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Southern Illinois University Press
Marketing Questionnaire
To assist SIUPress in marketing and promoting your book, we need your input in four areas: author information, book content, the market, and publicity and promotion.Your responses will be used as the basis for promotional copy and a marketing plan.
Answer all sections as fully as possible. You may respond within the body of the questionnaire. We prefer to receive the questionnaire by e-mail. Please send resume or CV and author photo, as well as any separate files (mailing lists, etc.), as attachments. If you need to mail hard copies of the questionnaire and supporting documents, please send them to your acquisitions editor.
If a particular question does not apply to your book, designate N/A. Please indicate any confidential information we cannot use in promoting your book.
Thank you.
BOOK TITLE: ______
Author Information
NAME (as you would like it to appear on your book):
SOCIAL MEDIA/ONLINE PRESENCE:Author website, Twitter handle, and/or Facebook page address:
RÉSUMÉ / CURRICULUM VITAE: Submit a current résumé or curriculum vitae to your Acquisitions Editor.
QUALIFICATIONS SUMMARY: Include a brief summary of professional background, education, degrees held, and present affiliations, stressing qualifications for writing this book. Also list any association to which each author belongs, both professional and civic, and indicate any offices held. Include all special honors, prizes, competitive fellowships, and membership in honorary societies.Please provide any positive quotes about you or your work that helps establish you as an expert in this field.
PREVIOUS BOOKS: Please provide the titles, ISBNS, publication dates, format, price, and total sales of any previous books you have published. Also, please provide any positive review quotes or endorsements from your previous books.
ADDITIONAL PUBLICATIONS: List any additional publications (non-book), reviews, and magazine or journal articles.
AUTHOR ACTIVITY: List any conferences, presentations, workshops, and public appearances that you may attend/schedule where your book could be promoted.
MEMBERSHIPS: List any organizations, associations, fraternities, sororities, etc. of which you are a member. [Many awards require membership in the sponsoring organization so it is very important for us to have this information when considering award submissions for your book.]
AUTHOR PHOTO:Submit a photo of each author to your Acquisitions Editor (ideally as a 300 dpi jpg). List the credit line here. [Your author photo may appear on the book’s cover or online on your book’s webpage, and it may be shared withmedia outlets that request it.]
INSTITUTIONAL COMPLIMENTARY COPY: Please provide the name of a person at your institution to whom our Provost may send a complimentary copy of your book. If you have a position with a college or university, this should be your provost, chancellor, or president. If you are not affiliated with a college or university, it may be the leader of your institution or someone in a leadership role at an institution that provided funding for the book or helped with the research. This is not a way for you to thank someone personally for help they may have provided; rather, it is a way for Southern Illinois University to thank other institutions for providing access to research tools and other assistance to scholars.
Book Content
BOOK SUMMARY: Summarize your book, or its approach, in 35–50 words. Please touch on the basic points in simple language to help us generate marketing copy.
BOOK DESCRIPTION: In 150–200 words, provide a synopsis of your book as you would describe it to a colleague who is unfamiliar with you or your work. Include its purpose, scope, and main features.
CHAPTER SUMMARY: Give a 25–50 word summary for each chapter.
KEY ARGUMENT/THESIS:
KEY CUSTOMER FEATURES AND BENEFITS: List 5–7 key features of your book that would interest customers and why, such as major or special topics, a new, unique, or innovative approach, and so on. What makes this book remarkable? What’s here that can’t be found elsewhere?
ENDORSEMENTS: List names and full contact info, including e-mail addresses, of 5 prominent individuals from whom we can solicit endorsements.
COVER/JACKET DESIGN: What look best suits your vision for this book’s cover/jacket—academic, edgy, elegant, understated, dignified, sophisticated, controversial, inviting, light, dark, etc.? What books would serve as good visual models for your design tastes? (And here, you might look at SIUPress covers featured on our website, check your own bookshelves, and browse related titles on Amazon.)
