If you take the lowest bid you get for an index you may be missing out on term consistency in your index. Why is this the case? And why is it important?

Expertise of the indexer

Taking the lowest bid may mean you don’t get the most consistent index. As with other professionals, not all indexers have the same expertise. I discussed the topic of choosing an indexer in my last post, “Term Consistency and Book Indexing“.

Although some indexers choose to charge the same average rate for all books, most experienced indexers ask to see pages from the book first before they give you an estimate. That’s because there are a wide variety of factors that can affect the price for an index. For a list of those factors, see my page at WordmapsIndexing about Cost Factors For Indexes. Consider these cost factors as they may apply to your book.

Address any cost factor that applies to your book with the indexer you are thinking about hiring to do your index. For example, if your book is on a topic with special terminology, you’ll want an indexer who totally understands that terminology. While a general undergraduate degree may be fine for some book, you may need someone with a major in your subject, work experience, or even a Master’s degree in your subject. It all depends.

Expect to pay a bit more for special expertise from an indexer if your index needs it. Now on to why term consistency is important. This week let’s look at the first of three costs for indexing that involve term consistency:  cross-references.

Cross-referencing of headings in an index

Indexes without any See or See also cross-references are usually inferior indexes. Here is why.

Readers don’t always use the same word to find the same concept. You can’t index a book about hell without using synonyms for the beings associate with the Christian idea of hell: Demon, Daimon, Devil, and Satan. Nor can you index a  book about writing fantasy stories without synonyms for the beings found there: Aliens, Beasts, Creatures, and Monsters. the indexer must create cross-references among these synonyms.

How does an indexer go about putting See cross-references in an index?

To avoid making the reader look in four different places in the index for information about the same topic, most indexers will choose one term from either of the two batches of synonyms listed above. The indexer will use  one term and make See cross-references to it from the other three or four terms in the index, e.g., Daimon, See Devil; Demon, See Devil; and Satan, See Devil. The term the indexer picks may be the one most-used by you, the author in the text. Or the indexer might pick the term they think most readers will use to find that subject.

Now, if there are just two terms that are synonymous, the indexer might want to use both terms in the index, and make a See also cross-reference from each one to the other, e.g., Satan See also Devil along with Devil, See also Satan. It all depends on the book and the indexer.

However, if the way two or more similarly-defined words are used in your book is not quite synonymous, then each word will need to be its own main heading and the indexer will need to create See also cross-references pointing to the other similar word(s).

The important thing to understand here is that the indexer must make the reader aware when you’ve used synonyms or near-synonyms in your book when discussing a topic. Readers who look in the index will find the discussion(s) of that topic even though they started their search by looking under different words in the index. In other words, the bee can take more than one path to the honey.

How does an indexer go about using See also cross-references in an index?

A book about fantasy writing can’t be indexed fully without making See also references to more specific instances of the main topics in the book. For example let’s say Beasts are a main topic of your book. If you frequently talk about dragons, a specific kind of beast, and/or mention lots of different kinds of dragons, these can be listed separately under a new main heading, “Dragon,” in the index.

If dragons aren’t listed under the main heading, “Beasts,” the indexer sure as heck must include a See also cross reference like this one: “Beasts. See also Dragons”. Otherwise the reader who looks under “Beasts” may never realize information about dragons can also be found in your book.

Now why is this important? I’ve done research at a college library that indicated students who look in one place and find only partial information on a topic stop right there. They do not look further for the information that is missing. They assume it just isn’t in the library catalog, or in this case, in your book.

The immense importance of cross-references in indexes

Books that have indexes that omit cross-references will cause the reader to miss much of the information that you, the author, have devoted your time to providing the reader with. Nor will readers be able to go back and find something they recall reading about in your book.

For a prime example of the frustration this can cause a reader,  read any of Robert Kiyosaki’s Rich Dad Poor Dad book series and then go back and try to find something you read in it. Famous as he is, Kiyosaki might have far more sales of his book, especially among college students,  if he had simply provided an index his books. But he doesn’t. Kiyosaki’s antagonism toward education, i.e., his “Poor Dad,” is understandable, but not forgivable when you are the reader of one of his books.

Even books with very specific topics or genres need cross references. For example in a cookbook, some people will use the term “butter lettuce”. Others will use the term “Boston lettuce”. What if one reader looks under “cakes” and another looks under “desserts”? Cookbooks almost always must have See and See also cross-references.

Even an introductory textbook should have a real index. I’ve seen introductory math books and even an advanced text about physics where the index included only the definitions of terms. An index is not a dictionary! In index is not a glossary! One of the main purposes of an index is to gather together all of the different aspects of a topic in one place.

Badly-indexed textbooks where only the definitions of terms are indexed appear to assume that students will merely memorize those definitions. Surely most teachers would rather their students understand the concepts being taught. This is why an indexer should index examples and discussions that may further explain a concept. An index should also capture any comparisons of one concept with another in your book!

Cross-references are an important part of terminology control in your book. The amount of cross-referencing needed for your book is a significant consideration for the indexer when determining the cost of doing an index for a book.

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A term is a word or a phrase. A word or a phrase can have a variety of meanings. In addition, there’s the connotation (implied meaning) as well as the denotation (explicit meaning) of a word.

Term consistency in an index is an art which involves making choices such as these:

(1) Should the indexer list synonymous terms separately in the index and make See also cross-references between (or among) the closely related terms?

(2) Or should the indexer choose one term only for purposes of indexing and make See cross-references to that term from the term(s) not used in the index.

Term consistency is a subset of vocabulary control which in turn is a subset of quality control in indexing. Term consistency is important to the author for several reasons that I’ll cover in this and the next three posts about indexing. We begin with the issue of how much expertise in the terminology of a specific subject an indexer needs to create a competent index.

