Posts by Sharon Bially
It’s a funny thing, being both the creator of such an intimate and personal product as a book and the one who has to do most of its peddling. This contradiction — asking authors to throw what’s often deeply private smack into the public realm for commercial purposes — can have strange effects on behavior.
Some of us may find ourselves at a loss for words when we’re asked what our book is about, even if we’ve recited our elevator pitch one-line description a thousand times. Others may blush, or lower our gazes and voices when speaking about our WIPs.
None of which helps us put our best foot forward — especially from a publicity perspective.
Then there’s the title. Time and again I’ve seen even the most experienced authors make what I consider to be a big publicity faux pas. It happens at readings, on conference panels and in casual conversation.
It can be summed up with these two simple words. “My book.”
That is, referring to the book they’re talking about, amorphously, as “my book.”
Each time, I cringe. “Doesn’t it have a name?” I wonder, “A title? Something to give it an identity beyond: ‘a very personal endeavor I’ve slaved over for years that’s become inseparable my very existence?’”
Which leads me to this quick, ridiculously simple promo tip for every writer out there (bonus: using it is cost-free!):
Always refer to your book by its title.
Or by an abbreviation of the title if it’s long. Especially when addressing a group.
Why?
Once upon a time, there was vanity publishing.
Remember? Those were the days when self-publishing had a very bad rap.
Not so much because the books’ quality was shaky (though that tended to be true), nor even because authors had to pay to have them published (though that was indeed frowned upon), but mainly because of the way the firms offering self-publishing services operated.
These firms cut a very nice profit offering everything from proofing to interior and cover design and could earn even more by proposing pricey add-ons, like copy-editing and developmental editing. Some would even encourage authors to buy into these add-ons by telling them their books had qualified to be nominated for an award but would only be eligible to win if they purchased these extra services. This was — and still is — considered particularly slimy and underhanded. All the more so since many authors, vulnerable in their eagerness for recognition after years of rejection, readily opted in.
Now that self-publishing has been officially de-stigmatized and it’s becoming increasingly acceptable for authors to pay for their books’ production, cottage industries are cropping up around the needs this has created: editing, page and cover design, eReader formatting, distribution to brick-and-mortar shops, marketing, promotion and more.
On one hand, this opens up a whole new world of freedom and opportunity for both authors and publishing-world entrepreneurs. On the other hand, it has given way to a shady side worthy of old stigmas that all authors should be aware of.
On this shady side, service providers don’t just offer add-ons, but either require them or make it very difficult for authors to turn them down. For example, a
Read MoreLately, a new mantra has caught on: “There’s no better time to be a writer.” Not only has self-publishing helped open the doors to so many aspiring authors, but the online world has created more opportunities than ever before to build a platform, network and self-promote.
From a schmoozing and promotion perspective, anything seems possible. We can have conversations with Jodi Picoult on Twitter, send Facebook messages to Paulo Coehlo and mingle with top agents and editors right here on Writer Unboxed.
All of which is wonderfully democratic and very much in the spirit of the camaraderie and connectedness that defines our times. But it has also created a whole new realm for potential missteps and frustration.
Along with the sense that anything’s possible has come – for lack of a better term – a sense of entitlement. With the perceived level playing field the digital age has created, the notion that having written and published a book, any book, means we’re eligible to be considered by any and all gatekeepers to widespread recognition, from Oprah to the The New York Times.
Although we long for this to be true, and perhaps it should be, it simply isn’t. Take a look, for example, at this painfully eye-opening article by Washington Post book reviewer Ron Charles called, “No, I Do Not Want to Read Your Self-Published Book.” (Ouch!)
What is true, at least for the most part, is that while most books sent in to the venerable gatekeepers of recognition will indeed wind up in the shredder
Read MoreLet’s say your book is coming out in several months, and you fall into the camp of those who want to put some time and resources into promoting it. Knowing that that your publisher can’t commit to much more on the publicity side than mailing out galleys to a standard media list, you’ve decided to give it your all, to go ahead and hire an outside publicist.
