How to use this Page

(the previous publicity neep is behind these words).

Just because it took me a while to write this up and post it doesn't mean it's especially profound. I am far, far from an expert on this stuff, and everybody's experiences and expectations are different.

So I'll leave you with a few thoughts and invite you to add yours in the comments.

--For the author every part of the publishing process, from writing, to submitting, to the agent hunt, to launching the book, is potentially fraught with angst. The thing about book publicity that makes it perhaps the most angst-provoking is that the process, as the author sees it, is so opaque. Authors try to decode how the publishing house feels about a book from the kind of publicity effort it's given. Sometimes the author feels like she's on the outside looking in, losing control of a piece of work in which she's invested her whole self. The author's editor and publicist and agent are professionals; they know how things work. Authors often don't even know the right questions to ask.

--From a friend's email (reproduced here with permission), taking issue with my first publicity neep post:

All of us on the lower spectrum of publishing work our butts off promoting. And we don't stay out of the way. You stay out of the way, you are forgotten. We email reviews back to the publicity department, we make our own reviewer lists, we organize our own contests, we do all this insanely time-consuming crap, which I completely hate, because we know that no matter how much marketing and publicity loves us, they are working with a tiny budget alloted by a very profit-conscious publisher.

This friend and I disagree about the efficacy of this kind of effort, but as she pointed out in the same email, my own situation is not typical. She is worried: Because your average $5,000 advance newbie authors will read [your post] and expect the works and won't do the promo on their own, and then will suffer for it.

--A counterpoint, from another friend's email:

So I can't decide whether to blog about this or not but one of the saddest things at [a recent] conference was the sight of 30+ authors sitting behind tables and stacks of their books for the mass book signing [...] and no one buying them. All the [authors] in their best clothes, in a hallway far off the main lobby, and you've got your [...] other reputably published authors mixed in with the self-published or micro-published with no way to tell the difference. All of the authors had big smiles and autographing pens and little candies on their tables [...] along with bookmarks, flyers, tchotchkes, etc, all the little marketing trinkets that I find mostly useless. All pert and ready to talk to the readers who never come.

So a question. If the author does her own publicity, and she is an amateur (that is, not a professional publicity person), how does she distinguish herself from the self-published and vanity published authors who probably spend more time selling themselves than working on their writing? How does her effort make a difference to how her book does? How does she reach her readers?

--I think it's important to examine the truisms of book publicity. Like the one about publishing houses not doing enough to promote their books. Maybe not every book is getting a lead title push, but the publicity team might be doing the most they can, in their professional capacity, to push the book into the hands of its "fit audience".

--If the author hates schmoozing and giving away tchotchkes and spending her own money on publicity, then wouldn't her time be better spent writing? A very highly respected author I know via a listserv, who has also been an agency professional, says that the best thing an author can do for her career is not publicity, but writing the next book.

--That said, every author might augment her publicity team's push as much as she feels is right for her. In the comments to the first neep post, other authors pointed out that they do only what they feel comfortable doing. So maybe that's the answer. If the author feels comfortable handing out bookmarks and stopping to sign stock at every bookstore she encounters, then maybe that's what she should do. If she likes going to conventions and setting up readings, then maybe she should. Will these things make a difference to her career? I have no idea. I guess the trick is finding the right balance.

Seroiusly, I hope you'll add your thoughts on this.

(the previous publicity neep is yes, here.)

This isn't a post about how to do school visits, but on how school visits might contribute to a publicity effort. Seems like a thing for children's writers, but those LJ friends who are reading and writing sf/fantasy might want to take a look at this because it might be an underused publicity resource for some of you. As you know, there's a lot of genre crossover readership--kids tend to start reading 'adult' science fiction and fantasy while they're still kids...

Our school visit guest is Dean Lorey (guslad), the author of Nightmare Academy and all-around good guy. Here's his very cool website: www.deanlorey.com.

