A Creative Year with iHanna - buy the book!

iHanna at Lulu

• Marketing a book

  2007 Oct 04

  It feels like I've done nothing but sit by the computer for a couple of days now. I'm marketing my book, and I find it both fun and interesting. I'm learning a lot, finding blogs and homepages I've never visited before. And once again, as it usually is with me, becoming increasingly interested in new subjects! This time it is about POD (print-on-demand publishing), publishing, self promotion etc. etc.
  
  I've written a really nice press release and made a press page with high resoultin images of the cover of my book and sent it out to design bloggers and big craft and creative sites out there! I've had a blog friend read the press release, and she gave me some great tips both on it and on marketing my book! I love this! It's just so fun.
  
  I've blogged about it in my personal blog now and kind of made it official to the world, but I have yet to e-mail friends and family - and to recieve a copy! If I don't get it tomorrow I will have to wait until next week, biting my nails. At Lulu about 100 people have checked my book out, and a couple have said "I will by it" soon/when I get money or add it to my wish list. I'm not even worried. I know mom wants a copy, and then this is so fun and I'm learning so much!
  
  Here are some links I've been checking out:
  
  Self publishing blog, I've read their whole promotion category, but they don't seem to update that any longer?
  Self publishing at writers write has a couple of links
  I should have read this one before I started perhaps: An Incomplete Guide to Print On Demand Publishers
  More articles on book publishing, but all of these has focus on buying a lot of your own books and the distributing of those... I just can't do that, I can't afford that! Plus, it is a risky buiness!
  
  
  
  I would love to buy a fun marketing kit from Lulu, with postcards and cards and stuff... but who shall I give them too? :-)
  
  
  I was thinking about a small stripe of text and picture as "the widget" you can make to promot your book at other sites, but I think I'll have to make one of my own, because this is ugly and hilarous;
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  eeek!
  
  but the button is kinda cute;
  
  
  
  
  

• Photos are important in my book

  2007 Oct 02

  I haven't recived my book yet, but I'm kind of on my toes waiting for it. It tickles my nerves, makes my stomack butterfliey!
  
  After I wrote my last post I found a lot of information about marketing here on Lulu.com and I'm reading it with interest. I'm hoping to market my book quite a lot, because I acctually think it is beautiful and great - plus I could use some money for all the hours I've spent editing, writing and making it!
  
  Oh, well, we'll see what happens with that. I also going to resarch others who has done print-on-demand, and by accident one of the bloggers I already read, Thomas, had done just that, printed his book here on Lulu! You can get it from him (it's in Swedish) and only 129 SEK. Mine is about 300 SEK if you live in Sweden, wich I think is a bit too much for a book. But of course the price is hight on my book because it is printed in full colour! I think the photos are a big part of the book, saying just as much as the text, illustrating what I make and where I find inspiration a lot.
  
  Today I've;
  
  Written an article about my project for What's your project - maybe it will get published there?
  Designed a very pink Lulu Storefront - but can't get the header title to work. Irritating!
  Made big images of the cover design in .jpg so readers can get a better view of them
  Changed the preview to show some extracts from my book, not just the first five pages wich are filled with the pagina numbers only!
  
  

• I bougth my own book today

  2007 Sep 28

  Today I finally got some money into my accound so I could order my own book, A Creative Year, that I uploaded last week! I also made a cover for it, a photocollage in Photoshop that I'm rather pleased with. I mean, it's my first book cover ever, and a week after it's going to be printed on a real book. Isn't that kind of amazing? A real book!
  
  Nobody but me has seen it in the entire world... And now it's going into a printer somewhere in the US. And maybe Mr. Printerman will be #2 to get a glimpse of it before Ms. Pacman packs it into a brown boxs and it is shipped to me over here in Sweden?
  
  I think it is amazing, and I won't belive it is true until I see it. I want to hold it in my hands right now! Will the photos print in quality colour and look what I imagine they will look like? Even if nobody else buys my book I will still be proud that I made it! I hope this book is worth the 50 dollars I have to pay to get it here in one piece.
  
  The only stupid thing is that nobody else has read it, and I'm sure it is chock full of writing misstakes, spelling errors and what not. I know I will hate it when people tell me about the errors or when I detect them myself... but at least I can correct them then and upload a new version if I need to.
  
  So please forgive me everyone who loves words and the English language if I have butchered it up a bit! English is not my first language and I don't remember one single rule about the language from school. I just write what I think sounds/looks nice... hehe.
  
  So next week I'll try to work on the lanching of a book, because I do hope someone will buy it! I do think others could enjoy it, get inspiration from it, pick up the joy I felt when I wrote it and find their own creativity.
  
  So, next I have to:
  make a lulu front-store
  write to the blog-press
  blog about my book
  publish a page on my own homepage about my book
  e-mail my friends and relatives? gotta take advantage of knowing people
  maybe make a youtube movie about how I get the package? hehe
  find other ideas to get the word out!!!!
  
  yours sincerely
  iHanna