Do Something

By Joe Konrath

Many writers, both newbies and pros, engage in some sort of self-promotion.

The reason for this seems obvious: the more you do, the more books you'll potentially sell.

But the vast majority of those who self-promote are doing so with ignorance. They feel they must do something to help their careers, so they look around at what other authors are doing and adopt their methods.

The word lemmings comes to mind.

While I am a stalwart proponant of bettering your career through self-promotion, I've noticed that the difficulty--and resulting dissapointment--most writers are encountering has less to to with their hard work than their apparent lack of goals.

I can say, "Go self-promote," but that doesn't mean anything unless a writer has specific goals in mind, and a plan to attain those goals.

In other words, writers who feel compelled to do something will go out and do something, but their something does nothing for their career.

You must start with a plan. And the plan must be carefully thought-out, with goals more specific than "sell some books."

Let's look at a few standard writer self-promotion strategies, and why they suck. Then let's see if we can make them not suck so bad.

Doing a Booksigning. Bestselling authors and booklaunch parties aside, why do writers believe they'll actually get a crowd at a signing? Have you ever been to a booksigning by an unknown author? If so, how many people were there with you? What brought you there---publicity, or random chance?

While on my tour, I ran into six other signings. One was a multiple author event, with seven authors at tables near the front of a large chain store.

None of these signings attracted even the smallest of crowds, and in each case I handsold more books in each of these stores than the author did, and I was only there for 15 minutes.

Revised Goal. Assume every booksigning you attend will be dead. What should you do? The secret to a successful signing isn't a bowl of candy, or a big poster, or a lot of publicty. The secret is getting up out of the chair and shaking the hand of everyone who walks into the store. If you can't do that, don't do booksignings until you're an NYT bestseller and will draw a crowd. Save your time.

If the thought of meeting strangers terrifies you, use something to break the ice. I give out signed drink coasters. Bob Morris fries up conch fritters and mixes rum drinks (this costs some bucks, but he always sells well.) Brian Pinkerton stays a minimum of four hours, often longer, and passes out bookmarks made from laminated strips of his handwritten first drafts. The writer needs something to say other than "Buy my book." What is it you're going to say?

Touring. Book tours cost mega dollars, and recoup very little. Yet writers are conditioned to believe that they need to tour. Let's break a tour down, cost-wise. Eight cities, eight scheduled events.

Let's go cheap, and figure each plane ticket is $150. Times nine (which is the trip back home) is $1350. A rental car at each location is $40, coop for each bookstore is $50, and a food stipend is $30 per day. Hotels can range from $50 to $150, depending on the city, so let's average it to $100. So the minimum cost of this tour is $3110.

A publisher profits about what you do per book, about $3 a hardcover, sixty cents a paperback.

In order to justify the cost of the tour, you'd have to sell 1036 hardcovers, or 129 in each location.

If you sell thirty at a location, you're doing very well. Consistently selling over a hundred hardcovers is almost unheard of.

Now there are some intangible benefits to touring, just as media exposure and publicity, meeting some booksellers and some fans, and signing stock. But I still find it hard to justify the cost vs. benefit.

Revised Goal. Decide what the point of touring is. Getting publicity is always good, but there are a lot of hurdles a reader must overcome to go from hearing you on the radio to visiting you at a signing. Meeting fans is great, but meeting people who have never heard of you may be even more effective. And if those people are booksellers, you've recruited a sales force. Selling books is important, but chances are you won't sell many, and certainly not enough to justify the cost of the tour. Signing stock may help your sell-trhough, but if the stock is more than 20 copies you're probably going to get returns.

My goals for my last tour were specific. I wanted to meet as many booksellers as I could and explain my series to them. I wanted to sign stock and encourage them to keep me stocked. And I wanted to impress my publisher.

The cost of me visiting each store was $5.91, compared to $388.75 per store for a tradional tour. In some cases, I recouped the cost immediately, by selling a few books, or getting a free cappucino. A few hundred of the stores ordered more copies of my books after having met me. I met 950 booksellers (compared to perhaps 40 on a traditional tour) who now know me and my books.

The immediate effects of my tour were free coop placement in high traffic areas, 4000+ signed books which will have a better sell-through than unsigned books, and future word-of-mouth sales from the booksellers, including several who will go on to sell hundreds of my titles.

The long-term benefits can include broader name recognition, future speaking opportunities, a buzz in the writing community, a lot of word-of-mouth among fans and peers, and hopefully a bigger promotional budget for my next book.

Mass Mailings. Authors get ahold of mailing lists, either through a writer's organization, buying the list, or compiling it themselves. Then, when a book comes out, they send out a newsletter or postcard.

Mailings are notoriously poor ways to sell books, and I've heard statistics that they only have between a 2% to 12% success rate. Crunch those numbers. With stamps at 39 cents, and the cost of printing postcards or newsletters, you can be spending 70 cents to hopefully sell a paperback that will give you 60 cents in royalties. And this will only happen, at best, 12% of the time.

Have you ever bought a book because you received a mailing? I haven't. The slickest of them (I'm on Evanovich's mailing list) are mini magazines, offerening articles, reports, tour dates, and info about current and upcoming books. The Janet can afford to send this out. Chances are, you can't. Nor will yours be as effective, because The Janet has name recognition, 30 books in print, and keeps the costs down my mailing 300,000.

Revised Goal. If you're going to target someone with a mass mailing, target what Julia Spencer-Fleming calls the force multimpliers. These are librarians and booksellers. In fact, while on tour, I was at an indie store in Florida when the mail came, and watched the bookseller open up one of Julia's mailings, which reminded the booksellers that Julia's new book was coming out. This is a much more effective use of your mailing dollar.

Like The Janet, Julia had more in her mailing than just a jacket photo and some blurbs. She had an interview with another author, some reviews, and a detailed description of her backlist. Plus, sharing costs with another author made the mailing twice as effective, but half as expensive.

Build an Internet Presence. You've heard it many times. All writers need a website. All writers need a blog. All writers need to belong to mesaage boards and listserv and newsgroups. All writers need a MySpace account.

Well... why? What is the reason you have any of those things? If it's to sell books, you're mistaken. A very small percentage of books are sold on the Internet (I've heard that all Internet sales combined account for less than 10% of books sold.)

These days, everyone is on the net. Everyone has some cyber real estate. But this doesn't directly lead to book sales. It probably won't even lead to return visits, unless you have something that keeps people coming back.

Revised Goal. Target a demographic. The fact is, most writing blogs are read by the same 400 people in the publishing industry, and most author websites are simply 24 hour brochures for their books. Neither will help increase your fanbase.

MJ Rose, who knows a bit about self-promotion, understands this. She realizes that an Internet presence is a way to build name recognition and brand awareness, along with buzz. She also realizes that shouting "Buy My Book" has no effect at all on sales. So MJ's focus online is to offer information and expertise. People continually revist her blogs to learn things, and each day new people find her via search engines, links, and word of mouth. When she does a promotion, as with her current book The Venus Fix, it becomes an event, complete with contests, give-aways, charity donations, and the cutting edge of Internet technology. MJ isn't targeting the writing community with her Vidlit book trailer---she's targeting everyday people who aren't involved in publishing.

Being online isn't enough. You have to have a reason for being online, and give people a reason to visit you. It's about what you have to offer, not what you have to sell.

