But I think knowing what you are good at, and what would better be left to someone else, is absolutely key in publishing these days. Except for very large publishers, hardly anyone can do everything and still be profitable.

So often, I see publishers frustrated because they try to do it all. Their staff becomes stretched too thin and something, somewhere begins to suffer.

Self-reliance, either as an individual or a company, is a hard mentality to break. It’s the American way. Or so we have thought for many years. But, especially in publishing, I think people are starting to understand the value of working with a partner to best use the strengths of everyone.

I was recently “twitterviewed” by Claudia of the blog On a Limb with Claudia, and host of a weekly Twitter chat about book marketing (#bookmarket, Thursdays at 4:00 EST). She spent the month of January interviewing regular contributors to the chat, and she always ended with the question: “Everyone has a super secret ninja skill. What’s yours?”

On a personal note, I think one of my strengths is my caramel corn (see recipe below!) But I also talked about my company, Bookmasters, and how our skill is that our services go so deep, which makes it easier for publishers to focus on publishing instead of managing a list of partners. Or instead of trying to do it all on their own.

As a company, we can help a person take their book all the way with all the steps from manuscript to completed sale. And for some people, that is exactly what they need. This way they can focus on writing. Others may have skill in cover design or promotion. Whatever it is, they can just choose what they need and move on.

But my point is, figure out what it is that you do well, and do it! But for those things that are more difficult for you, or just don’t rock your world, outsource! There is no shame! In fact, your business will likely be better because you will be able to expend all your best thoughts, energy, and passion on what you actually like instead of trudging through a checklist of publishing tasks. That is the beauty in finding and embracing your super secret ninja skill.

Best luck to you. And leave a comment with your super secret ninja skill. I’m curious (of course I am, I’m an individualizer!)

Super Secret Ninja Popcorn

6 quarts air-popped corn (plain)
2 sticks margarine or butter
2 cups brown sugar
½ cup light corn syrup
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla
½ teaspoon baking soda

Spray a large (turkey-sized) foil pan with cooking spray. Add popped corn. In a heavy pan, bring to boil stirring constantly: margarine, sugar, corn syrup, salt.

Bring to a rolling boil for 5 minutes, without stirring. Remove from heat and add vanilla and baking soda. (Watch that it doesn’t start to turn dark brown, it will get a bitter taste.)

Stir very well and pour over popped corn. Mix and cover with foil. Place in preheated oven at 275° and bake for 1 hour, stirring every 15 minutes.

Let cool and store in zipped plastic bags.

Photo: hellosputnik, Creative Commons

Yours for $195* per title

Space is limited

Contact your account executive
at 1.800.537.6727 to learn more

*Note: Pricing includes 4% cash discount. Discount not available for other forms of payment.

Yours for $295*

if purchased before March 2, 2012

Please contact your Account Executive
at 1.800.537.6727 to learn more

*Note: Pricing includes 4% cash discount. Discount not available for other forms of payment. 

Promotional Price

$195*

Save almost 50% off the $380 retail price
Valid 01/10/12 – 02/03/12
For more information regarding this comprehensive strategy
please contact your Account Executive at 1.800.537.6727

*Note: Pricing includes 4% cash discount. Discount not available for other forms of payment. 

Promotional Price

$495*

Valid 01/10/12 – 02/10/12
For more information regarding this comprehensive strategy
please contact your Account Executive at 1.800.537.6727

*Note: Pricing includes 4% cash discount. Discount not available for other forms of payment. 

As part of the indie bookstore backlash, some stores urged consumers to use Amazon’s Look Inside feature to browse the book and then buy the book in the store. It came down to a match between “look here, buy here” versus “look in stores, buy online” versus “look online, buy in stores.”

Who can win in such a match? The publisher, that’s who. Did you notice the key word in each of these situations? It is “buy,” and it is all about getting your product in front of your consumers in as many ways possible so that when they are ready to pull the trigger and whip out the wallet (physical or virtual), they have all the information they want or need to make your book their book of choice.

To stay on top of the game and continue to offer innovate book promotion solutions, Bookmasters has collaborated with Book2Look to give our publishing partners a viral marketing tool to take print and eBook promotion to the next level with the Book2Look Social Media Widget. Click here to see the widget at work.

The widget is designed to promote your book/s on websites, blogs, social media sites, and within eAdvertising. With the widget, consumers can look here, buy here (through the AtlasBooks.com store), or from within the widget, they can look here and buy at any number of online retailers that you choose to display. And while we’re at it, for print books, consumers can look here, buy here or get hooked on the book, and buy in their favorite store, wherever that may be.

The widget takes look here, buy…wherever, to another extreme by expanding what it means to “look here.” You can embed the widget on your website, blog, social media, and ads, or the widget can go viral, and then you have other people doing your promotion for you through their websites, blogs, etc. Your discoverability has just grown exponentially.

