Cool Book Of The Day

Pitch reporters with our up-to-date media databases:

Question: Who is the intended audience?
Answer: Fiction authors who are published by a Print-On-Demand publisher, published by a small press, or self-published.

Q: What is the book about?
A: Without an obvious target market or news hook, new fiction can get lost in the sea of novels published every year, no matter how well written it may be.

Successfully Marketing Fiction in the 21st Century is a step-by-step guide that’s jam-packed with proven tips and ground-breaking strategies to make your novel a sales success. Mystery and thriller writer Austin S. Camacho offers hundreds of winning tactics in simple, straight-forward language. This book will show you how to:

• Overcome the stigma of being POD or self-published
• Create a basic marketing plan
• Make positive contact with booksellers
• Make your book signing an event
• Handle interviews for newspapers, radio or TV
• Make the best use of web-based marketing tools

Q: Why are you the best person to write this book?
A: As a mystery and thriller writer I’ve personally used these techniques to get my six novels onto the shelves of major bookstores and into the hands thousands of readers. This book is the second edition of one you may already have on your shelves, even though the title is a bit different. Authors often update how-to manuals with new material, but titles don’t generally change. I think you deserve an explanation for that, but I have to take you back to bring you up to date.

I wrote my first full-length work in 1985 in the infancy of home computers. I submitted that first, admittedly awful, manuscript to publishers and agents with predictably disastrous results. I kept writing, improving with each attempt, yet the results continued to be the same. In 1999, at a time when I thought I had a manuscript that others would really enjoy reading, I learned about a new publishing option called print on demand. I couldn’t afford thousands of dollars to self-publish then, but for a couple of hundred dollars I could get a book published and find out for sure if I was deluding myself about my writing. I turned my words into a book through POD publisher Buy Books on the Web.

As it turned out, a lot of people wanted to read Blood and Bone and I got a lot of positive feedback. Within three years, my publisher had changed its name to Infinity Publishing. By then, there was a lot of competition in the POD marketplace, but few people had found much success because most authors didn’t understand the necessity of marketing their work. I was one of Infinity’s most successful writers, so the company asked me to write a guidebook for their other authors. Successfully Marketing Print-on-Demand Fiction hit shelves in 2003.

Since then, as I’ve moved to self-publishing and publishing with a small press. Aside from short stories published in other peoples’ anthologies I have four novels in my Hannibal Jones detective series in print plus two action thrillers. I’ve spoken dozens of times at writer’s conferences, seminars, book clubs and civic organizations. I’ve secured a New York literary agent. And I’ve sold more than 3,000 copies of my novels. In that time I’ve heard two things from readers of my marketing book. First, I was told that most marketing books for authors were filled with tips that were valuable only to nonfiction writers and that my book was the only thing on the market just for fiction writers. Second, readers told me that many of the tips I offered also were valuable to those who didn’t choose the POD option, that just about anyone who had not yet landed a contract with a major publisher could benefit from my marketing approach.

Q: How is this book different from other books on this topic?
A: This is not a collection of theories, but specific tactics based on personal experience.

Q: Is there anything else we should know about this book?
A: Send me your best tips on how to market full length fiction. I will feature the best three in my newsletter and on my blog – Another Writer’s Life. The best three entrants will each receive a copy of my book, and the one who sends the best tip will also receive free business cards from Iconix.biz as well as a $50 gift certificate toward bookmarks, a book cover or any other service offered from Iconix.com – the company that designed the cover of Successfully Marketing Your Novel in the 21st Century.

GET the latest news about my novels and order copies at http://www.ascamacho.com
READ my blog at http://ascamacho.blogspot.com
VISIT me at http://www.myspace.com/austincamacho
HEAR the Hannibal Jones podcast at http://hannibaljones.podhoster.com

Pitch reporters with our up-to-date media databases:

Question: Who is the intended audience?
Answer: Telecommuting – Managing Off-Site Staff for Small Business (c2001 Self-Counsel Press) is written primarily for small businesses, but the content could be used by businesses of any size – and even by individual managers/supervisors who are often the biggest barrier to embracing telecommuting. Why?

