Buzz, Balls & Hype

J'Accuse - Let's See If This Works

Publishers and authors know that press drives sales but we also know that nothing is more elusive – especially to fiction authors - than a few good column inches.

This latest-in-the-same-story Chick Lit article reaffirms – as if we needed it reaffirmed - that the media loves nothing better than gossip or catfights. In fact, 1-2 they prefer it to actual news.

So clearly our mistake is that we’re not out there making enough noise. Sittenfeld, has gotten more press for her snarky review than she got reviews of her own, very well reviewed indeed novel. And she’s hardly the first one to prove this point; she’s just the latest.

But to get press you have to make news which is damn hard to do when what you do is sit in a room and write, get edited, get published, do some lovely little readings and then start the whole process over again.

We have to take some time out to live a little more. Make some mistakes. Commit a few harmless crimes somehow connected to our books. (Should I be trying to steal the halo off of the Virgin Mary in St. Pat’s Cathedral? Yes. Maybe I should.) We need to have raunchy affairs with the wrong people, very publicly. Be opinionated to the point of being insulting. Take up the Kabala or Scientology in a VERY BIG way and make a lot of noise about it. Better yet, sue the Kabala or Scientology in a VERY BIG WAY.

So I’m looking for a fight. Not just a duel of words. We can take on literary vs commercial (cause you know the fun is the fight not the subject matter) and use real swords. How about in front of those cute little lions on 42nd and 5th? Next week, Wednesday, 1 PM? So what if I break a few nails or get a little bloodied, I’m going to get ink!

Be brave! Be bold! Get ink! That’s my new mantra.

Is This Blog Worth $6.99?

The mass market version of, THE HALO EFFECT, my latest novel, is being released this week and I'm not going to ask you to read it.

I am, however, asking you to buy it.

Read that part above again, because I've probably confused you. I know that when I first thought of this I confused myself.

Don't get me wrong. I'm proud of HALO - it was just nominated for an Anthony Award and got some reviews I'm really happy with - but I also know that if you are an editor or an agent, you only have time to read your own author's books. I know if you're a publisher, you don't even have time to read all of your author's books. And I know if you are a writer, you are way too busy writing to read practically anything anymore.

But how many unread books do you have sitting around your office, or on your nightstand? Why not make THE HALO EFFECT another one of them!

Or, it makes a perfect little gift for your mother-in -law, your dog groomer, your dental hygienist, your tennis instructor, your kid's babysitter, your favorite sales person - you know - the one who calls you when the shoe sale starts, the barista at your local Starbucks, the woman behind the desk at the gym who hands you a towel every day, the guy/gal at the gym who always reads on the treadmill and who you wanted to meet, your hairdresser, your real estate agent, your colon therapist, that random dude standing next to you waiting for the subway

This blog is dedicated to sharing ideas that might help writers and publishers promote books or at least think differently about marketing them. I hope that by helping others, the entire writing community will benefit. I don't generally use it to promote my own fiction but once a year or so, I hope you'll understand if I do just that.

So how about it?

$6.99 = blog.

Blog =$6.99.

Make my day and my Amazon or Barnes & Noble numbers look good. Or get one at your your local indy.

And then don't read it.

Or not.

*Subliminal special effects donated by author fellow blogger and author Keith Cronin who has a very funny post up today about this very blog.

Gives Good Camera

I've given up. Or I'm giving in. Whichever way you want to look at it. Look being the operative word.

Early next week, the physical M.J. Rose will from now on be portrayed by an actress I have hired. She's twenty years younger than me, works out at the gym 3.5 times more than I do, and loves the limelight. She's had her teeth capped and her boobs lifted and she sleeps around with exactly the "right" men… men with influence... men who own media empires… what's more she knows just when to whisper sweet nothings about getting reviews, please, in their ears.

She is actually a good enough actress that when she gives a reading of my work, she is captivating and mesmerizing. Of course, she gives good camera. No, I'm not being fair. She gives great camera. She gives cameras hard-ons.

