If your book or novel doesn’t fit into a well-defined mass market box that the large publishing houses cater to, you may find yourself researching smaller publishers. In today’s world, that seems to mean e-publishers.

So, now that you’ve been offered a contract from an e-publisher you’re ecstatic. It feels great to say, “A publisher wants to publish my book.” But once you come off that high by reading the small print, your euphoria is replaced with questions. Reality sets in. What, exactly, does signing with an e-publisher do for you that self-publishing does not? Or is there an advantage to self-publishing over signing with an e-publisher?

Now that self-publishing without upfront fees, through Lulu, for example, is available and many e-publishers are either dispensing with an automatic print run, charging you for print, or making print dependent upon number of sales, it’s time to examine what exactly an e-publisher does for you versus self-publishing. So, let’s take a closer look at each scenario.

E-publish

You now have a publisher’s name to announce. You can tell everybody, “I’m published by “so-and-so.” In return, the e-publisher may:

* Provide a web site
* Format the book during production
* May or may not edit the book and you may or may not agree with the edits
* Provide a cover
* If print, they will provide the ISBN and get your book into Amazon and Barnes and Noble, although some e-publishers charge a fee for print
* Determine the release schedule
* Bond with other writers with the same publisher
* Draw traffic to your book by readers of that publisher if similar in genre
* May or may not provide your book in print
* Insist you spend time promoting, including participating in author chats

Self-publish

You have to go it alone. Sometimes you will be dismissed as being “self-published” and reviews will be harder to obtain. In return, you can:

* Create your own web site presence
* Control the schedule
* Design your own cover, including the ability to use the cover in promotion
* Format your book design during production
* Edit as you wish or hire your own editor
* Set your own price above POD fees, although ISBN packages may set price too high
* Determine availability in electronic and/or print
* Retain the rights to sell to one of the big publishers
* Control promotion of your book and not have it listed in areas you deem inappropriate

You may have noticed that it really comes down to how much you’re capable of or have the desire to do yourself. Especially if you have your own web site, and the professional editing, graphic, and production skills. With self-publishing you will have to get your book on Amazon and Barnes and Noble, which will require the purchase of an ISBN or the ISBN package that Lulu provides. But the additional distribution fees may raise the price of your book to a point that will not sell. Or you could self-publish with Lulu, without purchasing the ISBN package, thereby, setting your own price.

But self-publishing may be worth it if you have your heart set on seeing your book in print and the e-publisher has set a certain number of sales before they will put it in print. Note: some types of books do not sell as well in e-format and will never get enough sales to then move into print. The e-publisher will retain the print rights for a set amount of time and you’ll have to wait for them to expire before you either sell them to another publisher or self-publish it yourself anyway.

Only you can determine which publishing method is best for you and your book. But, whatever method you choose, promotion is really going to be up to you.

Kathy Holmes writes women’s fiction while raising an awareness for women over 40 and fatherless daughters. She has self-published a nonfiction book called “Myths of the Fatherless” about her journey to find her father and her first novel, “Real Women Wear Red.” She can be reached at http://www.kathyholmes.net.

As CEO, founder and tour coordinator for Pump Up Your Book Promotion, I get many questions that run the gamut from “What is a virtual book tour?” to “How many books will I sell during my tour?”

To explain virtual book tours, it’s simply an online tour where you will be stopping off at various blogs giving interviews, receiving reviews for your book, or guest posting during a set time.

Sounds easy, but it’s a lot of work that the author may not realize until he or she does one.

The beauty of virtual book tours is that your book will be appearing all over the Internet without ever leaving your home. Everyone by now has heard of them and quite a few of you have been on one.

But, for those who have not, I’m going to explain what virtual book tours can do for you and how you can make full use of one if you are going it alone.

