When writing and marketing your book, creativity is a necessity, but sometimes an author can go too far. While authors may be proud of being unique or even eccentric, they will want to avoid stepping over the line into crazy.

Hundreds of experts are out there writing, blogging, and speaking about what authors need to do to promote their books, but sometimes, authors need to hear about what not to do as well.

I’ve assembled a few of the more outlandish stories I’ve heard, and while they may seem truly crazy, I guarantee they are all actual things authors have done in the process of writing or marketing their books. Just on the slim chance you might be going down the road to crazy authorship, here are a few warnings of what not to do:

Bookstore Mistakes:

These two stories were both told to me by a friend who manages a bookstore:

We agreed to carry this author’s book on consignment. As long as a book continues to sell, we will keep carrying the book. But one author did not sell any books, so after six months, I called him to tell him we could no longer carry his title. He informed me that he had actually sold twenty books in my store. I told him the stack of eight books we had initially taken from him was still there. He replied that he had been coming in every couple of weeks and refilling the stack. Because we are not a computerized store but do manual inventory, when he kept refilling his stack, we had no way of keeping track that the books had sold, and consequently, I couldn’t pay him for those books. Bottom line, check with the bookstore manager before leaving new books in the store.

We had a local author whose books we placed in the local book section. One day I came into the store and all of her books were on the table in the front of the store with the bestsellers. I moved them back to the local author section. When the situation happened again, I explained to the author that customers looking for local books would have difficulty finding her books if they were not in the local section, but it didn’t seem to make a difference. A few days later, I came in and her books were again on the front table. After I had to move them a couple more times, I finally called the author and told her we would not sell her books anymore.

Festivals:

This story was told to me by an author who attended an art fair:

I was at an art fair and sharing a booth with another author. She had just had her story turned into an audio book. As a way to market herself, she decided she would bring a pair of headphones with her so people could stop by and listen to the audio book. Only she didn’t stop there. She stood outside of the booth and then ran up to people and put the headphones on their heads without asking their permission all the while exclaiming, “Listen to my book!” Needless to say, she kept people from getting anywhere near the booth to see my book and people were clearly starting to go out of their way to avoid us when they saw what she was doing to other innocent passersby.

Interviews:

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard authors say the following when I’ve interviewed them. It does not make an interviewer happy:

“In your book, why does your character Mary decide to…?”

“You’ll have to read the book to find out.”

“Can you tell us though why you decided to have Mary do it?”

“No, I’m afraid I’ll give too much away. You’ll have to read the book to find out.”

In short, if an author doesn’t want to tell me about his or her book, I’m not going to want to read it.

Book Introductions:

One author wrote an opening paragraph to his introduction that said something along these lines:

Because I realize the situations in my book and the fantasy world I’ve created might at first be confusing and hard to follow for readers, I decided to write this introduction to explain things so my readers won’t get lost while reading the story.

Trust me, telling a reader your book is confusing is not going to help you sell books, and if your book is confusing, you need to keep working on it rather than publishing it.

Children’s Books:

You may not believe this, but some authors don’t know what is appropriate for a children’s book. I heard about one author who had his animal characters investigating a murder. Worst of all, the murder victim was a female, and the primary suspects were her husband and her lover. I hope I don’t have to say that murder, much less adultery, is not an appropriate subject for children.

Websites:

I could list many mistakes here that authors make with their websites, but this author made what has to be the winner for all time craziest story. The following is a slight rephrasing of a posting I actually saw on an author’s website, but it represents what I’m afraid I’ve heard about more than one author (hence the fill in the blanks):

If you want to buy my book, I can’t mail it to you because _______ [the post office, the U.S. Government, the League of Evil, the aliens secretly running our planet, etc.] is purposely stealing books I’ve mailed so people won’t learn the truth about _______ [Bigfoot, King Arthur, the Bermuda Triangle, Jesus, aliens etc]. So I’ve turned it into an ebook you can download from my website.

