To Sell or To Buy? Shifting books ain't easy

Tweet

I sometimes think the only thing harder than writing a book is selling it. We've all been on Twitter, and bombarded with "Buy my book!" tweets, and if we follow a lot of the same writers, our feeds can be jammed with the original tweet, and fifteen retweets. After a while, you start to tune them out. On Christmas Day, I was astounded by the number of "Did you get a Kindle for Christmas? Then buy my book!" tweets doing the rounds. Take a day off, people!

So how DO you sell a book? Well I'm not entirely sure. I find it quite difficult to approach people to sell my book because I don't want to look like all I'm interested in is selling. I have tried blog tours, tweeting, joining discussion groups about my genre on Facebook, setting up a Facebook page for the book itself - I even took quotes from the book and turned them into 'quotes pages' which I uploaded onto both Facebook and a Pinterest board I created for the book. I've included an example in the post, not to sell the book but to give you an idea what I mean by 'quote page'. The book is a Western so I tried to choose a design aesthetic that would scream 'Old West'. Obviously if you're not a designer that's going to be more difficult to do, so this option of creating interest might not work for everyone.

So I figured instead of talking about how I sell books, I'd talk about what makes me buy books, in the hope that some specks of wisdom can be found in looking at the situation from the point of view of a reader - after all, readers are paramount.

I talk to a lot of writers on Twitter and Facebook, and I don't necessarily talk to them solely as a fellow writer - in a lot of cases, I'm one of their readers, too. However, I don't respond well to sales pitches, or "buy my book!" statuses and tweets. It's too "in your face" and intrusive. When anyone tells me to buy their book, my default response is "Why?" So I tend to ignore those writers who plaster links everywhere but don't really engage with anyone. The writers I do respond to are those who I just get chatting to, about everything and nothing - conversation flows, we get to know each other, and if I think they're cool, I'll check out their blog. Lo! They have a book for sale! At this point, my interest is piqued because I like them as a person, not as someone trying to directly sell me something. So I trot off to Amazon and download a sample. Now I'm a potential reader, and the only way the writer can make a sale is to write a good book. If I like the sample, I buy the book. Simple!

Well it sounds simple, and I know there's more to it than that - there are a lot of writers using social media, and it's impossible to be friends with everything because one day they might buy your book, but the point I'm trying to make is that I'm far more likely to buy a book because the writer interacted with me in some way. Maybe they bought my own book, or maybe they just helped me promote it. Maybe we swapped guest posts on each others' blog. Maybe they're the kind of cat who's happy to talk nonsense at 3am when neither of you can sleep. Either way, there's a personal connection there, and that's something you just can't forge with an automated direct message on Twitter.

What makes you want to buy a book?

A Perpetual Battle with Space

by D. A. Botta

A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction. ~ Virginia Woolf

Writers need space. Not much. But space. Not a planetarium. Their own space. A spot to sit and work their magic. You’ve got to make it your own. You’ve got to attract your muses there. You’ve got to channel your creativity there. That’s what I have searched for. That’s what I have longed for. That’s what I have been repeatedly heartbroken over. That’s what I’ve had innumerable arguments about.

That’s what I used to believe.

A PERPETUAL BATTLE WITH SPACE

a recount of only my most recent relocations

I HAD AN OFFICE that was located upstairs. It was un-lovingly referred to as “the third bedroom” when we purchased my home a few years back. It overlooks my backyard, which is sprawling grass and partially wooded acre. We have deer friends, a gopher, bluebirds, robins, finches and an occasional visit by a coywolf. There are beech trees, birch trees, pine trees, maple trees, pear trees and a willow tree. It is well worth looking at, if you like those sorts of things, particularly from the second floor of my home.

THE WALLS WERE MUTED YELLOW and the trim was white. Sheer curtains donned the windows. I situated a small black desk by the double windows. On the desktop sat my computer, a small notepad, and a lamp with a cream-colored shade which looks like parchment paper. On the walls were little 4x6 black picture frames containing black and white photos of my favorite authors and some of their quotes. The space was perfect. It was exceptionally comfortable.

