Do you get overwhelmed trying to keep up with all the deadlines? Do you find yourself missing deadlines and wondering how to fix it? For busy self-published authors, it’s easy to lose track of deadlines when literally every day of every week of the year is packed full of opportunities!
This is where our 2020 Author Marketing Calendar comes in. At Outskirts Press, we know that successful book promotion requires organization, dedication, and access to resources. You supply the dedication, and we supply the necessary organization and resources to keep you on track!
The Outskirts Press Author Marketing Calendar is a compilation of the most up-to-date, effective and actionable tactics available to help you market your book. It contains literally hundreds of promotional tips, advertising opportunities, important deadlines, social media recommendations, and information about marketing options and services available through Outskirts Press. It even includes photo opportunities for you to post to increase engagement on your social media sites and ideas on how to market your book when you’re on vacation! All of this information is organized in an easy to follow, month by month format including monthly marketing objectives and recommendations to help focus and direct your initiatives.
The Author Marketing Calendar is just one of many options that we offer to help our authors market their books! If you’ve published a book with Outskirts Press, you can purchase the new and improved 2020 Author Marketing Calendar for just $25, and it will become available for review and download immediately upon placing your order.
Todd Greiner’s “Miracle Man.” Most of the time, luck, fate, or good fortune is credited for miracles of that occur in people’s lives. Stories about the miraculous are shared on Reality TV shows like — I Shouldn’t Be Alive, I Survived, and Trauma: Life in the E.R. In this book, you will read the story of an ordinary man whose life was touched in an extraordinary way from the moment of conception by the sovereign hand of God.
Habits, once formed, never go away. They are the outcome of old decisions, and they can be changed, but only through new decisions and choices. Habits aren’t necessarily bad; they make our lives easier and more predictable by removing the necessity of thinking about every detail of our daily existence. They let us execute our actions efficiently, freeing up our prefrontal cortex to express itself creatively and intellectually.
But sometimes bad habits can creep in and good habits can be so very difficult to cultivate. As we start out a new year with fresh resolutions, it seems the appropriate time to get advice on keeping those resolutions by forming healthy and productive habits.
Enter self-published Outskirts Press author Dr. Sylvie Heyman.
Although initially Dr. Heyman specialized in weight management and life style changes, she has expanded her area of expertise to other habits that affect body, mind and spirit. Here, she offers other writers and self-publishing authors like herself advice on how to stay on track in the new year. This information and much more is available in her book, Make It a HABIT!
How do habits form? A habit cue or trigger could be a specific time of day, a location, other people, emotions or other things that lead to a predictable response, or reward. With repetition, our responses to triggers become automatic and a habit is born. Motivation may get us started, but habit keeps us going.
If your resolution in the new year is to get published, Dr. Sylvie can help with these seven tips for identifying habits that might be holding you back, or establishing new ones that will move you forward:
Be aware and mindful. We can’t change what we don’t acknowledge, right? Observe your habits, good and bad — write them down if that helps. Be honest with yourself about your habits, good and bad.
Assess yourself. Ask yourself which habit you want to change or acquire first and why you want it. Think about how the habit you wish to change (or the one you wish to acquire) affects or will affect you and others.
Be accountable. Share your habit change with someone. This makes you accountable for that change until you can ingrain new habits or break bad ones. Confide in another writer, a spouse, coworker or another reliable and honest confident.
Make small changes, one at a time. Concentrate on establishing small habits until they become second nature, then move onto the next small change. If your habit is to get distracted when you’re supposed to be writing, first change the habit of turning on the TV or radio. Once you’ve broken that habit, move on to, say, writing for just 10 minutes straight to get the feel for focusing.
Test your willpower — but not too much! When willpower is applied in small increments at a time, when you are energetic and ready to take on a little challenge, willpower becomes stronger. Practice willpower in small steps until it becomes a habit — until it’s automatic.
Trick your triggers. Practice breaking the associations between bad habits and their triggers. The aforementioned habit of letting media distract you is a good example. Break the association between writing and watching TV by moving to a different room or chair during your writing session.
Give it time. There are many theories about how long it takes to form or break a habit, ranging from a few weeks to years! Use 30 days as a guidepost, but know that some deeply ingrained habits will take much longer to break, and new habits without awareness, accountability and practice will take some time to take hold.
MORE ABOUT THE BOOK: Make It a HABIT!
