Writers Tricks of the Trade Issue 6, Volume 6 | Page 21

WHY GETTING GREAT REVIEWS IS YOUR JOB (CONT’D)

within your skill set after reading this book. And even when you have the luxury of a
marketing department behind you, those authors who know how to get reviews on
their own can keep a book alive for an infinite amount of time after their publishers
relegate their books to a backlist or their contract expires.

POETRY BY
CAROLYN HOWARDJOHNSON

Note: If it is too late to apply this information to the process you use in choosing
a publisher, tactfully take hold and guide the publisher you have through the review
process. There are lots of ways to do that in this book. I love Nike’s advice to “Just do
it!” only I add “yourself” to the motto. Many publishers are in your employ. You may
be paying them for services. At the very least, when your book sells, it makes money
for the publisher. You don’t have to ask for permission (though it never hurts to
listen to their reasoning before you make a decision).

CAROLYN HOWARD-JOHNSON

brings her experience as a publicist,
journalist, marketer, and retailer to the advice she gives in her HowToDoItFrugally
series of books for writers and the many classes she taught for nearly a decade as
instructor for UCLA Extension’s world-renown Writers’ Program. The books in her
HowToDoItFrugally Series of books for writers have won multiple awards. That series
includes both the first and second editions of The Frugal Book Promoter, and The
Frugal Editor won awards from USA Book News, Readers’ Views Literary Award, the
marketing award from Next Generation Indie Books and others including the
coveted Irwin award. Her latest, just-published book in the HowToDoItFrugally series
for writers is How To Get Great Book Reviews Frugally and Ethically.
Howard-Johnson is the recipient of the California Legislature’s Woman of the
Year in Arts and Entertainment Award, and her community’s Character and Ethics
award for her work promoting tolerance with her writing. She was also named to
Pasadena Weekly’s list of “Fourteen San Gabriel Valley women who make life
happen” and was given her community’s Diamond Award for Achievement in the
Arts.
The author loves to travel. She has visited eighty-nine countries and has studied
writing at Cambridge University in the United Kingdom; Herzen University in St.
Petersburg, Russia; and Charles University, Prague. She admits to carrying a pen and
journal wherever she goes. Her Web site is www.howtodoitfrugally.com.

WRITERS’ TRICKS OF THE TRADE

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NOVEMBER-DECEMBER 2016