Holding Fast: The Untold Story of the Mount Hood Tragedy

I chose to review Holding Fast: The Untold Story of the Mount Hood Tragedy by Karen James, wife of mountaineer Kelly James, because I am interested in how adverturers cope with extreme adversity in nature; how one, who is aware of dying, comes to terms with their life; and how those left behind move beyond their grief.  

Holding Fast is short on the details of how Kelly died as he was alone during his ordeal in the ice cave.  We learn from Karen James of his last cell phone call to her and their children and a “message” he sends the rescuers that eases the grief for his family as they quickly discover that the body they found near the summit was Kelly’s.  HIs final gesture enforces his wife’s homage to her husband as a unusually thoughtful and prepared man.

This is not a story of recklessness or naivete nor does Kelly seem to be undone by his ego.  He and his two climbing buddies were well prepared, meticulously plotting their route for weeks on end and aware of all the contingencies the trip to the summit of Mount Hood could possibly present.

Rather, Holding Fast focuses on those Kelly left behind, primarily his wife, Karen.  Her faith in a Christian God, her family and friends pull her through the fear and loneliness of life without her husband.  The sincerity of Karen’s written words ring true with her simple telling of events and her thanks and praise to all of the rescue teams that banded together to try to locate the three missing men was gracious and well deserved.  

Karen James shares wih us a story in which we understand her loneliness and fear as she copes with this most personal of family tragedies.  Karen, in her darkest moments, asks God; “Why Kelly?.”  In the end she finds comfort in a God that has a plan for each of us and that destiny has purpose in His eyes.

Odds & Ends #1

I run across many helpful bits of information on a daily basis about the book industry.  Here are a few random tips.

Mystery Bookshop: Jean May, manager, Murder by the Book, Portland, Ore enjoys receiving galleys and has posted a review in Publishers Weekly.  Add her to the list of folks you send galleys to and ask her for a quote, endorsement or review.  SASE with your galley.

Cookbooks: Gourmet Magazine is launching the Gourmet Cookbook Club, which will select one book a month.  The main criteria are that a book “makes you want to cook and the recipes really work”,  according to Ruth Reichl, Gourmet editor-in-chief.  Let me know if you think you have a cookbook that meets this criteria. 

Publishers grapple with high cost of paper and fuel: Some ways to cope are to consolidate your shipping, improve returns management, revise trim sizes, use less expensive grades of paper when possible.

 

 

 

BEA Events at Booth 606

MIDPOINT TRADE BOOKS WELCOMES THE POPE; A QUEEN; HILDA, THE GOAT; AND MUHAMMAD TO BOOK EXPO AMERICA

 

 New York, New York – Midpoint Trade Books, Inc.

 

One of the liveliest and most diverse booths of the Book Expo can be found at Midpoint Trade’s Booth 606.  Midpoint Trade Books is a sales, marketing and distribution company specializing in the servicing of independent presses since 1996.  Some of our clients attending the Book Expo have a wonderful line up of “guests” and entertainment for attendee’s enjoyment.

 

Ignatius Press will be visited by the “Pope” in the form of a life size cut-out in celebration of his first visit to the United States in April and to announce the October 2008 paperback release of the New York Times bestselling, Jesus of Nazareth by Pope Benedict XVI.  Attendees can have their picture taken with the “Pope” and Ignatius will send the photo to each participant.  A raffle will be conducted in which the grand prize is a beautifully framed portrait of the Pope.

 

Next Chapter Press will be broadcasting a live interactive Hilda, the Goat animation on an HDTV big screen and demonstrations on how to decorate “Hilda” cookies.  Hilda is a character in The Cole Family Christmas publishing in October 2008.  Four generations of Cole’s will be at the booth in red pajamas spreading the warm and loving story of their Mama and Papa Cole’s Kentucky Christmas in the early 1900’s.

