Tips (and tricks) on how to publish and not perish.

1. Writing for fun and profit…
well, at least for fun…
well, writing.
Chris E. Stout
Center for Global Initiatives & College of
Medicine, University of Illinois at Chicago

2. Before I started writing…

3. …and after.

4. Books, Books, Books….

5. Amazon Best Sellers Rank

6. Getting Started
• Reviewing (nice way to start)
• Scientific Articles – Publish or Perish
– Highly ranked, peer reviewed journals are the
(academic) gold standard
– Dr. Kremer
• Presentations => Publications
– APS chapter, papers…
• Professional Magazines
– Modern Healthcare
– Division 42
– Illinois Psychologist(!)
• Freelance
• Columnist

7. Getting Started
• What I CANNOT tell you about
– Getting an agent
– Pitching a manuscript
• Non-fiction
– Never write first
– Always contract first!
• Scientific first => pop book
• Editing vs. Writing
• Novels/fiction/screenplays
– Agent
– Kellerman/Mayer

8. Contracts a-go-go or a-no-go?
• Advances/Royalties
• Wiley vs. APA
• Ownership
• Right of first refusal 
• Contracts are negotiable
• Control (ha, ha)
– Cover art
– Ink color
– Font style
– Size/cut
• Sell by the chapter

9. Marketing Ideas
• Get “Names” to write your
– Foreword
– Afterword
– “Early Praise”
• Surprisingly not hard
• Past APA Presidents
• WEF Founder
• The trick?
– Ask!

10. The New Humanitarians

11. Oprah on line 1
• You may believe that once your book is
published, your work is done. It’s not.
• It’s only the beginning. Here are 10 ways
to get started:
– Participate in online forums about
your book’s subject.
– Ask colleagues, friends and book
bloggers if they would review your
book. Don’t forget to offer them a free
copy of your book.
– Create a mailing list composed of
people who have shown interest in
your work. Keep them informed
about anything new that you’ve
written.
– Go to Amazon Central to create an
author profile so readers can learn
more about you.

12. Amazon Author’s Page

13. Oprah on line 2
• Join social media sites and groups within
those sites that might be interested in
your book.
• Join APA’s media referral services. Be
ready to define your specific expertise.
Then, be prompt in returning journalists’
phone calls and helping them develop
their stories.
• Issue press releases about your work.
Don’t make the press release
promotional. Instead, orient it toward
stimulating the interest of a reporter or
producer. You can write your own press
release or purchase them from services
that will also distribute them to the media
(e.g., PR Newswire).

14. Website Marketing: Hard Core

15. Website Marketing: Soft Core

16. Talks
• Venues for Sales
– Public Libraries (email me for a list)
– Barnes & Noble
– Colleges
– Organizations
• Div 42 @ APA
• Venues for Opportunities
– Schools/PTAs (consults/referrals)
– Houses of Worship (referrals)
– Professional (academic currency)

17. Self-Publishing: Blog
• Blogging
– Aim for keywords that solve problems (“how
to deal with a passive-aggressive husband”)
– Provide tips that deliver (“10 tips for helping
your kid get better grades”), or
– Answer intriguing questions (“why don’t men
live as long as women?”)
– Check out the keywords if you’re
contemplating using Google’s keyword tool -
adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal.
There you will discover how frequently people
are using those particular words to search for
that topic.
– You don’t have to choose the most popular
keywords, but you certainly don’t want to
choose one that hardly anybody’s using.

18. Self-Publishing: Article Banks
• Article banks will provide you
with international exposure,
credibility and traffic back to
your website.
• Popular article banks:
– ezinearticles.com
– self-growth.com
– article alley
– Huffington Post
– Squidoo
– eHow (pays for your content)

19. Self-Publishing: Books
• Print-on-demand (POD) technology,
copies of a book are not printed until
an order is received.
– Services: proofread and edit your
manuscript,
– index and design your book,
– create a book jacket,
– provide you with an ISBN (International
Standard Book Number),
– put your book into distribution,
– take care of order fulfillment, publicity
and marketing services.

20. Self-Publishing: Words of Caution
• They frequently overcharge
• Sell unnecessary services and
• Overstate what they will do.
• You may be seduced into spending
many thousands of dollars to get your
book printed and distributed. And
that’s without any marketing or
publicity services.
• So, be an educated consumer, know
what services you need and know what
those services should cost. Then you
need to comparison shop. There are lots
of companies out there and the pricing
of their packaged plans frequently
change.

21. Self-Publishing: eBooks
• Books that are published in digital format can stand on
their own or be another edition of a print book.
• Though eBooks do not have the panache of a paper book
- you can’t display it in your office or offer a copy to a
valued resource - they can still be a powerful resource for
you.
• One advantage of writing a mini eBook is that you can
quickly hitch on to the high profile news of the moment,
creating a ready-made marketing hook.
• Make sure that your e-Book is professionally formatted so
that it doesn’t look like an amateur production.
• Smashwords will format and distribute your eBook for no
up-front costs (they take a small percentage of each sale)
• One additional advantage to eBooks is that once they’re
produced, there are no additional printing or shipping
costs.
• Hence, they can be great bonus gifts for people who visit
your website and display an interest in your services.

22. Self-Publishing: Amazon's CreateSpace
• Their printing costs are the lowest,
• Their shipping charges are free,
• There are no initial set-up fees, and
• They offer a non-exclusive agreement that keeps
your future publishing and distribution options
open.
• They have Kindle distribution so your book, once
converted, can be published as an e-Book as well.
• ProPlan is $39
– Larger royalty, receive reduced printing costs and
gain access to an expanded distribution channel.
– Almost all authors need some self-publishing
services (editing, formatting, book design, cover
design, marketing and publicity) and Create Space
offers them - for additional fees or you can do them
your self and then use CreateSpace to publish and
distribute your book.

23. Amazon's CreateSpace

24. Contemporary Psychology

25. In closing…
• SourceBooks
• Blurb/Lulu
• Contemporary Psych invite
• Gifts…and thanks!