| about PTA | specialties | best sellers | clients | services/capabilities | testimonials | the tip sheet | the team | links |
The Tip Sheet
‹‹ Previous Tipsheet | Index | Next Tipsheet ››
issue of : April 2008
- Quote of the Month
- PTA - Kids
- Pitch Ideas - Ideas for anchoring your publicity
- Surfin’ - Dear Reader, Book Slut and Buzz, Balls, and Hype
- PTA’s Upcoming TeleSeminars
- Tips From the Top - Our Monthly Advice Column
- What Have We Done For You Lately? - PTA’s Top Recent Bookings
- Publishing News
Quote of the Month
“Intuition is reason in a hurry.”
— Holbrook Jackson
If you have a great quote to share, please send it to tipsheet@plannedtvarts.com. Thanks.
PTA
PTA Kids is taking the children's book publishing by storm this spring! The group, headed by Amy Hess is working on a major promotion for DJ Machale's latest release in the best-selling Pendragon series, published by Simon & Schuster. The campaign comes after a successful PTA Kids launch of his last book in the series this past fall. PTA Kids also helped to make The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing a New York Times bestseller in March. The goal of PTA Kids is to spread the word on some of children's publishing's brightest stars and to increase sales in the genre, in addition to helping parents learn about the latest titles for their children. We've worked with leading publishers including Harper Collins, Scholastic, Little Brown, Workman, Tommy Nelson, National Geographic, Candlewick Press, Harcourt, Disney, Farrar Strauss & Giroux & Clarion. Well-known authors and celebrities including Dick Van Dyke, Jane Goodall, Phil Vischer who created Veggie Tales, Cornelia Funke, Ann M. Martin, Governor Mike Easley, Heidi Murkoff, Sharon Flake and Meg Cabot have used PTA Kids' publicity services.
PTA Kids also works with smaller publishers and non-profit organizations such as Child Welfare League of America, Child Help USA, National Education Association, National Hearing Speech Language Association and CARE. We've helped to spread the word on issues such as child abuse, teen depression, gang violence, childhood sleep issues and attention deficit disorder. We offer tailored publicity campaigns of all types including radio tours, television campaigns, launch events and book parties, print and galley campaigns, publishing strategy, media training, road tours and more.
For more information please contact:
Amy Hess at 202-974-5000 or hessa@plannedtvarts.com
Pitch Ideas
Looking for an event to anchor your pitch idea? Some of these ideas just might translate into a Morning Drive, a Satellite TV Tour, or a road tour topic:
May 2008
Business
- 21st - National Employee Health and Fitness Day
Health
- 1st – Asthma Day
- 4th – 10th - National Anxiety and Depression Week
- 11th – Eat What You Want Day
- 28th – National Senior Health and Fitness Day
Sports
- 3rd – Kentucky Derby
- 25th – Indianapolis 500
- May 25th – June 8th – French Open Tennis Tournament
General Interest
- Get Caught Reading Month
- Family Wellness Month
- Gifts from the Garden Month
- Latino Books Month
- National BBQ Month
Holidays
- 5th – Cinco de Mayo
- 11th – Mother’s Day
- 17th – Armed Forces Day
- 26th – Memorial Day
Surfin’
Some are industry related, some are fun and some are just plain quirky sites that our PTA Interactive division recommends:
http://www.squidoo.com
Are you an expert on something? Avocados, Michelangelo’s “David”, health tips for people over 50? No matter what your area of expertise you can create a Squidoo lens. What’s a Squidoo lens? It is a free, single page online – which translates to a popular way for you to be found on the web and possibly make some money for yourself or a charity. Squidoo lenses are a cross between Wikipedia and a blog. You can sell items on your lens, link to Amazon and much more. So whether your passion is politics, the environment, or banana break, you too can Squidoo.
http://www.wordpress.com – or – http://www.wordpress.org
Here’s a tip that could put PTA Interactive out of business: Wordpress is more than just another blog tool, with a little effort you can use Wordpress to as a fully functioning content managed website. This means that you won’t need to enlist the help of a web designer to maintain, or even build an attractive site for yourself without having to learn any scary languages like PHP or XHTML. Sites can be built on their domain name (http://yoursite.wordpress.com) or installed on your own server with your own domain. The best part: it’s free! As they say on their site, Wordpress is “just a group of geeks who are passionate about enabling people to publish on the web.”
http://www.newsgator.com
Recently a publicist told me that they can separate their publicity career into two distinct phases: before RSS Feeds and after RSS feeds. If you haven’t gotten wise to RSS Feeds and Feed Readers, now is the time. PTA Interactive’s RSS Feed Reader of choice is NewsGator. They offer both web-based and application-based RSS feed readers for both Macs and PCs. A good feed reader allows you to quickly review headlines and stories from your favorite syndicated websites without having to spend all day navigating your way to every different site.
PTA’s Upcoming TeleSeminars
Free Teleseminar April 29th, 8-9pm EST
Michael E. Angier, the founder and CIO (Chief Imagineering Officer) of SuccessNet is a writer, speaker, entrepreneur, and coach. He’s the author of 101 Best Ways to Get Ahead and 101 Best Ways to Be Your Best. Michael's work has been featured in numerous publications such as USA Today, Selling Power, Home Business Magazine, Opportunity World, Personal Excellence and Sales & Marketing Excellence as well as dozens of electronic publications. He will discuss Clarity, Focus and Consistency: The Defining Difference Between Mediocrity and Success including:
- The Top Things to Get Clear and Stay Clear On
- How to maintain Focus - Staying Out of Distractions
- Staying Consistent on the Things That Matter
- Getting the Support You Need
To participate: Please call 712-338-8100. Then press in the code: 222089#.
