Press releases are traditionally written as if unbiased news, not in first person (If thine “I” offends thee, pluck it out). I have found the following useful when writing a press release in which I need to quote myself.

Write what you want to say in the release, then before finalizing it, write those exact words in a blog post. Of course you’ll need to use your name, probably spelled the same, in both of them. Just remember to publish the blog post before publishing the press release. If you can include the title of the post in references at the bottom of the release, it can show the news publisher it is valid and safe to publish.

The new title for the third edition of my first nonfiction book will be Searching for Ropens and Finding God. This explains cryptozoological investigations of worldwide sightings of apparent modern pterosaurs. Expect many new paragraphs and even new chapters. Here is a sample of what LDS should find strangely familiar, a highly modified portion of Chapter 29 of Second Nephi in the Book of Mormon.

Many of the paleontologists will say, “A live pterosaur?! A live pterosaur?! We have got pterosaur fossils and there cannot be any more live pterosaurs.”

O fools, they shall have pterosaur fossils; and they shall come from among those animals that died during the ancient Flood written of in Genesis. And what thanks do paleontologists give to God for the preservation of basic animal types on the Ark of Noah, written of in the Bible?

Really, for paleontologists who believe in the Bible, what do they mean? Do they remember the labors of those who built the Ark and their diligence to God in bringing forth many basic forms of animal life to all the earth?

O you Bible-believing paleontologists, have you remembered the Ark of Noah, God’s ancient work to save basic animal types? Not the scientists who reject the Bible. They have denounced the Flood of Genesis and hated the scriptures and have not sought to discover live pterosaurs but only fossils. God will hold them accountable, but he remembers those who recognize his hand in preserving life.

Fools shall say, “Pterosaur fossils, we have got pterosaur fossils, and we need no more live pterosaurs.” How did you obtain fossils except from living creatures?

Don’t you know that there have been more pterosaur species than one? Don’t you know that God put all of them on the earth and that he remembers to preserve those that still live on various islands and in other places? God rules in heaven and on earth, and he brings forth various species from the basic life forms that he had preserved on the Ark.

Why murmur or why marvel that, among discoveries of new species, some discoveries should be of basic types assumed long extinct? Don’t you know that the discovery of two or more basic types, such as living Coelacanths and living pterosaurs, is evidence that God preserves basic animal types?

God remembers one basic life form as well as another, preserving Coelacanths and pterosaurs. When people come to know that these two are still living, they will have two testimonies that God is the same yesterday, today, and forever.

Don’t look for the above in the first two editions of Searching for Ropens; it’s not there. The third edition should be published before Thanksgiving . . . I hope. [Update: It was published April 18, 2014, a major revision of this nonfiction book.]

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Back cover of Searching for Ropens and Finding God

From the title page of this nonfiction book:

This flies high above a common true-life adventure, revealing the early stages of what may become the most unsettling scientific discovery since Copernicus and Galileo. It soars above disputes about religion, revealing why an official discovery of an extraordinary animal was delayed for so long. Above all, this explores human experiences—of eyewitnesses and those who interviewed them. People have become connected by common encounters: Persons of various faiths, with various levels of education, from various countries and cultures, have seen a living pterosaur.

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I’ve read this advice, for new authors, on how to improve book sales: Get good reviews. For Amazon sales, at least, beware of this over simplistic idea.

Why do many readers purchase a particular book? Consider the following:

• Many book readers could become interested in it
• Those readers are often reminded of the book
• Benefits of reading it are clear and convincing
• Readers find if easy to purchase

With all four of the above, your book will sell well. If the potential audience is in the millions, it will sell at least in the hundreds of thousands. But beware of the following simplistic Amazon-review dream: A few good reviews will generate more sales which will cause more good reviews which will generate more sales, until hundreds of thousands are sold on Amazon. I suggest that rarely happens, if ever.

An associate of mine published a short book two months ago. The audience is small but the book was apparently well prepared and loved by those who read it; the illustrations were highly praised. It sold well for the first few weeks. It now has twenty Amazon reviews, each of them giving five-stars. Yet the Amazon Best Sellers Rank is now at #327,966. I suspect that the bulls-eye of the target audience mostly already owns copies of the book and that most of the secondary target has no idea the book exists.

