How To Cross Promote with Others: A Sample Media Release

I thought my Book Marketing readers would like a free e-copy of my Great First Impression Book Proposal to ring in the new year and maybe they'd download a copy of my husband’s new book, too. We’re both passionate about his new reference/how-to book because we think that it could help with many misunderstandings in the world, particularly for foreigners who must work with Americans.

His book is What Foreigners Need To Know About Americans A to Z by Lance Johnson (http://amzn.to/12JoVsa). It will be f r ~ ~ on Amazon from January 13^th to 17^th. It is serious stuff, but it reads light and easy sparing none of his dry humor about his own beloved US and the quirks of the English language.

My Great First Impression Book Proposal (http://bit.ly/BkPropKind) has been around a while. Even if you already have it, you will want to get the updated version.

They’re both available for almost any reader you prefer to read your e-books on—PC, iPhone, Android, Mac. You can download an app to make it work on your PC at:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html?ie=UTF8&docId=1000426311

I also thought this promotion might work for you as a sample of the kind you might use even if you write in a hard-to-promote genre. Here is the basic media release for you. It also serves as an example of how cross-promotion (the sharing of effort and files) can help you with your own book campaign. (Scroll down for the release!)

Won’t you please download and help us give my little booklet and my husband's truly amazing reference a chance at greater exposure and a shot at making Kindle’s bestseller list?

Sample Media Release for Cross Promotion, KDP Promo

Multi award-winning poet, novelist, and author of the famed HowToDoItFrugally series of books for writers Carolyn Howard-Johnson and award-winning playwright and actor Lance Johnson have been married for far longer than the average couple worldwide and are still doing things together—in this case joining with Amazon’s Kindle Select program to give away e-copies of their books.

Ta Da! Two books for your Kindle (or your computer if you don’t have a Kindle—see the link for doing that below) with only a couple clicks. All you do is go to http://amzn.to/12JoVsaon Jan 13, 14, 15, 16 or 17^th, and click. Then go to http://amzn.to/UabAn7 and click. Both e-books will come directly to your computer or your Kindle.

Feel free to share this link with anyone you'd like to have a thoughtful—and fast—gift. Send Lance’s to a foreign student you know, an emigrant, or anyone who cut more high school civics (or English!) classes than they should have. Send the link to Carolyn’s book to any author you know. Every nonfiction author and even most fiction writers can use it, as it is becoming common for publishers to ask for proposals from writers of genre fiction.

Lance Johnson is an actor with national commercials, plays, and movies to his credit. He has also visited more than 90 countries and taught English and American culture abroad. His book has been endorsed by ambassadors to the US and ambassadors from the US to other countries.

Carolyn Howard-Johnson's HowToDoItFrugally series for writers has won multiple awards. She has studied writing at universities in the Czech Republic, Russia and UK, UCLA, and USC. And she has been an instructor for the world renowned UCLA Extension Writers' Program for nearly a decade.

For more information on these books or the authors visit:

http://AmericaZtoZ.comfor Lance’s work and
http://HowToDoItFrugally.com for Carolyn’s.

PS: Free Kindle books are available for almost any format or reader you prefer. PC, iPhone, Android, Mac, etc. Just download the appropriate free app at http://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html?ie=UTF8&docId=1000426311

###

Support material available electronically or by post on request.

Don't Get in the Doghouse. Think Ahead for Valentine's and Get One Free!

Cherished Pulse
Subtitle: Unconventional Love Poetry
By Magdalena Ball and Carolyn Howard-Johnson
ISBN:9781449546052
Genre: Chapbook/Poetry
From the multi award-winning Celebration Series of chapbooks
Amazon sales page
Author's Web site: http://howtodoitfrugally.com/poetry_books.htm

Valentine’s Day may be the holiday best made for poetry. A rose, a poem and thou.

Trouble is, many that we find on the inside covers of commercial greeting cards may be just a little too-too for many of us. Multi award-winning poets Carolyn Howard-Johnson and Magdalena Ball to the rescue with Cherished Pulse, a chapbook of poetry just right for tucking into an envelope or sending off as an e-mail attachment to loved ones.

And right now, Cherished Pulse is available free with the KDP Select free e-book feature. All you do is go tohttp://bit.ly/Vs07hV on Jan 11, 12, 13, 14 and 15^th and click.

It takes only the click of a mouse!

And there is plenty of time for you to send the link so your special person can pick up their copy before the big V.

It's a mini gift and greeting card in one!

And it’s available for about any way you prefer to read your e-books (scroll for more on how to do that!)

Cherished Pulse includes many of the science-inspired poems Magdalena is famous for as well as Carolyn’s nostalgic poetry. Chapbooks in the Celebration Series have won many awards including MWSA’s highest honor of gold and several from USA Book News.