So … what happened?

WELL, THE MOST DIRECT ROUTE TO RELOCATING a writer’s office is to get pregnant. My wife and I did just that, and so something in me (if I ever meet that something, it and I will exchange some heated words) took over my brain. It was some kind of psychosis. The day we found out we were having a baby girl, I drove directly from the ultrasound to our local home improvement store, bought raspberry and lavender paint, pine shelving and princess wall decals. Immediately upon arriving home, I had possessedly transformed my beloved office into a girly princess nursery before the sun rose the next morning.

NEVER FEAR! We luckily have a 2600 square-foot house. Surely there would be some place that could step up into the void and accept the incredibly honorable position of My Office.

THERE IS A ROOM on the first floor of my house which had been, until then, the Room of Other Things. It housed the dog’s toys, an old couch, and a ridiculously excessive collection of DVDs. The walls are a soothing sage green, and the glass-paned french doors are a pleasant welcome. After a brief shuffle of furniture, I had established my new writing space by the front windows which overlook our street. The view wasn’t the beautiful backyard I once enjoyed, but at least I still had something of a lookout. I introduced an antiquey-looking sign which reads “Librarie” and a small hexagonal oak side table that has a secret cubby in it -- perfect for a stowaway bottle of whiskey … just saying -- and voila! my new space was complete.

BUT THEN CHRISTMASTIME CAME and we (and our parents) did what typical first-time, one-only parents do: spoiled our kid rotten. Now, I cannot possibly begin to describe the magnificently vast explosion of toddler toys that had suddenly amassed in our home, but I can tell you this: it was complete blasphemy to this minimalist. I was actually ashamed of what we had done. But there was no undoing it. After a few weeks of attempting to live with the pink and purple minefield of toys in our living room, it became apparent that the days of My Office were again numbered. It also became increasingly clear why my wife had given me a netbook as a birthday present!  That sinister daddy-spirit possessed me again, and my writing space was quickly converted to our daughter’s playroom. The office desk and side table and pictures were, once more, relocated -- this time to the guest bedroom across from the nursery upstairs.

HAVING GROWN TIRED OF PATCHING PLASTER walls, I decided not to hang the pictures this time. I simply stuffed them under the guest bed, crammed the desk into one corner of the room, and stuck the end table into another corner. Having written a novella, two novels, and two collections of poetry in various rooms of my house, I had finally exhausted the viable options of My Office. I am left to wander around with my netbook, yearning for spring, so I can write outside on my deck in reasonable temperatures -- weather permitting. There will be no desk. There will be no walls. There will be no pictures of poets. There will be, however, a view. And if you close your eyes and hold the asphalt of my street to your ear, the traffic sounds just like the ocean.

 

Sort of.

ONE THING I HAVE REALIZED by successfully writing in semi-nomadic fashion and in all sorts of My Offices throughout my house: space matters until you’re plain out of it. Don’t get too attached to your space. It is a lesson in impermanence. Get ready to up-and-move just as soon as you get into a groove.

WHAT YOU ACTUALLY NEED FOR YOUR WRITING SPACE

1. A netbook or tablet of some sort: you need to be portable.

2. Some form of light: a lantern, candles, moonlight, LED string lights (I’ve used them all).

3. A comfortable place to sit. You may prefer a chair, but your butt works just fine too.

4. Gray matter between your ears that is full of creativity and imagination.

5. A mug for your coffee, a glass for your wine, or a tumbler for your whiskey.
 
SO HERE'S THE THING: don't focus on where you're writing - focus on what you're writing.

Planning Your Own Book Launch

by Jody Aberdeen

Our fearless leader and occasional radio personality Carrie Bailey has set us the challenge of writing on the theme of problems and solutions. I'd like to talk about a "problem" that I always wanted to have: namely, launching my own book as an independent author.

Lucianna, testing the art of Japanese shibari bondage,
one of the fun things guests will get to see at our launch

I'm doing just that for my novel "Convergence".  My writers guild, the Toronto Wordslingers, is hosting my a launch for my time travel romance.