Term consistency and choosing an indexer

Indexers debate the issue of whether or not we should have any subject expertise in order to index a book. As “first readers” of the books we index there is a feeling by some indexers that if we can’t understand it, neither will the audience.

While that’s true in a lot of cases, it isn’t always. This response assumes that the audience will be the same for all books. And that isn’t true.

Demographic factors, such as age, educational background, work experience, cultural and national origins, knowledge of the subject of the book, and the reader’s reason for wanting to know what’s in the book can all affect the ability of readers to make use of our indexes.

If the indexer does not share enough traits in common with your book’s audience or at least know something about your audience, your index may not be quite as useful to your audience as it could be.

When to choose an indexer with special expertise

The problem for an indexer is that it is sometimes difficult to know if we do have enough expertise to index a book until we’ve read the book. And then it’s a bit too late! But usually we have some sense of our own limitations.

For example, I would never agree to do an advanced medical textbook for students. I just don’t know medical terminology well enough to see the relationships among terms used for diagnosing diseases, discussing treatments, or the tools that doctors and nurses use.

In a similar vein, I agreed to become the indexer for very technical economics books published by a think tank in Michigan because I have a Master’s degree in economics from one of the best colleges in the US.

When I said, “yes,” the editor thanked me at length. He then told me, “Our last indexer just indexed words. She didn’t have a clue about what the words really meant.”

When to compromise about expertise

Sometimes it’s just a truism that no one can know as much about a subject as the author or authors of a book.

For example, for years I indexed the Black Music Research Journal (BMRJ) for Columbia College in Chicago. My qualifications were extensive experience and training in music and music appreciation, I also had a bit of knowledge of cross-cultural experiences from being a womens studies librarian for several years.

But the Black Music Research Journal is an amazing compendium of information about African culture as it has spread throughout the world with the “diaspora” of black people in previous centuries. Politics, geography, history, anthropology, literature, religion… you name it, these articles covered all those subjects and more in addition to music from every part of the world. I doubt there is any one person who excels in all of these fields.

Yet, I did wonder often whether not being an African-American meant I was missing a lot of important things in the Journal. I comfort myself with the knowledge that my predecessor appeared to be absolutely oblivious of the existence of women in black music.

I introduced a number of headings to the BMRJ index related to black and non-black women that this indexer had simply not even seen. He even failed to index the women who were major subjects of some of the articles!

When to not worry about term consistency

Indexers usually have a college background. For most trade books aimed at a general audience you don’t really have to worry about whether the indexer will understand the terminology of your book.

In addition, indexers are quick learners. We can easily pick up the terminology in a new subject area. We will also do research outside of the book if necessary, but most of us prefer not to have to do this – it takes time, and for us, time is money

Also, some fields are just so broad and so full of individual discovery that an indexer will do well to just to know that basics about indexing that field.

For example, if you have created a cookbook of American cuisine, the important thing you want to know from the indexer, (besides whether they like food!) is whether they know the traditional means by which cookbook indexes are to be structured.

Beyond that, every cookbook indexer usually learns something new when we index a cookbook. That’s because knowing how one chef does things is no guarantee we’ll know how any other chef works.

Surprises and learning about new things are one of the benefits that make us become indexers in the first place.

Three tips for finding your indexer

(1) Make sure you identify who the audience or audiences are for your book. Let the indexer know the details about who you believe will want to read your book. If you have a primary audience and a secondary one, mention that too. This information will help an indexer gauge our ability to index your book.

(2) Help the indexer decide if we can index your book by offering to send us a few pages if we say they might be interested in working on your book. Do this so we can see what we may be getting into. If you haven’t finished writing your book, describe it and ask us if we think we would have the right background to do it.

(3) Don’t assume an indexer will have mentioned everything about their background in a directory of indexers or on their web site on LinkedIn! Indexers often have varied subject interests, many of which we lacked the space to mention or we just didn’t think of it as something an author might write about!

NOTE: If you would like to get this blog by email, sign up for Wordmaps Tips, my free newsletter. The sign-up box is at the upper right of each page on my site, WordmapsIndexing.com. For current news about indexing and book publishing, follow me and see who I follow on Twitter @Wordmaps.

Let me answer the question, Does my book need a catalog record? with another question: Why do libraries need classification?

If you’ve ever taken biology in school, you’ve learned about the classes used to classify all living beings. These are called kingdoms (Animalia, Plantae, Fungi, Protista, Archaea and Bacteria).

Classification is the science of breaking things down into “classes,” i.e., very broad subjects, then arranging those classes into some kind of order, and then — subdividing each class into narrower and narrower categories within each class.

Say, does this sound familiar? Isn’t that what indexers do? You bet it is!

Indexers “chunk” the content of a book into broad classes of information that we call “main headings”. These main headings can be specific names of people, places, things, or concepts. Main headings are the main “subjects” of discussion in a book.

In a book index, the broad classes, i.e., the  “subjects,” are arranged in alphabetical order. Then these classes (subjects) are subdivided into smaller “subclasses” that fall within the topic of the main heading. The smaller chunks of information, the indented terms under the main headings in a book index, are called the “subheadings.”

In short: indexing is a form of classification of all human knowledge

Difference between a book index and library catalog?

Obviously a book contains a smaller “domain” of knowledge! That’s a big difference. A library catalog is a much bigger project than a book index. The librarians’ domain is all of the human knowledge that exists anywhere at any time.

In addition, human knowledge exists outside of the medium by which it is transmitted. A book is just one way to transmit knowledge.

For example, in an article titled, “The worlds oldest profession: indexing?,” published in the December 2011 issue of  the Society of Indexers’ journal, The Indexer, I talk about the oldest index in the world. This index is said to have been inspired in ancient, prehistoric China by markings on the backs of turtles!