Giveaways. Bookmarks. Postcards. Business cards. Flyers. Pens. Food items featuring your name. T-shirts featuring your book cover. How many of these things have you gotten? How many have you kept? How many have made you buy the book they're promoting?

At a booksigning, it's good to have something to give to browsers that they can look at while shopping. It's also smart to have something for the goodie table when you attend conferences. But if it costs more than a few cents, you're losing money on the transaction.

The fact is, no freebie in the world can make someone buy a book.

Revised Goal. Make sure your freebies are cheap, and offer enough information to pique the interest of someone who likes your kind of book. Flyers are the best. I also like chapbooks, as nothing can sell a book like a sample of the writing.

I give away signed coasters, which are gimmicky but cheap. They feature my covers, and my URL. Signing them means they're less likely to be thrown away, and a coaster actually has a practical application. Do they sell books? No. Do they get people curious about my books? Perhaps.

Tim Dorsey takes it to the next level. Rather than give things away, he sells them. And does well at it, too. When people are paying you to advertise your books, you've hit upon a genius idea.

Conferences. No matter your genre, there are many conferences each year. Many authors get uptight about what panels they'll be on, or when their scheduled signing time is. The fact is, even if you're a huge bestseller, a conference will never pay for itself in the number of books you sell. The networking and fan-meeting is good for your career, and you can learn a lot in a short amount of time.

Conferences can teach you how to speak in public, help you understand the business, and assist in building name recognition. But after a dozen or so conventions, the benefits are questionable. You're seeing the same group over and over, you're no longer actively learning anything, and they become an expensive way to drink with your friends rather than a powerful tool for building your career.

Revised Goal. If you're a new writer, or an unpublished writer, attend as many conferences as you can afford. But after you've been doing it for a while, start to get choosey. Pick conferences you've never been to before, rather than the same one year after year. Perhaps only go to conferences that pay your way. Consider trade shows, and chain store manager meetings, and industry conventions as alternatives.

When you do attend conferences, concentrate on meeting new people, not hanging out with those you already know. And remember to schmooze the booksellers.

Hire a Publicist. Many writers believe that the first thing they should do after they sign a book deal is hire a publicist. They think that getting on the radio and TV and setting up signings will sell books.

And it might, but probably not enough to cover the cost of the publicist you hired.

A publicist, as the name implies, gets you publicity. Publicity, like advertising, doesn't necessarily sell books. It informs people that you and your books exist, which is helpful. But it doesn't herd them into the nearest bookstore and place a copy of your book in their hands. You could spend an awful lot of money on a publicist, and have very little to show for it.

Revised Goal. If you hire a publicist, decide exactly what you want her to do, and try to only pay for results rather than attempts. I'm considering hiring a publicist for DIRTY MARTINI, because my previous novels haven't gotten a lot of reviews. This is something my publisher hasn't really been able to do for me, and for my next book I'd like to have a lot of newspaper saturation.

While reviews can sell books, I don't have much faith that radio or advertising does. At least, I haven't seen their effectiveness when it comes to my own career. Hiring a publicist to get you on NPR could pay off considerably. But getting on Good Morning Sheboygan might not be the best use of your time and money.

If you're going to self-promote, you need to understand what it is you're doing, and why you're doing it. Spending time and money on vague concepts that you feel you should be doing, without understanding their effects, is pointless and stupid.

I just received an email from someone I don't know hawking a new book which details how to promote your mysteries. A few things struck me immediately when visiting their website.

First, I didn't recognize any of the contributors. I know a lot of folks in the mystery community, but to not recognize any of them makes me wonder how effective they are at self-promoting.

Second, though they have a website, there is very little of substance on it. You'd think a book about how to promote would share some of those tips as a teaser to get you to buy the book. They don't even list a table of contents or an overview of subjects covered. There are four super-brief articles you can click on, but the information they cover is either obvious, small potatoes, or contrary to what I've learned about the business.

But you know what? What I've learned about the business may be contrary to what you've learned about the business. My way certainly isn't the only way, and may not be the right way for you.

Try different things. Figure out for yourself what works. Take advice, and hone it.

If you write books, you should do something to help promote them. Just make sure you understand what it is you're doing, and why.

---

Joseph Andrew Konrath was born in Skokie, IL in 1970. He graduated from Columbia College in Chicago in 1992. His first novel, Whiskey Sour (2004), introduced Lt. Jacqueline "Jack" Daniels. Others in the series include Bloody Mary (2005), Rusty Nail (2006), Dirty Martini (2007), Fuzzy Navel (2008), and Cherry Bomb (2009). The books combine hair-raising scares and suspense with laugh out loud comedy.

Joe is also the editor of the hitman anthology These Guns For Hire (2006). His short stories have appeared in more than sixty magazines and collections, and his work has been translated into ten languages.

Under the name Jack Kilborn, Joe wrote the horror novel Afraid (2009).

Joe's been nominated for several awards, including the Anthony, Macavity, Gumshoe, Dagger, and Barry, and has won the Derringer, Bob Kellog, EQMM Reader's Choice, and two Lovie awards.

His blog, A Newbie's Guide to Publishing (jakonrath.blogspot.com), has had over 400,000 hits since 2005.

Joe is married, has three children and three dogs, and currently lives in a suburb of Chicago. He occasionally teaches writing and marketing at the College of Dupage.

You can reach Joe at haknort@wowway.com.

How to Write a Bestseller

by Robert Gregory Browne

Okay, I’ll tell you this right up front. That title is misleading.

Why?

Because the truth is, NOBODY can tell you how to write a bestselling novel. Nobody. I don’t care if they’ve sold a gazillion books themselves, there is no person on this planet who can tell you how to write something that will rocket to the bestseller lists. Not even the publishers know how to get their books on the bestseller lists. If they did, every book they published would be there.

I decided to write this post because I was searching the Internet for subjects to write about when I stumbled across a writer’s website that had an article with a title very similar to the title of this post. So I took a look at the post and surprise, surprise, the author had included some good advice, but none of it really had anything to do with writing a bestseller.

So I used the same trick he did by using a misleading title. And I’ll bet your adrenalin rose just a little when you saw it, right?

But here’s the thing.

If you sit down to write a “bestseller,” or a blockbuster movie, you are taking a wrong-headed approach to writing. Writing great fiction has nothing to do with writing bestsellers. Bestsellers are, by and large, flukes. Right place, right time. And not all bestsellers are created equal.

I can name a dozen of my friends who SHOULD be on the bestseller lists and a dozen authors who are and don’t — to my mind at least — belong there. But that’s neither her nor there.

You should not and cannot even worry about writing a bestseller. You can and SHOULD simply write the best book you can possibly write, with a story you just have to tell. You need to be so excited about the work that you’d write it even if you knew, for certain, that you’d never make a dime off of it.

I spent many years writing stuff that I knew would never sell. Hell, I didn’t even try to sell it, because I knew it wasn’t good enough. But I kept at it, on an off, for the next several years. I wrote story fragments and screenplays and teleplays and partial novels and while I knew what I was producing was not quite there yet, I also knew, with great certainty, that it would be one day.

Sure, I had dreams of one day being a bestselling author like Stephen King or Dean Koontz. Hell, I still do. But the reality is that most writers never make it to the lists, yet they still manage to lead productive, fulfilling lives putting words to paper.

Should you forget about your dreams? No. Sometimes they’re all you have.

