Buzz, Balls & Hype

The 498th Novel Published This Week

Leora Skolkin-Smith's first novel, EDGES: O Israel, O Palestine which is being released today, is also Grace Paley's first novel under her Glad Day Books imprint.

Like many other small press and mid size press and large press books, you won't be able to find it in your local BN or Borders.

This has lead to a some interesting conversation at Readerville.com where Skolkin-Smith is a regular. It's a conversation that is particularly timely since last week's release of the new BISGpublication figures. Apparently, there were 195,000 books published last year, up from 175,000 the year before. Of those 25,000 were fiction, up from 15,000 the year before.

My, my, my. We are now at a point where 500 novels are being released weekly.

Is it really any surprise that so many writer's careers are crashing and burning before they ever flared? Or that not every title is stocked in the chains?

As all too many of us sadly know, it's not only Glad Day's EDGES that is not being stocked. There are titles from S&S, RH, TimeWarner, etc not being stocked.

You can't even blame the chains. Think about how many man-hours it takes to sift through 25,000 books a year? And how much real estate is there - even in a superstore - to give shelf space to 500 new books each and every week. (And that's just fiction!)

As readers of this blog know, my point is not that there are too many books. I want to be really clear about this so I am going to obnoxiously repeat it. I'm not saying there are too many books.

But I am saying that there are too many books for the system as it exists now, to deal with.

The navigation system is broken.

The publicity machine is broken.

The methodology to encourage more readership of a more varied group of titles is broken.

The fact that every year 25,000 novelists get a chance to tell their story is amazing and wonderful. What author should we take that chance away from? And what about the thousands more waiting for their chance.

No, I am not advocating less books.

But with the number of books being published there are going to be more and more of them that don't get fairly and adequately vetted by fiction buyers, by reviewers, and by readers.

We have broken systems in place to deal with the books we're publishing. Because of it, readers suffer with choice overload and writers suffer when poor selling books destroy their careers.

My rose colored glasses are on, as usual, and I really do think there are solutions. But I just don't think our industry - neither the publishers nor the booksellers - are ready to sit down at the table all together and spend the money and the time to brainstorm the problem, come up with solutions, and test them.

In the meantime, why not read Skolkin-Smith's backstory for EDGES, the 498th novel published this week.

The Buzz Your Book Class Sign Up

Here is the link for the class Sign up here.

Buzz - the Class - We're Back!!!!!

"The course is like Prozac for authors…"-- Fara Spense

"TAKE THIS COURSE - You won't regret it. Somebody's Daughter has appeared in PEOPLE and ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY, has gone into its second printing, and has even been spotted "out front" in many bookstores including the chains. I had formerly been jealous of peers who had $10-$30K to spend on independent publicists, but I think I got a lot more, and at a fraction of the price." -- Marie Myung-Ok Leee, Somebody's Daughter: A Novel, Beacon Press

The Buzz your Book class is back due to popular demand.

I've been really amazed (and flattered) at how many authors and agents have written in the last six months asking to tae the BUZZ YOUR BOOK class so I'm bringing it back with a few new bells and whistles updated it and the next session will start July 11 and continue for six week.

BUZZ YOUR BOOK is an online class taught by me, M.J. ROSE, that helps authors create an actionalbe Marketing/PR Plan. Each student works one on one with me for six weeks.

The new updated class also includes 2 individual phone sessions.

Prerequisites: email and world-wide web access, ability to navigate the Internet, ability to open and read PDF documents. course length: six weeks (July 11 - Aug 15) Limit: 15 students Sign up here.

HOW IT WORKS

This isn't a theoretical course. I work one on one with each student on his/her marketing plan. At the beginning of the class each student will get a workbook, and every week a reading assignment plus a lecture, plus homework. (Sound like fun yet? Don't worry, it is.)

Each student works at his/her own pace. By the end of the class all your completed assignments will together make up a customized marketing plan for your book and your book only.

Included in the class are up to the date techno ideas like how to use blogs, podcasts, and virtual book tours as well as traditional media ideas.

To date authors from McCadam Cage, Ballantine, Penguin, & SMP have already taken this class as well as publicists and editors from Tor, Wylie and Simon & Schuster. (While the class is designed for authors, since it is one on one it can be easily tailored for publicists.)