There are many other ways of transmitting knowledge besides what we call a book. Now we are creating new ways of sharing information with all kinds of “digital” books, i.e., app books, audiobooks, ebooks, enhanced ebooks, illustrated (fixed-format) ebooks, and instant-download PDF books.

Similarity between a book index and library catalog?

Yet, there is a parallel between book indexing and what librarians call “cataloging” of books. Cataloging is the process by which a book is described and listed in a library catalog. Cataloging takes place because librarians have developed systems of classifying and organizing large amounts of data in diverse kinds of materials.

Here’s the similarity: classification is a part of the of cataloging library books.

Classification is what is behind the “call numbers” you see on a library book. It’s also behind  the “subject headings” attached to each book that you can search for in a library catalog. Classification is used by both indexers and librarians in organizing human knowledge so that we all can find things in a book or in a library.

This is a very close connection, and it goes back as far as we can see. The first preserved index in the world, the Chinese book of changes, or I Ching, was also the first classification system. The I Ching was a systematic analysis of human society for the purpose of governing in times of war and peace.

Modern library classification systems arose when human knowledge expanded beyond the point where a few scrolls, clay tablets, or books sufficed to encompass all of human knowledge.

In the United States, for example, Harvard University was the first library in what became the United States. Harvard’s initial collection of 400 books arrived on our shores in 1638. Today Harvard has the fourth largest library in the world; Harvard’s libraries now house 15.6 million volumes.

Why get a catalog record for my book?

If you want to sell your book to libraries, getting a catalog record is vital! The key question is not why get a catalog record, but how to get a catalog record. That’s because there are four different ways to get a catalog record for your book.

I examine these  four ways in Chapter five of my new book, Marketing Your Book to Libraries: An Insider’s Guide for Librarians. Depending on how you publish your book and market it, you may decide to choose one method over another to get a catalog record for your book.

Just be aware that cataloging, processing, shelving, circulating, and re-shelving and occasionally repairing a book, costs libraries far more than the book itself! And be aware that a librarian or staff member supervised by a qualified librarian is the only one who can create a catalog record that will be accepted by other librarians for use in their libraries.

What does a catalog record do?

A reason that cataloging of books is so important to librarians is because the classification of books is what enables librarians, library staff, and patrons to actually identify what book titles are in the library. Classification is also what empowers librarians, library staff, and patrons to quickly find where those books are in the library when they want to use the book, show the book to others, and/or borrow it.

(Note: I once worked in an big city library where we had no access to a library catalog that we could use for finding any of the thousands of books in our reference area! We had to rely on our own knowledge of library classification instead.)

As  with an index, classification empowers readers in a library to “browse” among many discussions on the same topic. Classification will let a reader browse virtual shelves in a library as well as actual ones.

For example, here is the Library of Congress’ online catalog. You can input  a call number for a book into one of the “Call Number Browse” boxes, hit the search button, and see all of the other books “shelved” alongside that book. The Library of Congress began with 3,000 books, and it now houses 33 million volumes. That’s the the largest library collection in the world!

Most libraries in the US are responsible for too large a domain of human knowledge to use either the alphabetical order that indexers use for subjects in book indexes or the keyword order that bookstores use for arranging books on their shelves.

This means that if you want your book to “fit in” to the complex classification systems that libraries use for finding and shelving books, you need a library catalog record for your book!

Can’t I sell my book to libraries without a catalog record?

Yes, indeed, you can! There are small libraries that do not use either of the two traditional library classification systems most American libraries use. They will take and house a book without a catalog record. And there are special collections within all kinds of libraries in this country that will buy and keep non-cataloged books too.

The problem is that these non-cataloged materials will be housed separately from the cataloged ones. They may be put in boxes kept on an out-of-the-way shelf or room. Or they may be put in file cabinets. And the only person who knows they are there is the librarian or library staff member who curates those books.

A recent survey of public library patrons showed that 50% of regular patrons will buy other books by an author that they discover at the library. In addition, word of mouth is the best way to publicize your book.

This is why you need a catalog record! If you want many libraries to acquire your book and make it possible for a lot of library patrons to read it and spread the word about it, get your book cataloged!

Now up on Authormaps.com: “Does Your Book Need PCIP?” [a prepublication catalog record]

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Today’s post is a guest post by Julia Schopick, a former client of mine who is successfully selling her self-published book to readers and libraries via radio talk shows.

About Julia

Julia Schopick is the author of the Amazon.com best-selling book, Honest Medicine: Effective, Time-Tested, Inexpensive Treatments for Life Threatening Diseases, and creator of the award-winning blog, HonestMedicine.com. She has been a published writer and a public relations consultant for more than twenty years. When her husband Tim Fisher became ill in 1990 with a cancerous brain tumor, Julia became his medical advocate and began writing on topics relating to health and medicine. Her articles and columns have been published in numerous publications, including American Medical News (the AMA publication), SEARCH (the newsletter of the National Brain Tumor Foundation) and Alternative and Complementary Therapies.

Julia’s work and essays have been featured in many other publications, as well, including the British Medical Journal, Modern Maturity and the Chicago Sun-Times. Her mission is to use her writing and public relations skills to inform the world about effective, time-tested, inexpensive treatments for life-threatening diseases through her website, her presentations and her book, Honest Medicine—and overall, to empower people in their health choices.

Julia has appeared on numerous radio programs nationwide, including the very popular Coast to Coast AM and Dr. Ronald Hoffman’s WOR710AM show, Health Talk. Her book has gotten some wonderful reviews, and she has been interviewed on The Atlantic’s website. Honest Medicine has received glowing testimonials from several integrative physicians, including Julian Whitaker, Jacob Teitelbaum, David Brownstein, Jeffrey Dach and Ronald Hoffman. To learn more about her media appearances and book reviews click here.

Honest Medicine is available on Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble.com. It is also available as Kindle and NOOK ebooks.