 

Level 4’s Poet, Playwright and Publisher William Roetzheim will be promoting poetry offerings including the award winning anthology

The Giant Book of Poetry.  Attendees are invited to come and share the story of their most romantic moment.  The attendee with the most romantic story will win a free night at Jamul Haven, a luxurious 1890 Victorian Mansion that has been converted into a B&B.  A free copy of Poems of Romance audio CD will also be given away at the booth.

 

All Aboard’s Lynne Dralle, the “Queen of Auctions”, will show you how to raise money quickly and easily for your favorite charity or your child’s sporting team selling on eBay.  Lynn has risen over $8,000 with 56 donated items by working with eBay’s Mission Fish division.  The “Queen” is the bestselling author of the classic, The 3^rd 100 Best Things I’ve Sold on …eBay Ka-Ching!

 

Pardey Press’ Lin and Larry Pardey are the only known publishers who live and write 100% green.  They live full time on a truly green ship, an engineless, wooden cutter they built themselves.  Known as “enablers” they have launched 100,000 dreams with their books on how to live at sea full time.  They will be signing copies of their newest edition of, Storm Tactics Handbook, 3^rd Edition a book that US Coast Guard Rescue swimmers say, “…we wish every sailor would read this book before setting off to sea.”

 

WND Books kicks off the show with controversy by featuring Muhammad on the cover of their new book, Why We Left Islam.  WND is no stranger to controversy and the jacket art is sure to raise eyebrows.  This vivid depiction of an unveiled Muhammad, taken from an illustration entitled Le Prophete Mohamet by Persian scholar Abu Rayhan al-Buruni (973-1048 A.D.), is an American publishing first.  Come by to see this glorious illustration.

 

InterVarsity Press will be publishing the 20^th Anniversary of Too Busy Not to Pray by soon-to-be mega pastor Bill Hybels.  The book has maintained its best-seller status as “the classic” on how to slow down and pay attention to God.  InterVarsity Press sets the standard on profound books on Christianity and the newly emerging church audience.

 

Great Little Books founded one year ago has won terrific reviews for their first publication, Bedtime Stories.  At this Book Expo they will be signing galleys of the children’s book, Too Tall Alice, treating visitors to biscotti and raffling an “I’ve Earned My ZZZ’s” pillow!  See early review copies of Blame It On The Pancake, a YA chick-lit novel, Whispers, a historical romance and Travels With My Husband, a travel memoir in prose, poetry and photographs.

 

#   #   #

State of Bookselling in 2007

Publishers Weekly’s April 7th issue includes an article,“Consumers, Chains, Internet Ruled Bookselling in 2007″ by Jim Milliot, which breaks down by sales channel the places US book buyers choose for book purchases.  PW received their stats from Bowker’s service, PubTrack Consumer.  

At the top of the list, selling 33% of the total books sold, were Chain Bookstores.  These include Barnes & Noble, the #1 chain bookstore which is based in New York and includes 793 superstores and 100 mall stores (B Dalton Booksellers); Borders, ranked #2 among the chains and based in Michigan with 500 free-standing stores, 300 mall stores ( Waldenbooks); and the #3 ranked Books-A-Million, whose home base is in Alabama and includes 200 stores mostly located in the Southeast but coming up as north as Ohio.

The second most popular sales channel, with 21% of the total books sold, were Internet Retailers, and include the two most popular sites, Amazon and bn.com, among others.

Book Clubs were responsible for 12% of book sales.  I was surprised to read that this percentage was as high as it is given the contraction of book club choices today.

Fourth on the list were Mass Merchandisers, which include Target and Walmart, with 9% of book sales.  Fifth were Wholesale Clubs, comprising sales through Costco, BJ’s and Sam’s, with 5%.

Lastly, independent bookstores were responsible for 3% of total book sales.  One of these independents, and my old stomping grounds, Vroman’s Bookstore in Pasadena, California, where I was the buyer of mass market paperbacks, recently won the 2007 Bookseller of the Year Award.  We will be sending them a Congratulations note as they are friends of ours on our MySpace page. http://www.myspace.com/midpointtradebooks

PubTrack’s findings are very similar to Midpoint Trade Book’s 2007 sales.  We still find Chain Bookstores to maintain their lead over other channels, which makes the unfolding situation with Borders Books to be of keen interest to us.  Our hope is that they survive this tough retail environment as an even more viable and strong bookstore than they currently are. 

