By Anna Lewis, director, CompletelyNovel.com
LONDON: When you think of an author, particularly one who writes fiction, the image that springs to mind is not someone in a suit carrying a briefcase and a Blackberry. Unless it’s a tweed suit. And the Blackberry is actually a piece of fruit.
However, some entrepreneurial zeal to complement the creative spirit is becoming more and more important. So what are the new skills that authors are learning? And is this trend good for the publishing industry?
Authors as Marketeers
Marketing, publicizing and selling a product are not often areas that authors will be familiar with. In the UK, a nation which has a tendency towards apologizing before doing most things, blowing your own trumpet is not something that often comes naturally.
However, most publishers and literary agents would agree that when it comes to selling books, an author who makes an effort to build up a profile and make themselves known is much easier to promote than a shrinking violet. There’s a lot of noise out there and if you want to be heard, then you need to be prepared to shout.
Over the past couple of years, whilst building CompletelyNovel.com, we’ve noticed an increasing number of authors, including fiction writers, treating their craft like a business. These are authors who have used our self publishing systems to sell and distribute their books. Without a traditional publisher or PR company behind them, learning new skills, particularly on the marketing front, is highly beneficial for building their audience. It’s not just the use of social media tools such as Twitter and Facebook that has risen dramatically amongst our authors, we have seen more authors thinking strategically about marketing opportunities, taking networking much more seriously and getting on the publicity trail. Here are some examples of what they have been up to:
Cultivating Strategic Partnerships
Fiona Skovronsky was business savvy from the start and wrote a book, The Smugglers’ Caves, that tied in nicely to a local tourist attraction. She set up partnerships with local schools, bookshops and the tourist center itself to host a launch. Prior to this, Fiona had very little knowledge of marketing and was pleased to have the opportunity to learn these new skills and to sell hundreds of books in the process.
Katherine Dixson’s book, A Year Living Musically, appeals to a niche market, so she really had to think about how to reach her audience: “I’ve been able to take advantage of existing contacts in the amateur music-making field and have trawled the net for more, building myself a distribution list that I can then update with future news, issue invitations to reading events, etc. Taking a systematic, methodical, businesslike approach to promotion might not come easily to authors, whose major asset is their creativity, but it’s essential for self-publishers.”
Engaging Online
Richard Denning had never used social networking sites as a marketing tool. But, following a number of consultations with experts, he came up with a framework for the key places to target. This included creating a book trailer on YouTube for his book The Amber Treasure, something that was very new territory for him, but helped to spread the word further.
Another author, Tony Judge, has been grateful for self-publishing sites which enable him to produce professional-looking books at competitive prices. He took the time to research recent trends in publishing to inform his marketing strategy. As a result he has produced multiple e-book versions of his two novels to try and exploit the emerging e-book retail channels.
Clare Everett, who had experience in web design used blogging, tweeting and viral adverts on YouTube to help promote her book, Rigel O’Ryan and the Orb of Andromeda. She used a “surf and see” attitude: observed what worked for other people and had a go.
Creating Space for Author-Entrepreneur
As a start-up company, CompletelyNovel sees many parallels between our own experience and that of the authors that we work with. Starting up our business in 2008 was much easier than it would have been ten years ago. The availability of innovative tools developed by other start-ups and a wealth of information on the web meant that we could launch our product quickly and using readily available products, do a large amount of marketing ourselves with no upfront fees. We see a huge advantage in creating a similar environment for authors becoming publishers. It is now easy to produce quality books on demand and market them effectively through social media and other networks on a minimal budget.
We have even started running a series of “Elevator Pitches” for writers on CompletelyNovel who want to test their entrepreneurial skills. This concept of pitching your product in a very brief amount of time to investors/users is very well known throughout the start-up world, so we thought we’d try it out on the publishing community.
Why Entrepreneurial Authors are Good for Publishing
An increase in the commercial nous of authors has to be good news for publishers. Authors who have tried their hand at selling their own books, and therefore have some idea about the difficulties and need for promotion in book selling, will value more highly the work that publishers can do for them. In addition, by promoting to and contacting readers, authors will have a much better knowledge and reader base for the release of future books. If it fits with their creative vision, they can be thinking of the marketing and sales angles as they are writing their books.
We are seeing an increasing number of authors who are able to teach their publishers a thing or two about marketing. In our recent Author Blog Awards, a shortlisted author got in touch afterwards to thank me for making her publishers take her blog seriously. They hadn’t realized how valuable it was.
We need to embrace entrepreneurial writers and the innovative marketing techniques and increased engagement with readers that they encourage. We are competing in a world where more passive forms of entertainment such as film and music are ever more accessible. Entrepreneurial authors will help the publishing industry as a whole to fight back.
DISCUSS: How can Publishers benefit from the Author-Entrepreneur?
