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Audio Book Review for:
"A Do-It Yourself Guide to Promoting Easy and Cheap”

by Hugh Rosen

Allyn Evans: Moderator
Carolyn Howard-Johnson: Speaker
Marilyn Peake: Speaker

This is the first of a series of 30 audio CD’s that are published by Double
Dragon Publishing. They can also be heard by downloading them. The
moderator throughout the series is Allyn Evans http://www.QueenPower.com .
She is the founder of Queen Power. The instructors of the entire series are
Carolyn Howard-Johnson http://carolynhowardjohnson.com , Marilyn Peake
http://www.marilynpeake.com, Joyce Faulkner http://www.joycefaulkner.com,
and Kathe Gogolewski http://www.tri-studio.com .

I would urge the listener of this course, or any one audio in the series, to be
prepared with pen and paper at hand. The practical information provided in
them is enormous and you will probably want to take at least limited, if not
copious, notes. The instructors of this first audio are Marilyn Peake and
Carolyn Howard-Johnson, in that order. The structure is such that it begins with
introductions of the speakers’ backgrounds, as well as of the moderator’s.
Each speaker addresses the listener for a period of time. The forum is then
open for questions by the moderator and people who call in from the outside.
The ambience permeating the entire session is one of informality and
friendliness, despite the richness of the content.

The quality and tone of the sound is good, as all participants come across
clearly and sharply. There is a glitch in the last segment when callers raise
questions as the listener can hear background noise. This technical problem
is corrected, as it does not appear in the second audio. The buzz one hears
does not mitigate the clarity of the speaker, hence, it causes no problem
hearing what is being spoken.

Marilyn Peake focuses directly on using radio as a medium to promote your
book cheaply. A radio interview could last anywhere from fifteen minutes, one-
half-hour, to an hour. She suggests that passion is the prime mover of a great
radio interview. The author must be enthused about her or his topic and
manifest that while being interviewed. She has appeared on numerous radio
shows and her experience indicates that the interviewer is usually friendly. She
tells of an interview in which the “angle” of the show was on “overscheduled
children” rather than constantly focusing on her book. Yet she managed to
bring in the fact that she has authored a trilogy, The Fisherman’s Son, suitable
for teen- aged children. Subsequent to the radio show, which was conducted
at her end while seated at home, Marilyn saw a dramatic rise in sales. Marilyn
tends to talk at a fast pace, although always with clarity, so keep that pen and
paper handy.

Carolyn Howard-Johnson, author of The Frugal Book Promoter, focuses on
how to arrange radio shows cheaply. She has been on more than 300 such
shows, finds that they can be casual and friendly, and believes them to be the
most fun of all ways of promoting one’s book. Carolyn emphasizes that non-
fiction is in much greater demand by radio interviewers than fiction. Radio
shows are looking for controversial issues and want to have an “angle” for the
discussion. However, even novels can be transformed to meet these criteria.
For example, her novel, This Is the Place, occurs in Utah and is relevant to the
Mormon community. Yet she realized that there was a feminist aspect to the
novel and that could become the angle. In fact, she brainstormed and came up
with no less than 70 angles for her fiction. She recommends that the author
focus on the interviewer’s message, but find ways to weave the name and
availability of her or his own book into the discussion. It is best to be
interviewed on a syndicated show because your listening audience will be
larger and more widespread. However, if necessary, start with small late night
shows and use them as stepping-stones to the syndicated shows.

Allyn Evans’ role as moderator is played out deftly in this audio. She
stimulates the discussion and raises questions of her own, yet avoids being
intrusive, and permits her speakers broad latitude for getting their messages
across.

Those who called in with questions played an important role in making this
audio the success it is. They raised issues that hadn’t been covered, asked
for clarification where they felt the need, and requested repetition of points not
caught the first time around.

I have merely tried to whet the appetite of the reader in this review, as there is
so much more useful information packed into this audio. And if it is a reflection
of the balance of audios, this course is destined to offer a unique and creative
learning experience to authors, which will accelerate the sale of their books at
an exponential rate.

Hugh Rosen http://www.hughrosen.com , author of the novel, Silent
Battlefields.