Want to learn more? In Make It a HABIT! Dr. Sylvie Heyman provides a different perspective on how habits can affect your body, mind and spirit. Through personal stories, case studies and a compilation of best practices for change, you can learn how to get rid of habits that are sabotaging your health, job, relationships and overall happiness.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Dr. Sylvie Heyman has extensive background in traditional and non- traditional healthcare practices and has incorporated health coaching in all her careers. She specialized in Obstetrics and later on headed the Open Heart Surgery Unit at prestigious St. Francis Hospital in Roslyn, New York. She earned her Doctor of Chiropractic in 1989 and her degree in Acupuncture in 1998. She served 12 years as a member of the Board of Trustees of the New York Chiropractic College and delivered a Commencement address during that period. Dr. Heyman is a certified Feng Shui Consultant, a certified Nutrition and Wellness Consultant (AFPA), a certified Senior Fitness Specialist (NASM) and Silver Sneakers Instructor.
Whether we care to admit it or not, we are influenced by others in our purchase decisions. We ask friends for recommendations. We read product reviews. We think twice about buying something that has earned a meager 3/5 stars.
Likewise, positive buzz is priceless. In fact, word of mouth is one of the most powerful marketing tools any business can have, including the self-publishing business. That’s why book awards—positive word of mouth from experts in the field—are so much more than a pat on the back for an author. Awards are also an underutilized marketing tool with benefits that go well beyond the warm-fuzzies that come with positive recognition.
Here are five ways book awards can benefit self-publishing authors like you:
You score media visibility. A book award can create media buzz for your book and there’s no better marketing than that.
Readers take notice. Book buyers often rely on reviews and award wins to identify the quality before they make a purchase. So, the more recognitions you get—and the more of them that come from reputable sources—the more value potential buyers will ascribe to your book.
The domino effect. Awards inspire reviews. The more awards you have, the more likely you are to get noticed by other book award panels and reviewers, raising your profile even further.
Amazon shows support. Once a book begins to accumulate book awards, reader engagement and reviews, Amazon will want to back that book. They may promote it as an editor’s choice and the book will likely rank higher in Amazon’s search results. This activity influences purchases, and Amazon wants its sellers to succeed.
The bottom line grows. More awards mean greater visibility, which generally translates into more sales. A feather in your cap is a huge step toward turning pageviews into follow-throughs.
Win or no win, book competitions get your title in front of savvy literary professionals and eager readers.
Feel like you have a potential award-winner in your hands? Let Outskirts Press get you submitted to book competitions so you can compete for prestigious titles and prizes.
The 24th Annual Colorado Independent Book Publishers Association EVVY Awards Banquet took place in Denver, Colorado last Saturday night, and as often happens, Outskirts Press demonstrated that award-winning writers publish an unparalleled number of award-winning books at Outskirts Press. We are proud to announce that Outskirts Press authors took home a total of 10 impressive 1st-, 2nd- and 3rd-place awards.
Winning an EVVY Award is a prerequisite to winning the coveted Outskirts Press Best Book of the Year Award and its $1,500 Grand Prize. Stay tuned to find out which three authors from the winners below will be the finalists for that prestigious prize! The Outskirts Press Best Book of the Year Award will be determined by the readers of our blog, Self-Publishing News, in an open, public vote beginning September 10th.
Here are our 2018 EVVY Award winners. Congratulations to them all!
FIRST PLACE WINNERS
1st Place Biography/Autobiography/Memoir
1st Place Health/Fitness/Medicine/Sports
1st Place Science Fiction
SECOND PLACE WINNERS
2nd Place Art/Architecture/Design/Photography
2nd Place Health/Fitness/Medicine/Sports
2nd Place History
2nd Place Spiritual/Religion
2nd Place Thrillers/Suspense
THIRD PLACE WINNERS
3rd Place Academic/Educational
3rd Place Biography/Autobiography/Memoir
MERIT AWARD WINNERS
Merit Award Biography/Autobiography/Memoir
Merit Award Business
Merit Award Business
Merit Award Historical
Merit Award Historical
Merit Award History
Merit Award Juvenile Fiction
Merit Award Juvenile Fiction
Merit Award Juvenile Fiction
Merit Award Juvenile Fiction
Merit Award Juvenile Fiction
Merit Award Science Fiction
Merit Award Self-Help
Merit Award Spiritual/Religion
Merit Award Spiritual/Religion
Merit Award Spiritual/Religion
Merit Award Spiritual/Religion
Merit Award Spiritual/Religion
Merit Award Thrillers/Suspense
Congratulations to all of our EVVY nominees, finalists, and winners!
Have you published a book this year, or are you getting ready to? Let Outskirts Press show you how to produce an award-worthy work! Follow the link below to learn more about our book publishing and marketing services.
