From all of us at Outskirts Press, have a safe and happy New Year!
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PROMO CODE: cybersale
This Cyber Monday, November 28th, buy yourself something new. Purchase the Ultimate Black & White or Ultimate Full-Color or Basic package and save 20%. Just add the promo code cybersale when checking out and instantly save hundreds of dollars. With our most popular packages, the Ultimate Black & White or Ultimate Full-Color, your package will include:
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Still not enough? Start publishing your masterpiece today with Ultimate Black & White or Ultimate Full Color. We will also publish and distribute an Amazon Kindle, Nook, iPad, and Google Play eBook Editions of your book.
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Connect with a Publishing Consultant today to learn how Outskirts Press can help YOU publish YOUR masterpiece:
- Call 1-888-672-6657
- Live Chat at OutskirtsPress.com
- Schedule a FREE consultation
Autobiographies, biographies, and memoirs are hot.
Sure, sometimes they’re extra hot—every few years, they become the trendy genres—but they’re never not popular. Our most favorite subject is ourselves. Humans love reading about other humans. It’s also incredibly impressive and admirable to translate a life into a written story with authenticity and vulnerability.
So, wouldn’t YOU like to write a good biography, autobiography, or memoir? This month, we provide some tips and tricks for crafting a work of nonfiction drawn from life and history that will leave your readers moved—to tears or to joy or to action—and definitely hungry for more. Oh, and don’t forget that Outskirts Press offers a spectacular One-Click Publishing Package for Memoirs!
Five time-honored ways to write from life are:
- Taste test. That is, take the time first to immerse yourself in the genre. Like many others, the autobiography, biography, and memoir genres are so diverse as to include everything from “chatty” celebrity tell-alls to serious historical excavations to symbolic and “atmospheric” texts that read like prose poems. Find a couple of examples of the field that do what you want to do, or that somehow make clear the imaginative possibilities of the form, or that do the exact opposite, and use these books as your guiding stars as you begin to craft your own masterpiece.
- Draw up a list of scenes. List the scenes the stick in your head, regardless of their importance to your larger life story or the life story of the historical figure you’re attempting to put together. These scenes are the memories or historical moments you know you want to write about, now or eventually, and can be organized or restructured later. Don’t put too much of a premium on what comes first or what you want your book’s first paragraph, page, or chapter to look or feel like. It’s more important that you get some words on the page without being intimidated by the process.
- Start fleshing out. Pick a couple of the scenes on your list and start drawing them out into sentences and paragraphs. As you go, you’ll begin to get a feel for what’s most central about that memory or historical moment. Is it the way it made you feel and how that affected who you became later? Is it key in understanding a relationship in your life or in the life of a historical figure, which shapes everything else? Is it that it provides humor to lighten the darker moments of your book? Highlight the lines that seem most important and telling. Move on to the next scene once you feel like you’ve reached a moment of completion. You’ll fit the pieces together later. Do you find that more scenes crop up in your mind as you’re writing? Perfect! Add them to the list. You’ll get to them eventually if they really are important.
- Embrace the drama. Employ each and every storytelling technique that you find helpful, including colorful language, dramatic tension, and situational irony. Just because you’re describing events that really happened doesn’t mean that you can’t use the tools of fiction to keep things fun and interesting. Think about the central conflicts of your scenes and if they might start adding together to something even larger and more central to the story of the life you’re telling. Does each memory circle around your or your historical figure’s relationship with your/their mother? What is the larger ecology that your collected scenes all fit within? Pump up the setting and the mood with all the vivid details you or the documents you’re drawing from can offer.
- Do your research. The fact remains that the true story isn’t limited to your own personal memories and lived-in experiences. Many of the most striking books to emerge in recent years—Cheryl Strayed’s Wild, Helen Macdonald’s H Is for Hawk, and Anne Lamott’s Some Assembly Required, for example—are personal stories built upon a foundation of deep research. Whether your book involves a backpacking trip across the Himalayas or a battle with cancer or experiences as an educator or anecdotes of career-related experiences, there are endless possibilities for research. Decades-old weather records for most corners of the globe are archived online. Your library likely stocks back issues of your local newspapers. State historical societies keep census data from the turn of the century. In an age when you can access fire insurance maps from the 1870s and also have your DNA sequenced for a small fee, there’s no limit to what information sources are available to strengthen your work.
