Posts by M.J. Rose
In a twist of fate, former contributor MJ Rose sent an email this morning mentioning she had written a from-the-gut post that seemed right for WU. We had no post scheduled for today. The rest is history. Please welcome MJ Rose back to WU for a post on the after-pub blues, which comes on the heels of the publication of her latest novel, the beautiful The Witch of Painted Sorrows.
Apropos of a few blog posts I’ve read elsewhere and posts here and there, and my own book coming out last week… I’ve been thinking about “post-pub-blues.”
I think one of the real problems we authors face is that in order to write a book–to do all the research, to juggle day jobs and family and make sacrifices to find time to write, to sweat over words and paragraphs and characters, to sometimes bleed on the page–we have to believe what we are creating is not only wonderful and amazing and worth what we are giving it, but that there is no other book like it.
We have to be huge optimists.
We have to believe in the impossible.
Certainly our books are good. But in reality, there are hundreds of good books published every month…and thousands and thousands every year. And no matter what I tell myself while I’m writing, to keep myself writing, I know the truth. And the truth is I don’t write miracles. I just tell stories.
Yes, they are often fine stories. But are they really wake-up-in-the-morning-and-shout-from-the-rooftops-no-one-has-ever-written-a-book-like-this-before-oh-my-god-stop-the-world stories?
No. Not even if that’s what it took for me to believe that in order to write it. They are not.
And that’s where the problem lies.
Read MoreSo you are having that first marketing meeting with your publisher for your book… or that first phone call. Is there anything you should be asking in particular? Should you push for anything specifically?
If this is the first call? You want to hear their plans. Then you and your agent should go over what they said and translate it – there can be code in their answers. Ask them what they are planning on doing and listen and take notes. When they say something like – We’re doing Goodreads- ask them to be specific and write down what they say.
Chances are the first call/meeting will be more than several months pre-pub. So lots of info won’t be available yet. They wait to decide some things till they get a sense of orders. But you still want to find out as much as you can. Just remember it is only the first call/meeting. There should be another before the ARCs are sent out. At that point they’ll know more. And then there should be yet one more once they have a sense of how those orders are looking.
At every stage there’s more you can find out and more you need to know. And at every stage you and your agent should be working on and refining a wish list of marketing and PR opportunities/efforts. To do that you’ll want to get a lot of questions answered so you can see if there are any holes and figure out if you need to bring in any outside services or if everything looks good.
Also all this knowledge helps you manage your expectations and that’s half the battle when it comes to having a good publishing experience. If you know going in that they are happy to be publishing you but aren’t giving your book the “it” treatment, you’ll be happy when you go back to press for a second printing. But if you have no idea how they see your book and are anticipating it getting “Gone Girl” PR, marketing and co-op treatment, you’ll be devastated when you don’t see stacks of books in B&N.
Here’s a checklist of what you want to find out to help you figure out what they are doing, what they aren’t, where your book ranks in terms in terms of effort and juice, and what you should be thinking about doing yourself.
Read MoreIf we allow ourselves to remain at the mercy of our desire for perfection, not only will the perfect elude us, so will the good.” – Alex Lickerman, M.D. in Happiness in this World
I’m at a very strange crossroads in my career.
On May 7, 2013 my 13th book will be released. SEDUCTION was the most difficult book I ever tackled. (For one thing I wrote it in longhand in antique journals with an old fountain pen and green ink.) As a result of how difficult it was, it’s become the most fulfilling book I’ve ever written.
But I’m facing the most un-perfect book launch I’ve ever had. Due to an ongoing negotiation between my publisher and B&N, my book won’t be on display in the largest retailer in the U.S. It won’t even be available in most B&Ns. And no one can buy a book if they don’t see it or know it. There’s more I won’t bore you with.
This un-perfectness is having an effect on me. All that is good about this book suddenly isn’t good enough.
And there is so much good.
When I discovered the little-know fact that starting in 1853 Victor Hugo conducted over 100 séances, and I decided to write about it for my 2013 book, no one knew that the movie Les Miserables would be made into a new film, no less come out within 6 months of my pub date. It’s not good – it’s great that the movie was such a hit, as the attention for Hugo is at an all-time high.
