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I can't add much commentary as an unpublished aspirant, except that these two links both scare the heck out of me.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

[takumashii.livejournal.com]

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.

[cericonversion.livejournal.com]

Short answer: No.

Mid-sized answer: Jim Macdonald's formulation of Yog's Law remains in force. "Money should flow toward the author."

Longer answer: There are promotional things authors should be doing, and...you're already doing them. You have a net presence in your own voice. You're involved in discussions, people can get a sense of your style and interests, there you are. When you have work on the market, it'll be easy to say "Oh, that's by her, I dig her reviews, let's see what she's up to with this" and like that.

This other stuff, everything that commits you to any expense beyond what you're already doing...I don't buy it. I haven't seen it be necessary in the experience of friends in the biz or strangers I respect and follow. Which is to say, what takumashii said.