Promotion Guidelines

Paul has now taken over PR. Jason is more focused on leadership. Jason will still oversee PR.

Here are some guidelines for new Chipmunka authors, prospective authors and existing Chipmunka authors on promoting yourself and what to expect from Chipmunka.

Background

Chipmunkapublishing prides itself on the fact that we achieve a huge amount of media coverage for our authors and on the fact that our authors achieve a huge amount of media coverage for themselves and their books. By achieving substantial media coverage we are able to help more people affected by mental illness. Just Google or search for Chipmunkapublishing on Bing, Yahoo, Ask or whatever search engine you use for the names of the authors and the names of our books to see.  

How Promotion works

Chipmunkapublishing receives web coverage, local, national and international inquiries from the media all the time and is always looking to maximise the publicity of its authors using different angles. We work with all the broadsheets, most of the tabloids, some news agencies (as long as they are honest enough with us) and a myriad of freelance journalists providing they too are agree to our terms of business. Be friends with journalists and thank them for any coverage they help you obtain or try to obtain for you. Every article that appears in the Press about you and your book will raise your profile and will mean we will be able to help more people. Keep in touch with journalists as well. Journalists will recommend authors that they enjoy working with to other colleagues they know in the media.

Chipmunka loves promoting its authors providing the author is focused and easy enough to work with. Of course an author may be unwell and unable to promote themselves at times and we understand that. It is best to email Paul so he has time to think about the most helpful response, as he has material he can use in front of him and can be specific and respond more quickly and accurately by email. See Jason as your publishing mentor with Paul as your publishing manager. They will respond to your email usually within a couple of days and always within 7 days (unless on holiday) if your email is appropriate, relevant and you require specific information or advice on something. As with any best selling book, the best promoter is the author themselves. JK Rowling is not only a great author but she is also a great self publicist. The more closely an author works with Chipmunka and the more closely the author takes Chipmunka’s PR advice the better the book will usually do. Some authors are naturally very good at publicity and have a very relevant book and need little assistance. Others may need more guidance.

Author, Charity and Bookshop discounts for Paperbacks Only

If you, a charity or a bookshop (most bookshops will buy directly through the trade) buy a minimum of 6 books on the website at full price we will automatically give you 10.  e.g.  If your book is £12 (as this includes delivery) you pay 6X12=£72 and receive 10 books,

Buy 6 at full price and we give you 10. 
Buy 12 at full price and we give you 21.
Buy 18 at full price and we give you 32,
Buy 24 at full price and we give you 44,
Buy 30 at full price and we give you 55
Buy 60 at full price and we give you 115
Buy 120 at full price and we give you 235

This offer is the same whatever the price of your book on the website. books that are more expensive can be sold at greater profit as the retail price is higher.

How the Chipmunka shop works

The Chipmunka shop is just one of thousands of sales channels where your book is available to order. You book will have its own web page for your e-book and its own web page for its paperback. All Chipmunka books have a number of stock next to them. Ignore this number. This number is a made up number that is set to static so that customers can always order the e-book or paperback.

If the number is not static then this is still not a full indicator of books sold as it merely represents the one channel i.e the chipmunka website and not the book trade. Of course e-books are digital files so there is infinite stock and our paperbacks are print to order there is effectively infinite ordering capability for each of your paperbacks as well.

Occasionally authors get confused because they promote their book and see the number as static. The Chipmunka team see all sales figures that go through the website in emails and Jason views sales figures from the book trade around the world every day.

As author you cannot track the sales of your book by looking at our website. We work out our royalties once a year and this is when it is possible to work out the number of sales. Chipmunka do not have the time to tell you how many books you are selling. If you ask in your ongoing conversations with Jason from time to time Jason may tell you that your book is selling well or is not selling well and will definitely explain to you what kinds of publicity sell well or are likely to sell well. Sometimes he may give you the sales figures for a month after a national article and he is always there to say which are the best types of publicity to work on.

The back end of our shop is private and has the real sales figures for the shop which is worked out once a year. Some books rarely sell on the website. The bulk of sales in certain subjects are sold to the trade, where niche retailer, mainstream retailers or libraries purchase the work. Mainstream retailers purchase after publicity.

The top 10 selling e-books and paperbacks refer to website only. It is possible you may not be in the top 10 sellers on the Chipmunka website but you are on the book trade.

Bestsellers on the site do not include the book trade. Also e-book bestsellers include giveaways. E.g self harm is the bestselling e-book as it is a giveaway. Giving away books helps alot of people and grows more interest in the company.

Publicity Today

Chipmunkapublishing was born on the internet and at mental health conferences. Chipmunka books may be reviewed from time to time in the national newspapers but this is not the best way to promote your book. Less than one in one hundred books submitted to the broadsheets will actually be reviewed. A far higher percentage will get a feature i.e. an interview and an interview sells more books than a book review does. People are more interested in the human angle and want to get to know the writers themselves.

