Allyson Johnson

Pieces of my Mind

Archive for the category “publishing”

06 May 2026

The Publishing Journey – Step 8 – Hire a Publicist?

In the Good Old Days, once a publisher had agreed to bring out a book, the author was taken in hand by the publisher and a schedule was created wherein the author would appear at bookstore signings, on radio and TV talk shows, and whereby reviews of the book would be appearing in trade journals, newspapers, and magazines.

No more, even with the Big Five of publishing. An author is now expected to come equipped with a Platform (which may include a website, a podcast, a regular column in a national newspaper, and /or an account on Facebook, X, or Instagram with hundreds of followers.

Or you can hire a publicist.

The publicist will contact book stores, trade journals, podcasters, and reviewers to set up the reviews, book store appearances, and media exposure – for a fee. You have say $5000 to spend; the publicist will undertake to reach out to sixty media outlets on your behalf. (Whew – that’s $83 per phone call!) But wait – there’s a catch – there is no guarantee that any of these sixty outreach efforts will actually result in any interviews, podcast appearances, bookstore signings, or reviews. Absolutely none.

It’s a leap in the dark – a leap of faith.

But you probably don’t know sixty people who do reviews, podcasts, etc. And you don’t like the prospect of cold-calling media opportunities. So it makes some sense to hire someone who does know people and doesn’t mind hitting them up.

But how do you know that a particular publicist actually knows sixty of the appropriate people? How do you know he/she will actually make those calls?

You could find sixty appropriate people if you put your mind to it. You could do a web search. You could make a list. When you were at work you cold-called people all the time.

But all that research takes time. You quit your job in sales and marketing so you could write, not so you could become a marketer on your own behalf.

So you close your eyes, hold your nose, and leap – hoping there’s a trampoline down there.

Posted in Memoir, publishing and tagged , , | Leave a comment
21 Apr 2026
1 Comment

The Publishing Journey – Step 7: Build Your Network

It’s not what you know, it’s who you know. Turns out that old adage applies to publishing a book, also. I want all my connections to know about my book, to buy it if only to demonstrate their respect for my efforts, better yet to read it, review it on Amazon and Goodreads, and recommend it to their book clubs!

OK, World of Allyson, I’m going to have to call in my chips. Let’s see… who do I know? Who am I connected with, however loosely?

The Johnson family – including ten households. Maybe twelve if I include some cousins who we still send Christmas cards to, though we haven’t seen each other in years.

The Young family – ten more households

The Sutton family – we had a reunion last year and I met some new cousins – seven more households.

Attendees at the Women’s Fitness Camp I help organize – maybe fifty over the last several years

Members of my Overseas Campus group – sixty survivors

Subscribers to the Morning Forum lecture series – I’m on the board – about four hundred and fifty, if I could use the mailing list – uncertain

Followers on my blog – about 300

Members of my high school graduating class – we have an active website – about two hundred and fifty

Members of the local Garden Club – I’m on the board – about one hundred and fifty

Members of my college graduating class – about five hundred, but getting in touch might not be easy.

Subscribers to the Los Altos Town Crier – I have written op-eds and other columns for fifteen years – if only one in one hundred of the 16,000 subscribers buys my book, how wonderful would that be?

It doesn’t add up to a best-seller, but it’s not bad. World of Allyson, prepare to hear from me!

Posted in publishing, TOWN CRIER
14 Apr 2026
1 Comment

The Publishing Journey – Step 6: Build your Literary Community

What the heck is a “Literary Community”? Why do I need it?

Well, back in the day, an author could count on their publisher to provide visibility for a new release, with a book launch event, book tours, interviews, trade reviews, and so on. But per Jim Millot in Publishers Weekly “The total number of books published in the U.S. in 2025 with ISBN numbers jumped 32.5% over 2024, to more than four million books, according to statistics compiled by Bowker.”

The five major publishers with all their subsidiary imprints published over a million of these titles, with small presses, hybrid presses, and self-publishers providing the balance. But at the same time that the number of new releases is ballooning, the universe of hard-copy book buyers is stable or shrinking.

So how does one find buyers for a new novel? Social media, that dreaded sinkhole of targeted advertisements and cute cat memes, has become a main channel for publicizing a new release. One goal is to find a community of contributors focused on a topic or genre that relates to one’s book, and become a member of that community. Post often, post constructively, and put your name on every post. When the book is released, the power of name recognition will kick in. Other contributors, seeing a familiar name, will be more tempted to click on that “BUY NOW” button.

Sounds like a long-shot bet, doesn’t it? But with the average published book selling less than one thousand copies across all formats and all markets (per Steve Piersanti – Barrett-Koehler Publishers) the author must resort to any possible stratagem.

So what are the communities I might try to join? There are several Facebook groups which focus on historical fiction, both readers of and writers of. That’s a start – though most FB groups do not allow direct publicizing of one’s own work. So I have joined:

  • the Historical Fiction Book Lovers.
  • the Historical Fiction Book Club
  • the Historical Fiction Lover’s Book Club
  • the Historical Fiction Authors

Unfortunately for my literary community building, I don’t always have that much to say, and what I do say, I usually say on my blog. Being an active contributor to even these four FB groups is going to take time I usually spend (on a good day) writing my next novel.

(Some of my younger relatives point out that FaceBook is mostly used these days by parents and grandparents doting on their children. The real jazzy stuff goes on TikTok and Instagram. The more I thought about this, the better I felt about FB – it’s those same parents and grandparents who are still buying hardback books, bless their hearts!)

