Alice B. Acheson is a publicist for authors, among other things. She was the publicist for Clan of the Cave Bear and Old Turtle and the Broken Truth. Tonight she spoke at the Whatcom Writers and Publishers (WWP) meeting. She brought handouts. Yeah!
The handouts included an author questionnaire that the publisher will ask for not long after the book contract is signed. She didn’t go through each item on the questionnaire but she did highlight the important ones. My favorites are: [1] did this book involve special research (oh, the answers I would have for that one) and [2] list ten questions an interviewer could ask that would allow you the best opportunity to discuss your book — in order of priority.
Random notes:
- She was a lively speaker with oodles of information, family friend language, and great stories about famous authors.
- She teaches at Richard Hugo House in Seattle.
- Mentioned she liked Betsy Lerner‘s blog.
- Suggested negotiating the number of Gallys/ARCs/AREs up in the publisher’s contract.
- Suggested joining and supporting http://www.indiebound.org/
- Suggested starting a marketing folder for each novel at the beginning of the book project.
- Use Encyclopedia of Associations at the library to find possible organizations to speak to about book.
- Suggested reading Publisher’s Weekly at the library every week.
- She could edit her own talk as she was talking. Great grammarian!
Any errors or omissions are mine and mine alone. I sat at the back of the room so I may have gotten a few details wrong. So me bad, not her.
Dina, thanks for posting this! URL’s and all! Now I don’t have to dig through my notes!
Alice B. Acheson shared a whole necklace of jewels to pursue in the area of self promotion, marketing, publicity and getting published books onto the bookshelves and into home libraries! She made it clear that a writer needs to be proactive. I will be checking out her workshops.
“You are welcome!” said the compulsive note taker.
I am definitely sending her my email to get on her notifications list.