Author C.S. Harris (aka Candice Proctor) has a blog post entitled Shop Talk in which she writes about NYT bestselling authors’ sales figures being down 15-30% in comparison to last year. While hardly surprising in today’s economic climate, if Big Name authors are taking a significant hit in sales, it stands to reason that newbie and midlist authors are really struggling. As publishers (or more importantly, book buyers for large chains) are primarily concerned with the number of books an author has sold in the past, and not their potential to do so in the future, it’s no coincidence that stories are cropping up all over the internet concerning authors dropped by their publishers and series being discontinued.
One victim of the recession is Delilah Marvelle. Her publisher has decided not to finish her School of Gallantry series. In an effort to drum up support for a third installment, Delilah has taken her plight to the internet. While I appreciate that desperate times call for desperate measures, and applaud Delilah’s efforts at self-promotion, her story did make me think about authors, publishers and book promotion in general.
Author Terry Odell ‘s comment on the Smart Bitches Trashy Books thread particularly caught my attention:
It was a total shock to find out how much time I would have to spend in marketing myself. I have a lot of trouble approaching people—rejection is painful, and face to face, it’s worse.
I recall Linda Howard speaking at RWA a year ago, and someone asked “How much time should you spend in self-promotion?” and her answer was“None. The publishers want to make their money; let them do it.” How times have changed since she hit the big time.
I keep up my blog, do book giveaways (I have an ARC to give away this month), and try not to think about how much it costs me to be an author. If there were a magic formula, I’d love to know it.
If I’m interpreting this correctly, back in the good old days, authors wrote books and publishers published them. Apart from sending out the odd signed bookplate to fans, authors did not need to actively involve themselves in the business of promoting and selling their books. For an established author such as Linda Howard, this might still be the case. For newer authors in the age of the internet, it’s an entirely different scenario. They are expected to invest a lot of their time and (so I’ve heard) their advance money in promoting their books.
A few years ago, the idea of an author promoting herself and her books online was innovative. It made particular writers stand out from the crowd and offered them a chance to cultivate a loyal and youthful fan base. Nowadays, virtually every author has a website. Many blog, Twitter or engage in some other form of social networking to connect with fans. It’s a relatively inexpensive way to promote their books – the stress being on the word relative.
I have to wonder, though, if it hasn’t made publishers complacent. Why would they bother investing a ton of money in promoting books if the authors are willing to do it for them, and usually on their own dime? With the current recession in full swing, it’s an obvious way for publishers to cut costs.
It seems to me that today’s authors are caught in a vicious circle: online promotion is no longer a convenient extra, but a vital necessity – and one which costs them time and money.
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While no author has complained to me about the amount of promotion they have to do, it has become obvious to me. You’re right in that the internet used to be exciting and innovative. John Scalzi, for example, is a phenomenal writer and mainly owes his success to that, but the fact that he put his book out on the internet was a new and exciting thing which undoubtedly boosted his career. Now, though, it seems authors have to have websites, blog, twitter, facebook, and often send out their own copies to bloggers for review. Seems obvious to me when even a huge historical fiction favorite like Sharon Kay Penman, whose website used to not be updated for years, launches a blog and a facebook profile on prompting from her publisher.
I don’t really think this is a good thing. While I love closer contact with authors, I do think publishers should do the job of promotion. Authors can help, of course, but I think the expense and the bulk of it should go to the publisher, rather than eating away at the little money writers get.
Well said! I have no idea how much money – if any – publishers give authors towards creating and maintaining websites, sending out ARCs, etc. I’m speculating here but I’d imagine most newbie authors are on their own when it comes to promoting their books.
before the internet and other means of PR, how did an author sell their books? I know of billboards and posters in bookstores just like movie posters, but I always thought word of mouth was a big way of helping book sales.
I really think publishers need to do some PR also on the part of their authors. I think it happens mainly with bigger name authors, unfortunately.
That’s what I fear, too.
I must admit, it is a long time since I have seen any promo by publisher for any romance author apart from la Nora. (Mind you, does that woman need it? Not begrudging, but fairly sure her books would walk off the shelf regardless.)
Just do not understand the logic behind not pushing the midlist authors a bit more, don’t they want to make money? It just seems a bit of an odd business practice to me.