But as you research firms and see the 5-figure price tags for most campaigns, a lump forms in your throat. Your advance was modest. You know you can’t begin to estimate how much, if anything, your book will generate in sales. At the same time, you’re learning that the gist of what a publicist does is build press lists, write elevator pitches, send emails, make phone calls, mail galleys and coordinate interviews when opportunities arise. All of which seems pretty straightforward. You figure that if you had the time and the nerves, you could probably handle much of this yourself.
What’s more, the publicists you’ve interviewed have been honest, explaining that there’s no guarantee about the number of media appearances you’ll get or where they will be. NPR? The Today Show? Highly unlikely, but it’s always worth a try.
Why, then, does the average monthly retainer for a respected PR firm run between $3,000 – $7,000 with a minimum commitment of 2 – 3 months (according to this Writers’ Writer’s Digest article by Mari Passananti, who has done her research meticulously)? And — especially given that nobody can predict the connection between publicity and sales — what exactly are you getting for this price?
First, quite simply, you’re buying his or her expertise. Sure, you could subscribe to a service like Muckrack and download lists of reporters. You could sign up for HARO and SourceBottle and respond to requests if any good matches come up. But how do you know whom, exactly, to contact on a given list, what to say to them, when or how? Chances are you don’t. But your publicist does, and has many years of experience working with the press along with a solid understanding of the nuances involved: How to get reporters’ attention amid the hundreds of requests they get each day. How to talk to them. How to interpret what they say. What reporters want and need, how this differs from one publication or outlet to the next and what makes a pitch into something a reporter can actually use.
Second, you’re buying sweat equity. Lots of it.
Read MoreIt’s no secret that publishers do little these days to promote most books but that there’s an infinite number of steps authors can take to fill the void, from DIY to hiring an outside publicist. Nor is it a secret that even the most exhaustive efforts can potentially get you….almost nowhere in terms of sales.
This may be why many authors opt not to do much promotion if any aside from what their publishers have planned (typically mailing out galleys and ARCs to reviewers) and to focus their energies instead on what they really love: writing.
That’s a perfectly understandable and admirable choice. As agent Donald Maass wisely noted in a comment to my last WU post, “The better bet [rather than spending too much time or money on promotion] is to write a killer Book #2.”
In an ideal world that’s what we’d all do. That world would be delightfully zen, free of the complications that come with drive, ambition and a desire for recognition. Free, too, from any need or desire to try to make a living from our craft. Our next book might be that killer or it might not; in the end its destiny is something we don’t control. But it wouldn’t matter and we’d be content to keep on writing.
In reality, though, most of us need or yearn for more. We certainly need to pay the bills, and would love to see our writing play a role there. We may have spouses or partners who are eager (read: impatient) to see us ‘taking action’ beyond drafting and revising to make that happen.
More importantly, though, we also crave some form of recognition and have deep-seated desire to interact with readers, to share with them
Read MoreAfter years of drafting, critiquing, revising, submitting and watching rejections pile up, you’ve finally landed a publishing deal and your book is coming out in several months.
Over those years you’ve worked hard, too, to build a platform — giving webinars on craft, writing articles that have run in places like the Huffington Post and contributing regularly to a popular blog (maybe WU?) drawing thousands of readers from around the country.
Yet, when you sit down for the long-anticipated meeting with your publisher’s marketing team, you’re told that despite your strong online connections with readers in cities from Portland, OR to Portland ME, your publisher won’t sponsor a book tour.
You’ve just come up against the false divide between ‘author promotion,’ which spotlights you as an author and an individual, and ‘book promotion,’ which focuses specifically on a given book. In promoting yourself as an author a book tour can be an important part of leverageing all the connections you’ve built as a voice in the literary world, and doing so makes perfect sense. People who’ve enjoyed your blog posts and articles, whom you’ve exchanged comments and tweets with, may well want to meet you in person when you’re in town. They’ll come to your talk in the local indie bookstore and possibly invite a couple of friends. Some might host book club events for you or feature you on their own blogs. If well-organized, such a tour can spark both sales and a word-of-mouth ripple effect.
On the other hand, from your publisher’s perspective, the link between you as an author — a person — and your book as a product for sale simply isn’t strong enough
Read More“Managing our career.” “Managing our expectations.” “Managing our resources and time.” All these “management” terms being applied to the writing life — with good reason — can make it sound like we might actually need an MBA to reach our goals as writers.
