Event: "How to Write,
Publish, and Market the Gutsy Way" by Sonia Marsh
Where: El Toro Library
When: Sunday, February 23, 2014
 |
| Sonia Marsh is the award-winning author of a travel memoir,
who now offers "gutsy" book marketing and coaching to indie
authors. |
Books: Freeways to Flip-Flops: A
Family's Year of Gutsy Living on a Tropical Island (Travel/ Memoir);
My Gutsy Story
Anthology: True Stories of Love, Courage, and Adventure from Around the
World
(Nonfiction/Anthology)
* *
* Sonia will be appearing at the Costco in Tustin on March 15 th from 11am-2pm. On Friday she will be hosting her first webinar.* * *
Introduction
My friends and I are the first guests
to enter the white-walled
conference room
of the El Toro Library. We’re greeted by the library's event
coordinator and a slim woman in a bright blue dress. This is indie publisher Sonia Marsh, and the color of her dress will
turn out to be subtly significant later on.
Speaking with a slight accent, Sonia asks us how we found her event, then hands us slips of
paper for a raffle of her books after the event. (We don’t win.)
Her books sit upon the central table alongside laminated newspaper
articles. Another table holds business cards, book marks,
and gold and silver chocolates. I take a can of cranberry juice from the
snack counter. More
and more people arrive until the room is full.
Between greeting guests, Sonia set up a camera on a tripod. She says she’ll post her lecture on YouTube later on.
Well,
that makes my notes superfluous, I think, but take them anyway.
The event
coordinator formally introduces Sonia. She
begins to speak.
(Please note: I scribbled the presentation
on plain old notebook paper—no recording devices. The quotes should contain the essence of what
was said, but they’re not exact.)
"I'm a writer, marketer,
publisher, and public relations specialist," Sonia tells us. “I have to do it all, but I don’t have the 6-figure
budget of a major publisher. I’m just
like any of you. So how do you publish and market with the integrity of a
6-figure budget, when you don't have one?"
The slides go up.
6 Steps to Gutsy Indie Publishing
- Writing
- Pre-publishing
- Publishing
- Marketing
- Promoting
- What Next?
* * *
Step 1: Writing
"On average, it takes 6 years
to write a book. When I heard that, I thought, 'What's wrong with these people? I can do it in a year.' " Beat.
"It took me 7."
- Classes
- Conferences
- Critique Groups
- Professionals
- Volunteering
Sonia's first book, called
Freeways to Flip-Flops,
is a memoir of the
time she uprooted her family to live and reconnect in Belize.
It
begins as a series of
journal
entries. In order to convert them
into a memoir, Sonia had to take classes, go to conferences, and enlist the
help of editors.
As a bonus,
meeting new people and
maintaining those connections also helped her gain
endorsements.
Sonia
doesn’t always find critique groups helpful, because sometimes they include
writers of different genres who don’t understand her writing. She likes to use professional help. Her team includes a developmental editor, a
copy editor, and a proof reader. When an
audience member asks how she got them, she replies that she connected with them
in conferences.
* * *
Step 2: Pre-Publishing
"It's quite unlikely, in this
day and age, we'll get published by a traditional publisher without a
platform...." (A member of the
audience asks what a platform is.)
"A platform is a way to make yourself visible, whether online or
offline. You do this by developing
expertise, connecting with other people...
A platform is visibility."
- Blogging
- Branding
- Building a Platform
- Quality Relationships
- Networking
Constant blogging, Sonia
tells us, is a great resource for a writer seeking exposure.
“But what is constant?” an audience member asks.
“At least twice a week.”
After a year, you should start receiving results.
Sonia cites
Seth Godin who
recommends
starting a blog three
years before your
book comes out. The audience
heaves a breath at that.
She advised us to find a theme that goes with
your brand. (This is easier for Non-Fiction
writers.) Sonia’s theme is "Gutsy living." Her tagline: "Life's Too Short to Play
It Safe." When you blog, it
shouldn’t be for yourself, but for your audience. Ask yourself, What is it I
can give them? Picture your audience almost in pain, that
they need you to help them through something.
You need to establish yourself as an expert. What do you know better than anyone
else? One of the problems Sonia encountered when she first began
trying to write was
that she was
all over the place. Narrow the
topic down.
“But how
do you get noticed?” asks a man in the audience. Sonia’s reply is simple: Fresh content. “Google loves that.” The more you write, the
more your blog will rise to the top of the search engine. It also helps to tag your themes. (Hers
include the words “adventure” and “Belize.”)
Contests
and giveaways also work to generate excitement. Every Monday, she posts a gutsy story written by her readers, about 1000 words. The article links back to the reader’s
blog. Good publicity all around. You
can use the same idea—or go to her blog and submit your own story.
If you’re hoping to turn blog entries into a book, she recommends,
"How to Blog a
Book" by Nina Amir.
“In
this day and age, you have to be on Facebook and Twitter,” Sonia says.
She suggests starting a Facebook
group. She founded Gutsy Indie Writers—again
pushing her “Gutsy” brand. Rather than just trying to sell their
books, they help each other with information
and form quality relationships.
A
member of the audience has a question about Twitter. “How do you come up with new tweets all the
time?” Answer: You don’t. “80% should be
re-tweets as well as articles from other sources that are of interest to your followers,” Sonia says. “20%
is your own.”
