Seth’s Blog: Advice for authors

Seth’s Blog: Advice for authors:

Advice for authors: It happened again. There I was, meeting with someone who I thought had nothing to do with books or publishing, and it turns out his new book just came out.

With more than 75,000 books published every year (not counting ebooks or blogs), the odds are actually pretty good that you’ve either written a book, are writing a book or want to write one.

(actually, to be rather pedantic; the population of the US is 290 million, give or take Rhode Island; the odds you’ve written a book are actually pretty small; the odds you got is published are pretty lousy. But as any published author will wearily tell you, it seems the entire universe seems to want to have a book written and is more than happy to share their idea with an author for half the profits….)

Hence this short list:

Hence a list I disagree with for any number of reasons. Or maybe I agree with it, but think it was phrased wrong…. Or, as my director has been known to exclaim, Seth and I are violently agreeing again… But man, have I been looking forward to having time to dig into this…

Lower your expectations. The happiest authors are the ones that don’t expect much.

Right idea, wrong phrasing. A few authors get very rich. Most authors make NO money, because they don’t get published. Some authors make a living at it — but many more have side incomes or a spouse with an income.

It’s not about LOWERING your expectations. It’s about being realistic about them. If you’re writing a science fiction novel, don’t expect to get Stephen King’s advance, or George R.R. Martin’s sales (or cover, or publicity, or shelf placement, or…). The last time I looked at SF numbers, you’d take a year or so to write a book, a year in pre-publication production, get a $5000 advance, and be on the shelves for (if you’re lucky) a month or so.

Those are pretty sad numbers. But over time, if you show consistent (and hopefully increasing sales) from book to book, your future books help keep your previous books in print, and OVER TIME, you can start generating royalty streams and improved advances. Or course, with the way the big chains dominate book purchases, if their computers decide your sales trends are going the wrong way, you’ll never sell another title to any publisher, because the chains won’t buy you. (unless, of course, the publisher really believes in you and publishes you under a new name; which has, in fact, happened).

Now, having said that, first-book wunderkind like Tad Williams exist and succeed. And they succeed just often enough that it allows other hopeful authors to believe that they, too, can make it happen. But in reality, that’s not reality.

The best time to start promoting your book is three years before it comes out. Three years to build a reputation, build a permission asset, build a blog, build a following, build credibility and build the connections you’ll need later.

I’m sorry, but how do you promote something when you have nothing to promote? And will it do any good?

I have never been convinced that it makes sense for authors to spend a lot of time promoting, unless they somehow find themselves on Oprah or the Tonight Show. In-store signings, maybe, but they work mostly after you actually have a name. I’ve done a couple of signings for anthologies I’ve been in where three people showed up over four hours.

Someone needs to show me that the time spending promotions actually makes sense. If I spend an hour on, say, Ronn Owens of KGO Radio here in the Bay Area, how many books am I going to sell? Given that I already have the advance check cashed, I probably haven’t earned it out (so I won’t see royalty income) — the amount of money coming to me from those sold books is, well, zero. If I HAVE earned out and am generating royalty, if I have a hardcover book and I sell 50 copies because listeners had to have it after my stirring talk about how Millard Fillmore installed flush toilets in the Whitehouse, that nets me a royalty of, what, $100? $150? (not that incremental sales are bad, they make selling your next book easier, but I simply have never seen proven that local promotions make a real difference on a national sales number, when you factor in that your time has value and isn’t given away as part of the promotion).

Shouldn’t you, as a writer, be off writing the NEXT book instead of spending an hour promoting this one (and selling four copies?). Someone show me the money. I doubt it comes from promoting.

(now, if your publishing house wants to send you on a book tour, and pay your expenses, and isn’t actually adding the expenses to your advance so you end up paying for them yourself in lost royalties, and you want to go visit the places they want to send you, then by all means go. but carry the laptop and write while you’re on the trip….)

Pay for an eidtor editor. Not just to fix the typos, but to actually make your ramblings into something that people will choose to read. I found someone I like working with at the EFA. One of the things traditional publishers used to do is provide really insightful, even brilliant editors (people like Fred Hills and Megan Casey), but alas, that doesn’t happen very often. And hiring your own editor means you’ll value the process more.