In fact, in this age of the “writer as an entrepreneur” responsible for a growing share of the work required to not only create but also to sell a book, adding management skills to our repertoire of abilities is not at all a bad idea. Which is why a group of smart thinkers at GrubStreet — the Boston-based writing nonprofit that happens to be my in-town writing family — have come up with a tool to help writers become more strategic without having this task become yet another item on an already-overflowing to-do list.
And it happens to be based on a classic non-profit management tool.
Fascinated by the concept of applying a real-life management system to the often messy and unstructured process of writing, publishing and promoting one’s books, I asked authors Katrin Schumann and Lynne Griffin, who together lead GrubStreet’s Launch Lab program where this tool is taught, to walk me through it.
Called the “Logic Model” (sound like an MBA course offering? read on….), its goal is to help writers make the best decisions about where to focus their creative energies and efforts when it’s time to launch their books.
Katrin and Lynne explained that often, as launch time approaches, authors get overwhelmed by thinking that they have to do “everything:” Twitter, Facebook, Goodreads, ad campaigns, bookstore talks, conference panels, media articles, email newsletters, book clubs…you name it. But inevitably, this kind of effort is depleting. We wind up doing too much, including things that don’t match our unique personality, skills, or career goals.
The Logic Model frees us from this by helping identify what our goals really are and where our true interests and strengths lie, allowing us to then develop a framework for deciding which areas it makes the most sense to focus on when launching a book.
It starts by dividing the thought process into three categories:
Read MoreAround the time blogs first started catching on, writer Julie Powell decided – just for the heck of it – to cook every recipe in Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking and chronicle the experience on her blog.
We all know her story’s happy ending.
Soon every writer was launching or joining a blog. So was every mom, every foodie, every fitness buff, bibliophile and investment guru. For fun and fulfillment, but also, quite often, in the hopes of increasing discoverability. And we also know this story’s ending: a blogosphere that wound up as bloated and oversaturated as any literary agent’s slush pile.
Luckily the one constant in today’s media, which includes the online world, is change. And as media outlets have gone increasingly digital, a whole new category of outlets has emerged: the highly visible, online-only publication. Think, The Millions or The Huffington Post.
These outlets have all but replaced personal blogs as a means for getting your name out there. Most offer superb opportunities for writers to submit and publish articles, opinion pieces and blog posts. And publishing one guest piece in an outlet like The Huffington Post can be equal to years of blogging in terms of the number of readers who stop by, comment and tweet.
In fact, as the media landscape continues to change, contributing pieces to big online outlets is becoming the new “it” media opportunity. It’s also one of the hands-down smartest ways to build a strong and enduring media platform.
There are a few important reasons. First, landing a published piece in a high-profile online outlet is a lot more accessible than say, landing a TV, radio or newspaper interview. Even as costly air-time and space for printed news becomes painfully limited, online publications are hungry for good content. Their livelihood usually depends on traffic and clicks, and content – lots of it – is needed to generate both.
Second, there’s the SEO factor. The internet has become the world’s main source
Read MoreI love you.
Really.
I know, you must be thinking the holiday season has gone to my head, pumping me with Hallmark joy and wrapping-paper cheer. Or that I’m promiscuous — a floozy who hops too easily from one love interest to the next: The job publicizing businesses, the job publicizing authors and books. The kids, the family, the stolen time writing fiction here and there and the regular hook-ups with voice lessons, ballet and yoga classes. When you look at it that way, I guess it does sound kind of shady.
But truth be told, it’s my work with authors that holds it all together, giving purpose and meaning to the rest. Staying faithful to only business PR would be like coming home from the office each evening only to slip into a suit and a tie. Singing, dancing and downward-dogging are nice treats, but at my age, well, they tend not to go very far. As for family life, don’t we all need a little something on the side? And when it comes to fiction, this once-obsession has evolved into a healthier partnership in which prose and story ideas inform and inspire everything I do but no longer define or possess me night and day.
