Kristine Kathryn Rusch » Business Rusch, featured, free nonfiction, On Writing » The Business Rusch: Promotion
The Business Rusch: Promotion
The Business Rusch: Promotion
Kristine Kathryn Rusch
Finally, a week that’s a little slower than some others on the news front. Yes, there are some great blogs out there and some interesting news stories, but nothing earth-shattering. Or should I say, nothing that can’t wait until next week.
Since December, many of you have asked for a blog on promotion in this new world. For some reason, people believe that Amanda Hocking promoted herself onto the bestseller list. She didn’t. Others think that constantly marketing your book is the only way to sell it, especially if you’re an indie-published writer who has only published one thing.
I hate to break it to you, folks: this argument has been around since I’ve come into the business. In fact, I was reading Greg Lawrence’s so-called literary biography of Jackie Kennedy, Jackie As Editor, and in it, he discusses the whole author promotion myth. So many writers tried to get Jackie Kennedy Onassis as their editor simply because they believed that one connection would make the book sell extra copies. And if Jackie showed up at their publishing party or book signing, well, they had it made.
Nope. Didn’t work then; doesn’t work now.
For more than a century, the book industry has done surveys on what sells books. I can confidently these surveys have existed that long because, as I searched for a recent survey, Google served me up one from 1904 in its Google Books archives.
So…what sells books?
The most recent survey I found in my quick scan came from the American Booksellers Association. This study, published last year, polled self-selected avid readers from a variety of online sites. More than 9000 people responded. The study is worth looking at, not just on this point, but for the e-book items. The study was completed between Fall 2009 and Spring 2010. We’ve moved lightyears since then on e-book habits, which is why I haven’t cited the study before. But the results on why people buy books is the same as it has always been.
According to this study, people buy books because:
1. Author reputation (52%)
2. Personal recommendation (49%)
3. Price (45%)
4. Book Reviews (37%)
5. Cover/Blurb (22%)
6. Advertising (including online) 14%
If you don’t like those figures, let’s examine these, first published in Publishers Weekly a few years ago. The survey is buried in their archives, but I found it on a website devoted to Christian publishing because, at the time, Christian publishing was trying to break out from mainstream publishing. Christian publishers were looking at the same things indie publishers are looking at now, and trying to figure out what works.
The earlier study (still conducted in this century) found people buy books because:
1. Personal Recommendation (49%)
2. Familiarity with the author (45%)
3. Description on the jacket (32%)
4. Reviews (22%)
5. Ads (21%)
6. Place on the bestseller list (17%)
7. Reading Group pick (16%)
8. Cover (12%)
Note that this survey asked different questions from the previous survey. They probably designed the question like this:
What factors influence your book buying
A. Cover
B. Reviews…
You get the idea.
In the older survey, no mention was made of price, because no one was arguing about price like they are now. When the 2010 survey was underway, the e-book/hardcover pricing argument was dominating the news.
Still, we can see some similarities here. The two main reasons that people buy books are: personal recommendation and author familiarity.
In other words, if a friend recommends a book to you, you’re likely to buy it. If you’ve already read an author and like her work, you’re likely to buy her next book.
The question, then, is how to get someone to pick up your book if you’re an unknown or if you are writing under a brand new pen name. According to the older survey, advertising worked 21% of the time. But the more recent survey said that advertising including online only worked 14% of the time. This may be because book advertising venues have decreased in the past five years. But I’ll wager the real difference here is in the people surveyed.
The new survey is of avid readers, folks who read a lot of books. The older survey was just of book readers, some of whom might only read one or two books per year. Avid readers know that just because a publisher has put hundreds of thousands of dollars into advertising doesn’t mean the book is any good. It just means someone in a publishing house thought the book was good.
A friend is a more trusted source, and so is the reader’s previous experience.
So…word of mouth. That’s what modern promotion is all about, and that’s exactly what promotion through the decades was about. Traditional publishing started screwing itself about thirty years ago when it did not allow books to remain on store shelves long enough to generate word of mouth.
Now, with e-books, word of mouth can happen much more easily.
How do you promote?
