Purgatory's Pit of Doom

I guess technically I'm in both camps, since I sold a book without an agent, but I'm looking for an agent for another book. Meh. Whatevs.

Also I am starting the process of being An Author™on G00dReads. Yeah, I really wanna go down that road. Luckily, some anthology I'm in is already live on Amazon, so it's not so hard. Blergity.

Also, I've come up with a new tagline: G00dReads: it's not called GoodBreeding for a reason.

LOL, Red

i know i hate being an author whore on goodreads red- but i don't know what else to do

Here comes another unpopular view. Tar me and feather me.

I'm not sure authors should be promoting their books.

When my book comes out, I really have to go to Virginia, which is where the book is set, because so many people there helped me. There is a museum I've been involved with, and a college department which has been involved with my book. If I didn't show up at all it would be weird. (I've already been there twice, sat on many many front porches discussing what the town was like in 1951)

Also, I have 40 free copies to give away to the people who helped me (the book will retail for 19.95 and Abrams doesn't discount!)

I just don't like a lot of what I see. And my favorite guru (who is my favorite guru because after years and years hanging around this business, what he says makes sense, says authors should not bother promoting their own books.

I know people adamantly disagree with this, and I'm delighted to debate it. Most likely we'll just have to agree to disagree.

Hey Red: My camps is the I-swear-I'll-never-again-work-with-another-agent camp, so I don't think you can be in both. I also don't think you can get here by default. You have want to be here enough to leap high over a tall fence (in a single bound! Like a bird or a plane!! or superwoman

It's okay, Teri, I'm used to not being allowed in any camp.

RedScylla said:

It's okay, Teri, I'm used to not being allowed in any camp.

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Ha ha ha.

I expect you here within 3 years! But these things take time . . . (maybe 5 if you're lucky -- lucky used in the highly ironic sense.)

Once again, thanks for letting me express unpopular opinions which run completely counter to the strong prevailing views.

Teriann said:

I(ETA I suspect you need at least 3 different agents to submit your work for you before you can appreciate this side.)

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I'm on #3. I'll check in after a couple years and let you know.

Teriann said:

Here comes another unpopular view. Tar me and feather me.

I'm not sure authors should be promoting their books.

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well, it's clear a lot of authors are either really lousy at it and/or hate doing it. As an unknown, you do have to at least let people know your book exists. In the old days, with a big or medium publisher, it wasn't so important, because people would find it browsing in a bookstore and bookstore owners would hear about it from sales reps. That's not happening for most books any longer.

Just in the MG area, I made a list of all the 2011 fiction debuts I could find for a blog post. I found forty, which doesn't sound like much, but they were competing with all the hundreds of 2011 new releases by authors on their second or tenth or twentieth book. Even though I try to keep up on what's happening, I had only heard of about a third of them.

I don't know what the answer is. I wish somebody would figure it out!

Amarie said:

well, it's clear a lot of authors are either really lousy at it and/or hate doing it. As an unknown, you do have to at least let people know your book exists. In the old days, with a big or medium publisher, it wasn't so important, because people would find it browsing in a bookstore and bookstore owners would hear about it from sales reps. That's not happening for most books any longer.

Just in the MG area, I made a list of all the 2011 fiction debuts I could find for a blog post. I found forty, which doesn't sound like much, but they were competing with all the hundreds of 2011 new releases by authors on their second or tenth or twentieth book. Even though I try to keep up on what's happening, I had only heard of about a third of them.

I don't know what the answer is. I wish somebody would figure it out!

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There are definitely things an author can and should do, so I certainly over simplified. But a lot of the goodreads train wrecks, it seems to me, comes from a misguided sense of what an author should be doing. The whole 'buy my book' thing is getting embarrassing.

ETA: My statemetn was so oversimplified I feel that I treaded into dangerous waters here . .. it's a very complicated area, and no real agreement out there about what works.

You know that opening line in Singing in the Rain where Don Lockwood says, "Dignity! Always dignity!" Then he gets a pie in the face? I'd like to at least try for dignity.

Teriann said:

Here comes another unpopular view. Tar me and feather me.

I'm not sure authors should be promoting their books.

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I guess I feel like if the book bombs- I don't want it to be b/c I didn't try hard enough to help people know about it... but YES, I hate it and suck at it...

ink wench said:

I'm on #3. I'll check in after a couple years and let you know.

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Unless you get lucky. Then it will take longer.

And I sincerely wish you luck. Hopefully it will take a few published books before you leap the fence and join me. But I think one day we'll be shoulder to shoulder, like the Suffragettes!

Teri, I'm not getting a sense of "why" as in, why you think authors shouldn't be doing it?

Like Amarie said, in the good olden days it was unnecessary because of the pubhouse machine. Now, pub houses leave authors to fend for themselves.

Of course, there is a difference between "good" promotion and "bad" promotion, but in today's industry, "no" promotion is suicide.

SteveCordero said:

Teri, I'm not getting a sense of "why" as in, why you think authors shouldn't be doing it?

Like Amarie said, in the good olden days it was unnecessary because of the pubhouse machine. Now, pub houses leave authors to fend for themselves.