But any thoughts of bestsellerdom should be relegated to the back part of the brain. You have a story to write. And that’s ALL you should be thinking about.

If you manage to get it published and it manages to reach one of the bestseller lists, that’s just gravy.

But there is no HOW to write a bestseller. And don’t ever be fooled by anyone who claims to know the secret. That particular brand of fairy dust just doesn’t work.

Robert Gregory Browne is an AMPAS Nicholl Award-winning screenwriter and novelist, currently under contract to St. Martin’s Press, Droemer Knaur, and Macmillan UK. He’s also published in Russia, Bulgaria and Denmark, and has a story in Lee Child’s crime fiction anthology, KILLER YEAR. He’s a member of MWA, ITW, RWA and is a regular columnist for the Anthony Award nominated writer’s blog, Murderati.

Thriller Sidekicks

by Lee Child

(from the Backspace Homepages)

Way too often main characters in suspense fiction are like show lofts in new developments: they’re designed within an inch of their lives. You’ve been there: you walk through the cement dust and the broker opens the door and suddenly you’re in a million-dollar big bland space planned to hit the ninety-ninth percentile smack between the eyes. It’s sensible, it’s considered … except there’s a thing in there: maybe a dead tree painted white in a pot, or a big rock in the middle of the floor, or a black-and-nickel Les Paul leaning against a four-cab Marshall stack, buzzing and crackling and humming. It’s something that says hey, dude, you’re not really boring, no sir, you’re hip, you’re out there, you’re on the edge, you respond, you like this apartment.

Main characters are like that. They’re white knights, upright guys, moral and decent … except at that point on the mental checklist the writer gets worried about ninety-ninth percentile blandness, so he adds in a thing … maybe my guy is an alcoholic? Or in recovery? Cool. Or maybe he’s traumatized because he was on a stakeout in the dark and he shot someone dead but it turned out to be only a kid … or, better, a black kid … or maybe the kid didn’t actually die but now he’s in a wheelchair and my guy can demonstrate the guilt he’s humping around by visiting the kid … every month, no, every week … like a sacred trust. Cool – that’ll show how caring he is. That’ll give him edge. Or, no, maybe he’s both things … maybe he was an alcoholic first and shot the kid because he was drunk … no, the booze came later … because he wasn’t watching his partner’s back either, and his partner went down … double load of guilt and trauma.

Oh, please. That’s too grafted on. That’s too for the sake of it. That’s a dead white tree in a pot. That’s a boring apartment with a big rock in it. That’s why with very few exceptions the best characters in suspense fiction are the sidekicks. The spotlight is off the sidekicks. They can get away with being real. Think back to the Robin Hood story. And be honest. Who would you rather spend time with? An upright tight-ass like Robin? Or a balls-to-the-wall hooligan like Little John? Read the Robert B. Parker books … who really floats your boat? The sanctimonious Spenser? Or the terminally cool Hawk, who’d kill you as soon as look at you? Try the early Harlan Cobens … who’s the real draw there? Myron, the nice-guy do-gooder who loves his folks? Or his psychotic buddy Win? Check out the pre-Mystic River Dennis Lehanes … fine series, and Patrick and Angie are cool, no doubt, but come on, we’re really loving the psycho sidekick Bubba. Aren’t we? No question about it. No question at all.

Works with non-fiction too, which kind of proves it. Guys my age grew up with stuff like The Dambusters. Rent the movie, read the book. Who’s the real star there? The oh-so-correct Wing Commander Guy Gibson? Or the Aussie Flight Lieutenant Mickey Martin? Clue: it ain’t Gibson. Mickey Martin was a real-life psycho hooligan who could give any fictional counterpart a run for his money. He used giant four-engine Lancasters like dive-bombers. He scared the shit out of everybody. Except himself.

Sidekicks are great. So great, you start to see the reason. Sidekicks are like the loft apartment you design for yourself in your head. You can let it all hang out. You can let it be exactly what you want. No resale issues. And that’s the point. In a suspense series, the lead character has to carry a lot of weight. The lead character is the unique selling point. Career and success are on the line. That’s a lot of weight. So design raises its ugly head. PC timidity creeps in. Blandness beckons. So you put a big rock in the middle of the floor, but that’s not enough, so then you add in a sidekick. It’s a cry for understanding: this is who I really wanted to write about, but I thought I better not.

Lessons for a writer? Simple: you make the lead character and the sidekick the same guy. You write about the sidekick. That’s what I did. My guy Jack Reacher is rough, tough, snarling, dirty, unacceptable in every way. I wrote him with a sense of doom. It was like a Zen proposition: if I try to make him popular, he won’t be popular. It was like, well, I like him, so up yours, pal. So, of course, he was popular. But don’t just listen to me: think about Ian Rankin’s John Rebus. Now there’s a real hooligan. In the first Rebus book he stole an apple from a greengrocer. Not some over-designed cop fraud: he stole an apple. He sleeps in an armchair. I bet Ian had no real expectation that Rebus would catch on big. But he did. Just like Reacher did. Because neither of us cared.

Copyright 2004 by Lee Child

Lee Child was born in 1954 in Coventry, England, but spent his formative years in the nearby city of Birmingham. By coincidence he won a scholarship to the same high school that JRR Tolkien had attended. He went to law school in Sheffield, England, and after part-time work in the theater he joined Granada Television in Manchester for what turned out to be an eighteen-year career as a presentation director during British TV's "golden age." During his tenure his company made Brideshead Revisited, The Jewel in the Crown, Prime Suspect, and Cracker. But he was fired in 1995 at the age of 40 as a result of corporate restructuring. Always a voracious reader, he decided to see an opportunity where others might have seen a crisis and bought six dollars' worth of paper and pencils and sat down to write a book, Killing Floor, the first in the Jack Reacher series.

Killing Floor was an immediate success and launched the series which has grown in sales and impact with every new installment.Lee has three homes—an apartment in Manhattan, a country house in the south of France, and whatever airplane cabin he happens to be in while traveling between the two. In the US he drives a supercharged Jaguar, which was built in Jaguar's Browns Lane plant, thirty yards from the hospital in which he was born.

Lee spends his spare time reading, listening to music, and watching the Yankees, Aston Villa, or Marseilles soccer. He is married with a grown-up daughter. He is tall and slim, despite an appalling diet and a refusal to exercise.

How Book Design Affects Readability

by Maggie Dana

Pinned to my notice board amid a jumble of typeface lists, dog-eared business cards, and photos of my grandchildren, is a sticky note that keeps me honest when I’m tempted to get too experimental or too fancy with a book design project. It says:

A typographer’s first obligation is to the reader.

This holds true for all printed media from newspapers to billboards, but nowhere is it as crucial as in a book. How many times have you picked one up, only to find yourself putting it back on the shelf and wondering why? Perhaps it was by your favourite author or had glowing reviews; maybe it was a bestseller with a gorgeous cover and a tantalising blurb on the back. But when you opened the book and began to read, you changed your mind.

Why?

More than likely it was the text design. Something about it got in the way of readability. It could’ve been an inappropriate font, not enough leading (space between the lines), or a visual distraction such as a page number halfway down each outside margin. There are numerous ways for the appearance of a book’s page to turn off a potential reader.

A book’s design (I’m talking interior page design here, not covers) has one major purpose and that is to make the words on the page end up in the reader’s mind as effortlessly and as seamlessly as possible. Doesn’t matter if the book is a novel, a textbook, a dictionary, or even a car repair manual, the principle is the same. If the reader is motivated to absorb the information but finds himself unable to do so, the design is not doing its job.

