Four Tips on
Tip Sheets
by Fern Reiss, CEO, PublishingGame.com
Getting newspaper and magazine coverage for your book
can be challenging. The book review section has disappeared
from many publications; the lifestyle section is very
competitive. But a simple tip sheet from your book
can get you into almost any publication in America.
Here are four tips on writing tip sheets:
- Find the most interesting tidbits from the book.
For non-fiction books, a tip sheet is really a no-brainer.
Just compile a list of the most interesting tidbits
from your book. Add a catchy lead at the top and
an ‘About
the Book’ section at the bottom, and send it
to the publications of your choice. Non-fiction books
lend themselves to multiple tip sheets, and since
tip sheets are the bread and butter of both newspapers
and magazines, your tip sheet, if well-written and
interesting, is guaranteed to be picked up by a variety
of publications.
For my book, The Infertility Diet: Get Pregnant
and Prevent Miscarriage, for example, my tip sheets
include “Top
Ten Tips to Fertility,” “Combating Male
Infertility,” “Six Foods to Get You Pregnant,” and “Five
Dietary Ways to Prevent Miscarriage.” For my
Publishing Game books, the tips sheets include “Eight
Steps to a Bestseller,” “Five Ways to Catapult
Your Book into Magazines,” and “Six Paths
to a Literary Agent.” If your book is on buying
a condo, try “Five Ways to Get That First Mortgage;” if
it’s on getting into top college, go with “Six
Routes to the Ivies.” With a non-fiction book,
you should be able to craft at least a dozen tip sheets
without thinking twice.
- Craft the tip sheet around the niche items. Crafting
tip sheets for a novel can be more challenging, but
is still well worth doing. Just as with any marketing
for a novel, look for the niche items. For example,
if your novel prominently features a golden retriever,
do your tip sheet on golden retrievers; if your novel
is set in a coffeeshop, try a humorous tip sheet
advising on different coffee for different situations.
(Novelists
might want to try this technique as a way of getting
their novel discussed on radio and television shows,
by the way; niche items can be a powerful propeller
for novels.)
- For poetry books, try a meta tip sheet. Poetry
is the hardest sell, but even with poetry you can come
up with a tip sheet if you’re creative. If you’ve
written a poetry book for toddlers, why not do a tip
sheet suggesting ways parents can introduce young children
to poetry? Or why not do a tip sheet describing how
people can use poetry in party games, or as an icebreaker
at meetings? It can be difficult to envision a newspaper
or magazine piece on the poetry itself, so think meta-poetry.
- Keep your tone consistent. Remember to use the
same tone in the tip sheet as the book itself. If
your book is humorous, for example, be sure the tip
sheets
have a humorous cast; if your book is flowery, be
sure the same is true of the tip sheet. In general,
the
more interesting and creative a tip sheet you do,
the more publications you can count on picking up
the tip
sheet.
So get busy and start writing. And if you’re
still not sure how a tip sheet should look, take another
look at this article. It’s a classic tip sheet—and
will soon be in publications across America.
Fern Reiss is CEO of PublishingGame.com (www.PublishingGame.com) and Expertizing.com (www.Expertizing.com) and the author of the books, The Publishing Game: Find an Agent in 30 Days, The Publishing Game: Bestseller in 30 Days, and The Publishing Game: Publish a Book in 30 Days as well as several other award-winning books. She is also the Director of the International Association of Writers (www.AssociationofWriters.com) providing publicity vehicles to writers worldwide. She also runs The Expertizing® Publicity Forum where you can pitch your book or business directly to journalists; more information at www.Expertizing.com/forum.htm. Sign up for her complimentary newsletter at www.PublishingGame.com/signup.htm.
Copyright © 2011 Fern Reiss
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