In 2000 the stats broke down as follows:

34% chains, 24% book clubs, 9% mass merch, 6% internet, 5% warehouse.  (Source: IPSOS-NPD Booktrends) 

 

E-Book Update:  Amazon makes statement of interest regarding their Kindle. 

 

Viral Marketing 1.0

As a publisher or an author, it is never too early for you to begin your viral marketing program.  Instead of waiting until your title has been placed on the shelves of Barnes & Noble or Borders Books (in which there is no guarantee) I strongly encourage you to become proactive in helping introduce your ideas, i.e. book to the users of the World Wide Web. 

   First, at Midpoint we encourage all of our publishing clients to have a substantive brainstorming session with their authors.  I would suggest this to happen at the manuscript stage.  The first discussion point should be about the author’s platform.  Is the author an expert in his/her field?  Does the author have published works, lecture, consult, blog, and/or give speeches?  Who does the author know?  Next, who are the author’s readers?  Who cares as deeply about the subject as the author does?

   Let’s say that the book is Predicting Technology,  We know by anecdotal research that the passionate technology reader is most likely to be male, early to late 20’s, a gamer, an entrepreneur, someone who is computer, IPod and, MP3 savvy, college educated, and with northwest and east coast sensibilities (areas in which the majority of tech jobs congregate).  These basic generalities about “your reader” can set you up for the next stage of your outreach to them. 

   Once you have established who “your reader” is, continue with your research by asking more questions.  Where are these young men hanging out virally?  What magazines or books are they reading, watching on TV, downloading from iTunes or seeing at the movies?  What are their favorite websites and blogs?  Do they have a profile on MySpace or Facebook and who are their friends on these sites? (Most likely, they will be likeminded guys.) 

   Finally, how do you form an online relationship with these folks?  How do you share your passion for technology and the future of technology with these core readers?  What are some effective ways to reach out to them?  I will begin to answer this shortly.

   This brainstorming meeting between an author and a publisher could take a few hours or up to several weeks as you explore and develop a sophisticated profile of your reader.

   Once you have a detailed report on your readers and think you know them well, you will be ready to start forming relationships with them. As they get to know you, they will begin seeking you out for information and will feel comfortable sharing ideas with you.  These viral relationships will begin to grow.  In real life social situations I know it takes many “bowling nights” to befriend even one or two new acquaintances.  As we all know, relationship-building is an ever-evolving process.  Your job as an author is essentially to start a club, invite members, and give them a reason to keep coming to your meetings, share your expertise, plant ideas and nurture these new relationships one by one.  As importantly, you must participate in their meetings, post comments on their blog or website.  Become an active part of their group.

  Your efforts in outreach should never be about a monetary transaction (i.e. a sale of your book).  Savvy consumers know when they are being sold and they are turned off by the overture.  Selling is not your primary objective.  The goal of your “branding efforts” is to establish yourself  as one of the experts in your field.  You must believe that your ideas and solutions are unique, different, and important to share.  Your book is the “souvenir” of your knowledge, the compilation of all of your expertise and passion.  Folks will want to have this more detailed, researched “souvenir” whether it is packaged as a hardcover or paperback book, an eBook, a weekly podcast, a blog or a downloadable audio version.  As an aside, it is important to repurpose your intellectual property into all of these different formats so that all readers, regardless of their preferred reading or listening method, will be able to have access to your knowledge.

