Category Archives: marketing/publicity

February 09, 2010   DG&B   Jessica, marketing/publicity, opinion, publishers, reviews  
14

Endangered book ads?

by Jessica

As the week begins, I am feeling decidedly under the weather; last night, I was flipping through magazines in a somewhat desultory fashion, rereading the same sentences again and again, watching paragraphs swim before my eyes, and otherwise making little actual headway. The time I failed to spend reading, however, I devoted to looking at pictures. Namely, book ads. Which are, along with the New Yorker’s weird assortment of sterling silver pet pins/pendants (who, I ask, buys the “European Beret?”), of particular interest. Book ads—whether placed in publication local or national—have long been a staple of publishers’ promotional arsenal, but I’m curious to get your take: has an ad ever driven, or even heavily influenced, your decision to buy a book?

I’m not sure that I can point to a time when an ad alone propelled me to the bookstore (or the library) though February’s Harper’s boasts a full page ad for 36 Arguments for the Existence of God that may well do the trick. I was pleased to spot a New Yorker ad for Simon Mawer’s superb The Glass Room, and I hope that it will drive other readers toward this very smart novel. But it’s difficult to measure the impact of traditional advertising—no click-throughs, no totting up eye-balls or page views. Which is why I’d love to hear your opinion. Do you pay attention to print book ads? Where do they have most impact? Do they influence your choice? And if not, what does?

Publishers, as you probably realize, do not run ads for every book they publish. Advertising and marketing dollars are carefully allocated, with big names generally commanding the biggest budgets (and sometimes the budgets, period) and usually, ads are given to books that are: 1) lead titles 2) already working 3) or have garnered such astonishing reviews that it makes sense to pay to shout it from the rooftops. Publishers rarely count on ads to get the ball rolling, but rather to build or maintain existing momentum. So perhaps an ad alone would not motivate a sale, but a good review, and interview on NPR, capped off by an effective ad in a favorite magazine (one that quotes the other review you might have missed) these might create some sort of tipping point.

Not everyone agrees with this hypothetical; indeed, there are plenty of people who think ads are essentially useless (or worse yet, expensive ways of appeasing agents and big-name authors). Whatever the reason, publishers have certainly cut back. The NYTBR is still the sine qua non, but even there, the costs of a full page ads has fallen precipitously.

When, for better or for worse, publishers decide that the traditional ad model doesn’t work (too much money for too little gain) it has unintended ripple effects across the publishing ecosystem. Falling ad revenue shuttered both the Washington Post Book World and the LA Times Book Review, which in turn means fewer influential places to be reviewed. There are, of course, many book-related sites online, but so far, none have quite the reach that publishers are hoping for.

I’m curious to know how you weigh in.

February 08, 2010   DG&B   Jane, marketing/publicity, opinion, reviews  
10

The importance of the book review

by Jane

Last week I was having lunch with the associate publisher of a major publishing house who was a bit late because he had to deal with the following situation: One of his authors had sent him a draft of a letter her husband, a lawyer, was going to send to Amazon threatening a lawsuit if they didn’t take down a negative Publisher’s Weekly review of her book.

My lunch companion managed to stop this from happening, at least for the time being. But it got me to thinking that in this age of blogging (and the internet in general), how important are reviews from the traditional consumer and trade outlets? I went online and found many, many websites and blogs that are set up specifically to “review” and recommend certain categories of books.

There is no doubt in my mind that book reviews do influence what people buy. But it seems to me that more and more readers want to know what their peers think, rather than reading the opinion of a bestselling author or an academic who might be considered more “qualified” to review a certain title.

I really believe consumers are relying less and less on the traditional review outlets, trade magazines like Publishers Weekly, Library Journal, Booklist and Kirkus (if it survives) and major market newspapers, many of which have closed their book sections–and are going to those blogs and websites established solely to review books.

I would love to know if you agree.

February 04, 2010   DG&B   advice, Facebook, marketing/publicity, Michael  
3

To profile or page?

by Michael

I’ve been waiting for the chance to sing the praises of one of my must-read blogs, The Book Publicity Blog, and I found yesterday’s post really helpful. Yen discusses the pros and cons of Facebook profiles and fan pages, helping authors (and publicists) figure out which is more beneficial, as well as pointing out that it really needs to be the author behind the profile—not a publicist or assistant. Though as she points out, the publisher can certainly help in some ways!

And if you want to learn more about book publicity, I suggest reading as much of the blog as you can. In a world where authors have to act as their own publicists in so many ways, I think this site should be on every author’s blogroll.

February 03, 2010   DG&B   marketing/publicity, Miriam, opinion, reading, what we're looking for  
16

Authors as rock stars

by Miriam

The publishing business is weird. That’s a given for those of us who toil within its ranks. It’s also unpredictable, quixotic, and often baffling. One of the things that never ceases to amaze me is the phenomenon of serious author turned “rock star.” Joshua Ferris, according to Jason Pinter, is the latest Jay McInerney, J.D. Salinger, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Lord Byron, etc., and no disrespect to Mr. Ferris, whose first book I thoroughly enjoyed and strongly recommended, but what is it about him that people find so, well, sexy? And, should that be a reason to rush out and buy his sophomore novel?

