The Author's Journey

Yesterday I finally had my telecon with MaryGlenn, Oceanview’s publicist, having blown off the previously scheduled meeting with no real excuse except mental fogginess due to the flu. Strike One. But in fact, the meeting went well. I outlined my plans for the launch within Second Life, and my “vision to win,” built on success in two metro markets, resulting in sales figures from Ingram (the distributor) so that the sales people can substantiate their claims of success when they move into new markets. I think that’s how things work. But I’m still learning.

And one of the things I’m learning is that – at least among the independents –  having champions is as important as having sales figures. I have heard this from more than one source. You need booksellers who will rave about your book to their bookseller friends in different states. It’s a pretty close community.

Bottom line: Success with the independents is really the only road to high sales figures. At least for me.

Back to MaryGlenn. I offer any help I can, talk about coordinating her efforts with the sales team. Does she have a means of learning where press releases and reviews have run in metro newspapers? A procedure for letting Oceanview know? She is on top of it all.

At the end of the conversation she thanks me for making sure that I don’t do anything that will step on her toes, which is a big surprise. I didn’t know that was an issue.

Today, I get a quick e-mail. “Can I borrow you for a quick telephone call?” I rearrange my schedule and when I call, she tells me she’s going to submit my book for inclusion in the Publishers’ Weekly list of notable new authors. She makes a point of telling me that she had other options but chose me. “Yuh see?” she says in her deep southern drawl, “Ah like yew.”

To be continued…

Follow me on Twitter at www.twitter.com/magicmichael (Magicmichael is my twitter name.)

Read the first chapter of Fortuna right now at www.fortunathebook.com

 Note: I’m using the blog format here to post a journal I have been keeping for some time. We will catch up to the present in a few weeks.

November 6, 2009

I can’t stop thinking about my conversation with K at Oceanview, and now I know what’s bothering me: We don’t have a strategy to win. Instead, we have a list of activities that are carried out for every book, and once that activity is checked off, we’re done.

The first thing that’s missing is numerical targets. The second is a differentiation between “push” and “pull” activities.

Push marketing is about getting product on the shelves. Barnes & Nobel has a slogan that “It’s about getting the book into the customer’s hands.” That’s push marketing. You try to influence the distribution channel. I know how this works in supermarkets or semiconductors, but I’m not so sure about publishing. For example, are there slotting fees? (These are fees you pay to get your cans of soup or bottles of gourmet salad dressing on the shelve at Safeway.) There’s so much I don’t know!

Pull marketing is about creating demand. This I can do. The launch event, if I can pull it off, will create buzz. My website will help. So will the trailer. And I am working on exploiting Facebook, LinkIn and Twitter. We need to get lucky with book reviews.

The team at Oceanview needs to start thinking this way.

Perhaps more than anything, we need a roll-out strategy that enables us to focus on markets where we can win, and then leverage the results. In general, distributors and retailers of anything only care about one thing when they make decisions about whether or not to sell a product: has it sold somewhere else?

To be continued…

Follow me on Twitter at www.twitter.com/magicmichael (Magicmichael is my twitter name.)

Read the first chapter of Fortuna right now at www.fortunathebook.com

 Note: I’m using the blog format here to post a journal I have been keeping for some time. We will catch up to the present in a few weeks.