My friend and fellow guild-runner Lucianna LiSacchi is also joining me to promote her erotic drama "Mommy's Little Playgroup".

Everything happens at 8pm on Friday, February 1st, in Toronto, at Arta Gallery in the Distillery District.

Appropriately, we're billing it as "An Evening of Sex and Romance". 

So, what's the "problem"?  Well, let's first take the advice of a multi-millionaire gentleman I happened to meet in Toronto a few years back and change the word "problem" to "challenge". Mindset is everything when you start to make a living doing what you love the most, and challenges contain far more opportunity than "problems". 

Why are we doing this?  Shouldn't we wait until we get picked up by a publisher. Absolutely not!  Independently published books are now so prevalent that publishers are now scouring e-pub sites for new talent. 50 Shades of Grey began as an independently published e-book. British author John Locke made over a million dollars selling his e-books for just under 99 cents. 

All this means that, as unsigned authors with books now ready, we have no incentive to wait to celebrate our achievements.  And if you're going to celebrate, you may as well go big.

Creating a Platform 

Arta Gallery, Toronto, the site of our book launch. 

That's not to say we're opposed to being signed: in fact, that is still the dream. We still query agents and publishers, and we're hoping that some representatives from Random House and Harper Collins will show up.

However, one thing that publishers look for in these risk-averse times are serious writers who will have more where that came from, and that's hard to demonstrate with just one book unless you have a platform.

We're investing thousands of dollars, an Indiegogo campaign, several media outlets, and all of our social and professional networks behind this evening.  That's not even counting our websites, smaller events that we're going to host and take part in to promote ourselves, and other ideas we haven't even thought of yet but are seeking out.  As platforms go, they don't get much bigger than that.

Challenges We Face Planning Our Book Launch 

^^dressed for success (really,
a friend's wedding, but you
get the idea)

Becoming salesmen.  Not one person in our little boutique guild has a background in sales.  We don't like it.  We've had to evolve some cojones to shamelessly plug our launch at every turn.  As artists, we all share a reluctance to be inauthentic, and I've always viewed selling as a sleazy business.  That being said, reality dictates that we learn techniques to show people why what we're doing should matter to them.

The solution?  See yourself and your work as worthy of the time, money, success, and attention of others, and keep going. 

Learning on the fly.  I tell my guild and coaching clients that sometimes the best leaders and teachers are only ever twenty yards ahead of you on the way to the end zone. This is definitely the case with planning our own launch: we're learning as we go.  We will screw things up.  We may lose our investments.  We may miss out on opportunities.  That's okay, because this is our first of many books we want to crank out, and many more book launches we want to host.  This is the life we chose. 

The solution? Forgive yourself in advance, keep learning, and keep going. 

^^scared shitless

Being scared shitless. There's a veritable Zeno's Paradox of things that could cause our event to fail.  Then again, a million things can happen to you stepping out your front door: that doesn't mean you're going to be housebound the rest of your life.  Still, that rational assurance does nothing to quell the butterflies buzzing around your solar plexus.

The solution? Let the fear do its thing....and keep going.

Aside from the details of getting things booked, putting down deposits, and meeting with people, there's little that separates hosting a book launch from the art of expressing what's in your soul onto the page.  The solution to every challenge the writer's life throws our way is the same: keep going.

My Shameless Plug 

Speaking of sales-y things: if you're not in Toronto, but would like to support us anyway, visit us on Indiegogo and choose the "Pen Pals" perk.  A $20 USD donation will get you an e-anthology featuring short stories from our Toronto Wordslingers writers, including yours truly, along with the thanks of a grateful group of writers just like you.

And if you don't donate, feel free to promote us to your friends and contacts by sharing our link.

Book signings, champagne, and a little light bondage.
What more could you want
from An Evening of Sex and Romance? 

I'll be sure to update the Peevish Nation on how it all turns out, and share everything that we'll have learned by then.

Until then, boys and girls, continue to believe in yourselves, your stories, and your work,  and always keep going despite your fear. This is what you were born to do.

Tweet