The best way to promote your book and yourself is to keep reinventing yourself and appearing in the media for different reasons. Throughout this guide we will be using the way that our CEO Jason Pegler has managed to successfully promote his book ‘A Can of Madness and his other five books’. Your book will have a different theme but the same principles will apply. One moment Jason Pegler may appear in the media as a former manic depressive, one minute he may appear as the author of A Can of Madness, or the author of Curing Madness or the author of The Ultimate Guide To Well Being, or as a rapper, or as a charity person, social entrepreneur, former mental health service user, or a publisher or to comment on mental health legislation that the government announces or is proposing, or talking about dangers of Cannabis or dangers of internet bullying etc.. Jason has appeared in the national and international media hundreds of times in the last 8 years and most of the time has managed to have his book mentioned or displayed. He has only ever had two book reviews in the broadsheets but sold more copies of ‘A Can of Madness’ than many  publishers sell for most of their titles.

There are several reasons for this:

1)     Belief that his books and his story are something that the media has a duty to cover.

2)     Ability to make new contacts and thank existing contacts for coverage received

4)     Continued promotion of his own book, himself and the company since 2001.  

How Chipmunka Promotes You

The way Chipmunka promotes you and your books is always evolving. Here are just a few  examples. We promote via direct marketing to customers who have already bought books from us. We send special offers for certain books out across our database.  We do this occasionally as we do not want to be too aggressive as most of our customers believe in our brand and support giving mental health service users a voice. For 2010 we have decided to just contact our complete customer database 4 times, once a quarter and offer them a choice of 5 free different e-books that we have selected. We used to send out e-bulletins regularly from 2002. We have promoted on hundreds of mental health, mental health related and writing forums on the web and dozens of the most popular social networking sites. We have strong links throughout the mental health movement globally and are well known amongst mental health and disability related charities throughout the world. We promote your books at Trade Shows, e.g. London Book Fair (since 2004), US Book Fair Los Angeles (2008) where we gave away 2500 books in 4 days to book fair delegates and talked with thousands of people about your books, Frankfurt Book fair October (2008). We promote your books at mental health conferences and our authors have stands at conferences on a regular basis, when giving talks. There are many mental health conferences where every delegate receives a Chipmunkapublishing title for free. One of many examples is the Institute of Psychiatry's Conference in 2008 and many conferences run by the NHS. We often support the NHS for free as we know if we help them to understand mental health patients that the mental health services will improve as a result. Chipmunka also works with different news agency choosing when to work with which news agency for which author. Although this model has been suffering during the global credit crunch.

Chipmunka pays annual fees for all of its books and they are then submitted to wholesalers and book sellers around the world. We also promote online via precise meta tagging and submitting content of your books, author descriptions and book extracts to search engines, amazon books, google books etc (although we stopped doing both of these as there are problems with moving content), find volunteers to review your books and post reviews on different booksellers' websites. We also submit your books to search engines on the internet and pay for your ISBN registration. We also do loads of other things to promote your books. We have a very successful social entrepreneur Jason building our brand mentoring you who can support you although Paul deals with the day to day advice. If anything is complex then Paul will ask Jason to give some more advice. Chipmunkapublishing does different promotion for e-books and paperbacks and will promote your book in both formats. Paperbacks sell better but e-books are very important as a first phase of publicity. We believe that by 2012 that e-books may start to beat paperback sales. Of course this is hard to determine and something we have been waiting to happen since 2005.

Soon after your paperback comes out your book will be available to order from bookshops around the world. Our books are printed in the UK and the USA. Your book will be available on amazon.co.uk and next day delivery on amazon.com. Your book will also be available in a host of other online and actual book stores around the world. Some of these you will have heard of e.g. WH Smith, Waterstones, Blackwell's etc.. and others you will not have heard of e.g. play.com. Google or Use Microsoft's search engine Bing to view the name of some of our books and you will see.

Why does Chipmunkapublishing come up first on google every time you type mental health publishing? - well that could take a whole book to explain and one day perhaps we will write it but to sum up in a words  – we know what we are doing when it comes to promoting our company and our authors.

Please submit any reviews you get for your book to the review section on our shop and encourage anyone has read your book and likes it to do the same. From time to time Chipmunka puts reviews that appear on our shop on other websites.