Over the last nine years, I've put into practice everything I teach. I've been on the Today Show, Fox News, BookSpan TV, Jim Leher Newshour, CNN as well as in the New York Times, Time Magazine, Newsweek, the Boston Globe and Forbes.

What previous students have said about the class:

"The only regret I have about taking M.J. Rose's Buzz Your Book course is that I didn't take it sooner. It was invaluable in providing perspective on a world I knew nothing about: the mysterious processes of marketing and selling books. Most important, the course forced me to think long and hard about finding my natural audience, and helped me see that reaching out to readers could reap rewards well beyond any numerical considerations." - Sheila Curran, author of DIANA LIVELY IS FALLING DOWN, Berkley Books, Penguin USA, July 2005

"Rose & Clegg's "Buzz Your Book Class" was a perfect way to get buzzed about the sometimes daunting work of promoting my upcoming books. With their savvy advice and on-target prompts, I was able to feel motivated, inspired -- and empowered. Instead of dreading this part of the publication process, I look forward to partnering with my publicist and getting the word out about my work." - Andrea J. Buchanan - http://www.mothershock.com Mother Shock: Loving Every (Other) Minute of It (Seal Press, 2003)

"MJ's Buzz Your Book class is an imperative for promoting a book in today's marketplace. She keeps up with trends and technology, you get the benefit. Seeing as I'm a techno-slouch, her wisdom and foresight are invaluable tools." -- Jennie Shortridge Eating Heaven NAL/Penguin Sept. 2005 Riding With the Queen NAL/Penguin 2003

"M.J. Rose's Buzz your Book Class was instrumental in allowing me to help supplement my publisher's efforts, particularly with regard to Internet marketing. The Buzz phrase lesson was particularly valuable - the phrase that resulted is one that is currently being used by my publisher in promoting my book." -- Melanie Lynne Hauser CONFESSIONS OF SUPER MOM, Dutton, September 2005

The Buzz Your Book course provided me with the knowledge, tools, insight,and confidence I need to promote my first novel, GermLine. The course provided not only a plethora of applicable promotional/marketing ideas—more than you’ll ever have the time to implement—but specific tactics and approaches designed for the unique needs of your book - Nelson Erlick, Author of GermLine, TOR 2003.

Sign up here.

What the Blip?

Hey everybody. Kevin Smokler here as part of the Virtual Book Tour for my new book Bookmark Now: Writing in Unreaderly Times. As part of the tour, MJ asked me to put together an essay about new technologies and how they can be helpful to authors. See below...

If you've got your ear to the railroad tracks of book publishing, or you're even at the station a bit early, you can hear a big change a rumblin'. Not only are our readers stretched thin between their iPods, TiVos, Neflix queue and a little thing called the Internet, but everyday seems to bring another news story about another newfangled way to consume entertainment and culture. It can't help but feel that the implication for writer is rather bleak: Not only are books inconvenient, soon they'll be uncool too.

Hogwash I say. There's nothing in the recent onslought of acronyms like "RSS" and frankenwords like "podcasting" that spell doom for literature. Instead I'd say they offer a menu of options for us to reach readers in new and and exciting places. Writer and thinker Douglass Rushkoff said it quite succintly in an essay entitled "The Computer Ate my Book" for my new book Bookmark Now: Writing in Unreaderly Times (Basic Books, June 2005). "Media don't steal from one another" he writes. "Just when it appears that a new medium is going to replace its predeccesor, we tend to figure out the true value of the older."

Remember when Amazon came along in 1994, they were the newest of new media, a way to buy without ever leaving your desk, lifting a catalog or calling a customer service rep. And what did they build this business on? The stodgy old book. Netflix pulled the same magic on film, iTunes on music. Both created a painless way for a curious audience to sample culture they might not ordinarily and created a distribution channel independent of the restrictions of shelf-space. So there's no reason to believe that books don't belong. We just have to peruse the media menu and figure out how.

Menu Item #1: The Blog

What is it? A blog is a frequently updated website consisting of links and commentary in reverse chronological order, usually on a specific subject. There are blogs about just about everything including something as specific as the design of movie posters. The more well known author bloggers include Neil Gaiman, Jennifer Weiner and Stephen Elliott to name only a few.