Let’s start with what you don’t do. You don’t push people to buy your books. You don’t go on the Kindle boards or in your writing group and force people to buy. You don’t do book signing after book signing all over the country and press your trade paperback into the hands of shoppers in the local mall.
You want people to buy your book because they’ve heard of it, and because they want it.
Here’s what most indie writers forget: Promotion is about selling books in the short term. In other words, promotion is a produce model. Traditional publishing only has six months in order to sell a book. That book has to earn back a publisher’s mid-six-figure investment in half a year. Most publishers would prefer to earn back that investment in the first month, and then realize a profit on the book after that.
This goes for every book published traditionally from bestsellers to the midlist book to the bottom of the list. (If you don’t understand lists, see this post of mine from the publishing series. Every traditionally published book has to earn back its investment within six months or be considered a failure.
I’ve used this example before, but it’s instructive: Traditional publishers would rather have a book that sells 100,000 copies in its first month and then sells no more copies than a book that sells 15,000 copies per month for one year. Why? Because the second book will not earn back its investment by the six-month window even though that book will outsell the other book in the course of a year. (And the second book will probably continue selling for years—except the traditional publisher might just take it out of print because of its “poor performance.”)
Yeah, I know. Bitch at me all you want about traditional publishing, but before you do, read these blog posts of mine on why it works the way it does. (Start here and read the traditional publishing posts.)
Even though traditional publishers have long known that word of mouth sells books, it’s not in their business model to encourage it. They don’t have time for a slow build.
However, indie publishers do have the time. Now that e-books are here to stay, the shelf space is infinite. If a friend recommends a book written in 1995, and I can find that book online, I’ll read it. In fact, one of the great things about e-books is their accessibility. If someone recommends a book at our regular writers lunch like a friend did last Sunday, I can take out my phone, open an e-book app, and download a sample of that book before I forget the book’s title. When I was teaching last week, I recommended several books in the middle of a conversation, and at least two people downloaded the free samples while we were talking.
Word of mouth.
Most indie writers, however, were raised in the traditional publishing model and are in a great hurry to promote their books. These indie writers finish one book, put it up, and then market the hell out of it.
It makes no sense to me. Because readers might pick up the book, and they might even like it. But then what? By the time the second book appears, the readers will have moved onto other authors.
Because…look at those statistics up there. What’s either first or second? Author recognition. In other words, if a reader likes one book by an author, the reader will want another book by the same author immediately. If the reader can’t get that book, the reader will move onto other authors.
So the best way to promote your book is to write the next book. The more you’ve published, the more ways a reader can find you and the more chances the reader has of finding a book of yours that the reader loves.
Barry Eisler and J.A. Konrath discussed this in their long announcement post a few weeks ago. Eisler said it succinctly: “It means that a writer’s best promoting tool is once again her writing. Advertising costs money. New stories make money.”
Got that? The best way to promote your work is to write (and publish) more work.
He goes on: “Now, with digital books, once again there’s no more profitable use of an author’s time than writing. Not to say that authors don’t need a strong online presence; of course they do. But any time you’re thinking about some other promotional activity—a blog post, a trip for a convention, an hour on Facebook—you have to measure the value of that time against the value of writing and publishing a new story. The new story earns money, both for itself and your other works. The social networking stuff doesn’t.”
So why do the social networking stuff at all? Because readers have questions. You don’t need a Facebook or Twitter account if you don’t want one. You don’t need to do a blog tour or bombard bloggers to review your work. But you do need a website. Readers need to know what stories are in a particular series, how to order your books, and what’s coming next. They need to be able to find you with a simple online search.
And that’s all.
So how do you write to promote?
Ah, I thought you would never ask.
Here’s where traditional publishing comes in. In previous posts, I recommended that fast writers sell a book or two every year or so to traditional publishing. If you’re writing four books per year, then you’re “losing” one book to traditional publishing.
You have to count that book as lost. Because it will not earn what the indie published books earn—and may earn nothing more than the advance. But what you’ll be doing is piggybacking on the effort of the traditional publisher. If you’re lucky, the traditional publisher will do everything right—send to reviewers, take out ads, promote the heck out of the book.
