Judge a book cover, or just create one

Ever looked at a book cover and said, wow, that cover does a great job of conveying what the book is about! Or thought that you could do better?

Well, your moment has come. We at Wiley have launched the Wiley Design Challenge.  Photoshop users and designers can create a book cover and enter into a contest for a chance to have their design featured on a Wiley book cover. Even more than that, we are offering chances to win cash prizes, free books, and SmugMug memberships for other winners. SmugMug was kind enough to help create and host the site, so I thank them for that!

The book we’re doing the design for is Sybex author Al Ward’s Photoshop for Right-Brainers: The Art of Photomanipulation, 3rd Edition.  Think of that title and what inspiration comes to you.  Then hurry right over to the Wiley Design Challenge website and check out the contest rules.  Who knows, your cover design could be the one we pick!

Why Men Cheat and How to Prevent It

I’m thrilled to say that a Wiley author will be on Oprah WInfrey’s show today.  You can read the full Wiley press release here, but be sure to turn into the show to see them talking about cheating men!  Oprah’s not going to hold back here!  M. Gary Neuman is the author who will be appearing, and I’m pretty sure he’s not the guy who recorded “Cars.”  Apparently, we’re doing some kind of free 24 hour download of the book, ala what Suze Orman did some months ago.    It’s not mentioned in the release, but check out Oprah.com where I *think* you can find more details. 

Oprah remains the holy grail in publishing, and I’m thrilled for my consumer list colleagues that they have gotten this get.  I still remain convinced that someday I will have an author on, but until Oprah needs help with fighting a hijack Trojan, I am unfulfilled in that department.

Edited to say: Here’s the link to download the book, “The Truth About Cheating”…you have between now and 7pm Pacific time tomorrow night to get your copy.

Going Social - Publishing article in Business Week

It’s been a hectic week, but I finally got around to reading Sarah Lacy’s article in Business Week about how book publishing needs to evolve and be more Web 2.0.

Initially, I was a bit skeptical.  Having seen first hand her interview of Mark Zuckerberg at SXSW, I’m not exactly a fan of hers.  I read bits of her book and wasn’t blown away either.  But her article has merit.  Some of it is kind of same old same old, in my opinion, but she has a number of points that people in the industry should pay attention to.

1. Make it social - Remember your mom’s “book club”?  Ok, so the only ones I know of these days are excuses to get together with other moms for “ritas and fajitas”, but it emphasizes the fact that reading is a solitary experience that begs to be social.  You read a great book, you want to tell the world about it.  That’s why sites like GoodReads, Shelfari (recently acquired by Amazon.com) and LibaryThing are getting traction.  I love the idea of Facebook apps around your titles, and we’re working on such things now - some groups at Wiley have already launched them. 

2. Take book tours out of the stores - I agree that the focus on “tours” should be less about the conventional “author goes into a store, talks about the book, and then signs mom and dad’s copy and their cousin Hugo’s copy.”  The model of the author event, outside of the true celebrities, doesn’t work.  It died in my category a long time ago, so I’m fortunate in that most authors don’t bring it up in the course of marketing planing for a title.  Work on new models for author tours.  Great advice.  Think social - webinars, partnering with established players like Social Media Club and NY:MEIG, Facebook sites.  Nothing against the corner bookstore, whether chain or indy, but pound for pound, it’s not worth your time doing in store events.  You’re much better off going social online.

3. Create stars—don’t just exploit existing ones - ah, easier said than done.  Every publisher has a mix of titles that they do every year.  Some are from new authors, or on new topics, and these are the ones where they’re taking a chance. However, the bulk of any publisher’s list has to be from sure things and close to sure things.  Of course, we would all love to sign authors who are on their way up, but that’s easier said than done. 

On her other points:

Require as part of the contract that the author blog, speak on panels, attend events. Give them incentives for delivering—say, though Web traffic of the number of followers they amass on Twitter.

Interesting idea, but we’re lucky if we even get an author questionnaire in, much less a manuscript these days.  I don’t see any author agreeing to these kind of incentives.  Authors should want to promote their books, as a part of promoting their own personal brand.  I certainly wouldn’t put this stuff in a contract, but I would be warry of signing anyone who was not interested in doing these things.