But then I am also relying on general online ads, maybe there is more publisher promo in the US? Through RT etc??
This gets back to my theory that publishers actually think we readers are stupid. How did Linda Howard get to be Linda Howard? She wrote a lot of good books. Readers liked her books (okay, so not everyone did or does, but enough did back then who buy her books today) and she did well. If publishers actually selected authors and books based on quality and not on numbers [if you have to publish 4 "Blaze" books a month, you are bound to have some variation in quality], the way mainstream publishing works, they could afford to promote those authors because they think those authors — and their books — are good.
I feel like there’s a huge elephant in the room that no one’s talking about. Not all of the books published today are that good. We love to support authors, but all we’re doing is encouraging publishers to publish by number not by quality. Which leaves the readers to figure out who’s good, which means all authors (good and not-so-good) are going to work hard to convince us that they’re good.
Whereas, in mainstream publishing, there are editors who actually care about quality, select authors on the basis of quality, edit to improve quality, and then promote books on the basis that the book is good. Of course not all those books are equally good, but each one has had some individual attention.
And yes, I’m sure Harlequin/Avon/Berkeley get clunker submissions. But it would appear that the grading of those submissions is on a curve based on market forces and not on the compelling quality of the prose. Readers need to be more selective. If the millions of romance readers in the US bought only the good books (and I really don’t care how a reader defines good), then publishers would see the shift and adjust their selection and marketing strategies differently.
What readers don’t seem to understand is that WE drive this industry. If we behave differently, the industry will be different. A shift to having all authors self-promote is just more of the same — everyone is good even though we know they aren’t. Plus, all it does is shift the cost and effort of promotion from the publishers to the authors. Readers need to be pro-active and start driving this industry.
Here’s how: Buy quality not quantity. Readers should read library books, used books, their TBR books, and re-read their stash, but they should BUY quality not quantity.
I’ll say that again.
Read everything, but buy quality not quantity!
I swear I’m going to run up t-shirts with that slogan.
Uh, that Linda Howard comment is pretty hilarious. Maybe publishers will do a lot of work of promoting your book if you’re Linda Freaking Howard, but the vast majority of writers, especially newbie writers, have never gotten concerted promotion from their publishers. I remember wandering around B&N when I was in my late ‘teens (which was a while ago *cough*), and talking to an author who was doing a signing. He said he had to his own promotion, and booksignings was part of the game. I imagine blogging and online book giveaways is part of the game, now, too.
No one should rely on other people to promote their work, not even big name writers. If you don’t believe in your writing, who will?
That might well be the case. I get almost all my info on new books on the internet, and authors seem to take care of online promotion.
@Magdalen I wouldn’t say I buy books to support authors. If I buy a book, it’s because I’ve liked that author’s work in the past, or the book has been recommended to me by someone whose opinion I trust. I’d love to use the library more but it’s not an option for me at the moment.
One thing about quantity vs. quality: I get the impression that there used to be more debut authors published every year. Or am I wrong? Nowadays, many established authors are churning out more than one book per year, and I’d imagine fewer slots remain free for new authors. This is pure speculation on my part but it would make sense. My personal opinion is that the majority of authors can’t maintain the quality of their writing on a six-month schedule.
@heidenkind Are booksignings not organized by publishers? Seriously? Aargh! I thought they would at least take care of that.
Publishers do NOT give authors a “promotional budget” to spend on online promotion, ads, postcards, etc. This comes out of the author’s advance, if they choose to spend the money–or from the day job they need to work to support themselves. Most publishing houses do a minimal amount of promo for their new authors – send out some ARCS for review (though that is beginning to drop off!), maybe arrange a small blog tour, maybe do a little bit of advertising (this also depends on if they gave a bigger advance they need to recoup). Unless you are a big name, publishers do NOT set up book signings, print off promotional material for you, set up or maintain your online presence, design and pay for ads, run contests…
Some houses give their authors less support than others. I know of authors who have had to load their info up to Amazon themselves if they wanted the book blurb and reviews up there (and they were with an established NY publishing house.)
@Anthea Lawson Thanks for that information, Anthea. Wow. I figured publishers didn’t contribute much money to book promotion but I wasn’t aware they spent nothing at all. Wouldn’t it be in their interests to make sure potential customers know about their products?