This one’s plain wrong. It’s your publisher’s responsibility to edit your book. If your manuscript is so badly written that it’s unsalable without hiring an editor — learn to be a better writer. Learn to edit yourself. Every penny you spend paying other people to work on your manuscript is a penny you won’t get back when you sell it. Join a writers group (a real one, where they rip apart each other’s manuscripts and piss each other off with the criticism; not the ‘we’re all friends here making each other feel better’ type. you improve through criticsism. if you want someone to say nice things about your manuscript, send it to your mother…)

If your manuscript needs an editor before you can sell it, you need to be a better writer. Period. Get back to work and fix yourself. This is a core, basic requirement of being a successful writer. And writing pays beginners badly. you can’t AFFORD to outsource, unless you see this as a hobby and you’re funding it out of your real career.

Understand that a non-fiction book is a souvenir, just a vessel for the ideas themselves. You don’t want the ideas to get stuck in the book… you want them to spread. Which means that you shouldn’t hoard the idea! The more you give away, the better you will do.

Which is, in its way, tying back to the idea of promotion. And here, I agree with Seth. Effectively, we’re talking word of mouth here. And if you can get people talking, then you can get those people to sell your book for you. Which is why, probably, you SHOULD go on Ronn Owens and promote your book, to try to prime that pump. But you should also those promotional talks very carefully to see whether they are priming the word of mouth engine, or simply selling four copies every hour of airtime; and if they aren’t, get back to work on the next book instead.

Don’t try to sell your book to everyone. First, consider this: ”

58% of the US adult population never reads another book after high school.” Then, consider the fact that among people even willing to buy a book, yours is just a tiny little needle in a very big haystack. Far better to obsess about a little subset of the market–that subset that you have permission to talk with, that subset where you have credibility, and most important, that subset where people just can’t live without your book.

Yup. Find your market. Connect with it. Ignore the non-market. Don’t try to sell baseballs to hockey players. Find more baseball players.

Resist with all your might the temptation to hire a publicist to get you on Oprah. First, you won’t get on Oprah (if you do, drop me a note and I’ll mention you as the exception). Second, it’s expensive. You’re way better off spending the time and money to do #5 instead, going after the little micromarkets. There are some very talented publicists out there (thanks, Allison), but in general, see #1.

If hiring an editor is stupid, hiring a publicist for ANY reason is the sign of an amateur. Don’t even think about it. The only reason to consider hiring one is because you’ve gotten so successful you need one to offload the publicity work so you can have time to write again. Very few authors ever have that problem. The ones that do have agents and publishers, and THEY hire publicists FOR those authors.

Think really hard before you spend a year trying to please one person in New York to get your book published by a ‘real’ publisher. You give up a lot of time. You give up a lot of the upside. You give up control over what your book reads like and feels like and how it’s promoted. Of course, a contract from Knopf and a seat on Jon Stewart’s couch are great things, but so is being the Queen of England. That doesn’t mean it’s going to happen to you. Far more likely is that you discover how to efficiently publish (either electronically or using POD or a small run press) a brilliant book that spreads like wildfire among a select group of people.

It all depends on whether you want to BE published, or MAKE A LIVING WRITING. There are people who do the latter via POD, e-book and small press; just not very many. Over time, that’ll change. If you want to pay the rent, let someone else figure out how to blaze the new trails. The reality is, you try to get your book published through a traditional house in New York because they are the ones who know how to get people to buy it, and who can pay you money for publishing it. Everything else is, with some exceptions, vanity press. which is fine, just don’t lie to yourself about it. And don’t assume you’ll be the exception.

Your cover matters. Way more than you think. If it didn’t, you wouldn’t need a book… you could just email people the text.

Oh, good lordy. an entire article could be written on covers. And I have, actually, but I’ve misplaced it. I’ll try to track it down….

If you have a ‘real’ publisher (#7), it’s worth investing in a few things to help them do a better job for you. Like pre-editing the book before you submit it. Like putting the right to work on the cover with them in the contract. And most of all, getting the ability to buy hundreds of books at cost that you can use as samples and promotional pieces.