   Your next step is to set up domain names that best describe what you are trying to share.  I would suggest setting up a minimum of two domain names.  The first should be the title of the book, and the second, your name.  I recommend purchasing your domain names at www.godaddy.com.  The purchase price and yearly charge is minimal, and setting up a domain name is an easy, straightforward process.  I also recommend that you buy only the “dot com” extension.  It is not necessary to buy “dot net” or “dot org” extensions, as they are not as popular among web users.  Choosing good domain names is vital to the success of your efforts.  You may not be knowledgeable about websites and domains just yet, but try not to let this hold you back!  Owning your own web “real estate” in the form of a domain name will insure that your book and your name will be reserved especially for you.  No one else can use your domain name once you have made the purchase  The domain name is yours to keep forever (as long as you pay the yearly fee!) and it can evolve into your most powerful branding tool as you explore how to monetize your knowledge, ideas, expertise and lastly, the “souvenir”.

   In conclusion, two key components for successful viral marketing efforts should happen in the manuscript stage of the publishing process – asking good questions to discern who your reader is and choosing and purchasing domain names for your website.  You will then be two steps closer towards reaching the goals you have set for yourself and your book! 

How to develop your website for maximum “relationship” building will be in a future post.

Contact me with any feedback.

  

Social Networking Sites

Maintaining a Social Networking Site (SNS) requires considerable thought and time since it is necessary to add fresh and new material weekly. I believe it is worth the time and intellectual energy because of the benefits an author and publisher will receive when they are fully engaged on the World Wide Web.We currently maintain twelve SNS’s where we post title information, jacket art, author’s Q&A, videos, book trailers, reviews and anything else we believe to be relevant to the book, author or subject.

The leading benefit of posting your title on a SNS is that it maximizes your title’s search results. We believe that the more access there is to “impressions” of your book on the web, whether it be a review, bloggers post, an SNS, a podcast, and/or a dedicated website, the more likely your book will be noticed by those niche readers interested in the book’s particuliar subject.

Tip: When entering a BISAC for your title, list a minimum of three codes if your subject touches on different areas. This broadens the reach of your niche markets.

One example of how joining as many SNS’s that interest you can increase your chances of coming up on the first page of a search engines results involves a title, Charanavi. If I search through Yahoo’s search engine for “animal fortune telling,” the top results include this title, which was recently added to twelve SNS’s.

The conversation between the author and/or publisher and the reader begins when you meet on the web and begin to share your knowledge and passionate interests. As an author or publisher your goal is to form or join a community of likeminded readers that you can begin to form a relationship with. Did they like your book, what character did they find most interesting, would they like to see you expand on your idea? This kind of social networking is vital for your goals of sharing information, a story, a passion or an idea.

I have heard recently that the new mantra of “Content is King” has been replaced by “Contact is King.”

Be out in cyber space, engage with people and encourage your authors to be out there also.
For a list of SNS sites: http://www.midpointbooksnyc.com/

Book Expo America raison d’être 2008

Book Expo America (BEA) 2008 will be held at the Los Angeles Convention Center May 29 -June 1.

This annual book convention, formerly known as the American Booksellers Association, was established in 1901. The show moves from New York, Chicago, Wash DC and Los Angeles throughout the years. The public is not allowed access to the show, thus insuring attendees are part of the decision makers of the book industry.

There were 36,000 attendees at the New York show in 2007; 9,000 were book buyers and 4,000 librarians. Participation from librarians increased 107% in 2006.

Many times I have been asked by publishers, “How can I best utilize my time at the show?” and “Why am I here?” In response to these questions, here are some of my thoughts…

The BEA is about individual experiences and serendipity. Your goal is to make connections with a book buyer, librarian, magazine editor, rights manager, or a person who will inspire, surprise or challenge you. Sometimes you will be planting seeds for future connections that may not be obvious at the time. In these cases, it may not be until a few months later when you realize how fruitful your meeting was for you and your project. Essentially, you are building social capital at trade shows.

