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Thursday, July 07, 2005

What Your Publisher Never Told You (But Should Have) by M. J. Rose

All books are not treated equally despite their quality. The majority (as many as 75% according to industry professionals) of novels released today are "printed" as opposed to being "published" in the way that authors hope and dream.

Over 10,000 novels (not including self-published) hit the shelves each year. This is up 100% from ten years ago. Over 195,000 total books are published in the US. This is up over 100% from ten years ago.

In that same time period the price of books has gone up as much as 20%, whereas review space has declined 20-50%. Plus fewer magazines and television shows are interested in featuring authors as opposed to much more glam actors, singers, reality show winners, politicians, or just about anyone else. Book tours, which used to work extremely well, don't have the power or cache they once did.

These facts are part of the reason why publishers can only support a very small percentage of the books they publish and why more than half of all debut authors never go on to publish a second novel.


Make the Most of Being Published

There is a difference between being published and being printed.

In both cases the book will a good edit, a good cover, distribution and a review mailing.

But being published also includes a serious public relations effort, a substantial marketing plan, advertising, in-house excitement and involvement, big co-op dollars for the book, and a tour. All of which are costly. A publisher simply cannot afford the $25,000+ it takes to publish each novel it prints. (And $25,000 is the low end of what an all-out campaign costs. Often they are $100,000 to $250,000.)

As a result, the majority of novels today are just printed rather than being published.

Certainly being published is the best case scenario, but being printed is still far better than any of the alternatives including self publishing or waiting to be published until you have a novel that could be bigger or better or more newsworthy.

So if you get a contract, push up your sleeves and go to work along side your publisher to make the book succeed.

There are so many things you can do to help your publisher and complement their work--and that you should do.

There are many authors who can attest to the fact that the more excitement they can generate for their novels themselves, the more helpful their publisher's become. One author being published in the fall of 2004 took an online marketing class (my class "Buzz Your Book") and created a campaign for her book that so energized her publisher they got behind it and her print run went from the expected 5000 copies to 50,000 copies.

So instead of feeling privileged once the deal is signed, you're best served by realizing that now you've entered a large pool of authors who the publisher is working with.

I know, I know. You're sitting there yelling at the screen. This isn't why you became an author. Yes, one of the things that's clearly a problem, and I can attest to it, is that the mindset of promoting a book is totally antithetical to the mindset of writing one. And while some authors can do both, for many of us the process of self-promotion is distasteful and disheartening.

But everyone can do something. And no one is expected to do everything.

So what can you do to Buzz your Book?

The first thing you need is to get a marketing meeting with your publisher. It is important to meet as many of the people who will be working on your book as possible. Especially your publicist and the in-house marketing folks. Call your editor seven months before your book comes out and ask if you can have a marketing meeting. Offer to fly in for it. Beg for it. It is one of the most important things you can do for your book.

The purpose of the meeting is to find out what the publisher is going to do to market your book. Only then you can figure out what you can do yourself to add to it. Some authors take their whole advances and hire outside publicists. Others take part of their advances and go on tours they set up themselves. There are literally hundreds of things you can do to add to what your publisher is going to do, and there are several excellent books that can help you learn about them. (One of my favorites is Jacqueline Deval's Publicize Your Book. And I've written one with Doug Clegg called Buzz your Book.)


But basically this is the conversation to have at the marketing meeting:

How many arcs are they doing?

When will they go out?

Are they planning any kind of tour?

What are they hoping to do for the book?

Are they taking out any ads?

What stores if any are they doing co-op in?

Are they doing any kind of followup mailing to the arc mailing?

And now comes the most important part. You need to find out what they are doing but you need to do it without being antagonistic or sounding like a prima donna. So this is what I suggest you say:

"I know that you guys are great and know how to do promotion. But I also know the realities of the business and know how many books you have in-house. So. What are the things you all think would help my book but just require too much time or personal attention for you to do in-house? I really hope you will be honest with me. I won't be upset. You guys have 100 books a quarter. I only have one a year. So what can I do to help? Really.

How to Get Buzz

Let me count the ways.
No. I can't.
I teach an online one-on-one class, "Buzz Your Book", where we spend six weeks working on your book and coming up with marketing ideas. I've taught over 60 authors in the last two years and we still haven't run out of ideas.
My latest idea--one I'm using for my current novel--is a new concept. It's called a Good Books/Good Cause Blogathon. For every blog that blogs about my new novel THE HALO EFFECT, $5 will be contribed to the literacy charity, Reading is Fundamental. The goal is 500 blogs. If half of them blog about the book, over 2 million people will read the name of my novel.

But the easiest marketing you can do for your book is to talk to your friends.

In the never ending quest to get more attention for our books, it's easy to overlook one of the most obvious and least expensive ways to get word out. And it's something that no one can do for you no matter how much money you do or don't have to spend on your book.

Rock musicians have what they call "Street Teams", who get the word out locally in their areas about when the band is coming to town--or get offline word going about a new CD.

