Personally, I am extremely skeptical of anyone suggesting that (a) one must spend ridiculous amounts of time and money on self-promotion, and (b) this is the Way Of The Future.
I respect M.J. Rose, but she has a vested interest in getting people to think that authors need to market themselves hard and spend lots of money on it. I think she has the wrong end of the stick on this one.
For the other side of the coin see someone like Seth Godin, who says that the age of advertising is over and the only way to compete is to have a product that is remarkable, in both senses of the word: excellent and surprising, but also, something that people will make remarks about.
I've seen the studies of what makes people buy a book. It's word of mouth. Reviews help, covers help. The evidence is that book tours probably don't help. Bookmarks and postcards probably don't help.
To be sure, the really successful books usually turn out to be the ones the publishing house gets behind. But I'm inclined to think that it's less a matter of "publisher promotes book, book sells because of promotion" and more a matter of "book has what it takes to be popular, publisher promotes book, book sells because it has what it takes to be popular." I'm not saying that every great book gets its due, because that's clearly not the case. Some great books are less accessible, some great books are bleak, some great books appeal to a niche audience for whatever reason.
I trust my book. I trust my publisher to do a good job getting it out there. Whether that's enough, I don't know, but here's hoping.
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I respect M.J. Rose, but she has a vested interest in getting people to think that authors need to market themselves hard and spend lots of money on it. I think she has the wrong end of the stick on this one.
For the other side of the coin see someone like Seth Godin, who says that the age of advertising is over and the only way to compete is to have a product that is remarkable, in both senses of the word: excellent and surprising, but also, something that people will make remarks about.
I've seen the studies of what makes people buy a book. It's word of mouth. Reviews help, covers help. The evidence is that book tours probably don't help. Bookmarks and postcards probably don't help.
To be sure, the really successful books usually turn out to be the ones the publishing house gets behind. But I'm inclined to think that it's less a matter of "publisher promotes book, book sells because of promotion" and more a matter of "book has what it takes to be popular, publisher promotes book, book sells because it has what it takes to be popular." I'm not saying that every great book gets its due, because that's clearly not the case. Some great books are less accessible, some great books are bleak, some great books appeal to a niche audience for whatever reason.
I trust my book. I trust my publisher to do a good job getting it out there. Whether that's enough, I don't know, but here's hoping.