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Using Tech for Book Marketing

Kate Gingold from Sprocket WebsitesKate has been building websites with her husband Don since 1996 for all sorts of clients, including authors.

Kate regularly writes about online marketing for Sprocket Websites and provides tips and techniques for entrepreneurs and small-business owners. Since being an author today is not really different from being an entrepreneur with a small business, most of those tips are just as useful to authors.

Kate is an author herself. She writes books on local history, including the award-winning "Ruth by Lake and Prairie," a fictionalized account of the true story of Great Lake pioneering to the shores of Chicago and beyond to found Naperville, Illinois. 

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Ruth By Lake and Prairie

Author Tips and Tales

Kate Gingold Host
/ Categories: Brief History

50 Years Ago — Summer Place Theatre


In 1966, North Central College started a  community theatre tradition. Enthusiastic drama students appealed to professor Don Shanower for opportunities beyond the school year. Shanower enlisted the help of part-time faculty member Don Jamison and together they launched Summer Place Theatre. 

Jamison’s career was at Western Electric Co. but he also founded amateur drama clubs and appeared in live WMAQ-TV productions. Teacher Shanower worked with student John Belushi at NCC and cast him in "A Thousand Clowns" in 1969, but Belushi was fired from his during rehearsals for chronic absenteeism.

Shanower got permission to use a storefront on Washington and Porter that once housed a Chevy dealer and SPT performed five shows that first season. 

For the next several years, productions were held under tents that were erected on the NCC campus. Torrential rainstorms in 1969 and again in 1973 destroyed the tents, as well as the shows being performed there.

Around the same time, the barn where props were stored was burned to the ground, but SPT still didn’t give up. 
A metal-roofed pavilion was built to replace the tent. Unfortunately, it was soon crushed by the Great Blizzard of 1979, but a second pavilion lasted for a decade. For many years, SPT hoped to raise enough money to erect a permanent home, but shows instead have been held at North Central High School.  

Competition is fierce today for people’s time and it’s hard to find both volunteers to prepare the shows and an audience to watch them, but tough little Summer Place Theatre is already looking forward to the next 50 years. See summerplacetheatre.org to learn more about this season’s  shows. 







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Authors Need Websites!

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Want a website to promote your books?

Get started now without blowing the budget at the SprocketStore.

Full disclosure:  Writing for Sprocket Websites is my day job, so if you have questions about digital marketing, I'm happy to help!

 

Marketing Author Interview

Following a presentation for In Print Professional Writers Group, Kate's husband (and publisher!) Don was interviewed by author Louise Brass for WBOM Radio. During the conversation, Don shared many of the marketing tips from his presentation. You can listen to it online here.

The Sprocket Report

The Sprocket Report is published every other week with Internet marketing tips, tools and techniques. The archive features articles from 2011 up to the present. You are welcome to read how business owners are using technology to market themselves and apply those tips to your author business.


 

 

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Kate will be happy to send you her brief Book Signing Checklist. Treat your book promotion like a business - because it is!

AND, since much of your efforts will be online, she'll also enroll you in her Sprocket Report, an email newsletter sent every other Tuesday, that includes 2 Internet Marketing tips and a post from a guest blogger on related business.

No worries! She won't use your email address for anything else, and you can unsubscribe from the newsletter anytime, but the checklist is yours to keep.

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