Meet Carolyn Howard-Johnson, the author of several books. Her first novel, This Is the Place, won eight awards. Her book of creative nonfiction, Harkening: A Collection of Stories Remembered, won three. An instructor for UCLA Extension's world-renown Writers' Program, her book The Frugal Book Promoter: How to Do What Your Publisher Won't was named USA Book News "Best Professional Book 2004”, and was given the Irwin Award. Carolyn’s second book in the "How To Do It Frugally" series, The Frugal Editor: Put Your Best Book Forward to Avoid Humiliation and Ensure Success, is also a USA Book News award winner as well as the winner in its category of the Reader Views Literary Award. Her chapbook of poetry Tracings, was named to the Compulsive Reader's Ten Best Reads list and was given the Military Writers' Society of America's Silver Award of Excellence. She is the recipient of the California Legislature's Woman of the Year in Arts and Entertainment Award, and her community's Character and Ethics Committee awarded her work promoting tolerance with her writing. She was also named to Pasadena Weekly's list of 14 "San Gabriel Valley women who make life happen."

The Interview:

MGS: Carolyn, thanks for taking the time to speak with me today. I want to begin by focusing on your award winning book The Frugal Book Promoter: How To Do What Your Publisher Won’t. What led you to develop the idea for your book?

CHJ: Mistakes. I made so many promotion mistakes with my first book, the award-winning novel This Is the Place! Even with a background in publicity, marketing and journalism. Not least of which were these two nearly universally false assumptions:
1. Your publisher will assign you a publicist and all you book's promotion will be taken care of.
2. Once an author realizes that she must take her book's promotion in hand, a publicist is essential and one book publicist is about as good as the other.

Naturally, Margie, I had to share my experiences and what I learned with others. I guess I've got that sharing streak that most teachers have in my blood.

MGS: Having purchased a copy for myself, I can honestly say that The Frugal Book Promoter is a unique and incredibly compiled guide on how to self promote and I was able to learn so many ideas about inexpensive self-promotion. Can you give authors and aspiring authors a few tidbits that they can expect to find in your book about inexpensive or free publicity?

CHJ: My favorite is, of course, that anyone, even the shyest of shy can promote. That's because we can promote by writing. The second is that anyone (yep! even writers of fiction!) can find ways to promote and do it frugally. That's because, lucky us!, we now have the Web which is mostly made of free opportunities.

MGS: I’ve learned that what is unique about you is your passionate belief that authors should work together to promote their work. Tell us a little about your experience in helping and sharing your knowledge with other authors.

CHJ: Awwww. It isn't that unique. I studied publicity at USC (University of Southern California). It wasn't my major but I had a fantastic professor, head of the publicity department there. He was a former president of a big airline. He taught us that one of the first rules of real publicity is that it shouldn't be proprietary. My way of rewording that principle is, "the universe is so full of opportunity there is plenty to go around." My other favorite is, "What one can do, two can do better." Thus cross-promotion is one of the best ways to make one's efforts do double duty. No. It's a way to make one's promotion efforts take quantum leaps.

An example of how that works is a new blog I started. The New Book Review is something that takes me only minutes when I post a new review. Anyone can submit one. Reader. Author. Reviewer. After they've submitted and I post, they let their contacts know about it and that benefits them, me and also all of the other authors who have ever participated on the blog.

MGS: What would you say is the unique selling point of your book compared to other (similar) ones that are on the market?

CHJ: Its fun to read. Really quite chatty. And everything in it is based on my own personal, practical experience. Not pie-in-the-sky marketing principles.

MGS: I know you have written other books, too. Can you tell me a bit about them?

CHJ: Well, the next one after The Frugal Book Promoter: How to Do What Your Publisher Won't is The Frugal Editor: Put Your Best Book Forward to Avoid Humiliation and Ensure Success. Together they comprise the HowToDoItFrugally Series of books for writers. There will be more to come.

