Category Read Tuesday

Sep 28 2013

What’s the Best Thing about Read Tuesday?

Read Tuesday

Read Tuesday will be a great opportunity for readers to find a wide selection of books with amazing one-day sale prices. It will be a huge event like Black Friday or Cyber Monday.

Although the discounts and selection of books will be incredible, to me that’s not the best thing about Read Tuesday. I am looking forward to a lot of shopping on Read Tuesday, though.

Read Tuesday will also be a great way to buy gifts for people who love to read books and e-books. Customers can gift e-books – or buy print books to wrap up – at great saving in time for the holidays.

Although the savings will be splendid and the books will make nice gifts, to me that’s not the best thing about Tuesday. I am looking forward to gifting books on Read Tuesday, though.

Read Tuesday will also be a great promotional opportunity for authors and small publishers. By participating in the event, authors can promote their own books while simultaneously promoting the Read Tuesday event.

Although the promotional potential for authors and small publishers will be wonderful, to me that’s not the best thing about Read Tuesday either. I am looking forward to participating on Read Tuesday, though.

So what is the best thing about Read Tuesday?

To me, it’s the nature of the event and how it came about.

Stores usually plan sales events. They sell the products. They control the prices. They do the advertising. Black Friday and Cyber Monday are orchestrated by giant businesses.

Most authors and publishers don’t get much out of Black Friday or Cyber Monday. Most customers are buying electronics, toys, tools, and clothes. Hardly any books will have better prices than normal. If there are, they are probably bestsellers.

Read Tuesday is totally different. This event isn’t orchestrated by big businesses. The idea didn’t even originate from a store. It didn’t come from a publisher. It didn’t come from a bestselling author.

Read Tuesday shows that a very large number of independent authors and publishers can get together and coordinate their efforts to create a huge event.

It’s a chance for us to show what we can do when we put our minds to it; what we can do when we get involved. Individually, we may be small, but together we can thrive.

This event can be huge and it can be professional. I feel that this is an important message.

You don’t have to be a big business, a store, a publisher, or a bestselling author to be highly professional. Anyone can choose to be professional. We can choose to make the Read Tuesday event professional and a huge success.

To me, the best thing about Read Tuesday is the opportunity for thousands of authors to get together and show what we can accomplish together.

Chris McMullen, author of A Detailed Guide to Self-Publishing with Amazon and Other Online Booksellers, Vol. 1 (formatting/publishing) and Vol. 2 (packaging/marketing)

Sep 28 2013

Preparing to Launch Read Tuesday

Read Tuesday

In case you haven’t heard yet, the idea behind Red Tuesday is for authors to get together and provide a book-oriented version of Black Friday and Cyber Monday. You can learn more about the idea here:

https://chrismcmullen.wordpress.com/2013/09/21/red_tuesday_idea_for_boosting_book_sales/

As you may know, we’ve been making several preparations for launching the Read Tuesday event:

  • We have an artist who is working on a logo and images of assorted sizes, like various headers and portrait sizes, with and without text.
  • We have a website, http://www.readtuesday.com, but it’s presently empty. We’re making content for the website so that readers, authors, indie bookstores, and small publishers will be able to find helpful information about Read Tuesday.
  • We’re creating forms that can be completed easily and conveniently online, which will help to compile handy information, like a list of participating authors, catalog data for participating books, a list of participating bookstores, or a sign-up for an email newsletter. Presently, we’re testing out Google Docs to see how those forms work from both ends.
  • We have a Twitter account and Facebook page, but, like the website, they aren’t up and running yet. We’re working to get all of these pages ready before we launch. (It’s pretty cool when you Follow a huge company like Amazon and they Follow you back – even if it was automatic, it’s still pretty cool.) If you want, you could find us and follow us, but there isn’t anything there to follow yet. As soon as these pages are up and running, we will share them with you.
  • We’re looking to add accounts at LinkedIn, PInterest, and more. If you have other suggestions, please feel free to share them.
  • We’re putting together a promotional strategy to try to make Read Tuesday a success. We’ll definitely need your help. You can help create buzz. You can show your participation by filling out the forms (once they’re ready). You can participate with your books. You will be able to use the Read Tuesday images (once they’re ready) to help promote your own books while simultaneously helping to create buzz for Read Tuesday.
  • We’re considering a little low-cost advertising. If you have special requests, feel free to share them. Funding is limited, but we will give expressed ideas consideration.
  • We already have several ideas for how to spread awareness for Read Tuesday. We’ll begin sharing these ideas as soon as the website is up and running. Again, if you have any ideas that you’d like to share, please feel encouraged to do so.
  • We’ve only had a couple of suggestions in the way of slogans or marketing text. More suggestions would be welcome.
  • Would there be any interest in flyers, bookmarks, business cards, brochures, or other printed marketing materials? If so, we could make a file for a flyer, for example, and anyone who is interested could print them. We’re not going to sell promotional materials; but if there is interest, we can make files so that anyone who is interested can order their own (from a supplier of your choice). You just have to express your interest.
  • We need ideas for things to include in an email newsletter for Read Tuesday. If you come up with an idea for an article that may be relevant, contributions will be considered. We’ll consider contributions for content on the website as well as for a newsletter.
  • We’re lacking in the video department. Suggestions, ideas, volunteers, etc. would be quite welcome. If you make your own Read Tuesday trailer, for example, you can feature your own books in the video, promoting your own books and Read Tuesday together. Hint, hint. (Once they are ready, you’ll be able to use the Read Tuesday images with this.)

