Books PR and Marketing Questions Answered Part XII: Take Inventory
By Ann Marie Nieves | April 10, 2023 |
When this article, The Ten Awful Truths About Publishing by Steve Piersanti of Berrett-Koehler Publishers, landed in my inbox, I breathed a deep sigh of relief. Warning: It’s a positively frightening read that will make you want to hide underneath your covers… or hurl a glass across the room. If there is bourbon in that glass, down it quickly, read the article, and then throw the glass across the room.
So why did I breathe a sigh of relief?
Because someone else far more important than me said it – all the things I’ve been thinking, saying, that have made me change the way I work. A publisher said the things. The things about the many, many books on the market; how they sell or don’t; and the constant change due to disruptors (TikTok) and disruptions (supply chain issues).
So now we know about The 10 Awful Truths about Book Publishing. And now we understand that we have to think differently, reset expectations, and get to work. But first, we take inventory:
- Who are your readers?
- Can you describe your work in a sentence?
- As it relates to marketing and PR, list all of the tactics you’ve tried – big and small. What failed? What worked? What no longer exists?
- What kind of money have you spent or are you willing to spend?
- Is there a particular marketing effort that you are interested in but know little about?
- What do you really know about when it comes to PR and marketing?
- What do you think you know?
- What do you dislike?
- Can you name a few books and authors in your genre that seem to be everywhere? (aside from Colleen Hoover and James Patterson)
- Check your emotions:
- Do you blame?
- Are you envious of fellow authors?
- Are your emotions deeply tied to your book?
- Can you separate the emotion from the business?
- What are the blanket statements you’ve heard e.g.
- Facebook is dead!
- Bookstagram doesn’t lead to book sales!
- Only national media coverage will move the needle!
- No one reads hardcover anymore!
- No one reads eBooks!
- If I’m not on TikTok my book won’t sell!
- How much do you really know about social media?
- What platforms do you like?
- What platforms do you dislike?
- Do you believe social media sells books?
- Are you in utter despair over TikTok/Booktok?
- List the media that gives coverage to books and authors.
- List the media/blogs/influencers that have given your previous books coverage.
- List the retailers that carry books outside of your usual bookstores and Amazon.
- Do you know where the readers hang? Are you there?
- How are you communicating with your readers?
- Have you updated your bio?
- Have you saved your files – the manuscript PDFs, the marketing plans, the press materials?
- Who are your friends in the industry?
- What do you know about making a bestsellers list?
- How does your book cover look? Can it compete with the books on the tables at Barnes & Noble?
- How is the synopsis of the book – does it speak to your specific reader?
- What established authors can you compare your work to?
What’s the key takeaway for you in Steve Piersanti’s article? Are you ready to take inventory? What are your take inventory questions?
Ann-Marie Nieves (she/her) is the founder of Get Red PR, and an award-winning communicator with experience across a broad range of industries in both the business-to-consumer and business-to-business sectors. She has experience within all communications platforms including public relations, advertising, marketing, copywriting, website development, community relations, and social media.
My take-away is unfortunately negative – we as authors as chasing an ever-illusive brass ring akin to winning the lottery. We’re manufacturing buggie whips and Ford just invented the Model-T. I also wonder why almost none of the data he cites includes Amazon which rumor has it, sells at least 60-70% of the books moved each year. If you leave them out of the statistics, you get a false impression. Sobering thoughts for a Monday morning, Ann Marie.
That article written by Steve Piersanti reads like it was generated by AI. In fact, as an experiment, I asked ChatGPT “what are 10 awful truths about book publishing?” and it returned ten points that are almost EXACTLY what the article contains. Piersanti threw in some citations to sound smart.
The article heavy on facts but low on nuance, cites big statistics from years before 2022 (ChatGPT does not have information past 2021), deals in generalities, and does not offer a single positive suggestion. It says things like “Bowker had given out 40 million ISBN registrations” but leaves the part that many smaller publishers buy ISBNs in bulk. It starts off by separating out self-pubbed numbers, then mingles trad and self, and doesn’t bother separating them out again, which leads us to this howler, #8: “Most book marketing today is done by authors, not by publishers. Publishers have managed to stay afloat in this worsening marketplace by shifting more and more marketing responsibility to authors.” Well, that certainly isn’t true. And it doesn’t bother saying that this isn’t true. (So interesting that ChatGPT’s #6 was “Marketing is crucial: Authors are often responsible for their own marketing efforts, which can be challenging, time-consuming, and expensive.”)
This whole article follows up on nothing, gives no alternatives, and mingles numbers with abandon. Writers, this one is not worth worrying about. We all know it’s very hard out there. We all know the odds of success are slim. But unlike AI-generated content, we also know how to define success on many levels– another thing that article fails to do.
I’ll grant you that nothing in Piersanti’s piece or Ann-Marie’s take on it was surprising, but it sounds like you’re accusing Piersanti of plagiarizing from robots. That’s so not fair. You don’t have to be a robot to write like one.
While the book industry is in a state of flux, (I believe) it’s the golden age of storytelling in general. A take-inventory question might be: Does this idea have legs beyond the book industry? Is it filmic? Can it be built upon? Does an author’s ability to stay limber factor in? How much?
This struck me from the original article: “Most books today are selling only to the authors’ and publishers’ communities.” When I reflect back on books purchased in the last few years, they are mostly books published by people in the WU community. The books that weren’t written by community members were often recommended by community members. FWIW
Thanks, Ann-Marie.
Thanks, Therese. I love your take inventory questions – particularly the stay limber one. I believe too it’s the golden age of storytelling. I’m actually buying books more than ever – from my personal and professional communities and thanks to sites like BookBub and Book of the Month.
When I saw Piersanti’s article, I thought, “Oh, here we go again.” Publishing has been near death for my entire forty-six-year career in it. Authors too as well as literacy in general. If you need a lift, visit your local bookstore. This remains a roughly thirty billion dollar-a-year industry. Many books are not profitable for publishers but that has always been true. It’s how the industry works. As for authors, not all are best-sellers but all have an audience and isn’t that the point?
The doomsayers’ favorite lament is lack of promotional support, but ad and promo have never had more than a small impact on sales of fiction. Publishers have always been selective with promo for fiction, allocating it mostly to best sellers because publishers are not idiots. Why spend money on something that only works in limited cases?
Audiences are not manufactured, they grow. The two greatest factors in fiction sales are word of mouth and front-of-store display. Did you catch that? Word of mouth means people reading and talking. Front-of-store means stores. Promo is mostly fan maintenance, meaning keeping existing fans informed and engaged. The best promo, as we say, is your last book.
I could go on but I’m sorry, I’m on the inside of this industry and I can tell you that laments like Piersanti’s are inaccurate, misleading and pointlessly discouraging. They mostly serve not us but the doomsayers. Worry if you want to, but I’ve got manuscripts to read.