(1) Julia, how did you get into online radio talk shows as a way to promote your new book, Honest Medicine: Effective, Time-Tested, Inexpensive Treatments for Life Threatening Diseases?

 Nancy, actually I have appeared on many standard radio shows, as well as on Internet radio shows. For me, the fact that radio would be the best way for me to promote Honest Medicine was a “no-brainer.” I’ve been a public relations consultant for over twenty years, so I know the advantages of each medium, and knew that my book is one that requires more than 3-minute sound bites to tell the complete story, since the subject matter I cover in Honest Medicine is rather complex. Radio allows me to do that, while television does not. On my media page, there are several examples of the radio shows I’ve been on, with links, so people can listen to them.

(2) What kinds of success have you had? Has radio promotion “worked” for selling your book?

Radio has been amazingly successful for me. The best so far has been Coast to Coast AM, the national late-night radio talk show. After that appearance in May, 2011, my book shot up to #49 (out of all 8 million books) on Amazon.com. In addition, it was #1 in two categories and #4 in a third. I was so amazed that I took a screen shot of those two events. And, I sold 1500 copies in that month alone. But other shows have helped too. My book has been an Amazon.com best seller since its publication in early 2011. Much of its success has been due to radio. (I have also had some really good book reviews, and a Q&A with me was featured on The Atlantic’s website. But nothing has worked as well for me as radio.)

(3)What kind of negative experiences have you had?

A great question. Actually, I am usually very comfortable on radio, and even if the host or hostess has not read my book, I have no trouble steering the conversation. But I did have one awful experience and I hope that, by telling about it here, I can help other authors. I’d rather not name the show or the host here, but he (I will say that it was a man!) was in favor of only alternative/natural treatments and is known to be very much against anything that smacks of Big Pharma. When I spoke with his producer beforehand, I told him that I was worried that perhaps this show might not be a good fit for me for this reason. I explained that one of the treatments in my book, Low Dose Naltrexone (LDN), is a very non-toxic generic drug manufactured by a few pharmaceutical companies. I also explained that it (like the other treatments in my book) has never made a lot of money for any pharmaceutical company. The producer said that, in that case, he was sure it would be fine.

Well, it wasn’t. Obviously, the producer hadn’t communicated this to the host. The first question he asked on air was, “I understand that one of the treatments you write about is a treatment for autoimmune diseases. Can you tell us about it?” So I told him about Low Dose Naltrexone: how it is a very low-dose, off-label use of a drug that was FDA-approved in 1984 as safe at a much higher dose for another use than is now used for autoimmune diseases. I told him about how the late Dr. Bernard Bihari discovered that, at one-tenth the FDA-approved dose, it successfully treats patients with lots of autoimmune diseases, including multiple sclerosis, lupus, Crohn’s disease, etc.

Well, the host literally FLEW at me, and said he wasn’t interested in any treatment that wasn’t natural. It went downhill from there.

I want to stress here that I think I did the best possible thing under the circumstances: I did NOT try to defend myself. I just let him talk. . . and talk. . .and talk. And he did. But I think this whole experience could have been avoided.

I learned my lesson. I actually hadn’t liked this host for years. But two friends of mine had independently (and without my knowledge) approached him about me. I didn’t want to seem ungrateful, so I followed up and went on the show. It was a mistake. The lesson I learned was, “Follow your gut.” With radio, there is another caveat: “Listen to the show beforehand, to make sure it is a good fit for you. And if it isn’t, stay away, no matter how many people tell you otherwise.”

(4) What are the main things you’ve learned from your experiences with radio shows and podcasts?

As I said when answering the last question, “Follow your gut,” and “listen to the shows before you approach them about being a guest.” Many shows are archived online, so you can listen to them to see if there is a good fit.

I’ve also learned how to be a good guest. First, prepare questions and answers for the host. Here is a PDF of my Q&As. Most hosts and hostesses, unfortunately, will not read your book, but there is a much better chance that they will read your Q&As. One professional consultant told me that I should refuse to go on any show where the host hasn’t read my book. But that is ridiculous. Most of them simply won’t read your book. It is a special gift if one does. So you have to be the leader. You have to have several directions you are prepared to go in. Have your own agenda, too. You can always say, “That’s a great question, but first, I’d like to talk about. . . . .” Remember, the best radio interviews are conversations between the host/hostess and you. Enjoy yourself.

(5) How do you recommend other authors approach promoting their books via radio?

Before you even decide to use radio as a promotional medium, carefully assess whether or not you will shine in that medium. Are you articulate? Are you a “talker”? And probably just as important—if not more so—is your book one that radio audiences will want to know about? In other words, do you have information that is important to a lot of people? My book, Honest Medicine, features treatments that are lifesaving for patients with many life-threatening diseases, including multiple sclerosis, lupus, fibromyalgia, rheumatoid arthritis, Crohn’s disease, liver disease, some cancers and epilepsy. I name these diseases here so that you can see that—when all the diseases are combined—there is quite a large audience out there who will resonate with the information in my book. If it were only about MS, or lupus, or even Crohn’s disease, I would have decided on an entirely different approach: one that included only very targeted publications and podcasts—publications and podcasts dealing with the particular disease profiled in the book. But, because my book deals with several treatments and several diseases, radio is an excellent promotional medium for me.

In addition, my book also has an underlying message—patient empowerment—which is applicable to a huge audience. So that’s another reason why radio is a great choice for me.

And because I’ve been a public relations consultant for so many years, I am able to navigate my way through the shows and prepare appropriate messages for each.

I am thinking of conducting webinars or teleseminars for authors, to help them decide which medium is best for them, and how to access that medium. I’ve had this in mind for some time.

(6) Please tell readers a bit more about your book and plans for your future.