I have been running Pump Up Your Book Promotion Virtual Book Tours for a scant three months and already we are booked solid with great names such as Jane Green, Caridad Pineiro and Sandi Kahn Shelton. But, right along with these bestselling authors are unknown authors trying to pave a way into the vast book buyer’s territory; namely, those readers out there who have never heard of them because they aren’t well-known authors and perhaps would have never known about them if it weren’t for online book tours.

And that’s the beauty of online tours. Anyone can do them.

Whether you set one up yourself or you hire someone to run your tour for you, you start out by targeting book blogs and bloggers who write the same genre. The reasoning for the latter is that if that particular blogger has friends who visit because of the genre, your book will be more appealing to them.

However, that’s not a die hard rule.

The key is exposure to all audiences. While John Smith might like to read a good horror book, he might enjoy a good art book. Even though the two genres are completely different, don’t pass up a chance to appear on a blog that doesn’t match your genre if the host invites you because you just never know who might stop by.

Which brings me to the point of this article. A virtual book tour is perpetual. Even though your tour may last a month and you may or may not sell books (although not selling any is highly unlikely), as long as the host keeps your interview in their archives, your stop will be linked up in the search engines forever.

The key to making your tour successful is to get on as many blogs as you possibly can. The more blogs you appear, the more links go into the search engines and this ups your rankings for your particular key search words.

So, not only is your tour perpetual, your rankings in the search engines go through the roof and that’s the sole purpose of a virtual book tour. While it’s fun to watch your tour in progress, what’s really going to matter is afterwards when your tour is long over.

The beauty of virtual book tours is that, if the bloggers have thought to use tags in your interviews, your tour stops should come up on the very first page of the search engines using your key search words. It’s a known fact that if your book does not come up on the first three pages of the search engines using any given search words that describe your book, you’ve just lost a customer.

Millions of people use the Internet each day. By incorporating SEO (search engine optimization), which our company is known for, your tour stands to outshine the rest.

Virtual book tours can be fun, but they can also be a crash course in finding out how blogs and the search engines work and how you can make it work for you to make your tour something to be proud of.

Dorothy Thompson is CEO/Founder of Pump Up Your Book Promotion, a full service public relations firm specializing in online book tours. You can visit her website at http://www.pumpupyourbookpromotion.com.

PUMP UP YOUR BOOK PROMOTION VIRTUAL BOOK TOURS
“Leave your tour in our hands!”
http://www.pumpupyourbookpromotion.com
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The following is an excerpt from the book Dead Connection
by Alafair Burke
Published by Henry Holt and Company, LLC; July 2007;$19.95US/$24.95CAN; 978-0-8050-7785-8
Copyright © 2007 Alafair Burke

1

The man’s first look at the newspaper item was a casual one, followed immediately by a more deliberate perusal. But it was the photograph accompanying the story that had him transfixed.

Caroline Hunter had preoccupied his thoughts in recent weeks, but this was his first opportunity to reflect on her appearance. To his surprise, she reminded him of a girl he had worked hard not to think about for a very long time. So proud. So uppity. Caroline Hunter had the look of a woman convinced of her own intelligence, a woman who assumed she could do whatever she wanted — get whatever she wanted — without any repercussions.

The man wondered if Caroline Hunter had any regrets as those two bullets tore through her body. Maybe for some women it took dying in the street like a dog to reflect upon one’s decisions and the effects they have on others. He felt his muscles tense, crumpling the pages of newsprint in his hands.

Then he placed the paper neatly onto the breakfast table, took another sip of tea, and looked down at the muted traffic in the street below the window. He smiled. Fate was presenting him an even more promising opportunity than he had understood when he first spotted the article. Details remained to be worked out, but he was certain of one thing: Caroline Hunter was only the beginning. There would be more stories, just like this one, about women just like her.

Three hundred and sixty-four days later, Amy Davis finished a second glass of red wine, pondering which excuse she should exploit to call it a night. She should have known better than to agree to a first date that started at eleven o’clock. Even by New York City standards, such a late invitation was an unequivocal sign that the guy wanted to avoid the cost of dinner but leave open the possibility of a spontaneous one-nighter.