Come fully prepared to exhibit your passion. Booksellers, librarians, wholesalers, media people, and rights buyers are all looking to you to help them figure out what your booth is all about and why they should care. Folks can tell when you are fired up, charged and excited about publishing the books you are presenting. So first, before you come to the show, identify what you are excited about. This could include a book you are publishing, the subjects in which you publish, the authors you work with, the associations that inspire you. One of our publishers is passionate about their primary subject matter, Catholicism. They publish the former Cardinal Ratzinger’s backlist, now Pope Benedict XVI’s books. Expressing their enthusiasm for Catholicism, the Pope, and their books will be the driving force behind their conversations. They will then ask questions and listen intently to the attendee as the attendee’s needs, wants and expectations for the show are revealed. Remember to make the majority of your conversation about them. Ask questions about what they do, what they specialize in, and how you, as a publisher, can help them.

If you feel reluctant to approach attendees, rise above and just do it! The most meaningful conversations I have had at trade shows occurred because I forced myself to speak up. I look for interesting faces and slow-walking attendees and I lunge right in. This is imperative if you want to make the most of your BEA experience. If you prefer not to engage with strangers, send someone on your staff who can. As long as they understand the passion of your company and believe in its message they are more than qualified to attend the show. Wear comfortable shoes as standing is the most effective and inviting posture to attract attendees.

Conversations starters to use when introducing yourself to:

Booksellers: Are you looking for a particular subject category or a regional title? How many titles do you carry in your store? What is your store’s specialty? Do you like receiving galleys and/or finished books from publishers? Would you have time to give me feedback if I sent you our big book galleys? May I have your card and may I contact you with any additional questions about independent bookstores? May I give you a copy of our [galley, book, flyer, postcard, etc.]? Please take my card and thank you for your time.

Librarians: Are you an acquisition librarian? How many libraries do you purchase for? What is more important to you in making a buying decision: a galley, a review (what magazine), a wholesaler’s recommendation? Which wholesaler do you buy from most frequently? What times of year are you granted the most purchasing power in your city? Are your patrons asking for e-book downloads?

Wholesalers: What region in the country are you strongest in? Do you specialize in a particular subject? Do you have a direct relationship with Midpoint? Are you receiving Midpoint’s catalogs?

Media People: What type of media do you work in (print, TV, radio, blogs, internet, etc.)? Do you accept galleys for review? Who is the best person to send a galley to? What is the most convenient way for me to follow-up with you (email, phone, wait for you to contact me, etc.)?

Rights Buyers: What countries do you represent? What subjects do you specialize in? Do you accept unsolicited books for consideration or only submissions through an agent?

What do I bring to the show?

Galleys are the most coveted freebie. Galleys convey to the attendee that they are ahead of the buzz of a book and that you are on schedule with your publishing process. If you plan to bring galleys, ship 200-300. If you do not have galleys, finished books are another giveaway option. Ship 100-200 books. Additionally, bring flyers, bookmarks, posters, and/or postcards to give away. Don’t forget your business card with your email address noted.

Booths to visit in your spare time:

Ingram Lightning Source for print-on-demand and e-book information. Re-purposing content is vital to the independent publisher. Harlequin, Harper Collins, Random House and Simon & Schuster to name a few are digitizing all of their properties. Do you have books you cannot afford to print because you only need ten? Why not re-purpose to an e-book or a print-on-demand book? It is easier than you think.

Microsoft Live is offering a free scan of your books, unlimited, if you do not have a PDF of the file. I will be writing about this in a later blog.

Audible.com for audio downloads. Amazon purchased this #1 audio book reseller in early 2008. This is another way to re-purpose your content. No printing costs, no shipping, no returns.

Midpoint works with all of these vendors on your behalf but we think it is important for you to educate yourself about the transformations in our industry. Have you thought about selling a chapter online for $.99? This model is already available to us. Adding digitization rights to your author contracts, converting the file to digital, and monetizing this re-purposed content is vitally important for you, the independent publisher. Don’t be caught without digitization rights.

Your competition: How are they pricing their books? Are they available in e-book and/or audible download formats? How does their jacket art look? Which subjects are they publishing?

I hope you will take full advantage of the opportunities you are sure to find at BEA. Bring paper and pens to take lots of notes. Mingle with our Midpoint team. And most importantly, have fun promoting the project you love!!