4. Go electronic from the get-go - what she’s describing is not necessarily the way we work at Wiley.  Much, if not all, of our development in electronic.  I don’t think our editors would know what to do with a printed manuscript.

5. Make e-commerce even easier - Amen to that.  Increasing the places customers can find out about and buy books is good for everyone.

All in all, worthwhile reading for authors and publishing types.

Enough with the cold calls, already

I’m not sure if it’s the state of the economy, or what’s happening in new media and publishing, but the number of cold calls I have been getting from B2B telesales people is on the rise.  There are so many unknown numbers coming up on my caller ID here at work, that I have taken to Googling a number before I pick it up (sorry, Mom, that I missed your call, but you weren’t using your regular phone, so I had no idea it was you.)

Everyone has got a company that I can outsource work to, whether it’s interior design, page layout, printing, indexing or worse, some facet of ebook production.  But here’s the thing - if these people took 2 minutes to Google me they’d know I do none of these things.  I’m the director of marketing for a technology book publisher.  I have in house staff to handle most of the things I need done every day, from marketing and publicity to design and copywriting.  If I do need to outsource, odds are I go through our media buyer or publicity team and they handle that.  If not, I bet I’m going to do a little research to find someone in the field who has been highly recommended or has a really great web site that lists their accomplishments. 

Maybe it’s a trend, but the people who do get through to me are very pushy.  They REALLY want to set up meetings with me to discuss their services.  They’re going to be in NY anyhow, and would 2pm next Tuesday work?  When I say no, and no thank you, it’s a really hassle to try and get them off the phone.  At home, the few telemarketers we get are disconnected with a polite “no thanks and please put me on your do not call list.”  At work, it’s harder to hang up on them that way, but it’s going to be coming to that soon.   I’m no more interested in talking to them than I am to send them to someone in the company who might be better suited to hear the pitch.  By that point in the phonecall, I’m so pissed off that it’s just better if we end things there and then.  I spent one summer telemarketing, and I know it’s rough work, no question.  But when a customer is genuinely not interest in your products because she wouldn’t have a slightest chance of ever using them, back off. 

So instead of reaching out to me, do something else to make yourself known to me.  Make me come to you.  Put up a great web site that shows off your best work.  Do some outreach on a social network site like LinkedIn.  Set up a Twitter account and learn how to converse with customers.  Just stop calling me already, dammit.

Blood Lust for Books

When I was at BEA earlier this summer, I picked up a few galleys and books to read. 

OK, if you were with me or saw me at the show, you are falling over laughing right now.  I’m well known as someone who cannot pass by a free book.  I have been known to resort to crawling through the show floor while I carry 30 or so new books on my back like a literary sherpa.  This year, I had so many, I had to have them sent back with the convention shipment.  I heard it was, ahem, a large box.  A Very Large Box.  All caps.

Anyhow, among the galleys were a bunch of teenage vampire books.  I had no idea this was a whole genre in the teen book market.   I’ve always said I’m a sucker for a good gothic novel (sucker…get it?).  Apparently, the craze was started by the Stephenie Meyer’s “Twilight” books.  I hadn’t heard of her or the books before, but those were the first ones I picked up.  I really liked them, and was excited to see the 4th book was coming out this month.  Sure, they’re “teen” books, but it’s not like I get a lot of free reading time these days for the deep stuff, and these were entertaining and fun.

The 4th and final book in the series, “Breaking Dawn” publishes tomorrow, but many bookstores are having midnight release parties in an effort to capture some of the Harry Potter mojo.  Today I read in PWthat ebook customers won’t be able to have their own midnight madness parties - the publisher, Little Brown, is delaying release of the ebook version to 24 hours after the print edition has dropped.  The reasoning they give is a little lame - they want to make sure that everyone has equal access to the book.  If the ebook released at midnight, someone on the West coast could get a jump on reading it online early than someone in the same time zone could get the print copy.

