Marketing tips: 5 Resources to Get You Started In Publishing

Career | September 1st, 2008 by Danielle LaPorte

We’re often asked for pointers on marketing and publishing. Here goes:

www.MediaBistro.com is one of the very few daily newsletters that we subscribe to (it’s free). We pay for the AvantGuild membership ($60 per year) - which grants full access to an online “How To Pitch” series giving qualified info on pitching to literary agents, magazine editors, and other media producers.
Arielle Ford is a successful book publicist (Chicken Soup for the Soul, Deepak Chopra…) and a terrific source of knowledge about book publicity and publishing. She has a great tool kit for purchase, and her free newsletter and tele-seminars are typically full of useful tips and perspectives.
Linda Siversten is a writer and a publishing consultant. Her services run the gamut from book proposal development to referrals to literary agents and image consultants. Her “Favorite Book Proposal Headings” is a great (and free to download) one-stop guide for crafting a book proposal.
Dan Poynter is considered the self-publishing guru, but his knowledge extends far beyond just self-publishing.
On finding a literary agent…we found our agent the old fashioned way: we went to the book store, found books that we liked and looked for mention of the agent in the author’s acknowledgment section. Rather than sending the typical two-page query letter, we created a small, elegant booklet that described our book concept and requested permission to submit an actual proposal.

It worked! Our book, Style Statement: Live by your own design was an Amazon bestseller the week it launched!

Career