But how do you actually do them? If you do any online shopping yourself, you probably have read reviews to see what other people thought about the coffeemaker or reading lamp you are considering. Many people are totally comfortable with this, and probably write a product review with one hand while ordering their groceries online with the other. Those nimble-fingered folks don’t need the rest of this article. And while those folks might be quite surprised to learn that some people have never even used an online shopping site, others of my clients say they want to ask colleagues or friends from church for a review except those people don’t know how to do them. That’s what we are going to take care of today. I’m not an expert in this topic, but happy to share what I’ve learned. As far as I know, the main online booksellers all accept reviews. While I don’t know the rules for all of them, the largest of these sites doesn’t require that you purchase a book in order to write a review about it.What they do require, however, is that you are an Amazon customer, which I think means pretty much everyone in the whole world who has a device....

When you are asked to show up somewhere as an author – AWK! Don’t panic – you really are the expert. Many times I hear authors speak about being uncertain of themselves when offered the opportunity to do a book signing, meet readers through a virtual book club, or be interviewed by the media. Gulp. It can be a bit intimidating. But here’s something to keep in mind, and this applies to people in many walks of life and in many situations.You are the expert. You wrote your book, not the reader or interviewer. You created the characters or did the research, not them. While others may often know about your topic, and face it, some people may know even more about your topic than you do, no one else wrote your book but you. That makes you uniquely qualified to talk about the book, the topic, the characters. Don’t believe me?That’s OK. I’ve had author clients not be so sure about this advice about being the expert. But time after time, my author clients have come back to me and said, “that interview was fun. I did know more about my topic than I realized, and I had no trouble answering the questions. They start...

If you are a Christian author, especially one who wants to reach Christian bookstores, you need to know about the Christian Retail Association, the current (and I believe only) Christian retail trade association.And you may want to even consider attending CRA’s upcoming fall 2021 Christian Product Expo being held in the St. Louis area August 15-17. See www.cpeshow.com for more info and to register.CRA was founded under the leadership of Bob Munce and the Munce Group, after the implosion of CBA, the previous trade association whose initials originally stood for Christian Booksellers Association.For decades, CBA hosted the annual Christian retail trade show. Some of you receiving this email remember the glory days of the CBA annual summer trade shows, later called ICRS (International Christian Retail Show) or UNITE, when bookstore representatives, publishers, plus the Christian music and film industries gathered for a few days of seeing and ordering new products, and big names like Beth Moore, DC Talk, and Joel Osteen showed up for book signings and music performances.But online information and purchasing has changed retail forever and that was true even before the pandemic.The last CBA-sponsored trade show was held in 2018 in the midst of changes within CBA and the industry that led...

You are remembering to use Google Alerts, right?Google Alerts have been around for a long time. They are a free, helpful way to know when you or your book is mentioned online on websites and in the news.As I plan these weekly notes to my Buoyancy community, my goal is to share nuggets of things I think are valuable for authors to know, whether that’s bits and pieces of news from the industry, or practical tips. Recently I’ve been talking to some authors who weren’t aware of Google Alerts.You can set up hundreds of them for keywords that are important to you, and also edit and tweak them as often as you want.I’m told there are many newer and more sophisticated tools out there for tracking all kinds of data about you and your book as it appears on the internet. Maybe that’s why I don’t hear people talking about them as often these days. And in my personal experience they don’t find everything, nor are they set up to track all social media platforms. But I often find really interesting things from the results. So if you are an author (or business owner), you need to have Google Alerts...

A thought on shaping the topic for your next nonfiction book Whether your "next" book is your first or your fortieth, you are no doubt already thinking and praying about the topic. In the excitement of imagining the new nonfiction book, have you also taken a look to see what else has already been written on this topic, by which authors, and from what perspective?First, let me remind you I’m not a book editor of any kind. There are experts out there to help you make sure you are heading in a good direction. I am not one of them.But as a book publicist, I end up talking to a lot of authors. And sometimes authors talk to me about their books or their next book.When I ask them if they have taken a look to see if someone else has already done what they are proposing, I have often been surprised to discover this hasn’t occurred to them.  But I promise you, traditional publishers think about this before they begin work on all new titles. You don’t want to invest time, heart and money into a book that isn’t going to serve a need. Put another way, if your book isn’t providing...

When the new Buoyancy PR website launched last November 2020, it did not include a blog.  But in January 2021, I started writing weekly missives, mostly about the Christian retail industry and the Author Journey, offering my thoughts and tips aimed at supporting Christian authors and business people. It finally dawned on me I could share selections from those weekly notes on my website, so I’m launching this blog that will start with some of the earlier notes, and then be updated each week, generally with that week’s note, but sometimes with other previous ones.  Depending on when you are reading this it may or may not be obvious that I’m really not writing this on April 1. I am backdating the blog as I get started, but with transparency, so April 1 seemed the perfect date to choose for the first post.   [The April Fools part is only the date…the rest is true!] Thanks for joining me here.  ...