Seriously?  That’s the best they could come up with?  That’s beyond ridiculous.  Why should ebook customers be penalized for being adopters of technology?  Shouldn’t they be able to sit at home and download their hot new book at the time others have access to it?  Even my West coast peeps would agree wtih that one.  Not only should they have not done that, they should, in my opinion, have given ebook customers a 24 hour or more ADVANCE on purchasing.  Why not?  Don’t we want to encourage sales of ebooks and purchases of ebook readers?  Hachette, incidentally my least favorite employer ever, did say that they would try to manage these situations more efficiently in the future, but you have to wonder why they overthought this and managed to piss of all the Kindle, Sony eReader and other customers out there. 

Me, I’ve got a copy coming to me from my local non-chain bookstore.  Just hope I can find some spare time this weekend to read it.

OMG OMG OMG

Being on the Blog to Book panel was more amazing than I could imagine. I was so nervous, but it seemed to go well. I’m writing this from the closing keynote where I’m half listening, half reading Tweets about what people thought of the session. The response was amazing, overwhelming, and most humbling.

For those who could not attend, you were missed. But you can view the transcript thanks to a very thoughtful live blogger.

For those visiting my site after the session, welcome.  This is a rather eclectic blog that isn’t necessarily all things to all people, but if you look at the tag cloud and the blog roll, you’ll probably find something that you’re looking for.  If you have a question I didn’t answer, ASK IT IN THE COMMENTS SESSION!  75 minutes have never went by so quickly, and I know we didn’t cover half of what we wanted to.  We did get some really good questions so I hope people found it useful.

BlogHer Blog to Book redux

We’re just about one week, make that 7 days from BlogHer…and it’s time to get moving!

As you may know from my incessant blogging on the topic, I’m going to be speaking at BlogHer.  Not only that, I am moderating the panel.  Which means I have a good reason for the rash I just broke out into. 

But never fear, because as you can see from the description below, I have what has to be the coolest panelists hitting this session with me…

What We Do: Blog to Book ReduxThis session rocked the house last year, so we’re bringing in more bloggers, publishers and agents to dish about your opportunities to turn your blogging talent into a book publishing dream come true. Ellen Gerstein from Wiley & Sons has published many a blogger’s book. Neeti Madan is a literary agent with Sterling Lord. Jennette Fulda and Rita Arens represent two different blog to book approaches, one a memoir and the other a blogging anthology. Walk away with some insider info and effective tactics you can employ to get yourself on the published author path.

My mission is to make this the most rocking panel at BlogHer.  Which will be tough, but it’s a goal worth shooting for.  For everyone who has written a book, or considered writing a book, or, heck, even read a book, give me some feedback.  What would you want to hear us talk about?

*What would you want to hear from successful, published authors? 

How did you come up with your book idea, what were your challenges?  Did Oprah* call yet?

*What questions would you ask an agent?

How do you pick who you represent?  What does that 15% get me?  How can you get me on Oprah?

*What would you ask someone at a publishing house?

What kinds of books are you looking for?  Why don’t you ever return my phonecalls?  How can you get me on Oprah?

The more feedback, the better the session, so fire away! 

*this may end up being an “oprah free zone”, if such a thing can exist on planet earth!

BookExpo Day 2

Yeah, I’m totally late with this, but 1. it was an amazing day for me and for Wiley and 2. we don’t have days like that every day and 3. I posted day 1 so I better post day 2.

Where do I begin?  Like I said, we don’t have days like that every day.  Wiley’s trade program has always been strong, but in recent years, we’ve brought in some big time books, and that was reflected at our stand at the conference.  We had some great book signings, and big time celebrity visits.

First, Erin Manning did another superstar presentation.  It’s not often that you can find someone talking on a technical topic who is able to engage the crowd and keep them listening for almost a half an hour.  She was followed by Don Felder, former guitarist for the Eagles, promoting his new book Heaven and Hell.  The line for his book was huge - and it included a number of Wiley employees, ahem!  After Felder was done signing, he went to do his BlogTalkRadio interview, and Steven Watts and Hugh Hefner showed up to promote the Hefner biography Mr. Playboy.  Of course, Dr. Ruth managed to jump in there for a photo opp as well.  The woman is a promotion machine.  Watts and Hefner signed, and then did a BTR interview as well.

