When an author is asked to "do their own marketing"

I know of no such requests by trade publishers. However, an editor might suggest the author work on getting a fan base. That's quite different from "marketing" at a publisher level. Authors just starting out often confuse the two, but the customer of the publisher isn't the reader. It's the companies that sell books TO the reader. Marketing dollars put toward an individual title are to give the book the best visibility in stores and websites (you didn't think those "Look Inside" hyperlinks or "Buy Three for the Price of Two" on Amazon are free, did you? No, the publisher pays big bucks for those promos.

However, the relationship between the author and reader is different. The publisher puts the books in front of the readers and the authors either do or don't choose to promo to readers. Now, I do. I consider it a good value for the money to pay for display ads and website banners where readers congregate. What splash I want on a given book depends on a number of things: Cover design, position of the book in a series, calender tie-ins, etc. The first of a new series will get some splash in print ads. I'm fortunate that my publisher will help with design, since I suck at art. Some magazines bundle a print ad with an article, which gives higher visibility.

Of course, any money is paid long after I've gotten money from the publisher, so if I choose not to, or can't afford to on a given book, I'll do some free stuff, like set up blog tours and Twitter parties for the release.

Not every author chooses to advertise, and I don't know any editors who insist on it.

I've been looking for agents to submit a query to for my novel, and have found a few who (in their submission guidelines) have said they "expect the author to know how to market their own book". I didn't submit to those ones. I'm not exactly sure what they mean by this... It doesn't sound like the same thing your talking about Cathy C. Has anyone seen this from agents?

I would be leery of an agent who expects this. It's sort of their job, as an agent, to negotiate for marketing dollars in a publisher contract.

However, some of the new agents would like their clients to be media savvy so they know how to handle being in the spotlight once the book is released. That takes some practice, but good agents will help walk an author through the process of conventions, book signings, interviews, etc.

Belinda Rees said:

I've been looking for agents to submit a query to for my novel, and have found a few who (in their submission guidelines) have said they "expect the author to know how to market their own book". I didn't submit to those ones. I'm not exactly sure what they mean by this... It doesn't sound like the same thing your talking about Cathy C. Has anyone seen this from agents?

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Yes, I've seen things like that a number of times. I have seen agents' websites that ask the writer to send a query letter, some sample pages, and a description of how the writer plans to market their book.

I find this a little suspicious, and I haven't queried anyone like that yet.

I may be wrong, but I thought that marketing would be handled by the publisher.

I will add that I actually submitted a Supplemental Marketing Plan to my publisher with my first book because I thought there was a potential fan base that wasn't being targeted by the primary marketing push. The publisher liked it and allowed me to proceed.

That's one thing to keep in mind with trade publishers. Your editor is going to want to approve what you do, just to prevent you from duplicating work already being done in a bigger, splashier way.

RightHoJeeves said:

Yeah, it's this sort of thing that I don't understand because its so vague. It also sort of suggests that if the author is going to be the one doing the marketing, then what's the point of having an agent? Maybe that's a naive thing to say, and I've never considered self-publishing, but don't statements like that reduce the value of an agent?

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That's what I was thinking too, what's the point of having an agent / publisher etc. I have no idea really about marketing a book (if I ever get an agent and publisher I'm hoping they'll tell me what to do hehe).

Good publishers have marketing, sales, and publicity departments.

When your book is signed up, at some point in the production process you should talk to people in those departments and ask what they're going to be doing for your book, and when; and ask what you can do to help things along.

Write out a plan beforehand, listing all the things you think you could do (readings, signings, blog tours, and so on), so that you can tell them of your plans when you talk to them.

Don't underestimate the amount of time you'll need to put into this, or the amount of lead-time you'll need to get things going.

And don't, whatever you do, make demands of the marketing, sales and publicity people. You want them to want to make your book successful, you don't want them to feel irritated with you before it even hits the shelves.

Just to clarify - are you talking about fiction?

With nonfiction works, it's more common to expect a writer to be involved in or at least have some plans for marketing, in my experience.

RightHoJeeves said:

I keep reading about how authors at trade publishers are increasingly being asked to do this...

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I know, it's really irritating to keep reading it.

but what does this actually mean?

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Generally it means somebody is trying to sell you marketing services.

To me, marketing means paid advertising (eg paying to have an ad in a magazine or whatever).

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This is correct.

I would assume publishers would never ask an author to put up money for that sort of thing,

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If they do, you're not dealing with a good/reputable publisher.

so is the author's job to contact the local radio station and pitch and interview or something?

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Nope, that's the publicity dept.'s job.

Publishers like it if an author has a good profile - lots of followers on social media, that sort of thing - and is prepared to go and do events we organise for them. But if you want to be JD Salinger, that's not a deal-breaker.

Torgo said:

I know, it's really irritating to keep reading it.



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Do you think a lot of people are confusing marketing with promotion?

I think that's exactly what's happening. Seems like a thread about just that subject would be a good idea.

Anyone out there who works, or has worked, in trade publishing for one of the Big 5 (or its imprints) I'd love to get a PM from you about what items are considered by your company to be marketing to the book buyers, versus promo to readers, and I'll make an informational thread.

Cathy C said:

I think that's exactly what's happening. Seems like a thread about just that subject would be a good idea.

Anyone out there who works, or has worked, in trade publishing for one of the Big 5 (or its imprints) I'd love to get a PM from you about what items are considered by your company to be marketing to the book buyers, versus promo to readers, and I'll make an informational thread.

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The split between marketing and promotion is generally that if you're paying for it, it's the former. Payments to retailers (co-op fees) come out of the marketing budget but tend to be negotiated by the sales dept, I think.

Consumer-facing things our marketing dept do include advertising (outdoor and online), competitions, newsletters, publicity stunts. stuff like that.

See, I read the op a little differently. I was thinking more in terms of presses who expect the author to do the publisher's job of marketing and promotion (and if the thread with the difference gets posted I would appreciate it!). The refrain of "the old days of publishing are over and you, the author, are responsible for your sales" is all over the place. It can be especially tough for a new writer to know whether or not the publisher will do these things for you. Check out select threads in BR&BC for several examples.

Nowadays it's easier to set up a printing operation than a publisher, so the hardest work gets sent back to the authors.

cornflake said:

Just to clarify - are you talking about fiction?

With nonfiction works, it's more common to expect a writer to be involved in or at least have some plans for marketing, in my experience.

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My experience with non-fiction is that they expect you to be able to to tell them the names of similar books, the source of your authority to write the book (credentials, popular following if any, etc), and the general nature and size of the market for you book (general public, student, professionals, libraries etc). Now in terms of actually implementing that plan, my publisher did that.

RightHoJeeves said:

I would think most author's don't have a clue about publicity and marketing because they usually aren't working in those fields.

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Some authors have done some crazy things to publicize their books, including shooting themselves.

That goes way beyond phoning strangers to ask them if they like to read, buying personalized Kleenex boxes and planning a book signing in a morgue. All of which I've seen as suggestions online.

veinglory said:

My experience with non-fiction is that they expect you to be able to to tell them the names of similar books, the source of your authority to write the book (credentials, popular following if any, etc), and the general nature and size of the market for you book (general public, student, professionals, libraries etc). Now in terms of actually implementing that plan, my publisher did that.

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^^^This. It was actually a very useful experiment for one NF I'd planned to write, because it turned out in the researching of similar books, there was a gap in the collective information that I was able to utilize in my proposal. It nearly made the cut at McGraw-Hill, but the editor champion I had left the company and the new person wasn't as enthusiastic. Ce la vie... I'll probably self-pub it at some point when I have some time to rework it to today's world (strange that I wrote it just a decade ago, but so much has changed in technology that much of the information isn't relevant anymore.)

Queen of Swords said:

Some authors have done some crazy things to publicize their books, including shooting themselves.