This new Frugal book is also based on practical experience. I am teaching at UCLA Extension Writers' Program and doing independent editing as well. Between that and the query and cover letters and media releases that I get across my desk (I also consult) I kept seeing the same errors over and over again. It feels as if little gremlins were picking at the possibilities of these author's success. They often weren't big things, nothing a high school teacher would pick on. But they were instant tipoffs that these authors weren't yet professional or hadn't done their homework. Now, that's a big disadvantage when these gatekeepers--people like editors, producers, contest judges, publishers, agents--have many hundreds such documents move across their desk in any given week. They may toss something that is very promising based on a bad mood coupled with an inane comment like, "I always wanted to write." Think! One has one page (maybe even only the first paragraph of that one page!) to convince a gatekeeper to keep reading. I bet 90% of new authors use that writing line, and usually in the first sentence. And it doesn't really say much. It's doesn't make the writer credible or look witty.

So The Frugal Editor takes a writer--any writer really--through anything from first contact with a gatekeeper through final manuscript. Mind you, I don't encourage a writer to edit his or her manuscript on his own. I do know that the more a writer knows about editing, the better partner she or he will be for any editor, any publisher. Even the big ones!

MGS: How long you've been writing and what made you get into the literary field?

CHJ: I started my journalism career in high school. All the cutest, smartest, most talented boys were on the newspaper staff. I finally wrote the novel I'd always wanted to write when I got cancer and realized that if we keep putting off our heart's desire, we may never get a chance to what we consider most important.. Writing is a healer. I've been cancer free since I started writing.

MGS: What literary organizations or writers groups would you recommend to writers in your genre?

CHJ: For promotion, my own, of course. It is Authors' Coalition. www.authorscoalitionandredenginepress.com. I also attribute SPAN, Small Publishers of North America (www.spannet.org), with much of my success. In fact, with that first alarming knowledge that my publisher wasn't going to do for my novel what it deserved. I also belong to National Association of Women's Writers and Book Publicists of Southern California. The latter bestowed their coveted Irwin Award on The Frugal Book Promoter. I also like mingling with the poets and literary writers that are part of Tennessee Writers' Alliance. And, no, I'm not from Tennessee. I try to support and learn from the people who support and learn from me.

MGS: Who are the people most instrumental in your growth as a writer?

CHJ: If I started naming names I might forget someone. Let's just say that creative writing is nothing like journalism, copywriting, or other kinds of writing I had done. Without UCLA's Writers' Program, I may never have gotten that first novel published. Of course, I teach there now. It feels like passing on the love.

MGS: From your experience, what key ingredients do new writers need to succeed in the book industry?

CHJ: Curiosity and a lack of pride. The false kind. We'll never become great writers--even the most talented among us--unless we have open minds and an awareness that we don't know everything.

MGS: Do you have a website where readers may learn more about your work?

CHJ: Ha! Both readers and writers. At www.howtodoitfrugally.com there is a page for each of my books including my creative nonfiction, my poetry, my novel and more. But there are also lots of pages of information. Resources for writers and readers, a free article page, etc.

MGS: Tell us about your newsletter. How can we join the mailing list?

CHJ: Margie, I love my newsletter. I hope I don't jinx it, but I very seldom get an unsubscribe. The letters are long but packed with content. Promotion ideas, craft, tech and more. I put out two All Tips editions a year. They are fairly new and came about because everyone adored the tips in the regular letters. It's called Sharing with Writers and people may subscribe by clicking the newsletter link at the top of the www.howtodoitfrugally.com site. Or just send me an e-mail with "Subscribe" in the subject window. I'll take care of it for you. My e-mail is HoJoNews@aol.com.

MGS: Are you working on new material? If so, please tell us about what you are currently working on and when we can expect to see it on the market?

CHJ: Well, there's that next book in the HowToDoItFrugally.com series. (-: Also a book of poetry, a memoir called Here's How I Don't Cook and a very, very blocked novel.

MGS: Do you have any appearances planned?