But even if you’re not lucky and the book “tanks” in the traditional publishing world, your book will hit bookstores, making them look up your print on demand inventory (and you will have that as an indie publisher, right? If you’re confused about how to do this, see Dean Wesley Smith’s articles on “Think Like a Publisher”. Readers who discover you in traditional bookstores will then look for your other work in online bookstores like Amazon.com or Barnes & Noble.com. Readers who have e-readers will immediately download your backlist.
But, but, but, you say. That book won’t earn me money outside of the advance.
But it will. It will help the indie books sell better by promoting you to a new audience who gets to sample your work. It’ll develop word of mouth for your new readers. It won’t earn the money directly. But indirectly, it’ll make the sales of your other books rise.
As Eisler says, advertising costs money. New stories make money. If you sell a book into traditional publishing, you’re getting paid to advertise your other works. In some cases, you’re getting paid more than you would pay out to an advertising or public relations firm which would do the same (or less) work.
Got that?
Think of it this way. All of the online book sites, be they print sites or e-book sites (or both) have a little listing at the bottom of the screen that says People who bought this book also bought these books. If you write more books and readers like what you do, guess whose books appear in that slot? Yours. If you only publish one book, then those slots get filled by other writers’ books.
Those slots, by the way, are just another form of word of mouth. Readers who liked this book bought these books. Since you liked this book, you’ll probably like those books as well.
An even better way to promote your writing is to write and sell short stories traditionally. Unlike book publishers, short story publishers only hold onto exclusive rights to the story for a limited period of time. After that period of time, either the rights revert to you or they become non-exclusive. (If you don’t understand this, buy a copy of the Copyright Handbook now. Writers don’t sell books/stories. They license copyright for a certain period of time.) In other words, after a period of time specified by contract, you can then put that short story up as an e-book or put it in an e-book collection of your own (or both), without having to remove that story from the place of first publication. That’s win/win, and here’s why.
Short story markets will allow new readers to sample your work. Readers you would never ever reach. Readers pick up anthologies because they like the topic. Readers pick up fiction magazines because they like the editor’s taste, which then makes that a sideways version of word of mouth.
Because here’s the one thing none of the book studies have looked at yet. Sampling. Sampling is the most important way to hook a reader.
Other retail businesses known the importance of sampling. Sampling works. For example, when you go into a grocery store on a busy Saturday, some poor employee is standing in the back offering you the latest food craze. A bite of cake, a slice of pizza, some salsa and chips. If you like it, you get a coupon to buy the product, so that you can take it home and with luck, you’ll eat it all and buy more the following Saturday.
Those sample bottles of shampoo and conditioner have been around as long as I can remember, and now a lot of personal products get promoted through hotels that will give the product to you as part of your stay. You sample some high-end soap or a new mouthwash for the two days you’re in the hotel, and with luck, you like that product and buy more.
In the past, book studies didn’t include sampling because sampling was nearly impossible. Some publishers would do a sampler—the first chapter of each book in their spring list—but they’d only hand those samples out at conventions or to bookstore owners. And no one read them, no matter how well they were packaged. They weren’t convenient.
Now, however, you can download samples of any book published electronically. If you like the book, you’ll read until you run out of text. At that moment, the sample asks you if you would like to buy the book.
If the author has done his job, you’re clicking that “buy” button without even checking price. I suspect that five years from now, “free sample” will rank just below word of mouth and author recognition as an influential factor in buying books.
What did Amanda Hocking do right so that her books sold well? It wasn’t her blog or her Twitter presence or her social media savvy.
First, she told great stories. Storytellers sell better than writers who craft lovely prose. Storytellers keep you up all night. Stylists make you admire them. Storytellers force you to read the next chapter—or buy the entire book from the free sample.
Second, Hocking published a lot of books in a short period of time. Readers were able to find more books from her quickly.
That’s all. If you’ll notice, almost all of the indie writers who have reached the top of the Kindle bestseller list have all published more than one book. In fact, more than one book of theirs is usually on the top 100 at any time.
And let’s take a side trip here. Those writers who work hard to get on an indie bestseller list—what are they pursuing? According to the survey above, only 17% of readers buy a book because its placement on a bestseller list. On an e-book list, that’s 17% of the 10% of readers who buy e-books. That’s a produce model, and not an efficient one.
