Sam Henrie

12 October, 2015

How big is your audience?

By Sam Henrie|2023-06-09T11:10:07-07:00October 12, 2015|Marketing, News, Publishing, Resources|Comments Off on How big is your audience?

A few years ago I had a weekend evening to myself, and decided to go to a play. I found a performance of the 1983 Pulitzer Prize-winning ‘night Mother by Marsha Norman showing at the Tucson Temple of Music and Art.

I arrived very early, so I wasn’t surprised that there was only one other person in the audience, but was surprised when no one else showed up. The play started, and I thought to myself: “Now I am stuck here, even if the performance is terrible. I’m 50% of the audience. I can’t just stand up and walk out.” That turned out not to be a problem. The performance was completely engrossing.

‘night Mother is a two-hour play with only two actors. I can’t even begin to imagine what it took for the actors to sustain the emotional intensity that they exhibited for those two hours, let alone what it took […]

9 October, 2015

Writer’s Block

By Sam Henrie|2023-06-09T11:10:19-07:00October 9, 2015|Resources, Writing|Comments Off on Writer’s Block

Hypergraphia is a behavioral disorder I sometimes wish to be stricken with, if only temporarily. People with hypergraphia have an intense and uncontrollable desire to write, and usually churn out page after page, hour upon hour, day after day. Sometimes what they write is chaotic and disorganized, but other times they write The Brothers Karamazov or Alice in Wonderland. (Both Dostoevsky and Carroll are thought to have had hypergraphia.)

I, unfortunately, most often suffer from the opposite condition, writer’s block, sometimes called hypographia. We all know what a serious condition that can be! If left untreated it can lead to the loss of followers, a reduction in the quality and quantity of likes, being an unpublished writer, reduced earnings, and generalized anonymity. Fortunately, there is a lot of help out there. Just type “writer’s block” into your search engine and you will see what I mean. There are […]

26 January, 2015

Tips for Successful Blogging

By Sam Henrie|2023-06-09T11:12:55-07:00January 26, 2015|Marketing, Resources, Social Media|Comments Off on Tips for Successful Blogging

As the marketing specialist for Wheatmark, I have the privilege to work alongside many authors as they take their first steps into the unfamiliar world of blogging and social media. For those individuals with little to no experience in this area, this step toward marketing themselves can feel rather daunting and unattainable. This feeling, however, is not unordinary. Maintaining a blog and staying committed to promoting your brand takes a great deal of effort, but having a persistent attitude and an openness to learning will allow you to be more successful in the long run.

I recently stumbled across an article with a list of valuable tips to help you become a successful blogger. Out of the 19 tips provided, here are five that I believe are the most useful:

1. Make sure you have an About page that represents who you are and what you do.
Who you are is entirely unique, […]

30 December, 2014

Near Field Reading

By Sam Henrie|2023-06-09T11:13:46-07:00December 30, 2014|News, Publishing|Comments Off on Near Field Reading

It’s the holidays, and no doubt many of you will be out shopping for gifts for your loved ones and friends. By next year’s season you may be paying for your holiday gifts at your favorite retailers using a tap-to-pay app on your phone.

Tap-to-pay apps utilize Near Field Communication (NFC), a technology that allows you to pay by holding your phone up to a retailer’s register and tapping a button. With the launch of Apply Pay in October and the card companies mandating all merchants accept NFC payments in 2015, we may have reached the tipping point for tap-to-pay. Near Field Communications seems to be popping up everywhere in my life lately. When I boarded my first ride on Tucson’s new light rail, all I had to do was tap my rail pass to an NFC device to pay for my ride. When I visited my phone carrier to upgrade […]

1 December, 2014

Taking Care of Business

By Sam Henrie|2023-06-09T11:15:45-07:00December 1, 2014|News, Publishing|Comments Off on Taking Care of Business

Earlier this year Roberta Grimes called us to order some copies of her books. She is the author of the Letters from Love series and the novel Rich and Famous. She’s also the author of the novel My Thomas: A Novel of Martha Jefferson’s Life, originally published by Doubleday in 1993 and reissued by Wheatmark this year. I answered Roberta’s phone call. “Bookstore, Sam Henrie, how may I help you?” She was surprised that the company president was taking book orders. Roberta said she’d imagined I’d be in my office thinking about the business—conceiving the next killer book marketing strategy, pondering the writing of the great American novel, or planning a leveraged buyout of Random House. But, I was taking book orders.

I like taking book orders. It keeps me in touch with our authors, especially at the times when they release new books, start new marketing campaigns, or hold […]

24 October, 2014

Iris Murdoch Made the List!