It’s taking time to get all of this ready. We’d like to launch Read Tuesday all at once. So right now, we’re thinking of launching Read Tuesday – the website, social media, sign-up forms, making the images available, etc. – the week of October 6 (on the 6th or even before, if possible, but at least some time that week).

Remember, Read Tuesday is scheduled for Tuesday, December 10. This gives us two full months to get as much participation and to create as much buzz as possible. (Then we’ll have 12 months before the next Read Tuesday – and a little experience – to make the next one even better. Don’t forget about White Wednesday – or maybe the name will change; but we want this to be a “secret” until Read Tuesday is over.)

Can you think of anything else that we should add to the list above?

Read Tuesday isn’t a person. It’s not a business. It’s not a program. It’s not really even an organization. It’s an idea. It’s an event. It largely consists of a great number of independent authors getting together to bring a huge sales event to people who enjoy reading (and gifting) books.

This means you are just as important to Read Tuesday as anyone else. So, Mr. or Mrs. Important Read Tuesday Participant, please feel free to share your Big ideas. 🙂

Chris McMullen, author of A Detailed Guide to Self-Publishing with Amazon and Other Online Booksellers, Vol. 1 (formatting/publishing) and Vol. 2 (packaging/marketing)

Sep 26 2013

What’s the Best Way to Collect Data for Read Tuesday?

Read Tuesday

If you want to learn more about Read Tuesday – a book sales event like Black Friday or Cyber Monday – click on the link below.

https://chrismcmullen.wordpress.com/2013/09/21/red_tuesday_idea_for_boosting_book_sales/

It would be convenient to collect some data for Read Tuesday, such as:

  • Separate lists of authors, small publishers, and bookstores who will be participating in the program organized by subgenre.
  • A catalog of participating books organized by subgenre. (We might want to not release this until closer to the event date.)
  • Email lists or newsletters for interested authors or customers.

So the question is: What’s a simple, efficient way to collect this information? Keep in mind that some of the information may be continuously trickling in for a couple of months, so we’ll want the option to periodically update the catalogs with what we have at any given time. (I guess I could make a new survey every week to accomplish this.)

Would something like Survey Monkey be adequate for this? Has anyone used Survey Monkey to create a survey? Do you have an alternative to suggest? Maybe it doesn’t have to be a “survey,” but could be some kind of form to fill out. Can you think of some other popular, friendly website that would accomplish this.

WordPress has poll and feedback features, but it doesn’t look like it quite meets the criteria. However, if you’ve used these features and believe that they may be a good fit, please share your experience.

What I’d like is something that will store the data until we want to download it, where the data table will come in a simple format like Excel or CSV. It also needs to be easy and friendly for people to enter the information, so a site that people will trust or won’t have to sign up for a special account would be convenient.

Ideas are welcome and encouraged. 🙂

Chris McMullen

Sep 26 2013

What’s the Status of Read Tuesday?

Read Tuesday

If you want to learn more about Read Tuesday – a book sales event like Black Friday or Cyber Monday – click on the link below.

https://chrismcmullen.wordpress.com/2013/09/21/red_tuesday_idea_for_boosting_book_sales/

If you’ve been following along, you know that we have a website, http://www.readtuesday.com, which isn’t ready yet. I’ve been preparing some content so that it won’t be utterly empty when the website goes live. We’re still working on the images. As soon as I have images, I will share them with you. As soon as the images and website are ready, we can hit the ground running. I have some ideas for the running part, but I don’t want to leak them until we have a website to point to and some images to begin our branding.