I recently read about a study conducted at the University of Michigan involving the complex interplay of effort, motivation, and cognitive crunching. A group of college students were given written instructions for a regular exercise routine. Half the students received their instructions printed in a plain, readable font; the other half’s instructions were in a decorative font that looked as if it had been written by hand with a Japanese paintbrush. It was unfamiliar and hard to read.

The findings were remarkable. The students whose instructions were printed in the simple, unadorned font, were much more open to the prospect of exercising. Apparently, their brains equated ease of readability with ease of doing push-ups and crunches. On the other hand, those who struggled through the Japanese brushstrokes had no intention of heading to the gym. The reading had tired them out.

The instructions were identical; the only difference was the font, which boils down to this: a good designer will always use a font that’s appropriate for the task at hand. In the case of books, this means a serif font such as Garamond, Goudy, Sabon, or Times. A font with no serifs like Futura or Helvetica, while great for headlines and motorway signs, isn’t suitable for a book’s running text. It takes longer to read and it tires the eye. So will lines of type that are too close together or too far apart. Either way, you’ll find yourself reading the same line twice, or skipping one altogether.

It was my son Paul who really brought home to me the importance of good book design back when I first started in the business quite a few years ago. We were on the train, heading for New York where I had some appointments with publishers and he had a job interview. Paul, a freelance programmer who already had several programming languages under his belt, was adding yet another, and doing it in a major hurry. He showed me his textbook and said it was the best he’d ever read when it came to absorbing complex information. The design was crisp and clean, with an excellent choice of fonts and colours, plenty of white space, effective illustrations, and not too many bells and whistles such as icons, starbursts, and time bombs that seem to inhabit most computer manuals these days. Clearly, that book’s designer had done his or her job, and done it well, because my son, who had precisely three days to learn the new language not only landed that particular freelance gig, but several others as well.

So the next time you pick up a book, take a moment to examine the interior design and see if it appeals to you, if it makes reading the book a pleasure because, mostly, that’s what reading’s all about. Unless, of course, you’re trying to learn a new programming language in under three days!

Maggie Dana was born and raised in England, but has lived in Connecticut for many years. A book designer and typesetter, Maggie is also the author of six books for children. Her first novel for grownups, Beachcombing, was published in June 2009 by Macmillan New Writing (London).

What to Expect When You Get Published

By Jenny Bent

(From the "Articles" section of the Backspace homepages)

Getting published for the first times is at turns exhilarating, frightening, exciting, nerve-wracking, and sometimes extremely disappointing. Remember the old saying, "be careful what you wish for?" Having your book published offers much potential for happiness, but also carries the possibility of a fair amount of disappointment. This article is an attempt to make the experience a happy and rewarding one for first-time authors, by talking you through the process as directly and honestly as possible.

There can be nothing so exciting for a writer as holding your finished book in your hands for the first time. And while there is no way to comprehend the experience of being published before the actual event, it can helpful to know a little bit about what you're getting into as soon as you get that momentous call from your agent: "We have an offer!"

The following questions and answers are my attempt to prepare you for the joys and the sorrows of being published. Hopefully, forewarned will become forearmed, and you'll be able to better enjoy the experience if you're prepared for some of the potential pitfalls. Reasonable expectations are the key to being happily published for the first time.

Q: How long will it take before I get an offer for my book?

A: The time it takes to sell a book varies wildly. I have sold books in three days; I have also sold books after a year or even two. If there is a great deal of enthusiasm for your book, it is possible to make a deal for it right away. And most editors will respond to an agented submission within a month or two. A book can take a few years to sell if you send it out for submission, get no takers the first time around, and decide to revise and resubmit.

Q: How much money can I expect for my book?

A: This is one of those questions that have no real answer. Amounts received can range from zero dollars to over one million dollars. It is almost impossible to place a dollar value on a book because the real answer to this question is that the market, meaning the publishers, decides how much money your book is worth. The more publishers that want to buy your book, the more money it will sell for. If you only have one publisher that wants to buy it, they can often use the lack of competition to get your book for a real bargain.

Q: What is this thing called a book auction?

A: A book auction can take many shapes and forms. The basic premise is that you have more than one publisher who wants to buy your book project. Your agent will then give the houses a date and time by which they need to make their offers. The auction, which is conducted over the phone, can then proceed round by round, or by best bid offers, or via a variety of other options. Agents vary in the way they conduct auctions and in the frequency with which they conduct them. Some agents auction every title they sell, and some reserve the auction for only those books for which they anticipate a great deal of interest.

Q: What if I don't think I'm being paid enough money? Do I have to accept the deal my agent brings me?

A: Surprisingly, I am often asked this question. Always remember that you are the one ultimately in control of the situation. If you don't want to accept an offer, you don't have to. End of story. Once you've signed a contract, it's a different situation, but at this stage in the game you are still free to walk away from any situation in which you don't feel comfortable. Remember that writing a book involves a great deal of hard work and energy. If you don't feel you are being fairly compensated, now is the time to walk away-not later when you've already committed to delivering a quality book in a certain amount of time.

Q: What is an advance against royalties?

A: This refers to the amount of money you are paid for your book. It is a nonrefundable advance against royalties, which means that even if your book sells only two copies, you never have to pay the advance back. This is one of the benefits you receive for being an author. Here is how an advance works. Say you are paid a total of $20,000 dollars for your book. You must then earn back this amount of money in royalties or subsidiary rights before you make any additional income. Royalties for a hardcover book generally start at 10% of the cover price and escalate to 15%, so you must sell approximately 8,000 copies of a $24 dollar book before you will "earn out" your $20,000 advance and start to see additional money. Royalties for trade paperback books (the larger "quality" paperback size) are generally 7.5%, and royalties for mass market books (the smaller size paperbacks which are sold in airports and supermarkets as well as in bookstores) are usually 8%. You can also earn out your advance if your publisher makes additional income by selling book club, foreign, paperback, or any other additional rights, also know as subsidiary rights. You generally are entitled to at least 50% of this money, and again, it goes against your advance.

Advances used to be paid in two parts: on signing, and after your book is accepted for publication. Now they are almost always divided into thirds or even fourths: one payment on signing, one on acceptance, and one on publication. This is obviously a less advantageous arrangement and rest assured that your agent is as unhappy as you are about it. Very large advances can be spread out to five or even six payments: on signing, on acceptance, on hardcover publication, on paperback publication, one year after publication, etc.
Also, there are two exceptions to the "non-refundable" part of the deal. You will often be legally obligated to repay your advance if you do not deliver your book within the time specified in your contract, or if you deliver a book that is unacceptable to the publisher.

Q: What is the difference between a deal for World rights and North American rights only?

A: You have the option of selling the publisher the right to translate and publish your book all over the world, or to retain those rights and let the publisher publish the book in North America only. Your agent will often use these rights as part of the negotiation of the deal. Say getting more money up front is more important to you. Your agent can offer the publisher World rights as a way of getting you a larger advance. If you retain the rights, and your agent sells them for you, you get your money for these deals directly. If the publisher retains them, you have to wait until you have earned out your advance before getting your share. The plus side of this is that you will then start to see royalty income more quickly.

Q: How soon will I get the first installment of my advance after we've made a deal for the book?

