Over the past few months I’ve been struggling to figure out how I can gain exposure for my book Go Ahead – Take the Wheel, especially since I self-published it and do not have access to many of the publicity channels major publishers do. (Honda-Tech adding a sticky has been a huge help, and I really appreciate it!! The purpose of this thread was not meant to be an additional plug for the book.) I am trying to think back to how I learned about my favorite racing books, and am guessing it was either at a track store or through word of mouth but just can’t remember. I’m curious where you’ve heard about the racing books you have. If you didn’t learn about them at a track store or big book store and purchase it then, where did you go to buy them?

 

I know I bought some from http://www.ioportracing.com/Me...de=BK

Probably others from on-site track stores.

Keith, who still hasn't finished reading his copy of Go Ahead – Take the Wheel...

 

I have had soft-bound, automotive books (like yours) all of my life. I have worked for an automotive book publisher, and my father has written about twenty such books over the years. They are as much a part of my life as any books can be. Despite all that, I cannot remember specifically where I learned about any of them except for the most recent Amazon purchases.

My guess would be that there is no "one" silver bullet of publicity channels that gets a book noticed. Rather, it is the pervasive distribution and mentions of a book that leads to acceptance by the masses over time. I think PR, advertising, listing in catalogs, on web sites, magazine reviews and retail distribution are ALL part of the puzzle. And all of that is what a good publisher does well.

Self publishing has its advantages. But few are the rich authors who have decided that it is the best way to sell books. Even the great Carroll Smith gave up on self publishing after his first few editions.

I have an acquaintance who published her own book on Business Practices for Photographers. She sent me a sample copy to see if it might be used as a text book in the commercial photo program where I teach. It is a great book. Perfect for our needs. But it does not have an ISBN and cannot be ordered by the college book store. Bummer. I can't even find it on Amazon.

Long story short, I think the answer to your question is: EVERYWHERE.

I learned about the books I have in all kinds of places. And since I am a skeptic by nature, I generally don't trust anything I have only heard about once, or from a single source.

The more PR and reviews you get the better. The more catalogs you're listed in, the better. The more stores who stock it, the more racers who recommend it, the more bibliographies its listed in, and the more wish lists people can add it to, then the more opportunities you have for an impression. Having a good book is only part of the battle. You also need to be there (wherever "there" is) when a reluctant buyer is finally ready to buy it. Make it as easy for them as you can.

Master Card, Visa, Am Ex and Pay Pal accepted!

 

Excellent points John! You father having written ~ 20 books blows my mind. Wow! When I first started this project, I started tracking the number of hours I was spending. After a while (but still in the early phases) I stopped because how quickly it was adding up and figured once done, I wouldn't even want to know.

Yeah, self-publishing has been an interesting experience. I was very surprised with some of the things I learned during this process about the book industry. The concept of selling books to major bookstores such as Barnes & Nobel or Borders, them not selling copies, simply tearing off the cover, throwing the rest of the book out and returning the cover for a full refund still has me shaking my head. I suppose it makes sense for a large publisher not wanting the copies back to store, but for a smaller publisher it's tough. All that requiring a distributor taking a decent cut, then the book store taking their share.

Fortunately my motivation for writing this wasn't for financial reasons. One of my big goals is to help make the process of people getting into racing easier, and showing how one doesn't need to be rich to be able to race. This brings up a broader question. One area NASA and SCCA struggle with is getting their racing programs more exposure and well known. Growing up attending races, I thought that the $3,000 Skippy schools were the only way to get into racing.

How did you guys learn about autocrossing, HPDEs, and club racing?


Modified by granracing at 2:25 PM 12/27/2006

 

with regard to your specific questions:

autocrossing: word of mouth. someone told me "hey you might be interested in this....."

hpde: no such thing back in my day that i knew of...

road racing: having autocrossed with scca, learning of RR and what it took from the autocrossing crowd made it a natural.

i have more books that are specific to my honda than i do to racing in general.

i would suggest GRM and trying to get an article done of what it takes to get into racing. they do this every few years. it has been a while since their "zero to hero" series.

and they might want to do another since the readership turns over sometimes. i think i saw my first copy in the fall of 1985 and subscribed soon after. find someone who is taking your book to heart and ask if they would be interested in an article of the low-buck entry to racing.

but i really think the number of people entering wheel to wheel is relatively small. driver's schools are relatively rare and they have a fair percentage of folks that are there to learn a new track or to renew a license that has lapsed.

the HPDE crowd and folks doing track days seems to be the highest growth. and the rapid sharing of info via the internet makes a book difficult to market, imho.

but as a means for a legit business for racing for tax purposes, wow!

 

A friend of mine has written and self-published two books. He sent a review copy of his latest to Steve Thompson at Autoweek who liked it and wrote a review that appeared in the magazine. That really helped. FWIW, my friend suggests joining "Publishers Marketing Association".

 

I looked at the Publishers Marketing Asso. website and it looks very interesting! It was also great speaking with you John, thank you for the suggestions.

I'm still curious to where others heard about the various racing books they have as well as in general where they learned about autocross, HPDEs, and club racing. Thanks for the help!

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by granracing &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">I looked at the Publishers Marketing Asso. website and it looks very interesting! It was also great speaking with you John, thank you for the suggestions.

I'm still curious to where others heard about the various racing books they have as well as in general where they learned about autocross, HPDEs, and club racing. Thanks for the help!</TD></TR></TABLE>

I learned about the local sports car club by seeing a flier on the wall at the local BAP-GEON (http://www.bap-geon.com/) back in the days when you had to visit an import auto parts store to buy parts for an imported car. Since I had 2 Triumphs, I figued I should join Tidewater Sports Car Club. Though TSCC was formed in 1953, they were pretty much just an autocross club by the 1980s.

I was reluctant to autocross either of my Triumphs at first, until I ran an autocross at the national meet for the Vintage Triumph Register. After a couple of years of autocrossing, I bought an autocross-only Triumph, and a couple of years later I/we participated in a private track rental (mostly TSCC members) at Summit Point on a Friday. TSCC had a couple of members who raced with SCCA, which some of our members aspired to.

As to what are now called HPDEs, I probably learned of Car Guys events in GRM and North American Pylon.

HTH

Keith