Mostly, this post was to let you know, in case you’ve been waiting patiently, that Read Tuesday hasn’t vanished. It’s coming. We just need a couple more days to get things going. Your patience is much appreciated.

However, if you have ideas for content for the website, or if you’d like to submit possible content for the website, please feel free to do so. You can leave a comment below, or if you click on my gravatar to the right (in the sidebar; the Gravatar is the small photo below the About.me photo), you can find my contact info. (If you have an About.me account, you can also contact me through that; the Gravatar, which shows a similar photo, doesn’t require this.)

Ideas, comments, suggestions, requests, and the like are both welcome and encouraged. 🙂

Sep 23 2013

What would you like to see on our Read Tuesday website?

Read Tuesday

As it may help anyone who participates on Read Tuesday, I would like you to think of the Read Tuesday website as our website, rather than my website. So I encourage your suggestions, comments, ideas, concerns, feedback, etc. 🙂

Reminder: The Read Tuesday concept is our effort to provide readers with a Black Friday or Cyber Monday type of sales event specifically for books. You can learn more about it through the link below.

https://chrismcmullen.wordpress.com/2013/09/21/red_tuesday_idea_for_boosting_book_sales/

I’ll list some of my thoughts here, and invite you to add yours in the comments section.

  • The Read Tuesday banner, once it is ready.
  • A description of the Read Tuesday concept.
  • A separate list of quotes from authors and readers who are looking forward to the event. If you’d like to contribute, all you need to do is give me your quote, whether you’re speaking as an author or reader, how you’d like your name or nickname to appear, what I should put for your location (or leave blank, if you wish), and if you would like me to include, say, your author website. You can contact me by email from my about me page, or leave a comment (whatever you prefer). I intend to sprinkle some throughout the website, and have one page dedicated to it if there are enough.
  • A Like button for Facebook, a Follow button for Twitter, etc. once those pages are setup.
  • A page with information for readers and a page with information for prospective authors.
  • Contact info.

Can you think of other content? What other kinds of images? Other types of pages?

If you have any requests for the style or structure of the website, those suggestions are encouraged, too.

I could try to make a page of participating authors, with names and maybe photos. But if the list gets really long…

I could also try to make a catalog of participating books (perhaps not to be released until closer to the event date). But again, if it gets very long… If anyone can think of a way to make it very easy to add and update, please turn on the lights. 🙂

Of course, all authors can promote their own books through the Read Tuesday event by mentioning their own books while simultaneously spreading word of the program. Similarly, authors can get together in groups (by subgenre, for example, but not necessarily) and make sub-catalogs, featuring their books that will be in the program. Such smaller catalogs could prove more beneficial than a master catalog.

Sep 23 2013

Read Tuesday: Have Website, Need Slogan

Read Tuesday

I changed it to Read Tuesday because http://www.readtuesday.com was available. I also purchased the domain so we now have a website for it. Don’t rush over there; it’s empty as of yet. 🙂

I asked an artist to work on the images. But it’s still not too late to share your ideas and help shape things. We’ll include “Read Tuesday” and the date (December 10, 2013) with the images. I’d like a set of images that include a slogan of sorts. TamrahJo provided a suggestion for some text. Does anyone else have ideas? We could really use slogan, phrase, or other short text ideas.

Regarding the catalog idea, I’m thinking we may not want to release it, if we make one, until much closer to the event date. Just like stores don’t want you to know exactly what will be on sale and for how much too far in advance.

There is an opportunity for someone who loves Twitter or Facebook to take one of these on or get involved with it. If you run one of these, you can have your name on the about me section, and you have the opportunity to interact with people through the Red Tuesday concept. I’ll do it if needed, but I know some of you have a knack for these, so I’ll give you the chance. I have other ideas beyond social media, but Twitter and Facebook pages are probably something we want to get up and running very soon.

Once we have the images ready to go, we’ll want to build buzz for it and start promoting it. Remember, if you write a post or article about Read Tuesday, you’re able to promote your own book while promoting the program simultaneously (at a minimum, you’re going to mention that your own book, Whatever the Title Is, will be in the program, and your audience may look forward to it).

You have a chance to help shape this event. If you have ideas, you are encouraged to share them. Ideas are greatly appreciated. 🙂