Dean:

"I love school visits, and I think they're really useful, but it took me a bit to get my mind around them. First, there was the fear of getting up in front of people, even kids. Maybe especially kids. Second, I wondered how helpful they would ultimately be. After all, you're often only meeting with small groups and the numbers of kids you see are really only a drop in the bucket compared to what a successful book would need to sell. Since this little post isn't really supposed to be about planning a school visit, I'll just talk about some of the benefits of doing them:

First of all, buzz. There's so many entertainment options out there that's it's hard to get people to even sample your book, so one-on-one contact is a terrific way. The hope is that your visit will convince a group of kids to read it, hopefully like it and then tell their friends. Last Fall, I visited a school in Pennsylvania that ended up adapting my book and putting on a full-length play in the community. Not only is something like that enormously fun and gratifying, but it certainly exposes your book to a wider audience.

Second, feedback. There's nothing more helpful than really getting out in the reading community and seeing what kids have to say about what you wrote. It's different from fan mail. Fan mail is almost always positive (which is nice) but chatting with a wide variety of kids in a group setting will give you a greater sense of what the majority of people think. It was eye opening for me to see what characters were their favorites (not who I had guessed -- at least in my book), what elements were most exciting to them, what they were interesting in finding out in future books, etc.

Third, experience. I recently gave a speech at the SCIBA (Southern California Independent Booksellers Association) Literacy Dinner in Pasadena. I'm not sure I would have been able to work up the nerve to do it if I hadn't spent a lot of time in front of groups of kids, getting comfortable and honing my pitch. It's enormously useful to develop an exciting way to briefly communicate to potential readers and booksellers what your book is about and school visits are invaluable in helping you to perfect it. Kids are remarkably honest and it becomes pretty clear pretty quickly what connects with them and what doesn't.

Fourth, (and finally) it's fun! Here's the bottom-line truth about school visits -- the kids are always excited to see you. Even if they haven't read your book and have no idea who you are, at the very least you're their alternative to math class. You can't help but be welcomed. :) And even though a school visit or two won't necessarily shoot your book to the bestseller lists, it's an enjoyable thing to do and it's just one of the many tools in your publicity tool box, so why not use it?"

Thanks, Dean! Later today or tomorrow, the wrap-up.

(yesterday’s publicity neep about prepublication tours is right here)

Closer to the actual publication date is when the big shift happens in publicity: the team shifts from promoting the book to the gateway people to promoting it directly to readers. Marketing to individual readers en masse is very, very difficult. It's even difficult for the publicity team, never mind for the author who is going it on her own. Melissa talks a little about this, below.

I may have a post later today about school visits, because that's one way to reach readers after the book comes out.

Sometimes part of the publicity plan is the book tour, sometimes scheduled by the publicity team, and sometimes by an author who is motivated to get out and sell her book. With rare exceptions, the publisher-sponsored book tour is unlikely for a debut author, because she has no readers yet—she might have a reading at a bookstore, but nobody will come. In cases where a book debuts very strongly and has amazing buzz, a tour on publication might be scheduled. Other events might be useful, too, like industry events, trade shows, book festivals, book signings, and so on.

Author Melissa Marr (melissa_writing), author of Wicked Lovely and the forthcoming Ink Exchange (from HarperCollins), was kind enough to write up and analyze her experiences touring in support of her first book.



Who goes on an author tour? Is it a genre thing?

It's not a genre thing. A pre-pub tour is for books they call "lead titles" by new authors. Publication tours, in general, are a different animal. My understanding is that they are based on a few things--big titles, established authors with solid followings, booksellers requests, author availability, and market factors. In looking at the summer 08 Harper catalogue, these are the tours listed: Francesca Lia Block w a 3 city tour, Neil Gaiman w a 5 city tour, Ink Exchange w a 5 city tour, Sarah with a 6 city pre-pub tour, Angie Sage with an 8 city tour, Gail Carson Levine with a 10 city tour. Of those, two (Francesca Lia Block's Blood Roses & my Ink Exchange) are YA. The other 4 are MG. Of those, mine is a 2nd book; Sarah's is a first book. The others have either a long list of titles (Gaiman, Block, GCL) or a really strong series (Sage--bk 4 in this series PLUS she also has another fun series).