It's not quite as important but she has also memorized the names of all my books, all the characters in my books, the themes and what inspired me to write each.

In the meantime, I'll be holed up writing and not thinking about articles like this one. Ever. ever again.

In other news No more saying advertising doesn't work. TW's half a million dollar marketing campaign for THE HISTORIAN paid off big, the book is number 1 this week in the NYTBR.

Buzz Shot There are still a few spots open for my BUZZ YOUR BOOK class. Six weeks starting July 11th. On line - one on one plus two phone calls avec moi. Sign up here.

Gentle's Holler (Viking) has been ordered into a second printing., I know it would not have happened without your excellent "buzz your book" course. Thank you, thank you! - author Kerry Madden

Google Ads +Popularity Contest Results = Buzz

Just who are the most Googled authors on the internet and what can you do with this mind numbing information?

01. David Sedaris (N/A)
02. Chuck Palahniuk (N/A)
03. Michael Chabon (1,298)
04. Nick Hornby (N/A)
05. John Irving (835)
06. Dave Eggers (714)
07. Haruki Murakami (628)
08. Bret Easton Ellis (513)
09. Arundhati Roy (414)
10. David Foster Wallace (410)
11. Jonathan Safran Foer (325)
12. Ian Mcewan (324)
13. Jeffrey Eugenides (263)
14. Zadie Smith (195)
15. Douglas Coupland (184)
16. Irvine Welsh (171)
16. Jonathan Lethem (171)
18. Neal Pollack (163)
19. Orhan Pamuk (154)
20. Amy Hempel (151)
21. Steve Almond (134)
22. Meg Wolitzer (102)
23. Charles D'Ambrosio (82)
24. George Saunders (74)
24. Mary Gaitskill (74)
26. Denis Johnson (73)
27. Aimee Bender (69)
28. Jonathan Ames (63)
29. Michel Houellebecq (51)
30. Monica Ali (44)
31. Rick Moody (40)
32. Sam Lipsyte (38)
33. Colson Whitehead (37)
34. Andrea Levy (31)
34. Heidi Julavits (31)
36. Ben Marcus (26)
37. Nell Freudenberger (25)
38. Stephen Elliot (16)
39. A.M. Holmes (14)
40. Hari Kunzru (9)

"The numbers to the right of each author represent the number of times his or her name was searched using Google and several other partner search engines over a three day period."

This information comes to us from TROPIC/OF/CUBICLE author
Roderick Maclean who has been using Google Adwords to try and get some buzz for his own book and has written an whole treatise on the experiment.

What is interesting to me is not that he did the Google AdWords thing. But that he has posted this entire explanation and list and it’s this that will get Maclean a lot of attention. The piggybacking is what’s gonna get him the buzz. Will it sell a single copy of his own book? Not sure yet, but I plan to write him next week and get some results. In the mean time, in his own words is what he’s been doing.

One of the things I've tinkered with lately is Google AdWords. This service allows one to bid on search terms and have searchers' returns supplemented with text advertisements. Using AdWords, I set up an ad campaign based entirely on the names of popular or critically acclaimed contemporary authors, such as Jonathan Lethem and Michael Chabon. For more than a week, when anyone has searched for "Michael Chabon," among other authors, my ad (pictured above left) has appeared in the "Sponsored Links" column on the right side of Google's search returns page. Those searchers who have clicked through to my site probably wouldn't have run across my book otherwise, and, as they have all shown interest in a contemporary literary author, the connection seems well targeted. Because Google's system fosters competitive bidding on keywords, the only way this scenario works for me is if few companies have placed ads using the same keywords as I'm using, allowing me, in essence, to bid the absolute minimum cost per click (5 cents) and still get a high position in the ads. If I were trying to do this with the phrases "SAT prep" or "car dealerships," it would be pointless -- I wouldn't get anywhere for less than several dollars per click and I'd still be placed in a lengthy clutter of other ads. With author names right now (and I say right now, because I'm sure this will change), there are simply very few companies that have bought keywords. With some names, mine is the only ad; with others, there are five or six competing ads, mostly bookstores like Amazon buying in bulk.

On another note, I can’t help but notice that 75% of the most popular authors Googled were men but I have no idea how that is relevant. The feminist in me just had to point it out.

(Thanks to GalleyCat and
Ernie B for the link.)

This Works.

Going back to the list of then things not to do, here's an example of doing it right.Book Touring by Kevin Smokler

There is so much that strikes me as "right" about this essay. It's clearly about the author but without all the "me, me, me" stuff happening. It's offers more than it takes, which is my new mantra for what we should be doing when we write our blogs, essays, or even posts.

I'm feeling a little too much like Debbie Downer.

For those of you who stay out late doing things naughty or nice on Saturday nights, or who read instead of watching TV, Debbie Downer is a very funny character on Saturday Night Live who, no matter the occasion or circumstance, can bring the whole party down.

Herewith, an item almost guaranteed to ruin at least a few moments of an otherwise (I hope for you) perfectly lovely Tuesday morning.

An article in sample USA TODAY reports:

“Consumers today encounter from 3,500 to 5,000 marketing messages per day, vs. 500 to 2,000 in the 1970s, says J. Walker Smith, president of consumer and marketing watcher Yankelovich.

The result: "There are so many ads out there that consumers actively avoid commercials today to an extent never before realized," says Dan Howard, professor of advertising and consumer behavior at Southern Methodist University's Cox School of Business. "No matter how many more ads we put out there, it's not going to work ... because it's not registering."

While the article is generally about how television commercials are hitting an all time low efficacy rate, it makes some important points about thinking outside of the box which can be applied to advertising books.

But wait you say, publishers have always claimed, at least in the press, that advertising doesn’t work. Why should we care that it works less well now? Why does it matter that the thing we don’t do for books anyway is loosing efficacy?

Because our business only pays lip service to “advertising doesn’t work.” And we know it. We totally do advertise. Even co-op placement is an ad of sorts. Even an authors website is an ad of sorts.

Besides, advertising doesn’t work is just what some of us tell others of us to hush us up. We all know the lead titles gets ads & the big debuts get ads. (The Historian has a 500,000 marketing budget this summer – that’s not all arcs and placement, baby.)

Anyway, the point isn’t what publishers are doing, the point is what everyone else is doing is making the consumer tired. And that tired consumer of cars, cereal and paper towels is also our potential reader. And if our potential reader is exhausted by the ever-constant bombardment of messages, he or she isn’t going to be noticing the little internet marketing campaign the publisher is hoping is going to make the book soar.

So the $640 question (It’s gone up with inflation) is: With the release of more than 200 plus novels a week (I’m now using the scaled down numbers) how on earth can we reach readers when readers are part of the general consumer base who are overloaded with messages to the degree that nothing is registering?

And the second $640 question is: (And now for regular readers of this blog I know I am sounding like broken record) Who is out there trying to figure out new and innovative ways to reach, engage and entertain readers. Hell, Forget about entertaining and engaging them, how about just reaching them.

For the rest of the year, whenever I find a Beacon of Light – which is what I’m going to call the people who do have these ideas – I’m going to post about them. Tomorrow, will be the first, so come back and find out who it is. And if you have a nominee, email me: MJRoseAuthor at aol.com.

Three Kinds Of Asking For It

There's some serious buzz building for this new volume of three novellas edited by Susie Bright and after indulging in it this weekend, I not only agree but thought I'd add to the buzz if I could. I don't review books, but Publishers Weekly does and the review they have just given the collection jives with what I thought about it so I thought I'd post a bit of it here.

Susie Bright Presents: Three Kinds of Asking for It Eric Albert, Greta Christina and Jill Soloway.

Who needs a beach for this summer treat? Bright's imprimatur guarantees heat sufficient to melt an ice floe. As her editorial picks generally do, these novellas deliver not just heat but laughter, poignancy and even the occasional deep thought. "The world is full of emptiness; without it there'd be nothing left": thus does a witch console a client left empty after a phenomenal sex spree in Albert's "Charmed I'm Sure." And so it goes with Christina's heroine, Dallas, whose obsession is the eponymous "Bending." When an Internet find, Betsy, arrives to fulfill Dallas's submissive fantasies, it's "the best thing, ever"-except instead of satisfying Dallas, it seems to rob her of her defining passion. Clever Bright saves dessert for last: Soloway's hilarious and sweetly lubricious confessions of 14-year-old Jodi, who has a mad crush on her best friend's father. Written in teen talk, "Jodi K" sometimes has the awkwardness of a translation. But it's enriched by fully realized portraits of family function and dysfunction, and even while sending up teenage erotic confessionals, it feels written from the heart as well as other regions of the body.

TUNE into TTBOOK

The week of June 19, NPR;s To The Best of Our Knowledge will rebroadcast their show on class and poverty in America. Talking about social studies are Alain de Botton (Status Anxiety), Nick Flynn (Another Bullshit Night in Suck City), Mark Robert Rank (One Nation, Underprivileged), Lisa Tucker (Shout Down the Moon), and Robert W. Fuller (Somebodies and Nobodies).

Click for more information about the show click here or to find a station near you click here

To The Best of Our Knowledge is an incredible show, week after week. Plus, it's a force for good in the world of books, like, and needs to be supported. What other national program is about books as a conversation, not the celebrity of individual authors?

Backstory

There is a new backstory at my other blog. And please be sure to stop by often, there will be a new one up every day this week.

Blog Notes

Since I posted my top ten what not to do things when marketing your book, I thought I'd also point out whenever I found an exception to any of those rules.

Tayari Jones author of THE UNTELLING and LEAVING ATLANTA, strikes just the right tone in this post over at the blog Conversational Reading.

Yes, it's about her experiences as a novelist, but both reaches deep and reaches out. It's authentic and heart felt. You know she didn't write this just to blah blah blah.

I'd also like to direct you all to a very funny cartoon strip by the talented Patricia Storms.

(I'm quite honored that she created it in response to my request for jokes at the end of my depressing blog post from earlier this week called "Karping" -- see below down.

And there's a new blogon the horizon, this one from Suzanne Beecher the talented entrepreneur and booklover who has done so much to introduce readers to books they otherwise might not find via her book clubs at DearReader.com

Is yours the 288th novel to be published this week or the 489th?

A lot of different numbers are floating around the internet and traditional print media about how many novels were indeed published in 2004. It’s been reported as many as 25,000 and as low as 5000.

In an effort to get to the bottom of what various sources have been reporting – including me- I went right to the source, Bowker, and here is their take and conclusion.

According to Books In Print, there were 25,184 books published in the U.S. last year classified as adult fiction. This overall number is still preliminary, and will probably end up being somewhere between 26-27,000 when we stop counting in December of this year.

Excluding approximately 8000 plus self published titles from POD companies which Bowker can identify, they estimate that in the US last year there were at least 15,000 plus works of adult fiction published.

Which means there were at least 288 plus novels published each week.

Many of us were using the number released that included self published titles.

Where are the 15,000 plus titles coming from?

New adult fiction published in 2004 by the 12 largest NY trade houses (included in the 25,184) totaled 5,125. This number is final.

University presses contributed 295 adult fiction titles to the 25,184. This number is also final.

There are about 1,500 what Bowker calls "very large publishers not named Random, Simon, Harper, Penguin and Holtzbrinck," and they publish adult fiction. Then there are what Bowker calles "7000 to 8000 very respectable mid-size, publishers who publish adult fiction."

But my guess is that those 7000-8000 are not all traditional publishers. My guess is that many of them are self publishers. I was there once. My company was called Lady Chatterley's Library. Nothing quantified it as an author's own publishing company. So what percentage of the 7000-8000 are authors own companies that do a single title a year? I don't know. But I'd guess at least 2500. Anyone with any other stats on this, please let me know.

It is also worth noting that in 2004, Bowker reported that the major book review organs reviewed 7,752 works of adult fiction or just about half.