Ok, your book is almost ready to launch. If you haven’t already, it’s time to nail down your publicity plan. Are you going to send out a press release to let people know about your book so that they can find it and buy it? It’s always a good idea to include one in your basic marketing/publicity plan.

A press release is simply an announcement you intend to distribute to the media. Its purpose is to give information that you want your audience to find useful, accurate, and interesting.

When writing your press release, try to imagine what a potential reader will want to hear about your story/book. Does your press release deliver that information?

If you don’t find your press release interesting, your audience won’t either. When writing the release, make certain to use clear, short sentences. Use the active voice. And most important, don’t forget to proofread, proofread, and then proofread again. Read more

During the course of writing my book, several people asked me what I did when faced with writer’s block. Fortunately, it wasn’t much of a problem.

After all those years of writing promotional copy for high-tech companies, I learned to push myself beyond the block. When a client is waiting on copy, it’s not too cool to say, “Oh sorry, not today. I have writer’s block. I’ll do it as soon as this passes.”

When I found myself staring at the dreaded “white” page, I learned to make myself start somewhere. The end? Maybe the middle. It really didn’t matter as long as I started. And it really didn’t matter if what I wrote was good. The point was to write. Read more