What's it for? Many authors blog to give themselves a venue for bite-sized writing and to give their readers access to their daily thoughts, creative process or simply a little taste of them over the the long stretch between book publications. There's also a vibrant community of literary bloggers (several of whom formed the LitBlog Co-op in order to give underappreciated books some recognition) who cover the publishing business, review books and debate issues related to books, literacy and the writing life. Buzz Balls & Hype fits in here...

Should I be blogging? Only if you have something to say that does not fit easily into your books. Blogging is, by itself, not a good marketing tool since blogs built to shill get dissed quickly by the blogosphere. And since linking is the currency of blogs, count on little love real fast. Also, blogs should really stick around for at least a year if they are worth reading. Ask yourself if you have that kind of time.

That said, many authors (like Gail Brandeis, Danyel Smith and Nelson George) just do it because they are interesting people and it's fun to share. They seem to still have time for their books.

Where do I start? A professionally designed website and blogging software like Typepad, Wordpress or Blogger. It should also be noted that, even if you have no interest in a blog, these software package make updating your author site quick and easy and save you the trouble of bothering your designer.

Item #2: RSS

What is it? RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication. It's a file format by which the content of a website can be syndicated. Think of it as a carbon copy that can be mailied around cyberspace.

What's it for? Imagine you read 10 websites a day for research, professional development or your own enjoyment. You probably visit those ten websites through a series of bookmarks. Now if you arrive at website #6 and there is no new content from yesterday, you've just wasted your time. Now imagine if you read 50 websites a day. Could amount to a lot of wasted time.

RSS takes the new content from your favorite websites and brings it directly to your computer's desktop. Using a free piece of software called an RSS Reader (a good list of readers), you then enter in the URL's for the rss "feed" from your favorite website (usually an orange button marked "XML" or a link that says "syndicate this site" will give you the feed") into your reader and presto! The new content comes straight to you as soon as it's ready.

So what? For writers, an rss reader is a great way to keep track of your favorite book review sites, blogs or newspapers as well as industry info from publications like Publisher's Weekly. Also, using a free service like PubSub, one can set up a custom rss feed of any phrase in the English language. I have one called "Kevin Smokler", another called "Bookmark Now." Whenever I or my book get mentioned anywhere online, notice of it comes right to me. This a quick,e asy way to track reviews and media mention of your book, particularly in the early stages of publication.

How do I start? Download an RSS reader from this list and start filling it with feeds.

Item #3: Podcasting

What is it? TiVo for sound. Using an RSS reader, you can now subscribe to sound files as well as new content on websites, which means that if your favorite radio program is podcasting, it will download an audiofile of itself to your desktop when it is done and you can now listen to it any time you like.

It works the other way too. If your website produces an rss feed (any site using Blogger, Wordpress or TypePad does), you can now send out your own little radio broadcasts from it. Using a simple web-based tool like Audioblog.com (subscription is $4.95 per month), you can dial a number on your phone, enter a PIN and talk. Audioblog makes a recording of your voice and automatically posts it on your website.

What's it for? Audio diaries of your book tour, your writing process, cheap easy recordings of you reading. A chance for your readers to hear your voice and add a whole other dimension to your work without you having to be there.

How do I start? Audioblog.com, this how-to on podcasting.

Item #4: "Tagging" and "Folksonomies"

What are they? Terms, really, of a new way of organizing information. When you use the card catalog in your library, the makers of the catalog determine the catagories by which the books will be organized, a top-down model of organization. A "folksonomy" is a bottom-up method of organization, where each piece of information is added and catagorized by the person who added it. The customized categories given to the piece of information are called "tags." Creating them is called "tagging."

What's it for? Sharing information with friends and strangers. Flickr is an online service for sharing photos with friends and family which allows to "tag" photos (example: "My graduation") and then allows to view all photos with this tag. I plan on using Flickr as a way to organize all the photos taken on my tour, not just those by me. Author Wendy McClure is doing this for book tour as we speak. Upcoming.org is a bottom-up events calendar where you "tag" events like stops on your book tour. Readers and fans can then receive an rss feed or an email reminder based on the tags assigned to that event. I've placed my entire book tour on Upcoming based on my last name and the tag "bookmarknow". Now anyone who wants to attend an event can see not only who else will be there but will automatically be reminded if dates and times change.