Here are some of the option features you can build into your widget:

Portable description with an excerpt chapter
Video trailer and a photo gallery
Zoom and social bookmarking options
Recommend and share features
Review, rate, and comment capabilities
Shopping cart to multiple eRetail sites
Option to embed into other sites
Detailed analytics
And more!

For more information about how you can use the widget to sell more books, contact your account executive or call 1.800.537.6727.

Deadlines for Title Submissions

Thank you for partnering with us on your forthcoming title(s). Please abide by the following guidelines for submitting information to us so we can ensure your titles are handled in a timely manner for processing. To submit your title information, please access our New Title Form. For multiple title submissions, please contact your customer service representative or info@atlasbooks.com

Titles submitted between:

August 1, 2011 – January 31, 2012
will be included in the Fall 2012 Catalog

February 1, 2012 – July 31, 2012
will be included in the Spring 2013 Catalog

Timeline

New title information due:
6 months prior to book promotion

Title information disseminated to trading partners:
Approximately 30 days after new title submission

Title presented to top accounts by National Sales Managers:
Approximately 2-3 months after new title submission*

Stock due in BMI warehouse:
1 month prior to release date
Book available for distribution

Selling Season:
(Book buyers are budgeted twice a year)
Spring catalog – December through May
Fall catalog – June through November

*Note:

Top accounts include Baker & Taylor, Barnes & Noble, and Ingram. National Sales Managers use tip sheets and finished books on most occasions when they present titles. we are also an exclusive sales agent for Amazon, so please cancel your Advantage Account upon signing up with us.

It takes approximately 4-6 weeks for a title to begin to appear once we submit to the trading partners; this includes Amazon as well. For more information on FAQs about Trading Partners and their timelines, please see these posts about Book Availability and Amazon.

Photo: Dave Stokes, Creative Commons

It seems fitting that we have just reached 12,345 fans on Facebook as we enter the New Year. We like to look at this figure as a herald of growing numbers.

Over the past couple of years, Facebook and other forms of social media have been a great way to communicate with our existing publishing partners, connect with potential customers, and build a book-loving community.

How are you using social media to promote yourself and your books? If you aren’t connecting with others, you are missing out on sales potential, and the potential to grow your expertise through connection with others who have similar goals.

Your social media campaign will likely look different from ours. We have different target audiences. We tailor our approach to publishers and individuals who need publishing solutions such as editorial, design, eBook conversion, printing, print and eBook distribution and marketing.

We benefit from our fans by learning what their wants, needs, and dreams are. This helps us to better serve our customers. We also follow industry experts and news sources to keep fresh on the changing book industry.

Your audience and the people you follow should vary depending upon your topic. But the key point is that you need to engage. Getting yourself out there as a source of information builds your brand and puts you on the consumer’s radar.

If you haven’t already, a good way to start building your brand through social media is to find leaders in your field. See how they are using social media. Where are you finding them? What are they saying? What kind of information do they supply? Start commenting and responding on these threads. Helpful and creative contributions position you as a go-to source, and you will soon see others begin to follow you.

If you are already been using social media to promote your books, but are not  seeing the results you would like to see, try to take an objective look at your content. Are you spamming or doing blatant self-promotion without engaging? Are you connecting with what your fans want to see and read about? Check out other entries on this blog for more marketing tips.

Ok, back to the NOOK giveaway. What do you have to do to win? First, you need a Facebook account. If you are already a fan of Bookmasters on Facebook, you don’t need to do anything! You are already entered!

If you are not yet a Facebook fan, visit our Facebook fan page to like us, and you will be entered.

When we reach 20,000 fans, we will randomly select a winner from our fans to win the NOOK Color. It’s that easy!

This offer is exclusive to our Bookmasters Facebook fans. One winner will be chosen at random when the Bookmasters Facebook fan list reaches 20,000 fans.

CONTEST/GIVEAWAY RULES:

Contest giveaway is for one Nook color valued at $249. No substitutions or cash equivalents allowed. Cannot be combined with any other promotions or contest. Contest is void where prohibited. Bookmasters reserves the right to cancel, terminate, or modify this promotion if it cannot be operated, conducted, or completed as planned, for any reason. Bookmasters is not responsible for any problems with entry, including technical failures. Contest does not apply to Bookmasters employees.

Photo: kjarrett, Creative Commons

National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) asks writers to work on a novel every day in November, committing to a certain word count, and the results have been remarkable for many people. But then the month passes and we must find other motivators to keep us working on our craft.

There’s no reason that daily writing should only be part of November’s routine. It’s good practice for any aspiring writer to sit down as routinely as possible to put words on the page, even if only a few of those words end up being worth keeping. But what happens when you force yourself to sit down at your computer only to be faced with a mockingly white blank document and an equally blank mind?

One way to find inspiration is through writing prompts. You can find books full of prompts, or you can visit a number of websites that will give you ideas. Poets & Writers offers a weekly fiction and poetry prompt called “The Time is Now.” Writer’s Digest also offers a weekly fiction prompt.

Another way to stay motivated is to set your sights on contest. Now that NANOWRIMO has come and gone, try putting your energy into entering writing contests. Winning a contest will help you make a name for yourself in the writing world, and it could garner the attention of prospective agents and editors. Poets & Writers offers a database of contests and competitions for writers of fiction, prose, and creative nonfiction. The database is a great source to keep track of deadlines, entry fees, and prizes. There’s often an entry fee, but the reward often includes a substantial cash prize and sometimes even publication.

Some contests to consider in the new year include:

• Crazyhorse Fiction and Poetry Prizes–$16 entry fee; January 15, 2012 deadline; $2000 and publication in Crazyhorse awarded to the authors of one short story and one poem

• Glimmer Train Press Very Short Fiction Award–$15 entry fee; January 31, 2012 deadline; $1500 and publication in Glimmer Train awarded to the author of a short story of up to 3000 words

• Summer Literary Seminars Unified Literary Contest–$15 entry fee; February 28, 2012 deadline; airfare, tuition, and housing for one of the SLS-2012 programs in either Quebec, Kenya, or Lithuania; publication in the Black Warrior Review and The Walrus

NANOWRIMO is over, but you can still keep that momentum going by sitting down to write on a regular basis, using prompts to help inspire you, and entering some of the wide range of contests offered to writers every year. The resources available to writers can help to strengthen your writing.

Emily Matthews is currently applying to masters degree programs across the U.S., and loves to read about new research into health care, gender issues, and literature. She lives and writes in Seattle, Washington. Check out her previous guest post about NaNoWriMo. 

Photo: Nono Fara, Creative Commons

Sure, you can bypass web-based distractions altogether by manually disconnecting the internet from your computer or by resorting to handwritten content. You might even experience a significant uptick in your productivity if you eliminate your internet usage all together. But if you turn your back on the web, you’ll be missing out on one of the richest resources available for any writer, be they a novelist, copywriter, or a freelancer. Taking advantage of the web’s potential is just a matter of redirecting the energy behind impulsive web surfing. To utilize the web successfully as a writer, you must turn your restlessness on the web to inspirational online content and resources built to unite and support writers as they practice their art. Consider these propositions to turn a web-addicted writer’s short attention span to constructive web surfing.

Blog your ideas

Blogging is both the easiest and the most rewarding hobby you can undertake if you spend most of your time online. Regardless of your writing background, blogging can help you to see the web’s potential as a writing tool. Think of your blog as a digital notebook with limitless opportunity for customization. On one hand, you could choose to use your blog the same way you would a journal, jotting down ideas as they come to you throughout your web surfing. But you can also use the blog as a storage facility for inspiring web content, whether they’re arresting images or news articles that relate to your writings’ subject matter. You can store a virtually unlimited cache of content on your blog that might help shape your writing, or at the very least bring some organization to fierce and time consuming surfing.  And your blog doesn’t necessarily have to dominate your time while you’re on the web; you can keep it open in a tab so you can easily refer to it when you’re struck with a thought worth fleshing out later.

A well-maintained personal blog is the ideal answer to writer’s block. If you continue to log your blog with notes accompanied with online inspirational pieces, you’ll have a treasure of material to draw from in the future to incorporate into your writing. With so many ideas and leads stored in one place, you’ll have no shortage of inspiration or writing prompts.

Search out other writers

If you’re not too keen on blogging, you should at least peruse social networks for potential writing contacts and confidants. The web is inundated with online communities made up of professional and aspiring writers of all stripes looking to help out their peers. If you’re looking for advice on how to execute a writing style or how best to develop a character, invest your time in one of the many online forums available—there are literally thousands of experienced writers waiting to lend their expertise. The focus of these online communities can run the gamut of the writing industry. Sites like inkpop and writer’s café house huge communities of solely fiction writers, while others like Scribd focus on the publishing side of writing. You could also “like” the Bookmasters fan page on Facebook to access a community of authors/publishers.

You should also investigate social media services like Twitter to find fellow writers. Using Twitter, you can quickly locate and then follow writers of any field by using the service’s comprehensive search engine. What’s more, you can quickly separate the Twitter accounts of more popular writers from those who have fewer followers. Popular writers typically utilize Twitter as a means of promoting their own work, but some of them offer free advice and invaluable tips of the trade as a way to entice more followers. Lesser known or struggling authors may be worth following as well, but for an entirely different reason. If they’re not solely interested in selling their works, these writers may be more likely to answer your direct messages and help out a fellow writer. There’s ways some choice information to glean from writers on social media services, you just have to be willing to engage with your peers online.

Alvina Lopez is a freelance writer and blog junkie, who blogs about accredited online colleges. She welcomes your comments at her email Id: alvina.lopez @gmail.com. 

Photo: Travis Isaacs, Creative Commons