Nancy, this is another interesting question. I feel that I am at a crossroads. I am considering several avenues. I’d like to keep teaching people about these treatments I write about, and about the fact that they must think for themselves and not just follow their doctors’ advice. To that end, I am considering conducting webinars or teleseminars—for which I would charge a modest amount of money—through which I would interview experts on topics contained in my book. I think that Jim Abrahams and Dr. Burt Berkson would be fascinating people to interview. I would also interview Jacqueline Young, widow of Dr. Bihari, the first to use LDN for treating autoimmune diseases. She has some amazing true stories to tell.

I am also considering giving more speeches. As a result of my appearance on Coast to Coast AM, I was invited to speak at the Cancer Control Society’s annual convention in Los Angeles over Labor Day weekend (2011). It went really well and you can be see it on You Tube. Although I don’t really like to travel (who does, these days?) for the right opportunities, I would definitely be available!

I am also considering starting to write about other treatments that—like the four I write about in Honest Medicine—are low cost, non-toxic and lifesaving, and that work for life-threatening diseases. I have ideas for two such treatments now: Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy for brain injury and stroke; and EECP (Enhanced External Counterpulsation) for angina and heart disease. So, I may start writing about these treatments, and others like them, for my website, HonestMedicine.com, with the possible intention of publishing a new version of my book within the next few years. That book would be about SIX lifesaving treatments your doctors may not know about!

Thank you, Julia for this information. I especially appreciated your distinction between the use of radio and TV talk shows for promoting one’s book! Nancy

NOTE: If you would like to get this blog by email, please sign up for Wordmaps Tips, my free newsletter. The sign-up box is at the upper right of each page on my site, WordmapsIndexing.com. For current news about indexing and book publishing, follow me and see who I follow on Twitter @Wordmaps.

Today’s post is from my partner for the “Sell More Books” sale on Wordmaps, Barbara Techel. We’re selling my book, Marketing Your Book to Libraries: an Insider’s Guide for Authors and Barbara’s book, Class Act: Sell More Books Through School and Library Author Appearances together for a 25% discounted price.

Barbara Techel is the award-winning author of the Frankie the Walk ‘N Roll Dog book series. She has shared her story of hope and inspiration about her dachshund, Frankie, who is in a wheelchair, with thousands of children and adults since 2008.

To date they have made over 325 appearances in Wisconsin and many more via Skype to classrooms across the US and Canada. Barbara is also a speaker and publisher. Barbara and Frankie are avid volunteers as a therapy dog team. They routinely visit a local hospice community, hospital and senior assisted living facility, where they “walk their talk” about the inspirational nature of perseverance in the face of challenge.

Since before her first book was published, Barbara has worked tirelessly to promote her books and the positive message they embody. She has garnered coverage for her story from local, regional and national media through these efforts, and continues to develop and refine her marketing message and approach. Class Act is her first book about what she’s learned, but not likely her last.

How to Set Up Author Virtual School Visits

Skype is showing real promise for schools and authors to connect.  Making this connection via Skype or other video conferencing software is called a virtual school visit.

It’s no secret that school budgets are being squeezed tighter each year which is limiting what schools can do for added beneficial curriculum. Authors may have a limited budget and time constraint to do in-person visits, so with the advance of technology, and software such as Skype, this is gaining positive speed as an option that is a win-win for all involved.

Having an author visit in-person certainly creates an impression that a virtual visit may be more limited in its impact. But if done right, you can absolutely leave an everlasting, positive experience when using Skype or other video conference programs.

Depending on how many students take part in the virtual visit, if small enough, it can provide a very interactive session. With a small group, and the help of the teacher or librarian, an author is able to ask questions with the students raising their hand and being called on. Question and answer time works well with a small classroom and gives each student the learning opportunity of approaching the webcam to ask their question.

A large assembly can still work well too if all the details are worked out prior to the visit. This may require the majority of the staff to take part in the visit to watch for any behavior issues so that they can be quietly corrected. With a large group, each classroom may want to come up with one question and choose someone to ask it of the author. But with a little thoughtful planning, a virtual visit can work for any size group.

Virtual visits typically last anywhere from 10-to-60 minutes and depends on the age of students. Authors will also want to work with the school in determining their needs. Do they want a presentation, a reading, or a workshop?

So you may be thinking, “What do I charge?” As of the writing of this article, fees range from free to $500. The average charge is $150-$200 which is for a 45-60 minute program. If you offer a 30-minute program you may need to adjust your pricing. Many authors will work with each school on an individual basis to determine the school’s budget and a price that works for both the school and author.

How to promote your author appearances

Once you determine your fee and programs you will offer, you will want to promote yourself as an author offering Virtual visits. A wonderful resource to get your name out there is a network called, “Skype an Author” (http://www.skypeanauthor.wetpaint.com). It was started by author Mona Kirby and Library Media Specialist Sarah Chauncey. This website connects K-12 teachers and librarians with authors who offer Virtual visits. As an author, you can set up a profile page just by signing up.

Setting up Google alerts such as “Schools using Skype,” “Libraries using Skype,” and “Skype in the Classroom” will help you discover schools embracing this technology. You can then design an email or postcard mailing campaign to pitch your program to schools doing Virtual visits.

Just as doing in-person author visits, doing Virtual visits takes practice, organization, and some technical skill. When I first began offering visits via Skype I gave out ten free sessions to help work the bugs out.  Not only did this give me practice, but also helped with gathering testimonials for my program.

If the school has a techie person on hand that always helps the school and the author feel a little more at ease should they encounter a challenge. But having done quite a few Virtual visits, knock-on-wood, I have not had any major glitches, and I don’t consider myself a techie person… just an author eager to share my message!

So embrace technology as a real positive as an author, and a wonderful avenue in which you can share your books with virtually anyone in the world!

Barbara Techel

Thank you, Barb, for this terrific information on how to use Skype to sell books to libraries, schools, and other places!