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The very first writing conference I went to, in 2003, and the very first class I attended, the instructor said the author will be the primary marketer/promoter of his book. That instructor had then been a full-time writer for 20 years, having co-written books for celebrities, written his own non-fiction books and articles, and published a few cozy mysteries/romances under a penname. That shocked me at first, as I was expecting something much different: a publisher who treated the writer as a celebrity. But this has been reinforced to me all the more over the years, in conferences and writers blogs and webpages.

But there seems to be two parallel writing universes. Here at AW you get comments about how great the publisher's marketing department will be for you. But everywhere else I go in the writing universe, I hear just the opposite. YMMV.

NDG

Norman D Gutter said:

The very first writing conference I went to, in 2003, and the very first class I attended, the instructor said the author will be the primary marketer/promoter of his book. That instructor had then been a full-time writer for 20 years, having co-written books for celebrities, written his own non-fiction books and articles, and published a few cozy mysteries/romances under a penname. That shocked me at first, as I was expecting something much different: a publisher who treated the writer as a celebrity. But this has been reinforced to me all the more over the years, in conferences and writers blogs and webpages.

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You were not alone in expecting publishers to treat their authors like celebrities. It's a common misconception. Wouldn't it be nice if it were true?

There's some disagreement about what marketing and promotion mean, and where the terms end, and what parts of marketing and promotion are actually carried out by sales teams, and so on and so forth. I'll use the terms almost interchangeably here but note that in general, the paid-for stuff (ads etc) is marketing while the free stuff (personal appearances etc) is promotion.

Good trade publishers do take care of marketing and a certain amount of promotion for the books they publish. Less good publishers pass that onto their authors. So yep, some authors with trade publishers do have to do their own marketing and promotion.

Some authors do additional marketing and promotion for their work, on top of the stuff their publishers do. So yep, some authors with good publishers do their own marketing and promotion but they are not obliged to do this.

Much of the marketing and promotion that trade publishers do is invisible to the public because the public is not their customer: the bookshop is. Most of the ads and sales efforts which trade publishers make are directed towards retailers, who will get the books in front of readers--so we, the public, never see them and remain mostly unaware of the stuff that goes on.

The marketing and promotion that publishers DO direct towards readers often masquerades as something different. For example, placement on those three-for-two tables at the front of the bookshop? That's paid for by the publisher. Inclusion in a bookshop's Top Ten Books For Christmas? Again, the publisher pays for that.

But there seems to be two parallel writing universes. Here at AW you get comments about how great the publisher's marketing department will be for you. But everywhere else I go in the writing universe, I hear just the opposite. YMMV.

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It's a good job AW exists to set things straight, isn't it? Otherwise you'd be extremely ill-informed.

Norman D Gutter said:

But there seems to be two parallel writing universes. Here at AW you get comments about how great the publisher's marketing department will be for you. But everywhere else I go in the writing universe, I hear just the opposite. YMMV.

NDG

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I think that's because often authors don't really know, understand or see much of the marketing done by trade publishers.

Often times authors think marketing means individual readers buying their books, and it kinda is, but only kinda.

Marketing from a trade publisher's perspective means selling the book to bookstores, and selling many copies to a single store, and cases to chain book stores.

So the marketing is mostly directed to bookstore buyers, because those are the "real" customers of publishers. There's some directed marketing done in terms of libraries and reviewers too—libraries because they buy several copies often, and may have a central buyer for several libraries, and reviewers are often partly responsible for bookstore buyers and library buyers buying books—and then there's the marketing to wholesalers and distributors, who buy books to sell to bookstores.

I think many authors think marketing consists of reviews, and ads, and billboards on busses, and it's much more than that for most books. There are sales sheets, catalogs, special Web sites, and still, living sales people who come to a bookstore or wholesaler and work with them to buy many copies of a book, before the book is even printed.

As an author, you can have a book sell out of a first printing, before it's even been printed, because of this kind of marketing.