Still feeling a little overwhelmed—but even more passionate about telling your story? Then it may be time to lean on an expert. If you’re looking to write and publish your memoirs or a biography about a historical figure, there’s never a better time than now to inquire
Connect with a Publishing Consultant today to learn how Outskirts Press can help YOU publish YOUR masterpiece:
- Call 1-888-672-6657
- Live Chat at OutskirtsPress.com
- Schedule a FREE consultation
When you have a story—or history or cookbook or memoir—to share, you know that a big mental and emotional relief comes from just getting it out and onto paper. But the life cycle of some stories stops there.
But if you go on to publish that story, you understandably wonder what financial relief there can be. Outskirts Press coaches you on the many steps you need to take to create a quality published book that has a chance of selling—and you want to know that after all that time, effort, and cost, there will be a return on your investment.
There can be an ROI. The steps you made the effort to take during the publishing process are precisely what will set you up to eventually realize that ROI. For example, did you craft strong content through good storytelling, smart editing, and beautiful design? Did you do everything you could to bring your book to as many readers as possible through savvy marketing and wide distribution?
Outskirts Press helps you answer YES to those questions so that you can see an ROI.
For more information and help choosing the best self-publishing service, contact an Outskirts Press Publishing Consultant today. There are three easy ways to connect:
- Call 1-888-672-6657
- Live Chat at OutskirtsPress.com
- Schedule a FREE consultation
Next to grabbing your own guitar and jamming, picking up a copy of Brian Bouchard’s Guitar Picks of Rock & Roll 2 is the best way to celebrate National Guitar Pick Day this July 5!
Bouchard, who earned a Bronze Star Medal and Combat Action Medal during his twenty-year career in the US Army, has been collecting guitar picks for over thirty years. Over the decades, “Pick-Hunter,” as he’s known on eBay and Facebook, has learned the field of studying, appreciating, and collecting guitar picks inside and out. In Guitar Picks of Rock & Roll 2, he’s distilled his knowledge for the beginner and the most seasoned collector of celebrity guitar picks from the classic rock era. He provides:
- Nearly 5,000 photos of more than 3,000 guitar picks from the 1960s to 1990, some of the rarest of these picks appearing in print for the very first time
- Guidance on determining guitar pick values and how to spot counterfeit picks
- Information on insuring your collection, as well as displaying, storing, and caring for it
When verifying information about the tours each pick was used on, Bouchard sought the most reliable sources, including the guitarists and their guitar techs themselves.
Guitar picks are beautiful little treasures of our shared musical history. So whether you’re a fan or a musician, a new collector or one as established as Bouchard, you’ll love spending National Guitar Pick Day with Guitar Picks of Rock & Roll 2—your favorite riffs playing as you flip through the photos, of course.
Outskirts Press author Jo-Ann Vega’s memoir, Moments in Flight, has earned a coveted review on Readers’ Favorite, one of the largest and most respected book review sites.
It has also received Best Websites for Authors and Honoring Excellence awards from the Association of Independent Authors. The review, by Edith Wairimu, applauded the book’s careful historical details and the “raw and thought-provoking” journal entries and poems Vega included. Wairimu wrote:
I was inspired by [Vega’s] grandparents’ courage and Vega’s willingness to learn, go to college, and make a life for herself despite the gender barriers that existed at the time. . . . [The memoir] also beautifully captures the tenacity of many immigrants who left their countries in the hope of a better future for their families.
Moments in Flight: A Memoir examines Vega’s family’s history from her grandparents in Italy (first section) to Vega’s memories of her own childhood in the South Bronx in the 1950s, college, and early career (second section), then through to her more recent personal experiences and reflections (third section).
Moments in Flight is Vega’s first book with Outskirts Press. Wolf Woman & Other Poems is a collection of fifty poems written over fifty years. The collection’s distinctive organization groups poems by life stage and includes a brief preview of each section. Influenced by Sylvia Plath, Vega writes about being a woman of substance in a world still largely hostile to women’s talents and ambitions.
All of us at Outskirts Press congratulate her!