NOTE: If you would like to get this blog by email, please sign up for Wordmaps Tips, my free newsletter. The sign-up box is at the upper right of each page on my site, WordmapsIndexing.com. For current news about indexing and book publishing, follow me and see who I follow on Twitter @Wordmaps.

The answer to this question is that we don’t really know. At present there is no central source of statistics on the number of books libraries buy or on how much money they spend on books each year. However, here are two other ways of estimating the importance to you, as an author, of libraries as a market.

First, Publishers Weekly, the chief journal for the publishing industry, has just featured an article with the title “Survey Says Library Users Are Your Best Customers”. This is how the survey came about. RR Bowker company’s PubTrak Consumer gathered the data used in Library Journal’s (LJ) new quarterly publication, Patron Files. Here’s what Publishers Weekly reported about public library users:

“LJ editors have been amazed by the strength of the findings so far – including the degree to which libraries are boosting book sales. ‘Our data show that over 50% of all library users report purchasing books by an author they were introduced to in the library.’”

That was a total surprise to me. But then I thought about the times I’ve bought books, both fiction and non-fiction, by authors I came across at the library. It makes sense. And the support of libraries for book-buying extends beyond print books to ebooks as well!

Believe me, this wasn’t always true. The first American college library at Harvard began with a collection of four hundred books, sent to Cambridge, Massachusetts by a clergyman in England, named Harvard, in the mid-17th century. And here we come to a second way to guesstimate the size of the library market.

A longitudinal look at library book-buying

When the library opened (for a short period each week) Harvard didn’t have a librarian; instead the books were chained to the shelves to keep them from “walking off”. 200 years later, book circulation at Harvard was still a hot issue when the famous American essayist, Henry David Thoreau, a former student, complained in his writings about being unable to get a library card from his alma mater.

I came across these anecdotes about our early libraries while working as a research assistant for Dr. Wayne S. Yenawine, Dean of Syracuse University and later, of my alma mater, the University of South Carolina School of Librarianship. Dean Yenawine had published a well-known book on library design. When I met him, he was pursuing two of his favorite topics: the history of American humorists, and the history of American university libraries.

The Dean himself began his library career at the Air Tactical School at Maxwell Field in Montgomery Alabama. This was the Army Air Corps center for military education. Later it became the Air University for the Air Force when the Air Force was created before World War II.

When the name changed, the library at the Air University was charged with developing professional leadership for the entire US Air Force. The library collected research materials: books and journals, and maps and microfilm. In 1946 Dean Yenawine was brought in from the University of Georgia to build the library. The nucleus of the Air University library consisted of 10,219 books and bound journals. Within two years, Dr. Yenawine increased that number to 12, 551 books, an increase of 20%.

By 1980, a year before Dean Yenawine died, the Air University had nearly half a million (i.e., 485,000) total items in its library catalog, and it was having severe space problems in housing them. (Source: Encyclopedia of Library and Information Science: The Air University, Volume 32 United Kingdom.)

Today, the Muir S. Fairchild Research Information Center at The Air University is the premier library in the Department of Defense. It currently holds over 2.6 million items, including 429,000 monographs (i.e., books) and bound periodical volumes.

That was an increase from 12,551 bound volumes to almost half a million bound volumes in just 60 years! That is an average acquisitions rate of nearly 7,000 new volumes every year. The majority of these bound volumes would be books.

How large is the library market?

Going back to Harvard, the tiny college collection with just a few hundred books back in the mid 1600s – Harvard now has the largest university library in the world. It is the fourth largest library in the U.S. Currently Harvard libraries house 15.6 million volumes. During the academic year, 2008-2009, the Harvard library spent $27.5 million on books and other library materials.

Over the 375 years since Harvard was founded, that would be an average acquisitions of 41,600 volumes a year. Nearly forty-two thousand bound volumes a year, the majority of which would be books, is quite a market!

Of course, the average number of books bought each year by the Air University’s Library and Harvard is a very rough figure. Book buying has grown exponentially over time, not by a set amount each year. But a few years ago when the statistics were available, they showed all US libraries combined were spending around 15 billion dollars each year on books. Given that a million book titles are published in this country each year, it’s no surprise our libraries spend billions of dollars.

The library market is clearly bigger than Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and all of the other online bookstores combined.

Librarians buy all kinds of books, new and old, published and self-published, print or digital. Librarians buy whatever they think their patrons will want to read. Because libraries serve all kinds of organizations and different local communities throughout the US, every library is a bit different than any other.  The trick in selling a book to libraries is to identify the right libraries and the right librarians to sell your book to. Then make sure they know about your book.

This is the objective of my new book, Marketing Your Book to Libraries, and Barbara Techels’ new guide, Sell More Books Through School and Library Author Appearances, both currently on sale as a package on this site.

We had such a success selling our books together in October that we are continuing the sale for the rest of the year. If you are ready to sell your book to the largest book market in the United States, please check out our Sell More Books page on this site.

NOTE: If you would like to get this blog by email, sign up for Wordmaps Tips, my free newsletter. The sign-up box is at the upper right of each page on my site, WordmapsIndexing.com.

For current news about indexing and book publishing, follow me and see who I follow on Twitter @Wordmaps.

Leverage your library to help sell your book. There are many ways you can get the word out about your book. Librarians can help you do this.

Librarians promote books that they purchase so their readers will find a book each reader wants to read.

Keep in mind that you can strategically partner with a local librarian to promote your book in their library through an author appearance and/or providing promotional materials about your book to use for display. Many libraries periodically put up displays and are looking for new ideas.

Research and develop your book

When starting your book, check your library for materials on book marketing and business planning. Utilize business, publishing, and tax planning information at the library when creating and selling your book.

See what else is being published on your topic. If you find a competitor, notice if their book is in the library, or if it is checked out. How many copies of that book did the library buy? What does the library catalog tell you about that book? Note where your book might be shelved in a library.

