What is your business name? What is your title or position within that business? Myra Nour CEO and co-owner of Book & Trailer Showcase and BTSemag. Executive Coordinator of BTS Book Reviews.
What genres do you accept? Do you work with Indie as well as traditionally published authors? We accept all fiction genres, which includes YA and New Adult. We do not take children’s stories for features or reviews, but an author or publisher can submit them for ads. We accept all types of authors from NY best sellers to Indie authors, print to ebook.
What types or kinds of services do you offer? Ads in the BTS Book Reviews eMag. When an author purchases an ad their book(s) is considered for review. These are not bought reviews because they are not guaranteed. If author’s book is chosen, the review is published in the magazine. The reviewer also has the option to post in their blog and Goodreads. http://btsemag.com/advertising/
Features in the eMag. We publish between 10-14 author features each month, with either an excerpt or interview. The magazine is getting too big, so starting in January we are cutting that number back. This is free and by invitation only.
Paid Features in the eMag. We unfortunately do not have room for all the authors who would like a feature with us, so we decided to offer paid features, to give others the opportunity too. Starting in 2014 authors or publishers can purchase a feature spot. There will only be 2 feature areas per issue and will consist of 3 pgs. They will be set up like our present features with an excerpt or interview. Or it can be customized to what the buyer wants in the feature. Note: Jan & Feb are filled, and March-July we have only one feature spot left. Write myra@btsemag.com if you would like a feature and for details.
Interviews on the website. Author interview will stay up one month and then be archived. The interview is promoted by the staff.
http://btsemag.com/interviews/schedule-interview/
Top Banner & ads on the website. Publishers or authors may purchase the prime banner at the top of our website. This banner has a maximum space allotment of 739×119 pixels and can be linked to a url of buyers choice. The Home Page ads are the large ones under the banner. Additional side-bar advertising space is also available. Designer will have this info up soon, contact myra@btsemag.com if interested.
Bloghops. Each month except for June, July & August, we will be hosting a bloghop with a fabulous Grand Prize. In September the prize is winner’s choice of a Kindle Fire or Nook HD. We co-host with a publisher or author and September our co-host is Decadent Publishing, while October we are co-hosting with Angela Knight. The Oct Grand Prize is a Kindle Paperwhite. See at: http://btsemag.com/contests/
Media Kit. We are starting a new program which will assist us as well as bloggers. Sign up for our Media Kit and you will be eligible for a $25 gift card each month, First to Know Daily Blog FREE dates, first to know of free interview dates, and first to know if we need any free feature spots in the eMag.
http://btsemag.com/community/monthly-media-kit-team/
Virtual Tours. We offer a variety of tour pkgs and custom tours. www.booktrailershowcase.com
Free Promo on btsemag.com
Free Book Depository ““ Post your free short stories and books for free.
Book Bargain ““ Post your books that are prices $2.99 & below for free.
Coming soon!
Features on the website. Features are so popular we just don’t have room to put everyone, so we will be publishing features on our website, set up just like in the magazine.
Blog posting. Starting in October we will accept blog posts from authors and bloggers. Watch for announcement of details.
How do you charge for your services (by the individual service, by pre-designed packages, by custom-designed packages, or some other way)? We do all three. Our ad prices for the magazine are for individual ads for a specific month, but authors & publishers can purchase 6 months or a year worth of ads and receive a 10% discount.
We can design an ad according to what the customer wants. We came up with the idea for a “Big Splash” ad when an author wanted something special to announce her new book.
We have 7 different types of tour pkgs, and are creating an 8th, which will be a “Cover Reveal party”. We also customize tours if the authors’ wants to mix pkgs or add something else.
What’s the price range of your services? Ads in BTS Book Reviews emag run:
$140 Big Splash ad, 2 full pg premium ads together
$50 -Full pg standard or submitted
$70 ““ Full pg premium, created by the head designer
$30 ““ ½ pg standard or submitted
$50 ““ ½ pg premium, created by the head designer
$15 ““ ¼ pg standard or submitted
Ads on btsemag.com
$30 for large ad on home pg, one month
$15 for banner at top of home pg, one month
$15 for ad on side bar, one month
Interviews on btsemag.com $15. Stay up one month and then are archived.
Virtual Tour Pkgs:
$35 copper tour
$35 Double feature tour
$35 Rewind tour
$45 Matinee Blurb Blitz tour
$75 Silver tour
$105 Gold tour ““includes a ¼ pg ad in the eMag
$185 Platinum tour ““ includes a ½ pg ad in the eMag
Coming Soon: Cover Reveal party tour
Each tour offers different tour options, check all info at:
http://booktrailershowcase.com/virtual-tours/virtual-tour-packages/
How long have you been in business? How many clients have you represented? Book & Trailer Showcase opened Dec 2011. We had different types of free promo on the site so I have no idea how many authors came through. We also had memberships and ads; I don’t know numbers since that was deleted when we redid the website. But for virtual tours we have hosted 100 tours to date, and started in Feb 2012.
Since we opened a website to promote our magazine, the Book & Trailer Showcase site is now set up for our Virtual Tours. It still needs some tweaking but we are using it for tours.