If you have a “real” publisher, do waht they tell you to do, and do it by the date they need it. Be aware that unless you’re Ray Feist, asking for editorial control on the cover is a great way to lose a possible contract, and get a reputation as someone publishers don’t want to work with. Besides, you don’t have a clue what makes a cover sell a book; leave it to someone who does. And if they put a rocket ship or a unicorn on the cover and your book doesn’t have one — don’t argue. Trust me.

Blurbs are overrated, imho.

But it sure is a kick seeing your name over a blurb on a favorite author (my first cover blurb was published on a Roger Zelazny novel; I was so tickled I sent him a copy to have it autographed, which from what I heard amused the hell out of him… Now, did MY NAME or MY BLURB sell many books? who knows? but the editor felt that it helped, or it wouldn’t have been there…)

Now, there are blurbs that do more harm than good; there are some authors who are well known for offering blurbs for shopping lists and utility bills. After a while, you see their name so often if becomes a turn-off.

Blog mentions, on the other hand, matter a lot.

It can; depends on the blog. depends on the blurb. and the blurb’s audience. I’m sure Seth flacking a book sells more copies than me flacking a book, in general. But what if Seth flacks a fantasy book? Would you buy a military history of WW II because Scoble pushes it?

Even on blogs, you can’t ignore expertise, context and audience. Blogs are no panacea. and a blog that has 12 readers simply won’t sell many books, unless someone happens to get it digged.

If you’ve got the patience, bookstore signings and talking to book clubs by phone are the two lowest-paid but most guaranteed to work methods you have for promoting a really really good book. If you do it 200 times a year, it will pay.

I’m sorry, I still don’t agree. Especially given you just committed, say, 500 hours that could have finished your NEXT book three months earlier. Over a period of time, we’re talking the difference between having written 8 books and ten books, and bluntly, in most cases, you’ll make more money having published ten books than writing 8 and flacking the hell out of them.

Consider the free PDF alternative. Some have gotten millions of downloads. No hassles, no time wasted, no trying to make a living on it. All the joy, in other words, without debating whether you should quit your day job (you shouldn’t!)

Or send a copy to your mom. she’ll love it. or pretend. It depends — do you want to publish? Or do you want to pay the rent? If all you want is to be publshed, have at it. but don’t pretend it’s not a hobby.

If you want to reach people who don’t normally buy books, show up in places where people who don’t usually buy books are. Media places, virtual places and real places too.

and they’ll thank you for your time, and STILL not buy your book. Find, if you aren’t paying the rent. Make sure you know why you’re doing things — money? or ego? (or both?).

Publishing a book is not the same as printing a book. Publishing is about marketing and sales and distribution and risk. If you don’t want to be in that business, don’t! Printing a book is trivially easy. Don’t let anyone tell you it’s not. You’ll find plenty of printers who can match the look and feel of the bestselling book of your choice for just a few dollars a copy. That’s not the hard part.

Read this paragraph, then go back up and read what Seth said about ebooks, self-publishing, small press and Publish-On-Demand a few rules ago. that’s why traditional publishing is still successful, and the rest — primarily vanity and ego. Authors aren’t good publishers or publicists or salesmen or distributors. If you hire yourself for those jobs, you’ll likely fail — and cost yourself time you SHOULD be using to write the next book. Remember, you can only make money if you have inventory to sell. you only have inventory if you write it. Anything you do that takes away from the time spent writing — cuts your future inventory, which cuts your ability to sell.

If you’re going to be a writer — write. the more you do the other jobs involved in making money OFF of your writing, the less writing you can do.

Bookstores, in general, are run by absolutely terrific people. Bookstores, in general, are really lousy businesses. They are often where books go to die. While some readers will discover your book in a store, it’s way more likely they will discover the book before they get to the store, and the store is just there hoping to have the right book for the right person at the time she wants it. If the match isn’t made, no sale.

If they DO find you in the bookstore, it’s likely because the cover attracted them. And that, of course, has nothing to do with your writing. And that’s one of the things that makes writers crazy, and why publishers put unicorns on your cover, even if there isn’t one in the book.

Writing a book is a tremendous experience. It pays off intellectually. It clarifies your thinking. It builds credibility. It is a living engine of marketing and idea spreading, working every day to deliver your message with authority. You should write one.

Amen.

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