June is the month to save on local and global book marketing with the popular Media Marketing Blitz. Just use promo code: blitzten
Yes, it’s time to launch your book. Or relaunch it—it’s never too late to do more for your book!
After your initial one-on-one personal consultation with your Marketing Strategist, we will contact local media in your area and pitch your book (and your locality) to them. Don’t worry! Book Blitzing means we do all the heavy lifting for you!
Who do we reach out to for you?
- Local news stations? Check.
- Local and community newspapers? Check.
- Local and regional radio stations? Check.
What do you get with this Blitz?
- 5 hours of Personal Marketing Service.
- Researching, vetting, and contacting up to 10 local media and/or event opportunities in your area.
- Follow-up with each local media outlet.
- Researching, vetting, and contacting influential, worldwide blogs related to your book’s subject matter for a book review, author interview, or other online events (we guarantee at least one blog “appearance”).
- Digital “Clipping Service” that automatically notifies you every time your book is mentioned online.
Just use promo code: blitzten during checkout and let the book blitzing begin!
Starting today, published Outskirts Press authors can add one more item to their home-shopping/home delivery list: Additional author’s copies and free shipping!
With just weeks before the official start of the summer shopping season, NOW is the time to stock up on copies of your book.
Throughout May, for every 50+ book order in the same format you order from your Publishing Center, not only can you enjoy free shipping within the continental United States, but you will also receive our definitive book marketing guide: 10 Local Ways to Use Your Free Author’s Copies.
Free shipping on 50 (or more) copies AND 10 Local Ways to Use Your Free Author’s Copies!
The more you order, the more you save on author’s copies (discounts begin at just 100) AND free shipping! Click here to order your author’s copies now and get a head start this summer. No promotion code is necessary.
Announcing the Self Publishing News premiere of the book video trailer for Moms Get Sick Too (published by Outskirts Press, October 2021), by Jacqueline Carroll.
What happens when Mommy gets sick?
Tom and his little sister Lily are enjoying another picture-perfect day in Arizona, playing in the pool. It is sunny and warm, as it is most of the year. Tom is a happy four-year-old, but today his world is about to be turned upside down!
Mom suddenly looks very pale and says she is feeling sick. She can’t even get out of bed! Will Daddy be able to handle dinner, bath time, and two-year-old Lily all on his own? Tom’s not so sure…
Moms Get Sick Too is a sweet story that lets children know sometimes moms get sick and need to rest too!
Jacqueline Carroll
Jacqueline Carroll was born and raised in New York, where her love of fashion was born. She co-published The Hollywood Collection, a book on fashion, and an article was published about her extensive shoe collection in a local Arizona magazine. She worked in the art industry for 10 years. Jacqueline currently lives in Phoenix, Arizona, with her two children, Phillips and Gabrielle.
Visit https://outskirtspress.com/momsgetsicktoo for formats, editions, pricing, and availability.
Let us guess . . . You’re reading this post with a stack of your beautiful books visible in your peripheral vision. What an awesome sight, right? It’s the most wonderful view you should be working on . . . getting rid of!
Yes, it’s time to launch your book! Or relaunch it—it’s never too late to do more for your book.
And there is so very much you can do for your book—right in your own backyard! Local media are exponentially more likely to be interested in you, an author in their audience range, than if you send an unsolicited pitch to a national or global program.
Other than radio, every major city also has its fair share of local newscasts and entertainment programs on television. These program producers are constantly on the prowl for unique, original programming featuring someone of local interest. In much the same manner you located and pitched the radio stations, you’ll identify and pitch the television producers too.
Do you want more than radio and television exposure? How about citywide newspapers and/or community leaflets or fliers? Almost all commercial areas from the suburbs to the major cities harbor newsletters, newspapers, coupon periodicals, and the like. And what do you think the chances are that your local community newspaper will write an article about a local author with a published book? Pretty good! In fact, your local community newspapers should also be one of your very first steps on the road to marketing because the success rate is so high.
If you’re thinking this sounds like a lot of work . . . You’re right! But the results can make it worthwhile if you have the patience to do it correctly. Success typically comes down to perseverance and contacting the right people at the right time.
Want even more good news? Outskirts Press offers a Media Marketing Blitz option that does all this for you—and more! Right now, authors can receive an instant 10% savings with promo code mediamarket.