In April 2012 we started the 1st BTSemag, which was once a quarter. By
November we had started publishing the magazine every month.
Clients:
376 BTS Book Reviews eMag ads
343 Reviews in the eMag
139 Featured authors in the eMag
4 Interviews since opening Sept 9th and many more scheduled
2186 members in 8 Facebook groups we own
What’s the difference between book promoters and book marketers? Which are you? That’s a tough question because I can see where these 2 can cross the lines in helping authors. I see Marketers and working very closely with a client and developing a plan for their book & career. To me Promoters work with a client who comes to them for help in promoting with the tools that company has available to the author. I would consider us more of a promotions company.
What information do you need from authors who hire you? That depends on if they are purchasing an ad in the emag, ad on the website, an interview on website, a feature in the magazine, or a virtual tour. All require different material and instructions are on each website.
http://btsemag.com/advertising/
http://booktrailershowcase.com/virtual-tours/virtual-tour-packages/
Contact Myra@btsemag.com for feature or ad on the website, since we do not have that info up yet.
Are you a sole proprietor or do you have staff/assistants who help you? Are you personally involved with every client? I have quite a few staff members. My family play major parts in assisting, including my husband Simon, my daughter Christy, and brother Eddie. Excluding myself there are 11 main staff members who help produce the magazine and run the two websites. We also have 10 columnists and 39 reviewers.
I am not involved with every client but with a lot of them. I am always available to answer questions and have developed a good relationship with authors who are repeat customers (we often end up talking other things then business).
Leslie Ferdinand started out as a customer and is now my right hand staff, ie my Author Liaison. Many of our columnists started out buying ads and work with the emag now. Dawn Seewer is an old friend and has proved to be an invaluable staff member as Executive Designer. And certainly not least, Laurie Garrison and BTS were working together on promotion for her Romance Indie Convention. I invited her to write an article and she loved doing that; now she is one of our columnists with always interesting topics to read.
Why should authors hire a marketer or publicist? I’d say if they do not have the time or desire to do their own promotions. Of course you must have a marketing budget whether you hire a professional or do it yourself.
In your experience, which genre or genres benefit most from the services you provide? As anyone would expect, romance is going to get a lot of attention. It’s not a secret that romance readers beat the pants off most other genre sells. So I have always assumed that most of our readers are romance oriented.
But, we publish all the major genres in our magazine because we feel that all authors should have a shot at promoting with us. A simpler reason is my own thoughts on the matter. I write erotic romance but I like reading different genres. Sometimes I’m in a mood for chocolate, others for hot & spicy. Sometimes I want a fantasy or s/f, but often the book you will find in my hands is a horror. So I know other readers want other genres to enjoy.
I personally know of success stories from authors being in our magazine; see more under question 13.
With our tours, all the genres we have completed tours for have been successful in some fashion. As with anything else there are some who have been more successful than others. I’ve had quite a few authors write and tell me how great their tours were.
If there is such a thing as an ideal client, what would that author look like, or what traits would s/he exhibit? Ideal would be those that follow our procedures set out for each promo. There always authors who do not read thoroughly I guess. They pay for an ad but do not fill out the form. Or they do that correctly but do not read how to submit their book for review. Something that is quite common is authors who pay with one name or an “entity” and then fill out an ad with a different name. While they know who they are, I don’t. I play a lot of detective work trying to figure out who sent me what. Ideal client. Read the directions the company gives no matter who they are and follow to a fault.
Realistically, what kinds of results can authors expect after purchasing your services? Name Recognition for newer authors. I know for a fact this worked for one author who has purchased ads with our eMag from the beginning. He told me he would never stop using our service; he considers it that valuable.
Sales increase. The same author above told me that I could share his words. When he started with us he was selling several dozen copies a month and now he sells in the thousands. He started other promotion as well, but considers our magazine his cornerstone. He also was featured in our November issue and his sales went up so much his publisher asked him what he was doing. This author writes Dark Paranormal and Mystery/Thriller novels.
A Christian author, Mary Manners, started working with us at the old Book & Trailer site with ads, and then she was our cover author in July of last year. She has told me several times we helped increase her sales a lot. She writes a column “Marketing & Promotion” for us now.
Erotic author. That’s me. My sales have increased tremendously since placing an ad in every issue.
I believe there are several factors that affect sales: first, a beautiful ad to grab the readers’ attention, then an attractive cover and an interesting blurb. Finally, I don’t know how effective an ad can be if placed only once. The marketing information I’ve looked at says a customer must see an ad around 7 times to buy.
So maybe the ad placed only once will work if it reaches the readers, but I would recommend at least several ads placed consistently, the most effective would be at least 6.
What questions do you recommend that authors ask when they are considering a particular publicist or marketer? What can you do to help me promote my work? How many clients do you have? Experience? Success stories you can share? For a magazine how many subscribers or views do you have? (since we are hosted on Issuu our numbers are shown as views)
What percentage of the bloggers who sign up for your book tours would you say follow through and participate in the individual events? 80%
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