National TV PR Directory: 3-Day Sale

Just wanted to let you know starting this Wednesday, November 27th, Bradley Communications is having a three-day sale on their Harrison's Guide directory/database of the top 235 national TV shows. In addition to a price savings of $50.00 to $200.00, buyers will get a one-hour consult with a former NBC TV guest booker with their one-year subscription.

Check it out now at http://www.tvprguys.com.

John Kremer's Book Marketing Blast-Off Seminar

Would you like to sell more books — a lot more books? If you do, I can show you how! I wrote the book on the subject: 1001 Ways to Market Your Books. For the past twenty years, I've edited the newsletter on the subject: Book Marketing Update. And, also for the past twenty years, I've consulted with some of the top bestselling authors in the country. Who am I? I'm John Kremer. If you want to sell more books, I can show you how!

This seminar is designed to help authors, self-publishers, and regular publishers sell thousands of more copies of their books. All categories are covered, including novels, business books, children's books, self-help, religion, travel, cookbooks, reference books, and more.

Join me at my next Book Marketing Blast-Off Seminar in December, 2007. Here are the details:



Dates: December 7 to 9, 2007, Friday through Sunday, 9:00 am to 5:00 pm

Location: Marina del Rey Hotel, 13534 Bali Way, Marina del Rey, California

For seminar details, see http://www.bookmarket.com/blastoff.htm.

“Thanks again for a super fantastic class this past weekend! I've taken over 100 classes and seminars and yours was by far the best in all categories: valuable content, organized delivery of content, interesting, value for the money.” — Jill Ferguson, publisher, Truth Endeavors

“You're fabulous. I'll never be the same again. Thank you a million times for the opportunity to hang out and learn from you, and for assembling such an interesting mix of information, people, and pastries.” — Patt Pugliese, publisher, The Pugliese Group

“We are just a bit excited about being nominated for Book of the Year! You know it all started when Denise and Cari took your workshop. Since then we won the Ben Franklin Award for Children's Picture Books. We spent 10 weeks plus on the BookSense bestseller list and for two weeks at Christmas we were #4 putting us ahead of two of the four Harry Potter Books. We have spent 12 weeks on the NY Times bestseller list and have gone as high as #2. We have won the International Reading Association Young Readers Award for fiction. What we are most proud of is that we have raised over $50,000 for wishes for kids and for protecting special places with the Nature Conservancy since the book was released. Thank you setting us off in the right direction.” — Carl R. Sams II, author/publisher, Stranger in the Woods

Designing Better Websites: How People View Your Website

At the blog below, they feature 23 important elements for good website design that takes into account how people look at websites. Check it out at http://www.virtualhosting.com.

Alas, this blog post is no longer available. Too bad.

An Overdesigned Website

If you'd like to see a really overdesigned website that is impossible to use in any practical way, check out this website: http://www.pageonebookshop.com.

It takes a long time to load, uses way to much Flash, and when you click on the contact info, you have to leave your cursor on the page in order to handwrite any contact info. No cut and paste capability. Very strange.

The website is currently giving a database error message.

Regnery Publishing: Boon & Bane, Part II

Well, now Alfred Regnery, former publisher at Regnery (and still a board member), now calls the lawsuit by the disgruntled authors frivolous. Here's what he said in his blog at the American Spectator, where he is now publisher:

"The merits of the lawsuit are hardly worth discussing. To anyone in the book publishing industry they're laughable. I'm a lawyer and know that the contracts they signed are clear and transparent, and are similar to the contracts used throughout the industry. I also know that Regnery puts marketing muscle and expertise behind its books like nobody else in the business -- something that each of the five authors involved benefited from enormously. These disgruntled authors are, perversely, complaining about that muscle. But it's one of the reasons why Regnery has the success it does in putting conservative books where the New York Times doesn't want them -- on its bestseller list."

One, he is correct, Regnery has put a lot of conservatives on the bestseller list. In that sense, they are a boon to conservative authors.

But, two, Regnery, like so many of the larger publishers, offers a contract that is not at all clear or transparent. Regnery should not get off the hook for offering a bad contract to authors. Neither should any of the other large publishers. They offer bad contracts that no author should sign without heavy negotiation. Agents have been doing authors a huge disservice for years allowing authors to sign such author-unfriendly contracts.



