NEWS

Massive interest from the family magazines for the books which appeared in the January 2010 Farley Book List Childrens/Parenting. So a big thank you to the publishers - Crimson and Bayard - for providing such beautiful content.  Reviews will subsequently appear throughout the summer.  Also as a result of their appearance this month, two author articles and a feature extract for the summer have been secured with prestigious family magazines. 

January 2010 TIP OF THE MONTH

Prepare well enough in advance and build in enough time to be able to maximise publicity.

It's such a shame when beautiful books arrive in my office, but they arrive too late to really be able to maximise their impact. The media like enough leadtime to be able to run any reviews around the time of publication - not months later.  Please bear in mind these factors -

-   The Bookseller trade magazine likes to hear about new books 6 months in advance.

-   In the consumer media, glossy magazines usually have a lead time of at least 3 months, but magazines such as Country Living usually plan 6 months in advance.

This means that the magazines would like a minimum of ... a finalised cover image, sample chapters and contents and a definite publication date set which won't change well in advance. 

November/December's TIP OF THE MONTH

Book Jackets

Having poured all your passion, time and money into your book (perhaps your first book) it's just as important to spent just as much time and effort getting your book jacket professionally designed.  Remember, when someone is picking up your book from a bookshop shelf they haven't got your indepth knowledge of the contents of your book.  They'll actually spend very little time trying to find out whether it's for them or not, so the design and the tone is vital and this can't be stressed strongly enough.

Tips

-  spend time in a bookshop looking at the sort of books it's going to sit amongst on the shelf

-  find book jackets that you like - examine why you like them and whether something similar would be appropriate for yours

-  having commissioned a designer and got the design back, does it really represent the book? - has it set the right tone? - will it encourage the browser inside if they know absolutely nothing about the book at all?

-  will the design be impactful/recognisable when reproduced quite small.  Remember .. when books are reviewed and featured in newspapers, magazines and on websites the book jacket never appears full size ... will it work if it's twice the size of a postage stamp?  

Final tip .. have fun.  It's really exciting to see your book reviewed in the media.  The media want to review things that are good and look great.