Chipmunkapublishing uses print on demand technology and we have been working with the company that invented print on demand Lightning Source since 2002. We do not just use print on demand but use it at our core. By working with Lightning Source we have discovered the fastest, most economical way to get your paperbacks into the hands of an eager buyer. We are therefore a partner into the most comprehensive and highly individualized approach for printing and delivering books in the publishing world today. Print on Demand is the future of publishing (although we see it as inevitable that this has already peaked and e-books are taking over) and we have been at the forefront of it since 2002. Read about how this is so on Wikipedia's definition of print on demand. Print on Demand will take over the Publishing industry just as MP3's took over from Cd's although with kindle and ipad and the next generations in e-book readers E-books will take over POD. It is also good for the environment and the better the environment we live in the better all of our mental health will be.

We will not be sending out an author bulletin until Christmas 2010 as we are focusing on growing the brand to the public.

We Benefit from:
Fast fulfillment of all sales opportunities
Access to the world's largest distribution channel of wholesalers, retailers and booksellers
Improved cash flow by selling books before you print them
More secure business model (not based on sale of return) which means we are able to publish more books and give a voice to more people thus fulfilling the objectives of our social enterprise.
Environmental publishing
Expertise in Digital Publishing methods

Distribution Online and to Bookshops Globally

Most Chipmunkapublishing e-books are sold through our website so when you promote your e-book direct people to our website and let people know about your web page. This is because the Chipmunka brand is strong and people identify with it and also because the supply chain to the e-book market is in its infancy. Whilst the supply chain of the book trade will spend the next few years battling over what to do with e-books leave them to it and promote your e-book online. We launched 72 e-books to the e-book trade around 2006 (and are adding more during 2010) and there were only a couple of established e-book retailers at the time. Now there are more than a dozen that pick up the data feed that lightning source provide for us although most of them are really aggregators of content rather then directly selling the e-books. Ninety nine percent of Chipmunka e-book sales have been on our website since we set up e-books on our website in 2005. So focus on sending e-book customers to your page on the Chipmunka website please not the trade. Chipmunka is already in discussion with mobile phone companies and now sells most of its e-books through the Kindle medium.

The Kindle supply chain alone is more powerful than the e-book trade by far and also links in with iphone and will with ipad too. Kindle was only launched at the end of 2007 and is already proving successful for Amazon and the early signs are good for Chipmunka. 

We are dynamic and cutting edge. This way we can stay ahead in thinking, continue to help more people and grow the company so it really does become a global brand that everyone recognises.

Whatever country you are in Chipmunka's printer will have a partnership with the main wholesalers in that country. In the UK bookshops order Chipmunka books from the two major wholesalers Gardner's and Bertram's. In the USA our printer supplies the main wholesalers. A sample of these is Ingram, Amazon.com, Barnes and Noble, Baker and Taylor, Matthews Medical, NACSCORP. Other distribution partners we have in the UK include Amazon.co.uk, Blackwell, Book Depository, Coutts, Dawson, Mallory International, Paperback Bookshop. Chipmunka pays annual fees for your books to be submitted to supply chains in the UK, US and other countries around the globe. Whatever country your book can be shipped to the customer. It usually takes only 2 days for a Chipmunka book to arrive. Maximum it would take would be 3 weeks. The supply chain is so complicated and such a dinosaur that some people in some bookshops often think it takes longer. This is due to confused tools that staff use, outdated IT systems, some bookshops unwillingness to be online and unwillingness to buy books up front. Most of Chipmunka's paperbacks are sold through the book trade, probably around 75% in the trade and 25% on the website although this varies from book to book. 

  
What Works best – responding to Journalists and media trends

As soon as your e-book goes live on the website Paul will want to see the start of your promotion campaign and can start advising you and giving you opportunities when appropriate. If there is a good enough angle in your biography on the website Jason may also find a journalist to interview you about your life. The journalist is likely to want an exclusive if they can place you in a national newspaper or magazine so Jason will want you to do everything you can do maximise your own publicity first. Look to find your own national coverage when the themes of your life and/or book are in the national media. Look for a hook to get your story into different mediums. Look for hooks to get your own National Coverage. This could be BBC News, Radio 4 etc and/or a National Woman’s Magazine/Newspaper. Publicity often turns into further publicity and you can promote on an ongoing basis, or sometimes the opposite is true for a short period of time. E.g. If Jason can get you placed in a national woman’s magazine for example, it may be that you are requested not to give any more national interviews until the exclusive is released. However most of the time you can keep on going with ongoing publicity on a local scale or in mental health areas. Women's Magazines can give very intense and is not for all authors. They really want to get into your own experience. 

