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ChristianPRgroup.com: Who Says Videos Killed The Radio Star: "Columbus, Ohio (Christian-PR Group) Coming this fall on Blog Talk Radio is the unique show, “Soap Operas In Print,” hosted by BLESSEDselling..."

Novel, Dollar Bill, Appears in Newsweek

Now doesn't that sound awesome? Believe me, a few years ago when I opened up the Ronald Regan (RIP) issue of Newsweek Magazine and saw the cover of my novel, "Dollar Bill," I was beside myself. At the time, the magazine was doing a write up on my then publisher, Triple Crown Publications. My book being included in the spread wasn't nothing short of favor from God. Delighted wasn't the word to describe my emotions. For some reason I envisioned several of the hundreds of thousands of readers clutching that magazine running out to buy a copy of my book. That might have happened had the magazine been Essence or Ebony. Not that Newsweek isn't a spectacular magazine; the authority of its kind. It simply wasn't my target audience.

You must-you must-you must know who your readers are. Keep in mind, the people you write for are not necessarily your readers. For example, I now write Christian Fiction. When I sit down to pen a tale, I don't just write for Christians. I write for the entire Kingdom. I write for the sinner and the saint, the saved and the unsaved, the churched and the unchurched, etc... In essence, I write for everybody who wants to experience a moving tale. Now, that's me talking as a writer.

Pay close attention, because now I'm putting my marketing and promotions hat on. As a writer promoting her work, I can't start off promoting to everybody. I may have written the book for everybody, but everybody isn't going to want to read my book (Ouch, that hurt to say). But it's the truth. No matter how perfect of a tale an author believes they have weaved, not everybody in the world is going to want to read it...even if they do appear on Oprah. Trust me; I can count on one hand how many Oprah picks I ran out and bought. So what I have to do is know who my readers are and market to them.

Needless to say, my target audience for my personal, self-proclaimed hood classic, "Dollar Bill," was not reading Newsweek (at least not that week anyway;-). So with that being said, this time around, I'll be sure to keep in mind that even though I may haven written my books for everybody, 'everybody' is not my target audience.

Make Your Old Book Seem Like New

I'm still at, doing all that I can possibly do in order to breath new life into some of my older secular titles such as "The Root of All Evil" and my Essence Magazine bestsellers, "If I Ruled the World" and "Dollar Bill." I've gone on amazon and put tags (you know, those key words that will get you noticed on the Internet searches). I never really knew just how important those little tags are. I mean, when someone goes on a amazon to search for a book like one of the greats I've written (Yes, I did just toot my own horn. What do you expect, I'm biased) how in the world did I expect them to find it with absolutely no tags on it. There were no little, in this case, green flags to signal to that potential reader, "Hey, right here. You're looking for me, bud."

So, like they say, it's better late than never. I suppose I should go to some of the other online bookstores and find out if I can do the same thing on their websites.

But in the mean time; tag, you're it!

Tag!...Are You It?

I should be ashamed for even sharing this with you, but even though my first book was published in 1998 and I've written several more since then, it wasn't until today did I finally decide to tag my books. Tags are those key words that author's use, as well as readers, to give little hints as to the content of the book. It's almost like when you see that nice shirt hanging on the rack in Macy's; it catches your eye, but before you try it on and start modeling it, what's the first thing you do? You check the tag. That little tag determines whether or not you'll even try the shirt on, let alone buy it. In my opinion, the tags an author places on their books are equally important.

Certainly you yourself have done a book search on Amazon.com or any other of your favorite online book stores. You add key words into the search box and then several books are pulled up based upon your key words...or should I say tags? If you were looking for a book like one I have written, I'd love for my book to be one that pops up. But if I don't put a tag on it, my chances of that happening are pretty slim.

Sure other readers can add tags, but it's my book. I know it better than anyone else and can determine just what tags properly describe my books. In adding these tags, I wanted to make sure I didn't put any misleading ones on my books either. All that would do is make a reader mad and possibly come back and give me a bad review.

Hopefully the tags I've added to my old books will breathe new life into them and resurect sells. We'll see...

Throwback Bookshelf

It's been a while since I've worn the Joylynn M. Jossel hat. Since changing writing genres from secular, which included women's fiction, street lit and erotica, I've kind of left my secular titles by the way side. But all of that officially ends today. When my publishers gave me those book deals, they did so because they believed in me; they believed in my work. They were excited about the stories I turned in and proved as much by offering me a pretty nice advance. Sadly to say, I didn't quite earn my advance back. Then to add salt to my publisher's wound, I changed genres and acted like those books never even existed; no marketing-no promotions. Well, like I said, all of that ends today as I embark on a campaign of which I'm calling "Throwback Bookshelf." This will include my efforts to resurect my titles such as "The Root of All Evil," its sequel "When Souls Mate," as well as "If I Ruled the World," and its sequel "Mama, I'm in Love With a Gangsta." I know that according to industry standard, after three months on the shelf, a book is pretty much considered old. Well, some of my titles are over five years old, but I have a saying: "a book is new to someone who has never read it before-no matter what the copyright date is." With that being said, I hope you'll not only follow my blog, but offer me feedback and any suggestions that may help me in achieving my goal.