July 07, 2010 
DG&B 
Rick Riordan is likely a household name to anyone with young readers at home. His Percy Jackson series of middle grade fantasy novels have sold millions of copies around the world. This article goes into some detail about his publishing history. What’s interesting to me about this piece is that they talk about how just a few years ago he was clearly a mid-list author, with a series of adult detective novels that had sales that were modest at best. He moved into children’s publishing after some inventive storytelling shared with his son, who recommended Riordan turn the tale into a book. Then The Lightning Thief hit in 2005 and became an incredibly successful franchise. It’s a wonderfully inspiring and uplifting story to me because not only is this guy super talented, but he had a sales track to overcome before taking his career to this next level. Granted, it’s easier to move from adult to children’s to make this happen, but it’s still an incredibly positive success story (you know how much I love to share those). I think this article is stretching the boundaries of comparison by suggesting that the books are a publishing phenomenon, but not a cultural one. By any measure, these books are a whopping success, and even though the movie didn’t do as well as one might hope, there are more books to come and many more opportunities for new fans to come to the table. Speaking as a publishing professional, that seems like a pretty good place to be for the author, his publisher, and his agent too.
Category Archives: Stacey
Expensive covers
We’ve talked a lot on our blog about covers, but I haven’t weighed in yet, and it’s always a topic that people seem to have strong opinions about. A book of mine whose cover changed no fewer than half a dozen times throughout its development, just changed again after it went to print when they learned that one of the images didn’t print well! I was also able to catch glimpses of the photo shoots for a couple of my books recently, from Matt Bites and editor Justin Schwartz.
So I thought this recent piece from PW was timely and pretty interesting to learn a bit about how much thought and discussion takes place before the shoot to get it just right. There are so many people to please, and so many subjective thoughts on what makes a cover work, or not work. This particular piece focuses on a YA series, and they emphasize just how important the cover is for this market, and perhaps the most interesting piece is at the end when they disclose how much money they spend on a shoot like this. Given slashed budgets and limited resources, it’s amazing to me that publishers are willing to spend so much on the jacket. Of course, this is for an established series so they pretty much know it’s going to make money.
I’d love to hear what our readers think about this. Is it worth it to spend up to $25,000 on the making of a jacket?
Rejection inspiration
I always like to see success stories, and I know our readers do too. This one really serves as an unusual and inspiring path to publication. Years of rejection, professionally from her writing, and then personally from her husband, led Laura Munson to an essay in the New York Times that landed her a book deal with Amy Einhorn’s successful imprint (publisher of The Help) within 48 hours. That is definitely my idea of rejection inspiration!
Paranormal lives on
I’m going to finally meet a client of mine whose YA paranormal trilogy I recently sold to Harper. This recent piece about the ongoing and continued appeal of paranormal is worth reading if you have an interest in this category, and even if you don’t. Many prominent editors and publishers are quoted and share their insight on why so many of these books are thriving, how broad the parameters are for what will work, and it goes on to discuss how these authors and their editors are making an impact online by connecting with their fans. I am confident and hopeful that the interest in paranormal will continue so that more readers will enjoy these escapist, entertaining, and often well executed stories, many of which come from our own DGLM! If you have favorites that you think we’d enjoy, please share and we will check them out.
Publishing myths uncovered
I came across this recent piece by former editor Erin Brown about the top 10 publishing myths that I wanted to share. She talks about a number of very interesting topics that are worth thinking about at any number of points in your publishing career. There’s advice that’s applicable to published authors about the market and what kind of support they are likely to get (or not get) from their publisher. And there is a lot of good advice for unpublished authors about the process, and especially from a personal perspective, about agents (yes, you need an agent and bigger is not necessarily better! See cute illustration).
I feel like most of them are just discussion starters, like #4, Publishers take care of all your marketing and publicity. I tell all of my clients that the reality is that if we are able to find a publisher for their work, that publisher will do very little to market and promote their book. It has less to do with lack of interest or enthusiasm, but rather that they have limited resources, including staffs that have been cut but are still responsible for the same number of books to market and promote. Plus more and more the books that work (certainly on the nonfiction side) have author platforms that enable books to practically sell themselves.
I also tell clients that if they are able to hire an outside, freelance publicist from their advance or other savings (this can be expensive, but can also be well worth the investment) that they should consider it seriously and discuss it with their editor and agent to see if it makes sense for that particular book. If you do hire a publicist to help launch a book, they work for you and have your interests in mind, and can work with the publisher’s publicity department to coordinate efforts and avoid duplication (important!). I can’t tell you how many authors I’ve had who have had bad experiences with their well-meaning but overworked in-house publicists.
Take a look and let us know if you agree or disagree with her ideas, and either way, I think they bring up some interesting food for thought.
Summer reading for kids
Now that unofficial summer has begun, I find myself thinking about all the things I want to do that I don’t have time for this summer, including lots of summer reading for the whole family. Because my oldest daughter is starting kindergarten in September, I thought it would be fun to check out this summary from about.com for a varied assortment of summer reading lists for kids. It’s a very eclectic collection of lists, and titles, and I’m hoping to be able to track down at least a few new books for us all to enjoy this summer, before it’s too late and we’re talking about back to school!