The most important thing is for the author to be available for interview within a few days, sometimes 24 hours and sometimes less. When the media contact Chipmunka 90% of the time they will want to do the interview the same day or within a couple of days. Sometimes they will want to do the interview within an hour or two or even less. Sometimes we may be approached on a subject and have several author’s who could potentially do the interview. Author’s that are easy to work with (i.e. they believe in what we are doing, and have a positive attitude -], easy to get hold of and focused on their own promotion will take priority. Usually the journalists know exactly who they want to talk to. What mental health angle is in the news will determine what the journalists are looking for. So read the newspapers, watch the news and think how you, your life and experiences are relevant to the news. Then use your book as a hook. The media will always be happy to trade, to allow you to mention your book if you are prepared to talk about the subject they want you to talk about. It is often crucial to be able to get hold of the author within a few hours (e.g. if for the BBC), (or a few days with magazines, newspapers, chat shows) or the opportunity for national coverage may be lost. Understanding the way to promote yourself as opposed to your book is usually the key to a successful book. It’s not about writing a great book and expecting your publisher to sell it. You are more interesting than your publisher or even your book because… you wrote it.

Author Publicity

All authors should maximise the use of their own personal contacts when promoting themselves. Please never pay anyone who offers to advise you with promoting your book. Either they help for free or so no thanks. Paul (with Jason available if needed) will help you for free and knows more than they do about how our books sell through our sales channel as he set up the company and knows how it operates. If they are really as expert as they say they are then they don't need to charge. People with mental illness get exploited. Do not let this happen to you. Sell your book to people you know and see if anyone you know can help with publicity. Remember to take responsibility yourself if you do not see any results from other people offering to help. Allot of people have good intentions but many people do not deliver. You are the best promoter of yourself, then your publisher, then your contacts. This is so true. It even says that you are the best promoter of your book in The Writers’ and Artists’ Year Book. The better you are at promoting yourself the more effective your publisher becomes. The more the theme of your story/book is in the news the more likely you are to be contacted by the media.

Online Publicity and free publicity Is The Key

Chipmunka authors can promote themselves online in a highly effective manner. Promoting yourself online is free. If you already have access to broadband or broadband at home here are some tips. If not you can go down to your local library for free or internet café (very cheaply) and set up a google or yahoo email address for free and have fun using the internet for free. You do not need to purchase the internet at home and be stuck with an email address from a broadband provider. That is a bad idea. When you type mental health publishing on google Chipmunkapublishing comes up first (and this prime position is free to us; we do not pay for it directly although we have worked really hard to achieve it. This is because we are the most relevant and best mental health publisher in the world. More people and websites on the internet link to us than anyone else and google recognizes this so puts us first every time. We have not taken on authors who do not have their own email since around 2007 as it is too cumbersome and time consuming to do so.

Promoting your e-book

Did you know that most of our books are already on Kindle. Amazon.com only as Amazon.co.uk is not live yet. They will be available in ipad as soon as it comes out as well.

Did you know that over 220 billion emails are sent everyday. Email all your contacts the link for your e-book when it comes out. Most people buy on impulse so strike as soon as the book comes out. Go to online forums (be sure you are allowed to advertise on them) and mention your book and a link to the chipmunka website. Online publicity is very effective as google documents what you write so ONLINE promotion is ongoing, unlike traditional media which is dying. Make people buy your e-book. The only people who should be receiving it for free are the media. Nobody else. You have worked very hard to write it and Chipmunka has spent a lot of time, money and resources in producing and promoting it so we want to maximise its impact until the paperback comes out.

Why not start a forum about your book on Amazon or on book blogging sites. Make sure it is a forum though and not an advertisement. Write a paragraph about why you wrote the book and what the themes of the book are. Amazon is a great website and we sell a lot of our books on there. Engage in real literary conversations about people with your book as well online. This encourages people to buy more as they get to know the author.

Did you know that there are over 134,000,000 bloggers out there now and a lot of Twitterers. Set up your own www.myspace.com and www.facebook.co.uk account or post videos on www.youtube.com of you reading your book or talking about the themes relating to your book. Set up your own blog on www.blogger.com for free or your own twitter page and see how many followers you can engage with. Join other social networking sites (there are hundreds on the web just search who comes up top on google). See if your posts about your book and Chipmunka come up on google. If they do blog more on those sites. If they don’t blog elsewhere. Name the accounts with your authors name and the name of your books. Link to the Chipmunka website. Always mention www.chipmunkapublishing.com when you are online. People will take you more seriously and will be more likely to buy your book as you have a publisher. Find as many friends as you can. Avoid any criticism you get on the internet and avoid criticising other people. Be positive and upbeat and most people will respond the same way. Occasionally the internet can be a cruel place so be strong mentally and be careful not to criticise anyone else´s book or views on mental illness. Make friends online wherever you can and your book will do better and you will be happier as well.

