Please welcome authro Jo Sparkes as she shares her novel “Feedback: How to Give it How to Get it”. Jo will also be giving away a $50 Amazon.com gift certificate to one randomly drawn commenter during the tour. Be sure to follow her tour and comment often for your chance to win. 
SELF-PUBLISHING
What I’ve Learned So Far
- Jo Sparkes
This is my first venture into self-publishing, and it’s been eye-opening. Parts I thought would be very difficult were easy – and things I never considered turned out to be tough.
Start with a truly professional book. Making sure it’s polished, error free and well-edited can be a pain, but that sort of detail helps people read your book. Every spelling error a reader stubs a toe over diminishes the work a tiny bit, so you have to be very good indeed to keep him reading after several mistakes. And those mistakes matter when readers go on to recommend – or not recommend – your book to their friends.
Don’t limit yourself to eBooks. They’re great, but people still read paperbacks. With publishing on demand, paperbacks and even hardcovers are viable, no matter what your budget. And distribution is easy, as practically all avenues are wide open.
However, distribution is not the same as marketing.
Marketing may not be your favorite concept – it’s certainly not mine – so think of it as getting the word out about your book. Just tell people what it’s about, as briefly as you can. You’ll need good keywords for people to find it on the internet, and a great cover and short synopsis to tell your story once they have found it. A three page description may tell the whole tale – but very few are going to read it.
Know your genre, by knowing what is out there today. Romance is a great example. There are so many subclasses these days, each with its audience. Promoting a G-rated teen romance on a daring erotic site won’t help your cause.
Talk to anyone who will listen. But steer towards your true audience.
Books are sold by the cover. Standing in a book store, that one great cover not only draws your attention, it casts the others around it into shadow. It’s the first to be picked up, to have the back read. A professional designer should do more than make a pretty picture – there are nuances to the colors, images, fonts. The designer will be familiar with these, and can talk about today’s trends, what works and what doesn’t.
That’s not an artist or a graphic artist. Find someone with book cover expertise.
Set a publication date. Give yourself 2 to 3 months, unless you’ve done this before and feel very comfortable. It forces you to keep going, to prioritize and make necessary decisions today.
Don’t be afraid to get help in the areas that seem overwhelming. Today you can find people who offer great services for great prices, such as the cover design, social media marketing, eBook formatting, website creation with search engine power. You can do it all yourself – but the right expert can do it better and faster.
Whatever genre you’ve written, you should be a reader as well. Think about how you choose your books. Blogs, for example, are great resources. Consider a Virtual Book Tour.
One thing that has really helped me is forming a self-help group with other writers. As luck would have it, we were all publishing our books in the same time frame. We live in different states, so we do a conference call regularly.
We share what we’ve learned, such as the discovery of a someone who offers internet promotions. We warn of pitfalls – this print-on-demand company’s quality isn’t so great; or don’t spend your money on a consultation with their marketing department. With several of us going over the terrain, we’re learning much faster.
The other benefit to the group is we get inspired by the others. To watch someone else succeed, with a great launch, a wonderful meeting, or a success at a local bookstore, pushes the rest of us on. It proves it can be done.
Finally, don’t let fear of not making the right move hold you back. Humans learn by doing, and we learn faster from our mistakes. There are very few you can’t fix. And all of your mistakes make you that much better the next time.
Book Description:
Feedback … a kinder word for criticism, is an organic component to life.
When a toddler learns to walk, he falls. He screams, cries – and persists. What would happen to the human race if he gave up after a few bumps?
Before we could read self-help books, before we could understand a language and sit in a classroom, we learned by trial and error. “Feedback” is the natural teaching process. It’s how the creator set it up. It’s how the world actually works.
Here, at last, is a simple process for getting the most from all the feedback the world offers us.
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EXCERPT ONE:
That toddler learning to walk is a great example to us all.
The child has no fear of failure, no concern over how foolish he may look to others. He never pauses to consider if it’s worth the effort. And he pays no attention to anyone pointing out that seventy percent of his peers can already walk.
He wants it. He keeps trying until he gets it.
Somewhere along the path of life, we come to perceive mistakes as ‘bad’. We’re told ‘don’t make them; avoid them.’ You don’t get called in to account for yourself if you don’t make a mistake. Some people actually avoid mistakes by not doing anything at all.
That’s the reality. The only way not to make a mistake is not to do anything. Which means no real achievement, no real success.
I spoke to a friend who had achieved a very great deal – he’d made a huge amount of money as an entrepreneur. He was the type of person most would call wildly successful.
Yet it turns out that before he made money, he had lost money. He’d lost enough that those same people labeling him wildly successful now would term him an abject failure. It cost him two businesses.
But he believes if he hadn’t made that mistake, he would have never found the key to success.
AUTHOR Bio and Links:
A well-known Century City Producer once said that Jo Sparkes “writes some of the best dialogue I’ve read.” Not only are those words a compliment to Jo’s skills as a writer,but a true reflection of her commitment to her work.
She graduated Magna Cum Laude from Washington College, a small liberal arts college famous for its creative writing program. Years later, Jo renounced life in the corporate world to pursue her passion for writing.
Taking every class she could find, she had the good fortune to study with Robert Powell; a student of renowned writers and teachers Lew Hunter, and Richard Walter, head and heart of UCLA’s Screenwriting Program.
The culmination of those years was the short-film “The Image”, which she wrote and produced single-handedly. And in so doing, she became fascinated with the dynamics of collaboration on a project.
Since then, Jo hasn’t looked back. Her body of work includes scripts for Children’s live-action and animated television programs, a direct to video Children’s DVD, television commercials and corporate videos. She’s been a feature writer on ReZoom.com and a contributing writer for the Arizona Sports Fans Network; where she was called their most popular writer, known for her humorous articles, player interviews and game coverage. Jo was unofficially the first to interview Emmitt Smith when he arrived in Arizona to play for the Cardinals.
She has adjunct taught at the Film School at Scottsdale Community College, has teamed with a Producer on a low budget thriller, and a Director on a New Dramady.” She went in front of the camera for a video, “Stepping Above Criticism”, capturing a popular talk with her students.
Her new book, FEEDBACK HOW TO GIVE IT HOW TO GET IT, shares her lessons learned with writers, and indeed everyone dealing with life’s criticism.
When not diligently perfecting her craft, Jo can be found exploring her new home of Portland, Oregon, along with her husband Ian, and their dog Oscar.
http://www.feedbackthebook.com
http://josparkes.com/
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“In her compact, wisdom-charged Feedback Jo Sparkes provides sharp, sharp, cogent, advice not only for writers but for all people who value creativity and seek to lead fulfilled, creative lives.
“This slender volume provides more bang for the buck than far longer, weightier tomes. It is a splendid resource to which writers will refer repeatedly.” – Richard Walter Chairman of Screenwriting, U.C.L.A.
“The lessons contained in “Feedback” are not for the writer who is merely looking for a compliment, but rather for those who are striving for accomplishment.”- Barton Green Author, Screenwriter and long-time friend
Jo Sparks simplifies the feedback process in this concise easy to implement guide to giving and receiving feedback. As an actress, I believe everyone can benefit from her experience, not just those in the industry.- Tonetta Weaver, Actress
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