Part 2 – Catskills, New York

Ellen Ratner, Ted Savas, and Bob Ney prepping for dessert!

Bob Ney, Ted Savas, Ellen Ratner, and Richard Miller at "the most beautiful spot in New York." Hard to top that view.

Ted on the Ratner farm with Pavo the turkey.

Ted and I left Book Expo America early for a trip to the Catskills area of New York. We were guests at Ellen Ratner’s house for the weekend, along with soon-to-be Savas Beatie author Richard Miller and Bob Ney, political analyst for Talk Radio News Service.

Saturday night we all made a delicious dinner together, including steak, fish, grilled corn and asparagus, salad, and a Savas Beatie Apple Pie for dessert! (Are you hungry yet?) Sunday morning we had a marketing meeting to strategize for the 2010 release of Fighting Words by Richard Miller. We followed this with a beautiful walk AND an ATV ride around the property, a trip to visit the Ratner farm (bunnies, turkeys, goats, and all!), and more good food.

It was a great mix of business and pleasure, and a weekend to remember.

Part 1 - Book Expo America

A meeting at the Casemate booth with David Farnsworth.

Ted Savas, Ellen Ratner, Richard Miller, and Sarah Keeney after taping of The Strategy Room.

Filming of The Strategy Room on Fox News, the Friday, May 29 show.

Ted getting a copy of the new Steve Barry and Ridley Pearson audio book signed for his son DT.

Well, we are back from our six day whirlwind trip. Part One took us to the Javits Center in New York City for Book Expo America. We were only there for about half of the show instead of our usual three days, but we crammed a lot into that day and a half.

The set up at our distributor Casemate’s booth was great. They displayed books and had posters set up in a new format which made the booth and whole area much more open and inviting for meetings and attendees walking past. People walking by would slow down because the large posters had caught their eye. Ted and I had some productive meetings with representatives from Penguin and Barnes and Noble, Oasis Audio regarding audio rights for a number of our titles, Brian Jud’s book specialty sales team, and the Military and History Book Club editor. (More on some interesting info from those meetings in later posts.)

Friday afternoon we were in for a treat. We are publishing a book by Richard Miller in Spring 2010, a follow up to his most recent book In Words and Deeds: Battle Speeches in History. Richard and his cousin Ellen Ratner (White House Correspondent and news analyst) were slated to be on Fox News Channel’s Strategy Room that afternoon. We headed over to the studio, saw Geraldo Rivera in the staging room, and watched a taping of the show. My mom even saw me on camera. =)

Friday evening we had a nice dinner with the Casemate and UK crowd at an Irish pub. Saturday morning and early afternoon we finished up at the show. There was lots of talk and articles written pre-show about a toned-down version of BEA this year, after such low attendance in Los Angeles last year and with the present state of the economy. Although a lot of European companies didn’t send representatives and some big author names were missing from the line up, Savas Beatie had a very successful show - it was another great BEA! Part Two . . . to the Catskills.

Off to Book Expo, upstate NY, and Gettysburg

As it is late and I am not done packing yet (of course!), refer to Ted Savas' recent post about our upcoming trip to Book Expo America, New York, and Gettysburg. It will be a great time.

And yes . . . I have my The Maps of Gettysburg and The Complete Gettysburg Guide copies ready for personal tours. =)

More next week.

Results of Email Frequency Poll

Although taken from a small sample, the results of my recent poll are as I expected – half of the people said that they want to receive news and info from a company that they gave their email address to about once a month. This is how frequently we send out our e-newsletter. Occasionally we send out a special blast about a particular book or a time-sensitive offer, but we usually stick to the once a month model.

I understand the benefits of increasing contact with our customers though. Soon we are going to use a new program to send out our emailed newsletters. Using this program we will easily be able to track how many people clicked on which links in our newsletter to see what people are the most interested in reading. We plan to send out more tailored emails to customers based on their book preferences using this information.

Emailed updates and information – when is it too much?

I received a video link from Steve Harrison this week. He offers a lot of free phone seminars, video clips, resources, etc. Some of them are helpful, some are just pushes to sign up for their classes and programs. The 13-minute video I watched this week is posted here.

The title is “Steve Harrison reveals the most costly website mistake to avoid plus how to get his web designer to build you a better site.” If you don’t have 13 extra minutes, he says the most costly mistake is “expecting people to buy the first time they visit your site.” And then if they don’t, not having a way to follow up with them. The video goes on to explain some important website features, such as having a sign up form for a newsletter or offering an incentive (such as a list of tips or a packet of resources) to the viewer if they fill out a contact form.

Steve Harrison also explains how important it is to frequently send potential customers information. My question is, how much is too much? I know I’ve unsubscribed to newsletters, or found myself clicking delete on emails before even opening them, if I think I hear from the company too often. I’m following Ted Savas’ quiz model by posting the question on the left.

Author phone call

This video is hilarious. It’s an author on the phone hashing out ideas with his publisher, and getting a bit of a reality check.

The video was posted in the most recent issue of the newsletter Publishing Poynters, Book and Information-Marketing News and Ideas from Dan Poynter with the following caption:

“Whether you sell out to a publisher or publish yourself, the author must do the promotion. Publishers do not promote books. The challenge is that most authors don’t.”

At Savas Beatie we are lucky to have some great authors who work tirelessly to promote their books. Still, this is . . . hilarious. =)

Goodreads Giveaway

Goodreads is a great website and resource for book lovers. While browsing the site the other week I noticed there was a section on their Help page titled “Tips for Book Publishers and Authors” their Giveaway program looked interesting. Using it, publishers can list upcoming books that they will donate to a drawing and Goodreads users can enter to win free copies of the book. The publishers can submit whatever title they choose, how many copies they want to give away, the length of the entry period, and where they agree to mail the books to (within the United States, within North America, etc.) I submitted our upcoming book The Unpopular Mr. Lincoln to give it a try last week and so far almost 500 people have entered to win a free copy! This seems like a great program to increase pre-publication notice about a book and it will surely lead to some people buying the book who wouldn’t have known about it otherwise.