For me, the most INTERESTING part was checking out the security detail that made up Felder’s and Hef’s entourages.  Felder had one guy waking around the booth with his little Bluetooth piece, looking like an extra from the Sopranos.  Hef had two guys, both ex-LAPD, as cool as they come. I enjoyed chatting with them about life on the edge.  I got a couple of pictures of them with Hef - they’ve got bunny lapel pins, makes them easy to recognize.  I’ve got these in a Facebook album…link to come.

After all this was done at 3pm, a bunch of Wiley people crawled out of the booth in search of sustinence.  Thankfully, the wildcat strike in the cafeteria had ended, so we were able to get some french fries and sit down, catch our breath, and reflect on a most amazing day.

I also haven’t spoken the praises of John Havens from BlogTalkRadio enough.  He helped make this BEA truly amazing.  Imagine someone who could interview everyone from a Dummies author who wrote a fitness book to Mr. Playboy himself, and give them the time and respect they deserved, and help us create great content that we can use to promote these books.  I’m so thankful we were able to pull this off - it was indeed a BEA for the books!

Vote early and often

Maybe you don’t work in book publishing in the NYC.  But if you do, you’re well aware that at times it seems like there are not a lot of straight, single men working in the field.  Gawker has noticed this, and for the second year in a row is conducting the most tongue-in-cheek “Hottest Guy of Book Publishing 2008 Poll.”  As they said last year…

It’s like shooting fish in a huge, huge barrel with not so very many fish in it.

or

skinniest girl at fat camp

Trust me, they know of what they speak.  I’m married with kids, so it’s an amusement, but as a straight-outta-college single gal, it really restricted the dating pool.  I can laugh about it now, but 20 years ago, not so much.

This year, I’m proud (not really sure that is the right word, but I’ll use it) to say there are two Wiley employees in the running.  And while I can’t say whether I voted for one of them or the cool-looking surfer dude, I can call your attention to the contest to drum up votes for one of these fine gentlemen.  Sure, this is about the most un-PC blog post you will see from me, but I’ve got to support our boys.

BookExpo Day 1

It’s one for the books.  Day one at BookExpo was pretty great.  The crowd was just about what we expected, it being LA and a Friday.  I think traffic will be heavier today, but hopefully as manageable as it was yesterday.

We had many, MANY blogtalkradio interviews, and all went smashingly.   There were all great - Mike Robbins, of “Focus on the Good Stuff” was charming and gave a really good interview.  It was very exciting to have David Iglesias sit down and chat as well.   Marsha Collier was a total pro, as always.  Dr. Ruth, celebrating her 80th birthday shortly, also gave a really fun interview.  You can catch all of these at Blogtalkradio.com.

Erin Manning was a total rock star.  She gave a really amazing demo on how to take better pictures, which attracted a crowd of people hanging on her every word.  Seriously, the woman knows how to work a crowd.  I even learned a thing or two from her, and plan on experimenting on IT Boy when I get back. 

I also had many celebrity sightings outside of the Wiley booth.  Slash, Mario Lopez, Barbara Walters, and Jackie Collins were all seen out and about.  I also got a wonderful photo of Marsha with George Hamilton that I will post later.  You’d think she was at Madame Tussauds, but, no, he was real.

The Digital Lifestyle concept has been interesting.  The BTR interviews are going great.  Erin was super, and I love having digital photo frames on the wall to upload pictures that we’re taking real time.  No one is using the laptop for a demo area, so I have been tweeting there, but mostly, it’s not being used.  But it’s giving us a lot of ideas for what to do next year (did I really say next year?)

All in all, I don’t think I have ever worked as hard at a BEA as I did yesterday.  I did find some time to snag a few galleys, including the new Philippa Gregory book (I love me some historical fiction) and will be sharing my ill-gotten gains with my friends when I return home. 

Today, Don Felder and Hugh Hefner will be in the booth.  I predict a madhouse, even if the Girls Next Door don’t show up.  I’m off to day 2 - talk to you on the other side!