admin

87 posts

You Can Get That Expert Endorsement for Your Book

In my last two entries, I taught you how to locate experts and celebrities to write your foreword or testimonial quote and then how to ask for it. If only that’s all you had to do to get that expert endorsement. Unfortunately, more often than not the person you are trying to reach doesn’t get back to you. Maybe your message got caught in the spam folder. Maybe it was just deleted. Forward Your Original Message In any case, if you don’t hear back in two weeks, don’t take it personally and slink away in defeat. When you fall, get up. If you fall again, get up again. Forward your original message (which hopefully you saved) along with some variation of the following new message: Dear [Person Whose Quote You […]

Share this:

Want Expert and Celebrity Book Endorsements? Ask for Them

You can’t get expert and celebrity book endorsements – meaning the foreword and testimonial quotes – if you don’t ask the experts and celebrities. So ask them. In my last blog entry, I showed you how to locate the experts and celebrities whose book endorsements you want. Congratulations on finding the contact information. Now it’s time to ask them. Book Endorsements Start with Email If you have the email address, start there. With email, you create documentation for your records, as well as templates to revise and reuse often. Also, you’re a writer, so write. Unless you only have the phone number. Some people see phone calling as an intrusive way to approach a stranger so be extra polite and humble. Write down your opening script so you don’t stumble […]

Share this:

Locating Experts and Celebrities to Write Your Foreword and Testimonials

As soon as you’ve got a working table of contents and a few polished chapters for your book, start thinking about locating experts and celebrities whose kind words will give it instant credibility and marketability through the foreword and testimonial quotes. It’s easier than you think.  No one is unreachable in today’s connected world. Locating Experts and Celebrities through Internet Research Start with the Internet. Good Internet research takes patience and persistence. You experiment with keyword combinations while searching for other possible keywords. Begin by typing the name of the person you’re trying to locate into whatever search engine you use. If it doesn’t bring up the right person, or if it brings up so many links your name doesn’t show up until page ten, refine your search. Include the […]

Share this:

Your Book Index: DIY or Farm Out?

When you write a nonfiction book, the chances are good that you will include a book index. If you publish through an established company, you will probably end up paying for someone to create it. Do you find the indexer yourself and pay upfront? Or do you trust the publisher to be sensitive to costs they’re going to pass along to you anyway? Taking Responsibility for Your Book Index I prefer to handle the cost on my end to better control both cost and quality. That said, I don’t do the work myself. I farm it out to a professional indexer of my choosing. Roughly speaking, a trained indexer will charge $3 to $4 a page for general trade books and $4 to $5 a page for scholarly books; and […]

Share this:

Editing Your Book Manuscript in the Golden Age of Text Correction

In my last entry “Correcting Text Errors: Tsouris Back When, Now a Joy,” I showed you how tedious text correction was back when. Today, “good enough” is never good enough. We’re living in a golden age of text correction. Basic Text Correction Today You have four ways to delete a word on your computer. You can place your cursor after the word you want to delete, hit Backspace to make it disappear, and type the correct word. before the word you want to delete, hit Delete, and type the correct word. before the word you want to delete, hit Insert, and type the correct word to cover the word you want to delete. Or you can 4. highlight the word you want to delete with your cursor and type the […]

Share this: