Market your books?
Molly Malone was a fish monger who marketed her cockles and mussels through streets wide and narrow, but should authors become book mongers? Molly was probably a lot better at selling her wares than authors are at selling their books. We’re good at writing. Most of us hate the rest and aren’t that motivated to do it. That leads to marketing gurus taking advantage of us.
Various gurus make a lot of money doing just that. (I could name names so authors could avoid them, but that wouldn’t be nice, would it? Write me if you need a list.). They’d answer, “Yes, you have to market your books, and we’re the ones who alone have the secrets about how to do it successfully.” BS. They all want your money upfront, and most of their secret methods are outdated and fail. They weasel out of those failures by blaming the authors, of course.
I market intensely when I launch a new book. I contract that out, and the lady who helps me is efficient and delivers, all business and making no promises. I appreciate her honesty. Her packages are also reasonably priced. I’ve worked with her for years, and she’s helped with both my traditionally and self-published books. In the wild seas of book marketing, she’s my rock that keeps me above the threatening waves.
Frankly, the dice are loaded against me and most authors, and no marketing guru can change that. The fundamental problem is that there are now too many books and too many authors that readers are overwhelmed by the offerings. They have no effective way to separate the wheat from the chaff, and there’s a lot of the latter. I know from experience. I’m an avid reader, and I’m constantly bombarded with offers of reading material, so much so that I’m overwhelmed and start looking for ways to tune out all the noise. I suspect every avid reader faces this dilemma.
As an author, I wave the white flag. What’s helped me conclude all those marketing gurus are basically worthless is they don’t believe in their own methods. If they did, they’d offer some kind of royalties-sharing plan—let’s sell books together and make money as we do. Consider a self-published book where I get 60 to 70% royalties. I’d give them 20% for a year. That should be time enough for them to prove the efficacy of their methods. Like the old snake-oil salesmen, they’re not interested in that—they want their money upfront!
Traditional publishers could make the same offer. Oh, yes, they usually take 80% or more of the royalties already, saying their investment in upfront costs (editing, formatting, and cover art) makes that reasonable. But I shouldn’t have to give them any more then to get marketing help, right? After all, if a book doesn’t sell, they lose more than I do! They could go to those same marketing gurus and make the offer of royalties sharing using their 80%. They don’t. They expect the author to do it. In fact, they send out recommendations for authors to try…using the authors’ money, of course.
So what’s an author to do? I’ve adopted a new policy. I don’t like to be bombarded as a reader, so I refuse to bombard other readers with “Read my book!” messages. I’m using a more novel tactic (pardon the pun); I’ll focus on all my books, but without bombarding readers. (The exception is that book-launch marketing, of course.) This is mostly done with blurbs at the end of these blog posts and showing cover art here and there. This limited effort comes from the belief that my writing books in different genres—mystery, thriller, and sci-fi novels—and all these are “evergreen,” will appeal to a wide demographic of readers. (“Evergreen” means the book is as current and fresh as the day I wrote it.)
Some authors focus on the first book in a series. That’s not a smart tactic (another way the gurus are wrong!) if each book in a series is truly independent of the other books in the series (something every author should strive for), with only different themes and plots—singular crimes with different motivations; different settings, action, and conspiracies in thrillers; and different worlds in a sci-fi novel. At the same time, authors can promote the entire series if the number of books is small enough (Grafton’s alphabet series wouldn’t qualify!). With ten books or so in their oeuvre, that implies a lot of variety, increasing the probability that browsing readers eventually see something they like.
Sure, I’ll continue my minimal book-launch efforts. When the new book is in a series, it’s supposed to help sell the previous books in the series. All the gurus say that, but I’ve yet to see it happen. But at least such book-launch campaign says a new book is out, and, if it’s another book in a series, it will remind readers there is a series.
Of course, no author should spend a lot of time doing this! The real fun is in the storytelling!
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Comments are always welcome!
Death on the Danube. Esther Brookstone and Bastiann van Coevorden are on their honeymoon cruise floating down the Danube when a mysterious passenger is murdered. Because the Danube is international waters, Interpol agent Bastiann takes over the murder investigation. This third book in the “Esther Brookstone Art Detective” series lets the reader follow more unique adventures of this crime-fighting duo full of mystery, suspense, and thrills. Come take a romantic cruise with the two sleuths. Available in all ebook formats and print (the print version is coming soon).
Around the world and to the stars! In libris libertas!