A: Usually, it will take at least a month before you get the contracts. This contract can be just the starting point: you and your agent may need to discuss any necessary changes, your agent needs to negotiate the changes with the contracts department, and new contracts need to be generated. Then, after you sign the contract, it can take another month before you get a copy of the fully-executed agreement and your advance due on signing. So anticipate at least three to four months wait before you get your first check and signed contract. I've heard of authors who have delivered finished manuscripts before they ever got their money due on signing. Remember that your agent doesn't get paid until you do, so they are just as eager as you are to get the process moving. They will be working diligently behind the scenes to keep things moving in a timely fashion. The good news is that when you sell your next book to the publisher, they can use your first contract as a model, and hopefully things will move much more quickly. Finally, please don't take the delay personally. Large publishers have hundreds and hundreds of contracts to issue, and many people within the company have to sign off on them. A delay in the generation of your contract IN NO WAY indicates diminished interest in your book.

(To continue reading, click here)

*****

From TheBentAgency.com

Jenny Bent builds bestsellers, with over 25 titles on the New York Times list to date. From discovering new talent to developing multi-published authors, she utilizes 15 years of experience to bring authors to the next level—and beyond—in their careers.

At The Bent Agency Jenny continues her tradition of representing books that speak to the heart, from commercial fiction and nonfiction to literary fiction and memoir. The Bent Agency provides its authors with unparalleled career management, combining individual attention and guidance with fierce negotiating and bottom line clout.

In a changing publishing environment, The Bent Agency focuses on what authors need: great literary representation.

Recruiting Your Publisher

by Barry Eisler

(from the Backspace Book Promotion Network)

It seems reasonably clear to me that a publisher can go a long way to making a book a bestseller if the publisher decides to make it happen. Make the book a sales rep pick; announce a several-hundred thousand copy first print run; talk the book up at BEA and elsewhere; include a letter from the head of the house in the ARC; devote a few hundred thousand dollars to advertising and in-store promotion; send the author on a big tour. The publisher might lose money in the process -- I get the feeling that happens fairly often to first-time authors who get the treatment I just described -- but the book will hit the NYT and other lists.

I say all this to emphasize that your publisher can do much, much more to make your book big than you can. It stands to reason, then, that the primary goal of your self-promotion efforts should be to recruit your publisher -- that is, to persuade your publisher's people to promote you the way you want them to promote you.

The question is how. Start with attitude: if your publisher's people aren't doing all you want them to, it's not because they're stingy or stupid or mean. It's because you haven't yet fulfilled your responsibility to demonstrate to them that it's in their interest to do more. Look, if you knew a certain stock was going to go up ten percent tomorrow, you'd invest in it today, right? And if there were another stock that you knew would go up 15% tomorrow, you'd invest in that one instead, right?

The point is, everyone wants to invest in something that will give them the best possible return on that investment. If your publisher isn't investing much in you, it's because they don't know yet what a great return you'll offer them. It's your job to demonstrate to them that they'll get that return -- that you're that winning stock.

You start by doing all the obvious, relatively affordable things: genre conventions; drop-ins in all the bookstores near where you live; etc. But what's missing from many of these efforts is a systematic focus on keeping the publisher informed. Does your publisher know what you're doing? Do you apprise your publisher of the efforts you make and the success you achieve? If you don't, you're missing an opportunity to demonstrate: (i) your confidence in yourself (investors are always persuaded by the confidence of other investors); (ii) your initiative -- that is, your ability and willingness to work hard on your own, which is likely to increase the value of whatever the publisher decides to invest); and (iii) the substantive value of investing in you regardless of where the investment comes from (your efforts are paying off, so it's reasonable to assume the publisher's would, too). A few examples from my own experience:

For my first book, Rain Fall, Putnam sent me to only a few cities for signings. I'd been hoping for more because I have a lot of public speaking experience and was confident I could connect with booksellers and customers. But I didn't complain; instead I recognized they just didn't realize yet that they'd get a return on investing more in a tour. And for each bookstore I visited, I asked the bookseller to shoot me an email about how the event went -- how many customers, how many books sold, my performance generally. These, of course, I forwarded to Putnam. I also visited a few territories on my own nickel, again keeping Putnam apprised of my efforts and the results. The tour was small but the results were good. That got Putnam thinking, "Hmmm, what if we sent him to a few more places?"

Early on, I decided there were a few hooks in the Rain books that might attract media. I half-jokingly thought of these as the "Three J's:" Japan, Jazz, and Judo, all of which were prominent aspects of Rain Fall in particular. So I spent a lot of time contacting media and organizations that focused on Asia, jazz, and martial arts. I got some interviews, which I then supplemented by taking out ads at my own expense. I got a few speaking engagements. Eventually there were a few feature articles. It was all useful in itself, but again the primary value was in demonstrating to Putnam my efforts and successes.

I didn't have a panel at my first Bouchercon (Las Vegas), but I went just to get the feel of the whole thing, to meet booksellers and other people, and to have a beer with Victor Gischler 'cause I loved Gun Monkeys. I learned a lot and met a lot of good people. One of the folks I met was George Easter, editor of Deadly Pleasures. George wound up reading and loving the Rain books -- so much so that he kindly featured me on the cover of his magazine. Again, that's great publicity in itself, but I also made sure to send a bunch of copies to Putnam and to tell them how it happened. I also paid for a bunch of reprints, which I distributed in the goodie bags at subsequent mystery conventions (Sleuthfest and LCC). I kept Putnam in the loop on all of it, and they were pleased.

For my third hardback (Rain Storm) and the paperback of #2 (Hard Rain), Putnam started paying bookstores for special placement. And each book tour was bigger than the one before it -- about five cities for Rain Fall, ten for Hard Rain, 20 for Rain Storm, and a whopping 30 for the new book, Killing Rain. On each tour, I worked hard to keep Putnam's costs down, paying for meals and a lot of other things myself (remember, you have to demonstrate confidence in yourself, otherwise why should your publisher be confident?). For the latest tour, I told them I wanted to reduce air travel, do more driving, and eliminate escorts to help control their costs. They responded by sending me to more places (beware of what you ask for...). And on this tour, I felt like we were really getting some nice synergy: I visited many more stores, and most of those stores had the books prominently displayed, increasing the value of the visits and of the impact of the displays. Which brings the conversation full circle to how to get the most impact out of your drop-in signings...

These are just examples. There are others, but the point is that the main value of all my efforts has been that Putnam has decided to match (or exceed) them. If Putnam hadn't increased its promotional investments, my own efforts would have had a fraction of the impact.

So I would argue that your most important constituent will always be your publisher. It seems so obvious that I think a lot of people overlook it.

(You can read more excellent articles for writers at Barry's website.)

---------------

After graduating from Cornell Law School, Barry Eisler spent three years in a covert position with the CIA's Directorate of Operations, then worked as a technology lawyer and startup executive in Silicon Valley and Japan, earning his black belt at the Kodokan International Judo Center. Eisler's thrillers have won the Barry Award and the Gumshoe Award for Best Thriller of the Year, have been included in numerous "Best Of" lists, and have been translated into nearly twenty languages. The first book in Eisler's assassin John Rain series, Rain Fall, has been made into a movie starring Gary Oldman that was released by Sony Pictures in April 2009.