Make sure you have a unique title for your book. Ask a reference librarian about databases where you can look for books in print or soon to be forthcoming in print. Find out if anyone else has already used your title.

Get your book mentioned in journals librarians read

Special Librarians read Information Outlook:The Magazine of the Special Libraries Association. Search this magazine and you may find a librarian who is interested in and writing about your topic.

Reference Area Librarians read and write articles for Reference & User Services Quarterly (RUSQ) [formerly titled RQ].

Online Searchers and Internet Specialists at the library read Searcher: The Magazine for Database Professionals published by Information Today, Inc.

Librarians read the general news magazine, Information Today, along with other magazines relevant to libraries also published by Information Today, Inc. (ITI).

You can find these magazines at larger libraries. Ask for them if you can’t find them. They might be on a librarian’s desk!

Promote your book at the library

• When you’re done with your book, use a room at your local library for a book publishing party.
• Offer to give a book talk at your local library or at nearby school libraries. Ask if you can sell your book afterwards.
• See if you can display your book at a nearby library that bought it. Get visual at the library.
• See if you can use an area of the library for your brief “book trailer” video for promoting your book on You Tube!

These suggestions are excerpted from my new book, Marketing Your Book to Libraries: An Insider’s Guide for Authors, available at Authormaps.com. In it you’ll find out much more about librarians and the tools they use to select books to purchase. Even if you are just beginning to write your book, get started on marketing it today!

NOTE: If you would like to get this blog by email, sign up for Wordmaps Tips, my free newsletter. The sign-up box is at the upper right of each page on my site, WordmapsIndexing.com. For current news about indexing and book publishing, follow me and see who I follow on Twitter @Wordmaps.

1. Two good reasons to donate to a library are (a) to get a catalog record, and/or (b) promote your book.

(a) A catalog record is vital to librarians. They use a catalog record to identify, shelve a book with others like it, circulate the book (i.e., check it out to patrons to take home) and re-shelve that book back in the right place. A catalog record lets patrons find their book by its title, your name, a keyword(s), or a subject. Only accredited librarians and their staff can create a catalog record for your book.

(b) The best means of promoting a book or any other product or service is by word-of-mouth sales. Libraries are a great place for promoting your book. You can do this by through making an “author appearance” and giving a “book talk”. Not only could you donate your book to an interested librarian, but you usually can sell books to your audience after your talk. Likewise, if your book is on a library shelf, a lot of people may see it, and perhaps buy it later.

2. Donate your book to a Friends of the Library group

Friends of the library groups fund raise for libraries by holding book sales of donated books. You might protest that your book won’t get into the library that way. And you might think it won’t get your book cataloged. You’re right it won’t do that immediately.

However, a donation to a Friends of the Library can achieve those objectives for you eventually. Patrons of libraries often browse the Friends of the Library sale shelf or book store inside the library. This means readers will see your book. Some will buy it, read it, and tell their family, coworkers and friends about it. Those people may buy your book too. One of them may even ask your library to buy your book for its patrons.

3. Approach the right decision-maker in the library

Make sure you approach someone who has the authority to accept your donation. Usually the person with that power will be a librarian. Although some smaller libraries will give a person without a Master’s degree from an accredited library school a title of librarian, this isn’t common. But be aware there are many kinds of librarians who work in a library. You have to find the right librarian to take your book.

The librarian at the circulation desk (the place where you check out books) probably won’t be the right librarian. Circulation-desk librarians often take and pass on requests from patrons for the library to buy books, but they don’t usually deal with buying books or taking donations of books.

4. Be at the right place in the library

Your best bet will be to ask for a librarian who is in charge of buying books for the area of the library where your book will be shelved and talk to them when they have the time. This pretty much requires that you visit the library you intend to donate to, and/or that you use a reference book called a “directory” to identify the right library to donate your book to.

Use the right directory of libraries and you may be able to locate the best possible library to donate your book to. You can also get the name and contact info for the librarian who buys books there.

But with this information, you could also try to sell your first book to a library likely to be interested in it. Consider trying to sell your book first, before you offer to donate it. The librarian who has no funds to buy your book will be grateful for getting a second chance to acquire it when you offer to donate it.

5. Pick the the right time to donate your book

Try donating your book after it has been for sale for awhile. By then your book will have a proven track record, i.e., sales and/or favorable book reviews from review sources that librarians deem “authoritative” for book-buying purposes.

Libraries take donations of older books that meet the terms of the library’s particular gift policy. Accepted will be books of interest to a library’s patrons, regardless of the age of the gift. Books are like fine wines or cheeses. A book that’s not too new or past its prime will be appreciated if it is one a library’s patrons can use.

All of the things I’ve mentioned here are discussed in detail in my new book, Marketing Your Books to Libraries: An Insider’s Guide for Authors. In it, you’ll learn :

• Four ways to get a catalog record for your book
• How to tell what kind of library to donate  to
• Get past the “gatekeepers” who influence librarians
• Kinds of librarians and what books they want
• Ways to locate libraries most likely to take your book

For additional information about selling your book at the library, see Barbara Techel’s Class Act: Sell More Books to Libraries through School and Library Author Appearances.

Want to learn even more about donating your book to libraries? See also “Can’t Even Donate Your Book to a Library? – 5 Reasons Why”

NOTE: If you would like to get this blog by email, sign up for Wordmaps Tips, my free newsletter. The sign-up box is at the upper right of each page on my site, WordmapsIndexing.com.

For current news about indexing and book publishing, follow me and see who I follow on Twitter @Wordmaps.

This week I have a cross-promotional sale with a partner who has a book out about selling books to schools and libraries. My book is about marketing books to libraries, including school libraries. Our two books are selling as a package until October 15th.

So what is the difference between marketing and selling? And what exactly is cross-promotion?

