Dr. Sal Martingano is an interesting guy. As a former educator-turned-author from Bensonhurst (Brooklyn) New York, his mission is to “enlighten, empower, and entertain minds of all ages on the complex world of politics- using lessons learned from our past to inspire thoughtful conversations about our future.”

I was tasked with bringing Dr. Sal’s vision to life via a new website, book design and publishing, display/social media ad campaigns, researched blog postings, email campaigns, speaking engagements, print ads, podcasts, and everything in between.

For this book, it was “soup to nuts”. I conceptualized and designed the cover art, created, inserted, and verified footnotes, pictorial content, and references, and edited and converted the manuscript into proper, publishing-ready documents.

For this book, I used existing assets, manuscripts, footnotes, revisions, etc., and created current/up-to-date, full-resolution, print-ready files for publication. I also created/separated out digital assets for use in ad campaigns and collateral.

Dr. Sal is first and foremost a “Brooklyn Boy”- who, after retirement, wanted to use “lessons learned from the past” (as an educator) to “inspire thoughtful conversations about our future”. The challenge was to first design a website that “humanizes” Sal (via promoting his book “Boys of Brooklyn”) , so that the message for his second book: The Declaration of Dependence, was received without unconscious bias.

By detailing Dr. Sal’s life as “The Author”, “The Educator” and “The Brooklyn Boy”, his website humanizes Sal to the reader, and provides a soft introduction into his thoroughly-researched political opinions. Coupled with on-site purchasing options, amazon content, and up-to-date blog articles, Dr. Sal’s website is great for author-branding/awareness, but also functions as a lead generation tool for book sales and speaking engagements.

In his Brooklyn classroom, Dr. Sal encouraged young adults to voice their opinions while keeping an open dialog for discussion- even if those discussions involved an individual with completely different viewpoints. Sal continues that tradition by writing blog content (manuscripts) on up-to-date, political and societal current events. He asks readers to discuss with one another and educate themselves on all sides before forming an opinion.

I conceptualized, designed, edited, and produced Dr. Sal’s manuscripts into fully-published blogs, posted and maintained related comments on social media platforms, and used the blogs as not just an author awareness/educational page- but also a page that continues to generate book sales.

Making a splash in the world with a new author requires much more than just a book, a blog, and a website. For Dr. Sal, I created variable-content email blasts to target to interested/engaged audiences, placed print ads, engaged potential purchasers through social media and display ad campaigns, and created a straightforward press kit for speaking engagements.

Dr. Sal’s ultimate goal was to use “Lessons Learned from Our Past to Inspire Thoughtful Conversations About Our Future” (and let’s be honest, to sell books!). He definitely achieved the dialog he was seeking via the interaction on his blog articles and the associated social media posts, and, with a modest media budget- was able to sell plenty of books in the process.