But then the guy — he claimed his name was Brad — had suggested meeting at Angel’s Share, not one of the usual meat markets. Amy still thought of the cozy lounge as her secret oasis, tucked so discreetly inside a second-floor dive Japanese restaurant on Stuyvesant Street. She decided to take Brad’s awareness of the place as a sign. Then she looked out her apartment window and saw the snow, the first of the season. To Amy, the first flakes of winter were magical, almost spiritual. Watching them fall to the quiet square of grass beneath the oversized bay windows at Angel’s Share would be fantastic, much more satisfying than observing them from the fire escape of her fifth-floor Avenue C walk-up.

And so Amy had taken a risk. None of the previous risks had panned out, but that didn’t mean that Brad wouldn’t. Besides, all she had to lose was another night at home with Chowhound the persian cat, falling asleep to the muted glow of her television. Three weeks earlier, she had committed herself to this process, and nights like this were the price she would have to pay if she were ever going to find The One.

She knew the date was a mistake precisely one second after she heard the voice behind her at the bar’s entrance. “Are you Amy?” It was a nice voice. Deep, but not brusque. Friendly, but calm. For exactly one second, she was optimistic. For that one second, she believed that Brad with the good voice, who was familiar with Angel’s Share, whose first date with her fell with the first snow, might just make a good companion for the evening, if not more.

Then the second passed, and she turned to meet the man who went with the voice. The truth was, Amy did not care about looks. People said that all the time, but Amy actually meant it. Her ex-boyfriend — perhaps he had never become a boyfriend, but the man she’d most recently dated — had been handsome as hell, but by the time they were through, she found him repulsive. This time, she was putting looks aside to focus on the qualities that counted.

Brad’s face was not unattractive, but neither was it familiar — a surprise to Amy since they had exchanged multiple pictures over the last week. Internet daters posted photographs, so, even though Amy did not particularly care, she looked. It was nice, after all, to have a visual image to go with the instant messages and e-mails. This face in front of her, however, did not match the image she’d carried.

As Brad squeezed through a small group of people to ask the host for a table, she mentally shuffled through the pictures he’d sent and realized that in most, his face had been obscured — sunglasses on both the fishing boat and the ski slopes, a hat on the golf course, a darkened dinner table at some black tie event. One head shot had been pretty clear, but even a toad could eke out one good picture. In retrospect, she realized she had used that one good picture to fill in the blanks on the rest.

Once they were seated, Amy tried to put her finger on precisely what was different. The face was puffier. Older, too. In fact, Brad looked much older than the thirty-eight years he claimed in his profile. Sure, she might have shaved off a couple of years herself, but she was talking much older in his case. She realized there was no point in getting bogged down in the differences. He looked completely different than she had envisioned, and that was that.

By the end of the first glass of wine, she knew it wasn’t just Brad’s face that didn’t match up to his online counterpart. According to Brad’s profile, he was a gourmand and a red wine junkie. She allowed him to order first, afraid she might embarrass herself with a passé selection. After he requested a cheap Merlot mass-produced in California, she proceeded to ask for a Barbera d’Asti. If Brad was going to lie, then she was going to rack up Piedmont prices on his tab.
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Excerpt
The following is an excerpt from the book History Lesson for Girls
by Aurelie Sheehan
Published by Penguin; June 2007;$14.00US/$17.50CAN; 978-0-14-311190-0
Copyright © 2006 Aurelie Sheehan

Chapter One

One Day I saw them, our dream horses, and on that day I pulled over to the side of the road and cried. There they were, Appaloosas and roans and bays, and I thought I saw, squinting into the last bit of sunlight, a gray. All the horses moved together, a makeshift herd — maybe they’d heard my car, or maybe it was a chill, the first winter breeze, almost imperceptible on a summer day. So many years later and now here they were in front of me. The horses trembled, shifted, and then became calm and separated out again, twelve or twenty of them, more than enough for the Alison and Kate Horse Training Company.

