Description: Assure your book gets the best possible start in life, whether your publisher assigns zero dollars or thousands to your book's marketing campaign. A former publicist, the author provides no-nonsense basics to build the essentials you need to build a time-saving social media campaign and knock'em dead lists of influencers which is pure gold.
Brief description: Carolyn Howard-Johnson's several careers prepared her for promoting her own and others' books. She was the youngest person ever hired as a staff writer for the Salt Lake Tribune-"A Great Pulitzer Prize Winning Newspaper." Writing features for the society page and a column under the name of Debra Paige gave her insight into the needs of editors, the very people authors must work with to get free ink. Being familiar with the way news is handled helps her see how different books fit into different news cycles. Later, in New York, she was an editorial assistant at Good Housekeeping magazine. She also handled accounts for fashion publicist Eleanor Lambert who instituted the first Ten Best Dressed List. There she wrote media releases (then called press releases) for celebrity designers of the day, including Christian Dior, and produced photo shoots for Lambert's clients. She also worked as columnist, reviewer, and staff writer for the Pasadena Star-News, Home Décor Buyer, the Glendale News-Press (an affiliate of the LA Times), MyShelf.com where she has written a "Back to Literature" column for more than two decades and others. She learned marketing skills both in college (University of Utah, Arizona State University, and University of Southern California) and as founder and operator of a chain of retail stores including the signature gift shop at Santa Anita Racetrack. That shaped her understanding of how authors might best partner with retailers to affect both of their bottom lines. Carolyn's experience in journalism and as a poet and author of fiction and nonfiction helped the multi award-winning author under-stand how different genres can be marketed more effectively. She was an instructor for UCLA Extension's renowned Writers' Program for nearly a decade and earned a certificate from that same school's Instructor Development Program. She also studied writing at Cambridge University, United Kingdom; Herzen University in St. Petersburg, Russia; and Charles University in Prague. She turned her knowledge toward helping other writers with her multi award-winning HowToDoItFrugally Series of books for writers, including her flagship book The Frugal Book Promoter and her favorite, How to Get Great Book Reviews Frugally and Ethically. Her marketing campaign for the second book in that series, The Frugal Editor won the Next Generation Indie Best Book Award. She also has a multi award-winning series of HowToDoItFrugally books for retailers. Howard-Johnson was honored as Woman of the Year in Arts and Entertainment by California Legislature members Carol Liu, Dario Frommer, and Jack Scott. She received her community's Character and Ethics award for her work promoting tolerance with her writing and the Diamond Award in Arts and Culture from her community's Library and Arts and Culture Commission. She was named to Pasadena Weekly's list of fourteen women of "San Gabriel Valley women who make life happen" and Delta Gamma, a national fraternity of women, honored her with their Oxford Award. Carolyn is a popular presenter at tradeshows (retail and writing) and writers' conferences and has lost count of her radio show guest spots. She is an actor and has appeared in TV commercials for the likes of Time-Life CDs, Chinet, Blue Shield, Apple, and Disney Cruise Lines (Japan). Born and raised in Utah, Howard-Johnson raised her own family in sunny Southern California.
Review Quotes:
"I want to tell you how remarkably useful and efficient your HowToDoItFrugally Series is... Ms. Ho-Jo, you rock! Millions of thanks for the care and effort you have invested, and for your fabulous sense of organization. My media kit is all set up and being filled in. Whew!"
-- Deborah Hicks Midanek (Bailey), author
"I think all THREE HowToDoItFrugally books for... authors and novice publishers would make excellent, comprehensive textbooks for college courses on writing and publishing."
-- Jim Cox, Editor-in-Chief, Midwest Book Review
"While brainstorming marketing ideas with one of my authors, she informed me she had just purchased the book The Frugal Book Promoter: How to Do What Your Publisher Won't [1st Ed.]. My immediate reaction was an internal 'oh no.' Then I clicked to Amazon to order it and read up on what it was I wasn't going to be doing! When the book arrived, I devoured it. By the time I was done there was neon-highlighter everywhere and, as a fan of Post-its, I made the book look like a yellow-feathered peacock! Carolyn Howard-Johnson has been there, done that in marketing her own books and she packed all her hard-earned wisdom into this HowToDoItFrugally series."
-- Nancy Cleary, publisher, Wyatt-MacKenzie
"Carolyn Howard-Johnson started me on this whole journey of book publishing with her book The Frugal Book Promoter. I've hit best-seller status on Amazon several times since. I'm forever grateful to her."
-- Christopher Meeks, author and writing instructor at USC and other colleges.
"At last--a solid, sensible, systematic guide to the ins and outs of promotion and publicity... Carolyn Howard-Johnson proves that she's not only an accomplished poet, essayist, and novelist, but also a marketing maestro!"
-- JayCe Crawford, Cup of Comfort author, copyright professional
"...until now I didn't have many other staples to recommend to new authors looking for publicity."
-- Jenna Glatzer, author of Make a Real Living as a Freelance Author (Writer's Digest)
"...chock full of ideas that even seasoned book promoters will not have tried...."
-- Dallas Hodder Franklin, writer
"The Frugal Book Promoter! I love it. Most authors don't have deep pockets for publicity, promotion, and marketing. The chapter on perks offered by Amazon is a perfect example of the kind of practical advice offered--the kind that took me months to discover."
-- Rolf Gompertz, author, veteran publicist for NBC, and UCLA instructor