“Make it real.”

by Karen Dionne

That’s what thriller author David Morrell once advised me about writing novels. At first, I wasn’t sure what he meant. After all, a novel is by definition fiction, a carefully contrived blend of plot, setting, and characters. How can it be real?

But after thinking about it, I realized what David was telling me was that for a reader to be able to suspend belief and get swept up in the story enough to care about the outcome, the story has to feel real.

This is always a risk for a novelist who uses an actual setting. All well and good if the reader has never been to the location where a novel is set, but what if it’s a place they know well? I recently read a mystery that takes place in northern Michigan, where I lived for 30 years. As I read, I kept getting pulled out of the story, weighing the details the author included against what I knew from my own experience.

On the other hand, some authors don’t concern themselves overmuch about reality. I’ve always loved what Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child wrote in their authors’ notes for Reliquary: “It should be noted that in certain important instances the authors have altered, moved, or embellished what exists under Manhattan for purposes of the story.”

I find their hubris incredibly freeing. While I write science thrillers, my novels are not a scientific treatise, they’re fiction; meant not to educate, but to entertain. If the truth works, terrific. If not, like Preston & Child, I’ll twist my science until it does what the story wants.

Setting, however, can be tricky. I've never been to Antarctica, the location of my first novel, and while I read the online journals of people who spent time there, and thanks to thirty winters in northern Michigan, I know snow and cold, the cold truth is, I made much of it up.

That’s why I was excited to be able to travel to the location of my next novel, an environmental thriller about an erupting volcano, a missing researcher, and a radical scheme to end global warming – 7,000 miles, to be exact - 13 hours by air and another 13 hours by ferry to Chaitén Volcano, in Northern Patagonia, Chile.

Chaitén Volcano erupted for the first time in 8,000 years in May, 2008, spewing a cloud of ash and debris more than 2 miles high. Since that time, the volcano has erupted continuously and is on Red Alert. Nevertheless, I was able to spend 4 days in the town at the volcano's base, though Chaitén remains evacuated and is without basic city services like electricity and running water. I also hiked to within one mile of the west side of the lava dome. While there, I heard distant explosions – no doubt indicative of big things happening within the caldera – and felt a small earthquake. It was a completely amazing experience - exciting and sobering at the same time, considering the destruction the eruption wrought on the town.

The experience taught me there's nothing like hands-on research. It elevates an author’s prose, so that the reader absolutely knows the author knows what they're talking about. Seeing things firsthand, hearing small comments made by the people who live there – just getting from point A to point B – generated so many details and ideas I never could have dreamed up on my own, I know I'll have no problem following David’s admonition.

At the recent Backspace conference, David explained that his new novel The Shimmer includes four extended flying sequences. Rather than simply interview pilots or ask them vet his scenes, he took flying lessons and got his pilot's license.

“Make it real.” Good advice.

--------------------------

Karen Dionne is the author of Freezing Point (October 2008, Berkley), a thriller Douglas Preston called "a ripper of a story," with other rave endorsements from David Morrell, John Lescroart, and many others. Her next novel, Boiling Point, will be published by Berkley in October 2010. For more information about her, go to www.karendionne.net.

Backspace Writer's Conference Uncovered

By Jeanette Schneider

Touching down at JFK is always a near-religious experience for me. I am drawn to New York City and every visit is a pilgrimage of sorts. After I pass through a toll, after Regis and Kelly have told me everything I need to know about Taxi TV, after I eyeball every driver next to me to see what real New Yorkers look like, a narrow tunnel gives birth to another aspiring author and I am deposited onto a street of walls filled with big deals, top agents and printing presses that make books, glorious books. The five plus-hour flight from Las Vegas fell away as steaming manhole covers and the noise of the city overcame me. I reminded myself to thank Karen Dionne and Chris Graham, the founders of the Backspace Writers Conference, for setting my first conference down in a city littered with reams of paper, contract negotiations and slices of flat greasy pizza that you eat while watching the rest of the world pass you by on the corner of West 34^th and 6^th.

After strolling forty blocks and jaywalking alongside one of New York’s finest, I returned to the Radisson Martinique to settle in for the night. I ironed every outfit I would wear for the next three days, called the front desk to order a wake up call, and then set both my work and personal cell phones to ring in fifteen minute intervals which would commence from the moment I hung up with whoever would be calling me at 6 a.m. You can never be too safe, especially when your dreams are setting up shop all around you.

I shook as I sat at a table the next morning, worried that the other writers were better than me, more talented, more literary, if there is such a thing. I looked around the room to see nervous smiles, anxious laughter, excited introductions and I realized I was amongst my peers. My hands trembled as I read my query letter to a bank of Literary Agents. They let me finish and complimented two or three sentences before they told me the truth, exactly what I came for, “Your query letter needs work. I would not have asked for any additional pages.” Two gracious agents pointed out exactly what I did that would have caused them to stop reading. An hour later I was surprised to find that I was to read my query letter a second time to a new bank of shiny agents. A bell had been placed on the table and it was only a moment before it rang. I was told exactly what I did wrong, what would have kept me from my dream.

I found myself rather deflated at lunch. My stomach grumbled, I pushed my pasta around on my plate and popped Tylenol while I commiserated with two new writer friends. We worried about the Two Pages session later that afternoon and before long I was standing in front of an audience of agents once again, my fellow writers following along as I read the first two pages of my manuscript. My work wasn’t of interest to two of them, but I received constructive feedback from the other two. It would take a full twelve hours before I concentrated on the positive comments as every new writer that walked through the doors of the Radisson Martinique hoped that an agent would read their first few lines and run to the business center to print out a contract. Instead, I sat with five other writers and over drinks we all echoed the same sentiment, “I thought my manuscript was complete.” We were soon joined by new writers, new recruits exuberant about a second Two Minutes, Two Pages session that was added on Friday morning. This was their chance, the realization of their dream, their moment. They hadn’t gotten through the first day of boot camp just yet, and I smiled to myself fully aware that I would see them walking the hallways by lunch the next day looking lost, faces drawn, which was exactly the case.

We all seemed heavier as we sat down before a table of agents for our second day, but those that judged us so harshly the night before had shed their brass knuckles. They filled our heads with possibility, talked about the process and commented on agent/author relationships. Liz Rosenberg described her relationship with her agent, Jenny Bent, and smiled as she explained that successful writers need “divine stubbornness.” We laughed as Jeff Kleinman explained that his ideal client can, “Write like an angel and promote like the devil.” We learned that clichés are kryptonite, and even if you didn’t think you used clichés, you probably do and you should stop it right now.

John Searles, two-time National Bestseller and Deputy Editor of Cosmopolitan magazine, brought us back to life with his talk, replete with a Cosmo-infused Power Point presentation and slides that tasted a little like cotton candy. He told us to remember why we fell in love, to sleep around and read everything we can get our hands on, drive our reader wild in bed with stories they can’t put down, and to remember that you never know when you might meet “The One,” but to be ready to break up with the aforementioned “One” if it turns out that your manuscript isn’t an agent or publishing house’s soul mate. He told us to get noticed, and above all, he quoted his mentor, author Wally Lamb’s inscription in the book he gave him as a young man, “Enjoy the journey.”

Authors Joseph Finder and David Morrell captivated us with stories of their own roads to publication, and publicists Kelley and Hall opened our eyes to the world of book publicity. While Jocelyn Kelley spoke I found myself scribbling notes, my book evolving right before me.

