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?

Just a bunch of SELL-OUTS!

by Rob Hines

Yeah, I said it.

You're just a bunch of sell-outs.

Peevish Penman is Selling Out
on YouTube!

Carrie shared this idea in a recent podcast, which you can view on our YouTube channel. Just because I'm insulting you doesn't mean I can't promote our stuff.

But don't go there yet. Wait until I'm done calling you names.

By the way, Carrie was much nicer when she brought up the notion on the podcast. I, on the other hand, am choosing to paint with the broad brush. So there.

I really believe it's true, though. We writers are all resigned to sell out in at least one part of our lives in order to be "happy" and/or "successful." The life of an author requires a certain amount of fecal material that we're forced to plod through with a big smile because we're LIVING THE DREAM MAN!

No, you say? Well, you're wrong.

"But Rob, I love to write and I get to write everyday so everything is wonderful!"

Excuse me while I wait for the unicorns to finish flying out of your rectum.

Admit it. There's something you're forced to do on a regular basis that allows you to write, but you'd love to not have to deal with it.

Maybe it's marketing (personally, I dig that stuff, but some people don't). Maybe it's dealing with editors. Maybe it's that damn day job that is supporting your writing pursuits.

And maybe it's the writing itself. If you're being paid to write, you're producing for a specific market. This market is now your boss, and you're committed to writing for them, not for you. Sure, it's better than a life sentence in a cubicle, but you're still giving up a little bit of yourself when you put those words on the page. Congratulations, you're selling out.

Can't deal with that idea? Good, that's what the comment section is for. Just promise you'll read the rest of this first. I can't stand commenters who don't read an entire article.

For those who stayed (I like you), I'm not trying to dissuade an entire community of writers from pursuing their dreams. It's just a fact of this life that we all have to accept, and it may help you determine what your writing path is going to be. Currently, I'm a tremendous sell-out because I'm working a full-time job for the paycheck and benefits, freelancing as a voiceover artist for some extra cash, AND attempting to become a professional writer because I want to write. None of these pursuits are going to bring me intense personal happiness because I'm simply serving someone else in each case. However, I choose to sell out so I can satisfy the one part of my life that brings an endless amount of joy: my family. If I get to do some writing for myself on the side, then that's a bonus.

"Well, just quit your job and write from home."

Who are you and what planet kicked you out?

Sure, that's the romantic version of the story. The writer with a dream gives it all up and lives as a hermit to pursue a career, and yeah, that might have worked for me 15 years ago. But the dream didn't show up until a couple years after I bought a home, and just before my son was born.

Romance be damned! I have mouths to feed, so I'm going to sell out with a smile on my face. Besides, selling out lets me come home to this every day...

That's not fair. He's usually pretty happy.
I'm the one that's crying all the time.

If you don't like the idea of being a sell-out, that's fine. Just come up with a way to become a financially independent, million-selling author without giving up a little time or money in the interest of others. And once you figure that out, please share with the rest of us in the comments below, 'cause I got nothin'.

Tweet

@YOU: Managing Your Personal Brand

by Rob Hines

Between my moments of unbridled writing joy, I happen to squeeze in a little bit of corporate work as a Marketing Analyst for a credit union.

Yep, it’s about as exciting as it sounds.

Not that I don’t enjoy it. Really, I do. Are my bosses reading this?

Seriously, the day job is what allows me to even think about being a writer so I have to appreciate it, but of course it’s not necessarily where my heart and my passion are.  Fortunately, my time in the world of marketing, even my minuscule corner of it, has provided some important insight about branding that I think all writers can use.  After all, you’re creating a personal brand that you hope millions will eventually buy into repeatedly, right?

Your name (or your pen name) is your brand and if you can create a brand that people love, there's a better chance they'll follow your work and buy stuff! That's a good thing! Just remember, everything you do under that name will contribute to the creation and maintenance of that brand.

And I mean everything.  Your tweets, your facebook status updates, your facebook photos, your facebook friends' photos.  EVERYTHING.  And unless you have a team of publicists, agents, managers, lawyers, and general image-makers, you have to worry about all of this yourself.

Don’t worry.  You can do it.  You just need to keep a few important tips in mind.