Free Teleseminar May 7th, 8-9pm EST
Robyn Freedman Spizman is a media personality, best-selling author, consumer advocate and America’s leading gift-giving shopper & gift expert. Robyn also has a weekly feature on WXIA-TV (NBC). She has co-authored a new book with Rick Frishman titled, Where's Your Wow? and will discuss:
- How to discover an edge and get wow media attention.
- How to enhance your personal brand.
- How to become a well known personality.
- How to break into the media and get attention.
- How to know if your idea is a Wow!
To participate: Please call 712-338-8100. Then press in the code: 222089#.
Free Teleseminar May 14th, 8-9pm EST
Lynn Pierce is the founder of one of the most exciting annual events for women entrepreneurs, “Women’s Business Empowerment Summit” celebrating its 5th anniversary this year. Known as The Success Architect, Lynn has taught authors, experts and entrepreneurs how to combine business and personal development to reach the pinnacle of success and live the life of their dreams for over 25 years. Lynn will share with us how to:
- Discover your real expertise and passion
- Develop a blueprint for the life of your dreams
- Design your business to become a cash generating machine
To participate: Please call 712-338-8100. Then press in the code: 222089#.
Past Teleseminars:
Remember, our TeleSeminars are free (excluding your call cost). If you missed our last TeleSeminar, you can dial the replay line at 507-726-3837 (Press the # sign after you dial in) or go to our website at www.plannedtvarts.com. We have about 70 hours of great information for you!
Tips From the Top
IDEA MEETINGS
Writers understand that publishing is a business, but novice writers seem to think that the business begins when their book goes to print. Not so. The business begins with an idea meeting. Idea meetings are usually attended by a combination of a publisher's editorial and marketing people, and the attendance may vary by who is available on any given day. Although they may be scheduled for the same day and time each week, these meetings are basically informal and unstructured, more like group discussions. They usually don't have a written schedule or agenda; everyone sits around a table and the atmosphere is collegial, relaxed, and frank.
Editors inform the group about book proposals to generate discussions in which everyone chimes in. The group asks questions, gives opinions, and volunteers information about similar or competitive books. Idea meetings are essentially exploratory. Their purpose is to challenge proposals by closely examining them and chipping away to see if the proposed project would make a good book for the house to publish. They discuss whether they think the firm should commit further time and resources to each book discussed. At idea meetings, proposals can be rejected, but they cannot be given final approval. The proposal must clearly answer the following questions:
- What is the book about?
- Is there an audience for the book?
- If so, who is that audience?
- Where will it be shelved? Books that don't have clearly identifiable places on bookstore shelves get lost. Booksellers don't know where to place them, and potential buyers don't know where to find them.
- Can the book be produced so that it provides value for readers? For example, if all the books on a subject are priced in the $30 range, can the publisher deliver this book with a higher word count or information not in competing books and sell it for $12.95?
All decisions are market driven; the group must believe that the book proposed can make the company money. Editors as well as marketing representatives usually won't support a proposal unless they believe that the book can be commercially viable.
If the proposal survives the idea meeting, the editor who championed it usually prepares a presentation report or packet for another committee; one that has the authority to acquire the property. The report or packet includes research on sales figures, competing books, comparable history of the publisher's other books, recent publishing trends, and whether this proposal fits in with its overall vision of what they did in the past and want to do in the future.
At many houses, the champion prepares a profit-and-loss statement (P&L) for each proposed book. If the company decides to make an offer to buy the book, the P&L statement forms the basis for the price the company will be willing to pay for book.
What Have We Done For You Lately?
Here’s a sampling of our latest bookings.
Some of our recent hits for our Business Books include:
- USA TODAY
- Financial Bliss By Bambi Holzer / Amacom Publishing - Fox Business Network -- "Fox Business"
- Jacked Up: The Inside Story of How Jack Welch Talked GE into Becoming the World's Greatest Company By Bill Lane / McGraw Hill
- You Can Never Be Too Rich By Alan Haft / Wiley Publishing
- The Breakthrough Company By Keith McFarland/Crown Business - SCRIPPS HOWARD - Bruce Freeman's syndicated "Small Business Professor" column
- Keep Swinging By Jay Myers / Morgan James Publishing - FIRST BUSINESS NEWS, nationally syndicated television show
- Step UpBy Daniel Grissom / Morgan James Publishing
For Why Should the Boss Listen to You? By James E. Luakaszewski (Wiley/Jossey-Bass) to date these are some of the interviews we have booked:
- TIME MAGAZINE
- GANNETT NEWS SERVICE
- MCCLATCHEY-TRIBUNE
For a Sports Morning Drive Radio Tour for the Baseball Prospectus 2008 from Plume we booked more than 20 radio interviews with top sports programs including:
- KMOX-AM St. Louis
- KILT-AM Houston
- WHOO-AM Orlando
- WKNR-AM Cleveland
- KRKO-AM Seattle
- WCKY-AM Cincinnati
- KFXX-AM Portland
- WCCO-AM Minneapolis
- WNST-AM Baltimore
- WAUK-AM Milwaukee
- WHB-AM Kansas City
Publishing News
BOOK EXPO AMERICA: May 29th – June 1st in Los Angeles
Where the world gathers to get a great READ on the industry -- BookExpo America combines the largest selection of English language titles on the planet with special industry and author events and unparalleled educational content to create a dynamic environment for networking, sourcing and relationship building. For more information, please go to: www.bookexpoamerica.com
Please feel free to forward our e-zine to your friends and colleagues. If you are not on our e-mail subscription list and would like to be, or if you would like to be removed, please e-mail us at tipsheet@plannedtvarts.com.