The point? Those twenty 5-star Amazon reviews will not likely sell many more books in the next few weeks, unless other marketing avenues are used to bring the book to the attention of the secondary audience.

We need to concentrate on the four basics of successful book sales and beware of simplistic ideas about quick results.

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The Miracle of Father Kapaun

Whether it’s by a medic or chaplain or regular soldier, a wounded comrade is carried in somebody’s arms. The word “literally” can distract from that simple act, tempting the reader to wonder, for a moment, how a wounded soldier could be non-literally carried. I know this is trivial in itself, but it gives us a clue that the writer is probably not professional, and imperfections can add up over the course of 200 pages.

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Traditional publishing has its place, but for me Createspace has been the ideal partner in self publishing. This company, acquired by Amazon a few years ago, makes it relatively easy to publish books for authors who want more than traditional freedom or who have had bad experiences with traditional publishers. And the cost is almost free: Unless there has been a recent change in Createspace policy, the only direct cost for having your book published and printed is the cost of the proof copies sent to you, in other words, as little as the cost of a meal for two in a family restaurant.

Createspace pays much better than other POD (publishing on demand) companies. You may be able to price your book a little lower than the competition and still receive more revenues than you would with another POD publisher.

But if you want more revenues, from book sales, than will pay for one meal, prepare to promote. Not that a traditional publisher will do all the promotion for your book; authors need to be involved in the promotion process, regardless of the type of publisher. But self publishing requires more of that than a new author may have imagined.

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Lakewood, California, child care

No monetary profit do I make from promoting this book by Peter Bowerman. I recommend The Well-Fed Self-Publisher (even though I’ve read only half of the 294 pages) with no reservations . . . that is, if you might be interested in making a profit on your self-published book. (My copy says “2007,” although Amazon says the book was published August 1, 2006; I guess it’s a reprinting.) I hope that the best books by LDS self-published authors would be promoted with the principles taught in WFSP, for the resulting higher sales would make this world a better place.

I won’t examine all 114 Amazon reviews, but noticed that 97 were five-star (best rating) and 13 were four-star. From my experience with the first few chapters of WFSP, I suspect that lofty rating average may come less from the author’s friends, more from unbiased readers. I summarize one of the lengthy reviews (by Holly Cooley):

Peter Bowerman has created a wonderfully accessible reference for anyone who has ever thought about self-publishing. He presents all the ins and outs of publishing your own book in a straightforward manner. Even better, he includes his own experiences, both good and bad — yes, he made mistakes — making his book both more real and more readable, and ultimately more useful to the potential self-publisher.

. . . Bowerman spent close to 30 years in sales, marketing, copywriting and publishing. Clearly, he has certain skills from his background that you may not have. By letting you know exactly how he went about self-publishing his own book, he has made it possible for you to decide what will work for you.

Almost 50 pages of useful material can be found in the five Appendices. Not only does the first of these, Resources, include books and websites, but also the specific vendors that helped Bowerman with his own books, from cover design to typesetting to publicity.

I expect to examine some of Bowerman’s ideas on this blog. (Remember, ideas are not copyrightable, only the expression of those ideas.) I found nothing to suggest the author is LDS, but I don’t recall reading anything in WFSP that might be offensive to LDS readers.

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From the back cover of this nonfiction cryptozoology book:

“Americans, for years, have reported obvious living pterosaurs, with sightings in Washington state, California, New Mexico, Texas, Ohio, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Georgia, Florida, South Carolina, Rhode Island, Maine, New York, Pennsylvania, Kentucky, Virginia, Kansas, Indiana, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Missouri.

“Discover for yourself these amazing yet true stories and why they are usually absent from news headlines. Learn of the searches and research done by a few American cryptozoologists who stand up to ridicule and proclaim the truth. At least two pterosaur species, (quite uncommon, mostly nocturnal) still live in North America.”

Third edition of Live Pterosaurs in America, by the LDS author Jonathan Whitcomb