The Author's Journey

2 February 2010

I have lucked out. The shell of my blog has been created with a program called WordPress, by an entity – I’m not sure it’s a company – that seems to be an offshoot of the open source community. This means that the software is free, but it also means that the documentation is likely to be oriented towards techies and impenetrable to anybody else. Luckily, Sarah McHarry has written an online manual, also free, that is a masterpiece. So I was able to get my blog up and running in less than three hours. In fact, in retrospect, I think that, had I read McHarry’s tutorial, the blog part of my marketing efforts could have been a do-it-yourself project.

You can run your blog through WordPress, but there are a lot of advantages to having your own domain name, which I have obtained with Linda’s help. McHarry tells you how to do that by yourself in her second manual, which costs seven dollars. I think that’s an incredible bargain.

In any case, the first phase of my online marketing is in place. Visitors can get to my blog from my web site, and to my web site from my blog, but as I wanted, the two appear as two separate entities to the outside world.

The next phase is social networking (in the limited, online sense). I don’t exactly understand all the mechanics yet. The components include a “fan page” on Facebook, links from other blogs, and “tweets” – the 140-character-long messages produced by Twitter. In theory, there’s a way to automate your blog, or Twitter, or Facebook in such a way that a blog excerpt automatically gets tweeted out to all your followers. You get followers in the first place by adding a hyperlink at the bottom of your blog that allows people to start following you with only a couple of clicks. I looked today, and at the moment I have 17 followers.

But that’s not the point. The goal of tweeting is to generate a so-called viral effect. Because – and this is the key to Twitter as a marketing tool – your followers can retweet your message. There are equations for calculating potential results, based on populating modeling or simple exponential growth.

You can reach a lot of people this way. But, I ask myself once again, is this the proper focus for a novelist?

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 couple of weeks.

31 January, 2010

I have a friend who says my “default emotion” is anger. Maybe he’s right. I am furious about Oceanview’s approach to marketing Fortuna. No, that’s not true. There seems to be no other approach, short of a 6-figure campaign for a major author. What makes me furious is that I don’t have target number. S, the president, was when I asked her coy, and that didn’t help. I want that number!

I think the best path is to appeal to B., who seems to be in charge of marketing. I will try a friendly approach first. Something like:

“B, It was great getting together on the telecon, and I greatly appreciate the collective advice I got. I wanted to ask you an important question: What is our numeric target for success? I would like to have a specific number in mind for the first 90 days and the first 180 days. Using that number, I will work backward and figure out how many signings it will take us to get there. If it’s not achievable by signings alone – I don’t think it is – then I will at least know what more I have to do, either via the organic web or perhaps via paid advertising. Thanks. This is very important to me. Mike.”

If that doesn’t work, I will just take the gloves off. At last I have some leverage. The book has actually gone to press, which means they have to pay the printer, and I can’t imagine the bill will be less than $10,000. That’s enough to get the attention of anyone running a small business. They’re stuck with the books, and I’m really the only person who can sell them. So… they need me on board. And to get me on board, they have to share information, not conceal it.

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 couple of weeks.

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.

December 5, 2009

Oceanview has hired a new person to handle book signings with the chains. I give her a welcome call and, “since we’re talking” she suggests that it’s as good a time as any for her to collect information about me and my book. It’s one of about twenty books she will be working on in the next few months.

It’s a discouraging conversation. She reminds me – and I know I’ve said this about others – of a real estate agent or perhaps a printing company rep. Of course, her job is ultimately selling books, and she probably should have that superficial perky brightness that so many women in sales cultivate. However, I must say she doesn’t strike me as particularly knowledgeable. And our conversation about book signings revolves entirely around local independents, and by local I mean the San Francisco Bay Area. She asks me if there are any bookstores that would be good locations for signings. She asks me. I say in so many words, “I write books. I don’t make lists.”

I do learn from the conversation that there is rather intense competition for the privilege of setting up a card table in a book store and sitting behind it, hoping somebody will come by and buy one of your books. (These are called “meet-and-greet” signings, in contrast to readings.) You have to work at it even to get the opportunity.

There’s a term in sales: low-hanging fruit. These are the sales opportunities you go after first, the easy ones. I don’t fit into that category. Given my “platform,” or lack thereof, I’ll be lucky if I get any help from her at all.

I realize that if I’m going to get any results from the Oceanview marketing organization, I need to sell the wonderfulness of Fortuna much more effectively. I think the key is getting them to understand the significance of the trend towards online gaming as an alternative to watching TV. It’s huge. Millions do it. And it’s a phenomenon that hasn’t been well covered in the media.

I think what I have to do is launch the book in Second Life. That will attract some interest.

As a first time author with a book about to be released, I have asked myself more than once whether I would have been better off self-publishing. I have a unique perspective. My day job is marketing, which not only involves figuring out how to sell products to a target market, but also the designing and printing of brochures, “white papers,” direct mail pieces etc. that actually do the selling. I also do quite a bit of consulting for PR firms. And of course, I’ve designed and/or written the copy for dozens of web sites and blogs. I’ve also written and pitched stories to the media. I’ve even run companies somewhat larger than my publishing house.

In other words, short of literally operating a printing press, I have the skills to self publish. And, were I to succeed, I would make about ten times as much money per book sold.

Today I’m going to share my analysis of what I’m getting by following the conventional publishing path instead, along with some rough estimates of what these publisher-provided services would cost if I had to pay for them. The bottom line: For a novelist, following the conventional path makes sense.