Marketing says MG is easier to tour too b/c parents are more willing to take kids to signings; teens are often a harder audience to lure.

Industry events & release tours?

Industry events are another buzz thing. I think they depend on your publisher, your willingness, & your release date. My publisher ended up bringing me to BEA (June) & ALA (late June--2 weeks after release) & a luncheon with the BGI (Borders) folks (April) & a librarian dinner (fall) & book festivals &... other stuff that currently escapes my recall. That was all in addition to the tour.

If your house isn't doing this, some authors cover their own expenses to attend these, & their houses will set up signings or get them invitations to events. In other words, decide what you'd be willing to do on your own, & then say "if I come, are there any things I can do?" I intend to attend a couple events that I expect Harper won't have on my roster in 09. Plan ahead.

In addition, there are random events you might be invited to attend. I was asked to three book festivals that fit my schedule (St. Pete's Festival of Reading in FL, Brooklyn Book Festival, Baltimore Book Festival). In 08, I've been invited to a few other great events that fit--or I made fit--in the schedule (ALAN, ComicCon NY, a book festival, & Conestoga--thru which I'm setting up a "mini-con" program track for Fangs, Fur, & Fey). There may be other random events--librarian luncheons, bookstore stock signings (love these as they are very mellow), bookseller luncheons, SFF cons, library visits, school visits. That's the other side of invitations though: deciding how much you can do. I've had to block off months as "blacked out" so I can rest & write.

Why do any of this? To be truthful, some of it I do because my editor or publicist tell me I'm doing it. Some I do because it's fun. Some I do to travel more. If I don't live, I don't write, so I look for events that interest me. Then I go there for an event, & I spend part of my times at museums, listening to bands in bars, or out walking. Business & writing & pleasure can all tangle up.

You are a small business. Use a business model: a percentage of the business profit gets re-invested in order to grow the business. For me, travel feeds my creativity, so the money I set aside for events is returned in productivity. I've been oddly lucky that most of the industry and tour stuff is invitation and doesn't tap my travel budget--so I went to London and did events there for my UK publisher.

Random Signing Thoughts

It's all random. That's key to remember. Timing for tours matters; some venues are better tour spots; stock signings are beautiful things. One branch of a chain was disdainful of my offering to sign stock; another branch 30 minutes away invited me to an event. One branch of a chain had me sign several boxes and promoted the hell out of my book; another . . . Well, they explained that when (not if) my book "didn't sell it was harder to return if it was signed" (my publisher says this is not true, btw).

MANY independent bookstores (Mysterious Galaxy in San Diego, Blue Willow Houston, Anderson in the Chicago area) have been so embracing that I want to send them presents. One bookseller at a B&N (Oceanside CA) took me to dinner & drinks. I've had indie stores & chain stores where I signed almost 100 books--some of those were stock. I've also had one where I signed 12 books. There's no true pattern here. . . Except that the individual bookseller makes all the difference.

Offer to sign stock when you go to a store. Stop and say hello to booksellers when you are on travels. Send thank you cards and thank you emails. In other words, just do all those proper manners things that your grandmothers taught you :) Booksellers don't get enough thanks, and they really are the frontlines. They get your book into readers' hands.
Librarians are another key element. I went to ALA last summer, & it was wonderful. I've volunteered at my local library. I sent swag to a couple library reader groups who were reading my book. Again, it's just basic manners--thank them for their work.



Wow. This is great stuff. I'm taking notes.

Later today or tomorrow, summary post and discussion.

(yesterday's neep on prepublication publicity is right under here.)

This is another one of those atypical things. But it generates buzz and it's new and interesting, so...

If an author is friendly and willing to travel, and if her book is a lead title, the publicity team might feel the book will benefit from having the author talk to those gateway people--booksellers, librarians, and teachers--before the book comes out. Maybe they think doing so will result in higher pre-orders, resulting in a higher print run, resulting in a bigger book. I have no idea whether this actually works.

