Industry links

[megwrites]

Rethinking the Publisher/Author Relationship by Robert Miller which is a response to M.J. Rose's "Publishers Must Change the Way Authors Get Paid".

I can't add much commentary as an unpublished aspirant, except that these two links both scare the heck out of me. It makes me wonder what you do when you really don't have the financial resources to devote to marketing for a book.

I mean, what happens to you as a writer if you need to take that advance and use it on rent and medicine and food? Even with a day job, many writers are in dire financial straits. If they can't devote financial resources to advertising and marketing, are they just doomed to failure?

Like I said - scary.

ETA: Fixed borked HTML

Comments

[fiction-theory.livejournal.com]

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.

You wouldn't happen to have links to these studies, would you, because I'd love to see them for myself. Especially the ones about which kinds of advertising is effective and which isn't.

I have to say, as a reader, this makes sense. Because the word of a trusted friend or source is worth a lot more to me than TV advertisements or posters or any of those things, and in fact, sometimes big advertisements for books turn me off.

Still, I know that you have to get the word out about a book somehow.

Like I said, I'm unpublished so this is beyond my area of expertise.

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.

If I might ask, do you think your publisher is doing a sufficient job of getting it out there, are they doing their fair share, do you think?

[takumashii.livejournal.com]

I know there's better studies out there, but there's this from Zogby:

When asked about their most recent book purchase, 43% said the book's subject was the most important factor, followed by the author (29%) and a good recommendation or word of mouth (11%). When asked what makes them want to buy a book, 60% said suggestions from friends and family members, while nearly half (49%) said they are influenced by book reviews.

(http://www.zogby.com/News/readnews.cfm?ID=1513)

I agree that you have to get the word out about a book, but primarily through a couple channels that are out of the author's control: whether the chain bookstores buy it, and whether the publisher buys any special placement for the book; reviews in the major publishing and library magazines too. Even though only people in the industry read them, they're the ones who are in a position to talk a book up to everybody. Book blogs are great things--and somewhat dependent on having your publisher send out ARCs.

I'm still about nine months away from my release date, so I feel like it's a bit early to say how my publisher is doing on promotion, but they're sending me a bunch of ARCs to use, and one of the sales reps is really behind my book. Also, it has a lesbian main character and it comes out in June, and I'm not sure if that's an intentional marketing thing but it pleases me, because the Union Square B&N had a big display of teen GLBT books all this past June.

[takumashii.livejournal.com]

I'm going to back down a little from what I said earlier, because I reconsidered that I'm most familiar with YA, and doesn't necessarily apply to adult SF/F. There are more mass market paperback originals in SFF, and those have such a short shelf life, and don't usually get as many trade reviews, and often don't get enough display space in bookstores. (I'm not actually sure whether they do ARCs or not....)

So I do think that writers who get published as mmpb originals may need to hustle harder on their own behalfs.