Over the years, I’ve come across many very attractive authors, many not so attractive but highly charismatic authors, and some who, attractive or not, were so shy or self-conscious or socially inept that it made perfect sense to me that they’d chosen to become writers – traditionally a solitary and vaguely misanthropic pursuit. Except, of course, nowadays even the most retiring of authors has to glam it up for the cameras, both physically and personality-wise in order to get attention for his or her work. We at DGLM have always been aware that this is a reality of the media-driven age we live in but still cringe at the thought of having to advise authors to “maximize their assets” by working with a p.r. coach on finding ways to become more telegenic, for instance. Personally, I prefer my writers to be reclusive, eccentric and odd-looking and more interested in crafting beautiful sentences than looking beautiful on Oprah, but in the tabloid era that type seems to be a dying breed.

Does an author’s looks or celebrity status influence your decision to buy his/her books?

February 01, 2010   DG&B   advice, Jane, Jim, marketing/publicity, opinion, Rachel  
8

Promote yourself

by Jim

Since Jane already noted the high stakes, high drama standoff between Amazon and Macmillan, and Rachel already discussed the death of J.D. Salinger (anyone else think he’s totally overrated?), I wasn’t quite sure what to blog about today. Then I found this pretty fascinating article from the Denver Post about the author’s role in publicizing their own work.

Tama Kieves might be a little hyperbolic with regard to her readers (“They thank God for me and I thank God for them,”) but she makes a number of solid points about the need for authors to take on a distinct amount of the burden of publicizing their book.

Though Kieves is prepared to “walk across the desert for this book,” most people don’t have the time, energy, or financial backing to be able to make PR a full time job. That said, self-promotion is a big part of the business. And though the tone of a lot of publicity discussions is increasingly negative (my publisher didn’t send me on tour, I don’t understand why Oprah hasn’t called, etc.), I think it’s actually a really exciting time to be published.

Social networking sites make spreading the word about your work cheaper and easier than ever. And for those authors who are on the shyer end, you don’t even need to actually speak to anyone to get the job done! Sure, publicity budgets may be decreasing, and your publisher might not set you up in a fancy hotel before your Today show appearance, but there is a rabid group of readers out there almost asking to be directed towards new work.

January 29, 2010   DG&B   e-books, future of publishing, Lauren, marketing/publicity, opinion, piracy  
10

Free

by Lauren

I know we talk about e-books a lot around here (and around the publishing world in general), but two of the issues we haven’t touched on quite as much as other subjects are free e-books and piracy. Two blog entries this week made me think more carefully about both issues.

First, free e-books. Mike Shatzkin over at the IdeaLogical blog dissected the question of free. As he points out, it’s generally fairly accepted by those on the publishing and agenting sides that free e-books engender more sales than they endanger, at least in the short term. (Anecdotally, back when it was available, I downloaded the free e-book from oprah.com of the absolutely stunning Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann, who regular readers will know we’re quite fond of around here. Half way through reading the free e-book, I bought a hard copy, because it’s amazing; he deserves my money and so do his publisher and agent for making it possible for me to experience it. Plus, I need to share it with people who don’t have e-readers and ultimately give it pride of place on my shelf. Noticing the really reasonable price, I also told all my friends to go buy it ASAP. I know at least some of them did.) Do you lose some sales? Absolutely. But popular consensus seems to be that you gain more than you lose, and I fundamentally agree.

Shatzkin also goes into the separate questions of how we count free downloads vis-à-vis sales, and, more important, what impact the free download has on sales and the industry overall. We know it helps that book in the short term and probably in the long run, but does it hurt all books and publishers and retailers, etc., at the same time? It’s an interesting argument—and the sort of question that always makes me worry. How do you put the genie back in the bottle, and how do you know when it’s too late? If you’re not reading Shatzkin’s blog, you should, because even when I disagree with his conclusions, he always seems to take the conversation that extra step further and never fails to look at the big picture.