How do I start?: Registration on Upcoming.org is free. A Flickr pro account is $40 a year but has a free acount option as well. Both are outlined here.

Let's eat.

More or Less or Newsletters

Note - there are three new backstories up at my other blog BACKSTORY where authors recount the intimate, strange, funny or poignant things that inspired their novels. Please hop on over and take a look and stick around a while and read some earlier ones, too.

Author Newsletters Backfire

Key to the concept of newsletter is the word "news." To further define news lets add to it news that actually matters to the reader not the writer of the news.

Of the few dozen author newsletters I have subscribed to and unsubscribed to in the last two years, I have to say only one or two of them did it for me. Only one or two of them offered me the reader anything meaningful. Most were deleted after I read them once or twice.

Newsletters are not a miracle marketing tool.

They work when they work because the author is amazingly entertaining or has a lot of real and valuable information on a subject of interest to readers.

And that subject, as much as we'd like to believe it, is rarely ourselves.

Unfortunately, very few authors are so fascinating that we should be writing weekly or even monthly newsletters about ourselves.

Believe it or not, our readers are not always happy to know we moved houses, changed our baby's diapers, or were nominated for a prize. There is a fine line between sharing our work with our fans and alienating them by pushing our success in their faces.

There is a fine line between letting them know you have a new book out, and inundating them with self-conscious self-aggrandizing information about that book's shelf life. Our readers want a good read, they want to fall in love with characters or with awe-inspiring writing.

They don't necessarily want 500 words on why we didn't deserve that bad review we got in the newspaper.

What is very important is to recognize that by sending out self-congratulatory or self-indulgent newsletters, we run the risk of doing the very opposite of what we have set out to do. It is possible to annoy and alienate those very precious readers who we are attempting to cultivate.

While we are on the subject, here's is some newsletter etiquette I've culled from various readers and writers and marketing folk.

1. Do not add people to your newsletter just because they once wrote you a note. Or once answered a note you wrote to them. Don't put your address book into your newsletter database. Let your reader's sign up.

Believe me, if I have not signed up for your newsletter but I did once answer a note you wrote me about my agent's availability to look at your novel, I know what's what when I suddenly get your newsletter. I know what you are doing. And it actually can backfire.

Contrary to some counterintuitive thinking, if you send me your newsletter without me asking I might just be so annoyed I will go out of my way to avoid your book.

The goal is not to have 20,000 arbitrary names on your newsletter list of whom 99% will delete without opening. But rather to have 3000 dedicated fans who will rush out to buy the new book the second they read that it's available.

2. Do not send out a newsletter just to send out a newsletter.

One newsletters a year that is really interesting is more beneficial than twelve that are boring. Before you know it, if you write two or three boring newsletters in a row, your readers will start to think you write boring books.

3. Do send out a newsletter when you have a new book out, or are going on tour. Do list dates, or when you are running some kick ass contest or when you are auctioning off your house to raise money for literacy and you want me to bid on it.

4. Do send out a newsletter if you come up with a great concept for it that isn't about you. For instance, if you write dog mysteries, it would be a great idea to do a newsletter on new ways to teach old dog even older tricks and yes, you can even advertise your own book in the newsletter -- Just not to the exclusion of making the rest of the news - there is that word again - damn entertaining or interesting.

5. Don't assume you are smarter than the rest of us and you should take it upon yourself to educate us unless you are really really sure that your knowledge is going to be welcome. I know one author who has been subscribing authors without their permission and sending out what she thinks are helpful advice sheets but they come off as if she's a know it all. She thinks she's marketing herself and her work when all she is doing is insulting people with every issue and turning readers off.

Overall, be aware, that the better our readers get to know us, the more they might love us and our work.

But the opposite is just as possible.

Sometimes, less is much much more.

Secrets

My newest addiction is reading these secret postcards at PostSecret a blog that posts postcards send in anonymously that reveal the senders deepest secrets. (I’m betting the publishing industry could provide some real doozies.)

Each one is a pastiche of interesting images and words, many of them inspiration enough as the starting point for a novel:

I hate him for what he did to me, but more than that I hate myself for what I did to her.

My best friend doesn’t know I know her secret.

I’m still in love with her. I hope she reads this and recognizes my handwriting. This is also my last try.

When I do it I will make it look like an accident.

I show pictures of my feet to guy online so he will buy me stuff.

