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Letter From Infinity Publishing
Infinity Publishing Author Success Stories.
As you know, we work with some of the best authors writing today. We're so proud of our authors and what the success they are having. A day doesn't go by when we do not hear from an Infinity Publishing author bringing us some sort of good news. We're going to start doing a better job of promoting our author success stories, via our blog and in the news section of our site. We would love to hear about your successes. Please email us at marketing@infinitypublishing.com with the details about any book signings you're doing, media coverage you're receiving and if you're doing a guest blog somewhere, be sure to send us a link. We'll do our best to publicize your achievements.
Here is a look at what a few of our authors are doing:
US News just ran an article talking about Infinity Publishing author, Cheryl E. Woodson, MD for her book,To Survive Caregiving: A Daughter's Experience, A Doctor's Advice on Finding Hope, Help and Health. It is ranked #10 as a favorite by AARP. We hope your book will be the next Infinity Publishing success story.
Author Bob O'Connor is taking advantage of his book marketing season and was speaking at an event over the weekend. His book,The Virginian Who Might Have Saved Lincoln by Bob O'Connor. It's about Abraham Lincoln's personal bodyguard, Ward Hill Lamon.
Click here if you want to read What is Your Book Marketing Season? and learn more about Bob's book.
Extra! Extra! We want your book trailer videos!!!
If you have a book trailer video produced we will promote it. We'll include it in the Infinity Publishing YouTube channel, on our Facebook fan page and via Twitter. Please email your file to marketing@infinitypublishing.com and we'll get it published. Just another way we're supporting our authors.
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From Our Authors
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Selling More Books to Your Readers
By Bob O'Connor
If you have one book in print congratulations. Please make sure you capture the addresses and/or e-mails of your purchasers. They will want to purchase you second book too. And it is easier to sell to someone you know has read your first book than just any random person.
When I publish a new book (I have seven in print), I have a postcard made with the book cover on it. I print 1000 at a cost of about $100. It costs 32 cents to send out. So I have 42 cents invested. I hand address each one. My return in actual book sales is very high. Where else can you spend 42 cents to reach your target audience?
The postcard sends them to my website to purchase the books. I have a form on my website that allows them to purchase and tell me how they want me to sign the book. Of course, they have to pay the postage for me to ship the book to them.
What about those I only have e-mail for? I send a newsletter to them quite often, but not every month. I put in information concerning my new book, places I am appearing in the near future and other pertinent information. See if that doesn't work for you too.
 Bob lives in Charles Town, West Virginia, close to most of the sites of his books. He is a well-respected member of the travel industry and a long time journalist and photographer. He initiated two of the area's most popular annual events, the Independence Concert at Antietam Battlefield in July and the Memorial Illumination at Antietam Battlefield in December. He lives close to his six grandchildren and his two children. His next historical novel follows two brothers who fought against each other in the Civil War. The book is called "A House Divided Against Itself". Contact him through his website www.boboconnorbooks.com.
Click here to read the article.
The Value of Research for Authors by D.L. Wilson - SIROCCO - Mont Clair Press In today's high-tech digital world, research is becoming more and more important for authors, even in the fiction genres. Readers can check our data with a click of the mouse on their favorite search engines. I entered the suspense/thriller realm after writing a university textbook, which required research, research, and more research. Having decided to write novels of "fiction with content," I wanted to create fast-paced, gripping suspense/thrillers that would keep my readers turning the pages. After finishing my novels readers would have learned something new and exciting about their world. In order to accomplish this feat, I realized I had to incorporate some of the techniques I had learned during my business and university careers. But fiction writing is a whole different world that requires enticing readers to literally fall into each scene as if they were experiencing a movie. They must become engaged with your characters and envision being present as the action unfolds. My first published novel, Unholy Grail, delves into how historical perceptions, personal events, conspiracy theories, and faith shape how we choose to live our lives. One reviewer compared it to "The DaVinci Code on intellectual steroids. Author D.L. Wilson has taken the religious thriller genre to new heights with twists, expertly exploring the often explosive void between fact and fiction." One misquote, misinterpretation, or misread can confuse fact and fiction. What is accepted as fact today doesn't always stand the test of time. I wrote Unholy Grail to explore the gray areas between fact and fiction.
Click here to read the entire article.
 D.L. Wilson was president, CEO, and managing director of U.S. and European corporations and consultant to industries and governments in 32 countries. His extensive international travel spawned a fascination with world cultures and exotic locales. His first book, The Kitchen Casanova--A Gentleman's Guide to Gourmet Entertaining for Two, was featured on CNN, Evening Magazine, and Regis & Kathy Lee. Wilson's first novel, Unholy Grail, became a national bestseller and is being translated into eight languages. He has received praise from New York Times bestselling thriller authors. Clive Cussler called Unholy Grail 'a tale rich with intrigue that grips the imagination. A must read.' James Rollins said Wilson's latest novel Sirocco is both a razor-edged thriller and a tour de force. Steve Berry said D.L. Wilson is a wry, appealing voice in the thriller world. http://www.dlwilsonbooks.com |
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February Promos
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Infinity Publishing has two promotions running this month and we hope you take advantage of these great offers.
Buy Books and Get Marketing Dollars.