She saved me. That’s the first thing you should know about Kate. It was the year we moved to Weston, the year my parents went haywire, the year my back started curving out of control as if it were the life of the party. She was five feet seven and had long brown hair bleached by the sun, and her father was an Egyptian emperor. Was he for real? Real enough for a small suburban dynasty. Real enough to pass on a legacy.

I think of Kate all the time. I think of her like I’ve got this little silver Egyptian cat in my pocket, a little silver talisman that won’t go away. I think of her, and then I think of him, too, Tut Hamilton, sham shaman in suburbia. I can’t forget him, any more than I can forget her.

The thing is, she saved me that year, and then it was my turn. That’s what friendship is. That’s how to make history.

I was thirteen when my parents and I moved to the fancy town of Weston from maligned and honorable Norwalk, two towns over. We were ready for anything, ready for the good things to start happening, and the first thing that went wrong was the blue room.

Mom wanted her studio to be blue, despite the fact that most painters prefer a room absent of color, a blank wall, a clean palette. She’d had a vision, you see, a dream of a blue room.

My father offered to paint the room for her, but she would choose the color, of course. She and I went to the paint store together.

“These men — they’re painting the world, creating color wheels, color contrasts, color inspirations — without any real conception, no awareness at all, of what they’re doing. They could be artists — but no, no — instead of using these glorious choices — all the glory, all the opportunity, Alison — they just sit around drinking coffee out of a thermos and painting houses tan, tan, and tan again. How dreary . . . ”

She continued talking as we got out of our Corolla (it also happened to be tan) and walked the short distance from the parking lot to the shopping center. I did hope she’d stop, or at least lower her voice, before we got to the store. She had a way of causing a commotion, despite her size. She was a tiny, fragile person, swathed in scarves and perfumes and charms.

Men of uncertain age and weight looked our way as we came in: Scheherazade and the too tall, too bony, too elbowy stalk, in a back brace, beside her.

My mother breezed by their troubling, huntery expressions, and we settled in before the paint chips. I’d just turned thirteen, my back was curved, and my parents were curved, too — bohemians in Connecticut, the Land of Plenty. Either all the colors looked good to me or none of them did. Somehow it seemed that this, like everything else, could go either way.

Mom, however, was confident. She hummed with satisfaction, picking out various small, hopeful cards from the rack, cocking her head, pursing her lips — rejecting one, then the other, until she came to her blue.
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The following is an excerpt from the book:
No Experts Needed: The Meaning of Life According to You!
by Louise Lewis
Published by iUniverse, Inc.
May 2007;$18.95US
978-0-595-42971-4
Copyright © 2007 Louise Lewis

I have always believed that everyone has a book in them. They merely have to take a look at their lives, past or present, to realize that life is indeed stranger than fiction. More likely than not, everyone’s lives would make for quite an entertaining story, to say the least.

Now I’m not saying that I think everyone’s book would be worthy of a Pulitzer or be chosen for Oprah’s Book Club. You’re holding the evidence to back up that statement on both accounts. But I do think there is something special and unique about each of our lives that should be written down and then shared with others. Having said all of that, I was totally unaware of the book that was lurking deep inside of me. I discovered it (or rather it discovered me) when I unexpectedly began a new chapter in my life.

The story I’m sharing with you began when I was set free (laid off) from my job of eleven years selling advertising space for publications in high tech. Being set free simultaneously marked the beginning of a new chapter in my life. From day one of this new chapter, many truths were revealed to me. For instance, I immediately interpreted being set free from my job as something positive from which I would later benefit, rather than something negative that I would be challenged to overcome. Even though it would’ve been easy to panic about no longer having a source of income, I chose not to waste any energy thinking about the negative aspect of the situation.

