[Tony Williams]

Marketing is an issue for most authors these days, not just for those like me who self-publish. Only those lucky enough to be given full support from a big publisher can sit back and let it happen, but they are the chosen few. The costs of extensive advertising, and of paying bookstores to feature books in displays, are beyond the reach of individuals or small publishers, and even the big publishers have to be selective.

So the great majority of authors have to spend time on boosting their own chances of success. The traditional routes are well known, the main one being to send out review copies to all appropriate paper and electronic journals (but there are far more books than there are review slots, and well-known authors and big publishers tend to take precedence). The internet permits other alternatives, such as websites, MySpace, blogs like this one, and book discussion forums, although most of the forums understandably take a dim view of authors trying to promote their own work. Perhaps one of the best routes, particularly for those of us who use POD publishing and rely on on-line sales, is to accumulate a lot of reviews from satisfied readers on amazon. Even that has its downside, however, with the unscrupulous getting their friends and family to post glowing reviews (something which amazon is trying to address). There is also, of course, a Catch-22 with amazon reviews: getting many good ones probably boosts sales a lot, but since only a tiny percentage of readers bothers to comment, you need a lot of sales before you can get those reviews.

The problem for authors is that however much effort you put into marketing, the results are completely unpredictable. I have been reflecting on this lately due to the varied fortunes of my two novels. At the time that the first one, 'The Foresight War', was published at the end of 2004, I knew little about fiction publishing, and decided to self-publish because I wanted to hit a particular publication date (the celebrations of the 60th anniversary of the end of World War 2). I put very little effort into marketing: a few review copies, a few mentions on websites, and that was all. Yet the book started selling immediately and has sold steadily ever since. Despite the fact that I paid for a full service from my publishers (Authors Online), profits from book sales recovered those costs some time ago and continue to deliver a small but steady income.

For my second novel, 'Scales', I was much more organised. To minimise the costs, I did more of the preparatory work myself (and a special thank-you to Oleg Volk, who designed the cover for me), and I took a much more systematic approach to marketing, sending out a lot more review copies and providing details to many different booksellers. I was even lucky enough to be interviewed for a podcast on 'The Writing Show', as I described in an earlier post. However, the book's sales since its publication earlier this year have so far been depressingly slow. More experienced self-published authors tell me that this is normal, that I should be patient, and that I was lucky the first time, but I can't help thinking that something more than luck is involved.

One possible variable is of course the quality of the work, but I doubt that is a factor. 'The Foresight War' is actually weak on some of the usual elements of fiction, particularly characterisation, because I wrote it in order to explore ideas about an alternative World War 2, so the characters are mainly there to carry the plot. 'Scales' is much more focused on the principal character (and the story is told in the first person to emphasise this), and the feedback I have had from those who have read both is that it is a much better novel. It did get off to an unfortunate start with one reviewer who took a great dislike to it (it happens; something which all authors have to live with) but the few reviews posted since then have been much more favourable.

The conclusion which I have come to is that it is the plot which makes the difference. While 'The Foresight War' is probably of little interest to most readers of fiction, it appeals strongly to those fascinated by the Second World War, and particularly those who enjoy discussing the "what ifs" of that conflict. There are discussion forums which focus on just that, and their members are interested in hearing about novels on the subject. In fact, there aren't that many novels published which deal with such 'alternative WW2' scenarios, so there is little competition.

'Scales', on the other hand, fits into the mainstream SF category. It's set in the present day and concerns what happens to a man who acquires non-human characteristics and abilities as a result of an accident. It is, I am told, much more interesting and enjoyable for non-WW2 specialists than 'The Foresight War'. However, it is battling for attention with countless others and, being self-published, has a much lower profile. It's simply getting lost in the sea of fiction.

So what lessons can be drawn from this?

The first is that success (particularly for self-published works) is more likely if a story appeals to a niche market which can be identified and reached.

The second is that it is easier to build sales if succeeding novels are in the same genre; and easier still if they form a series, which is why publishers like authors to write sequels to successful novels.

Finally, a philosophical approach is required. Most novels (whether traditionally or self-published) lose money, which is why publishers put such a lot of effort into identifying and promoting the few best-sellers which make all of the profit.

To sum up; write if you must, publish if you can, market as vigorously as you feel able to, but keep your expectations low and be prepared to be very patient and persistent!

(Originally posted on my Science Fiction & Fantasy blog)

[BlueAngel]

I appreciate that you've taken the time to share your experience. I agree with you, there's more than luck involved when advertising. At least with my artwork, I know that it takes funds to get business cards, flyers, and ads made, and also more traffic to a web gallery. I imagine it's much the same for marketing a piece of writing.

Both styles of my writing and artwork are fitted to niche markets, so if I do things right, once I find the funds, I may get a little notoriety. The one thing I can't stand though is the politics of either business, in how the most known stick together and crowd out the chance for new blood. They may or may not do it intentionally, but it makes it a hell of a lot harder for those who also have a vision to share.

I only wished I'd known about the low expectations thing before I attended college. It may have made me see that some goals are unreachable. At least I know now that I can be free from what would've trampled my creative abilities. It sucks, but sometimes in life, you're the only one you've got.
Just my take. Thanx Tony.

[Erebus]

Some great insights and advice there, Tony. Thank you for sharing.

[James Barclay]

Very interesting stuff, Tony.

Publishing is full of variables and unknowables and the biggest of them all is whether readers will actually like the book. Darned audiences are so fickle... you can write a masterpiece and it bombs, no matter how much publicity you get; you can write a piece of old toot and it gets made into a movie and strikes a chord with people the world over.

But there is no doubting that publicity is important simply because it brings your work to the attention of a wider audience. Focused publicity is yet more valuable because you are targetting your genre base directly. I think where mistakes are often made is in hoping a genre book will be taken up far more widely. This leads to a scattering of effort and a lessening of overal penetration. Marketing needs to concentrate on the most likely areas for sales (like in every industry) and that means the publicist and author need to know their audience before they start banging their drums.

I'm published by a mainstream publisher but am expected to do as much of my own publicity and marketing as I can. Authors should not sit back and expect their work to sell. That is the province of the fortunate few. The maths is simple. Tell two people about your work and one hates it, you have one potential fan. Tell one person and they hate it, and you have none...

Best of luck, Tony.

NOM

[KatG]

Dude, is there any reason why this couldn't have gone into the Self-Promotion Sticky thread we keep for just this purpose, and where it would be available to other members much longer? I'm going to let this stand alone for now, but just ask folks to bear in mind that sometimes they are continuing a discussion and might want to just add to (and glance through) an older thread first.

First off, if you all don't stop saying repeatedly that only the chosen few can sit back and relax, I might have to find an Internet cattle prod with which to do some damage. NO author gets to sit back and relax. The burdens of publicity and promotion are entirely the author's responsibility. The publisher serves essentially as an assistant and intermediary with bookstores, if you're lucky, but mostly they make the authors do all the work.

Bestselling authors work far harder than the rank and file and are in the same boat as everybody else. I have an author pal whose book went higher than any from her series ever has on the bestseller lists and still her publisher is very unhappy. That's partly due to the fact that getting on the bestseller lists takes a lot less than it used to as sales are down and dispersed. But if you think George Martin and R.A. Salvatore take it easy, you're kidding yourself. And you may be doing a bit of a disservice by propogating that info on your blog, Tony.

Publishers become more useful on marketing once a book and author is already a hit, or if they do a promotional campaign and the book doesn't tank (which happens,) so they keep the promotion going. Where publishers are most useful, though, is not in promotion, as our small press authors will tell you, but in distribution. Not only are publishers then getting books in the bookstores, but they are making more booksellers/stores familiar with who that author is.

Small presses have offset that advantage by building local and regional sales bases. But this was always problematic for SFF, because local fan groups were too small -- SFF is a national market. When the SFF specialty bookstores started dying off as well, it became even harder. The Internet and online bookstores have helped small press SFF and self-published works out by giving them a way to sell without having to do it regionally. They are less set up to participate in the rapidly growing international market the big publishers can handle -- and which the Net feeds -- but it offers promotion opportunities to at least let small groups of people know about their titles, which for small presses can make their stuff more attractive to bookstores.

Most novels (whether traditionally or self-published) lose money, which is why publishers put such a lot of effort into identifying and promoting the few best-sellers which make all of the profit.

If they could identify who were going to be the best-sellers, they wouldn't publish anybody else. But in fiction, who's going to be the next bestseller is extremely difficult to predict. When a novel does become a bestseller, it can still lose money for the publisher, and often does. But when a bestselling author comes out with a new book -- series or no -- the publisher can also make a lot of money on their backlist, their past books. Which is another reason why bestsellers have to scramble -- they are judged not only on their latest book but how their older ones still out on the market are doing, a situation that can get very complicated.

It may be less that Foresight War was alt his WWII, Tony, and more that people just liked the premise better. But if you can, try to find out how the initial buyers found out about it (after that, presumably, they told their friends.) If you have a fair amount of sales for it, and they're trickling down a bit, you could try to sell the work for reprint to a press, in hopes of somewhat wider distribution. I'd say keep pushing both, since you can keep them in print as long as you like, being your own publisher. That is one advantage you have -- time and yes, reasonable, small sales expectations. And over time, those sales can build, leading to better distribution of your name and better distribution of your books.

[James Barclay]

Well there are some authors who certainly could literally sit at home and watch the sales mount up. But more pertinently, there are some authors for whom book tours are organised, cars are sent, hotels are booked blah blah. This I call sitting back and relaxing (relatively speaking since a book tour is damn hard work).

More pertinently still, why would you want to sit back and relax? Touring and meeting fans, signing, doing interviews and all that mullarkey is just brilliant fun. Not doing it is leaving out one of the finest parts of the job.

NOM

[Physics Knight]

Thanks for sharing! That was very interesting. I remember one author's advice on their website was to treat your advance as an investment and use it for advertising and promotion since you can't expect much from the publisher. I intend to follow that advice. Though I need to get published first so maybe I'm getting ahead of myself.

Anyways, about the amazon thing. A while ago some physics friends and I stumbled across this book that claims to debunk the laws of physics and replace it with this other theory (things like everything is made up of electrons). The author was clearly a whack-job and this theory had no scientific backing. He didn't even know how to use calculus and the diagrams were all done in MS Word (classy, I know), and the writing itself was awful. It was a terrible book in every sense.

We went onto amazon.com to give it some negative reviews like it deserves. A few days later, our reviews disappear. I try again, make it a bit less scolding and it still disappears. I know amazon censors their reviews, but I have said harsher things about other books, like Wizard's First Rule for example, and the reviews all got posted without any trouble. AND the only reviews up for this whack-job book were all four and five stars, were of similar lengths and said roughly the same thing written in the same style. ie they all looked like they were written by the same person who tried to vary themselves convincingly and failed. Most books you will see a spectrum of lengths, styles, content, and aptitude with the English language for all the reviews. Not here!

A while later, still curious, I did a search on google for this book using the title and amazon as keywords. I find a few blogs and homepages that talk about their attempts to give this book a bad review on amazon.com and all of them failed! So when amazon says that they will clean up reviews for author's relatives/friends, I take it with a grain of salt. Yeah they might do it for some, but I think this author in question and others probably have an "in" in amazon.com and they will never get cleaned up.

[KatG]

I know it seems that way, but only J.K. Rowling gets to sit and watch money roll in at this point because she broke every record ever made. :) Book tours are nice, but have a lot of their own problems, one being that neither bookstores nor publishers do them very well, at least for fiction, and of course they are rare -- especially for sff authors. Getting media coverage on a tour for a fiction author is also really hard. The author ends up doing most of the work on a tour, and if they want to hit independents and other options, will be arranging it themselves.

I carp about this stuff because I think it's important that writers, whether they are struggling with self-publishing or a press, know that this is a very low-money, awkward business, not just for the lower ranks but for everybody. Which is partly what Tony is writing about.

[Jamza1986]

I sometimes struggle with whether or not to self-publish my novels. Those who read my writing usually enjoy it, and going on my own experience and the opinion of my relative who works in publishing, I would say the quality of my prose is high enough to be published. It's about so many other factors though; it's about the fiction market, budgets, advertising and a whole dose of luck. It's similar with self-publishing; you do all the work but you can never really expect much of a return. That's why I write just for the art now, getting published isn't the be all and end all like it used to be. It's expression and creation, it's pretty unviable as a business for most people.