Perhaps as an author your books are not selling as well as you wish and you’re wondering what you’re doing wrong, but after reading these stories, I’m sure you can pat yourself on the back that at least you’re doing a few things right.

Irene Watson is the Managing Editor of Reader Views, where avid readers can find reviews of recently published books as well as read interviews with authors. Her team also provides author publicity and a variety of other services specific to writing and publishing books.

What’s the common denominator in measuring the success of any profitable author?

One word: Platform.

An author’s platform is basically an author’s group of fans. These are the people who will likely buy anything that the author writes or creates. These folks often look to the author as a thought leader and closely follow suggestions, advice and recommendations made by the author. Consequently, smart authors want to start building a platform sooner rather than later.

This article explains a few of the ways authors can build a platform starting now:

• An author’s blog. A blog can be tremendously useful in continuing a conversation started in the author’s books. It is ideal for vetting new ideas or content as well as sharing personal information about the author. Understand this latter point is very powerful. Why? Fans want to know the personal stuff of their leaders or gurus. In essence, fans try (or want) to live vicariously through the author’s life and sharing personal details facilitates this desire and helps to create a stronger bond between author and fan.
• An Amazon Author Central page. Only authors with books listed on Amazon are eligible for this page. It is a page which can contain an author’s bio, bibliography, rss feeds from the author’s blog (see above), a photo, plus an embedded video which can be either book trailer for a specific book or more of an introductory video about the author him or herself.
• A social media following. Another way for an author to reach out, interact and build a platform is with social media sites. At a minimum an author should have and use accounts on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. Social media is so powerful precisely because it is social and provides the ability to communicate one on one with fans.
• Email list. The ability to broadcast email fans is one of the best tools in building an author’s platform. Fact is that when an author can email an entire large list of fans and potential fans that author has incredible power to communicate, persuade and sway without the filter of a social media site. The best place to collect names and email addresses is via opt-in forms on blogs, websites and even on Facebook fan pages.

Want to discover more about how to build an author’s platform? Then you’ve got to check out the secrets revealed at http://www.realfastbook.com/ There you’ll find out not only how to crank out a high-quality, high profit book real fast but also how to build a robust author’s platform that can result in long-term financial success.

A few months ago I had a phone call.  It went like this:

“Michaelbrent!  Hey, it’s John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt.*”

“Hey, JJJS,” said I.  ‘Cause that’s how I roll, baby.  “What’s up?”

“Not much,” he said.  “Hey, I know we haven’t talked in about five years, but thanks for sending me an update every so often.”

“Welcome,” I said.  I am pithy that way.

“We at ABCDEF Production Company* want to option a script you gave us five years ago.  We’d also like to pay you a borderline-obscene amount of money to do rewrites on it.”

“Okay,” I said.  I hung up, then ran through the office where I work screaming something like “I RULE!” over and over again.  I may also have been nude.  The details are hazy.

Okay, so did you catch the most important part of the above?  No, it wasn’t the “obscene money” part (it’s my FAVORITE part, but not the most IMPORTANT part).

Anything?  Anything?  Bueller?  Bueller?  Bueller?

The most IMPORTANT part of the above was the part where JJJS mentioned my periodic updates.

Creative writing is a lot like dating: you never know who will turn out to be “the one.”  The one publisher who puts your work in front of a million people.  The one agent who will get your work in the right hands.  The one producer who will call out of the blue to offer you a bucket o’ cash to do work on your own work.  So, because you don’t know who will be “the one,” you treat them ALL like they are prospective life partners.
This doesn’t mean “be needy.”  Nothing turns off “the one” like you – yes YOU – calling every day in the vain hope that he/she/it will realize that you are “the one” for them.

