{"id":6757,"date":"2012-01-02T19:00:33","date_gmt":"2012-01-02T13:30:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bookbuzzr.com\/blog\/?p=6757"},"modified":"2014-12-23T16:09:26","modified_gmt":"2014-12-23T10:39:26","slug":"resolutions-tis-the-season-for-supporting-the-industry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bookbuzzr.com\/blog\/resolutions-tis-the-season-for-supporting-the-industry\/","title":{"rendered":"Resolutions: Tis the Season for Supporting the Industry"},"content":{"rendered":"

Expert: Carolyn Howard-Johnson<\/a><\/p>\n

Aha! It is resolution time!<\/p>\n

I\u2019d love to give authors advice on setting goals for the New Year. Here\u2019s the thing: I\u2019ve done that and\u2014in the doing of it\u2014realize that no one author can help another set goals because each author and each title is so different.<\/p>\n

I guess I sort of gave authors a whole book of possible resolutions to make in 2011 when I finished the second edition of The Frugal Book Promoter<\/em> (http:\/\/budurl.com\/FrugalBkPromo<\/a>). I even got general and told authors to pick and choose their goals from the book. That they wouldn\u2019t be able to do everything that is in it and shouldn\u2019t. I mean the whole idea behind writing it was to keep other authors from falling in the same potholes I did. I advised them to choose promotions based on their personalities, the titles of their books (different books call for different kinds of marketing campaigns!), and the health of their pocketbooks.<\/p>\n

Still, I\u2019m tackling this post because I do think there is one thing that almost every author could<\/em> and should<\/em> put on his or her resolution list. Are you ready?<\/p>\n

Buy books!<\/p>\n

I often get e-mails from authors saying that their fellow authors don\u2019t buy their books. And I do understand how that can happen. The longer we\u2019ve been writing, the more author-friends we have and, at some point it\u2019s impossible to support them all. Having said that, we as authors shouldn\u2019t expect fellow authors to buy books that don\u2019t interest them. Books they don\u2019t have time for. Or books that aren\u2019t published the way they want to read them (paperback or e-books, anyone?) That\u2019s why we promote rather than just depending on friends and relatives\u2014which, after all, isn\u2019t the biggest pool of buyers in the world.<\/p>\n

Still, we authors should buy some books each year and I think we should set aside a budget for that. It\u2019s about Zen. It\u2019s about supporting the industry that we expect to support us. I even tell authors that they shouldn\u2019t limit themselves to buying only my book on, say, editing or book proposals or wordtrippers or the marketing of books. Even authors who have read extensively on a particular subject may very well get new ideas from a book on a similar subject or be inspired by it.<\/p>\n

But there are other ways to support our industry besides buying books we want to read. Authors on strict budgets should find books make relatively inexpensive gifts for holiday giving, for hostess and thank you gifts, for birthdays, and even to give to business associates on appropriate occasions.<\/p>\n

But we all know that we tend to get lax with our resolutions. So, to make your \u201cBuy Books\u201d resolution work all year, go to your gift-giving list for 2012 and see how many people on that list could get the gift of reading in 2012 instead of something that will be promptly tossed in the Goodwill bin or re-gifted. Staple your gift list to your resolution list. And then make another resolution to read your resolutions and that attached list of gift-giving idea list at least once a month.<\/p>\n

Heck, you could even give your own book to folks on that list. You are<\/em> proud of it, aren\u2019t you?<\/p>\n

If every author gave books as gifts, I could see a bright, shiny year ahead. A year where agents take on more clients because more publishers are selling more books. And when that happens, just think! Books will be the gifts that keep giving. Books will be the gifts that give back<\/em> as well.<\/p>\n

\n

\"\"Carolyn Howard-Johnson is the author of the multi award-winning series of HowToDoItFrugally books, a series for writers and a series for retailers. Learn more about them at http:\/\/HowToDoItFrugally.com<\/a>. And yes, she does give books for gifts. She often gives her how-to books to clients. She gives her poetry chapbooks on most any occasion, from Christmas to Valentine\u2019s to Mother\u2019s Day. And, she does buy others\u2019 books for her own shelves or Kindle reader but only when she actually yearns <\/em>to read them or needs<\/em> to read them.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/object><\/div>\n
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Expert: Carolyn Howard-Johnson Aha! It is resolution time! I\u2019d love to give authors advice on setting goals for the New Year. Here\u2019s the thing: I\u2019ve done that and\u2014in the doing of it\u2014realize that no one author can help another set goals because each author and each title is so different. I guess I sort of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[353,3,720],"tags":[9,3,18,609,338,608,610,607,611],"class_list":["post-6757","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bbmtc","category-book-marketing","category-guest-posts","tag-authors","tag-book-marketing","tag-book-promotion","tag-buy-books","tag-christmas","tag-gifts","tag-mothers-day","tag-resolution","tag-valentines-day"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookbuzzr.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6757","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookbuzzr.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookbuzzr.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookbuzzr.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookbuzzr.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6757"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bookbuzzr.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6757\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookbuzzr.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6757"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookbuzzr.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6757"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookbuzzr.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6757"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}