What placement on a bestseller list gets you is a fleeting bit of name recognition. That’s all. It won’t convince romance readers to buy your horror novel, any more than a reduced price will.
Look at that traditional publishing model of 100,000 books in a month versus the 15,000 books per month spread out over the year. The indie writer pursuing a list is working that traditional model. Think of it this way: the indie e-book can never make a list and sell consistently. Or you can force the book to a list, and then have it drop off, with nothing to follow it. Writers who promote their single title to get it on a list reap no future benefit at all.
Write the next book. Be patient. Write some short stories. Market those traditionally. If the story doesn’t sell after going through the major markets, publish the story yourself. Eventually readers will find you.
So how do you promote? Write a lot. Constantly improve. Challenge yourself. Publish the books/stories. Readers will find you. And if they like what you do, they’ll buy more books.
The key is patience. You might sell one book in the first month. Two in the second. But if you’re good, and you publish a lot, more and more readers will find you as they scroll through all the options. Don’t artificially jack up your sales with overzealous promotion. Just write the next book.
And have fun. Because if you’re having fun, your readers will too.
I’ve been grumpy these last two weeks because I’ve been outrageously busy, carving only a few hours to write the blog. But here’s the truth of it: I do have fun writing this blog. And I’m planning some labor intensive blog posts in the next few weeks. I appreciate all of the support. Thanks everyone for commenting and e-mailing and sending me links. I also appreciate donations. They help pay for my time. And that time is becoming increasingly rare. So if you found this post useful, please donate or forward the post to your friends. Thanks!
“The Business Rusch: Promotion” copyright 2011 by Kristine Kathryn Rusch.
Filed under: Business Rusch, featured, free nonfiction, On Writing · Tags: Amanda Hocking, American Booksellers Association, Barry Eisler, bestseller lists, Dean Wesley Smith, E-Books, Greg Lawrence, Jackie Kennedy Onassis, Kindle, Publishers Weekly, publishing lists
92 Responses to "The Business Rusch: Promotion"
Boy, have I been waiting for this column. And yeah, you surprised the heck out of me, in a good way. Write more? Hey, I can do that. It was the thought that I had to come up with a “marketing plan”, a multi-city tour, or massive PR campaign that I found daunting. But writing more of the same? Hells, yeah.
I am taking Dean’s advice on book covers, as well. A survey of my favorite authors shows me that it all boils down to two things: title and author. The rest of the image on the cover (unless it’s by Frank Frazetta) means nothing.
So now I’m thinking the best approach for an author looking to leap into indie publishing is to wait until she has several novels ready to go, then slam them all at once into the chain. Invent a “brand” and put it prominently on all the book covers, short stories, novellas, etc. Flood the market. That would at least answer the reader’s demand (if one arises) for more works by the same author.
What do you think?
Dan, great post. Especially the line you gotta tell the stories you care about. Exactly. Good stuff.
Great post, Christopher. I’m going to make one small correction. You’re not paying Amazon or B&N a “commission.” You’re paying a fee per item sold for their distribution services. That’s a different thing than a lifelong commission. I think a distribution fee is worthwhile to get into the worldwide market that Amazon provides or the national market through B&N. Smashwords provides a gateway to those services as well as its own catalog. The gateway tacks on another fee for convenience–Smashwords gets you into sites hard to get into on your own. Even if you don’t use Smashwords for the larger services (like iBooks), you still get into their distribution system for the DRM-free folks and providing different formats on Smashwords site. Again, distribution.
Your attitude is great though and right on. Enjoy the writing!
Patrick, I’m stuck with the pen names now, and honestly, I don’t know what I would do now. I always default to my own readerself, the woman who likes Barbara Michaels, but not Elizabeth Peters–even though those are pen names of the same writer, Barbara Mertz. I like the ease that enables me to differentiate her books. But that’s just me. Your mileage may differ and I think in this new market, there is no right way. Just your way.
Sarah, I don’t think you have to wait. I think you can put things up slowly and attract early readers. If you don’t like your early covers, the neat thing about this new market is that you can easily change them. So I wouldn’t wait at all. I’d start putting up things now.
That’s interesting that you said you don’t believe that you have to wait until you have an inventory, ma’am. I figured you would say wait until you have enough trail-mix-stuffed-under-the-couch-cushions before you published (since that appears to be the “thing” since Ms. Hocking did it).
So, if I am to understand what you are saying it’s that one should put up whatever story they have completed on various electronic platforms then put the Bronski Beat back on the stereo and write another, upload that, rinse and repeat? (Sort of like Heinlein’s Rules, but for the Cyberlectronic Age. You amputate the Do Not Rewrite Unless By Editorial Order part and restitch with an Upload It part?
I strictly loved this. I’m been writing about eight years and am on my twentieth pubbed book. I’ve grown to resent more and more the endless promo that doesn’t seem to work. I’ve already cut my groups list way back, and am glad I’m on the right track. I much rather write than anything else. Jean
That’s right, Just Passing Through. Only with a caveat: I think you should market the stories the moment you finish them to the major short story markets. When you’ve exhausted those, put the story up electronically. If you sell to the major markets, you win. If you don’t, you still win. That also will give you time to create inventory. And when you write a story that “doesn’t fit” into a major market, put it up immediately. (Although I always try the literary magazines–the ones that pay–before I do that.)
Earlier someone mentioned the small press. That’s different from the specialty press. Specialty presses have small but exclusive audiences and pay professional rates. Small presses don’t pay professional rates. If you want to be a professional writer–or if you are–you get paid for your work. Period. At good rates. So avoid the low-paying markets and only go to the pros, be they “big” or specialty. Then if you can’t sell to them, put the story up electronically.
Me, too, Jean. Writing is fun. The other stuff is ego-boo that usually doesn’t work. Glad to have helped.
Kris,
I meant to get back here earlier but it was a hectic few days and I just got free. Hope folks are still listening.
I wanted to add something to the question and comment above on short story markets. Someone asked if traditional semi-pro markets should be considered, and you said you only consider pro ones, and I understand your reasons. I believe, however, there are exceptions. First of all, when I sell a short story for two or three cents a word to a semi-pro anthology or mag I can use that money to finance my indie efforts, and still use the story in about six months or so after first publication. Of course a careful reading of the contract is necessary to be sure this is indeed the case. In addition, some semi-pro venues are respectable markets and get decent amounts of reviews. One example is “Warrior Wisewoman 3″ in which my story “Dark Mirrors” appeared. The anthology was reviewed in a number of respectable venues, including “Analog”, and in several of them my story was singled out for special praise. This is worthwhile publicity for me, justifying the moderate payment for the story itself by the anthology. So, I just wanted to throw out the idea that nothing is clear-cut and each situation has to be analysed for its own merits or drawbacks. I’d say that for some beginning writers some of the semi-pro markets might be worthwhile.
Good point, John. But you’d better research the semi-pro markets before making that decision. I am very clear-cut in my decisions: if they don’t pay me pro rates, I don’t publish there. I have had that attitude since I was an unpublished writer, and it has served me well.
Your article is spot on and full of information that I’ll pass to my author friends. I have only comment… I helped Amanda Hocking when she first started out (with promotion) Nice girl. The reason she made this huge wave? 99 cents for a full novel on Kindle. That’s it, the secret of her success. I made a study of it and another new author did the same, Monique Martin, same thing: big hit, new name and she sold for 99 cents. Cheap Price along with a decent read that was the formula. They were able to do it because they’re Indys and you can’t get a book cheaper on Amazon, so it’s as close to free as you can get.
Completely disagree, Leanore. If Amanda Hocking’s book was crap, a 99 cent price wouldn’t have gotten her many readers. Price alone doesn’t do it. It might introduce readers to the book, which is the sampling as I talked about above. But if your product is no good, people don’t come back to it. Amanda Hocking is a spectacular storyteller, like anyone else who hits a bestseller list. She wouldn’t have taken off so fast without the sampling (99 cent price), but she still would have had great success. It would have taken longer. That’s all.
Kris,
Back in 2007 Duncan Watts reported on a fascinating experiment he conducted on product popularity in his essay “Is Justin Timberlake a Product of Cumulative Advantage?” which you can read in the NY Times here: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/15/magazine/15wwlnidealab.t.html?_r=1
He describes the setup as “Matthew Salganik and Peter Dodds, and I conducted just such a Web-based experiment. In our study, published last year in Science, more than 14,000 participants registered at our Web site, Music Lab (www.musiclab.columbia.edu), and were asked to listen to, rate and, if they chose, download songs by bands they had never heard of. Some of the participants saw only the names of the songs and bands, while others also saw how many times the songs had been downloaded by previous participants. This second group — in what we called the “social influence” condition — was further split into eight parallel “worlds” such that participants could see the prior downloads of people only in their own world. We didn’t manipulate any of these rankings — all the artists in all the worlds started out identically, with zero downloads — but because the different worlds were kept separate, they subsequently evolved independently of one another.”
His key conclusion was that quality DOES have an effect BUT “the impact of a listener’s own reactions is easily overwhelmed by his or her reactions to others [in the forms of visibility/recommendation/reputation devices like best-seller and also-bought lists] . . . Because the long-run success of a song depends so sensitively on the decisions of a few early-arriving individuals, whose choices are subsequently amplified and eventually locked in by the cumulative-advantage process, and because the particular individuals who play this important role are chosen randomly and may make different decisions from one moment to the next, the resulting unpredictability is inherent to the nature of the market.”
This study:
a) Seems to support your conclusion that the most productive use of time is to give yourself a shot is to multiply your opportunities by writing a LOT of GREAT stories. Doing that will give you more chances to increase sales with cumulative advantage.
b) Suggests Hocking might not have gone nuclear if she had entered the ebook market two years from now. A lot of her success is probably due to the cumulitive advantage she experienced. But two years from now would have presented a different market. It’s likely she might have not have become the wild success she is. Or, at least, it might have taken much longer.
My initial take on the study is here: http://johndbrown.com/2008/12/is-product-popularity-totally-random/. But I’ve changed my emphasis.
After having spent gobs of hours and what I consider a stupid amount of money promoting my debut novel, and watching another author who started at the same time I did who had much more platform, went indie first, then got a contract a BAEN and went nuts, I think I can say that visibility (by the publisher or author) DOES lead to more sales. But,
So much of it is hit and miss. And promotion is only a means to start the word-of-mouth engine anyway. When word-of-mouth catches, there’s nothing like it. And, oh, how I wished I’d used my limited time and resources to just up my production to get another novel done each year.
Lesson learned.
I don’t discount timing. Right now, paranormal is hot. If Hocking had waited a few years, she might not have had the success simply because people might have gotten sick of paranormals. But speed is a factor of the traditional publishing model. The new model rewards patience. And trusts readers/consumers to filter out the good/bad. We can’t control the market, no matter how much promotion we do. We can control how much we put into the market. And how good our product is. And that’s what we should focus on.
Thanks for the reply ma’am! (Especially when I just re-read my post and even I am thinking that it didn’t make any sense unless you happened to have seen a particular episode of Malcolm in the Middle.)
John Brown, visibility/platform does lead to more sales, but in the case of the author you’re talking about, like Amanda Hocking, he also wrote in a very popular genre with his own unique take, told a good story, and then followed it up by having a second and third book available very quickly in the series as well as a whole ‘nother series (or two) started up. His publisher certainly was helpful in releasing quickly, as readers who liked his stuff could get it almost right away. That kind of sales velocity led to bestsellerdom—as it did with Hocking in epub. The ratio of “amount of stories available” to “velocity of sales based on buyers-to-stories critical mass” leading to bestsellerdom will be different for each author; the best thing writers can do is to do something about the factors that we can control, namely, “stories [readers want to buy] available”.
If he’d just had his platform and one book and then spent his time doing promo instead of writing more, the outcome would have been very different, I’d venture to say.
I agree, it’s an excellent lesson in “write, improve, and write more!”.
Kris,
I’m not talking about market timing. What the study found was that given the same songs in 8 different “markets,” all 8 markets had widely different lists of bestsellers. And it was all due to who got the early visibility. I’m just saying that the idea that Hocking was destined to go big–because of her stories and selection–is probably false. It gave her more opportunities. Upped her chances. But given another set of circumstances someone else might be the one benefiting from the cumulative advantage. So I think we’re saying the same thing.
Sam,
““amount of stories available” to “velocity of sales based on buyers-to-stories critical mass” leading to bestsellerdom will be different for each author”
True. It took one for Rothfuss and one for Meyer. Many more for Lisa Nelson who is smoking hot right now.
And while I agree that it’s vitally important to get product out the door, to say that promotion never produces more value than writing is demonstrably false. If all I do is write and never tell a soul, never list the book for sale, I’m not going to sell anything. Of course, some say, you have to list–duh!–but that’s where it ends. But if I have the chance to appear on Oprah or Rush Limbaugh, I’d say that was going to be more valuable than finishing the next chapter one day earlier. So the best thing isn’t always to eschew promotion and write more.
I know that most promotion doesn’t have anywhere near an Oprah bang for the buck. I know word-of-mouth and having more inventory for repeat sales only allows you to sell more and more. I know, from experience, that a lot of things writers think might help do NOTHING. But production and promotion are complimentary activities. In every business.
Neither of them allows you to “control the market,” but both, if done right in the right proportions, allows you to increase your chances of success.
Fantastic ideas on how to get my writing “career” jumpstarted. Thanks for the great words, Kris.
Kris, while your initial blog post on E-books and publicity is spot on, I’m finding the resulting comments equally interesting. I haven’t dipped a toe into the E-book waters, yet. But soon, oh, so very soon….
John, I agree that outlier promotional energy is worthwhile, and that if you get blessed by the promo fairies, by all means take full advantage! (The corollary question, “so how do you know you have an outlier bestseller?” is probably unanswerable except mostly in hindsight. You can aim for it, but you won’t necessarily hit it.)
I’m not so sold on promotion over writing/pubbing for midlisters and newbies, because I’ve seen the “pub and promo” thing fall apart for authors (especially in the romance genre), and yet the writers who do minimal promotion and keep writing and pubbing survive…because they keep producing. The ones who get sucked into promo usually stop writing, and their careers are dead in the water until/unless they write and pub again. Or they get stuck in a write-pub-promo cycle and lag the write-pub, write-pub authors.
I’m pointing that out from an opportunity cost situation, you have a limited time to devote to your writing career. Are you going to spend it writing (and improving your craft, and learning the business), or are you going to spend that time promoting what you’ve already put out?
If you have a massive bestseller on your hands, the calculus changes, of course, but once the spotlight moves on, you either retire if you’ve made a bundle or write the next book (or both).
If, after one book is out, the bestseller promo gods pass you over, then I’d venture to say that writing more and putting out the next book is a better use of time.
At least, that’s the way it seems to me. In fact, the author you referred to came to a similar conclusion.
The conclusion that, despite being a bestseller now, he decided to spend more time writing and less time doing other things, not that he was passed over by the promo gods and came to this conclusion. Sorry if leaving that out confused anyone!
Thank you thank you thank you! I’ve been waiting for this post FOREVER! I found when I used to write, I sold more books, but the more I got into this advertising and being ‘seen’ everywhere, the less sales I am making. Coincidence? Is it just everyone is hard-up for cash? Do I need a ‘new’ voice? Maybe. Possibly. But I do know this, I’m getting so grouchy from spending all my valuable spare time trying to advertise everywhere, and finding that I have hardly any time to write. I work full-time, I need the time I have to write. I have a website, a newsletter, and I try to guest blog on other writers’ sites now and again. I recently joined another social network and I am over it!!! LOL This is not for me. I know the importace of some advertising, of being seen, but I need that balance that I’m not getting anymore. Thank you for helping me see where I’m going wrong! LOL
You’re welcome, Angela. Glad to help.
The other stuff is gravy. Writing is the important thing. (And having fun while doing so!)
Extremely interesting! As an author with 8 books published by small presses in 3 years, I hate promoting because I feel like it either sounds braggy or it sounds so much like “buy my book!” that people just roll their eyes and move onto the next thing. Obviously, I do promote online and elsewhere, but I mostly try to focus on writing worthwhile stories and snagging those good reviews. That way, when I promote, I have something to back it up. All I can do is hope that a potential reader is impressed enough to buy the book, tell their friends, and check out the other books I’ve written.
Thank you for this very informative article, Kris!
You’re welcome, Jessica. It sounds like you have the right attitude and are doing well. Getting word of mouth through good storytelling. That’s all we can hope for.
Light bulbs blinking to life all over above my head. You hit it dead on. Thank you thank you.
This is so freeing. I’ve been trying so hard to network and market, when what I really want to do is write. You’ve given me permission to do what I love.
[...] Kristine Kathryn Rusch also wrote an excellent post recently about promotion in the indie book world. The central point of this post is: only a minimal online presence is really necessary, because the best way to promote your first book is to write the next one. Find the post here. [...]
Interesting article. Word of mouth, writing more and good story telling sound like the keys I can deal with. I haven’t gone near the E-book idea yet as reader or writer.
Great post. I’m an editor for a trad publisher, as well as a 15-book published author, writing as Denise Dietz and Mary Ellen Dennis. I wish I had fifty cents for every time I’ve told one of my authors, “Please, please spend the majority of your time writing a great book.” Because I’ve noticed a trend. Several of “my” authors spend so much time promoting, the quality of their second (third, whatever) book suffers. “But, but,” they say, “if I don’t promote heavily and often, no one will know about my book.” Sorry, but that’s simply not true. A well-written book by a great storyteller gets great reviews. A well-written book gets word-of-mouth. A well-written book sells. Example: I did no promo on one of my Mary Ellen Dennis historicals. None. But it got terrific – including some starred – reviews and lots of word-of-mouth and it went into 4 printings. I can’t wait to see what it does as an ebook.
I probably have much more to say, but I need to get back to writing my next book
Thanks, Denise, for the additional confirmation. In my long career, I’ve seen too many writers ruin their careers with promotion, including several writers who artificially jacked up their numbers through mall signings, etc. These writers sold to people who felt sorry for them sitting there in the mall, not to readers who wanted to read the book. The difference? Those people never read the book and wouldn’t buy the next one. A great reader who loves your work will hand-sell it to friends and increase your sales–all without meeting you.
So much appreciated. Now I too have to get back to the next book.
A friend just sent me this article, and what a relief it has been to read it.
I’ve just jumped into the “self-publish via ebook” market and put out two collections of short stories, the first as a practice run to see if I could figure out how to do it, the second just to see if I could do it all again and do it better. And I’m ready to do a third (maybe).
But I feared I was making a big mistake by 1) doing collections of short stories and 2) by putting two ebooks out a month apart. I’m also very bad with “social networking” and worried about my inabilities there.
Now it looks like I MIGHT have been doing it right and my lack of “social networking” skills MIGHT not be a big problem.
Thanks, Kris, for this reassurance.
You’re welcome, Anna. It sounds like you’re doing it right to me.
Good luck with it all.
What a brilliant article. I love it. Many thanks for the insight – I’ve been trying to promote when I should have been writing – you’ve just made my day
Glad to help, AJ.
Promotion is highly useful if, and only if, you have a platform already. Very, very few authors have this before publishing their first book. And even then, the platform must somehow be relevant to the book written. Usually this type of promotion is free and only takes a little time. Or a successful author can do a bit of promotion to charge up an existing fan base, get them excited about a new release. Not something to get too involved with, though, or it becomes a waste. More books written = more happy fans.
Basic promotion may also be effective if you are within a community and can target that community efficiently. Again, not worth spending money or a lot of time on.
Otherwise, I agree that promotion is useless, writing more books is best in almost all cases.
What a helpful post. I have been spinning wheels following all kinds of advice to promote, promote, promote. Thanks for giving me permission to go back to writing.
You’re welcome, Maryann. Enjoy the writing!
This is a very informative post. I attend a lot of marketing teleseminars and I have to say the majority of them advise to use other strategies to earn money, after you’ve had a book published, such as doing your own seminars, workshops, coaching, etc.
But, your advise is sounder. If you’re a writer, write; the more you write the more visibility will come your way.
Thanks for the post.
You want people to buy your books because they like to read, not because they feel obligated (such as they do for a seminar). Thanks for the comment, Karen.
[...] So…what sells books?…Read more. [...]