It’s a whole new game, being an author today.
Take going on tour. Used to be, you’d get a fat packet of airplane tickets from your publisher. You’d put a lot of thought into what you put in your suitcase, making sure you got everything into your carry-on. You’d walk off the plane and there’d be someone waiting for you at each airport, holding a sign with your name on it.
You’d get into a car and were zipped off somewhere to an event where there might or might not be people clamoring to hear you read your work and have their books signed. You slept in a hotel in a place you might never have seen before and might never see again—or, if you were lucky, you’d arranged to stay with some long-lost friends.
If your publicist did a really good job, you were booked as a guest on some local television shows, which required you to have a whole lot of make-up brushed onto your face at an ungodly hour of the morning—and to be articulate and funny, if possible, hours before your brain’s usual time for revving up into high gear.
Well, you can forget about all of that now if you’re what is called in the industry a mid-list writer—someone, like me, who has a few fans here and there but isn’t someone whose name is a guaranteed draw for big crowds.
In this time of pinched budgets and blockbuster mentalities in the publishing world, the Blog Tour has come to be the standard for letting readers personalize their experience with writers.
You may be the most avid and devoted reader, but you won’t get your book signed. You won’t sit nervously in the little crowd of people in the bookstore’s designated space for public readings, trying to formulate just the right words for your question. If you’re an aspiring writer hoping to get a quote for your manuscript or just a crumb of encouragement, you’ll miss out on the chance to see that published writer eye to eye—how she dresses and whether she wears reading glasses and whether her author photo is ridiculously out of date.
But if you have a blog, you can command that same author to spend hours, if need be, producing a piece of original writing for you. And you can bet your laptop that the writer will be grateful and gracious about doing your bidding. Because you’re giving him or her what publishers have stopped providing for all but the already famous: Publicity.
Come back and visit tomorrow to read about what it’s like to do a tour of 16 different young adult book blogs.
This is one of the many reasons I chose the path of indie publishing. I received lots of positive feedback from agents, as well as editors of major publishing houses, to my first manuscript, but in the end I decided to retain the rights to my work. Since then I've published three books under an independent imprint and sales have been fantastic. I've received emails from all over the world from readers who have read and loved my books. And because I own the rights I'm also able to use my books as fundraisers for worthy causes, which I consider a real blessing. I'm about to publish my fourth book and already have orders from bookstores and speaking engagements across the country. I couldn't agree more that the internet--website, blogs, amazon, facebook, etc., is the way to go now with marketing. The Santa Fe Opera, who ordered a shipment of my books recently and invited me to give a lecture this summer, found me in that way. The sad fact is that unless your name is Danielle Steel or John Grisham you're going to have to do most of the marketing legwork yourself anyway. So why should the big publishing conglomerates make all the profit from our years and years of hard work?
ReplyDeleteHow lovely to hear from you, Sarah! That's truly thrilling news about how well your indie books have been doing. Every writer these days must wonder whether publishers aren't becoming obsolete. And yet it's quite daunting to contemplate trying to take on everything HarperCollins has done to give my novels legitimacy. All I want to do is write the books! I like meeting readers. But having to worry about inventory, storage, marketing and (worst of all!) sales sounds really ghastly to me. I will say, though, that you've given me pause. I hope we'll hear from other writers on this issue! In the meantime, you have all my very best and warmest wishes.
ReplyDeleteThank you Barbara. I really enjoyed Vivaldi's Virgins, especially since Vivaldi is one of my specialties! I agree that the writing is the most rewarding part of the whole process, and to be honest often seems the easiest part. My printer takes care of storage and inventory, and distribution, so fortunately that's not something I've had to deal much with. I too would be horrified to have to handle the marketing aspect on my own, but I'm lucky to have a husband with a strong background in both publishing and marketing, so he's been a huge help. The internet is a great sales tool, but the teacher in me also loves meeting readers in person. Book signings, school and book club visits, and fundraising events are great for that and are often a welcome contrast to the lonely writing process. Isn't it wonderful that we have so many options these days? Thanks so much for offering a forum for this discussion, Barbara. I wish you all the best!
ReplyDeleteYou're very welcome, Sarah! I hope that other writer friends of yours and mine will also weigh in with their views. I do so wonder whether traditional publishing is soon to become a relic of the past. (But maybe Virginia and Leonard Woolf had the same thought in mind when they started the Bloomsbury Press?)
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