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Jim Cox Report: June 2018

Dear Publisher Folk, Friends & Family:

From the beginning of my career as a book reviewer and as the editor-in-chief of the Midwest Book Review I was interested in helping authors and small presses market their books to community libraries. For a number of years I was privileged to served as a Library Acquisitions Consultant for Wisconsin's South-Central region. With this professional background I frequently receive requests for advice from writers and publishers on the subject of selling books to libraries. I'm always happy to oblige and here is what I recommend on the subject:

1. Here is a link to a comprehensive list of online resources and instructional information about selling books to libraries:

https://www.startpage.com/do/dsearch?query=selling+to+libraries&cat=web&pl=ext-ff&language=english

2. Here is how to build up a list of libraries to market books too using a Google search technique:

Type the name of a city and then the + sign into a Google search block. For example:

Madison, Wisconsin + Libraries gets you:

https://www.startpage.com/do/dsearch?query=Madison%2C+Wisconsin+%2B+Libraries&cat=web&pl=ext-ff&language=english

You can do the same thing on a state level:

Wisconsin + Libraries get you:

https://www.startpage.com/do/dsearch?query=Wisconsin+%2B+Libraries&cat=web&pl=ext-ff&language=english

You can do the same thing for specialized libraries:

Museum Libraries + Wisconsin gets you:

https://www.startpage.com/do/dsearch?query=Museum+Libraries+%2B+Wisconsin&cat=web&pl=ext-ff&language=english

Corporate Libraries + Wisconsin gets you:

https://www.startpage.com/do/dsearch?query=Corporate+Libraries+%2B+Wisconsin&cat=web&pl=ext-ff&language=english

So you don't need to hire expensive professionals to create a marketing database for libraries in this day and age of the Google search. All you need is time and access to Google!

Now on to a review for four more new books, each with a special relevance and value for authors and/or publishers:



The Writing/Publishing Shelf

The Copyright Guide
Lee Wilson
Allworth Press
www.allworth.com
c/o Skyhorse Publishing, Inc.
307 West 36th Street, 11th Floor, New York, NY 10018
www.skyhorsepublishing.com
9781621536208, $24.99, HC, 304pp, www.amazon.com

Copyright is a legal right that grants the creator of an original work exclusive rights for its use and distribution. In a newly updated and expanded fourth edition, "The Copyright Guide: How You Can Protect and Profit from Copyright" by Lee Wilson (a Nashville writer and lawyer with extensive experience in the area of copyright) is a definitive resource that explains everything necessary for make copyright work for authors and/or publishers, including how to license your copyrights, how to acquire the right to use the works of others, what copyright infringement is, how to protect your works from infringement, and how to avoid infringing on the works of others.

With informative tips and easy-to-use forms, "The Copyright Guide" will save you legal fees, make sure you avoid infringing on the works of others, and help you protect and profit from what you create.

Comprehensively informative, exceptionally 'user friendly' in organization and presentation, this new edition of "The Copyright Guide" should be a part of every writer's and/or publisher's instructional reference collections, as well as a core addition to both community and academic library Writing/Publishing collections.

Accessing the Media: How to Get Good Press
Jill Osborn
Skyhorse Publishing, Inc.
307 West 36th Street, 11th Floor, New York, NY 10018
www.skyhorsepublishing.com
9781510730250, $14.99, PB, 176pp, www.amazon.com

Accessing the Media takes the reader behind the scenes to understand how best to work with press to get publicity. Perfect for politicians, business leaders, lobbyists, media junkies, authors and publishers, this instructional reference and guide provides an insider's look at how the modern newsroom works, detailing the different roles of reporters, editors, and producers. Readers will learn how to forge relationships with media personnel in television, radio, print, and the web to craft the press coverage they want.

Award-winning journalist Jill Osborn exposes the three strategic steps that must be used to gain favorable coverage with the media at just the right time. She gives you the inside scoop on how to think like a national or local journalist so you can control the headlines. And she even provides sample press releases to help shape your message. When reading Accessing the Media, you will have a personal media consultant without the cost of hiring one.

Whether you are running for office, looking to improve visibility for your business, bringing a book to the attention of its intended readership, or simply want a deeper understanding of what you see and read in the news, "Accessing the Media: How to Get Good Press" is impressively informative, 'real world practical', and immediately applicable, making it an ideal and unreservedly recommended addition to personal, professional, corporate, community, and academic library Business Management collections in general, and Publicity/Marketing supplemental studies lists in particular. It should be noted for personal reading lists that "Accessing the Media: How to Get Good Press" is also available in a digital book format (Kindle, $11.99) and as a complete and unabridged audio book (Brilliance Audio, 9781543680812, $14.95, MP3 CD).

The Promise of Failure
John McNally
University of Iowa Press
119 West Park Road, Iowa City, IA 52242-1000
www.uiowapress.org
9781609385750, $19.95, PB, 144pp, www.amazon.com

Synopsis: "The Promise of Failure: One Writer's Perspective on Not Succeeding" by John McNally (the author or editor of seventeen books and who teaches at Pacific University in Forest Grove, Oregon) is part memoir of the writing life, part advice book, and part craft book; sometimes funny, sometimes wrenching, but always honest.