Our brains were filled with everything we needed to know and then some. At the end of the day I talked to Kristin Nelson of the Nelson Literary Agency, who explained that the Agent Author Day was tough for the agents because they weren’t trying to be mean, they were just showing us that we weren’t ready…yet.

Editor Jerry Gross told us to, “Develop the persistence of an IRS auditor, the hide of an alligator, the patience of Job and the optimism of Pollyanna.”

Almost everyone mentioned that we should pick up Stephen King’s On Writing.

Richard Krevolin enthusiastically stood before a room, and as he went through questions he asks his screenwriting students, I saw my book make another turn and I hurriedly flipped to the back of my notebook to capture the newer, wiser and devastatingly more succinct outline of my manuscript, which I thought was done when I first arrived. I was moving closer to the “yet” that Kristin Nelson mentioned, the one at the end of her sentence that meant more to me than she may have realized by our brief conversation.

I have never been to another conference, but from what I saw, not to mention the messages I received from writer friends that were dripping with jealousy, Backspace has it figured out. It is a boot camp that you should sign up for immediately. I would never have gotten past my first query letter had I not sat in front of agents that told me it was awful. I had access. Access to information, access to preferences - like which agents like books with dogs in them, which agents like to line edit, which ones prefer older voices, younger voices and which agent advises, “You never kill the dog!”

While I may have lost confidence on the first day, I quickly realized that Backspace isn’t fluff. The following two days pulled me up and set me back on my feet with a map. I will stand up in front of an agent any day, hands trembling, as opposed to sitting in front of my computer with a bad query letter at the ready. The access, the support and the guidance is immeasurable. You have to walk in ready to hear criticism and leave with a book full of notes. You have to be beat down to be built up again.

Because, when you’re rebuilt, you’re simply better for it.

*****

Jeanette Schneider recently completed her coming of age memoir, White Like Snow, and is the author of a yet unnamed collection of humorous essays. She is a member of Backspace Discussion Forums and the Las Vegas Writer’s Group.

Jeanette lives in Las Vegas with her husband, Trevor, and two rescue dogs, Toby and Ginger. She is a Senior Vice President at a large financial services firm, sits on the board of a major charitable foundation and works as an advocate within the community to promote environmental awareness. Jeanette "Tweets" as @msjwrites. Read more about her on her blog: www.msjwrites.blogspot.com.

How to Prepare for Media Interviews

by Christina Estes

After more than 15 years in TV and radio news, I’ve come across my share of great, mediocre and horrible interviews. If you’re great, you’ll likely be interviewed again. If you’re mediocre, you might get another chance if the same outlet is desperate or if another outlet doesn’t know better. If you’re horrible, you better get better fast. Please review these basic tips before you get the interview call.

DO:

• Know who you’re talking to - is this a taped interview that will be part of a story to run in a newscast? Is it a live phone interview with an opinionated radio talk show host? Will the full interview appear online?

• Ask how much time is needed and add 15-30 minutes in case you’re called early or late.

• Lose the ego – yes it’s exciting, but no one likes a jerk.

• Prepare your key message points – Why did you write this book? What’s so great about it? Why should anyone care? What do you want people to take away?

• Keep it simple - big words are a big turn off.

• Practice your responses aloud.

• Be friendly, professional and interested in the interview.

• Correct factual errors as soon as possible – if the host says you’ve sold 100 million books, you can say something like “I sure hope to hit 100 million, but I’m not there yet!”

• Trust yourself – you wrote it, you know this stuff better than anyone else.

• Thank the media member for the opportunity.

DON’T:

• Ask for specific questions beforehand – you can ask for a general idea of the story so that you can best prepare. The reporter may say “We want to get some tips on avoiding overeating during the holidays” or “We’re doing a segment on local romance authors so we’ll ask about your background and your book”.

• Wing it – no matter how good you think you are, be sure to review your key points.

• Memorize mechanical answers – be energetic.

• Ramble – avoid taking 60-seconds to answer a question that could be done in 30.

Broadcast Tips

• For the best sound, radio interviews by phone should be done on a land line, not cell.

• Prepare your voice by warming up your vocal chords – if you’ve been alone all day writing, you don’t want your first spoken words to sound scratchy on the radio.

• Know where to look – directly in the camera, at the reporter or the host? It’s okay to ask.

• Avoid busy clothing patterns and neon colors. Solid, classic colors are best for TV.

• Wear makeup on TV - even men should wear powder during in-studio appearances to avoid shine.

• Keep jewelry and accessories simple – unless you’re promoting a book on jewelry and accessories, the focus should be on you.

• Avoid slouching - sit toward front of your chair rather than leaning back.

• Project your voice and speak clearly.

• Smile, relax and have fun!

*****

Emmy award winning reporter Christina Estes has spent more than 15 years in TV and radio news covering a variety of stories, including politics, crime and undercover investigations. Her writing has also appeared in The Arizona Republic, Phoenix Business Journal and Latino Future magazine. She continues to work in radio while writing her first mystery novel.

Feel free to send questions or comments to her at www.christinaestes.com

The Number One Thing

By Kristin Nelson of Nelson Literary Agency, LLC

(originally posted May 28th, 2009 - Pub Rants)

As y’all know, today I was at the Backspace conference. Jeff Kleinman, Scott Hoffman, and I did a workshop called 2 minutes, 2 pages in the afternoon. The purpose is to pretend we are sitting at home with our feet up reading the slush pile. As the author reads the work, we say “stop” if we wouldn’t have read on and then try to explain why.

It’s a tough workshop. We try and be honest but constructive but as a writer, you can’t be faint of heart in participating.

After the 3 hour session, I can say without a doubt that this was the biggest issue we found in the pages that were read. The openings lacked a sense of urgency that would have propelled the story forward or would have engaged the reader immediately in the story or the characters presented.

In other words, most opening scenes had nothing at stake.

Now don’t mistake me and assume that you have to have an action-packed scene or bombs going off or some hideous moment occurring. Having something at stake can be a small thing, such as a missing photo, but it’s not small for the character in the story. For example, you could have a woman searching for a missing photograph and perhaps this photo is the one surviving shot she has of her father and so there is real panic that it could be missing—maybe even forever. That she can’t find it, that she can’t remember when last she saw it, that maybe there is something coupled with it that makes this missing photo even that much more crucial to have at this moment in time. There is something at stake for the character

See the distinction?

A lot of the opening pages we saw were really back story disguised as an opening chapter—which makes Carolyn Jewel’s guest blog earlier this week that much more pertinent.

*****

Kristin Nelson worked for literary agent Jody Rein before establishing Nelson Literary Agency (NLA) in 2002. In such a short period of time, NLA has built a solid reputation as a full-service agency by aggressively pursuing print, film/TV, foreign, and subrights sales on behalf of our clients. Our goal is to sign, nurture, and build our authors for the duration of their careers.

Member: The Association of Authors' Representatives (AAR), Romance Writers of America (RWA), Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA), and Society of Children’s Book Writers & Illustrators (SCBWI).

Blurbs II: Giving

by Lauren Lise Baratz-Logsted

This side of the fence is actually shorter than the other and even if you're not at this stage of your career yet, with talent and luck you will be, so keep reading.