SAMPLE: Please suggest a sample chapter or 5-10 poems to include in the sales/press kits. The sales representatives are not scholars in your field—the sample should be something that is interesting to a general reader or shows the scope and importance of the book. It could be the introduction.
KEYWORDS:List words, phrases, and questions that potential customers might use when searching for books and information on your topic. Think about questions people might ask that your book can answer. Amazon uses keywords to match searches with results.
The Market
MARKET DESCRIPTION: Provide a general description of the primary groups (Scholar, Student, Professional, Lay Reader, Collector, Enthusiast, and so on) that will purchase your book and how, where, and why they will use it. Include any regional interest if applicable.
SELLING SITES: Are there any particular bookstores that should carry this book (e.g. bookstores at National Historic Sites, your local bookstores, etc.)?
RATIONALE: Please let us know (in about 50-100 words) why you wrote the book, why the information in the book is needed now, or any interesting stories about how the manuscript came to be written.
CONTRIBUTION TO YOUR FIELD: Please write a short statement that explains your book’s contribution to its field.
Competition/RELATED BOOKS: Provide the names of books similar to your book, with publisher and publication dates, and explain how your book differs from these works or how it builds upon them. This up-to-date information is crucial to our sales reps and helps us position your books in the market.
Publicity and Promotion
The following is a list of potential publicity and promotional activities.
Some promotional activities may not be applicable to your book.
REVIEWS: List magazines, journals, newsletters, and trade publications that should receive review materials on your book.
NEWS RELEASES: List local papers, alumni magazines, and TV and radio shows, as well as local, civic, and professional clubs and organizations that may be interested in you or your book and provide detailed contact information for each (including physical and/or email addresses). Please note that the contacts on this list will receive news releases, not review copies, unless they request them.
AUTHOR PUBLICITY: Please describe your comfort level with publicity events. Are you willing to be interviewed live on the radio? Are you willing to appear on TV? Are you comfortable speaking in front of large groups? May we share your contact information with journalists or people looking for speakers?
JOURNAL/PROGRAM ADS: We place a limited number of advertisements for scholarly publications in journals or conference programs, but we welcome your suggestions. If you would like to secure additional ad space for your book, we will be happy to design and submit the ad.
SPECIAL GROUPS: List trade associations, corporations, societies, and other groups or individuals that would be interested in your book. Do you have access to a list-serve, mailing list, or email list for these groups/individuals? Attach a separate contact sheet if necessary. We will send fliers or an email to these contacts.
EXHIBITS: We have an existing exhibits plan for scholarly publications in our major subject areas. Your suggestions for professional meetings and conferences where your book should be debuted and exhibited are also welcome.
CURRENT NEWS INTEREST: Describe any significant relationship between the material in your book and events in current news.
SOCIAL MEDIA PROMOTION: List special dates (anniversaries, birthdays, etc.) that tie in to subject of your book and note their significance. If possible, provide a short write-up about the event that we could post to social media. Also, list interesting quotes, tips, statistics, etc. from the book that would make interesting social media posts.
COURSE ADOPTION: Is your book appropriate for classroom use? If so, please provide complete contact information, including email addresses, for professors who may consider adopting this book for course use. We have internal contact lists that will also be used for course adoption pitches.
AWARDS: SIU Press nominatesselect books for awards that we deem beneficial. We will let you know if we plan to submit your book for an award. Most awards allow authors to self-nominate and we ask that you do so if you are interested in having your book nominated for numerous awards. Please let us know if your book wins any awards for which you self-nominate.
SIU PRESS EMAIL MARKETING:The email marketing service that we use requires us to obtain explicit permission from email recipients. Please grant your permission by checking the box below. We will add your email address to our email mailing list for your subject field only. You will receive announcements of new books (including your own) and occasional emails with news or promotions. If you would like to receive emails from SIU Press in additional subject areas, you may sign up for numerous subjects here.
☐By checking this box, I indicate my willingness to receive occasional promotional emails from SIU Press, including the announcement of my book’s publication.
Revised 11/3/2018