Plus I have a gorgeous cover, SEDUCTION is a May Indie Next List pick, the trade reviews have been wonderful, and there’s more I won’t bore you with. But I can’t see any of it. I’m obsessed with what is going wrong.
Last week I was moaning about all this to my wonderfully wise agent, Dan Conaway. He agreed that it sucked. Then he quoted Aristotle or Confucius or Flaubert or Voltaire (it’s attributed to all of them).
Perfect is the enemy of the good.
Wow. Zing. The words went right through me and resonated as if I was Esmeralda right up there while Notre Dame’s bells pealed.
Read MoreBecause of ongoing negotiations between Barnes and Noble and Simon and Schuster, the new trade paperback release of M.J. Rose’s The Book of Lost Fragrances isn’t on display in any Barnes and Noble stores -a loss of visibility that can hurt a book’s sales potential. In the spirit of helping a fellow writer, WU will be sponsoring a giveaway today. Leave a comment on M.J.’s post for a chance to win a copy of her novel. In two days time, we’ll randomly chose a winner. Even if you don’t win, we hope you’ll support this book by buying a copy yourself and/or helping to spread the word about this book. Thank you!
This business is brutal. Very few books win the lottery. There are too many million things that have to line up just right for your book to get a chance to be bona fide hit. At every step anything can go wrong. Even everything can go wrong. From sloppy edits, to bad covers, to meager marketing budgets, to snarky Kirkus reviews, to books not being shipped, to not getting table displays.
It’s so easy to get caught up in the trap of what you should be doing for your book. From Tweeting to building Pinterest boards, to growing a phenomenal number of followers at Facebook (even if we all know that Facebook doesn’t show them all our posts).
It’s so easy to obsess over your upcoming launch. To worry that you aren’t doing enough. To say yes to everyone who asks you to write an essay for their blog. To go above the budget you gave yourself in order to buy extra marketing. To fixate on every bad Amazon review. To compare yourself to every other author doing better than you. To check your rankings incessantly. To beg your publisher for yet more free books because you didn’t give one to the shoe shine guy in Grand Central station who might give it good word of mouth because he talks to so many people a day. Right?
But what’s hard to do is stop.
Read More
I want to implore you to remember to dedicate at least as much effort, if not more, to craft than you did before you started taking on so many of the business functions in the industry. Simply never lose sight of the fact that readers expect you to bring your A-game consistently, and they have more incentive than ever to walk away if you disappoint them.” – Lou Aronica, Publisher, Fiction Studio, in his last letter as President, to the membership of Novelists, Inc.
Estimates are that in 2012 over 1.5 million books will have been published (About 20% of them coming from traditional houses). And thanks to the explosion of self-publishing, 2013 could see double that number; as many as 3 million books might grace our virtual bookstores next year! That means we are going to be awash in covers and titles, plot descriptions and characters. That means we are going to be pushing harder than ever to break through the crowded marketplace and doing it without any new methods or magic.
It means that now more than ever we can’t be writing just another book. We can’t be rushing through a draft.
There are those who say the way to win the game is to write fast and furious, and fill up the virtual shelves with as many books carrying your name on the spine as possible. In the past there’s been some proof that it was a viable strategy.
But there’s more proof that the future isn’t about endless quantity.
Read MoreTherese here to introduce a book authors have needed for a long time: What To Do Before the Book Launch by authors M.J. Rose and Randy Susan Meyers. I was given a copy of this to preview months back, and was thrilled to provide an endorsement:
Dripping with the wisdom authors gain after years of experience but wish they’d had from moment one. If you want to move from book deal to debut in the best of all ways, this book will tell you how to do it—and how not to do it. It is positively packed with essential advice. Highly recommended.
—Therese Walsh, co-founder of Writer Unboxed, author of The Last Will of Moira Leahy
I’m so pleased to have M.J. with us today to tell you more about the book and share an excerpt. Enjoy!
What To Do Before Your Book Launch
What to expect when you’re expecting your book? What’s going to happen first, and second, and third?