For every $100 worth of books you order, we'll give you $25 that can be used towards any marketing service. Orders must be placed by February 15, 2012.
Book Revival Special Promotion Code IP022012(BRS):
Have you been thinking doing of a review of your book now that it is Published? Here is your opportunity to update your book manuscript, update the book cover and have an experienced editor perform a copyedit review of the book. Plus receive a 1 hour marketing consultation to help you get started on a new campaign to make your book a success and reach its potential!
Promotion Ends February 20, 2012.
Sign-up for the Book Revival Promotion must be submitted by February 20, 2012; however, Author has until March 31, 2012 to submit his/her Book File(s). Cover list price of B&W Interior books cannot exceed $13.95. (Offer cannot be consolidated with any other special promotion or discounts offered by the company; including Gift Certificate submission.) Additional charges apply for Books with a suggested list price higher than $13.95 (not including Value Add pricing)
Special Promotion code must be included on all documents provided for the promotion to be applicable. Signed Form must be submitted to take advantage of this promotion.
For more details on this promotion, click here. |
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Nuggets from The Professionals
| | Book Cover Design - the Fundamentals Part 2
By: Christopher A. Master, Lead Cover Designer
Click here for first article in this series, Book Cover Design, the Fundamentals Part 1
How big is a postage stamp?
The answer: .875" x 1".
Most of us who have published a book have been conditioned to believe that success equates to having your book featured prominently on bookstore displays. I fell into this thought process when publishing myself. This is true for select high-profile authors with names like King, Rowling or Sedaris. The truth of the matter is that in recent years, a larger portion of book sales has been coming from online book retailers than from brick and mortar locations.
Fundamental 2: Think Digitally
Many, if not all, online retailers will list your book for sale with just a thumbnail snapshot of the book cover (a larger version is only viewable by clicking through to the product page) alongside other similar titles. On Amazon, for example, this thumbnail size is just .75" x 1.25".
Why should an author worry about the size of a thumbnail image of their cover?
Consider these covers featuring two vastly different girls: Girl with a Pearl Earring and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. Both covers look great when taken at full size, yet the thumbnails tell a different story. In the case of Pearl, both the title and the pearl earring are virtually lost at the reduced size. In contrast, the bold text of the Dragon title maintains easy legibility even as the art becomes decidedly less clear.
You can conduct your own similar comparison. Pick a handful of books that you like or that you have on your own bookshelf and look at their corresponding thumbnails on Amazon. Is the text legible? How does the artwork look at the reduced size? Now, if you hadn't known anything about this book prior to seeing the thumbnail, would you have still purchased it?
Click here to read the entire article.
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 Christopher Master works as the Lead Cover Designer at Infinity Publishing. With 10+ years of cover design experience, he has amassed a design portfolio of well over 1000 book covers. He has been married to his intelligent and very patient wife for nearly a decade. In 2010, they welcomed their first child, Sylvie, who is a now toddling machine. A few years back, Christopher published a collection of humorous true childhood stories entitled Tiny Cracker Zoo. Between work, family and freelance design, he strives to find the time to pursue writing a second book, this one focusing, perhaps, on the misadventures of new fatherhood.
What It Means to Have Writing Style
by Ellie Maas Davis
We have to continually be jumping off cliffs and developing our wings on the way down." -Kurt Vonnegut
When it comes to an author's writing, style can only mean one of two things-one can be learned; the other, which is far more elusive, must be honed. And really, so we're clear: it's the latter that's also tricky, fleeting, and artful; it's the latter that's about taking chances and creating narrative prose that has a life of its own.
And don't get me wrong, grammar rules and standards applied to manuscripts or published documents ensure consistency. Language is a personal form of expression where rules can be applied in different ways, so following a particular style gives editors a specific point of reference to review your work against and offers you an accepted editorial standard for your manuscript. Still having a writing style is so much more than adhering to a certain set of overall writing strategies.
A writer's style is the way he or she chooses to craft sentences in order to engage readers. As in most things, it's subjective. Not only is style subjective, which makes it complicated-as in some readers will respond to your writing while others won't-but even if a writer's style is grammatically correct it can still be weak. Let's face it: a cliché can be grammatically correct, and something written in a passive voice can initially pass a CMOS sniff test.
If an edited manuscript comes back to you with comments such as "tighten your prose" or "this section is overly wordy" or "awk," it probably means you need to work on your writing style. I've found three simple things make a big difference.
Click here to read the entire article.
 Educated at Southern Methodist University, the University of Kansas, and the University of Witswatersrand in Johannesburg, Ellie Maas Davis has written extensively on the environment and issues of human rights. She is the owner of Pressque, a publishing consultation firm located in downtown Charleston that offers editing, ghostwriting, and marketing services to authors and publishers.
She is a founding board member of the Lowcountry Initiative for the Literary Arts, a former curator and host of Charleston's longest running weekly literary series, Monday Night Blues, and serves as a mentor to senior writing students at Charleston County School of the Arts. Published in a number of anthologies and journals, she is the author of The Humours of Folly, See Charleston in a Day, 100, over a dozen ghostwritten works of fiction and nonfiction, and often reviews books for The Post and Courier. When she's not living somewhere else, she makes her home on Daniel Island with her family. www.pressque.com |
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