Book Marketing
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What if I Booked an Author Event and Nobody Came?
We had a great time today on Free Advice Friday talking about Author Events. Some of the key points from our chat:
- Book your event at least 60 days in advance
- Take responsibility for every aspect of your event. Don’t leave anything to chance or the bookstore.
- Drop by the store 5-6 weeks before you signing and discuss signage, calendar listing, newsletter announcements and invitations with the manager.
- Don’t be shy! Send out invitations and ask for RSVPs!
- Print up postcards, bookmarks or flyers for the store to give out.
- Break up your event with numerous short readings to grab numerous new customers and make the most of your time.
- Some signings are slow with few attendees. Don’t take it personally. Keep going!
There was A LOT more, so if you want to hear the entire chat, here is this week’s recording. Enjoy!
Funniest Thing We Have Seen in a Long Time
The Numbers of Sucess and The Numbers of Failure
When I started my business 5 years ago, I spent the first three months reaching out to over 800 publishers asking if they would like more information about my services.
Each day, I sent out 10-15 well edited, nicely designed emails and/or snail mail packets describing how fabulous I was and how much I could improve their profits and lessen their work load. I spent every night compiling the packets and spent every morning send them out. The afternoons were for follow up. Every day, including weekends… If I had to miss a day, I doubled up the next day. This went on for three months.
After a time, 7 or 8 publishers said they would like more information.
Eventually, 1 hired me.
800 attempts with 1 success. My business plan stated that I needed a minimum of 10 clients to stay afloat and it took three months and hundreds of hours sending non-mass-mailed outreach letters and painful phone calls to get me 1 client.
It was enough.
With that one client, I now had a job to do. I worked for Write-Stuff Publishing like my life depended upon it and a few weeks later, Avant Guild Publishing followed. In time, I had more clients than I could handle and had to hire help. It was a slow, tiring journey, but today, I have an amazing business partner, terrific clients, fantastic employees, a gorgeous office…. we are looking good!
It is hard to remember how I felt at the beginning until I speak with an author or editor who is ready to branch out on their own. I often hear the following:
“But I’ve SENT out SO many queries!” or “It’s really tough out there…. no one is responding to my requests”
I was reading a great blog at http://www.urbanmusewriter.com/ written by a freelancer who’s family is sending her emails filled with dire predictions of her starvation and bankruptcy. I was cheering her on as I read about her rejection letters and growing panic, but she kept going. As I read on, she was able to share the BEST part about taking the plunge… some one hired her.
ONE success. It is enough. But it takes a LOT of perseverance. What separates those who make it from those who don’t? Lots of things… but the FIRST thing on the list is the ability to not give up.
May I Have the Name of The Book Buyer?
Today an author whom I do not know called and asked me for the names of my buyers so she could follow up on the presentations with new information. She is concerned that her publisher rep is not pitching her book “properly”. There is a lot of new information and media updates and the rep has already made the rounds to pitch her book. If she can’t trust the rep to send the new info, what is an author to do? How does an author know that new-late-breaking news about their book is getting to the buyer.
Answer: You don’t know for sure until the orders start coming in.
I know how frustrating it is, but it is a normal part of the process for small presses without direct access to the buyers because they use distributors.
You can trust your reps to distribute any and all information that will help them sell your book. They want your book to be successful. They are motivated to do a good job selling your book as they move through their territory, meeting buyers and selling the books. The problem comes when an author has 4 updates a week that, while important to them, are not at a “drop everything” level for the buyer. A good rep knows when it is important enough to take a buyer’s time with an update. An author does not usually have the experience or relationship to make the correct determination.
So can an author contact the reps and the stores directly? No. Nope. Nuh-uh… *
I run only a small distribution company and if I gave out the names of my sales reps, or the buyers to my clients, they would get more calls and emails a day than they could answer. The buyers would be so angry with me that I would not enjoy the same trust and access that I get now. The reps would quit. (seriously)
My reps cannot be getting personal pitches from each author, they have hundreds of books to sell each season. We already guarantee that we sell each book individually, one on one, one by one… no group catalog pitches. This is a huge time commitment and if they had to handle minor updates or talk to each author, they would not have any time to actually sell. That is why we have sales meetings, so that they can be taught about each book before they go out and sell it.
I promise, if an update is important enough to increase a book buyer’s order I am ALL OVER IT! But you can trust my judgment. I know when it is a good time to bother a buyer… and when it isn’t.
The book buyers, for the most part, only see who they want. They can agree to see a rep or not… they cannot be dealing with thousands of authors who all believe that their book is special. All books are special to the author… what the buyers need is an interpreter. They want someone who understands exactly how they work and what they need and provides them with some choice to fill those needs. That is where we come in.
We are often the only way a buyer will ever see a book… my unwillingness to contact a buyer every time an author wishes is the exact reason the buyer will take a look at the author’s book when I present it. We walk a fine balancing act and it is sometimes hard to keep both sides happy.
I know it is hard, but if you work on creating the demand and keep feeding your publisher the press and marketing you are doing, the demand will drive the success of your books. The reps will pass on the key information in the most agreeable manner possible.
(* the exception being a local author contacting her local store if she has developed a good relationship with the staff there)
EBooks. How to Make Them. How to Sell Them
Last Friday, we had a great session with Emily Gable from http://www.publishgreen.com/
She was great at walking all of us through the process of eBooks and helping us all understand how they come to be and how they come to be profitable.
Here is the recording of our hour-long free consulting session on eBooks. Enjoy!
eBook sales on the rise!
According to this morning’s PW Daily, eBook sales saw a significant jump in May 2010.
In fact, PW reports that eBook sales rose 162.8% in May to $29.3 million at the 13 publishers who report results to AAP’s monthly sales report.
With so many areas of the publishing industry in decline, this is some great news for hump day.
Happy Wednesday everyone!
Which eReader is right for you?
This weekend, I enjoyed a lovely evening cookout with some publishing friends. The food was fantastic and the conversation eventually turned to eReaders and eBooks and how each of us felt personally about replacing actual books in our lives.
Even my husband, non-publishing guy that he is, jumped in to the fray.
Some highlights from our discussion:
iPad – Let’s face it, we all think the iPad is pretty cool. The bells and whistles, the 4-color screen, the portability. We even love the presentation aspect of it. Take it to a meeting with agents and buyers and you can present a title or series or imprint. Fantastic! In terms of an eReader, however, we think Apple missed the boat. Yes, it’s fancy. Yes, we can get the books we’re looking for from their store. But, reading in the sun is out. The glare makes it impossible to bring this fun new toy to the park or the patio to enjoy a good book with a cup of coffee. Outdoor summer months are hard to come by in Chicago and we all want to spend this season outside. This feature, alone, kills the iPad as an eReader for our group. We didn’t even address the subscription service to get access via 3G network. This is an added expense for convenience that helps price the iPad out of the competition for book lovers.
Kindle – Love it. Perfect for reading anytime, anywhere. The 3G connectivity makes it possible to download a book while a plane is boarding and just before the flight attendant tells me to shut it off. If you’re out of 3G network, you can download books directly to your computer and push to the Kindle. In terms of bells and whistles, however, the Kindle is seriously lacking as compared to the iPad. For the first time, the screen looks small and dirty as compared to the slick facing of the iPad. The lack of color means no 4-color books for the consumer. It’s difficult to get photos, images, charts and graphs to really translate well to the Kindle format. Even if you blow up the text on the Kindle, you can’t compete with the full-screen size of the iPad. But, if someone is in it for just reading books, the Kindle was the clear winner.
The Nook – I’d be remiss if I didn’t acknowledge that the Nook was mentioned. But, that’s about all it got, a mention. It has a touch screen and some color but isn’t particularly intuitive to use. To be honest, none of us had spend more than 2 minutes playing with it in-store at a Barnes and Noble. It didn’t leave much of an impression on anyone at our cookout.
And there you have it. A casual conversation among friends and some insights in to how we feel about some of the fancy new toys in our industry. How about you? Do you have a Kindle? An iPad? A Nook? Some other reader that didn’t come up during our weekend discussion?
What do you like about it? What don’t you like about it?
Vocabulary Friday
Offset Printing – Traditional way of printing using big presses for big print runs. Offset printing makes sense for non-traditional trim sizes or any printer run of over 1,000 units. The cost per unit is a lot cheaper but the upfront investment is much higher. (Inventory must be managed – make sure you have a warehouse!) Print on Demand (POD) – POD uses digital print technology to print just in time inventory (JIT). All publishers have some form of POD program. POD is only to manage inventory. (If small press or self-published author decides to POD, it should be an inventory decision not a financial decision!)
Vanity Presses – Vanity Presses are companies that specialize in self-publishing programs. In recent years they have co-opted the term POD term to give themselves more credibility. Most Vanity Presses will provide your ISBN and have the capability to take your book from manuscript to finished book.
Co-Publishers – Co-publishers design their programs so they are “sharing costs”. For most Co-publishers, the term “co-publishing” is actually just a fancy way of not calling themselves a vanity press. However, there are several quality co-publishers out there that can help a new author get their book packaged and ready for sale.
Distributor – Distributors are companies hired by publishers that will warehouse, fulfill and sell your book. They will take a percentage of your sales and a percentage against your returns. Most distributors have a sales team that actively sells your title (IPG, NBN, etc.)
Fulfillment House – A fulfillment house will pick, pack and ship your book. They will also ensure your book is available at the major wholesalers (Ingram, Baker & Taylor) and Amazon as well as the .com sites (bn.com, target.com, wal-mart.com, etc). They will also handle all of your billing and collections.
Warehouse – A warehouse picks, packs, and ships your book only. Some warehouses handle billing but many do not. Major publishers tend to have their own warehouse services.
Wholesalers – A company used by retailers and libraries to supply books in a timely and efficient manner. The number one place any self-published author needs to be! If you’re not listed at Ingram and Baker & Taylor, you cannot be ordered easily by bookstores and libraries.
The “New” Importance of the Book Cover
If you’ve been following our blog over the past year or so, you’ll remember our post Your Spine Is Your Cover.
Yes, that’s still true for those authors who aspire to brick and mortar stores and traditional retailers.
But in the eight months since we posted that blog, the publishing environment has continued to change.
Small publishers’ interest in testing the market by just making their books available online (their own websites, Amazon.com, etc.) or as eBooks has continued to increase. POD programs offered by a variety of different companies have drawn a large group of publishers who are willing to save money on big offset print runs, warehousing and fulfillment and who say let’s “throw it up online” and see what happens.
Publisher’s beware. “Throwing it up online” does not mean cutting corners on quality. If you just make your book available online, your number one marketing tool has changed. Your book cover just increased in importance over just about any other single piece of the publishing process.
For those of you who have been there, you understand. Search Insides, excerpts, and sample chapters for downloads are great. But, you’ve got to get the consumer to commit to taking that step.
How so?
A dynamic, professionally designed, top-notch book cover.
If your budget demands that you only make your book available online, take the time to do your research. Look carefully at other book covers in your category – both online and in stores. See what’s working.
Is there a particular font, photo treatment, author treatment, color, design that’s consistent across your category? If so, make sure your cover stacks up against the best of the best.
Budget might drive your decision to start online, but budget can’t drive your decision to put up a mediocre cover and hope for the best.
Trust us, it won’t work.
D5 Creation