Giacomo's blog

Great Resource for Authors

The biggest hurdle facing ANY author, regardless of how they are published, is visibility--how to get noticed among the sea of new books. That means, unless someone is bankrolling you and doing a major publicity push, you have to promote yourself. And promotion isn't easy. Worst of all, it's an author's nightmare because it digs into the little bit of time each author has to write.

On to the review: I like readers to know what they are getting. This book isn't groundbreaking. It doesn't offer up an easy way to promote yourself. It has no magical secrets. What this book does is save you TIME. And to me, time is precious. Johnson has done good research, and, according to her, used many of her resources to promote her books. Was I aware of some of these sites? Yes. Did I feel as if, 'damn, I just paid ten bucks to get information I already had.' Sometimes. But by the time I finished the book, and I looked at all the notes I had taken, and all the sites I highlighted as 'must todos,' I realized, Johnson had just saved me hours upon hours of work. Is that worth ten bucks? You bet your sweet... it is. Paying ten bucks for this book was like getting someone to cut my grass all year--for a dollar.

I'm not saying Johnson captured every single promotional possibility on the internet. Obviously not. What she did was put together, in one place, with clickable links, a great list of places to promote your book. Sites where you can list your book for free promos. Sites that offer reviews and author interviews. Sites for author/reader collaboration. I went through this in one night, but I have notes and 'todo' items that will keep me busy for months. The internet is a wonderful resource, but it can be time consuming when faced with putting together a prioritized list of what's good and what isn't. Johnson has done the work for many authors and put it down in a simple, easy to use format. Well worth it as far as I'm concerned.