16 Comments
An entrepreneurial approach is not limited to the self-published. As a traditionally published author with a leading independent publisher, I have been active in promoting my books, setting up 85 events in the year since my debut thriller, CUT SHORT, was published. ROAD CLOSED, the second in my series, has just been published and I have around 40 more events booked so far between now and 2011. I appear at literary festivals, sign regularly at bookshops throughout the UK, and give talks in libraries, colleges, and book groups.
CUT SHORT was reprinted three times within a year, with sales boosted by great reviews. ROAD CLOSED has been reviewed in The Times of London as “a well-written, soundly plotted and psychologically acute story” that “confirms (Leigh Russell’s) promise as a writer of tight, tense police procedurals” and by The New York Journal of Books as “a gripping, fast-paced read, pulling you in from the very first tense page and keeping you captivated right to the end with its refreshingly compelling and original narrative.” But I am sure my promotion has helped, as well as being great fun!
We rely on authors who demonstrate the “entrepreneurial spirit” and most especially when they come to us without a well-established platform. We encourage all our authors to build their profiles early by using Twitter, Facebook, and whatever social and other media are available to them. Given the nature of our publishing program that comprises mostly works of prescriptive non-fiction, popular reference, and creativity, we recognize that the authors are experts in their respective fields and can help us access the ultimate consumer or identify the vehicles, whether traditional or “new” media, with which to reach potential buyers.
Publishing has always been a collaborative effort — and perhaps at one time the author’s role in this was finished with the writing of the manuscript. But that time has long since past.
The collaborators on one of our forthcoming books recently declared, “Now that the hard part (writing and editing) is finished, the real fun begins…” And they started blogging, tweeting, and posting on Facebook (in response to current events related to their book’s subject) at every opportunity as a buildup to their publication date nine months off. (They also presented a marketing plan for their book that was thorough, thoughtful, and which did not rely on a big budget.)
There are never any guarantees in publishing, but if enthusiasm and intelligent use of the media have any value whatsoever, then these authors’ work will certainly benefit — as will their publisher.
PS It would be unfair (and irresponsible) of me not to mention that the authors mentioned above are Diana Mercer and Katie Jane Wennechuk whose MAKING DIVORCE WORK will be published in December.
What’s often missing from articles like this is any mention of sales figures. I would love to know how many books the authors mentioned above have actually sold–it might put a rather different spin on things.
As a successful “old model” author who works through mainstream US trade publishers, I second Victoria Strauss’s comment. There is no doubt that the book publishing system is changing at almost every step. There is no doubt that self-publishing is a factor. However, the numbers show that most self-published books sell very few copies — most are lucky to get into the low hundreds — and that self-publishing asks a great deal from the author. Anna Lewis amusingly describes the new model author as somebody in a suit with a briefcase and a Blackberry. It was precisely to escape this persona that I turned from a sterile, unfulfilling (albeit lucrative) career in public relations to the infinitely more rewarding path of a writer.
I agree with you 100%. Some of the authors I am working with this year are highly motivated to learn and do the work. It is inspiring to work with clients of this type. I believe the entrepreneurial spirit is good for the publishing business. Let’s remember that many of these self-published authors can go on to get publishing deals for their second and third books. With one book experience under their belt, they are light years ahead of the rest. No room for shrinking violets at all!
My three self published children’s poetry collections have all won the same award – they are all ‘Choices’ for the Children’s Poetry Bookshelf run by the Poetry Book Society here in London. The Daily Telegraph (readership just under 2 million) are about to review all three collections together.
My latest – ‘The Humpback’s Wail’ has sold 600 copies in its first two months.
Great post. I think that, in general, ¨intellectual people¨ despise marketing as something more mundane, less fancy or worth doing. Many writers and intellectuals tend to think that being good enough will suffice to get word of mouth, but that is just being emotionally driven to limit options that an entrepreneurial approach would provide as leverage.
As a self-published author who had had experience in traditional publishing and advertising I have known where my priorities were when I embarked to publish my books myself. Before I could not even get an agent for one book. Now I have published twelve. One of them is my latest work, “Principles of Self-Publishing: How to Publish and Market A Book or Ebook On a Shoestring Budget” in its 2nd edition. I approach all my projects with the same rigorous attention to detail and quality the traditional publishers do, and my books are even listed with Amazon. I could not have been able to do all this without proberty and discipline. The traditional publishers would benefit from self-publishers because competition stimulates innovation and economy of scale. No longer can they rest complacent with their current model.
Nerts. I’ll buy in if publishers that abdicate marketing and publicist responsibilities to writers raise royalties from 15% to 30%. Twitter, Facebook, Scribd, et al absorb vast numbers of hours; if there is no one at the publishing house pulling down a salary to do those chores, why should publishers profits rise with even greater author effort? If the only value-add a publisher brings to the table is production, then writers would be well advised to self-publish via Kindle, iPad, Scribd, PODs, etc. Amazon takes only 30% for Kindle publications.
