Richter Publishing’s Kickstart Your Book! Workshop made Tampa’s Creative Loafing’s Literary List!
Learn how to Kickstart Your Book! in a workshop on Tuesday, July 22, 6 to 8 p.m., at McAlister’s Deli, 4410 W. Boy Scout Blvd., Suite 150. Krayl Funch of An Appealing Plan will share her strategies to raise money to publish. Learn about crowdfunding and how to use ads to drive supporters to your campaign. Tickets are $25 each.
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Personally I think this is a brilliant move. Politics aside, I’m more of a middle-of-the-road kinda gal, this was smart. How do you raise your profile and get free TV and radio interviews? Publish a book! My authors coming through Richter Publishing know the value of having a book, now the politician’s are jumping on the band wagon.
The proof is in the pudding, look at Charlie Crist’s results (taken from the Tampa Bay Times article)
Normally campaigns have to hire advance staffers and press staffers, pay for plane tickets, rent space, equipment and more to stage an event that draws TV, radio and newspaper reporters. Or spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on ads to get on voters’ TV screens.
The beauty of a book tour is that it allows a candidate like Crist to generate loads of media attention while spending little of the campaign money he will need to take on Republican Gov. Rick Scott this year.
Crist’s national TV interviews with the likes of Bill O’Reilly and Stephen Colbert put Crist before a potential national audience of 8.7 million people, which equals $489,171.96 worth of publicity. Local TV viewership across Florida totaled 3.3 million people, free publicity worth an additional $204,179.57.
This is what they estimated his total free publicity, a day later Tampa Bay Times adjusted the total to a whopping $693,351.53!
The awesome thing is that anybody can get this free publicity by publishing a book. It may not add up to Charlie’s huge numbers, but let me tell you, it’s priceless. I have published 4 books in about 2 years. With just my first book I was offered a book signing with CNN, I was featured on Daytime TV, FOX, ABC and more. I had radio interviews booked all over the US & Canada & I’m not a politician! My books were on dating advice, but the thing is once you have a book you’re considered an expert in your industry.
My other published authors are already seeing the results with their books, within 1 month! Pierce Brunson author of “Learning Curve” pitched the Pinellas Country Youth Council and they are now discussing creating a summer curriculum based on his book! Gen Dobson author of “Failing Successfully, Life After Debt” has been speaking to Oprah’s staff to be on her channel!
If you have been putting off writing your book, why? What’s holding you back? Every minute you waste is another TV interview or opportunity passing you by. Contact me today to set up a free discovery session on how I can help bring your dreams to paperback.
Tara Richter, Self-Publishing Expert & Author of 4 Books
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Now that your manuscript is finished you need to design a cover to showcase book. This is the selling part of all your great content inside. It needs to sell itself just from looking at the cover. They say you never get a second chance to make a first impression, neither does your novel.
This maybe a more difficult part if you do not have any design skills. However, less is more. You do not need a really fancy cover to get someone’s attention to buy your book. It should be simple and bold. Think about a billboard for instance. Companies have about 30 seconds or less to get your attention while you are driving 70 miles per hour on the freeway. Most billboards have few words with a large picture, plain, bold fonts. The same should be with your book. You should think about how it would look sitting on the shelf 5 or 10 feet away. Can you read the title? Can you see the pictures? Does it intrigue you enough to walk over and take a closer look? Do you get the overall concept within 30 seconds?
A tip from a graphic designer, (that’s my college degree) is to every now and then during the process get up from your computer and walk across the room to view your design. How does it look? Sometimes we get caught up being so close to it, you forget to look at it from another perspective. Think of the books that you have purchased in the past. What did you like about the cover or didn’t like? Mimic the design that compelled you to buy a book. I personally like to place my professional photos on the front or back of my books because I’m branding myself. It also gives a human touch to my advice so others can relate to me. Deciding if you want your photo on the cover depends upon the kind of book you’re writing. If the story is about depression, you wouldn’t want a bright eyed, smiling face on the front. Make sure the images portray the content accurately.
Since I am a graphic designer, yes I do have an extra talent to be able to design my own book covers. Nonetheless, you can do it too. I have used Photoshop and Illustrator on my first 3 books. Photoshop is the best tool to use because you need layers and be able to know the resolution of your images, 300 DPI (dots per inch) minimum for printing purposes. If you do not want to buy Photoshop, you can download a free 30 trial period that will give you enough time to create your cover. Or you can hire a professional to do it for you. We have a lot carte services & can create a great cover for you.
by Tara Richter
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You need to take advantage of every spare moment you have to finish your book and write when you feel inspired. Once you get your thoughts spinning in your head you need to stop what you’re doing and write them down, even if its chicken scratch notes. If you don’t you may forget them or the thoughts will not be as intense as they were feeling at the moment. I composed my 2nd and 3rd books writing in small 5 to 10 minutes chunks in grocery stores, on the treadmill, and on airplanes. I use the notepad app on my iPhone. I bought a blue tooth key board for $50 and carry it around with me so when I’m inspired I sit down and easily write it out. Once I’m done with my thoughts I email it to myself so when I get home, it’s sitting in my email box waiting for me so I don’t forget. Then I copy and paste it into my word document and clean it up.
Anytime you have an extra five minutes in your day, you need to write. Waiting in line to pick up the kids from school? Write on your smart phone or tablet. Walking on the treadmill? Jot some ideas down. Working out always gets ideas rolling in my head. Probably because of all the blood pumping through my veins and those feel-good endorphins flooding my body. I come up with some of my best material while working out. However , I don’t want to lose those racing thoughts!
Traveling soon? Airports is another great time to write. Just think about how many minutes you waste standing in line to be groped by security, flights that are delayed, sitting on the plane waiting for them to fuel up and damn where is that truck to push back the plane! I was on a flight heading from Tampa to Nebraska one summer and I had my cool little portable Bluetooth keyboard with me. I was typing away on my iPhone, listening to music and having a grand ‘ol time. The couple next to me just kept staring out of the corner of their eyes. Trying to be sly, but not pulling it off. Finally I took my earbuds out so they could ask me that dying question, “Are you really writing on your iPhone?” I told them I’m an author and I how I compose most of my books with this method, they were amazed.
I have tried using the voice dictation option on my iPhone and my experience is that it does not work well. It doesn’t seem to understand what I’m saying and it makes more errors than it’s worth. Even though it would record my speaking quickly, editing all the errors out wasted way more time. Also I realized that when I’m writing and thinking of what I want to say and how to say it, I pause and re-organize the thoughts in my head a lot. When I do this verbally it makes for a messy transcription to clean up. When I’m typing, I have more time to adjust my information while it goes from my brain to my fingertips to the laptop. So typing versus speaking works better for me. There may be better voice to text software out there and that may be an easier option for you. It doesn’t really matter how you do it, just finding your sweet spot is the key.
by Tara Richter
*This is an excerpt from her next book, “How to Write & Publish a Book for FREE” it will be available for purchase soon! Subscribe to the blog for updates on the process of the book.*
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