This is the pre-publication tour. It’s not a typical publicity thing, and it’s fairly new, as this New York Times article points out. The fact that there is a tour at all, it seems to me, is as important as what actually happens on the tour. The prepub tour is another marker that the publisher is pushing the book hard—a buzz generator. I’m told by colleagues that their tour accomodations were first-class all the way, which is partly because our publisher is a first-class operation, but is yet another way for them to Show Don’t Tell how serious they are about the book.

My prepub tour starts on Monday, so I don’t know a whole lot yet about what happens. I have been calling them “schmooze dinners,” which about covers it—they are dinners, generally, with some of the gateway-to-readers people. Fortunately, I have two experts who do know what happens on prepublication tours because they’ve done them. The author of Wicked Lovely and the forthcoming Ink Exchange, Melissa Marr (melissa_writing), talks about her experiences in blog posts here and here and here.

(Melissa will be back on Friday to talk more about publicity on publication).

And I’ve been looking forward to introducing my LJ friends who don’t know her yet to soon-to-debut author Ingrid Law. She talks about her prepub tour here:



My Savvy Pre-pub Tour

Sarah was kind enough to ask me to share a bit about my own recent, rookie experience with a pre-publication tour for Savvy, my debut novel coming May 1st from Dial Books for Young Readers (a division of Penguin) and Walden Media.

While I knew for some time that Savvy was going to be a lead title for Dial, there was early mention of a pre-pub tour, but nothing definite until December of 2007. Many publicity and marketing ideas were tossed around, some of which came to fruition while others did not. So I waited to hear about the tour with my fingers crossed and the understanding that it might not come to pass.

When Penguin emailed me to say they wanted me to go, I was both thrilled and scared out of my mind. As a self-proclaimed hermit and someone who hadn’t traveled on an airplane in over five years (long before the 3oz. liquid rules), I was nervous about finding the right outfits, flying every day, changing planes, taking taxis, meeting 10-15 new people every night who might or might not find me interesting, and trying to pack only carry on bags for a six-cities-in-five-days tour.

Ultimately, I had enormous amounts of fun and my confidence grew in giant leaps with every new day of the tour. However, as my confidence grew, my energy began to suffer. With early (early!) morning flights, late returns to hotel rooms after dinner (followed occasionally by long chats with my sales reps and insomnia-inducing adrenaline), and lots of incredible, rich food, by the end of the week it was difficult to put together a coherent sentence and not stare glassy-eyed. I felt apologetic to the wonderful group in Pasadena, fearing they were getting the ragged, wrung-out version of me at the end of the tour.

I never drank, though once or twice I let waiters pour me wine along with everyone else but didn’t drink it. There were always scrumptious dessert and delectable appetizers, but I actually lost a pound or two on the trip because I talked so much that I never had time to finish any of the food put in front of me at dinner, and the rest of each day was spent traveling with little time for more than a snack.

I had the chance to talk with amazing booksellers and librarians from cities in North Carolina (dinner in Raleigh), Illinois (dinner in Chicago), Nebraska and Iowa (dinner in Omaha), Washington (dinner in Seattle), and California (dinner in Pasadena). I also made a side trip to Michigan to meet the Borders buyers for lunch. Everyone I met was warm and welcoming. I tried to make sure I moved around the tables a bit to have the chance to talk with everyone, but even that was difficult sometimes.

Conversation was fun. It wasn’t like everyone wanted to talk about me and my book all the time. (Thank goodness! Though there was plenty of that as well.) The Newbery Award had just been announced on the first morning of my trip, so that was a favorite topic. And there were many stories about other books and authors the dinner guests had met at other dinners or in their stores.

I was caught off guard at the end of the first dinner when everyone pulled out their ARCs for me to sign. I didn’t expect that and I was tired and I didn’t have a pen. But it was still fun (though nerve racking at the same time), and everyone seemed very gracious about my being so new to it all.

I came home and spent the entire next day in bed fighting off a cold and trying to absorb everything that had happened. I wrote thank-you’s to my reps and to my publicist, and sent emails to everyone who’d given me their cards at the dinners, thanking them for coming and letting them know how much I’d enjoyed meeting them.