Another truth that revealed itself was the knowledge that I was supposed to take advantage of the rare opportunity of having some time off. Therefore, I didn’t immediately start looking for another job. Granted, with no source of income, this was an odd decision to make. However, I had worked nonstop since the age of sixteen, and I felt that I deserved some time away from the rat race. That was my story, and I faithfully stuck to it.

Adding to the list of truths was the fact that I knew, without a doubt, that whatever I experienced during this new chapter of my life would have a profound and lasting effect on my future. Without knowing how or why, I was very aware from the start that I was being lovingly, divinely guided toward something special.
The last of my truths was knowing that the significance of the choices I would make during my new chapter would be revealed to me one at a time, and only when I was in the moment - not a minute sooner.

Armed with these truths, I not only felt excited but also well prepared to begin my new chapter. But no matter how ready I felt, I was acutely aware of the fact that if this indeed was a new chapter, nothing but blank pages stared me in the face. Where was I to begin?

After a bit of soul-searching, the one thing I knew for certain was that I wanted my new chapter in life to be based on a commitment to living in Spirit, rather than in Ego.

As I see it, the ego houses the more base elements of human nature, for example, fear, self-doubt, criticism, control issues, and selfishness that if left unchecked, will create negative energy in my life. On the flip side, when my life is focused on Spirit, the ultimate Source of truth, I am guided by more positive elements, such as courage, forgiveness, compassion and generosity.

Therefore, the first step of my journey involved making a commitment to allow Spirit to guide my every move and to let nothing stand in the way of that. I was convinced that by following Spirit, the pages of my new chapter would be filled with a very special story, one that would involve adventure, personal growth, and a change in lifestyle.

As my new chapter developed, my path crossed with those of many wonderful people — normal, everyday folks whom I met during my travels, as well as in my own backyard. I listened to their stories along the way. After each encounter, I asked these people (along with family and friends) for a gift. I asked everyone to answer one question: what is the meaning of life?

I also insisted that each person provide a spontaneous answer. In other words, he or she had to write the answer right then and there, while in my presence. Why did I insist on this? To answer that question, I have to adapt the saying “God lives in the details.” My version goes something like this: I believe that God (the ultimate truth) lives in the spontaneous moment. In other words, I believe that what you know to be true can be communicated in the moment, right now, without long deliberation or second-guessing. And you certainly don’t need an expert to tell you what you already know.

Not surprisingly, the overwhelming majority of people I met agreed to join in on the adventure of my book. And I walked away from this journey with my heart filled with memorable gifts that will reward me until the end of my days.

Writing this book has been a personal journey for me as well as for some of the people you are about to meet. Due to the personal nature of some of their stories, I am not divulging every detail out of respect for each person. However, I will share with you the fact that with each person I met, I was reminded that I was not alone.
With each meeting, I was reminded that no matter what their race, religion, or geography, people possess far more similarities than they do differences. When you think about it, we all eventually experience pretty much the same stuff that life dishes out: the same joys, the same pain, the same sorrow. Somehow, believing this allows me to walk through life with a greater sense of belonging in the world.
I will forever be grateful to the people I met along the way. Because of them, I’m more committed than ever to being a more curious participant in life, a more compassionate listener, and a more adamant believer in the saying “We are all alike.”

I know that I cannot change the whole world, but I most certainly can change my world by asking those around me to lay focus to the meaning in their life. Therefore, it is my sincere hope that this book ignites conscious thought so that more people can find their own answers to the meaning of life. With this hope in my heart, I invite you to begin your own journey of discovery, which may very well begin by you asking this question to those people who cross your path. You’ll be amazed by what you hear.

And so, the tale of my journey begins. Thank you for coming along!
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When someone asks why write? My answer — writing is like making love. When they ask how to write? Same answer. For each writer the act of writing is as individual as his/her own personality.