In "The Promise of Failure" McNally uses his own life as a blueprint for the writer’s daily struggles as well as the existential ones, tackling subjects such as when to quit and when to keep going, how to deal with depression, what risking something of yourself means, and ways to re-energize your writing through re-invention.

What McNally illuminates is how rejection, in its best light, is another element of craft, a necessary stage to move the writer from one project to the next, and that it’s best to see rejection and failure on a life-long continuum so that you can see the interconnectedness between failure and success, rather than focusing on failure as a measure of self-worth.

As brutally candid as McNally can sometimes be, The Promise of Failure is ultimately an inspiring book -- but never in a Pollyannaish self-help way. McNally approaches the reader as a sympathetic companion with cautionary tales to tell.

Written by an author who has as many unpublished books under his belt as published ones, "The Promise of Failure" is as much for the newcomer as it is for the established writer.

Critique: Candid, realistic, informative, instructive, pragmatic, ultimately inspiring, and exceptionally well written, organized and presented, "The Promise of Failure: One Writer's Perspective on Not Succeeding" should be considered mandatory reading by anyone who has every aspiring to become a published author. An ideal and unreservedly recommended addition to both community and academic library Writing/Publishing collections and supplemental studies lists, it should be noted for personal reading lists that "The Promise of Failure" is also available in a digital book format (Kindle, $18.95).

Metadata Essentials
Jake Handy, author
Margaret Harrison, author
Jess Johns, editor
Graphic Arts Books
1700 Fourth Street, Berkeley, CA 94710
www.graphicartsbooks.com
9781513260907, $17.99, HC, 132pp, www.amazon.com

Based on direct feedback from retailers and librarians, "Metadata Essentials: Proven Techniques for Book Marketing and Discovery" unlocks insights into the value and real-life uses of the metadata publishers (including self-publishing authors) spend so many precious hours editing and curating. Because it is marketing information that seriously matters when trying to bring a book to the attention of librarians and an intended readership.

The thoroughly 'real world practical' instructional information comprising "Metadata Essentials will: Enhance the metadata that yields proven results; Boost title discovery; Increase online conversion rates; Save time and money.

In four succinct and definitive chapters readers will learn: How Books are Discovered; Take Acton! Metadata Essentials: Your Step by Step Guide; Major Bookseller Profiles; Metadata & Libraries. Enhanced with the inclusion of a three page Glossary, and a seven page Index, "Metadata Essentials" is itself an essential, unique, and thoroughly 'user friendly' instructional reference and guide that should be an integral part of every author and every publisher's professional book marketing plan instructional reference collection.

While unreservedly recommended for both community and academic library Writing/Publishing collections, it should be noted for personal reading lists that "Metadata Essentials" is also available in a paperback edition (9781513260891, $9.99) and in a digital book format (Kindle, $9.99).



Finally -- Here is "The Midwest Book Review Postage Stamp Hall Of Fame & Appreciation" roster of well-wishers and supporters. These are the generous folk who decided to say 'thank you' and 'support the cause' that is the Midwest Book Review by donating postage stamps this past month:

Patricia Emmert
Andrew Diamond -- "Impala"
Roger E. Carrier -- "Ghosts in the Flesh"
Elizabeth L. Midkiff -- "What Is A Hat?"
Gabrielle F. Culmer -- "Where Lives Lead"
Carter Dreyfuss -- "...and Theodore Begot Theodore..."
James Buchanan Ballard -- "William Edmondson "Grumble" Jones"
Edward Wysocki -- "An Astounding War Science Fiction and World War II"
La Marga Moon LLC
The Merry Lion Press
Caleb Boyer -- Read-Write LLC
James Madden -- Paramount Market Publishing
Elizabeth Waldman Frazier -- Waldmania!

In lieu of (or in addition to!) postage stamp donations, we also accept PayPal gifts of support to our postage stamp fund for what we try to accomplish in behalf of the small press community. Simply log onto your PayPal account and direct your kindness (in any amount and at your discretion) to the Midwest Book Review at:

SupportMBR [at] aol.com

(The @ is replaced by "[at]" in the above email address, in an attempt to avoid email-harvesting spambots.)

If you have postage stamps to donate, or if you have a book you'd like considered for review, then send those postage stamps (always appreciated, never required), or a published copy of that book (no galleys, uncorrected proofs, or Advance Reading Copies), accompanied by a cover letter and some form of publicity release to my attention at the address below.

All of the previous issues of the "Jim Cox Report" are archived on the Midwest Book Review website at www.midwestbookreview.com/bookbiz/jimcox.htm. If you'd like to receive the "Jim Cox Report" directly (and for free), just send me an email asking to be signed up for it.

So until next time -- goodbye, good luck, and good reading!

Jim Cox
Midwest Book Review
278 Orchard Drive, Oregon, WI, 53575
http://www.midwestbookreview.com


James A. Cox
Editor-in-Chief
Midwest Book Review
278 Orchard Drive
Oregon, WI 53575-1129
phone: 1-608-835-7937
e-mail: mbr@execpc.com
e-mail: mwbookrevw@aol.com
http://www.midwestbookreview.com


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