Authors' Street Teams are friends, families and fans. And the more of them we have, the better.

What Friends Can Do

It's amazing how people respond to people. There's no substitute for enthusiasm about a book. Ask your Street Team to:

* Send out postcards of your books to all their friends.
* E-mail announcements to their friends after they've read the book saying how much they loved it and want to recommend it.
* Talk to their own local booksellers and libraries in person, asking them to buy the book if they haven't already, or to feature it if they are carrying it.

One thing to remember--whenever you are asking friends to step in and help in any capacity you should make sure there is something in it for them--at the very least, an autographed copy of your book with a grateful inscription.

My father is probably my most ardent fan. He's never read one of my novels. (He says he'd love to read such sexy books-- but not written by his daughter.)

But as far as marketing goes, he's a star. He has made friends with the managers of the six local bookstores within a two-hour radius of his house. He visits one a week, and when he gets to the end of all six, he takes two weeks off and starts again. Enough to make an impression, not too much to be annoying. He also buys a book every time he goes in--it means they view him as a customer, not just a pushy salesman.

What kind of difference can this make in my sales? Not that much. But he's just one person. Think about this: in all those six stores, my novels are always face out. And some of those booksellers hand sell my books instead of another author they've never heard of. But what if you had ten, twenty, a hundred friends like my dad?

They could make quite an impact.

How To Build A Team

The trick is not to have one person out there like my father, but to have a team. Six people is good. Twelve is better. A hundred is excellent.

How do you make hundreds of connections? When I joined an online discussion group for Maltese dog owners, the list had more than 500 members who posted several times a day. Once I became a real member of that community, people became interested in my book, and after several months, more than 100 members had bought it.

Whether you make friends by sharing cake recipes or surfboarding tips, get out of your author's head and use all facets of your personality to connect with others.


Bigger Book Signings

Bookstores are more interesting in hosting signings and readings for authors who can guarantee an audience of at least a dozen people. But not many authors can travel from city to city and command a crowd.

Here's another place where it pays to have a street team of friends. I actually pick the cities I am going to do events in based on where I know people. So of course that's my hometown and the city where I live now.

But for cities where I haven't lived, I go to my online friends.

I am very active in an online community called Readerville.com and through that site I have become friends with people in over thirty states in the USA. When it was time to plan my book tour I went online and figured out the six cities where I had the most e-buddies. I wound up with at least 15 audience members at every stop on my tour.

My street team also handed out postcards about my signings or readings and spread the word among their friends.

Charitable Friends

Another approach to doing events is to approach business friends or acquaintances with something that can benefit both of you. You will offer to donate a certain percentage of the sales of your book if they will host an event for you with their charity or school or church organization.

For instance, if you know that one of you children's classmate's mom is the head of the local Friends of the Library, you can approach her offering to contribute two free copies of your book and 10% of any books you sell, if the library will host an event with you and announce it to their membership.

How to Piggyback

Find another author or two whose book is complementary to yours. Plan a book tour together. Or plan a virtual book tour. Brainstorm places on and offline where both of you could speak.

Piggybacking is great with events like the charitable one I was suggesting above. If you can get other authors for an event like that, everyone wins. You'll get a bigger crowd, you'll get to expose your books to the other author's fans and his or hers to yours, and the charity will benefit all the more.

Don't be shy about approaching other authors. Just be considerate. Read their work first. Make sure it is compatible with yours. Don't try to get the biggest star in the system but rather look for someone who you can help as much as they can help you.

Advertising is expensive but piggybacking can make it more affordable. Since magazines and newspapers give discounts to the larger size ads, if you get a group of authors together and share one page it would be less expensive than all of you buying your own quarter page ad.

On the radio you get a discount for the number of commercials you buy at any one time. So if you can find a group of like-minded authors you could get a better deal for buying six commercials en masse and each getting one, than each of you buying one commercial on your own.

Another piggybacking concept is to find another author and write an article with him or her. As a novelist, I have often teamed up with a non-fiction author to write articles on how we each approach the same issue and show the two sides. It can be easier to approach an editor and pitch a story when you carry the weight of two experts.


Like any other aspect of life, it's easier with a little help from your friends.


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M.J. Rose is the internationally bestselling author of five novels, most recently THE HALO EFFECT. (Anthony Award Nominee). Rose is also the co-author with Angela Adair Hoy of How to Publish and Promote Online, and with Doug Clegg of Buzz Your Book. She has been featured on the Today Show, Fox News, BookSpan TV, Jim Leher Newshour, CNN, The New York Times, Time Magazine, Newsweek, the Boston Globe and Forbes. She is a contributor to Writer's Digest, Poets & Writers, Oprah Magazine, The Readerville Journal, and Pages.

M.J.'s online, one-on-one class, "Buzz your Book", is back due to popular demand, and now includes two phone sessions. Each student works at his/her own pace. By the end of the class all your completed assignments will together make up a customized marketing plan for your book and your book only. The class works for both authors and publicists. Click HERE to check it out.