It was the best, hardest week of work I’d done since the last week of pushing through my final edits to the book. But it also reassured me that I wasn’t as much of a hermit as I’d thought I was, and that the children’s book world is filled with really great people. I also learned that I can leave the heels home next time and just polish up my comfy Dansko clogs: My only bad memory of the tour came from the blisters.

Good shoes, good luggage, a good attitude…and a good publicist! These things can go a long, long way. (Those things and a hefty helping of gratitude!) During my trip, I tried to never lose sight for one minute of the opportunity I was being given, or of the confidence Penguin had placed in me to invest so much. I pictured the people in publicity back in New York with their fingers crossed, repeating over and over: Please let her be tourable… please let her be tourable…

Hopefully, I didn’t let them down! (She says, fingers still crossed.)

Thanks for letting me share.

--Ingrid



If you want to see a picture of Ingrid’s incredibly gorgeous book, and to learn more about the book itself, www.ingridlaw.com is the place to go.

Next up! Publicity on publication, with two special guests, and then the wrap-up post, which is probably going to kill me ded.

(yesterday’s neep about technical terms is right here.)

For a long time after an author signs a book contract, she might hear very little from the publisher about the publicity plan. That is because the publicity team is focusing on other books ahead of her book on the schedule and not because they aren’t interested in her book. They are very calendar oriented. They also work very, very hard. My publicist called me at 6:00pm yesterday and when I commented that she was working awfully late, she laughed and said she worked at least that late every night.

Depending on how the publishing house does things, the author might get an overview of the publishing plan right when she signs the contract, and she might get an idea of what the publicity team plans to do six months or more before the book comes out (if you have experiences with this you're willing to share, please add a comment!). These plans can change, sometimes at short notice, as the publisher assesses and re-assesses; the author should try her hardest to remain flexible. The author might fill out a questionnaire for the publicity team about her book, her press contacts, her ability to talk in front of a group of people, and so on. About two months before the book comes out the book gets “on the grid,” as a friend of mine puts it, and things start to happen.

Caveat! This is where my experience becomes less typical.

My book, The Magic Thief, is two months from publication. It is what’s known as a lead title, which means it gets a certain kind of push--or publicity effort—from the publisher. I’m very lucky to be in a situation where my book is being pushed hard.

I suspect most lead titles are pre-determined because of the book or author’s standing. If you look at the lead titles from HarperCollins this spring, in addition to mine you’ve got the next title in the insanely popular Warriors series (my son is sitting next to me reading a Warriors book as I write this), the fourth book in the successful Septimus Heap series by Angie Sage, the sequel to Melissa Marr’s Wicked Lovely, Jenna Bush’s latest, the sequel to Anna Godberson’s The Luxe, and so on.

(An aside: I have a theory about how my book got to be a lead title, which I will explain some other time. It wasn’t one, originally. It’s partly about luck.)

So anyway, at this point, two months before publication, for any book the purpose of the publicity effort is to generate pre-publication buzz. Or getting people who are gateways to many readers--teachers, librarians, booksellers--reading the book and talking excitedly about it. It’s also to get people who have access to the author's book’s specific readership aware of the book, which may mean people in her region, or with a special interest, like fishing, or website design, or lighthouse keeping.

This is partly the purpose of a group publicity effort like the Class of 2K8 or debut2009--to get books by new authors on the radar of those gateway-to-readers people.

So anyway, how does the publisher generate buzz? In different ways for different kinds of books. As far as I can see, for a lead title they might do a combination of the following at varying times leading up to the book’s publication date. Books that aren’t lead titles might get pushed using some of these things, too:

--Send out ARC’s (advanced review copies) or galleys. The ARC is like a bound paperback, vs a galley, which is often stapled. ARC’s are sent to reviewers, to book buyers, and to potential blurbers (well-known authors who will put their name to a short sentence like, “I couldn’t put it down! And not because of the glue on the cover!”).
--Place ads in online and print industry outlets like Publishers Weekly or Shelf Awareness (but see Barbarienne's comments yesterday about the purpose of print and online advertising).
--Send the author to an industry convention like BEA (Book Expo America) or ALA (American Library Association) to schmooze with booksellers and sign books.
--Put up a microsite (a book site linked to the publisher’s website). My book’s microsite is http://www.magicthief.com. Note that it is geared now toward gateway people; closer to publication it will change into a reader-oriented site with games, wallpaper, contest, etc.
--Make the book part of an early reader program like Harper’s First Look.
--Put info about the book into the seasonal catalogue (this actually happened about six months out).
--Send the author on a pre-publication tour (more about this tomorrow).
--Include the book or information about the book in a white box mailing. Publishers have to pay to do this.
--Probably other things I don’t even know about (if you know more, feel welcome to share that info in the comments).