By Sam Henrie|2023-06-09T11:16:40-07:00October 24, 2014|News, Publishing, Writing|Comments Off on Iris Murdoch Made the List!

Thanks to all of you for your emails letting me know what a great job my staff did while I was on vacation. I received so many email that I haven’t had a chance to respond to everyone yet.

I had a wonderful trip visiting family, traveling to Prescott, AZ, Albuquerque NM, Washington, DC, Sparta, NJ, then back to Albuquerque. Of all the places visited, Sparta, which none of you will have heard of, was by far the most beautiful. Situated on Tomahawk Lake, it is lush, green, and peaceful. Forget any negative stereotypes you have of New Jersey and visit Sparta if ever you get a chance.

Last month Grael Norton, Wheatmark’s director of marketing, posted a blog that included a list from The Telegraph of the “100 novels everyone should read.” I was very happy to see that a book, Under the Net, by my favorite […]

12 August, 2014

Don’t Sweat Those One-Star Reviews

By Sam Henrie|2023-06-09T11:17:54-07:00August 12, 2014|Marketing, Resources|Comments Off on Don’t Sweat Those One-Star Reviews

I read Light in August by William Faulkner when I was in high school and remember not being able to put it down. It was unlike anything I had read before. The story was so dark. All of the characters led such bleak alienated lives in the unforgiving society of the rural deep South in the 1930s. Faulkner opened a window for me onto a place, time, and people that I was unfamiliar with, and I couldn’t look away. The disorganized narrative style was also new and interesting to me—like some new kind of atonal music.

Out of curiosity I went to Goodreads to see what current readers thought of the book. I was surprised to find 662 one-star reviews, with 7% of readers giving the book one or two stars. This for a book that is always included in any list of the best novels of the […]

31 July, 2014

Perfectionism, Writer’s Block, and Marketer’s Block

By Sam Henrie|2023-06-09T11:18:21-07:00July 31, 2014|Publishing, Resources, Writing|Comments Off on Perfectionism, Writer’s Block, and Marketer’s Block

Nearly every month I’m late turning in this article for our Marketing Letter and this Publishing Success Blog, to the great frustration of my staff. Why am I late? The old saw comes to mind: “Perfectionism, Procrastination, Paralysis.” My article needs to be perfect because it will be sent to the most important audience I have: you. Because I want it to be perfect, I procrastinate, sometimes to the point of paralysis. And so the article gets turned in late. Many of you have had writer’s block, and will attribute it to the same root cause: perfectionism.

Not so fast! A few months ago I heard a radio program whose topic was whether perfectionists do, in fact, procrastinate more than other people. Two researchers from major universities who studied this subject were interviewed. (My apologies for the missing citation, but I don’t remember the names of the researchers, and couldn’t find […]

30 June, 2014

It’s time to sell your book!

By Sam Henrie|2023-06-09T11:18:55-07:00June 30, 2014|Marketing, Resources|Comments Off on It’s time to sell your book!

Once a book is published, the first time author may think the job is done. Unfortunately, there is still a lot more to do!

It’s time to switch from your author hat to your marketing one!

You may have heard that the best time to begin marketing your book is day one. Building a following does take time. But it doesn’t mean that it is too late to start marketing at any point in the publishing process. In fact, you can market a book that is years old and still find success if you apply yourself with enthusiasm and hard work.

This article is about creating the right mindset for selling your book. If you love meeting people, talking to crowds and have no problem with meeting strangers, you may think that selling your book will be easier than someone who would rather stay in the background. Surprisingly, though, with all the many […]

30 May, 2014

Want 15% of $26,000,000?

By Sam Henrie|2023-06-09T11:20:20-07:00May 30, 2014|Marketing, Resources|Comments Off on Want 15% of $26,000,000?

We’ve all received advance-fee fraud emails claiming that if we just allow the deposed King of Tannu Tuva to deposit $26,000,000 into one of our bank accounts temporarily, we’ll be able to keep 15%. At some later point we’ll be asked to lend $5,000 (the advance fee) very temporarily to allow the transaction to go forward. Ever wonder why the fraudsters don’t make these emails more believable? Why they claim to be from Nigeria when most people (correctly or incorrectly) believe that Nigeria’s the source of most scam emails? Why they don’t tell less farcical stories about why they need our help? Why they offer such absurdly large amounts of money for otherwise readily available, inexpensive banking services?

Because they only want to get responses from the very gullible. They want the somewhat gullible to weed themselves out, so the scammers don’t have to waste months in email and phone conversations […]

Sam Henrie

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