Tag: writers

Posted on

Authors & Publishers: How to Make a Media Kit Part 2

For more writing & publishing advice, you could go nuts and buy Crack the Indie Author Code. Just sayin’.

Part One of this article and points 1 -7 appear at ChazzWrites.com. For a sample media kit, please take a moment to sign up for my newsletter in the link to the right or send your email address to expartepress at gmail dot com and I’ll email the pdfs to you anyway. However, if you mention your website in the newsletter sign-up form, I’ll give your page a plug in the All That Chazz Podcast. I’m easy that way.

Now, on to more fun yet crucial points about creating a killer media kit: 

8. Some people think email is easier to delete so they send boxes to media outlets. Stick with email. You’ll never hear from a bunch of the journalists you approach. Printing out a fancy press kit and trying something UPS-delivered with a red ribbon on it is not worth the expense. Better to hit them up for editorial coverage several times through the year and do it cheaply instead of betting it all on one killer package that has to hit now to pay off. Save some of your chips for the next roll. Seriously, please save your money. A document that arrives in the mail is just as easy to dump in the garbage can beside the desk. If the package is perfumed in any way, you just went from quirky and interesting to creepy stalker.

9. Unless you’ve cured cancer and have been keeping it a secret from the world’s medical community until now, don’t pay for a huge media release from a press release propagator. I tried it and, besides jumping through their annoying hoops, it had all the amusing charm of throwing money out the window of a moving car. It was expensive, had no measurable impact and their sales team kept calling until I got mean.

10. Keep the press release short and to the point. More than one page is a strain and a mistake. If you’ve got too much to share it will get lost so use it in your catalogue page. Bullet points are awesome if you can fit your content to your pitch. A solid FAQ page with lots of white space is an alluring alternative. Don’t send a video on CD. There’s a good chance the production values will be too low and they’ll also be afraid that if they watch it, they’ll die in seven days. (Give them a Youtube link instead if you feel your video is that strong.)

11. Provide some detail in your author bio that establishes you as an expert: Awards won, relevant job experience, books written or other media in which you’ve appeared. Keep it short (or go longer if it tells a story. Rags to riches is good. Plucky, spunky and coming up will probably have to do.) You have an advantage over all the other press releases your target will receive today: Every reporter wants to publish  a book, too, so they want to meet you and find out how you cheated, lied and took enough drugs to get this stupidly quixotic. 

12. Think visually and use images: Luckily, this is where your killer book covers come in. To make sure the attachments got opened so they could see and appreciate all my awesome covers, I used this ad designed by Kit Foster of KitFosterDesign.com at the bottom of my cover letter: 

13. Provide your name, contact numbers, email address and websites. It’s a really good idea to remember this point so they can contact you for the interview unless you are wicked clairvoyant. 

14. When they interview you, be positive and chipper and helpful. It’s not in the bag until it’s in print or on air, so pretend you’re an extrovert. Later you can go back to being miserable in private. I am.

15. Hit multiple news outlets over time. It’s unlikely one media event will sell a lot of books. You could get a bit of a bump depending on the venue, but awareness takes time. Sales usually require repeated encounters as you permeate the world’s consciousness. Don’t bet everything on one roll of the dice and keep your expectations low to very conservative. Success always pleasantly surprises me.

16. Someone will be unhappy about your apparent success, however deceptive appearances may be. Ignore them. Several someones may contact you to write their book idea (as happened to me after a much-publicized contest win.) Run away screaming at full speed with your hands over your head. Change phone numbers, and country of residence if they persist.

17. Remember that you don’t do this for the fame and riches. It’s all about the writing and the orgies with the Roman toga theme. Get back to the keyboard and TO-GA! TO-GA! TO-GA!

~ Robert Chazz Chute is the author of a bunch of cool, helpful and suspenseful books that you can buy here. How suspiciously convenient.

Posted on

Sit and DIE!

I just joined a Facebook group for writers encouraging each other to get daily exercise and be healthier. It’s been on my mind a lot, especially after all the studies about how people who sit for several hours a day are at greater risk of getting killed by ninjas. Okay, I didn’t read those studies too carefully, but the upshot was, sit and DIE!

We write from the heart for hours on end. It’s bad for our hearts. We have to eat healthier than the average bear (more blueberries and salmon, less garbage in our pic-a-nic baskets.) I have a treadmill desk and I try to alternate that with the chair, though there are a lot of things I do that make the treadmill desk less conducive to my best work. Walking while working is fine for surfing, not so good for composition.

Today I ate a kale shake (à la Joe Rogan’s recipe), ate egg whites and a few blueberries and opted for almond milk instead of coffee. Tonight, more exercise. It’s all part of the deal when you write for a living. You have to exercise more to live, and perhaps become immortal beyond the page.

Posted on

Life’s not fair. Let’s make it that way! Hope is bigger than all the evil in the world.

Life is not fair, but we are supposed to try to make it that way.

In the course of Joshua’s treatment, this young man’s heart has stopped, his kidneys have failed and his hair has fallen out. These are the days of the cancer patient: Lost work, lost time, lost energy, countless appointments, waiting in fear, pain and panic and even more waiting, under-dressed in cold rooms. There are long nights waiting for the dawn and wondering. Cancer patients have to face too many stare-in-the-eyes, earnest talks from well-meaning people and are sometimes ignored by others who don’t want to look their way. Exhausted, cancer patients put on brave faces through the day and cry secret, lonely, midnight tears. With cancer treatment, bad things happen to you beyond your control and worry gnaws constantly. In short, cancer sucks. You know this.

But there is also hope. Hope is bigger than all the evil in the world. Health professionals dedicated to delivering the very best care surround Joshua, a phalanx of white-coated centurions. When you join this fight with a donation (and no donation is too small), you’re joining an army in the most important fight there is. This is the war that affects all of us. Communities rally around the casualties because (and this is not a metaphor) we are all cancer’s casualties. Who doesn’t know someone who has or has had cancer?

The IndieGoGo campaign has a modest goal. We are indie authors from around the world trying to help Joshua and his family with the bills. Is $10,000 enough? Not nearly. Please help how you can and you’ll get some sweet perks. For your generosity, there are plenty of great books and useful services to choose from, but the best perk of all is the feeling you’ll get when you help.

That’s why I donate time, money and perks.

That’s why I put my hand up an old British queen’s dress: for the warm fuzzies!

Please click the IndieGoGo donate button at Indies Unite for Joshua.