Rebecca Gradinger

This is one of the best conferences on book writing and publishing–probably the best if you are writing a health related book. So, if you attended, here are some highlights to remember and a few reminders about how to get published. If couldn’t make it, here’s your crash course.

At dinner with top Literary Agent Rebecca Gradinger and psychiatrist/soon to be author Vicki Dunckley (I’m the one smiling behind the camera), one theme that came up is that it’s harder than ever to publish fiction–even a talented author who would have easily been published five years ago. Guess that’s why they’re all going digital/self publishing.

The good news is, there’s always a market for good self-help, how-to and other nonfiction–as long as you develop your following and have a new angle or fresh voice on a topic of interest to a strong niche audience. The competitive market should propel you to think creatively about your book concept and write the absolute best book you can. My clients are seeing great responses (and signing book deals) even in this market. You can, too.

practicing pitches — Bring Your Book to Life participants practice their pitches at lunch.

The 70 second book pitches were the best ever this year. And Bring Your Book to Life participants did an especially inspiring job. Here they are practicing and fine tuning their pitches at lunch–all heard back from agents who heard their pitches and wanted to connect and see their book proposals when ready. I felt like a proud mom.

What makes a good pitch? A compelling hook, a clear market, impressing agents with your platform or following, something fresh…and humor always helps!

While no one’s going to ring a buzzer and say, “Time over” when you pitch in real life, this is great practice at making in impression in a very short amount of time. Try it at home–a great exercise.

Connecting with Rusty Shelton, President and Founder of Shelton Interactive

I always enjoy connecting with Rusty Shelton–he was the publicist on my first book and many of the greatest opportunities in my career have come through Rusty. He’s one of those people who is always doing great things for others–even when the publicity contract is over!

Rusty’s new company, Shelton Interactive, designed my new website which I will unveil in the next few weeks. This year was particularly special in that Rusty and I had breakfast in the Oak Room with one of our favorite agents to discuss the book we’re working on and received enthusiastic feedback. More on that soon…

harvard medical school publishing course — Harvard often provides the opportunity to connect with clients of mine whom I’ve worked with for a year or more, but never met in person until now.

I enjoyed connecting with Dr. Vicki Dunckley, whom I’ve worked with for over a year without having ever met her in person. Vicki just became a blogger on Psychology Today and I’m sure that helped agents get excited about her book pitch–she went from very little platform to instant platform.

Of course, the topic had a great deal to do with their enthusiasm. If you’re wondering how computers affect your kid’s brain and what you can do about it check out Vicki’s blog and her Psychology Today column. The moral of the story here–start with your own blog and then pitch a fresh and polished post to a big blog like psychology today, the Huffington Post or WebMD.

Oh, so much more to tell you about, but that will be another post for another day…

If you were at the conference, do share the highlights:

– What was the most important tip or advice you learned?

– What insights or breakthroughs did you experience at the conference?

– Did you get clearer about your book?

A client e-mailed me a couple of days ago suggesting that he didn’t really need an internet section in the promotion plan of his book proposal. “Isn’t that an agent’s job–to publicize my book on the internet?”

No. Book publicity is your job. Both agents and publishers want close to a sure thing. Your proposal needs to convince them you’ll do a great job publicizing your book.

Before I Got Too Smug…

As I started to e-mail back this client, telling him he had to have an internet component to his promotion plan to be taken seriously, I noticed that my answer had a pedantic feel to it. I wrote quite definitively and then thought: Do I know for sure? It’s important, sure, but could that one missing piece alone take him out of the running completely?

There was one way to find out. I e-mailed several top agents and here’s what they said:

Rita Rosenkranz wants to see an authors interest in developing their internet presence — Rita Rosenkranz wants to see an author's interest in developing their internet presence

Rita Rosenkranz said this, “Lisa, the good majority of authors can profit from a Web presence. They at least have to show interest in building their presence, with enough seeds planted to prove to a prospective publisher the interest is real. If an author makes clear he or she has absolutely no interest along these lines, it’s safe for me to think the project would be a tough sell.”

Elizabeth Pomada needs to see an authors commitment--and that needs to include the internet — Elizabeth Pomada needs to see an author's commitment--and that needs to include the internet

Elizabeth Pomada wrote, on behalf of herself and Michael Larsen, “One of the key ingredients we must have from any author, fiction or nonfiction, is commitment. And the author must be totally committed to succeeding in their new career–which is really a business and must be looked on as such.

“Any writer who will not take advantage of every way they can to promote their work and themselves is not someone we’d want to work with.

“The internet is very demanding, that’s true. But it also allows people to network and promote themselves and their book(s!) in many ways that will not intrude on their lives. They can do radio and TV tours on line, blog, podcast, get on You Tube.”

Elizabeth stresses the importance of building your fan base online. She says, “Yes, social media take time, but I remember when one of my authors spent two days a week just writing to her fans! Think of how much easier that would be to do it online. Another friend is working the social media route by making friends–guesting and responding to other people’s blogs.”

Finally, Jeanne Fredericks weighed in with, perhaps, the most forgiving response, but even so, it sounds like the internet’s a tough trend to buck.

Jeanne replied, “I think that most editors now expect that authors will have an internet presence. A few years ago having or planning a website devoted to one’s book was considered sufficient. Then having an ‘interactive website’ became the preferred version since they built more traffic to the website.

“In the last year or so, a wide range of publishers, even those in traditional areas such as religion, have been touting the benefits of blogging, twittering, and viral marketing. I think it would be wise for all authors, especially those who are not already nationally known with strong media presences, to build their followings through these new social marketing techniques.

“The investment in time in learning the techniques is likely to pay off in generating more interest from agents and editors. Having an internet presence, though, is just one element that I look for in a potential author.

Jeanne reminds us that the internet is just one aspect of your book, “Writing something fresh about a subject of interest to a sizable population, and being an author with the right credentials and experience to write about the topic are still just as essential as they have always been in my evaluation of potential authors.”

As I thought about my client–a very accomplished professional with 14 hour work days, I realized that most new or aspiring authors are intimidated by the internet.

If you’re already working your tail off, how do you find the time to learn how to harness the power of this vast resource? Even if you hire someone to do most of the internet publicity work for you, how do you know you’re hiring the right person? And what do you have them do?

I’ve been planning a week long blog series on the subject of how authors are making use of the internet in various ways to promote their books (before and after their books are written). Post comments and ask questions here, as well as let me know what you’d like to see for Internet Publicity Week 2009. Stay tuned for more details.

Highlights of Harvard Medical School’s CME Publishing Course

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