Of course, there is a difference between "good" promotion and "bad" promotion, but in today's industry, "no" promotion is suicide.

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YES! of course the stress self-promotion causes is worse than query sub stress...

SteveCordero said:

Teri, I'm not getting a sense of "why" as in, why you think authors shouldn't be doing it?

Like Amarie said, in the good olden days it was unnecessary because of the pubhouse machine. Now, pub houses leave authors to fend for themselves.

Of course, there is a difference between "good" promotion and "bad" promotion, but in today's industry, "no" promotion is suicide.

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I don't have time to edit, so this will be long!

Well, in my case promoting wouldn't have made any difference. My book was printed in hardcover. Within 6 months I earned out the advance. Eventually the print run ran out and it wasn't reprinted. Would it have been reprinted if it had sold out faster? I don't think so. I don't think Cricket reprinted books after the first run. What they did is the books which won awards they sold the paperback rights. My book didn't win any awards, so the paper back rights didn't sell. Promotion wouldn't have made any difference.

With ebooks, it seems to me even less important to promote because the books don't go out of print.

Also, readers can sample the first 20 percent to see if they want to keep reading.

The sales you get from telling people are really small and won't make much difference. What you need (it seems to me) is for readers to find it, like it, and tell other people.

How will they find it if nobody knows about it? Well, all I can say is they do. I know this from the books I've self-published. It's weird that people find it.

Word of mouth cannot start from friends and family or online friends. It has to be genuine and spontaneous: WOW I just read a great book, sort of things from one friend to another, not connected to the author.

Maybe what I don't like is bad promotion. I like to think that a lot of what passes for promotion is pointless because readers are not fooled.

For example, I think only authors care about Amazon rankings. I think readers who don't personally know authors don't pay attention to it, and have no idea what it means. But authors obsess and do things to elevate the ranking. The moment they stop, the ranking goes back down. To me this is a waste of time. Write your next book and forget about it.

Came back to highlight. Still no time to edit but this is the important part of the rambling:

Also, here's what I learned. Having published a novel already from a respectable press definitely gets my queries read more carefully with my next books. But when I sold TS, nobody cared the slightest how many copies RW sold. Nobody asked anything about it. All they cared about was whether they like TS.

The way to earn money as a writer is to have more books out there, not squeeze sales of out of the first book.

Again, wrote quickly, so this is probably too long and sloppy.

I gotta go with Steve on this one, Teri. I don't think one needs to be a publicity slut, but SOME form of getting your book out there needs to be done.

Some first-time authors go crazy with the press kits and the giveaways and the bookmarks, etc. I consider that all a waste of time and money. No one is compelled to buy a book from a bookmark.

But getting your book reviewed on different sites is a good thing, right? (unless its by the b1tch3s, and they slam you)

DWS already had a major following, a built-in fan base, so he can afford to sit back and collect royalties. Just from his blog fans alone he's doing just fine.

But I will have my book coming out by a small e-pub, and it will disappear somewhat quickly, so unless I find some small way to make it known to people (other than shameless promotion in the Pit) who the hell is ever going to find it?

Of course, I have to add one thing. It is important to try to get trade reviews. But a review on a blog read by 300 people (most of whom are other bloggers and authors)? I don't think it helps much. For lots and lots and lots of reasons . . .

Goodreads matters, but authors shouldn't try too hard to manipulate what happens on Goodreads. A little bit is harmless. Too much causes trainwrecks, and I think readers can tell. Readers have been known to figure out reviews were done by author's friends and retaliate by leaving one star reviews.

I don't believe reader reviews matter all that much if a reader can download a sample. If I can read 20 percent of the book before deciding to buy it, I don't need anyone else's opinion of the book. I can form my own.

The effort it takes to get 60 people to review your book isn't worth it. Personally I can smell when the reviewer is a friend or is returning a favor. I think readers can, too.

ETA: There is no reason for people to agree with me. I only have my hunches.

well i think sometimes its like you want to feel like you are doing something- even if its small. At least that's how i feel. Also much like Cat, my book is from a mainly e-pub publisher- who uses twitter/goodreads/blogs a lot- these people are the buyers... you need to get in front of them somehow right.

ALSO thanks for the adds pitzens

Well, I guess I'm SOL because I can't even find one agent let alone work my way through three of them. Ha!

As someone who has been working in marketing and publicity, I can honestly say that most promotional work I've seen (and the studies I've read) show a lot of work for very little return. I agree with Teri. Word of mouth (or large promotional budgets and media coverage) sell books. I think the author is better off focusing that effort on new work. But I would absolutely put my best effort forward if given the opportunity, because like others have said, I wouldn't want to look back and think I did anything less than the most I could for my work (even if I knew it didn't make a huge difference). Is it an issue of keeping control? I think most of what makes me so frustrated about all of the publishing business is the lack of control. But that goes back to the luck and hard work argument.