Link via Kitty Litter which by the way is a gossipy, fun, charming blog

Speaking of secrets, there is a terrific new book out titled THE RESILIANT WRITER edited by Catherine Wald. 23 authors, including Amy Tan, Wally Lamb and your truly reveal their innermost secret feeling about the slings and arrows of the writerly rejections they’ve had to suffer over the years. Cathy will be guest blogging one day soon, but in the meantime, check out the book.

Rest In Peace

Batya Gur has died. Far too young and far too soon.

Gur was one of my inspirations when I was starting out: that kind of novelist who writes about ideas and issues that matter but dressed up in compelling fast paced, plot driven stories.

She fooled you into thinking you were reading for fun but she left you with so much to think about.

If you haven't read her work, buy a book of hers today in her memory. She was a wonderful and talented woman.

Sculpting a Marketing Plan

Doug Clegg, my co-author of BUZZ YOUR BOOK has come up with a fascinating marketing plan for his next novel, PRIEST OF BLOOD, which is due out this fall but can be pre-ordered now.

The plan has three parts and I’m going to blog about them all in time.

Today is part one.

Clegg’s put down his pen and taken up clay and cloth to create collectible dolls of each of his main characters.

Starting today and continuing up for the next couple of months he is going to be auctioning each one off at eBay along with a signed, special edition copy of the novel. (He did a limited special edition that sold out last year.)

This is so innovative on several levels.

Even before it starts, it proves – no matter how well it works – that there are very different ideas out there if you think about who the author is and who the reader is and what the book is about and how they all connect.

It’s smart because it is entirely author/reader based. It’s from Clegg directly to his fans. He’s going to his core readers and giving them something he knows they will love and knows they will talk about – i.e. – buzz about and he’s going to let it build from them.

To lay it out. Clegg’s goals for the campaign are:

1) Create further awareness for The Priest of Blood, its publication date, its cover, and its characters, one by one.

2) Provide something to increase the "collectible" market for his work, which creates a cultural place among readers of fantasy, suspense, and horror fiction – a market fascinated in this kind of tangible collectible.

3) Begin to bring fans and collectors of his work in as "pre order" of the book, with the goal of increasing the print run of the novel, making it a "good sale" on publication day, and beginning the word of mouth necessary to launch what he hopes will be a series of novels, for which there are now three books lined up by Berkley/Ace.

4) Engage readers well-before the novel is released to get them thinking about the book and its characters before the book comes out.

5) Raise funds for Protect.org, which will get 10% of each auction

6) Tie it every marketing effort back the book every way he knows how, with any creativity he can bring to it.

When you go to the eBay page look at how much bang he’s getting for his buck. Clegg’s got the cover of the upcoming book up there along with all sorts of info about the first book, an excerpt, a description of the whole trilogy and the pix of the doll.

It’s a mini website for the book.

“The name of the game,” Clegg explains, “is engaging people in the book, before they've read it. Create curiosity in the title, and spread the word, too.

“What I'll be doing next is spreading word about the auction so that fans and friends will go and read the auction, and watch it as it progresses over the next several days.

And even better -- outside the 10% that goes to Protect.org, all funds will go toward more promotion of The Priest of Blood.”

This blog will be reporting on the progress as well as the next phases of the campaign.

Clearly, not every author should take up sculpting. That’s not the point. The out of the box thinking about readers and how to engage them pre publication and get them to be buzz agents for the book is.

Dear Zoe, Looped and More

Please stop by my other blog BACKSTORY and spend some time reading the wonderful stories behind the books - new in the last week: Philip Beard, author of DEAR ZOE, Andy Winston, author of LOOPED, & Martha O'Connor, author of THE BITCH POSSE.

Keep those "Get Caught Reading" Ads Coming...

In the - we knew this already but here it is in black and white - dept.

The U.S. publishing industry continues to put out more books than the American public is prepared to buy, according to a report issued Monday by the Book Industry Study Group.

The number of books sold dropped by nearly 44 million between 2003 and 2004, even as the annual number of books published approaches 175,000.

"People are reading less, so what you're seeing is the same phenomenon that has hit magazines and newspapers, a massive shift toward home video, DVD, Internet and cable," said Albert N. Greco, an industry consultant and a professor of business at the graduate school of Fordham University.

Read more here,