New Spanish edition released of author John Ronner’s longtime best-seller on the subject of angels

MURFREESBORO -- More than 50,000 copies of Murfreesboro author John Ronner’s book Know Your Angels: The Angel Almanac are in print in English and 48,000-plus in Japanese. Now, these paper editions are joined by a new Spanish language e-book edition downloadable to Amazon’s Kindle readers, smart phones and other devices (La Enciclopedia de los Ángeles).

“As the book market in Latin America continues to explode, I wanted to aim for new readers in that direction,” said Ronner, whose first book, Do You Have a Guardian Angel?, appeared in 1985.

Currently, Ronner has more than 140,000 copies of his books in print in English, Japanese and Portuguese, but is now converting to digital publishing.

“The traditional publishing model is far less appealing to writers, in my opinion,” Ronner said. “Publishing e-books eliminates the many middlemen of traditional publishing and enables experienced writers to go directly to their readers without spending months or years coaxing publishing houses to issue them contracts. J. K. Rowling recently announced that she will be self-publishing Harry Potter e-books. Meanwhile, thriller writer Barry Eisler has turned down a $500,000 advance from a traditional publisher so that he can independently publish his next two books.

“Of course, some things don’t change. You still need strong content and to get the word out to your readers. The digital wave notwithstanding, books still only very rarely sell themselves,” Ronner said.

Know Your Angels, and its Spanish edition, list biographies of 100 prominent angels drawn from scripture, legend, folklore and mythology. There are also many entries for angel-related topics like the legendary war in heaven, the different opinions about how angels fell, the seven heavens, and Moses’s visit to heaven, among many other topics.

Ronner spent three years’ researching the original English edition.

Seven tips for producing and promoting a best-seller as massive change rocks the publishing industry

Radical changes are sweeping the publishing industry that bring huge advantages to writers, but authors still must turn out an excellent product -- and promote it vigorously.  Here are seven tips for producing and promoting a best-seller:

(1) Books don't sell themselves, as most writers sooner or later figure out, often too late.

(2) You need an excellent product aimed at a (preferably narrow and identifiable) target audience that is already predisposed to want to read what you're writing. They just have to hear about it. Chess books to chess players. Civil War books to Civil War buffs, and so on.

(3) You have to find media, forums or other places where the target audience congregates and plant yourself in front of them. Consider talks to specialized groups, articles in specialized magazines or newsletters or blogs, forum postings, as well as radio and TV interviews, particularly on special-theme shows.

(4) The most expensive and best marketing campaign in the world will not move a badly conceived or poorly done book.

(5) If you have a non-fiction book, take your specialized subject and be sure to give that topic a new twist, so there is (temporarily) no real competition in the marketplace, even though your overall genre is filled with titles. Be the first book collection of "angel letters" from experiencers. Not the second one.

(6) The traditional publishing model is rapidly disintegrating. Massive book returns from the stores, once the plague of writers and publishers, is disappearing along with the old system. In Amazon's Kindle e-book program, there are virtually no returns. Also on the way out is the secondary market undercutting, often fatally, your print sales. With e-books locked to individual Kindles, there is no pass-along readership. Books don't end up in the used markets that then piggyback on your publicity and promotion efforts and reduce your sales. Lastly, e-publishing writers now have a way around the traditional gatekeepers at the editorial houses. No longer does an editorial bottleneck stand between writers and their audiences. It's a Brave New World, infinitely friendlier to the long suffering and struggling author.

(7) In-depth research is critical, whether you're writing fiction or non-fiction. I recall one best-selling author in the 1970s who spent three years on each novel. One year for research. One for plotting. One for writing. Before the writing starts, organize your material in file folders, with a folder for each section of an individual chapter. In short, good research not only leads to better books but to much better interviews promoting those books. And, therefore, more sales. What's more, research is a great tonic for writer's block: What you're going to say is already there in your notes.