My assessment of this is that the publicity team is truly expert at finding every possible avenue for getting word out about the book. They do this to generate buzz, which results in lots of pre-orders, which results in a stronger start for the book.

Tomorrow, part four: the prepublication tour, with a special guest who recently completed her own tour.

(yesterday’s pragmatic overview neep is right here.)

So I did get a little controversial yesterday because I didn’t quite acknowledge the fact that my experience with publicity/marketing, as the author of a lead title, is not typical, and that this atypical experience has informed my opinions on the subject. True enough! But I do think some of my experiences are relevant. In my end-of-the-week summary post I’ll try to put together some further thoughts about the author’s role in the publicity/marketing efforts, possibly with some guest commentators. Today’s guest expert talks about this a little bit, too.

Okay!

Book publicity is complicated, so today’s neep unpacks some technical terms. Involved in the process on the publisher’s side are Sales, Marketing, and Publicity. Three departments with a general purpose—to sell books—but with specific ways of doing that. To talk about this [with my comments interjected] is today’s guest expert, barbarienne.



“Until last week I was a minion of a Large New York Publishing Company. I'm on my way to a new job next week. Fortunately, knowledge doesn't go sour quite as fast as milk.

Disclaimer: Different publishing companies call different departments by different names, so if your experience has slightly different terminology, that's normal.

Let's start with the easy one: Sales. The sales force are all the people who go around the country trying to convince bookstores to stock the publishing house's books. They go to individual bookstores, or to the buyers for major chains, covering territories that are assigned. They come armed with cover flats ("sales proofs") which have information about the book, lots of "this will sell like hotcakes because..." copy, and information about the promotion plans for the book. They also have the company catalog, listing every book for that season.

[-->SP note: the author may never see any of this stuff, except possibly the seasonal catalogue in which her book is listed (which I wouldn’t have seen if a friend hadn’t sent me a photocopy of my book’s spread). Also, she may hear Sales referred to as “the sales reps.”]

Sales people get a very small amount of time with each bookbuyer, so they focus on the sort of books they think can sell in that particular store. If the store specializes in a particular genre, they'll focus on that genre and maybe some overlap titles, and not bother with books completely unrelated.

Several times a year the company has a sales meeting, where the editors present their upcoming books and say what they're about, and who they think the books will sell to and other points to help the sales force sell the books. This is one place where the "editorial push" can kick in--the editor can convince the sales force that the book can move.

[-->SP note: My editor’s assistant made a PowerPoint about my book for this meeting. I bet it’s a stressful time for the editors...]

Very large companies have different sales people for different imprints, to help make it easier for the sales force to know about the books they're selling. Ideally, a salesperson reads all the books they're selling, but in reality they don't--I mean, who can? But certainly it helps if a salesperson has read and enjoyed a book.

Sales ultimately takes the orders for the books, though that's usually a back-office function, with a computer ordering system or reps in the office who are assigned to take orders from a list of customers.

Sales is a big deal. Getting books into the bookstores is still exceedingly important, despite the increase in ebooks and online book sales. Brick-and-mortar sales still make up about 80% of all book sales, and the gains of online sales are slowing and in theory will presumably reach some sort of equilibrium.

