Marketing
As self or indie publishing grows and grows, more and more of us compete for a buyer’s attention on the Internet on both retail and industry websites.
Nowadays authors are calling on CreateSpace, Lulu, and other places to design their own book covers. Others do it on their own, utilizing stock images and free fonts—I do a workshop for writers’ conferences on how to design a book cover for $50, and that includes sophisticated graphics software. Other indie writer/publishers utilize the services of independent designers such as me.
Cover design creative goals
I’m going to show you screen captures from how books are presented on the search pages of major online vendors but, before we get there, I want to give you some goals with which to judge the effectiveness of these covers.
Back in 2004, Mark Zuckerberg and some friends launched a social networking website in his dorm room — Facebook. By 2007, he was a billionaire. In 1995, J. K. Rowling typed the manuscript for Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone on a manual typewriter and, after numerous rejections, sold it to Bloomsbury Press for an advance of fifteen hundred pounds. In 2004, Forbes named her the first person to become a billionaire solely by writing books.
Most writers realize that their chances of selling like Rowling are about as likely as having their blogs turn into Facebook. But when you’re putting the finishing touches on your first novel – or holding the galleys of your first book in your hand — it’s hard not to imagine it going out in the world and finding a large and grateful readership. Truth is, releasing your manuscript out into the world is a bit like the opening day of a small business. Exciting as the moment is, the real work is still ahead of you.
That work is usually frustrating and full of setbacks, and sometimes outright failure. You may run through every agent you can find on the internet and get nothing but rejections. (Note: I’m assuming your manuscript has been revised, edited, and proofread until it’s genuinely ready.) If you publish with a small press or self-publish, there’s a fair chance you’ll sell three dozen copies in your first two years. If so, the good news is, this is pretty typical – it doesn’t necessarily say anything about the quality of your writing.
The bad news is, this is pretty typical.
Read MoreI have a confession. When it comes to art or entertainment, I don’t like categories.
It wouldn’t occur to me to put the books, music, or art that I like into any category more specific than “stuff I like.” But I realize most of the world doesn’t think that way.
And the publishing business definitely doesn’t think that way.
So today I’d like to share some thoughts about how fiction is categorized, raise some concerns about the obstacles that these categories (or genres, in publishing parlance) can present, and explore how to make these categories work in your favor.
Why genre matters
Whether you’re pursuing conventional publication, or looking into self-publishing, you need to be aware of genre – and its importance to you as a writer. To an agent or editor, identifying your book’s genre helps them determine if and how they can sell your book.
Please notice the “if” in the previous sentence. If what you’ve written is difficult or impossible for agents or editors to categorize, you’re going to have a really, REALLY hard time getting them to go to bat for your book. Similarly, if what you’ve written falls into a genre that the agent doesn’t represent, or one that the editor doesn’t want or need in her catalog, then you’re in a “do not pass go, do not collect $200” scenario.
Don’t freak out about this; just do your homework. It’s not hard to figure out which genres specific agents represent, and paying attention to what kind of books the various publishing houses specialize in is good basic intel for an aspiring writer to collect.
On the upside, clearly identifying your genre can help agents and editors, by giving them a vision of how your book can be sold and marketed. (If “sold and marketed” seems backwards to you, I’m referring to selling the book to a publishing house, and then marketing it to readers upon publication.)
[pullquote]Clearly identifying your genre can help agents and editors, by giving them a vision of how your book can be sold and marketed. [/pullquote]
If you’re self-publishing, genre is still important, but for different reasons. While you won’t have to deal with the “gatekeeper” function that agents and editors serve in conventional publishing, you’ve still got to put real thought into how to market your book. Amazon only offers you a limited number of keyword “tags” to apply to your book, and those tags are very important in making your book visible to the right readers.
Most successful self-published authors do a fair amount of experimenting and strategizing when it comes to tagging their books, aware that it can make a big difference in their sales. Although Amazon’s tags are not limited to just popularly accepted literary genres, their function is still the same: to identify what kind of book you’ve written for somebody who has not yet read it.
Why genre can be a problem
Okay, those are some reasons why genre is important. But genre can also be an enormous pain in the ass. Here are four reasons why:
1. Genres are anything BUT universal.
Read some literary blogs, and you’ll see an amazing variety of genres discussed. You’ve got chick-lit, thriller, fantasy, coming-of-age, post-apocalyptic, romance, dystopian, young adult, new adult (which makes me wonder, is there an old adult genre?), science […]
A number of people have asked me to talk about what an author should do to raise awareness for their book for WU’s Inside Publishing month. This was asked in the context of “…if there are not a lot of marketing dollars in house to support said book,” but I think the answer to what you should do to support your book is the same for authors with huge marketing plans and those with modest ones.
Honestly, there is rarely the kind of money or manpower that you want/expect/desire in any publication so it’s always good to be prepared to do some heavy lifting. In fact, many of my authors, upon their second book’s publication, have said to me that they wished they’d had a better sense of the playing field the first time around as they would have done more, but that they also had to go through it to get to that kind of understanding. So, I am going to try to outline what you can do to be your best advocate in the hope that it sheds some light.
Be a squeaky wheel. I am a big believer that it never hurts to ask. You may have been turned down for certain marketing dollars, but those budgets are decided many months out. Closer to publication, it’s worth going back and asking for other things like online advertising, a blog tour or a flight to a well-attended conference or seminar. Hopefully you will be working closely with an agent who can help you decide what makes sense to push for. While you may not get everything you ask for, you are not going to get anything if you never try, right? So squeak away!
Make your editor your ally. I can not stress this one enough nor tell you that this is the first thing all editors say to me off the record when I ask them what they wish they could tell authors. Your editor is your in-house champion and your lifeline to all the major players within the publishing house (marketing, publicity, publisher, sales) and if you sabotage that relationship, you are really hurting your chances as he or she will be less likely to go to bat for you.
If your fiction has a non-fiction hook, publish as many op-eds as you can.
Read MoreYou want to find a group of ideal readers for your books, but do you ever feel like you are herding cats?
The truth is: your audience is unorganized. They do not stack neatly, they don’t always form logical groupings, and they do everything possible to obscure their tastes and behaviors from your view.
They are a Rubik’s Cube with 10,000 squares on each side. I know, you want to feel like an audience-finding ninja, where you immediately crack the code:
But it’s hard. It takes time. And that is frustrating. You hear of others’ success and begin to feel that there is a secret that they found and no one told you about. So we begin to look for best practices, shortcuts, and magic buttons.
As if there is some secret place your readers are hiding: some mysterious section of Amazon or Goodreads, or some social media hashtag that no one told you about, and these things have already done the hard work of bringing together EXACTLY the right people who want to buy your books. And once you find this magic button, all you have to do is press it.
But beware of jolly candy-like buttons:
This button mentality aligns with our escapist tendencies: the idea that you can easily find your ideal audience, shout at them about your work, see your message spread with little effort (eg: “going viral”), and then you are free to run back to shelter.
That doesn’t happen too often though. It is hard work. And while your ideal audience isn’t pre-organized for you, the individuals who comprise it ARE out there. In fact, it is your job to bring them together, to connect and create that audience.
Read MoreI regularly hear from writers who say that they are overwhelmed, and unable to understand how to fit the idea of connecting with readers into their lives. One writer reached out to me the other day saying that she works 40-60 hours per week on her own business, and just can’t find the time or energy to not just WRITE, but to also develop her audience.
I want to address this head on for the busy writer, and also share some simple end-of-year tips for ALL writers at the same time.
Okay, it’s a very short checklist, after all, you are busy. Just two steps here:
Boom. Done. Right? Okay, okay… let’s dig into each:
Shore Up Your Messaging
When is the last time your checked your Twitter bio, your Amazon profile or the About page on your website? Did you just cringe because it’s been so long? I thought so.
Step 1: Get your messaging down, keep it simple, make it consistent wherever people find you. I know you are busy, so this is what I recommend: Give yourself a single hour, and a single cup of coffee, tea, or wine. Yerba Mate will do as well. Write a letter to your ideal reader as to what you write, why you two should be besties, and a bit about who you are. Write from a blank sheet of paper or digital document.
Now: post that to wherever you have a presence online. What you want here is two things:
Where do you do these things? Some places to start:
Today’s guest post is by Jessica Bennett. She and Leslie Ramey created Compulsion Reads, a website that seeks to shine the spotlight on quality indie books by endorsing those books that meet CR’s strict quality standards.
From Jessica:
At Compulsion Reads, we always seek to help educate and inform writers. I believe that my personal experience of reading and evaluating a large amount of self-published books over the last year could lend some important insights to authors. This is something I would have liked to read when I was first getting started out on my own road to self-publishing.
Find CompulsionReads on Twitter and Facebook, and check out the CompulsionReads blog.
Ten Things I’ve Learned from Evaluating Self-Published Books for a Year
Before I self-published my first novel in 2011, I didn’t read many self-published books. That all changed in a big way when my critique partner, Leslie Ramey, and I created a company called Compulsion Reads after growing frustrated with how challenging it was to market our self-published works. Compulsion Reads is a company that offers something we felt was desperately missing from the indie and self-published book market: a quality endorsement.
In July Compulsion Reads celebrated its first year in business, and boy has it been an incredible ride. We’ve hit many bumps along the way, but the majority of it has been an absolute pleasure. And the books, oh the books! We’ve endorsed just over 100 books in our first year, and since this shindig got started, I’ve read an average of two self-published novels a week, every week.
With experience comes what I hope is a bit of knowledge. Below are the top ten takeaways from my year of reading indie and self-published books (listed in no particular order). Please note that these are merely my personal observations and opinion.
1. There are many amazing self-published books on the market
Yeah, I know this one should be obvious to anyone who has read a lot of self-published books, but I had to start the list with this just to set the record straight. Self-published work is often perceived as low quality, and self-published authors are sometimes assumed to be too lazy or not talented enough to get a contract with a traditional publisher.
Not true. Sooooooo not true. I have read fabulous self-published and indie books this past year that could compete with anything that the big guys put out.
2. Many Self-Publishers Publish Too Early
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Kristina McMorris is the recipient of more than twenty national literary awards. A host of weekly TV shows since age nine, including an Emmy® Award-winning program, she penned her debut novel, Letters from Home (Kensington Books, Avon/HarperCollins UK), based on inspiration from her grandparents’ wartime courtship. Her second novel, Bridge of Scarlet Leaves, was named a 2013 nominee for the prestigious RITA® Award and is frequently an official reading selection among book clubs, universities, and libraries throughout the country. Most recently, her novella, The Christmas Collector, appeared in the New York Times and USA Today bestselling anthology A Winter Wonderland.
Kristina’s latest work is a beautiful novel called The Pieces We Keep. What’s the book about?
Two years have done little to ease veterinarian Audra Hughes’s grief over her husband’s untimely death. Eager for a fresh start, Audra plans to leave Portland for a new job in Philadelphia. Her seven-year-old son, Jack, seems apprehensive about flying–but it’s just the beginning of an anxiety that grows to consume him.
As Jack’s fears continue to surface in recurring and violent nightmares, Audra hardly recognizes the introverted boy he has become. Desperate, she traces snippets of information unearthed in Jack’s dreams, leading her to Sean Malloy, a struggling US Army veteran wounded in Afghanistan. Together they unravel a mystery dating back to World War II, and uncover old family secrets that still have the strength to wound–and perhaps, at last, to heal.
Today Kristina shares the benefits—professional and personal—that can come from authors working as a team. Follow Kristina on Twitter @KrisMcmorris and on Facebook. See a book trailer for The Pieces We Keep here.
Power in Numbers: Authors promoting as a team
Writing, they often say, is a lonely business. But does it have to be?
Not at all, I’ve discovered. In fact, it seems to me—thanks largely to accessibility through social media—authors have never been more open or creative when it comes to boosting each other’s spirits, as well as careers. Perhaps the most evident forms of these are found in blog posts, tweets, and Facebook shout-outs about a fellow author’s new release. Between Yahoo Groups and Facebook, it isn’t difficult to find an online writers’ group that offers support in various ways. And for those who don’t mind traveling, writers’ retreats can be as rejuvenating and inspirational as they are productive.
Many writers also combine forces by speaking on panels together at literary conferences, museums, libraries, and readers’ festivals—but keep in mind, you can always take those opportunities a step further. Last year, for example, Diana Gabaldon, Jenna Blum, Sarah McCoy, Ruta Sepetys, and I were scheduled to speak at the Tucson Festival of Books. Since we had all penned novels that are frequently read by book clubs and share a WWII setting, we decided to organize a group giveaway. The winning book club won a box full of our novels, loads of 1940s goodies, and a Skype party with us while we were together in Tucson.
Read MoreBella Andre
So I had a chance to speak with Bella Andre recently, and she pretty much shocked me with two things she said. To me, each of these three things contain important lessons that any writer – or really any creative professional – can find value in.
The first time I saw Bella speak in person was nearly three years ago. At the time, she explained the process she developed to have her books translated into 8 languages and introduced to new international markets. Beyond being insightful and positive, you had a wonderful sense of her business acumen, and what it took for a writer to brand out to find new opportunities.
When I spoke to her recently and mentioned this, she immediately told me that this initiative failed. She said: “I did what should have been the right work. Unfortunately… almost across the board it turned out the translations were not good. I had to pull every book I paid for.” And the entire failure cost her tens of thousands of dollars, and clearly a lot of her time. Evidently, it is very difficult to get decent translations. And she said now – three years later – she is finally able to implement a system that she feels addresses these challenges.
If she finds incredible success in this initiative, likely her three years of effort will be washed away and hidden by quick tips for other authors to follow in terms of translations and expanding to international markets. But for her, she had to not just have the initiative to explore, but the gumption to learn, to try again.
How do you launch something? Whether it is a book, a reading club, a blog, a bookstore, a business, or a magazine?
Launching something is a theme that has come up again and again for me this week, and I want to share some examples of what it takes to bring your project to life. But let me get something out of the way up front:
If you are looking to mine this article for tips on how to provide more certainty, less risk, and less fear in the process of launching something, you can stop reading right now. Because I won’t diminish the risk, assuage your fear, or paint soft fluffy clouds around the picture of launching something. (sorry)
In fact, it often looks like this, an image my friend Sarah Bray shared recently:
She captioned this: “celebrating failure,” and in an email, she described her process of writing a book: the success of writing a first chapter she loved, and then a second chapter she hated. The “hooray” was simply meant to recognize that she at least wrote something.
Today I want to share a couple stories from folks I know launching things.
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 MoreLast 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
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