Editing. It’s my belief that, no matter how good you are, you need an editor. At minimum, you need a copy editor just to find the dozens of typos in your manuscript. I personally got a lot more than that – from my agent, Kimberly Cameron. She made numerous substantive suggestions, many of which made the book more salable and, I would argue, quite simply better. The cost if I had hired someone: About $5,000.

Cover design, page layout and  printing. In theory, you could design your book cover yourself, which is what I did (with a significant contribution from George Foster who designs covers for Oceanview). But, realistically, most people will need to find a designer. There’s nothing all that tricky about it. You could get a decent result for under $1,000, perhaps less. There are plenty of software programs that would enable you to convert your manuscript to a printable file. Most of the formatting is automatic, although it’s still a substantial project, as you have to double-check every page. I’m guessing that I could get someone to do that work for about $1,500.

Finding a printer is easy. I found one in about fifteen minutes in central Washington (a relatively rural area where I figured the overhead for a printer would be low). If they had printed 3,000 hardback copies of my book it would have cost between $15,000 and $18,000. For me, that would not be a trivial sum. Of course, Oceanview footed that bill.

Public relations. There are plenty of PR companies and individual practitioners who specialize in publicizing books. A typical package, which would include a press kit plus distribution of press releases, interview offers and the like would cost between $3,000 and $5,000.

The sub-total here is somewhere between $25,000 and $30,000. There’s more – notably the warehousing, selling and physical distribution of the book, but I’m running out of space. And even with all sorts of cost-cutting, e.g. printing a paperback instead of a hardback, doing the PR yourself, the costs are substantial, and with a publisher, all the work is done by experts.

I would hardly say that self-publishing isn’t viable. In fact, for non-fiction it may be the best path, particularly when combined with a well-designed web-based sales strategy. But the traditional route, for all its aggravating moments, is still a pretty good deal for fiction writers.

Ellis Weiner has written a hilarious piece in the “Shouts & Murmurs” section of the New Yorker (October 19, 2009) called “Subject: Our Marketing Plan.” The piece is in the form of a memo from Gineen, a fictional promotion director at “Propensity Books” to the author of a book that Propensity has bought. If you have recently sold a book, hope to sell a book one day, or just want to know what it’s like, this is must read material. The only problem is that, for real writers, it’s not funny. It’s painful.

It would be wrong to give away Ellis’ jokes. But I’ll quote briefly to convey an impression of the whole.

“To start: Do you blog? If not… It would be great if you could post at least six hundred words every day until further notice.”

The theme of the piece is that today’s publishing companies expect an enormous amount of work from authors, everything from creating web sites and writing blogs to hitting on celebrities for blurbs to planning their own schedule of personal appearances.

Every writer I’ve talked to has complained – or at least taken note of – how much of the process of selling a book has been transferred from the publisher to the author. As I’ve noted earlier, publishers have also transferred a lot of work from their internal acquisition staff to literary agents, e.g. the substantial amount of initial editing that is typically required to get a book to the point where it’s publishable.

The question that is bound to eventually arise has to do with what the business community calls “value add.” In a tight economy, anyone who’s doing business with any other entity – a publisher, a distributor, a retail outlet – is bound to ask the question: What value is entity X adding to the process? Just to make sure the concept is clear, here’s an example: Distributors in the manufacturing segment add value by providing manufacturers with a sales force. You sell your valves to half a dozen distributors, and they in turn go through the hassle of selling those valves to the hundreds upon hundreds of companies that will actually use them. In addition to providing a sales force, distributors also keep inventory in stock (which costs money), handle the mechanics of quoting, invoicing and collecting the money, and deal with the endless details of any sales transaction, including post-sale complaints.

So, in this light, what value to publishers add to the process. The answer from this writer’s view is, plenty. In my next post, I’ll share some of the math.

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.

March 31, 2009

Flashback to the San Francisco Writers’ Conference, April 2007. An expert on online marketing is talking about his extended family. It goes something like this. “I have a nephew who’s ten, and a niece who is two. The other day I got some photos of them, and I had this realization: My nephew is the last person in my family who will ever think of photographs as something you hold in your hand and look at.” I think it was Kevin Smoker who offered this insight, although he denies it. In any case, whoever the speaker was, was right. Photos are fast becoming something you look at on your computer screen, or, more and more often, your cell phone.

This is just one example of how profoundly – and rapidly – online communication is replacing older modes. As Kevin said later on, “If you don’t have a presence online, you don’t exist.”

The corollary is, if you don’t exist, you probably won’t sell very many books.

Back in the present, I call Kevin up and ask him if he’ll take me on as a client and become my online publicist. He turns me down. He’s not doing that any more. I ask for a recommendation, and that’s how I learn about Nina Amir. He doesn’t have her contact info, but I google her name and find a web site with a telephone number.

She’s surprised that Kevin has recommended her – “He’s never done that before” – but is eager to help me, and does so immediately by recommending a web designer who will fit in my budget. It may not cost $3000 after all – although it may. I’ve yet to connect with the designer.

Nina and I agree to meet – I always like face-to-face business meetings if they’re possible – and I drive down to Los Gatos, a town at the southern tip of Silicon Valley that has the feel of an upscale shopping mall. Nina, I learn when she shows up about 20 minutes late at the restaurant where we’re having lunch, lives in a more rural setting. I immediately like her, but how much does she know about online publicity? It turns out that she knows a lot.

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.