[-->SP note: Yes, Sales is absolutely crucial to a book’s success. The reps work very, very hard and can be a book’s champion. Because they’re out talking to booksellers they know first-hand what’s hot. They can even influence how the book looks! Sales suggested some changes to my book (really excellent ones about including some cool stuff in the book’s appendices {rune alphabet! Biscuit recipes!})]

Publishing companies pay for placement in bookstores (those front-of-store displays, the endcaps on the aisles, large posters and signs on the walls, displays in windows). It's important for the publishers and bookstores to work together for their mutual benefit, but really, the bookstore could ignore one publisher and just sell more books from everyone else. I don't know who at the publishing house handles this part of the equation, but it's probably someone at the top of the Sales department.

-------------------

Now we get into funkytown, where the different departments are less clearly defined. Marketing is sort of the overall blanket for several different areas that work in coordination with each other. The Marketing people come up with a plan for each book, what is the best way to get that particular book into the hands of the people who will want to pony up cash to read it. This has lots and lots of parts.

Ad/Promo will be the folks creating ads. Most books don't get individual ads unless they're expected to be big sellers. It's generally understood that ads don't sell books. What they do is remind people who already wanted that book that the book is available and they ought to go get it. So there's no point to buying a full-page ad in People magazine for a little-known author, but there's plenty of reason to buy one for a bestselling women's fiction or self-help author. More commonly you'll see something like the ads in Locus, where a company will promote several of their books in one ad.

[-->SP note: Locus is the trade magazine for fantasy and science fiction]

it's a funny thing, putting ads in the trade magazines--essentially the publishing house is paying to tell everyone in the industry what they're publishing, but not so much the book-reading public. This goes back to the sales force again: the trade mags are read by the bookbuyers, and this is a way to (a) remind them what books the pub house is pushing, and (b) demonstrate the company's commitment to these books.

[-->SP note: In children’s book publishing, the trade magazines include Children’s Bookshelf from Publisher’s Week; a general one is Shelf Awareness. Subscribing to these mags’ email updates isn’t a bad idea, because they can give an author a good idea of what people in the industry are talking about.]

Promo also makes the giveaways. They work with the editor to come up with toys or other items that can be sent to key bookbuyers to promote particular books. Keychains and mugs are the least of it!

-----------------

Publicity is the department that deals with the author. A book can sell on its own merits, but it also helps to get people interested in the person who wrote it. If an author is doing a signing, it's the publicity department who makes sure copies of the book are shipped to the store. (Assuming the author tells them about the signing. Work with your publicist, people!) Publicity will arrange author tours, radio and TV appearances, etc.

Now, please note, relatively few authors get the tours and so on. See above note about advertisements not selling books, but merely alerting readers that a book they already want to buy is coming out. Author tours are similar, though of course this is not an absolute. If an author has regional appeal, or the company really thinks the book will do well and the author is charismatic and interesting, then a lucky few authors will get signing tours even if they're relatively new. It mostly depends on if your book is in the "we think we've got a winner!" category, or in the "throw this spagehetti at the wall and see if it sticks" category. It varies widely from company to company and editor to editor. (Editor to editor? Yes. Editors have different degrees of clout. A editor with a track record of bestsellers has a lot more clout within the company.)

Nonfiction authors will often get the publicity push (if they present well) because their book sells by topic. The writer is not the draw: the book is.

Fiction falls into a genre until an author builds a following, and then it's no longer "a legal thriller" but rather "the next John Grisham book." That's a brand-name effect, and the author's name becomes a draw.

I'm sure I'm leaving out fine details and other sales-and-marketing strategies, but this works as a general overview. In short, these departments are interrelated and interdependent, but they are essentially the part of the company that works to connect the book to the cash-paying reader."



Thanks, Barbarienne! I don’t know about you guys, but I find this stuff really interesting.

As the week goes on, I’m going to refer to Sales, Marketing, and Publicity as the publicity team. If there are other technical terms you’d like defined, do mention them in the comments. I might not know the answer, but if our expert is around she might, or somebody with more experience might.

Next up: Prepublication publicity.

(Yesterday’s brief intro is here )

Book publicity/marketing is a tricky subject to talk about because every book is different and is promoted in different ways by its publisher, and authors tend to be sensitive about how their book is treated, how much attention it gets. There’s a wide perception among authors that publishers are not doing enough to promote books. It’s worth remembering that publishing is a business, and publishers will promote books in certain ways in order to make the best return on their investment. (It’s not quite so cut-and-dried as this because editors and publicity types do fall in love with books in unbusinesslike ways, but for the sake of this neep let’s say this is how it is).