Search www.chipmunkapublishing.com on google and search the names of Chipmunka books on google, e.g. A Can of Madness. Where you find A Can of Madness has been reviewed, copy and paste one of the reviews you have for your own book and keep posting this on websites where A Can of Madness or e.g. The World Is Full of Laughter has been featured. This will increase awareness of your book. If there is an opportunity to post a review straight away do it. If not then you may have to register. This will mean supplying your email address and giving a simple password. Then go into your email and click on the link to join whichever website it is that you have just visited. (Instructions will vary from website to website)

Maximising Traditional Publicity

Chipmunka authors should ring up their local newspaper, radio and television and be persistent. Your local newspapers will jump at the chance of writing a feature about you. They will not be interested in reviewing your book as they do not review books (an interview sells more anyway so stop thinking about the prestige of having a book reviewed – we like it and we like you or we wouldn’t be publishing you, ok!) but they would love to interview you as a local author who has had their book published. This is a local success story. You can send them the link to your page on the Chipmunkapublishing website and email them your e-book. They would love to give you a double page spread and take photographs of you. This should be easy for your e-book when it comes out and also your paperback. So that is two features that are easy to get from your local newspaper. Always get a name when you email/ring up. You will want to speak to the features department to begin with or the health editor. If you do not get a name then you may have to chase them as nobody is responsible unless you make them. Also, give them time to get back to you as you may be contacting them when they are going to press or have a deadline.

Chipmunka authors are regularly on their local radio stations as they are experts by their mental health experiences/knowledge. When you are live on the radio keep mentioning the name of your book and spell out the Chipmunka website. Talk about helping other people, giving them a voice. Your local media will want to help you because you are helping the local community. They may not respond first time as they may be on deadline so be persistent. The more you mention your book and the company the more books you will sell. It really is that simple.

Whenever you speak to the media be polite and make their job easy by providing them with the content they need. Insist they mention the name of your book and the Chipmunka website. Get this in writing first before you do the interview. This way you know they will get it right.

The way they should describe your book is always “name of book is published by www.chipmunkapublishing.com and is available to order online and from all good bookshops”. These few words are important to have in any interview you do so double check with the journalist that they are going to put this. Of course only add the all good bookshops if you are promoting your paperback, otherwise leave it out. If you are doing an interview for your e-book for a website then make sure the website mentions the full link of your book if possible. Then people go directly to your page and are more likely to buy.

Buying Your Book and Selling it to make a profit yourself

Chipmunka always has offers open to authors for buying books. We do not advise you buy large quantities and you are under no obligation to order. However many Chipmunka authors are successful at selling books at conferences. It is easy for a mental health service user to get a free place and a free stand selling a book at a mental health conferences. Jason went to over 150 mental health related conferences when promoting the company in the first  18 months of setting up Chipmunka. There are mental health conferences on every day around the world. Try local NHS (in the Uk), local charities in UK, USA, Asia, Australasia, Europe wherever you are.

If you are a non-UK based author and wish to make a bulk order purchase it is cost effective to place the order in English pounds. This is due to the exchange rate set up of our shop.

Creating your own National and International Media Coverage is easy !

Think of the theme of your book and the mental health related themes of your life. There is probably a mental health theme to your life so become a media volunteer for every major mental health charity in the UK. There is only a 5 minute registration and as long as they know what you can talk about then this is free publicity. You may need to be persistent. The more positive you are mentally the more coverage you will get. Media volunteering is a part-time hobby that takes up very little time and can be fun and also send a positive message to mental health media reporting. 

Jason became a media volunteer for the major mental health charities in the UK. He registered with Mind, Rethink, Sane, Mental Health Media, The Mental Health Foundation, etc… and spoke to their Press Officers at National Level saying that he was available 24/7 to speak to any media about living with manic depression. Jason was very persistent ringing up the charities from time to time saying he was still available so that they got to expect to hear from him. Jason was then introduced to people for potential national newspaper, Radio and Television Broadcasts regarding manic depression. When the journalists or researchers spoke to Jason they knew he could speak about the issue that the researcher/journalist wanted and, as most of the time he was on live, he was able to mention the name of his book and the company. From these sources alone Jason has been able to achieve national coverage more than 30 times in different mediums. He also kept in touch with allot of the journalist's, magazines, newspapers and TV studios who interviewed him and thanked them for interviewing him.

Knowing this was working so well Jason started doing exactly the same with the BBC. He would be very persistent and ring up the BBC Health Unit at National Office and say that he was always available for interview. Jason has now appeared on BBC National Radio or Television on over 100 occasions. Each time he has mentioned one of his books or his coverage. You can do the same! In fact anyone could if they had the self belief and persistence and as long as they are fairly articulate and prepared to speak about what the media wants i.e. be focused on whatever the topic is. Sometimes when you achieve national coverage then an international opportunity presents itself. One door opening usually opens another opportunity.

