Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas from all of us here at Savas Beatie (Sarah, Veronica, Alex, Kim, and Ted). Here's a short video of our company Christmas party, for your viewing pleasure. =)

http://elfyourself.jibjab.com/view/eFyOKPz3Ql6B9fvQ?cmpid=ey_fb_self

Some "helpful" advice

This article from The New Yorker is a couple months old, but I received it from a second family member the other day, and I thought it was too good not to post.

I would like to think that Richard Lowry's sound advice below, coupled with the help we give our authors, resonates better than this intern's email.

Funny, just the same.

http://www.newyorker.com/humor/2009/10/19/091019sh_shouts_weiner

Success in the publishing world

Please excuse such a lengthy absence on my part. Richard S. Lowry, author of our Spring 2010 release New Dawn, wrote the article below for the Savas Beatie Author News, a monthly newsletter we send to our authors with ideas, tips, and suggestions. I think it is relevant here as well, and I am posting it as a guest blog post.

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Success in the publishing world requires 10% writing and 90% marketing skills. Don’t get me wrong, authors need to produce the best possible book they can write: that 10% is extremely important. Unfortunately, many very good books languish on the bookshelves and never achieve literary success.

Authors are usually introverts—observers of the world around them. They are precisely the wrong personality type to market their work. To be successful, we need to climb out of our shell and shout to the world that our work must be read. Today, we have all the tools we need at our fingertips. We can actually shout from inside our cocoon. Today, we have the internet.

In today’s internet jargon, we must do everything we can to take our message ‘viral.’ We can use the internet to acquire needed exposure in ways never possible before. I have built my own website at www.RichardSLowry.com and I am constantly adding to my blogsite at http://blog.RichardSLowry.com. Before I started my own blog, I befriended an administrator of a successful blog (web log – say it fast three times) www.op-for.com. He was eager to have my writing support as it added content to his site and I was happy in that I did not have to administer my own site. It was a way to get my feet wet in the ‘blogosphere.’

In addition, I became proficient enough to start my own facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/rslowry and my own Twitter site too http://twitter.com/rslowry. It is surprisingly easy to start these pages. My only advice is to start small and add posts, followers/friends, and content as you become more familiar with the media. And, be careful to not put too much personal info out to the entire world.

Here is one more useful tool. The Google Alert is very powerful. You can sign up with Google and they will send you an email anytime any of your selected words/phrases are used on the internet. Best of all—it’s free. I use terms like USMC and Fallujah. When you receive an alert, it will direct you to the original post, where you can learn more about the subject, find websites devoted to your subject matter, and even post a comment to help gain even more exposure.

Lastly, I want to give you a place to write and gain exposure that requires little to no internet experience. I recently became a writer for Examiner.com. Check out my articles at http://www.examiner.com/x-30068-Orlando-Military-Headlines-Examiner. I can help you and you can help me. Please visit my posts, comment and subscribe. This will help me expand my exposure on Examiner.com and if you contact me through Savas Beatie, I can submit your name for consideration as one of their reporters.

If you have any questions, or need any assistance, please feel free to contact me through Ted Savas or Sarah. Next time I will talk about going out in public.

- Richard S. Lowry, author of New Dawn: The Battles for Fallujah, http://www.richardslowry.com/

Game Time

It’s Friday, so I thought I’d make this post a little more fun. Match the four quotes below to the people who said them.

1. “A book is 10% writing and 90% marketing.”

2. “Book publishing would be so much easier without the authors.”

3. “You were right about social networking; I think it’s helped our marketing enormously.”

4. “Writing a book and selling a book are two very different things.”

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A. Gunny Pop, author of Once a Marine

B. Richard Lowry, author of the upcoming book New Dawn: The Battles for Fallujah

C. New York editor Jonas Faukman, in The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown

D. James Hessler, author of Sickles at Gettysburg


One is obviously not connected to Savas Beatie. The other three were said to me by some great Savas Beatie authors, all in the last week! As we say time and time again, we are very lucky at Savas Beatie to work with some great authors.