Randy Susan Meyers (a wonderful novelist and amazing friend) and I have written a book. Every thing we’ve learned – most of it the hard way. (Watch the video here.)
I’ve had twelve fiction book launches. I have made terrible terrible mistakes with every one. My big takeaway after all these years is I need clones! Short of that – I need a “to do” list.
This book is our to-do list.
Included are chapters on author websites, blogs & author photos, publicity & marketing, book & author positioning book trailers, launch parties & public presentations, manners for authors, consolation for bad reviews, a timeline for the year before publication. worksheets for social media and writers on the craft & business of writing. Plus some other helpful (hopefully) advice and cautionary tales.
Here is an excerpt.
Ultimately, we all have to realize this basic truth:
Read MoreOne of the most complicated discussions I have with authors – including myself – is about whether or not to hire an outside PR firm.
The reason it’s confusing is because nothing is guaranteed with PR. You’re buying effort and contacts.
It’s not like advertising where you buy an ad, it shows up. PR is a gamble. No publicist worth her salt will guarantee you placement. She can’t. A publicist’s job is to craft a pitch and get it to the right media outlets. But close the deal? That’s just not in her hands. The New York Times doesn’t listen to her when it comes to what to review. O Magazine will read the publicist’s pitch but she’s not invited to the editorial meeting to help them decide what books they are going to feature.
But knowing all that isn’t enough. I know it and yet it never seems to sink in.
And I’ve been trying to figure out why.
I think it’s because novelists are creative, imaginative people. Whisper glossy magazines to us and we can picture them. Mention an appearance on a TV morning show and we can’t stop visualizing sitting there and being interviewed. All the way down to the new Manolas you’re wearing.
In order to be an author we have to be optimists. How else could we spend a year, two or more of our time writing a book? Believing that we have a story worthy of telling? That people will want to read?
So presented with the potential of a PR campaign that will catapult our book onto the bestseller lists, it’s in our nature to start to drool and believe it’s all possible. Even probable. After all didn’t the book sell?
I’m not against hiring a PR firm. Quite the opposite. I think it’s a great idea. But you have to do it with your eyes open. You have to be a realist about it. And you need to make sure you have insurance.
Insurance
Read More(Clarification: I’ve collected these requests from more than twenty authors I know – these are not my gripes about my own publishers- M.J. Rose)
Dear BookBiz Santa,
Recently one of my AuthorBuzz clients was telling me about how powerless she felt – her hardcover/ebook didn’t do well and her publisher decided not to bring out a trade paperback re-release of her book.
It’s a sad fact that in the last several years getting a re-release in paper has become less of a guarantee if a hardcover book doesn’t do well.
What we did was brainstorm how to take her proverbial lemons and make lemonade.
The good news is once a book is published in e it stays on sale and can continue to be discovered and pushed indefinitely.
We have the power to keep readers finding our books in new ways.
Just because a publisher loses interest in a title doesn’t mean you have to. No book dies anymore and readers don’t look at pub dates – so a book is new to everyone who hears about it for the first time
We’ve never been more empowered than we are now to take control of our careers if we are proactive and productive–if we see publishers as partners and see ourselves as adults not kids. Publishers are not our parents making all the rules anymore. Or we can completely take control and self publish. Or we can do both.
Whichever way – it’s in our power to do creative things to revitalize and energize our books and careers.
Here’s what I just did.
Read MoreTherese here to introduce M.J. Rose’s first post with Writer Unboxed as a monthly contributor. M.J.–founder of AuthorBuzz.com–will be bringing us Buzz, Balls & Hype originals about the world of marketing. Enjoy!
I think what I get asked the most is does book publicity and marketing really work, how much money should be devoted to a campaign, and whether, at the end of the day, the book won’t just really sell itself.
In my columns here I’ll address answers to those questions and more. If you have specific topics you want me to cover, feel free to put them in the comments section or write me at AuthorBuzzCo@gmail.com.
I think we’ll cover some broad strokes in this first post.
The Rules: Part 1.
