2101, 2014

The Value of Vulnerability: Book Marketing without B.S. #8

Beverly Bambury/ January 21, 2014/ BookMarketingWithoutBS, reviews, Self-Promotion, Social Skills/ 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 I retweeted a blog post by writer and Guardian columnist Damien G. Walter. It was called The DOs and DO NOTs of Getting Your Book Reviewed and in it was the kind of solid, realistic advice I appreciate (and have written many times before). The first thing he says is that you probably need to work on your craft and write something good. Write something better. It seems obvious, but so many authors

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0512, 2013

Review Copies, Ebooks, and Pirating: Book Marketing without B.S. #5

Beverly Bambury/ December 5, 2013/ Book Marketing, BookMarketingWithoutBS, Publicity, reviews, Self-Promotion/ 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. Want reviews? Of course you do! This means that you have to send review copies, and this can get expensive with numerous physical books to send. Many of you are paying for these directly or are with a small publisher whose budgets are as tight as your own. A few of you lucky devils will be with large publishers who furnish all review copies, whether physical or through NetGalley. In fact, this post may

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2211, 2013

How Far in Advance to Hire a Publicist and a Book Marketing Plan Timeline: Book Marketing without B.S. #4

Beverly Bambury/ November 22, 2013/ Author Readings, Blog Tour, Book Marketing, BookMarketingWithoutBS, Publicity, Publishing, Queries, reviews, Scheduling, Self-Promotion, self-publishing, Timing, Traditional Media, Useful Stuff/ 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 brings another pair of related questions. The first is “How long before my book comes out should I hire a publicist?” It depends to a certain degree what you’re looking for and on how in-demand the publicist is. My business is relatively young, so six months is plenty of lead time for me, and I can absolutely work with much less if required. I’ve even done emergency publicity! Ideally, for prose novels, pre-work work

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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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