1. Don't Make Promises

If someone asks you to blurb a book, never write back, “I’d love to!” If you do, you’re committing yourself to a promise you may not be able to keep. What if the book truly sucks? Are you still going to lend your name to it? Because, you see, you’ve already promised you will. Or what if your own career intrudes – you know, that thing you make your living it? Or what if life unexpectedly gets in the way? Instead of a knee-jerk promise, the appropriate response should be, “I can’t make any guarantees, but feel free to send me your book and I’d be happy to read it, time and life permitting.”

2. Don't Repeat Yourself

Once you’ve written several blurbs, you realize that it can be hard, particularly if a lot of the books fall in the same genre, to pen blurbs that sound original. How many different ways can you find to say, “Funny, moving, thought-provoking”? But do try. Or, at the very least, don’t recycle distinctive blurbs you’ve already used. For example, Frank McCourt has famously blurbed at least three books with some variant on, “I loved this so much, I was clawing myself with pleasure!” I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to hear about someone else clawing themselves with pleasure once, never mind three times. You’re a writer. Try to be original.

3. Convince Me You've Read the Book

I once saw a blurb from a Pulitzer Prize winner on the back of another respected novelist’s long-awaited new book that read, “I’ve been waiting for another book from X for 20 years!” Oh, really? says cynical me. And when do you plan on actually reading it? For a blurb to have meaning, it should have some sort of descriptive or evaluative language in it. A mere “I’ve been waiting for another book from X for 20 years!” – however gleeful – doesn’t sell me.

4. Blurb Whores

I’ve heard this odious title attached to more than one author, one of whom is an acquaintance of mine and an enormous bestseller to the tune of some 100 million copies in print. I always scratch my head when I hear that. We talked earlier about how consumers don’t buy books strictly because of blurbs. Well, have you ever bought a book by an author you’ve never read before because you saw their name blurbing someone else? How ludicrous! Right. I read the other day that Dean Koontz currently sells at the rate of 17 million books a year. So I’m sure if you can get him to blurb your book, it’ll really help him out by getting his name on a few thousand of your books. It’s almost as bad as the idea of Oprah Winfrey riding Jonathan Franzen’s coattails to success. “Hey, Stephen King! Over here! I’m going to give you the opportunity to improve your career by letting you blurb one of my books. Really, having your name attached to Lauren Baratz-Logsted is going to be the making of you, so… Hey! Where’d you go?” Authors at the top of the game who are still willing to grant blurbs are simply gracious human beings. Period.

5. If You Don't Want to Blurb...

…then don’t. It’s your life. It’s your time. Maybe you don’t have the time. Or maybe you don’t really care. But keep in mind: you weren’t always where you are now, so be gracious. Tell people, “I’m sorry but my agent won’t allow me to read unpublished work.” Then wish the novice well and leave it at that.

6. A. Privilege

Whether you choose to blurb or not, it’s really up to you. But always remember: publishing is a hard business. It’s a privilege to have succeeded at it so well that people actually think that using your name will help them sell a few books. Everyone who has ever pursued a career in writing with all their heart and all their will should be so lucky.

I'm looking forward to hearing what others think.

Be well. Don't forget to write.

******

Lauren Lise Baratz-Logsted

Biography

Before becoming a published novelist, I was an independent bookseller and buyer, a Publishers Weekly reviewer, a freelance editor, and a window washer. My first book was published in 2003 and by the end of 2008, I will have had 12 books published. As of this date, 17 January 28, the published titles are: The Thin Pink Line, Crossing the Line, A Little Change of Face, This Is Chick-Lit (editor/contributor), How Nancy Drew Saved My Life, Vertigo, Angel's Choice, and Secrets of My Suburban Life. My work has also appeared in collections of stories and essays, and I've written several stories and essays exclusively for the Amazon Shorts program, including the series "The Writer is In."

How to Get Your Name in the News

by Christina Estes

One of the best ways to develop an author platform is to get your name in the news. While I never promise to have all the answers, I do have advice, based on 15 years experience working in TV and radio news. Since successful media interviews often start with concise pitches, I'm going to follow my own advice and get right to the point(s).

What the Media Want

News, not commercials - you could be interviewed for a variety of reasons, none of which is to directly sell your book. You could be funny, easy to book, a local success story, etc., but you are never invited because someone says "Let's do a commercial for this author."

Timely issues - do you have a hook to a current news event, holiday or trend? In November we think of Thanksgiving, but, it's also National Hospice Month, Peanut Butter Lover's Month and National Adoption Month. Children's Book Week is also celebrated in November. You can Google your topic with the words "National Month" or "National Week" or "National Day" or you can check out Chase's Calendar of Events, often considered the most comprehensive reference for world holidays and events.

Facts and figures - if your book is non-fiction you'll want to have a handful of interesting facts and figures. Make sure they're interesting to people other than you. Fiction authors, think about your research. Perhaps you set your thriller in Somalia after seeing the extensive media coverage of pirate attacks. Share a few statistics or examples.

Personal stories - if you have a personal reason for writing, share it. Example: After witnessing my friend battle a rare form of cancer, I wrote this book to help people better understand the process and support their loved one.

Visuals - this no longer applies to TV only. Everyone has websites and everyone can use photos. If you're being interviewed live in studio, there may be no need for photos or video. But, if you're being interviewed for TV as part of a story on teachers who left the profession to make more money, they may want an old photo of you teaching and/or video of you doing whatever it is you do now. Be ready to help if needed.

Accessible and Energetic Interviews - if someone calls for an interview that day, be ready to go. If not, they could easily move on to someone else. (Look for future article on "How to Prepare for Media Interviews).

How to Pitch Your Story

DO:

• Know who you're contacting-mistakes on media outlet names, call letters, etc. hurt your credibility.
• Know the audience-one outlet can have several audiences, depending on the outlet's time of day, section or show. Example: a weekday morning show that airs on a network affiliate in Phoenix wants topics that appeal to women who enjoy what they call "the good life". They don't want stories of death and destruction.
• Have a 30-second pitch ready by phone, but know that most outlets will ask you to email information.
• Email pitches should contain an interesting subject line that will relate to that outlet's audience. "Local author looking to be on TV" won't cut it, but "Helping your listeners find a job during a recession" will likely grab someone's attention. Also, avoid attachments unless requested.
• Look for national, regional, seasonal and breaking news tie-ins.
• Respect media deadlines - missing deadlines is unacceptable. If you're running late, call, but if you're running late for a live show you better have an amazing story. Arrive early and you increase your chances of being invited back. Show up late and you'll always be "that author that screwed us over."

DON'T

• Ask for publicity - you can use the word publicity all you want at home or work, but avoid it whenever dealing with media. You're not there for publicity; you're there to help them.
• Exaggerate or lie- hopefully, no explanation needed.
• Ask to see the story before it hits air or print - the reporter, producer, and editor doesn't ask to see your work before it's published.
• Waste their time - media outlets get more phone calls and emails than you can imagine. No one is sitting around waiting for your 10th email of the week. If you don't hear back after two pitches, move on. You can always go back to that outlet with another angle or after some time has passed.
• Be offended if they turn you down- on any given day there can be a million reasons why certain stories are picked. Never take it personally.

*****

Emmy award winning reporter Christina Estes has spent more than 15 years in TV and radio news covering a variety of stories, including politics, crime and undercover investigations. Her writing has also appeared in The Arizona Republic, Phoenix Business Journal and Latino Future magazine. She continues to work in radio while writing her first mystery novel.

Feel free to send questions or comments to her at www.christinaestes.com