Promoting your paperback

You can buy books upfront at discount from Chipmunka and sell them on making a profit. You are under no obligation to ever buy books from us however but we do hope you will promote your book if you are well enough and especially if you are going to expect a high number of sales. Don’t give your books away to people (unless it is your e-book to journalists) and – make them buy. To be a successful author you really need to be a sales person too. There are not many Stephen King's in this world and will be less and less as there is more choice for people these days.

Book Giveaways

There are always funding opportunities to give books away but fundraising is not easy and you always have to tailor grants to helping the local community or something other than promoting yourself or your book, otherwise everyone would be doing it. Successful grants can have a massive impact on helping communities and make your well known opening doors for you so if you are interested then find a funder who is interested and email Jason and he can help price the application by advising you on the quantity of books you could giveaway and number of locations. Chipmunka would manage the printing and possibly the delivery (through one of our printers) and you would manage the rest of the grant. As you are a Chipmunka author you are already a social entrepreneur.

Jason has helped dozens of authors obtain grants to help their local communities, promote their books by book giveaways to help the local NHS/community etc, go and give talks about their mental health issues/life, financial support with writing their next books or even help with living expenses. Jason may also happy to be a reference for you on an application if you have a good working relationship with him. Although he cannot say yes to everyone and has to judge each case on its merits. Funders who have helped Chipmunka authors in the past include Awards For All, Unltd, The Scarman Trust and The Arts Council. Try contacting other funders, whatever country you are in. If they are interested then run the application past Jason. Most funders do not fund individuals so you will have to do your homework but it is worth it if you are successful and a good way to get some funding experience.

Publicity should not have to cost you anything. Online viral marketing is the key, using your publisher’s name as leverage and keeping in touch with Chipmunka for advice and things that have happened to you that the media would be interested in.

Gone are the days when people make big posters of books and print hundreds of thousands of copies of books leaving them in a warehouse, Traditional marketing is dying. Promote yourself online and on the phone for free and you will reap the rewards. Work with your publisher as they usually know the best way to promote you and your book.

Organising a book launch for free

It is easy to organise a book launch for free. You should be able to get refreshments for free as well if you think smart. There are so many free venues. Chipmunka authors have had book launches at their local library, local NHS trust, Local NAMI (If in USA) local Mind, Rethink, MDF group, local pub etc… If someone wants to charge you for a venue have it elsewhere. Remember Chipmunka is an organization that helps people. Tell people that and they will help you. They may not understand what a social enterprise is so tell them about The Chipmunka Foundation and give them the registered charity number: Registered charity number 1109537.  If you want to have your book launch at Waterstones, Barnes and Noble etc that is fine too. They will be happy to help but make sure the order the books from their Wholesaler. We will supply to whichever wholesaler they use through our printer which is integrated to the market. Then you will know if they are serious in promoting the launch. Make sure they do not charge you anything and tell the local paper whose journalists' love a free drink and a great story with a picture of you. Give a talk about why you wrote your book, how it helped you. Tell people about Chipmunka and how we want to help more people. Put the photo's on facebook or video it on you tube and show the world.

Find People To Promote You who believe in what you have been through

You must be passionate about what you have written about and what you have been through so embrace that passion and let other people feel it. Charities will help you as you can be good PR for them as well, journalists will want to help you if you are focused in what you say to them and make content easy for them. There are hundreds of charities around the world in The UK, USA and other countries that would jump at you being a media volunteer for them. It only takes you a short time to sign up with them for free and if you keep on their radar they will get you (and your book) national coverage. 

Be Friends With The Media

There is often very poor reporting on mental health in the media. Try and take this on the chin. The more mental health books we publish and the more people we can find to speak out the more we will change the media. Nowadays people can say exactly what they want online so individuals and niches are driving the world’s media coverage. Within the next few years media on mental health will be more realistic and more positive. This has already happened on the web and younger generations find their news on the web and from news feeds they are interested in, not on TV or in newspapers. Also be honest with the media. If they ask you whether you have received national coverage before or not be honest with them. They will eventually be able to find out. So see them as fellow advocates. Always get a journalist to put in writing that they will mention your book and your publisher before you do an interview with them. Any reliable journalist will do this. Your relationship with any journalist should be a partnership where they mention your book and publisher and you then talk about what you are comfortable with and answer their questions as best as you can.

Paperback Opportunities

If you want more than 115 books think carefully ? Can you sell them ? Try the 6 for 10 offer to start with if you are not sure. Print on Demand publishing is only economical on orders of a maximum of up to around 300. This is suitable for 99% of customers and authors. Printing costs are much lower when 1000 copies or more are printed as we use litho print runs then. If you invest here be sure to have a marketing plan or run your ideas through with Jason. Looking for funding and become a social entrepreneur can be a better option as this just involves some time. Jason may be happy to be a reference for you for funding application so you are welcome to ask him. Jason has had some good success with funding in the past and can mentor in this area too he sees you as a potential budding social entrepreneur.