If
you want to be successful, eventually
you'll have to go out and speak.
An audience member mentions
Toastmasters, not only for improving
public speaking skills, but for networking and promoting your work
* * *
Step 3: Publication
"There's
only 1 or 5 % of writers who can actually make a living at it.... But I'm foraging ahead
to do everything I can to make it a full time career."
- Professional Design
- Publishing Company
(dba)
- ISBN (International
Standard Book Number, aka the barcode) ; PCIP (Publishers Cataloguing In Publication), ARCs (Advance
Reader’s Copy)
- Endorsements/ Reviews
- Virtual Blog Tour
- Book Launch Party
Midway
through a discussion on book cover, I finally learn the significance of her
dress.
Sonia’s
talking about the elements that make for a professional cover, citing
information from Joel Friedlander.
"When you have a book cover, you have to
be able to read the title from 10 feet away. The author's name should not be at
the top unless you're well-known. You don't want to clutter it with too many
pictures. You have to consider the font, the colors.”
She
tells us she uses island colors. In
fact, turquoise is part of her brand.
Whenever she goes out on promotional events, she wears a turquoise
dress. I sit up.
Going
back to Joel Friedlander, Sonia says that although he offers cheap templates
($34) for book covers, she doesn’t use them, opting instead for 1106 Design’s more specialized—and
expensive—designs. A single cover costs
$400. For around $800-$900 you get three concept covers and can
choose the one you want. She went with three.
How
did she choose the best? First she went
to Barnes and Noble and asked the manager which cover would sell. Then she went to her indie bookstore in Laguna
Beach and asked the manager the same question. Then she showed the pictures to
people at her gym. 90% of those people chose
the same picture—the one that now graces her cover.
Being professional is important to her. Sonia wants indie publishers to be taken
seriously. To that extent, she created
her own publishing company. “Name your company, but don't
do make it your own name,” she advises.
She chose “Gusty.” Of course.
She’s about to move on, but I
have a question. “What’s
DBA mean?”
I’m still blank.
A member of the audience tries to
explain. For less than $25 you can
register your own business. The license
lasts for 5 years and is useful for opening bank accounts.
Sonia wants to move on to ISBNs. She’s trying to tell us why it’s
better to purchase them on your own rather than accept the free one Create
Space gives you, but a discussion breaks out amongst the audience. Why bother to create your own company at
all? Why not simply publish your book on
Create Space and be done with it?
The problem, Sonia explains, is that
not all bookstores will carry a book published by Create Space. Barnes and Noble won’t. Costco won’t.
Bookstores expect a 55% discount.
Although Create Space does not disclose their discounts, many people believe it's only 25%.
Aside from that, having Create Space as a publisher seems to mark
authors as amateurish. You want to seem
professional.
In the
midst of this back and forth, information starts to fly:
-
-
-
-
TED Wait, what?
How did that get there?
At
last, we move onto ARCs (Advance Reader’s Copy), which are basically your final
book with a thin strip of red saying, “Not For Sale.” These go out to reviewers before the books
are released, so that they’ll give you an endorsement. Of course, printing an ARC costs more money
than, say, sending someone a PDF. But
best-selling authors will take you more seriously with a print copy.
Speaking
of best-selling authors, one of the things Sonia does to solicit a review, is
to first review one of their books by video—for some reason people tend to like
it more and it gets more visibility than a written review, which are more
common.
A
month after the book is released, you can start a virtual blog tour. Some people actually pay to go from blog to
blog to publicize their book. Sonia says
if you have the connections, you shouldn’t have to pay.
Last
on the list is a launch party. "Think
of it like a wedding,” Sonia advises. “It
takes several months to plan."
When
she launched her book at her Laguna bookstore, she looked around the local
community for sponsors. First she went
to stores and asked them to donate gifts.
They said yes. Then she went to a
bistro and asked them to donate appetizers.
They said yes. Then she found a
Jamaican restaurant that made a delicious rum punch and got them to serve it to
her guests.
"The
audience was real happy," Sonia adds.
With
all the numbers flying around, someone is bound to ask how much the total cost
of producing a book actually is. (I’m
thinking of asking it myself.) Sonia heard from a publicist at a conference that the average cost is $10,000, including editing, design, and cover.
* * *
Step 4: Marketing
On book signings: "You sell more books if you have a
presentation. People don't like it when
you're just sitting there."
The last few sections have gone long. Now we start to zip through.
For
indie bookstores, Sonia advises to make sure you get a contract. When they sell the books (which you provide),
it should be at a 60/ 40 split, with the larger half going to the writer.
It’s
hard to get your book into Costco, though sometimes they will show interest in
a local author. Make friends with the
manager. You fill out a form and if you
don't hear back in 6 weeks, they aren't interested. Do not call them.
She'll
do a webinar about how to get your book into Costco.
* * *
Step 5: Promotion
"Developing a relationship and asking."
* * *
Step 6: What Next?
Keep Marketing
Keep Writing
Crowdfunding
Pubslush is crowdfunding especially for writers.
Usually,
they help in the production of a book, but Sonia got them to fund her event.
The trick is to make it entertaining. She produced a video with her (seemingly) standing
on her head and riding a bicycle.
* *
*
Sonia plans to produce free webinars, so be sure to check out her website at www.soniamarsh.com for more info.