It’s you who had me dreaming

lilacs, breathing April’s sweetest

tears…

Magdalena Ball runs the highly respected CompulsiveReader.com review site. She is the author of the poetry book Repulsion Thrust, which was published to unanimous five-star reviews. Her novel Sleep Before Evening was a Next Generation Indie Book Awards Her new novel, Black Cow, is set in Australia.

Carolyn Howard-Johnson's poetry appears frequently in review journals. She is listed in Poets and Writers and her chapbook of poetry, Tracings (http://budurl.com/CarolynsTracings), was given the Award of Excellence by the Military Writers Society of America. One of her poems recently won the Franklin Christoph Poetry Prize. She is also an award-winning novelist and short story writer and instructor for UCLA Extension Writers' Program.

For more information on the Celebration Series chapbooks, contact either author, or visit media rooms athttp://howtodoitfrugally.com or http://magdalenaball.com.

Vicki Thomas contributed the watercolors used on the cover and interior.To see her selections of her work, go to http://www.vickithomasartist.com .

PS:Free Kindle books are available for about any format or reader you prefer. PC, iPhone, Android, Mac, etc. Just download the appropriate free app. The one for PCs is at
http://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html?ie=UTF8&docId=1000426311

Two Poets Market Christmas E-Book by Giving It Away Free

 

Multi award-winning poets Carolyn Howard-Johnson and Magdalena Ball figure nothing is more meaningful at any holiday than a poem—a real poem, not sing-songy impersonal verse from the shelves of card shops. They also noticed that many folks remember many people they forgot when it may be too late. 

Ta Da! We have are offering you our "rational" Christmas chapbook to procrastinators free. Enter the KDP Select free e-book feature. All you do is go to http://amzn.to/BloomingRedKind on Dec. 14, 15, 16, 17 and 18 and click.

Anyone can send it free to anyone they'd like to have a thoughtful—and fast—Christmas gift with a click of a mouse (no not the same mouse that's in "The Night Before Christmas" poem!). The booklet Blooming Red: Christmas Poetry for the Rational was honored by the Military Writers Society of America and USA Book News award.

It's a mini gift and greeting card in one!

Blooming Red includes Maggie’s science-inspired and Carolyn’s nostalgic poetry. It also includes some humorous poems for fair measure.

Magdalena Ball runs the highly respected CompulsiveReader.com review site.  She is the author of the poetry book Repulsion Thrust, which was published to unanimous 5-star reviews.  Her novel Sleep Before Evening was a Next Generation Indie Book Awards Finalist and she just released a new novel set in Australia. It is Black Cow.  

Carolyn Howard-Johnson's poetry appears frequently in review journals. She is listed in Poets & Writers and her chapbook of poetry, Tracings (www.budurl.com/CarolynsTracings ), was given the Award of Excellence by the Military Writers Society of America and She Wore Emerald Then won its highest honor of gold. One of her poems recently won the Franklin Christoph Poetry Prize. She is also an award-winning novelist and short story writer and instructor for UCLA Extension Writers' Program.

For more information on any of the chapbooks in the Celebration series, contact either of the authors, or visit media rooms at www.howtodoitfrugally.com or  www.magdalenaball.com. To learn more about artist Vicki Thomas and to see her selections of her work, go to http://www.vickithomasartist.com .

 

                              ###

Support material available electronically or by post on request.  Contact Magdalena Ball at magggieball@compulsivereader.com.

 

Celebrate E-Book Week with Free E-Chapbooks

This comes to subscribers and visitors as a gift, but also as an example of how authors--yep, even poets!--might use promotional week and month designations as an excuse to promote. This is, after all, what they were designef for! (-:  It is copied from a special edition of my newsletter but could easily be made into a media release.  If you want the freebie, use the link in the letter, not the Amazon widgets; they will let you buy paperbacks, though!

Magdalena Ball and I are celebrating Read an E-book Week by giving e-book copies of our poetry to all comers from March 6 to 12.


Our chapbooks of poetry include Cherished Pulse (for anyone you love) with artwork from California artist Vicki Thomas, She Wore Emerald Then (for mothers on your gift list) with photographs by May Lattanzio, Imagining the Future (for Fathers), and Blooming Red, a Christmas chapbook. All are priced to compete with greeting cards at any time of year but this is a celebration of F r ^ ^ (and e-books!).

Chapbooks have been a tradition in the poetry world since Elizabethan times. The Celebration Series goes beyond the clichéd sentiments in most greeting cards—and does it for about the same price.