Trust.

While telecommuting is often linked closely to technology, the truth of the matter is that being “out of sight and out of mind” is the biggest challenge that employees face when they broach the issue and the biggest fear that managers have about offering this option to existing or new employees.

Q: What is the book about?
A: This book is a very practical, how-to guide to managing a telecommuting program – not focused on the technology, but on the management/administrative issues such as how to identify which positions/individuals are best suited for telecommuting, how to establish guidelines/selection processes, how to establish goals/objectives that are measurable and can overcome the common “trust issues” involved in telecommuting relationships, how to maintain open lines of communication, etc.

The irony is that many large, multi-national firms really practice “telecommuting” all of the time without thinking about it. So do smaller, regionalized firms. So do organizations like banks, franchises, etc. Any time you have a supervisor physically removed from the employees s/he manages you have the same situation that telecommuting involves – just within the “comfort zone” of a corporate setting. In my most recent “day job,” for instance, I rarely saw my VP during the course of a business week unless we happened to be in a meeting together – we were in different buildings, across a corporate campus but, for all he knew, I could just as likely have been in my own home!

Q: Why are you the best person to write this book?
A: I wrote this book when a previous company I worked for was involved in a merger. I wasn’t able to relocate and was curious about other options that might be available to me. Having been a freelance writer for a number of years I wondered why I might not also be a “freelance corporate communication manager.” I was curious to know how prevalent the concept of telecommuting was.

Through my research I gathered a number of examples and learned a lot – specifically, at that time, that it was far more common for companies to allow *existing* employees to telecommute, but much *less* likely for companies to hire an unknown commodity like me! While recruiting telecommuters for sales/IT positions was more common, it really wasn’t a concept that had taken off – aside from those organizations with existing staff who, for some reason or other, wished to work from home.

As a manager I can understand the hesitancy – as a freelance writer I still consider it ironic that other types of organizations/positions haven’t capitalized on the ability to recruit and reap benefit from talent outside their geographic market area.

Q: How is this book different from other books on this topic?
A: This book is different from others on the market (and there really aren’t a lot of others on the market) primarily because of its practical focus. It’s really designed to address the managerial/supervisory issues/barriers to telecommuting and provide a framework/process for making it work to the benefit of both the organization and the telecommuters.

Specific criteria, checklists and agreements are included, as well as examples from companies that have and do offer telecommuting to their staff.
So how does a small-business owner make the leap? In the book, I offer a practical resource for implementing a program, including:
• Determining whether telecommuting is right for your company
• Training telemanagers and teleworkers
• Helping on-site staff to cope
• Communicating effectively
• Measuring the success of your program
• Taking care of the legal details

Q: Is there anything else we should know about this book?
A: Telecommuting is quickly becoming an expectation among today’s employees. The 24/7 culture is changing the way that employees and employers interact. It is changing the very nature of work. The reality of today’s world is harsh: employers need to reduce overhead; employees can’t afford to fill their tanks. Add to that the demand for work-life balance and it becomes clear that it’s time to embrace a new way of doing business.

The timing is great for this book – I was recently back in touch with my editors after receiving four unsolicited inquiries in two days about telecommuting. The rising gas prices, travel difficulties and general economic pressures are driving this interest I’m sure. Personally, I hope it takes off. I think many businesses – small *and* large are missing out on opportunities.

And, when you get right down to it, the “best practices” that are required for effective telemarketing programs are the exact same best practices required for effective management in any setting.

Pitch reporters with our up-to-date media databases:

Question: Who is the intended audience?
Answer: The protagonist is 15, so young adults are a major audience; however, I have received letters from men and women of all ages, even into their sixties, expressing interest and enthusiasm about the release of Courage in Patience.

Q: What is the book about?
A: After six years of emotional, physical, and sexual abuse from her stepfather, 15-year-old Ashley finally finds the courage to reveal the painful details of her experiences with her mother, who refuses to acknowledge the problem and turns her back on her daughter. After confiding in her teacher—the only adult whom Ashley can trust—she is removed from her home and sent to live with her father and his second wife, Beverly, an English teacher. Nurtured by Beverly, an extraordinarily positive influence in her life, Ashley and a summer school class of troubled teens learn to face their fears and discover who they really are.