CHJ: Always. I try to group them to leave writing time for myself. But fall and spring are always busy. There are places to subscribe to my calendar on all of my blogs and on the home page of my website.

MGS: What are some resources for writers that you would recommend, beside your own?

CHJ: I like Terry Whalin's book on writing book proposals. Go to this page and it will take you directly to a link to buy it:
Inspiration and Reference for Writers
It's right at the top of the page. A related book that lots of people don't know I wrote is a short piece published by Amazon. Yes, Amazon is a publisher, too. It's called "The Great First Impression Book Proposal: Everything You Need To Know To Sell Your Book in 20 Minutes or Less." That it is only 49 cents makes it fit quite well into my Frugal series, don't you think?

I also co-edited a journal that includes quotations from aspiring writers to well-known ones. Every writer needs lots of journals. And it can be used by authors to increase their own profits at book fairs, etc. because of the huge discounts Red Engine Press gives those who buy in quantity. Find it at http://www.redenginepress.com.

A book of the ones I always recommend to my consulting/editing clients is Tom Chiarella's Writing Dialogue. It's a Writers' Digest book. I recommend it even to nonfictions writers. Notice how the best journalists are beginning to use more anecdote and dialogue in their news stories? Dialogue can breathe life into any kinds of writing. Even poetry.

MGS: What last words of encouragement or advice would you like to leave with our subscribers?

CHJ: Probably a book full of them! But what first came to mind was something that was said to me the last time I spoke. A young woman came up and said something like, "I almost didn't come to your seminar because the last time I sat in on a promotion seminar, the speaker so much as said, if you write fiction, forget it!" You see, I promoted This Is the Place to an award from my publisher called the Mille Club. It was awarded on the basis of promotion and sales. And that was after that very slow start I told you about. This Is the Place has just been reborn because there is some current news out there that fits with another promotion campaign. The book is set in Utah. Utah would be Mitt Romney's Zion. And we all know how much Romney is in the news these days. A novel like mine is an entertaining and fair-minded way for people to learn more about his culture.

MGS: Thanks, Carolyn. Good luck with all your current and future projects and their promotion.

CHJ: As always, I love working with you. Always let me know if there is a way I can help you with your writing endeavors.

Carolyn is the founder of Authors' Coalition where writers share with other writers and learn from others, too. She edits "Sharing with Writers," a newsletter associated for that organization as well as a blog that helps authors turn a dull book fair into a sizzling success: Find it at: http://authorscoalition.blogspot.com.

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What others have said about The Frugal Book Promoter:
If you're looking for "nitty-gritty how-tos for getting nearly free publicity," this is the book for you. - Tim Bete, Director, Erma Bombeck Writers' Workshop.
Carolyn Howard-Johnson is an incessant promoter who develops and shares new approaches for book promotion. - Marilyn Ross, Founder of Small Publishers Association of North America

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About Margie Shivers

Margie Gosa Shivers is an author, publisher, fulltime administrator for Trinity Senior Housing Corporations in Chicago, in other words, a very busy and talented lady.

She's the author of two suspense titles Anonymity: A Tale of Suspense, Seduction and Revenge, and Once Is Never Enough.

Margie Shivers was born and raised in Greenwood, MS. She received her B.S. in Elementary Education from Mississippi Valley State University. She holds a post graduate degree in Human Services Administration from Spertus College of Judaica in Chicago.

To find yout more about Margie, please visit her website at Margie Gosa Shivers.com and while there, sign up for Margie's Newsletter.

Be sure to take a peek at her reviews, the back issues of her newsletters, and also her prestigious list of books and the awards they've won. If you just want some downright good advice and news, then join her newsletter list and keep up with all the busy things happening in her life. Also, stop by her MySpace Page and say HI!

Oh, and while you are there, be sure and pick up some great reading. She has purchase links there for her books, and a surprise for anyone who missed her book Anonymity: A Tale of Suspense, Seduction and Revenge. If you purchase Once Is Never Enough, you will receive a FREE copy of Anonymity, which is now out of print!