Before I go any further, I should say that all of what follows is my perception of a process that is (I suspect) made intentionally opaque for authors by their publishers. For example, I hear anecdotally that editors often will not tell authors specific numbers about print runs. When asked about how many ARC’s Harper did for The Magic Thief, my editor told me, “Oh, a lot.” And really, I don’t need to know any more than that. Doing publicity/marketing for her books is generally not the author’s job. Her job is to write, and to work with her editor to make the book as good as it can be. Once they’re done with that, it is time to let go and stay out of the way while Publicity, Sales, and Marketing (more about them tomorrow) do the work they know how to do far better than the author does. At the center of the book publicity is the book, and, except in specific cases, like an author with a platform (some sort of pre-existing celebrity or a relevant and compelling personal story) or a particularly photogenic face, the author is antecedent to the publicity process. She might be called in by the publicity experts to serve the publicity process, but she is not in charge of it and not at the center of it.

[EDITed to add: see below for some comments on this, about the author's role in publicity/marketing. The can of worms!! More on this tomorrow, too]

So. Onward!

Books have specific audiences; not every book is going to appeal to every reader (duh, right!). Some books will work well for middle-school girls, and some will go after that elusive high school boy readership. Some are “quiet” books; some are Newbery award contenders; some are polished literary gems; some are “issue” books. Some books come out from small presses that have to choose very carefully which books to promote, some from giant publishing houses with enormous resources so they can throw lots of spaghetti at the wall to see what sticks. Some books, for reasons having mostly to do with serendipity--timing, subject matter, the state of the market--have the potential to reach a wide readership and thus make the publisher a lot of money--they’re commercial books.

The job of the publicity/marketing team is to get each book into the hands of its “fit audience,” as Milton called it.

In doing this, each book is treated differently. My sense of it is that there are template publicity/marketing plans, and the book is categorized and slotted into that plan—what has worked best for that kind of book in the past--and I suspect each template is tweaked to better serve each book. So a good educational read might have publicity geared toward teachers, and the author needs to be ready to do school visits. Another book might be a great summer read so is pushed at librarians as they’re making up their summer reading lists. Another might be a perfect fit for Black History Month in January.

My other sense of this is that even before the book is purchased the publisher is starting to think about publicity/marketing, in that they’re thinking about potential audiences (hmmm, girl readers are tiring of “issue” books, but historical fantasy might be heating up... or Last fall’s XYZ did really well and this book might reach the same readers... or Us muz srsly do first buk writtun in LOLCat!!1!).

A lot of times the bare bones of a publicity/marketing plan is printed right on the back of the Advanced Review Copies of the book. You can get a good sense of what kind of promotional effort books are getting by taking a look at the back of an ARC or at a seasonal catalogue.

So there are some general thoughts to start with. Here’s the schedule for the rest of the week:

Tuesday: Defining terms (marketing/publicity/sales, guest post from a friend who works in the industry)
Wednesday: Prepublication (ARC's, ads, "buzz")
Thursday: Prepublication tour (possibly recent prepub tour author as guest poster).
Friday: Publicity on publication. Two parts. One, Dean Lorey on school visits, and part two, Melissa Marr on the book tour and/or on-publication publicity).

Throughout this week-long discussion, I hope you’ll share your experiences in the comments if they are different (or if they're the same!). Despite the opinions, this is really meant to be descriptive and informative.

Excelsior!

“That’s the most adorable thing I’ve ever seen in my life.”

“heheheheheeeee.. it’s attack hamster!”

“HAH! That is classic!”

“We should call this comedy Friday”

“LOLcats are so funny. There’s zillions of them too, and they’re all from a site in our Fun Places to Visit List called ‘I Can Has Cheezburger?’”

“I vote we should include at least one lolcat with every Ten Update Friday!”

“Ooh! Me second!”

“Let’s see what the kittehs think”

“Yay for kitties!”