Creative marketing
I found this little piece in the Metropolitan section of the Sunday NY Times and thought it was worth sharing. I’ve noted before when I’ve found authors employing unique marketing tactics because I think it’s really interesting to see what people come up with in such a competitive marketplace. This one definitely falls into that category. The author Jennifer Belle hired several dozen actresses to read from her new book, THE SEVEN YEAR BITCH, at various points around the city. 600 actresses responded to the casting call! Now we’ll have to see if the clever idea translates to book sales. Since she’s a previous bestseller, there’s a good chance she’ll hit the list again, and while it’s pretty difficult to determine cause and effect between publicity and sales (minus an Oprah appearance), the fact that the Times picked it up suggests it’s having its desired effect. I’d love to hear about any other unusual, high concept, creative author marketing ideas you’ve come across in your travels. I will personally be attending the Junie B. Jones Stupid Smelly Bus event complete with an actual bus at a very cool local bookstore, Books & Greetings, this weekend with my older girls. We’re looking forward to seeing some creative marketing in action!
Sh*t My Dad Says
This might be old news, but the fact that Justin Halpern’s book based on his tweets about his dad is making its debut at No. 8 on the New York Times list this weekend is just incredible. This article goes into detail about the book, currently #25 on Amazon, and the sitcom scheduled for next season starring William Shatner. Wow is all I can say about the whole thing. This proves that all you need to make it is a really crass dad with a smart, funny writer for a son, and a quirky, catching idea. The Internet will do the rest.
Diamond in the rough
I know we’ve all talked a lot about self-publishing and what it means for the more traditional, old fashioned book business, and I’m not really interested in getting into the pros and cons of self-publishing, but I thought it was worth exploring this topic a little bit further and see if there are ways to address how the two worlds can come together.
What prompted by interest in the subject was a few things that came up around the same time. First, I read this piece about the rise of self-publishing and how the digital age is somehow making self-publishing more respectable. I’m not sure if I agree entirely , but she makes some interesting points about how far self-publishing has come. Then, I saw this in Publisher’s Weekly about an entire trade show for self publishers and authors who have either published this way, or plan to, or for anyone curious about what it’s all about. Finally, and perhaps the most interesting piece of all, I had lunch with a prominent editor recently at a major commercial house who told me that they had recently done a deal with an author who had previously self-published her book. We talked a little bit about it, and when I asked her if the book had done very well in its self-published life for them to consider reissuing it, she told me that it hadn’t sold particularly well, and the numbers weren’t all that great. So I asked her why in this ridiculously difficult market did they agree to publish it? Because it’s really good, she told me. Oh, how simple. And how refreshing!
I continue to believe that there are untapped talented authors lurking out there publishing books on their own, in some cases quite successfully. I’ve signed up several self-published books over the years, and it’s been a bit of a mixed bag. One author was self-publishing her novels successfully long before it became fashionable, or as easy as it is today. When she chose to reach out to traditional publishers, we got her a very nice six-figure deal for two books with a commercial publisher, and after a few years of feeling increasingly frustrated by the lack of control over the publishing process, she decided to go back to self-publishing. Another was a cookbook that I resold successfully to a division of Random House, and the book has sold fairly well and looks like it will backlist nicely. A third was a nonfiction self-help book that had some great elements and an author who promised to support the book financially, but I wasn’t able to make it work. I am fascinated and intrigued when I hear stories of self-published books selling to traditional publishers, in some cases for a lot of money or with a big promotional plan in place. And I’ve thought over the years about trying to find self-published books that have done well in an effort to find new clients and new projects. If an author has gone through the time and work required to publish on their own, they have already shown a commitment to their work, and if the stars are aligned in just the right way, maybe we can help them in their efforts by matching them with a traditional publisher who can offer much greater sales, marketing and distribution support. In the perfect storm effect, this can be a major win-win for all parties. Look at The Shack as an example.
There are so many books self-published every year (the stat of 764,448 titles last year is staggering) that there still needs to be some sort of filter to find the quality over quantity. Other than the books I’ve worked on, I haven’t read many self-published titles, and I’d love to learn more about what’s out there. Do any of you have any recommendations for self-published books you absolutely loved?
What do men want? A poll–and a prize!
Following up on my blog post from last week and based on some of the comments we received, I thought it would be an interesting exercise to ask our blog readers, men in particular, or the women who love them, what it is they’d like to see more of, and/or less of in the marketplace. Reader David Jarrett brings up a good point that a lot of what’s published today is derivative of other, successful books or authors, and often not even written by those original authors. But because they’ve become a household name, it’s easier to sell the “branded” version of an author’s work than an original work by an unknown writer. I read one of these for our work book club once, and I found it almost unreadable, lacking any depth or originality, a complete by the numbers exercise. It’s a frustrating thing that we are all forced to deal with, but it’s a reality of the current business model.
So I’d like to know what our male readers really want to read (which categories specifically on the fiction and nonfiction side), what they see lacking in the market, what they see too much of in the market, and what they would feel excited to spend their money on. I’d also like to see positive and negative examples of books they either loved or hated, and why.
Then if I (or any other agents here) sign a new project up that falls into these categories, I will gladly reference this blog post and let editors know there are lots of men out there who are excited to buy and read interesting, original, thought-provoking books in any number of categories, and we need to work harder to find them! As an incentive, I will choose one person who responds at random and send along a copy of a recent DGLM title. Thanks for taking part in our discussion, and in our ongoing effort to make the book biz a better place.