with an eye toward bigger sites/traditional media publicity queries. ConnectionsThe main difference I’ve found with my work is that personal connections and networking count for even more with bigger publications, print, television, or otherwise. It’s not impossible to get into a major

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2509, 2013

A Hard Line Against Twitter DMs for Promotion and Marketing

Beverly Bambury/ September 25, 2013/ Advertising, DIY, Marketing, Publicity, Self-Promotion, Social Skills, survey, Twitter/ 5 comments

Stop using Twitter DMs for marketing or publicizing your stuff. Just. Stop. (You’re going to like this one. It’s short to read and I am telling you to do less.) Here’s why: A minimum of 90% of the DMs I receive parrot the exact same stuff/links that is already on the sender’s Twitter profile or in a bunch of their tweets. If someone’s already looked at your profile and decided to add you, you don’t need to repeat yourself in a DM. “But I’ve got free stuff to share with followers! I need to make sure they don’t miss it!” Tweet it instead. Twitter is for tweeting. You can add it to your profile, too. It won’t be that hard to find. Honest. And

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1909, 2013

Authors Reviewing Authors?

Beverly Bambury/ September 19, 2013/ 21st Century Criticism, reviews, Social Skills/ 0 comments

A client asked me today about what I think of authors reviewing other authors, particularly in a negative light. It’s an interesting companion with yesterday’s blog post about writers commenting on reviews. I am of two minds: On the one hand, I am a strong proponent of critical thought and discourse. There is just too damn much puffery out there, and it seems like people (at least publicly) are losing their ability to think critically. On the other hand, from a public relations perspective, it is smart for people part of a small community (and really, the internet makes it a small commuity no matter how far apart we are,) to write critical reviews of other community members’ work? Probably not. So my answer?

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1809, 2013

Just a Litte More: Author/Creator Comments on Reviews

Beverly Bambury/ September 18, 2013/ authors, Publicity, Self-Promotion, Social Skills/ 4 comments

In light of recent discussions I thought I’d clarify my thoughts on the authors (and other creators) commenting on reviews issue. I’ve said in the past “just don’t do it, ever”, but I think the time has come for me to expand that thought into more than just the idea of authors behaving badly. My updated advice to creators is that they should pretty much never comment on negative reviews. If you want to thank someone for a good review, please do; but, don’t say much beyond a gracious “Thank you”. Especially if you have any negative or irritated feelings inside you. The reason I say this is because people can tell, and—at least from the publicist’s perspective—you don’t want people thinking of you

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