But everyone likes to know they are important.  This is true as much in publishing and movie-writing as it is in dating.  So you must walk that fine line between “needy” and “forgetful”: any time you make a significant contact – someone who loves your work (for real, not in the “I loved it but no thanks” kind of way you see in so many polite rejection letters) but who cannot, for outside reasons, help you or move forward with it right now.  This could be a publisher who has his next two years of publications already mapped out, an agent with an extremely full dance card, or even a new friend you meet at a book convention who may someday provide a nice review of one of your books.  In any of these types of situations, make sure you follow up your new contact with a personal note – email or the “old fashioned” kind.

The note should do three things:

1) Remind them who you are (e.g., “It was nice to meet you during the panel at ABC Book Conference the other day,” or “I had a hoot listening to your lecture at Barnes and Noble last Thursday,” or “Thanks for not pressing stalking charges in court over the weekend”).  These people meet lots of folks, so say something to give them a gentle hint of where you met and who the heck you are.

2)  Thank them for any advice or kind words they gave you.  People like to hear gratitude.  Be sincere, not fawning, but be appreciative.  “I LOVED EVERYTHING YOU SAID AND DID FOR ME…IT CHANGED MY LIFE” is not as effective as “Thanks for reading my book Billy: Messenger of Powers – your kind words were appreciated, and even though we can’t work together right now because of your busy schedule, your courtesy and professionalism were wonderful to see.”

3)  Let them know you will keep in contact.  Not “I look forward to seeing you as I peep out from behind your closet door tonight” – this is definitely a turn-off to “the one.”  But you might consider something like “If you don’t mind, I’d like to keep you in my list of contacts so I can drop you a line from time to time.”

Then, after you’ve sent the missive, schedule a follow-up for three months, six months, or even in a year.  Just enough so that when they run out of work, or need some writing services that you would be great at providing, you will be there for them.  You goal is not to consume their lives, but to position yourself as someone who is always on their “short list” of people who can do something for them at a moment’s notice.

Because folks, chance and fame only come a-knockin’ once in a while.  So you better be home when it does.

And it also helps if, when fame looks at its schedule for the day and sees it has an opening or two, your name is the first one that pops into its head.

Make relationships.  Then maintain them.  Because you never know…you might have met “the one” already.

*  The names have been changed to protect the innocent.  Except mine.  I ain’t innocent: I stole a candy bar in fifth grade, and the whisperings about me having something to do with the assassination of Darth Vader are entirely true.

Michaelbrent Collings is the author of amazon.com bestselling e-books Billy: Messenger of Powers and How to Pimp Your Book: Cheap (or FREE) Ways to Market and Sell Your Self-Published Book. In addition to being bestsellers, as of this writing five of his works are in the top fifty highest-rated books at smashwords.com, out of over 15,000 works published on the site.

Coffee, Tea, or Water? What’s the first question you get when you sit down at a restaurant? What would you like to drink? What is the first question you get as an author by everyone you meet, “What is your book about?”

Every author needs a 30 sec. elevator speech, or talking points. Make these points simple and clear. What is your book really about? While you are thinking about your options, imagine offering them coffee, tea, or water, instead of the whole juice bar. Write one or two sentences that capture the essence of your book.

These are the talking points we use for John English, author of The Little Book on Relationship: “The Little Book offers tools and techniques to evolve your knowledge of self, while recognizing your connection to all that is through every encounter in your life.” Check out John’s book at www.mydreamtimellc.com

Once you feel clear that you have a workable set of talking points, practice these points in front of a mirror, with your spouse, with friends. Are you having a hard time saying the lines you’ve chosen? Try simplifying them, or switching them around. Keep working with them until you can say them and feel totally relaxed while getting your message across.

The friendliness and openness you offer along with your talking points will really help people to choose your book. Remember, you are just getting your foot into the door with these talking points. When you start from a point of brevity and clarity, there is always the option of opening the door further. Then you can expand on your favorite topic.

Mari Selby, Director of Selby ink. We are passionate about promoting authors and their books. Selby ink does both traditional as well as online publicity and promotion. We specialize in books that make a difference in people’s lives. www.selbyink.com