Regnery failed to discuss at all the central points of the lawsuit: the self-selling of Regnery books to Eagle at discounts that offer the authors little to no royalty. These sales do not affect the New York Times list. They are simply ways for Regnery to take advantage of authors who sign contracts that are not in any way clear, especially when publishers sell books to themselves at discounts totally out of range of honest business practices.

Posh, again, on Regnery for such self-serving deals.

Posh, again, on the authors for not reading their contracts more carefully and signing what they did. Al is correct in saying that the contracts they signed "are similar to the contracts used throughout the industry." As an industry member, I am not at all proud of that statement. Regnery should also be ashamed.

Posh, again, on the agents that allow authors to sign such bad contracts.

I really do wish publishers would treat authors better. That is the one point Regnery completely ignored. Why would he be happy that the key contributors to the content Regnery publishes are unhappy? What does that say about him as a board member? Let's call the authors fools so we don't have to deal with them anymore. Sad.

Singled Out Book Promotion

Bella DePaulo's book, Singled Out: How Singles Are Stereotyped, Stigmatized, and Ignored, and Still Live Happily Ever After, is out in paperback. Singled Out is a myth-busting, consciousness- raising, totally unapologetic take on singlehood. Bella has been pursuing the singles topic with a passion, and she would love to see the paperback version of Singled Out get off to a great start. So if you buy two or more copies between Sunday, November 4 and Friday, November 9, she will send you (or anyone in the continental U.S.) another book for free. For details, see: http://www.belladepaulo.com/specialoffer2.htm.

Even if you buy just one copy of Singled Out between November 4th and 9th, there are special thank-you bonuses available at her website, http://www.belladepaulo.com/specialoffer1.htm.

To purchase her book go here: http://www.amazon.com/ Singled-Out-Singles-Stereotyped-Stigmatized, but you can buy the books anywhere to qualify for the free book and other thank-you bonuses. (The retail price is $14.95, and Amazon is selling it for just $10.17.)

Regnery: A Boon and a Bane

Conservative book publisher Regnery is being sued by some of its bestselling authors because it doesn't play fair with them. Regnery gives its authors a paltry, paltry, paltry royalty on books it sells to itself or gives away to its customers (via its Eagle-affiliated sister companies). Now the authors are mad and suing Regnery.



Posh on Regnery for giving publishers a bad name. Their treatment of authors on this issue is shameful. And then a lawyer for Regnery had the temerity to say, "These disgruntled authors object to marketing strategies used by all major book publishers that have proved successful time and again as witnessed by dozens of Regnery bestsellers." When what the authors objected to was not the marketing, but the self-dealing, author-robbing, underhanded, bogus deals Regnery makes with its sister companies.

Posh, of course, on the authors for signing such bad contracts in the first place. When are authors actually going to read the contracts publishers give them and negotiate the hell out of those contracts. Because, believe me, every publishing contract offered by a big publisher is full of such self-dealing, author-robbing, underhanded dealings -- even when those publishers are not selling to themselves like Regnery/Eagle does.

I don't object to publishers robbing authors blind -- if they admit to doing so. But they never do. Personally, I believe authors deserve such underhandedness for their inability to read and negotiate decent contracts.

Posh, of course, also to the agents that let authors sign such contracts. Posh, and be gone to such agents. Posh, posh, and be gone.

Well, now that I've angered authors, publishers, and agents, I guess I should attack the media and booksellers as well. That way I could get everyone in the industry mad at me. But I won't. At least not today.

A Terrible Book Cover: My Apologies

Update: The book cover was so terrible they took it down from Amazon.com. And, since I never listed the author or title, I can't provide an update. Just a cautionary note to spend time creating a great cover.

Here is a terrible book cover. At least as it looks online. Maybe it looks better in real life, but still, who picked that bland and horrible typeface?

Watch for the book on Amazon.com. They are running an Amazon bestseller promotion for the book right now.

Too bad none of her partners in the promotion told her how terrible the cover was. With just a little work, it could have been spectacular. But first, and foremost, lose that typeface.

I can't read the author's name at all online. Nor the subtitle. At least it looks like there's a subtitle there just below the rays.