Still don’t believe me? Maybe that’s because in good writerly style you fear that nobody will love you, not even me. Or maybe you’re so wrapped up in your characters’ lives and ways that you don’t notice some of the most endearing aspects of your own. So let me tell you a bit about why working with you is such a joy:
Last week I heard a snippet of Terry Gross’ Fresh Air interview with Eat, Pray, Love author Elizabeth Gilbert. Gilbert has a new book out and was on the show to talk about it.
A bit earlier in the same week, an author client had asked if I’d pitched her to NPR shows, including Fresh Air. My answer was, “Yes, of course.” It always is, because I always pitch the authors I represent to NPR — and to all the other dream-caliber, A-list outlets. But does that mean I expect interviews to pan out there for them?
Sadly, no. Not at all.
It’s an uncomfortable dilemma. Authors want to know their publicist is reaching out to A-list, dream outlets like Fresh Air, The New York Times, Oprah and The Today Show. Isn’t that one reason they’ve hired a publicist in the first place? And it wouldn’t make sense to simply leave those outlets off the list of places I reach out to even though the chances for the overwhelming majority of authors are virtually zero. For one thing, there’s the crucial dream factor for authors. As I’ve said before here on WU, I’m all for dreaming big! I also feel that as a matter of principle those outlets should continue hearing from all authors who’d like a fighting chance at recognition. They should be made aware again and again of these authors’ utterly staggering numbers, the variety of stories they’re writing about, their talent, their accomplishments.
But people like Terry Gross aren’t just looking for a good read to talk about: they’re looking for news. News, by definition, is something that’s not only new and timely, but is some combination of the following:
Of course, many of these words are subjective, so each news outlet defines them
Read MoreHave you have ever allowed your imagination to wander off to all the glorious, glamorous potential outcomes of your writing? Like seeing your books hit the bestseller lists, catapulting you to fortune and fame?
I have.
So has an author I work with, Tony Vanderwarker. For three years, Tony was mentored one-on-one by none other than John Grisham. In the memoir he’s penned about the experience, Writing With The Master: How a Bestselling Author Fixed My Book And Changed My Life (Skyhorse, February 2014), he talks with refreshing candor about his fantasies of wild success. “My imagination goes haywire ,” he writes. “I dream I’m on the set of the Today Show chatting about what it’s like to write a novel with John Grisham. Maybe John will join me? How big an advance will I get? Will there be a Porsche Turbo in the offing? Who’s going to star in the movie version of my book? Harrison Ford, maybe? Will I be asked to write the script?”
But that’s just the beginning. Throughout the narrative Tony describes visions of his book selling for six figures at auction and muses about enjoying the perks of wealth including—why not?—a private jet.
Reading these sections, I literally squealed with joy. Not only could I relate to Tony’s meanderings 100%, having imagined—no: believed—early on in my own writing adventures that the novels I’d produce would bring in a sustainable income and that I’d live happily ever after as a well-fed, published author; I also found it a relief to finally see them expressed in print.
We writers go to such great lengths to stay grounded in reality that we’ve trained ourselves to push those big dreams out of our minds altogether. We repeat ad nauseum
Read More“I published three novels at big houses to good reviews. Now I’m my own publisher, and the media wants no part of me.”
So begins an article that ran last month in Salon.com. Called, The Future is No Fun: Self-Publishing is the Worst, the piece is actually about the PR side of self-publishing rather than the overall experience.
While promoting any book is hard, it’s true that for self-published authors, it’s infinitely more challenging. But does that really translate into the media wanting no part of you if you’ve self-published? To the point where you might feel like “self publishing is the worst?”
Short answer: Absolutely not. That is, not if you’ve produced a book of professional quality, know what to expect and plan accordingly. So here are a few dos and don’ts to help self-published authors starting out on a promotion journey set expectations and have a positive, satisfying experience:
DO: Accept that you will in all likelihood not land any traditional book reviews.
By traditional, I mean reviews in places like The New York Times, Harpers and other conventional newspapers or magazines, both big and small.
DO: Take advantage, on the other hand, of the indie review programs now offered by Publisher’s Weekly Select, Kirkus Indie Reviews and Clarion.
Over the past few years, these programs have emerged in response to the exploding demand for self-published reviews. Through them, indie authors now have access to professional, publishing industry-vetted reviews for a couple of hundred dollars a pop. Whether the cost is fair or not is another topic altogether, but in the past, only the excruciatingly rare self-published book had even a dim chance of a PW or Kirkus review. Now, a close alternative is available to all.
DO: Plan ahead. Ideally, promotion efforts will begin about 4 months in advance of your publication date, at which point you should have a final, professionally copy-edited Word file of your book in hand. Cover and interior design, as well as the construction of your personal web site, should be underway.
DO: Be prepared to write, write and write. Guest blog posts and bylined articles on
Read MoreOver the past few months I’ve spoken to two authors who’d signed with the same, well-reputed PR firm for a book launch campaign, paid a considerable amount of money and then…nothing. Barely a review or author interview to show for the firm’s initial promises and excitement.
(For the record, this was not one of the wonderful PR firms plugged into the Writer Unboxed community.)
Each of them told me – with quite a bit of emotion – about their disturbing experience: a positive, promising initial meeting followed by months of waiting for potential press coverage that never panned out, then finally, a barrage of lame excuses including, “It’s because of your book.”
One of these authors became my client, and before we started work I asked to see the list of media outlets said firm had contacted about his middle grade fantasy novel. To my surprise, the list contained no fewer than 4,000 entries, which is far too many and implies that proper targeting hadn’t been done. Case in point: the list included publications such as General Dentistry and American Cowboy.
The second author was unable to obtain a copy of her press list at all, having been told it was “proprietary.”
Needless to say, this makes my blood boil. It’s deeply unfair to the authors who placed their trust in this firm, it’s disrespectful of authors in general – taking advantage of their earnest hope and vulnerability – and it’s an insult to all the devoted, hard-working publicists out there who go above and beyond to generate results.
It also brings to light something that absolutely has to change: Many – possibly most? – authors simply have no idea what they should look for when hiring a PR firm. Nor do they know what’s “normal” or what they should expect from this relationship.
So here’s my laundry list of must-haves in determining whether the firm you hire to publicize your book is up to par, and in understanding whether it’s doing (or will do) what it should for you:
1. Set reasonable expectations up front
A good PR firm will not sell you promises, ensuring you that it can get you into Oprah orThe New York Times, for example. In fact, the publicist you work with should explain, up front, what you can potentially expect from your campaign – and what you cannot.
2. A detailed work plan
Going into a campaign, you know what you want: news and reviews! But how is your publicist going to accomplish this? He or she should be able to tell you, step by step, what the execution plan is. Personally, I like to include this in a work schedule so the timing of each step is clear.
3. Accessibility
Read MoreOver the past few years, I’ve grappled with a relationship problem that’s severely impacted my writing: My computer and I have been growing slowly but surely apart.
As a companion for my day job publicizing books and businesses, Mac has been perfect. I can spend ten hours a day gazing into his face and running my fingers over his keys, completely absorbed in our never-ending conversation without noticing thirst or hunger or even my kids’ pleas for attention. But — call me fickle — when I’m in the mood for dreaming up fiction, that same conversation, droning with emails, tweets, new Writer Unboxed posts and Facebook comment threads, feels like a set of shackles. It demands that I listen to it, and it alone, the instant my fiction work becomes the least bit difficult. Which is often.
The result may sound familiar to anyone involved in a similar triangle: Mac recently became a burden and serious nuisance during my precious, painfully limited time in fiction mode. Every few minutes he’d reach for me with an e-mail I just couldn’t leave for later, a news article I absolutely had to read and tweet right away. (For example: did you know that men’s underwear sales can be an indicator of economic growth?!? Who could resist?)
Even when I’d tune out or turn off Mac’s most powerful source of attraction — that amazing, irresistible WiFi connection (*sigh*) — I just couldn’t get it out of my mind. I’d find myself promising him that I’d pop by and log on in ten minutes, or five, or as soon as I’d finally written a coherent sentence. The quality of my time with fiction deteriorated into a series of furtive encounters punctuated by the promise of hurrying over to visit Mac.
Eventually, I fessed up and acknowledged that it was time to stop leading this double life. If I wanted to give my love for fiction a fighting chance, Mac would have to go. Cold turkey.
Logically, this could mean only one thing. Because Mac also tempts me to
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