April is National Library Month! And let’s face it, if there’s one place we go to find out information about books, it’s our local public library. At a library, the act of browsing is elevated to an art form, and you have access to unlimited books and unlimited resources for free. One of the best resources is, of course, the librarians themselves! Libraries and librarians are among some of the most powerful advocates an aspiring self-publishing author could hope for. Once you publish your book, your local librarian can provide help with, yes, possibly setting up a book reading event to help you market your book, as well as finding answers to questions on how to have your book stocked in that library and much more.
But what about before you publish? What do libraries offer for you before your book is out in the world? Here are six specific ways a library can prove itself a vital component of your writing process!
Enrich your style. Run a hand across those library shelves with material in the same vein as your writing, and almost any book you pluck out will have something to say to your benefit, stylistically speaking. Even if your response is a powerful negative (e.g. “This is nothing like what I want to do!”) but especially if your response is positive (e.g. “This author does something I admire.”) you may find that placing your style in conversation with the styles of others will give you some ideas for what you want to do, moving forward. Do you love gorgeous, lyrical sentences? Do you like a style that’s brisk and tidy? As studies point out, the more you read, the better you write, and the more you know is possible, the more wisely you can choose your own way forward.
Inform your structure. Just as your style can benefit from a trip to the library, so too can your book’s structure. Are you at a loss for how to order events, or divide chapters? Visiting library bookshelves may be the best way to expose yourself to any number of possible book architectures to inspire your own work. Are you putting together a collection of interviews, fictional or otherwise? Consider stealing a glance at World War Z. Are you hoping to push the boundaries of science fiction? Consider the unique structures of Cloud Atlas and The Martian. As with your style, both a positive or a negative response to the structures other authors have used will provide you direction.
Gather information. Libraries have long been favorite places to look up information, and find out facts, and in that sense they have not changed. Even in the age of the internet, the best information is not always easily apparent, and a librarian’s insight may just be the magic factor in sifting through all of the possibilities and finding just the right bit of information, or just the right information resource, for you.
Spark your creativity. Are you facing the dreaded Writer’s Block? Libraries are more than just information repositories! In order to adapt to a changing information landscape, libraries have expanded their offerings. It’s not at all uncommon, these days, for libraries to offer creativity-sparking programming, from author readings and resume workshops to writing clubs to book clubs to adult coloring programs! Drop on by your local public library and inquire after what programming is on offer, and try something new. You never know … maybe trying your hand at an origami class or attending a lecture series will be just the thing to get you past the Writer’s Block!
Expand your literary community. One of the most amazing things a library can do is introduce you to your people. And by “your people,” we mean those people who will be your companions on the journey to publication: your early or beta readers, your friends and emotional support network, and those people who will provide you with the inspiration and encouragement to bring your book all the way from a clever idea in your head to a beautifully published, finished book!
Find your audience. Whether we’re talking about the books on the shelves or the people who visit the library for books and programming, the library is where you can connect with your ideal audience. The books on the shelves may give you clues as to how to shape your writing to suit the age group or interests of your readers, and the people … well, the people you meet there will have their own ideas to share. Either way, the library is a laboratory in which you get to shape and reshape and fine-tune your craft to meet your readers where they need to be met.
Libraries are a powerful tool in your toolkit as a writer. Not sure where to find your local library? Hop on www.publiclibraries.com and search by city, state, or zip code. You can also visit the American Library Association (ALA) website at www.ala.org, where you’ll find information on the current state of libraries and how you can get involved, both as a self-publishing author and a lover of books!
The best news is this: libraries are taking note of your interest. It’s not just a one-sided relationship! Libraries routinely demonstrate that they’re ready, eager, and waiting in the wings with a lot of innovative strategies to be your partners in writing, publishing, and promoting your book, and you can return the favor by celebrating your local public library during National Library Month! For more information on the event, click here.
Interested in pursuing self-publication? Talk with one of our expert Publishing Consultants to get exactly what you need … and get the most out of it! There are three convenient ways to connect:
A new whitepaper offered as a free download by Outskirts Press helps authors decide if self-publishing is right for them.
November 10, 2015 — Denver, CO
While self-publishing has gained tremendous popularity in recent years, it can be an overwhelming prospect for newcomers. Outskirts Press, the fastest-growing self-publishing and book marketing service provider, has released a free, downloadable whitepaper designed to help writers decide whether self-publishing is right for them by answering the ten most frequently asked questions.
Getting a book to publication can be a complex process. Often, it’s fear of the unknown that holds writers back from accomplishing their goal of publishing their book. In order to help writes overcome their fears and navigate their decision to self-publish, Outskirts Press has released a free, downloadable whitepaper titled “Diving into Self-Publishing?”
This informational document addresses a number of important questions authors frequently ask about the self-publishing process, including:
How much does self-publishing cost?
What do I need to know about copyediting?
Which is better, paperback or hardcover?