Image – Pete Sutton

Posted in books, publishing
07 Apr 2026

The Publishing Journey – Step 5: the Website

Image courtesy of Tortoise and Hare Software

When I quit my day job, I decided to create a blog. With a little help from friends, I was able to get going on WordPress.com and have published quite a few posts, as you can see by the lengthy string of tags and archives to the right.

Now I’m publishing a novel – do I need a special Author Website? Or could I modify what I had to bring it up to date?

A friend, Carol Efron, who is also publishing a novel through She Writes Press, invited me to take a look at the website which she had created. Wow! A bunch of ideas: a home page! links to buy my book or read my first effort online! A picture of myself on the About page (which had not been updated for far too many months)!

If you are reading this post through a link or subscription, maybe you haven’t noticed any of the new look. But click on the About, Books, Travel, and Home tabs at the top and explore a bit. Then click on the Comment button to the left and tell me what you think!

BONUS: If you explore, you’ll find the FINAL COVER of my novel “The Three Lives of Mary Sutton” which I teased you about in Step 3 two weeks ago.

Posted in publishing | Leave a comment
31 Mar 2026
4 Comments

The Publishing Journey – Step 4 – Copy editing

SheWrites Press has green-lighted my submission, meaning that they believe if the total manuscript measures up to the sample I sent, they will not require additional developmental editing or content revision. I owe having cleared this hurdlenot to my own care or competence but to the well-considered line-editing and content feedback I have received throughout the development of the manuscript by my Writing Group.

So thanks and kudos to

Rosemary Hayward, author of Strait Lace, a novel of a woman involved in the struggle for women’s suffrage in Britain in the 1800’s. Check out Rosemary’s book recommendations and other writings at rosemaryhayward.com

Claire Noonan, author of The House on Harriman’s Hill, a memoir of the resilience of an indomitable woman, Mary Edwards, in the wake of a trouble-filled childhood. Based on true events in the lives of the Edwards family, set in the Sierra Nevada in the early 20th century

Monica McHenney – writer of prize-winning short stories and flash fiction. Here’s a link to one of her stories: https://www.paloaltoonline.com/short_story/short_story_36/adult9.php and here’s a link to her flash-fiction website: https://monicaflash.com/

Richard Probst – tireless memoirist and enthusiastic supporter. Look for his inside story of the development of the Jeep to appear soon.

Steve Noble – fabulist and raconteur, carrying on the traditions of Robert Heinlein and Flash Gordon in his short stories and maybe a sci fi novel soon. Get a flavor of his writing at his website: Noble Speculations – Steve Noble writes you are invited to Read

Posted in books, publishing and tagged ,
24 Mar 2026
2 Comments

The Publishing Journey: Step 3 – Design a Cover

I had a title for my novel.  “Her Own Way”. I thought this indicated clearly that the book is about a woman, one who carves her own path rather than meeting the expectations of others. Would you want to read that book? 

My publisher’s crew did not like that title. “Too generic” they said.  They gave me some other choices: 

The Liberation of Nellie Young

The Many Lives of Nellie Young

The Three Lives of Mary Sutton

The Sutton Sisters

I had jokingly suggested that “I led Three Lives” would have been  a good title for the book if that title had not been claimed already by a long-running TV series (though few of my prospective readers would ever have head of it.)  So I went with Option 3. 

I had suggested that I wanted a picture of the great-grandmother who inspired my novel on the cover.  the publishing crew seemed amenable, and Isent two different photos.  Sorry, these are not in the required high-definition format and would look pixilated on the cover – ok if this were a Sci-fi novel but not for a historical.  

Fortunately, I have a friend who worked for Adobe and knows all about creating a 300 dpi photo file fro a 150 dpi scanned image. I scanned the photos on my home multi-function printer and Jim transformed the scanner’s output into the required format.  Hurdle overcome. Enhanced versions sent. 

Sorry.  After several tries, the publisher’s crew of artists communicated that it would not be possible to make a cover that was properly eye-catching using the historic photos.  The one I liked had too much old-=fashioned detail (a chair, a fern) and could not be cropped.  The other one was possible, but they could not figure out how to make her static figure look dynamic against a historic street scene. And the whole effect was too busy. 

In several exchanges of letters, I was educated in the new requirements of cover design.  

Most importantly, the cover needs to convey its message when shrunk to a dimension about the size of a large postage stamp.  

*This is the size which will be displayed in print inserts to local newspapers from local bookstores. 

* This is the size which will appear in print advertising in magazines such as my University’s alumni magazine or in “Wirter’s Digest” or in the New York Review of books.  And above all 

*This is the size which will appear on a potential reader’s phone or tablet when he/she clicks through Amazon looking for something of interest. 

The artists sent four suggestions: 

One simply showed a woman’s expressionless face. What does that tell you?  Not that one. 

One showed a woman from the back, wearing a long black dress, arms pressed close to her sides, her hair in a severe bun.  She looked like Morticia. Why would you want to read about her?  Not that one.

One showed a rather plain young girl dressed again in a long black dress, looking sadly out of a window. No fun.

The fourth was ok.  I sent a note indicating that I thought this was the best of the four.  To my dismay, the team took this to be a full approval . I had expended energy already over my photo failure, and did not demur, as I had no alternative suggestion prepared.   

Of course, a week or so later I had all sorts of better ideas for the cover, but that ship had sailed.  Maybe when the book goes to its second printing? (Ha!  In your dreams – but why not dream?) 

No, I’m not showing you the actual cover.  Apparently the “cover reveal” is a big deal later in the process.  Stand by. 

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