Interesting note.
I definitely see myself as an author – entrepreneur. My grasp of business and marketing is surpassed only by love for medicine and writing. I enjoyed reading the comments below the note particularly the one about the figures. With the rise of self – publishing, there seems to be a certain level of advice leaning towards self – publishing.
However for new authors like me, it would be good to get objective advice and be given the pros and cons of all types of publishing in order to make an informed decision.
I have recently completed my book (check out http://elizabethfbabatunde.wordpress.com/ for proof) and despite originally making the decision to self publish, I am now toying with the idea of simply sending my manuscript to traditional publishers and awaiting their response.
But if I have to do the bulk of the marketing and publicity myself which is essentially what will translate the book into sales, I suppose I might as well stick to self publshing.
Elizabeth, that’s one of the points that most authors want to skip over. Some want to think that if a person is signed to a major house, they are automatically a success. This is simply not true.
There is a thing called a back list. There’s also a thing called a marketing team. Now, if each and every author newly signed to a major house is automatically a success . . . a marketing team is completely unnecessary. Those are dollars the pub house could better spend in other ways. However, the back list, the catalog, is filled with books, and most of those books won’t find space on the brick and mortar book store shelves. This is the job of the marketing team, to sell as many of those books as they can to each book store.
There is a finite amount of shelf space to display a rather large amount of books. Each pub house publishes thousands of books each year, and there are several pub houses vying for all of that shelf space.
With that said, it’s not just up to the pub house to sell each and every book they print. Most books from new authors the pub house actually takes a gamble on. The pub house is looking for the next big thing in publishing, but they have no idea who that will be, so they take a chance on several new authors who they think have potential. However, it would be financially irresponsible for the pub house to put money behind each and every new book they publish. Business simply doesn’t work that way.
Which means each new author needs to promote their own book themselves. Which also makes sense as to why pub houses tend to look FOR those authors that have put all of that leg work in already. The pub house is betting on what’s almost a sure thing at that point. The author has already built a following.
With that said, the author could actually build more of a following on their own and keep even more of the profits.
As a traditionally published novelist with 3 books out and 1 due in October, having published with 2 different small presses for nearly ten years, I am finding this discussion fascinating, as I toy with leaving traditional publishing to publish my own future works.
There was a time when I would have rather died in unpublished obscurity, than to have published with what was known back in the day as a “vanity” press. It was costly, there were no distributors, authors humped books from event to event, stacks of stock sat in basements, it seemed ego-driven, and many felt as I did that if I wasn’t good enough for “real” publishing, then I wasn’t good enough.
But, having been published the “real” way, not once but 4 times and with 2 different presses; having garnered an agent, shopped to and waited on big houses, and spent way too much of too little royalties on events, readings, promotions, marketing, FB, Twitter, my blog site, I am seriously considering how to get the most for my energy.
With ebooks and POD options now available directly to authors, and internet companies that do much of the publishing-work: from covers to accounting, for myself, already working hard for my books/publishers,already treating my career as a business, and already having an established readership, I am coming to the place where I think self-publishing could be an exciting new path to take; however, having said this, I have done a year’s worth of research on ebooks, I have calculated my time and resources, and have weighed the pros and cons–to be sure, serious self-publishing with the goal to make money, is not something an author should take lightly.
In the meanwhile, I had to smile at all of the contributing authors’ comments regarding this topic, each has dutifully plugged the books, as will I: Cat Rising, Girls With Hammers, Babies, Bikes, and Broads, and the soon to be released, Angels & Manners–10/2010
I am a self published author of two books, both memoirs. I have had to do all the promotion, distribution, signings myself. I have met many people, made many new friends and sold a lot of books doing the promotions myself. The help I got was from my editor, who researched much of the above and is now putting both my books on kindle through Amazon. The problem I have found is the limited interest in the subject of my books. Seems to sell well here in Alaska, to tourists, and also by e-mail. I have a small mail-order business, and word of mouth sells my books as well. My editor set up my web site also. You wanted to know how many books get sold this way, well, approximately 2000 of them a year, since my first book was printed in 2006, only sold about 400 that year. But it has picked up since then. Being non-fiction books, both are about Alaska, homesteading in the wilderness with no road access, raising four small children, fighting off bears, wolves, other wild animals. They are true adventure books, and mostly sell to people who pass our homestead on the Alaska Railroad. The help I get from the Alaska Railroad is the tour guides in the summer all talk about our place, our adventures, our family, and the isolation of our property. (We have no neighbors, live on 80 acres of land, and are clearly visible from the railroad tracks.) Most people seem interested in our way of life and some buy my books from the Holland America and Princess coaches attached to the train in summer. In winter all shuts down except for a few scattered mail orders. So about five months out of the year I sell books. My problem is getting books to sell down south.
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