Now the full series is being offered for f r ^ ^ during Read an E-book Week from March 6 to 12 to help raise public awareness of electronic reading. Read an E-book Week’s Web site (http://www.ebookweek.com ) provides information on the latest e-book reading devices, different e-book stores, benefits of e-books, as well as the history and the future of e-books. Visitors will be able to download free reads from different major retailers, authors and publishers during the Read an E-book Week event period. The Celebration books can be read in over nine digital formats on any computer or portable reading device anywhere in the world. This is a revolution for both authors, both of whom started their writing careers when the latest technology was a typewriter and carbon paper for copies. To access the free books, visit:

http://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/maggieball


Magdalena Ball runs the highly respected www.compulsivereader.com review site. She is the author of the poetry book Repulsion Thrust, published to unanimous 5-star reviews. Her novel Sleep Before Evening, published in 2007, was a Next Generation Indie Book Award finalist. You all probably know about my poetry except for the one published quite a while ago by Finishing Line Press, (www.budurl.com/CarolynsTracings ), which isn’t being offered f r ^^ by contractual agreement. For more information on any of the chapbooks in this poetry series, contact either of the authors or visit media rooms at http://www.howtodoitfrugally.com/
 or http://www.magdalenaball.com/
.

Happy promoting, writing and poetry reading!

Carolyn Howard-Johnson

To Be Frugal or Not to Be Frugal: The Choice Shouldn't Be Yours

Reviews for iPAD Used As a Reader Is Positive! What Does That Mean for You?

Reviews for the iPad--like the one on the front page of the LA Times Calendar section this week--universally praise, laud, and acclaim the iPad as a reader. Most have a few good things to say about Kindle, too. But, generally, reviewers seem to love, love, love! iPad and seem willing to forego the features on Kindle they deem better for the color, book-like feel and design of the Pad.

What does that mean for us writers? Well, in addition to my raving on and on that a smart author in any genre should get their books available as e-books as soon as possible, getting your book available on iPAD will get you in on the ground floor of a new, VERY popular toy. You can use Smashwords.com or iFOGOvillage.ning.com to do that.

Should YOU buy one. There is a big, big difference between the cost of these tech toys. Given a choice, well--you know how frugal I am. When it comes to making my books availalbe on one or the other, well, it isn't a choice! As good marketers, we authors want to make our books available whatever ways people want to buy them!


-----
Carolyn Howard-Johnson, author of This Is the Place; Harkening: A Collection of Stories Remembered; Tracings, a chapbook of poetry; and two how to books for writers, The Frugal Book Promoter: How To Do What Your Publisher Won't and The Frugal Editor: Put Your Best Book Forward to Avoid Humiliation and Ensure Success. Her FRUGAL book for retailers is A Retailer’s Guide to Frugal In-Store Promotions: How To Increase Profits and Spit in the Eyes of Economic Downturns with Thrifty Events and Sales Techniques. She is also the author of the Amazon Short, "The Great First Impression Book Proposal". Some of her other blogs are TheNewBookReview.blogspot.com, a blog where authors can recycle their favorite reviews. She also blogs at all things editing, grammar, formatting and more at The Frugal, Smart and Tuned-In Editor . If your followers at Twitter would benefit from this blog post, please use the little Green widget to let them know about it:

Sending the Love to Troops with Free E-Books

As many of you know, my grandson is back now from two tours of duty in Iraq and is now stationed (very luckily) near Monterrey, CA. Thus, the plight of our troops is a subject near and dear to my heart. My poetry writing partner Magdalena Ball and I are giving away e-copies of our chapbook of unconventional love poetry Cherished Pulse to 'our' troops overseas as part of Operation e-book drop. We hope it will help them celebrate our holiday of love and express our love to them--wherever they are in the world including Haiti where they're working night and day to bring relief to others.

We figured that many authors would want to do the same with their books. Find the links and more information on the program at http://www.sharingwithwriters.blogspot.com/.

If you prefer to send a real copy to someone, that is easy, too. It is only $6.95 on Amazon, certainly a doable gift. (The Amazon Link is in this post.) It makes a really beautiful gift with Vicki Thomas’s artwork and you can make it even prettier by tying a slender satin ribbon in the book's crease as a bookmark. Go to .

------
Carolyn Howard-Johnson wrote the foreword for Eric Dinyer's book of patriotic quotations, Support Our Troops, published by Andrews McMeel. Part of the proceeds for the book benefit Fisher House. Her chapbook of poetry won the Military Writers Society of America's award of excellence. Find it at http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1599240173/. Her novel, collection of creative nonfiction and much of her poetry is informed by interest in leading the world toward acceptance of one another. Find her web page dedicated to tolerance at http://www.carolynhowardjohnson.redenginepress.com/tolerence_and_utah_links.htm. If your Twitter followers would be interested, please pass this on to them using this widget: