Business
Therese here. Today’s guest is the delightful Rebecca Rasmussen, who’s here to talk with us about her experience with publicity and how it’s impacted her–personally and professionally–since the release of her debut novel, The Bird Sisters. Rebecca’s novel releases in paperback today, and if you haven’t yet picked it up, now’s the time. Said the Library Journal Review in their starred review of her book:
Rasmussen’s debut novel is full of grace and humanity. Her heroines are fearless and romantic, endearing and engaging, and her poetic prose creates an almost magical, wholly satisfying world.
This is a beautiful book, and if you know Rebecca at all, this will not surprise you.
Enjoy her post!
Publicity: Soul Crushing or Life Affirming?
If you know me at all, you know the answer already. Or at least my answer. When I’m playing the part of novelist I’m an eternal optimist in ways I’m not when I’m, say, in the checkout line at Target and my daughter is crying because I won’t buy her a Barbie doll and I tell her instead that if Barbie was real she wouldn’t be able to stand on her own two feet. Barbie crushes my soul; publicity doesn’t. But it almost did after my novel The Bird Sisters was published in hardcover this past April.
Back then (in the eighteen months between signing my contract and publication) my instinct was to look after the book with the same intensity I looked after my daughter from the time I found out I was pregnant and stopped drinking coffee, to the time she took her first breath outside of my belly and the doctor announced her her-ness and her shock of thick black hair. One of the big differences is that a first novel, or any novel for that matter, doesn’t automatically breathe on its own, which is why I vowed to help The Bird Sisters along as much as I could.
I emailed. I am blogged. I tweeted. I called. I Friended. I Dugg. I Reddited. I Google Buzzed. I became a good typist!
I’m dreamt about the weird bump on my right hand, and the good health insurance I couldn’t afford that would allow me to see a doctor without bankrupting us. I’m dreamt about the word tenure-track and had nightmares about the word adjunct. Oh, book, please deliver me from that mean-spirited word! I thought.
What an awful load to put on a little book! To put on myself.
I knew better, and still I did it.
Then came the book’s release day and the still upcoming months of waiting to see if all my hard work and reaching out had had any impact on the sales of the book.
Read MoreWhether you’re a debut author about to launch a book (congrats!) or a writer trying to get published (good luck! I hope you do!) or a sophomore or seasoned author who’s thinking of biting the publicity bullet (yes, you should!), there are things to know about publicity in advance.
I love the phone calls and emails I get from authors and writers who are thinking about publicity. I love that they are taking initiative and getting answers, they are preparing to give their book the best chance and they are eager and full of questions about publicity – what is a publicist? what do you do? will it sell books? can you make me a bestseller?
Inevitably, there are similar questions that pop up – and I’ve addressed those here – in case these help you understand what publicity is, what it isn’t and what it can and can’t do for you as an author.
5 Things You Should Know About Publicity Before You’re Published or Before You Hire a Publicist
#1 Publicity is Awareness but not Sales & Marketing
Many authors admit they know nothing, or almost nothing, about publicity – except that they know they need to do it. More often than not, publicity is confused with sales and marketing. Publicity is not sales. Publicity is not marketing. Yes, they go hand in hand. Yes, they can (and should) be synergetic. But publicity (also known as PR) does not guarantee sales. Is there a correlation between when a media hit (book reveiw/feature/blog mention) happens and sales? Yes. Usually. Almost always. But, publicity is about creating awareness and chatter about your book. Sales and marketing is about moving that sales needle. Everything from the book cover design, language on the book, colors on the cover, genre, endorsements – and much more – are well researched by sales and marketing teams to motivate people to buy that book. Publicity is about getting the media and audiences talking about a book, creating visibility for a book – and thus will generate awareness of the book and the author, and also traffic to find more out about the book either to bookstores, the author’s website, or booksellers online. And, hopefully, once there, the sales and marketing of the book (the cover, the colors, the language, the endoresements!) and what the consumer sees when they arrive at that site, will make them purchase it. So…. publicity is not sales and marketing. They are completely different animals – but both very necessary.
#2 Publicity doesn’t happen overnight
Read MoreWell, another month has passed. Another month of beating my head against sales and promotion when I’d rather be beating my head against words on the page. Another month of wrangling with production tools that, to say the least, don’t play to my strength. Another month of refining my new entrepreneurial model of selling my words directly to the world at large. Let’s call this column a progress report of sorts.
As of today, my novel World Series of Murder is available in three formats, eBook, author-narrated audio, and good ol’ dead tree via print-on-demand (more on that below). My rationale for having all these different versions available is not just to give readers (or listeners) every conceivable choice, but also to “triangulate on the target” in a certain sense, letting the fact of the book’s multiple availabilities lend a little legitimacy to the enterprise. Probably “legitimacy” shouldn’t be an issue to me, but it is and I’m determined to deal with it.
A few years ago, I was a budding novelist with a big-time publisher and high hopes. I thought that the release of The California Roll would make me a made guy. Well, if the book didn’t exactly sink like a stone, it sank like something not much lighter. Whether as a consequence of that or not (one wants to blame the market, recession, space aliens) I am presently bereft of publisher and must therefore self-publish or self-perish. Question: Must I also carry around the feeling of having been cashiered out of legit print?
I see the audio version in particular supporting the notion that this is a “real” book, and not some self-published castaway. Of course in a sense it is exactly a self-published castaway. I wrote it in 1998 and 1999, serializing chapters bi-monthly in Poker Digest magazine. The novel’s not a bad ride (poker, humor, murder – what’s not to like?) but it’s an early effort, and would likely not see light of day except under these particular market circumstances: Anyone can be a novelist, even those who already are. I have a trove of unexploited manuscripts on my computer’s hard drive. It’s time I found out if it’s even a modestly treasury trove.
Read MoreTherese here. Today’s guest is Sarah Jio, whose second novel, The Bungalow, releases on December 27th. Sarah’s debut, The Violets of March, sold very well and was a Target “Emerging Author” pick. It was while watching those sales that Sarah happened upon something…strange. She’s here with us today to tell us all about it. Enjoy!
I Found An Ebook Written About Me & My Novel on Amazon.com (and I Didn’t Write It)
The other day I did a quick search for my novel, The Violets of March, on Amazon. Confession: Authors (at least this author) monitor their books’ sales from online retailers from time to time (it’s kind of addicting, I will confess!). But a funny thing happened that day: I noticed a peculiar new title pop up in the search results for my book: an ebook. About me. And no, I did not write it or authorize it.
Let me preface this by saying: I am not a celebrity (clearly didn’t have to tell you that, but just to make it clear: I don’t hang with Lindsay Lohan and the gang, but I did chat with Gwyneth Paltrow once, but that’s another story). There are zero skeletons in my closet (at least, none that anyone would find very interesting!). My life is pretty vanilla, which is why I probably enjoy writing fiction so much (I can live vicariously through my characters!). And yet, there it was, the “undisclosed story behind the curtains” of The Violets of March” as it was printed on the cover of this ebook. Inside, readers would, I presume, find all the juicy, or rather, non-juicy, details of my writing life. Yikes!
Read MoreTherese here. When I learned that Donald Maass recently brought a new agent into his fold at DMLA, you know my first thought was to interview her here at WU. I’m so glad that Katie Shea took the time to answer a few questions for us and let us get to know her and her literary tastes a little bit. Enjoy!
TW: Tell us about your journey to becoming a literary agent. Did you always want to be an agent? Have you ever been a writer?
KS: I love answering this question because I have always wanted to be a writer. As a little girl, my dream was to have a best-selling novel. After college, I was a freelance writer for a couple of websites, and I had the lifestyle beat for a small press. When I realized there were businesses called “literary agencies” in New York, I wanted to learn more. I got an internship with FinePrint Literary Management to absorb what agents were looking for and process of getting your book published by the big wigs. (Hoping I would one day do this.) During this time, I was drafting my first novel, writing on a strict weekly schedule. However, while learning more about the business, I began to love it. Reading queries was interesting and exciting to me. A pile of submissions was a land of possibilities, a path toward discovering a new fantastic writer. Moving from there, I got a fantastic opportunity to work along side of agent, Erin Niumata at Folio Literary Management, where I worked with celebrity chef, Buddy Valastro and his first cookbook, CAKE BOSS: STORIES AND RECIPES FROM MIA FAMIGLIA. I was hooked. This was what I wanted to do. (*Note: My first drafted novel, THE DIVORCE HOUSE, is currently aging in my desk drawer. I do plan to work on it someday.)
TW: What areas do you/will you specialize in?
KS: I love real-life stories. I want the raw, emotional, gritty, story line that I can feel deep inside my bones. At the DMLA, I am specializing in commercial-scale literary fiction, women’s fiction, realistic YA, and memoir.
TW: What do you look for in a compelling project?
Read MoreSix years ago, when we—Kath and Therese—dreamed up a blog called Writer Unboxed, we never would’ve imagined writing a post like this.
Our initial goal for our little blog was pretty simple: Discuss the craft of writing fiction with other aspiring writers, and pick the brains of any publishing professional who would allow us to do so. We’ve continually been blown away by the response and how we’ve grown. And we love our unboxed communities–here, at Reader Unboxed, and on Facebook.
But we’re at a crossroads.
We want to grow the sites, for them to be all they can be, but we’re also finding that we simply don’t have enough resources to do it all. We need to duplicate ourselves somehow, so there are more hands to do all that needs to be done. And we’d like to find a way for the sites to generate some income so that when our server crashes (as it did last week; you may have experienced difficulties with the site), or if we’re hacked (which has also happened), there are funds on hand to cope with what needs to be done.
We’re trying to find ways to make running the Unboxed sites more tenable. Because you’re our greatest resource, we’re eager to hear your ideas. We have a few of our own that we want run by you too. Please feel free to mention anything in comments you think we should consider or that might help us, or send us a private note through our contact page.
Extra Hands
We’re in need of an assistant of some sort—an intern possibly, or a paid Virtual Assistant who can help with daily administrative functions. If you have experience with Virtual Assistants, have referrals or recommendations, we’d love to hear about it.
Financial Self-Sufficiency
We’ve spent a pretty good chunk of change on Writer Unboxed over the years, and more recently Reader Unboxed. We’ve always resisted putting ads on WU because frankly we don’t like them and we were never in it for the money. But if we decide to hire a Virtual Assistant, we’d like for those funds to come from revenues generated by the blog. How to do that?
Read MoreThere’s incredible emphasis these days on how authors have more power and control than ever in deciding how and when to publish.
And I am guilty of propagating this message far and wide. You can find it mentioned in nearly interview I give. Why? Because it’s true. Technology has enabled us all to be active creators and distributors, without needing anyone’s permission or approval.
However …
There’s something I teach my students in media ethics called The Golden Mean. Aristotle believed that we ought to strive for the middle between extremes as a way of finding our virtue.
I worry that all this proselytizing about empowerment is starting to become so pervasive that writers now assume there’s nothing that a publisher offers that they could possibly need. Or that professional help would have little or no impact on the quality of their work or future career.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
Here are three reasons why.
1. You’re not pushed to higher quality.
Working with professionals should challenge you. It should raise the bar. You’ll probably feel some doubts about the quality of your work. This is a good thing. Professionals usually understand and build off your strengths, and minimize the appearance of your weaknesses.
One of first things I teach my writing students is you need someone you trust to push you—to tell you where things aren’t working. Most people don’t have that gift of being so distant from their work that they can see objectively where it’s succeeding or failing. Even the writers who DO have that power usually have decades of experience and self-knowledge—from being pushed.
Yes, my argument does mean: To develop to your maximum potential, you need someone to create a little discomfort.
2. To compete amidst all the noise and distraction, we need the most professional quality possible.
Read MoreThis column excerpted from my book, CREATE YOUR WRITER PLATFORM (Nov. 2012, Writer’s Digest Books), a guide on how to build your visibility, brand, and network to better market yourself and your books. The book includes lots of interviews with literary agents and platform-heavy authors.
Ah, platform. It’s that dirty word writers hate. It appeared several years ago like a bad dream — a word publishing bigwigs used to describe a writer’s ability to sell their own work through a writer’s social media, networking and visibility. The bigwigs made it clear: Writers would not only have to write books now, but be the main marketing force behind them, as well.
Let’s be clear: If you’re a fiction writer, you want a platform. If you’re a nonfiction writer, you need a platform. In fact, if you’re writing nonfiction and you don’t have at least a modest platform, literary agents and editors probably won’t even consider your book idea, no matter how good it may be. If you can’t sell your own book, they ain’t interested in your pitch. In fact, I’ve been speaking so much about platform lately that I wanted to write something here about it here on WU — my thoughts on “current platform” vs. “future platform.” See, building a platform is difficult and takes time. But some good news, in my opinion, is that if you get off to a solid start, you can use realistic, down-to-earth predictions when pitching your book regarding where you will be in the future. After all, your book won’t get published for a year and a half or two years. Surely by that time your platform will have continued to grow — so feel free to mention where you think you’ll be.
ELEMENTS OF A PLATFORM
Off the top of my head, here are some elements that contribute to a writer’s platform:
1. A successful blog
2. A successful newsletter
3. Article/column writing with bylines
4. Contributing to large publications/blogs/etc.
5. Networking and who you know
6. Public speaking, such as presenting at writers conferences and retreats
7. Social media (Twitter/Facebook/etc.)
8. Organization membership
9. Media appearances and interviews
These are all things that a publisher will want to hear about if you’re pitching a nonfiction book. These are your weapons in pitching to a publisher as well as selling your book to readers.
YOUR “FUTURE PLATFORM”
Read MoreIf anyone remembers, back in August I blogged about the completely unforeseen surprises that had been cropping up in my life lately. And within a week of that post, my family had:
*moved, during which process my poor mother managed to fall and break her arm
* been struck by an earthquake
* been struck by hurricane Irene and lost power for days
*had our basement flood in the rains following the hurricane.
Anyway, as if I needed any more proof that life is a roller coaster of unexpected events, here’s another surprise I’ve experienced lately:
Back in July my agent sent my latest project out to editors on submission. I’ve never seen my agent so confident–never. My agent has been in the business for decades and told me very frankly that he was expecting offers of ‘significant amounts of money’ within the week.
That was almost four months ago. The book still hasn’t sold.
We’ve had a few rejections–truly, the loveliest rejections I’ve ever had, and I’m not being sarcastic. Editors loved the story, loved the writing–they just haven’t bought the book. Other editors just haven’t yet gotten back to us–though if they haven’t offered for it by now, chances are they’re probably not going to.
So what’s going on? Well, it could absolutely be me/my book–maybe it’s just not as good as my agent and I thought, maybe it’s just not what editors are looking for right now. But also–and I say this without meaning to be at all vain or egotistical here–I’m pretty certain it’s not JUST me.
Read MoreRecently 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 MoreKath here. Please welcome Kim Wright again to WU. We loved Kim’s July post about switching genres, so we invited her back again to talk about the agent hunt. Her newest book, Your Path to Publication, is available on her website. Take it away, Kim…
Agents want to know two things about you before they take you on as a client.
First, they want to know that you can write.
Second, they want to know you’re not crazy. Just as some fledgling writers tend to think of agents as mean, some agents assume that writers are nuts, and let’s face it, there’s plenty of evidence to support that theory.
Moving from writer to author requires a certain interior shift. You’re turning from the world of art, which cheerfully accommodates wacky individuality, to the world of business, which does not. Agents need to see that you’re capable of meeting deadlines, handling criticism and rejection, and working with a wide variety of people. An amazing number of would-be writers fail to realize this. When approaching an agent, they rant, rave, flirt, threaten, and do everything short of donning a t-shirt that reads “I intend to be a mondo pain in the ass.”
So, task one is to have an excellent book that’s polished and ready to show. Task two is to present yourself as someone with whom it would be a joy to work. Which means you shouldn’t do any of the four following things.
Read MoreKath here. Please welcome Rebecca Coleman to Writer Unboxed today. Rebecca’s manuscript, THE KINGDOM OF CHILDHOOD, was a semifinalist in the 2010 Amazon Breakthrough Novel Competition. The story is controversial, dark, complex – in short, not an easy commercial sell. Rebecca persisted until she found the right agent and the right publisher.
Publisher’s Weekly calls the book, “And emotionally tense, increasingly chilling story of late-90s suburban frustration unwinds into tragedy… This is a scalding, engaging portrait of people at two very different stages of life, caught in a trap of their own making.”
Booklist says, “A gutsy debut novel… nimbly exploring such hot-button issues as the abuse of power, betrayal of trust, and predatory nature of sexual obsession, it is poised to generate major book-group buzz.”
We are pleased Rebecca agreed to share her experiences writing and selling the difficult book.
For someone who wrote a book in which the plot turns on statutory rape and various people catch on fire, I sure can be naive sometimes. When I set out to write “The Kingdom of Childhood,” I believed I was tapping into one of the most well-worn phenomena in the news cycle– the story of a teacher having an affair with a student– and presenting the reading public with a story on a topic that fascinated everyone but that, strangely, almost nobody wanted to write about. It felt like the agent-seeking writer’s version of a free throw: who wouldn’t want to read this book?
The New York publishing community, that’s who. Query after query, I got the same response: “it’s too dark.” A good rule of thumb in writing is that you can ignore a single person’s criticism if you like, but if two people tell you the same thing, it’s time to set aside your ego and revisit your novel. But nevertheless, this response baffled me. Murder mysteries are dark, too. Besides, I’d just finished reading Cormac McCarthy’s “The Road,” a book so dark I suspected my Kindle needed an exorcism. So what was the deal?
The deal is, you’re not Cormac McCarthy, sweetie, I needed to remind myself.
Read MoreTherese here. Please welcome today’s guest, Joni B. Cole. A 2011 Pushcart Prize nominee, Joni is a popular speaker at writing conferences across the country, has been interviewed on national television shows including CNN, and contributes regularly to The Writer magazine. Just yesterday marked the release day for her latest book, Another Bad Dog Book: Tales of Life, Love, and Neurotic Human Behavior. Said New York Journal of Books of Joni’s collection of essays:
Joni Cole’s voice may be brutal, but readers, drawn to turn to the next page, will be rewarded: She is funny and so is her gutsy book.
She’s also the author of Toxic Feedback: Helping Writers Survive and Thrive, which is what we’re focused on today. Honestly, I wasn’t sure what to expect when I first opened Joni’s book; we hear a lot about how to be a good critique partner, how to avoid bad critique partners, and the dangers and joys of critique in general. I was so glad to see Joni tackle fresh topics, like processing feedback, and provide stories of authors who’d learned something valuable through critique (Jennifer Crusie, Jodi Picoult, Gregory Maguire, more). Toxic Feedback is worth a place in your home library if you’re confused by critique, if you feel you’re not getting what you should from critique, or if you’re flummoxed as to why you’re not clicking with your critique group.
Maybe I would’ve been less skeptical if I’d read Joni’s reviews beforehand:
Strongly recommended. – Library Journal
I can’t imagine a better guide to [writing’s] rewards and perils than this fine book. – American Book Review.
I’m thrilled Joni has given me permission to reprint a section of her book, this on the importance of specificity in critique. Enjoy!
Can You Please Be More Specific!
Beth Rider is an assistant professor of pediatrics and co-director of the Communication Skills Teaching Program at Harvard Medical School. Part of Beth’s job is to provide feedback workshops for faculty and medical students who seem to have no issues with peering into open chest cavities or sewing up gaping wounds, but often react squeamishly to the idea of giving each other feedback.
Beth told me a story from her own student days as a pediatric resident treating inpatients at a Boston hospital. When the time came for her formal evaluation by the attending physician, the two met at the elevator en route to the sixth floor. “You’re doing a great job,” Beth’s boss told her on the ride up. She looked forward to their conference and hearing more. Then the elevator doors opened and he took off. End of evaluation. “It was great I got my A,” Beth said, “but how did I get it? What did I do right?”
Read More