Sometimes we give books away (usually one title at a time) in bulk to authors although the last year e-books have proven more successful in give aways in raising awareness and of course this is better for the environment. We often give a Chipmunka book from one author to another author in large quantities to cross promote the brand. We can give you hundreds of copies of another Chipmunka author's book to give away to promote the brand and empower others in your local community. We can only give you books in bulk if you have gained funding from somebody to do so. You are welcome to use us as a reference. (see book giveaways above for advice on some funders).

E-book v Paperback

Your e-book will definitely become a paperback. We will promote both and expect you to do the same. E-books are the future. Paperback’s still sell more and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future but some point in the future these dynamics will change just as they did in the MP3 market.

E-books are great because you can email the PDF of your e-book to journalists, websites, charities etc… for free. Make most people buy the e-book though. Just send them the link. Only email for free if you think it will make more sales for you. You have your own page on the Chipmunka website so send them the link. There will be a biography and book description on the website and along with the PDF you have as much information as the journalist needs. Write 3 or 4 lines about yourself and what you have been through and you have information that is a lot more thorough and helpful to a journalist than a Press Release. A very well know international publishing marketing consultant once told us something that we identified with. Did you know that Press Releases are an outdated medium? They are used for 3 things. 1) paper aeroplanes, 2) somewhere for a journalist to put their coffee on, 3) to waste paper to ruin the environment.

2009 saw the birth of Kindle and 2010 brings the ipad. We believe the e-book market will really take off in 2010.

Gravitas of Publishing

You should be proud that you have had or having your book published. You are helping other people affected by mental illness, or things which affect our mental health, and mental health related issues in society which is an even greater achievement. Together we are helping make the world a better place so feel that every day and use that positive energy to promote yourself and your book and help more people.

Rights Highlights 2008 Onwards

Chipmunka like any other publisher sells rights to our books. Although as we are a new generation publisher it is not one of our highest priorities. We have recently sold rights to Poland. Our books are printed in the US and the UK and available to purchase all over the world. We have had books translated into French, German and Italian. We have had books translated from Dutch into English, from Slovenian into English. We are also having books translated into other languages. We are often in discussions with computer game designers, board game designers, film companies, TV companies etc. Chipmunka Rights is a growing development. We have appeared at London Book Fair four the last 4 years. In 2008 we were at the Los Angeles Book fair and in October 2008 we went to Frankfurt Book Fair for the first time which is the largest book fair in the world. We have also recently had translations started in Swedish and Italian. Translations occur when a translator volunteers to translate a book for us. It is usually a translator who believes in the mental health debate or someone who is translating their first book and looking for an ongoing reference from us to become a full time translator. We have also had books translated into Italian and Swedish and always looking into other areas. This is still an important part of publishing although not as prolific as it used to be.

Social Networking Examples

MySpace and Facebook being the most popular in North America, Nexopia (popular in Canada); Bebo, Facebook, Hi5, MySpace, Xing, Tagged and Skyrock in parts of Europe, Orkut and Hi5 in South America and Central America and Central America; and Friendster, Orkut, Xiaonei and Cyworld in Asia and the Pacific Islands. There are thousands of other social networking sties on the web. Twitter is also an in thing. Join Twitter and get yourself an immediate viral marketing tool for you and your book. Stephen Fry twittered our home page recently as a  "fabulous resource for mental health books" and we had over 7000 unique hits within an hour. 

What Not To Do

Do not be obsessed with seeing your book in every bookshop in the world. Although if there is enough demand for your book then anything is possible.. The more coverage you get the more sales happen and the more requests we will get for you. It is as simple as that.  The more links there are on the internet about your book the more that can happen. Reviews on Amazon are the best place that reviews can have an impact on sales in the long term and the least effort. Having a review in the broadsheets is hugely competitive as there are thousands of publishers competing for just a few reviews. Think of having your book on innovative websites, social networking sites, sales channels and with a prominent google presence. Be modern in your outlook and creative in your promotion. Sales in bookshops decrease globally every year and will continue to do so. There are far more potential customers on the web. If there is sufficient demand for your book and the terms are right between Chipmunka, the supply chain and the book buyers then Chipmunka will have your book in every bookshop. Your books are available to order from every bookshop so that is a really good start. Chipmunka has conversations with the Head book buyers of the big book chains and with the marketing companies that advise supermarkets to stock their books. We want your books to be successful. 

Only a few million people will visit bookshops all over the world in a year and less people buy. Even then most of them will buy on impulse because of where a book is positioned. There are over 1 billion using the internet and most of these people purchase. Internet sales are growing fast and bookshops sales are diminishing. E-book sales are also growing quickly whilst paperback sales are declining year on year. 