And second, a different kind of free: piracy. Sure, this piece on hard copy piracy through a nefarious chain of libraries is tongue-in-cheek, but it’s an interesting counterpoint to the people whose fear of piracy prevents them from embracing a technological revolution. I understand the concern of authors who feel that they’re losing money on piracy—in a time when they’re losing money on everything else (advances, royalties, returns, self-promotion), it must be aggravating to add to the list. However, we don’t ban libraries just because someone who took the book out of the library might otherwise have bought it. I don’t know that many avid library fans even though I know a lot of readers, but the people I do know who are addicted to their library cards don’t buy a whole lot of books. If libraries didn’t exist, they probably would buy more books a year because they are big readers, but we don’t use them as a reason to ban libraries. We also don’t count every book we lend to our friends as a loss of sales, and I actually think if my friends lost their library cards, they’d probably just spend more time looking at my bookshelves. If you create something worth experiencing, some people are probably going to experience it for free. If you think you should stop that, you’re sort of missing the point, but if you think you can just by not going digital, you’re really misunderstanding how the digital world works. Piracy still exists when it’s the only option in the digital format.  (Plenty of illegal e-books are not generated from hacked e-books, so not creating an e-book does not prevent piracy.) A library reader will probably not go steal the book from their local bookstore if it’s not available at the library, but a digital reader might just download the file elsewhere if it’s not available legally. For people who find that distressing rather than just the way of the world, it might help to know that the lesson of the music industry has been: if you don’t give a potential customer what they want, how they want it, when they want it, they will find a way to get it anyway. If you can figure out how to give them what they want, how they want it, and for a price they’re willing to pay, plenty of people will buy it rather than steal it. Don’t believe me? Ask Apple.

January 14, 2010   DG&B   advice, Lauren, marketing/publicity, Michael, queries  
4

Blog publicity dos and don’ts

by Michael

Lauren pointed me to this excellent post about dos and don’ts for publicists from blogger Lindsay Robertson. The don’ts should be obvious, but sadly, it seems that they aren’t. What I found more interesting, and possibly surprising, were the dos. The rule that really caught my attention was “Pick Eight Blogs.” She suggests that publicists pick eight blogs to publicize to. Yep, just eight. By targeting the most appropriate outlets and building relationships with them, the contention is that coverage will be both better and wider. But how is that possible if you’re only pitching eight blogs? Because the bigger internet sites scan the smaller sites to find their content. And by not throwing things at everyone in sight, you can get higher-quality coverage that people actually pay attention to. Very savvy, very practical, and much more fulfilling for the publicist, I think.

It strikes me that there are lessons here for authors. By being smart and focused about submissions, whether when looking for an agent or promoting one’s own work, authors increase the likelihood of a hit. In a world where it’s easy to communicate broadly, who doesn’t appreciate a tailored message? I know that I more carefully consider the queries that are specifically tailored to me. By doing the research and narrowing the list, an author with an attractive project is more likely to find an agent.

The same is true when author goes to promote her own book. By selecting a limited number of bloggers to approach and tailoring the pitch to each blogger’s interests, an author is more likely to get serious attention. It likely takes the same amount of time as blindly contacting hundreds of people, but the quality of the hits you get will certainly make up for anything lost in numbers.

I know this is something I’ll have in mind when talking to authors and book publicists in the future, and I’m sure this concept can be applied to other aspects of book publishing and beyond.

December 21, 2009   DG&B   advice, future of publishing, Jane, marketing/publicity  
7

Know the demand

by Jane

Here is a very interesting piece written by publishing consultant Mike Shatzkin on his IdeaLogical blog. I believe he has a very good point here and one that authors should also pay attention to. When thinking about a book idea and how to present it, we all must be able to identify the potential market–the reader–both demographically and statistically.

Do you agree?

December 10, 2009   DG&B   future of publishing, marketing/publicity, media, Michael, opinion, reviews  
4

Farewell, dear Kirkus!

by Michael

I was pretty shocked to see a tweet this morning that Kirkus would be no longer. Honestly, my emotions are rather mixed. My authors’ books have fared well (I had two author make their year-end round-up of the best young adult books), while others, who shall of course remain nameless, haven’t been so lucky. Though many different people wrote the reviews for Kirkus, there was always a very particular snarkiness about their bad reviews. I don’t think any other publication can make an author cry the same way that Kirkus did. On more than one occasion I have warned an author before the review to be prepared, because if you’ve never read one of their reviews and they go after you, it can be soul-crushing.

But when they did give an author and book a good review, it always meant that much more. Pleasing them wasn’t easy, so doing so was all the more satisfying. And if you were lucky enough to get a star, well, then you knew you’d written something not just great but truly worthy.

So even though I told authors again and again that Kirkus and those negative reviews didn’t matter (and they didn’t), I’m sincerely going to miss complaining about the harsh reviews and secretly cherishing the positive ones. Farewell, friend.

December 03, 2009   DG&B   future of publishing, marketing/publicity, Michael, opinion, Twitter  
6

Moody Tweets

by Michael

There’s an excellent post up on the Vroman’s blog today about the failed Rick Moody story-tweeting experiment. The piece makes very good points about the insularity of publishing, which is something I’ve given much thought to, especially as I’ve headed out West. If the same group of people has the same conversations in the same spaces over and over again, what good is it really doing us? How do we reach new readers? How do we hear what book-buyers really want?

For me, this isn’t about the failure of Twitter to promote books (as some who have picked up on the story have been highlighting), but rather about publishing never looking outside itself for ideas, both about how to promote books and what kinds of books people want to read. It definitely got me thinking this morning. What do you think? Is Twitter just a bad way to promote books, or is there something more to be learned here?

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