1. No one will buy a book that they do not know exists. People won’t go looking for it on line or in the store if they have never heard of it. That is the goal of marketing and pr. To expose the book, the cover, your name to as many people as possible when the book comes out.
2. No matter how old a book is – it’s new to someone who has never heard of it before.
3. No book ever dies anymore. Because of the Internet – every book has a forever shelf-life. You can promote any title no matter how old it is for as long as you want. And you should.
4. You should be buzzing your books and your name – that’s how you build a brand and if you want to have a long-term career you want a brand. You want to stand for something and be known for something.
Lee Child is synonymous with Jack Reacher.
That’s really specific.
Other writers have brands that are broader.
Read MoreToday’s guest is international bestselling author M.J. Rose. The third book in M.J.’s Reincarnationist series, The Hypnotist, was released in paperback in May (and is sitting in wait on my side table right now since I fell under the Reincarnationist’s spell years ago). The Hypnotist–a book that blends “the provocative reality of past lives” with art crimes–is said to be one of M.J.’s best books, receiving a starred review from Publishers Weekly and this rave from Bookreporter.com:
If you haven’t been reading M.J. Rose’s Reincarnationist series, then THE HYPNOTIST will blow away any excuse you may have had… A memorable, engrossing read, a story that sets a new bar for Rose. Something for everyone: murder, suspense, history, romance, the supernatural, mystery and erotica. These elements are woven together so skillfully that the whole becomes something new and different…. Rose, who never disappoints either her die-hard fans or the casual reader, has surpassed herself.
I’m thrilled she’s with us today to speak to something all authors want to know more about: making meaningful connections with bookclubs. Enjoy!
Reaching Out to Bookclubs
I think we all want to connect to bookclubs and make that connection the richest experience we can have. But, like everything else, it’s all about expectations.
As an author—and as the owner of the first marketing company for authors, AuthorBuzz.com—I am continually reminded that it’s expecting too much that so often makes us unhappy. The Dalai Lama said if you compare yourself to people who have more than you do, you will always be disappointed. But if you compare yourself to people who have less, you will always be happy and grateful. We’ve all heard about the authors who have met with over 1000 bookclubs via phone, Skype or in person, and think that’s the Holy Grail.
It is, but we’re not all created equal.
Adrianna Triagini is the kind of funny, warm, charming, big-hearted author that clubs really want to have over. The books suggest she’d be that… and she is.
But we aren’t all.
Not every book suggests the author is going to be someone the clubs want to meet. So if you don’t get invites, don’t take it personally, and don’t force it or think that you’re failing. Being a bookclub pick or favorite is not dependent on your personality or ability to visit the clubs. That said the big question is how best we can tap into this enormous market and get book clubs excited about our books?
Read MoreTherese here. Today’s guest is an international bestselling author of eleven novels, the oh-so-savvy M.J. Rose. M.J. founded Authorbuzz, the first marketing company for authors, and co-founded both Booktrib and Peroozal. She was also one of the founding board members of International Thriller Writers. When a scheduled guest fell through, I asked M.J. if she’d like to swing by and share some of her business wisdom with us. So happy she agreed. Enjoy!
Great Expectations
I think the single most difficult and yet liberating moment I had in publishing was when I found out that ultimately my success depended not on me or the reader, not on my talent or the responsiveness of the audience but by the vagaries of the publishing industry.
That truth was provided to me by a friend, who happens to be a very good agent, one day over lunch, when he simply said, no matter what you do for your book, you can’t make yourself a bestseller.
And he was right. Only a publishing house can get behind a book to the extent that must exist for a book to take off and become a bestseller. And it takes the whole house – from your editor all the way up to the publisher – to anoint your book and say – this is it – this is the one of the two or five or ten books this year that we are going to give “it” to – it being “the push” onto the list.
And when “it” happens – you know it. “It” authors don’t wonder if enough is being done for their books, don’t wait for phone calls that never come telling them what the print run is or if they are getting two weeks of co-op or not.
There are over 8000 novels published by traditional publishers a year. So what are the 7500 of us who aren’t already bestsellers or who are not going to be anointed this year to do?
That’s where the issue really is, isn’t it?
Read More