Marketing vs. Selling

In a nutshell selling is the goal; marketing is the process.

Marketing comes before selling. Marketing includes preparing your book for the audience you want to sell it to. It includes devising strategies for reaching your audience and getting their attention. And it includes ways to announce and advertise your new book.

Selling is the final step in marketing. You’ve got a marketing plan. You’ve identified your audiences(s). You’ve chosen your format(s) for your book. And now you are looking for how to get your book actually bought.

We all know the old methods of selling door-to-door and direct mail. Has it ever occurred to you that you can still use direct mail or direct email to reach librarians? You can, and you should. Librarians are very busy people and a lot of information about books crosses their desks.

A carefully crafted message to a precisely chosen group of librarians who are most likely to buy your book, can result in more sales of your book. So can a technique like giving book talks or making personal appearances at libraries. It amazes me how many authors and publishers I talk to who have never thought of using these approaches.

Cross-promotion

Cross-promotion is a selling technique where partners with complementary products get together and sell a package with both of their products.

Partners in cross-promotions can take an extra step and develop a marketing plan which contains multiple strategies for cross-selling their products. For example, my partner and I sponsored a Twitter contest with free prizes that included our books. Now we have a two-week-only package-sale of our books. We plan to do more promotions in the future.

Are you a writer, an author, or someone who works with authors? Think about the idea of cross-promoting your book when it’s done. Do you know of anyone who has a book that might complement yours? Having someone else to sell your book can be a real morale booster. Selling books is a tough process.

Need ideas about how to find another author? Note Amazon.com’s feature that suggests titles of other books a book-browser on Amazon might want to look at too. Or, if you’re in a group for authors online, keep an eye out for posts by other authors who have books that might pair nicely with yours. Then get in touch with them.

Need more sales of your book?

Check out my newest cross-promotion. Here’s a brief summary. There’s more information about these books and their authors at http://www.authormaps.com/sell-more-books

Our one-time-only $21.95 two-book-special-offer package for a total savings of $12.95 includes:

Class Act: Sell More Books Through School and Library Author Appearances, by Barbara Techel, instant-download PDF, 118 pages with index (2011), regular price $9.95,

and

Marketing Your Book to Libraries, An Insider’s Guide for Authors, by Nancy K. Humphreys, instant-download PDF, 153 pages with index (2011), introductory price $24.95.

Sale ends October 15, 2011!
NOTE: If you would like to get this blog by email, sign up for Wordmaps Tips, my free newsletter. The sign-up box is at the upper right of each page on my site, WordmapsIndexing.com. For current news about indexing and book publishing, follow me and see who I follow on Twitter @Wordmaps.

The first alphabetical index for a print book

The first known alphabetical index for a print book was created for the 1467 edition of St. Augustine’s, The Art of Preaching, published by Peter Schöffer and Joahn Fust, colleagues of Johannes Gutenberg, the inventor of the printing press.

Hans Wellisch, well-known British indexer, discussed this book in depth in his article, “The oldest alphabetical index,” in The Indexer (The British Society of Indexers), October 1996 issue.

Here’s how Wellisch describes it, “the index entries were given as phrases, beginning with catchwords taken more or less verbatim from the text…” In addition, only the first syllable or even just the first two or three letters of the catchwords were alphabetical. (page 77)

Later on in regard to a an index in a book published around this same time, Wellisch says, “most entries begin with a keyword from the text, followed by an elaboration indicating the context (a method, it should be remembered, followed almost unchanged in subsequent centuries and down to our own time.)” (page 81)

This kind of indexing is called a KWOC index, a keyword-out-of-context index. KWOC indexes, popular until the later part of the 20th century, list keywords on the left side of the page – each keyword is then followed by text it refers to in the document. I created one of these indexes myself for a library where I worked.

The thing about KWOC indexes is that the same keyword is repeated on the left side over and over on the page. It really isn’t what we now think of as an alphabetical index. In a KWOC index, the reader has s to wade through all of the identical keywords and read the “elaboration” following each instance of them get to the particular aspect of that key word they are interested in. And no, the beginning words of the elaborations that followed the keywords were not in alphabetical order in these 15th century indexes.

What makes a modern index modern

Whoever invented the notion of “subheadings,” i.e., the “elaborations” on a main heading that are indented underneath it with the first word of each one alphabetized was a true genius!

Alphabetical subheadings are what distinguish the modern index from its crude predecessors. Alphabetical subheadings are a gift from heaven. Even in “run-on” indexes (a kind of index format you usually find in scholarly books) where subheadings form a paragraph following the main heading with semicolons separating each subheading from the others, alphabetized subheadings make scanning an index and finding what you want so much quicker and easier!

The value of an index

Before the age of personal computers, fully-alphabetized indexes were tedious to create. The indexer had to use 5 x 7 index cards and a “shoebox” to organize the index. Sorting the cards by hand took hours. Nevertheless, the value of fully alphabetical indexes was recognized even back then. Publishers regularly hired indexers to create indexes.

In fact, the value of the partially alphabetical index was recognized back in 1467. The publisher of St. Augustine’s book (of which only a few initial copies were printed!) said “On Christian instruction, with a noteworthy table [the index], very useful for preachers.” (page 80)

Surely the fact that the first advertisement for a print book with an index contained such a reference to the index shows the value of using your index in your book-marketing materials!

NOTE: If you would like to get this blog by email, sign up for Wordmaps Tips, my free newsletter. The sign-up box is at the upper right of each page on my site, WordmapsIndexing.com. For current news about indexing and book publishing, follow me and see who I follow on Twitter @Wordmaps. Also, check out my blog at Authormaps.com. Now up, “The Myth of the Cheap Ebook”

Tired of waiting for your ship to come in? Check out Marketing Your Book to Libraries: An insider’s Guide for Authors by Nancy K. Humphreys (released August, 2011).