Need a little laugh? I love chuck's recent post -

This is one of my favorite bits:

Examine the publishing industry too closely and it will ejaculate its demon ichor in your eye. And then you’ll have to go to the eye doctor and he’ll be all like, “You were staring too long at the publishing industry again, weren’t you?” And you’re like, “YES, fine,” and he’s like, “Well, I have drops for that, but they’ll cost you,” and you get out your checkbook and ask him how many zeroes you should fill in because you’re a writer and don’t have health care. *sob*

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silver76 said:

well i think sometimes its like you want to feel like you are doing something- even if its small. At least that's how i feel. Also much like Cat, my book is from a mainly e-pub publisher- who uses twitter/goodreads/blogs a lot- these people are the buyers... you need to get in front of them somehow right.

ALSO thanks for the adds pitzens

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No doubt, Silver.

One more thing: When I discovered AW in about 2006 I fretted a lot with worry that I hadn't done enough to promote RW because I did very little.

Actually, I did book events in cities I wanted to visit and I used the book event as a tax deduction so I could travel. That was it. I have a friend in NYC, so I scheduled 5 book events so I could deduct my ticket.

I plan to do the same with TS. I want my son to visit D.C. I will schedule a book event for the excuse to go. My ticket and hotel room are deductable.

Do IRS folks troll here . . .?

Do I think this sells books? Not enough to really make much difference in the end. Another 200 sales don't matter much when all is said and done.

alias octavia said:

Well, I guess I'm SOL because I can't even find one agent let alone work my way through three of them. Ha!

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Everyone is welcome in my camp. You just won't really appreciate the joys quite the same, and you may always be thinking, "Things would be better or easier if I had an agent."

This is something I never, ever think.

No, I'm on Team Promotion on this one Teri. I think one has to be careful as to how you promote, but there's too much competition out there. Especially for someone publishing from a small press and doesn't have a lot of distribution in stores (or, someone from a Big 6 whose book isn't going to get a lot of marketing). Too many books to sift through. You want people to at least know the name of your book so that when they walk into a book store, or check an e-store, they might look for it. What are the chances that people will simply stumble onto your book? Whatever they are, you want to up them.

The biggest marketing, however, is the book itself. Promoting yourself doesn't mean people will buy your book. Even if a book is overhyped and has its own display case at B+N or Chapters, if I read the blurb and it sounds stupid, I'm putting it back down. So I guess making sure the blurb is well written, but also making sure the book is interesting, I suppose. That's different for everyone, but ultimately writing the best book you can is the best promotion one can do for oneself.

I think, though, that you're assuming that the Goodreads debacles are a result of writers promoting themselves too much. That's not true. Lots of writers are promoting themselves and not getting into trouble. Readers love giveaways on goodreads and don't have a problem with an author's self-promotion efforts on their blogs, goodreads, etc.

The problem ONLY starts when authors jump into readers' reviews and insult the readers or argue or complain about them over twitter. Doesn't matter how much you promote yourself. Someone can engage in NO self-promotion or marketing and still jump into a review, act a fool and cause a fuss on goodreads. So the amount of marketing/promotion isn't the issue here.

Teriann said:

Everyone is welcome in my camp. You just won't really appreciate the joys quite the same, and you may always be thinking, "Things would be better or easier if I had an agent."

This is something I never, ever think.

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Im not sure honestly. I don't think ANY agent is better than no agent- because some agents suck (like my first one) and some don't (like mine now).
Honestly, i think this whole thing is a losers game, even if you do get an agent it doesn't mean you'll get pubbed.
Even if you get pubbed it doesn't mean anyone will read it.
Even if people read it it doesn't mean you'll get pubbed again.
REPEAT-
bang your head against the wall

alias octavia said:

As someone who has been working in marketing and publicity, I can honestly say that most promotional work I've seen (and the studies I've read) show a lot of work for very little return. I agree with Teri. Word of mouth (or large promotional budgets and media coverage) sell books. I think the author is better off focusing that effort on new work. But I would absolutely put my best effort forward if given the opportunity, because like others have said, I wouldn't want to look back and think I did anything less than the most I could for my work (even if I knew it didn't make a huge difference). Is it an issue of keeping control? I think most of what makes me so frustrated about all of the publishing business is the lack of control. But that goes back to the luck and hard work argument.

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Whew. One person on my side. Feels weird, actually!

Teriann said:

Whew. One person on my side. Feels weird, actually!

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I've learned too much to have strict sides any longer. We're all rooting for you to succeed in whatever way works.

silver76 said:

Im not sure honestly. I don't think ANY agent is better than no agent- because some agents suck (like my first one) and some don't (like mine now).
Honestly, i think this whole thing is a losers game, even if you do get an agent it doesn't mean you'll get pubbed.
Even if you get pubbed it doesn't mean anyone will read it.
Even if people read it it doesn't mean you'll get pubbed again.
REPEAT-
bang your head against the wall

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Yes, but my theory is that even with an agent who doesn't suck and even with a relationship working, there are inherent problems in the model, including legal problems with the relationship (see previous posts about fiduciaries and problems of agents negotiating contracts from which they benefit) .. . and previous posts about how the business model is bound to self-destruct unless an agent has a certain number of best-sellers in her list, or takes a percent of what a writer self-publishes . ...

This is very painful because these discussions are really fun but I have a deadline so I have to go work . .. but it will drive me crazy because I'll want to see what's posted here.