What do I need to know about formatting?
And many more…
This whitepaper not only explains authors’ most common questions, but dispels commonly held myths about the quality of self-published books and upfront costs.
Take advantage of priceless expert self-publishing advice at no charge. Download a FREE copy of Outskirts Press’ “Diving Into Self-Publishing?” at here.
About Outskirts Press, Inc.: Outskirts Press offers full-service, custom self-publishing and book marketing services for authors seeking a cost-effective, fast, and flexible way to publish and distribute their books worldwide while retaining all their rights and full creative control. Available for authors globally at http://www.outskirtspress.com and located on the outskirts of Denver, Colorado, Outskirts Press, Inc. represents the future of book publishing today.
As a published author, one of your goals may be to get your book into a library or independent bookstore. Now’s the time to buckle-down further and introduce your book to libraries, bookstores, media, reviewers, bloggers and readers — and do so at a reduced price!
This is where First Chapter Preview Library Distribution comes in. Through Friday only, Outskirts Press published authors can enjoy priceless exposure this service provides for 10% off the regular price with the promotion code FCP10NOV.
First Chapter Preview Library Distribution promotes your book with a full-color, quarter-page ad along with a free preview of your first chapter so that libraries, bookstores, buyers, readers and reviewers can discover your book.
With this valuable option, your book cover, synopsis, pricing information and ordering details will run for three consecutive months in First Chapter Plus, a monthly catalog where prospective book buyers can download and preview the first chapter of your book. Readers have at their fingertips all the information they need to order copies of your book.
Note that the quarter-page ad (a sample is shown below) includes a full-color image of your book cover, synopsis information, title information and a link to the first chapter of your book. Buyers are more inclined to buy your book when they can preview the first chapter in advance, and when the buying process is simple and convenient.
The best part (in addition to the limited time discount) is that Outskirts Press handles all of the details for you: We create a PDF file of your first chapter, complete the submission for you, and send you the First Chapter Plus catalog via email as soon as your ad appears.
Take advantage of this concierge-level service at any time, but the 10% discount is only available for a limited time. Enter the promotion code: FCP10NOV today!
Jack Hodges is self-publishing a book with Outskirts Press. And he wants your help deciding his book cover.
Book Summary
A Lifelong Love Story
How do we define true love? What makes a marriage successful? In our modern age of mass media and instant gratification, it’s easy to lose sight of what’s really important. My Life with Honey Bear and Beyond is a lyrical, tender memoir celebrating fifty-two years of two people who shared deep trust and daily intimacy, who took seriously their vows to support one another for better or for worse, in sickness and in health. Take a journey of love with this remarkable couple, and learn what is truly important in a lasting partnership: acceptance, compassion, honesty, forgiveness. Be reminded that attraction is only one facet of a marriage, and that real love seeks the best for the loved one at all times, with no strings attached. Witness the transcendence and tragedy as Jack accepts the privilege and honor of caring for his wife during her harrowing cancer treatment, and experience with them the realization that death will part these devoted lovers. My Life with Honey Bear is a love letter to a marriage that serves as a testament to the ways in which people can commit to stand by one another, bring joy to one another, and enrich the lives of everyone they meet through their example of dedication, kindness, compassion, and bliss.
About the Author
Jack Hodges was born in Washington, DC on the eve of World War II. He had a 27-year career with AT&T, where he wrote Bell System practices for a number of devices. Jack currently lives in Anderson, South Carolina where he enjoys writing nonfiction essays about the lives of family members, visiting the local bookstore, and spending time with friends. He also enjoys playing video games, and occasionally target shooting. Jack and his late wife had two daughters and a son, fourteen grandchildren, and five great-grandchildren.
Please take a look at two possible covers below and then vote on the choice you recommend for Jack.
Click on the thumbnail below to enlarge Cover Option A
Cover A
Click on the thumbnail below to enlarge Cover Option B
Have you registered your book to be displayed at the famous American Library Association (ALA) Conference yet? If not, the deadline for Outskirts Press authors is this Friday, May 8, 2015.
The American Library Association annual conference attracts librarians from all levels of management, from all types of libraries, from across the country. It serves as a meeting place for leadership, a place to learn, a place to network and as a forum to exchange ideas on the multitude of issues affecting libraries. Attendance is estimated at 25,000!
By arranging exhibition through Outskirts Press, your book will receive valuable, face-out exposure on an exclusive shelf with 4 other titles. A representative will be on-hand to personally answer questions about your book. This way, interested parties can make further contact, during or after the fair.
All inquiries Outskirts Press receives about your book will be forwarded directly to you for personal follow-up in a Post-Show wrap-up.
Click here for details or to reserve your spot now before this Friday!
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