I wish I could post this upsidedown, but I’m not sure how to do that. =)

Answers: 1.B; 2.C; 3.D; 4.A

Stay tuned next week for posts on each of these points.

Selling Author Copies – A How-To

It is very important to us that our authors sell copies of their book at service club events, library talks, and conventions. It’s a great way for the author to get exposure and earn some extra money. We have authors who go through hundreds of copies of their books this way each year. Also, each copy they sell themselves will lead to a sale through another source down the road, so it’s beneficial all the way around.

I’ve received a lot of questions from authors lately about the process so I made a Tip Sheet that we will be giving to each new author. I’ve included the contents of it below for anyone who may find it useful.

• Always bring a cash box with you to an event. Keep this close to you on the table, away from customers and people browsing or, ideally, under the table.
  



• Have change (lots of $1s and $5s and some $10s) in your cash box before the event so you can easily make change in the correct denominations for customers. Write down this starting amount beforehand so when you count your money at the end of the event, you can verify you aren’t short.



• Print out a small sign that says “Make Checks Payable To __________” and prop it up on the table for people who are writing checks. This will save most people from asking you who they should make a check out to, or at least give them something to refer to as they write your name or company name on the check.



• Count the number of books you have before the event starts. Bring a receipt book or tally sheet so you can track how many copies you sell. After the event, count the number of books you have left and your earnings and refer to your receipt book/tally sheet to make sure that everything reconciles.



• Only keep a few copies or a small stack of books nicely displayed on the selling table. These are copies that people can pick up and flip through. Keep the rest of the books that you are selling under or behind the table. Hand these to customers after they make their purchase so that their copy is brand new, and people aren’t walking off with unaccounted for copies.



• If you have a long line of customers, it helps to have two lines: one where customers purchase the book from someone who is helping you collect money and a second line the customer gets in after making their purchase to get the book signed by you. This keeps everything moving smoothly and avoids a jam at the table when people want to chat as you personalize their copy.



• If you are selling books in the state where you live and that state has sales tax, you need to charge state sales tax. Find out that amount. The easiest way to collect sales tax is to add tax into the price you are selling the book for. For example, if you live in California with 8.25% sales tax, sell a $32.95 book for $35.67 in California.



• If you can, always bring an extra person or two along with you to help manage the table (collect money, answer questions, take photos, etc.) so that you can spend the most time possible with customers signing their books.
  
  

October Events – Please Join Us!

There are two great Civil War events west of the Mississippi in October. For us out here in California, that’s saying something! =)

Here are the events details. Each link provides information on the schedule, speakers, registration info, etc. I am pleased to say that Savas Beatie has a presence at both events.

When: October 3
What: Rocky Mountain Civil War Roundtable Symposium
Theme: Lee Invades the North
More info: http://rmcwrt.blogspot.com/ and http://savasbeatie.com/ProgramV7.pdf

The panel includes a slew of Savas Beatie authors: Russel Beatie, Bradley Gottfried, Lance Herdegen, and Timothy Smith. Many Savas Beatie titles (including special signed editions of a few!) will be for sale.

When: October 23-25
What: West Coast Civil War Roundtable Conference
Theme: 1863 Campaign for Chattanooga, Tennessee
More info: http://www.chattanooga2009.com/

Ted Savas will be attending as the conference book dealer, and The Maps of Chickamauga will make its debut this weekend.

If you attend, please email me some photos after the event and we will use them in a future newsletter.

Old Cornerstone Bookstore

I took a trip to New England a few weeks ago, and we spent a nice (but very hot and humid!) day in Boston. Here I am standing in front of the former site of the Old Cornerstone Bookstore. My photo of the plaque posted on the building came out very blurry, but there’s some background info on the old bookstore here.

Built in 1712, the bookstore is one of Boston’s oldest surviving structures. Many famous books such as The Scarlet Letter were published here when the building was occupied by a publishing company/bookstore. I wonder who is turning over in his grave knowing that it is now an “Ultra Diamonds”? =)