Writers are doing it too. Most people I follow on Twitter are writers doing their own PR and marketing. Is this efficient?  They want to sell their books to me and aren’t particularly interested in buying mine.  But many retweet to their own followers, so maybe it all comes together.

I used to think Gookreads was the place to be. That’s where a lot of readers congregate, so you’d guess they’d be interested in new books, right? GR ads don’t work, though. And GR suffers from the same problem that damages internet PR and marketing for indie authors and authors published by small presses, especially since Amazon purchased GR: the Big Five has a lot more money to throw into PR and marketing for their sure-bet old mares and stallions in their stables, a lot more money than the previously mentioned authors can spend.

Internet PR and marketing works for the Big Five. In a recent GR ad blitz, I saw three ebooks that I liked on sale (all less than $6, my cut-off price), all from Big Five publishers. I bought all three, not without remorse: I’ll never be able to afford ads like that! (Same for full-page NY Times ads and trailers on TV, of course. But maybe only James Patterson is offered those?).

For every book launch, I spend something on PR and marketing using a publicist. That’s the least we have to do in order to tell the reading public we’re still writing and we’ve released a new book. But none of this really works for me…not much anyway. The campaigns are good for a few reviews and a few sales, but I couldn’t live off my writing. Far from it! (And glad I don’t have to do so.)

That’s the sad fate of most authors. There are many good books and good authors writing them, but they’re not recognized enough because (1) readership is down (and biased toward older people who are the readers—young people don’t read as much), (2) there’s a glut of books creating a low signal-to-noise ratio (our signals are lost in that noisy glut), and (3) and publicists rake in money by telling us we just don’t do enough advertising, but what they propose does NOT work.

The latter is true, in a sense, because we can’t compete with the Big Five when they decide to market a book from one of those old mares or stallions.  The above “enough” would mean advertise more than them, I’m guessing, and we can’t do that.  Indie authors can’t—they’re one person (with mnay books, it becomes worse).  Authors with small presses can’t either—they’re still only one person, because small presses can’t afford lots of PR and marketing help either. Even big traditional publishers don’t help (unless you’re one of their faves lik James Patterson).

The publishing revolution—the democratization of the publishing process, if you will—has created an ineffective and undemocratic model where, yes, authors can take charge, but no, they don’t have the resources to make their creations public. I’ve argued before in these articles that what we need are pro-bono publicists, in other words, publicists who are willing to be paid via a share in the royalties. Small presses do that with the up-front costs, but most don’t for the PR and marketing costs. And indie authors are left out in the cold.

My suggestion is now being heard a bit more because of the situation most authors face. A fellow author recently remarked, “Suggestion: if you find a publicist who ‘loves’ your work, offer them fifty percent of sales in lieu of payment.” (I won’t publish his name here in order to guard his privacy, but he deserves credit too for developing that idea independently. We’re all in this together!)  But, in a sense, it’s not about love all; it’s about business. Publicists will suffer the economic consequences when writers fail to receive the royalties they deserve for their creations.  All this is an echo of what I said years ago, and changing to a pro-bono system is exactly what must be done to complete the publishing revolution.

But it’s a vicious circle. Publicists want their money up front because they know the stats: most authors only sell a few books, no matter what PR and marketing they can afford. I’d venture that most publicists make more money off authors than their authors do with their books. The Big Five have shown that PR and marketing sells books, but authors not receiving their advertising manna don’t sell books in general.

Because of the decreasing numbers of readers, I’m sure this publishing revolution will flounder without publicists more active participation in the process.

I’m often doubtful about the effectiveness of all internet PR and marketing. I do much better on local events now that eliminate those people like publicists standing between me and potential readers. That’s not saying much (the audiences at local events can’t compare with the internet audience), but it’s a lot more enjoyable than thinking I don’t spend enough on PR and marketing, or believe it’s all just flushing money down the toilet.

Fortunately for me, I have a solid coping mechanism: if each book entertains at least one reader, I’m satisfied. That’s because I had one hell of a good time writing it!

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Comments are always welcome!

Time is running out. The 50% off sale for Soldiers of God ends Sept. 30! Targets in Washington DC?! Can an FBI agent and her priest friend stop the terrorists? This thriller about the future never is out of date. Religious fanatics threaten the nation’s capital, and a criminal mastermind is behind the scenes using them for his own agenda. This novel is a bridge between the “Clones and Mutants Trilogy” and the “Chaos Chronicles Trilogy.” Don’t miss out on this 50% off sale on Smashwords. Just use the coupon code on checkout.

In libris libertas!

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 25th, 2018 at 3:30 am and is filed under Writing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.