I write because I have to. I have to because I want to. I want to because I love it. When I was a journalist for the Hollywood Reporter magazine and Capital Style, I wrote my pieces in a smart-sassy magazine journalist’s voice. In my head, I was a cross between Rosalind Russell in His Girl Friday and Dorothy Parker. But when I started to write my first novel — historical fiction set in Paris in the time of the Impressionists, I discovered I had to develop a new way of writing, a new “voice.” This voice was more lyrical, even poetic. I did read poetry to develop a capacity for metaphor. I read or re-visited classic novels written decades, even centuries ago to understand why they endure.

I feel presumptuous giving advice to writers on how to write. There are far better sources for that: E.M. Forester’s Aspects of the Novel is a classic and as useful today as when it was written in 1927. There are dozens of excellent how-to books for writers that outline the craft. Creating Unforgettable Characters by Linda Seger is helpful. Is writing a craft or an art? It’s both. To learn the mechanics of the craft, consult those manuals. To learn the art, consult your heart. I would like to share my experience writing my first novel and hope it resonates with other writers.

Inspiration. I believe the inspiration, the idea, for a book comes from the Universe. In my experience, my novel came to me as I was studying for an exam on the Impressionists for my class at Christie’s Education graduate program. For me, reading that art history textbook was as fascinating as reading a novel. Were there any novels about these people I wondered? In the year 2000, I didn’t know of any. I had seen clips of a film about Vincent Van Gogh starring Kirk Douglas. And of course, the musical Gigi loosely based on a story by Colette. But these were both Hollywoodized and set after the truly important years of 1860-1870.

Characters. My novel began with the characters. I knew it was important for my main characters to change as they experienced their lives. I wanted the heroine, in particular, to become a changed person at the end of the story from who she was in the beginning because that is true to real life. I wrote concise back-stories on index cards for each character so I would know where/when they were born, their parentage, their childhoods — all the factors that shaped them to become who they were in the novel. I didn’t use the back-story in the narrative, but the footprint was there between the lines.

Place and time. The more hours I spent at the library researching the history, the art, the politics, the changes in technology and social relations, the more at home I felt in that setting and knew I could transport others there with me. The number of reference books I read is prodigious. But I’m a nerd and love that aspect of writing. I worked as a library assistant in college and still feel in a safety cocoon in the musty stacks of a library.

Plot. Plot unfolds as life does — as a consequence of characters’ choices, actions and reactions. In my case, plot was also guided by history because historical fiction must be accurate at all costs on the “history” side. The fiction side can be pure fun. Writers are all a bit mad, I think, and I am no exception. I remember waking up in the middle of the night, hearing in my head the perfect dialogue between two of my characters for a scene. Of course, I got up and scribbled down some notes before falling back asleep.

Music true to the time period was helpful for me at some points in the narrative process. I deduced that listening to the music that my characters would have listened to in 1867 would help put me in their world. It was transgressive and I credit the verisimilitude of some emotional passages in the book to those waltzes of Strauss and Offenbach.

Polishing. Finally, the most enjoyable part of writing for me is rewriting. It feels like putting the final touches on a painting, adding highlights and correcting mistakes. I remember spending three hours changing the wording on just one paragraph. But what a paragraph it turned out to be!

Writer’s Block. For me, it doesn’t exist. If you have something to say, then write. If you don’t, go do something else. Come back when you do. Then you can write a heartbreakingly beautiful novel and experience the joy of those two little words . . .

The End.

© 2007 Debra Finerman

Debra Finerman attended Christie’s Graduate Program in Connoisseurship and the Art Market. Mademoiselle Victorine: A Novel (Published by Three Rivers Press. July 2007;$13.95US/$17.95CAN; 978-0-307-35283-5) is her first work of fiction after a career as a journalist in Los Angeles and Washington, D.C. She worked for The Hollywood Reporter Magazine, Beverly Hills Today, Beverly Hills Magazine and Capital Style. She currently lives in New York and Connecticut.

For more information, please visit www.debrafinerman.com or www.mademoisellevictorine.com