Q: Why are you the best person to write this book?
A: I am a survivor of childhood sexual abuse at the hands of a family member, as well as an experienced English teacher.

Q: How is this book different from other books on this topic?
A: It is not an autobiography or a self-help book. Honestly, with the exception of some of Chris Crutcher’s books that include the problem of sexual abuse, I have not seen many others like mine.

Q: Is there anything else we should know about this book?
A: I wrote Courage in Patience to give hope to anyone who has to face their greatest fears and find out what they’re made of.

Pitch reporters with our up-to-date media databases:

Question: Who is the intended audience?
Answer: The publisher places The Toonies Invade Silicon Valley in the 8-13 age category; Amazon places it in 9-12 category because they have no 8-13.

I actually wrote it for young adults but geared it for adults, too, as Harry Potter was written. It’s proving to be quite popular with adults––men and women alike––so the book is spanning the generations. Children from all cultures will love the good TOONIES for their fun-loving natures and the bad TOONIES for the excitement and havoc they create. In fact, children around the world will enjoy the entire book because in this computer-generated age everyone wants to learn more about Silicon Valley.

Q: What is the book about?
A: Toonies is a sci-fi fantasy adventure about cartoon characters who reside inside a Silicon Valley boy’s computer. The good TOONIES escape into our world and are soon followed by the bad TOONIES (ape-bird characters with an evil leader who wants to take over computer companies for their ink supplies which is their food source). They lay seige to “Orange Computer” (satire of Apple, of course), but the Valley is saved by the boy, his friends and parents. Steve “The Woz” Wozniak, the real-life co-founder of Apple Computer, gets involved and helps rid the world of the bad TOONIES. 

Q: Why are you the best person to write this book?
A: I’m the only person who could write this book because the characters sprang to life through my imagination. There are no other characters like them in any book.

My experience with computers helps too; I’ve used computers since 1984 when I bought one of the first Macintoshes. Other reasons I am the “best one” to write this book: because I had a “romp” creating the characters and I love them; I understand children, having six myself; I know Silicon Valley well, having lived there for forty years; and because, as a career journalist, I grew tired of writing “facts,” so I welcomed the opportunity to write fiction and to give my imagination full rein. To learn more about me, visit my website (now under construction): http://bettydravisauthor.googlepages.com/

Q: How is this book different from other books on this topic?
A: This is a unique book with no others like it on the market; to my knowledge it’s the first where cartoon characters come to life and escape into our world. Readers will be surprised at how these ingenious “humanoid” kids use “good old chicken-noodle soup” to round-up the rogue TOONIES in order to send them back inside the computer. Another first is that Steve “The Woz” Wozniak, co-founder of Apple Computer, graciously gave permission for me to use him as a speaking character in this book.

Here is why Jennifer Wardrip, owner of TeensReadToo.com, thinks TOONIES is so “different.”:

” … This is a great science-fiction fantasy story for kids of all ages, or for those who are young at heart. Although the story of good versus evil has been told thousands of time, it’s never been told quite like this. You’ll appreciate Ms. Dravis’ insight into the behind-the-scenes workings of a young teenager’s mind, and laugh-out-loud at the humorous scenarios her humans and Toonies find themselves in. This story is a real winner!”

Q: Is there anything else we should know about this book?
A: TOONIES is in many libraries across the country and has five-star reviews from MidWest Book Review, Kids Read Too and many other prestigious reviewers. One mainstream author wrote that TOONIES is “already a cult classic”; many reviewers suggest that TOONIES would make a “great animated movie”; and one well-respected reviewer had this to say about my book:

” … Between the unique description of the Mischief Makers, and the distinctive “good guys,” it was reminiscent of some of Baum’s magnificent creations in his classic Oz series. … “ – T. Burger, Top 500 Amazon Reviewer

Also, this is the first in a series; I’m currently working on the second book, titled The Toonies Invade New York.