AuthorHouse Blog

A shout out to the SF/Peninsula Writers’ co-chairs Tory Hartmann and Elliotte Mao for putting on one heck of writers conference in Foster City, California. This was my first visit to the Jack London Conference, an annual event that draws over 300 Bay Area authors. Headliners included Lemony Snicket himself, Daniel Handler, Christopher Moore (”You Suck: A Love Story”) and Steve Hockensmith (”Holmes on the Range”). All were funny. All told of their personal journeys to being a published author. All inspired the attendees.

The rest of the day was filled with workshops, networking, and one-on-one consultations. I had three early consultations with authors that are seriously looking at AuthorHouse to publish their next book. Alice Cochran published her prior book, “Roberta’s Rules of Order“, with Jossey Bass (an imprint of Wiley) but has developed a workbook to go along with her organizational guidance book. Jossey Bass gave her a pass (pun intended) on this book and she’s looking to self-publish it and use it to market her consulting business. AuthorHouse is a great fit for her book, and Alice agreed.

After our 1:30 pm “Publishers Shootout”, let’s just say my consultation schedule picked up. Our panel discussion hosted two traditional publishing companies (Jossey Bass & Chronicle Books) squared off against two self-publishing companies (AuthorHouse & Lulu). An estimated 150 people listened intently as Geri Spieler (which I nicknamed Jerry Springer) moderated our discussion by talking about industry trends, self vs. traditional publishing and the future of the business. It was obvious to me, and I believe others in the room, that self-publishing is no longer a dirty word in the publishing industry.

I had the pleasure of meeting some great people while I was there.

• Tom Ontis, a school teacher from Brentwood that hopes to be done with his book “The Brown Chronicles: The Education of a Teacher”. Get that book done this summer Tom!
• Frances Fong Chin, a retired (doesn’t look a day over 45) writer that has written a memoir and is looking to publish it for her family and friends in her retirement community. “Everyone tells me they would buy my book,” she said. Get it published Frances and they can!
• Frank Lopez, a retired Vietnam vet that has been dealing with post traumatic stress disorder for years and wants to help other vets deal with their problems. Frank truly just wants to help others and AuthorHouse is a great fit for him.
• Ruth Josa from San Carlos has her book “Happily Ever Asperger” nearly completed (she’s editing for the last time now). Thanks for your patience Ruth, I was pulled a few different directions in the afternoon and you stuck it out so I could meet with you. We’re anxious to get your book started.

After Steve Hockensmith spoke, I looked at my watch (which I keep on Eastern time) and realized that the day was nearly over. Time flew at this conference, a lot of information in a short amount of time. I had dinner with an Indiana native that has been living in northern California, Frank Thornburgh. He is a short story writer and he’s published with AuthorHouse a few times. What a great conference, I hope to return next year!

You can track your stocks on Yahoo! Finance. You can track your web site’s traffic relative to the rest of the Internet on Alexa. Thanks to Charteous, you can track the Amazon sales rank of your book as well!

No need to register, just punch in your book’s ISBN number and Charteo.us draws a historical sales rank map of your book in seconds. They also offer a “compare” feature so you can track how your sales are doing versus another book or two. What a handy way of tracking your sales, especially if you’re a visual vs. spreadsheet type of person!

Our spotlighted author in the San Francisco Bay area for the Jack London Conference this weekend was Danna Troncatty Leahy, author of “Ciao Bambino!” and “Bonjour L’enfant! A Child’s Tour of France.” Her children’s book series helps kids learn the basics of a new foreign language through beautifully illustrated, full-color books.

Her secret? Danna travels around the Bay area doing readings of her books at schools where the parents are invited to join them as well. Afterwards, she will do a book signing for the parents and give their children a fun learning tool as well.

When you look at all the social networking websites out there (MySpace, Friendster, Facebook), authors often ask themselves “how can I cash in on this craze to market ‘my’ book?”

The answer: LibraryThing.com

This online book lovers networking site allows users to catalog their favorite books online and share their collections with other users. Think of all the books you have at home on the bookshelf next to the fireplace or on your bedroom nightstand. Now you can catalog all your books online and share your collection with others. The fun part is the ability to see what other people are reading, what they thought of their books, and share your views with over 150,000 users of LibraryThing.

Now that you have access to over 150,000 personal catalogs of books, you can do a “book suggester” search and find other books that people suggest you read based on your catalog. Think of how much time that will save you in your quest to find the next book! And, their technology goes beyond the website. You can access your account via your cell phone in a book store and get real-time recommendations from your LibraryThing account. Clever, eh?

The amazing this is the service is free up to 200 books, then there is a nominal charge of $10 per year if you want to catalog more books or you can pay $25 for a lifetime of unlimited cataloging.

So how could this help you market your book? Simple. Sign up and create an account, of course your book is one of your favorite books (I hope you liked your own work!), and now share your review with others. Usually, authors write in the genre they also like to read, so you are building a halo around your book of bestsellers or other well-known titles that are similar to yours. Get your friends and family to do the same thing. Voila, you have your book on a virtual bookshelf to share with other book readers.