Do not focus most of your promotion time on traditional book marketing as this is a dying phenomenon. You may or may not like it or understand why but the future of book publishing is on the internet and with kindle and ipad is in your hand in the form of an e-book. Chipmunka wants to see your book in bookshops as much as you do and will provide the books as long we and our partners agree terms with the book buyers but we need to be realistic and focus on what works.

Keep upbeat about your book and promotion. We work every day and believe passionately in you and your books or we wouldn’t be publishing you in the first place. Please be positive and stay focused. People will want to know about you and your life as well as your book. The media are more interested in people and what happens to them than books.  We promote your books using the latest technology. Remember a book can be newsworthy, not just a great book, and the news changes every day. Therefore the more we can make angles for your book and make yourself newsworthy the more coverage we will get and the more books you will sell. This is one of the secret of our success. Coverage sells a lot better than reviews do. An interview about your life and why you wrote your book appeals to a much wider audience than a book review every now and then in one of the Sunday broadsheets. Most of the time when one of our books gets reviewed somewhere the company is asked to supply the book and we don’t mind doing that as long as we have a guarantee that they will review it. We all love a bit of prestige for being reviewed by one of the broadsheets but an interview with them sells more than a book review does. Jason has been interviewed by most of the Broadsheets and had his books reviewed by them as well so we are saying this because we know how book sales work. The more publicity you generate the more journalists will contact the company and the more coverage the company can generate. All this means more and more sales.

Please just have one person liaising with Chipmunka about promoting your book wherever possible. Preferably you the author. If this is not possible then your agent/family member/charity representative is ok. It is usually counter productive when more than one person is trying to liaise with Chipmunka about promotion of a book as it often leads to confusion and repetition of tasks. If Jason feels that your method of promotion is complex  then he may hand over promotional relations to Andrew. Andrew is one of the Co Founders of the company so it is extremely well experienced and wants to help.

If in extremely rare circumstances Jason feels your conduct is inappropriate then he may ask Paul or Andrew to liaise with you instead.

Brainstorm

99% of your promotion should not cost you a penny. Email people, appear on social networking sites, have a free blog, a free email address, free internet from the library (unless you already have the internet), skype phone calls are free as well these days. However If you ever wanted business cards we recommend Vistaprint above any other. They are very cheap, have great templates and often offer 250 cards for free. Business cards still look good when networking and can help put you in a position to pitch for public speaking and help book sales etc...

Free Social Networking

Flickr, Youtube, Twitter, Facebook, Myspace, Book blogs

Get as many friends as possible. Compliment other people and see the good in people and the greatness in other author's books

Pumping it up

When promoting yourself be in a PEAK STATE.

Improve your sense of self.....Embrace fear/anger/negative comments etc...and turn THEM into totally MEGA ACTION. Embrace promotion, be proud of being an author with something amazing to say, you are an expert by your experience. Your book is saving lives. The bravery you showed when writing your book has the potential to help millions of people around the world.

Visualise success! Be in a peak state...have calm breathing....fill your mind full of positive thoughts...energise your body....be physically strong. Prepare, feel and do the positive.

If you want to know more about how to be in a peak state then buy Jason Pegler's third book:

The Ultimate Guide to Well Being

Available from kindle our website and available to order from all good online and traditional bookshops around the world

This minimal investment will change your life and unleash the potential in you to improve yourself and empower other mental health artists around the world.

If you sell more than 100 books in a month through the book trade then Chipmunka will provide you with these numbers and will contact you asking how the promotion is going or telling you why it is working.

Magnificent Tips

1. Have your book launch at your local library. They will not want to take a margin and will give you the venue for free. They also love books. 

2. Why not invest in 5000 of your own business cards for less than £100 from Vista Print. Place the cards around your local NHS, shops and cafes. Put your social entrepreneurship on their as well as what else you do e.g. motivational speaker, mental health activist. Your book is a tool to open new doors for you, to find yourself speaking engagements, consultancy etc.. Your book is a gateway to new opportunities. 

News Agency Advice

Approach a news agency with your story. Only sign a contract if with the newspaper of magazine though not the agency or a freelance journalist. Ask the magazine to guarantee in writing that they will feature the story within 6 weeks or latest 3 months otherwise do not sign. Whatever country you are in this can work. always get in writing that they will mention your book. Also make sure that they say when they will run the feature of you could be waiting for a long time. If in doubt email us and we will advise you. 

Confidence

If you have a promotional idea and are convinced it will work go for it a million percent. Do not let anyone hold you back. if you believe in something with absolute certainty then it can help keep you in the now which will help you and the people around you