1.  If you wouldn't say it on the 6:00 news, don’t say it online.

Social media has made self-marketing possible for writers in a big, bad way.  Now writers can tell the world about their work without leaving their makeshift closet offices.  It’s an amazing opportunity to reach out to the world, but it’s also an unfortunate opportunity for the world to reach back out to you, too.  Granted, you’ll be pretty safe for a while if you’re still fairly unknown, but once you gather a bit of momentum, your entire digital past becomes easy pickings for media vultures who are looking to pluck a couple bucks from your success.

Ooh, they look hungry!

This caution isn't just about the words you post.  You’ll also need to be aware of the photos you post, as well as any images that others post which feature you in all your glory.  Yes, that picture of you and your friends playfully wrestling the bartender in Costa Rica may give you a laugh of reminiscence, but it also gives other people an interesting impression about who you are.  If that’s part of the brand you want potential readers to see, then go on with your bartender-lovin’ self.  If not, you may want to do some quick online clean-up to protect your public image.

2.  Build a team

Word-of-mouth has been around since the beginning of the human race when cavemen would grunt to other cavemen to tell them where the best tasting animals could be found, and no matter what forms of media are dominant, word-of-mouth will still be the most important form of advertising available.  Even though there are plenty of Mad Men making millions for writing clever jingles and designing artistic campaigns, most people make their purchasing decisions based on the opinions of others.  Word-of-mouth is so influential that credible online shopping sites like Amazon prominently feature customer reviews of the products they sell.  Writers can and should use word-of-mouth too!

Sure, you can go out and say “Buy my book! Buy my book!” and you’ll get some people to buy just to shut you up, but what if you could grow a group of genuine fans who will eagerly tell their friends and family to buy your book?  And what if these fans go tell more people about it?  It's just a matter of building your network of promoters. Use social media, use friends and family, use your cubicle-mates at work. Whatever you need to do to get the ball rolling, go do it. You don’t have to get a million readers at once, but you can get them a dozen or so at a time.

3.  Be a real person

Okay, this may be personal preference, but I really don’t get excited about following a writer who seems to just be a corporate face who churns out books.  I’m much more likely to become engaged with the work you do if you’re willing to put yourself out there as a real dude or chick with quirks and faults like everyone else.  If you can laugh at yourself a little, I’m sold!

No Robots Allowed!

I know, I know.  This sort of flies in the face of the whole 6:00 news thing from earlier, but bear with me.  There’s a difference between being a real human being and just removing all filters and saying whatever you want.  You can have a personality and still watch what you say.  I've spent 35 years living in a Catholic family so I know from whence I speak.

My advice for building your personal brand is pretty simple. Be yourself.  Be real.  Just be careful.  Don’t let your guard down, but don’t throw a blanket over your head and hide behind your publishing house.  You want your readers to buy your books, but you really want them to buy you, your image, and your brand.  That’s how you create a long-lasting fan base...oh, and that helps you make money too.

Not that any of us care about that, right?

Tweet

Promotion and Marketing: Video Trailers

I'm totally excited about the release of my new book, Give the Lady a Ride. Marketing it has proven both challenging and fun. Not being a famous author, I have a harder time bringing the traffic to my sites than those who have "made it." Give-aways help, but my best promotional tool so far is my book trailer.

Although tons of folks know how to make a video, I'm not one of them. I hired a pro and am amazed about what she could do within my budget. My trailer cost around $250. I don't know whether that's low or high, but I do know it was worth it.

Aside from uploading the trailer to YouTube, the creator mailed me the DVD and the components that went into making it. The DVD goes with me to book signings where a larger screen than my laptop's is available; otherwise, I just play it off my computer. From the components, I made a slide-show for LinkedIn, a site that charges extra for posting videos.

Most cyber-savvy folks know that with YouTube, a video can be posted just about anywhere on the internet, particularly Facebook. What I appreciate about YouTube is the feature with the embed code that allows me to eliminate other videos from advertising after mine plays, which comes in handy for Facebook ads even if FB doesn't make allowance for embedded codes in its wall links (or if it does, I haven't figured it out yet). AuthorNation allows the link on your page, and from there, the managers will post it on the AuthorNation home page, too. Always a plus!

Best bet is to find the sites that let you upload from your computer. When you publish your book, you'll want to get an author page on Amazon, one of the sites that allows you to upload your trailer. Goodreads is another. I'm sure there are others--find them and make use of them. Make the expenditure work for you!

Just like I did. Here ya go~~~

My Shame: A Writer's DOs and DON'Ts of Social Media

by Carrie Bailey

My humiliation will be shared momentarily, but first I will explain why.  In life I hold one obsession above all others, and not the written word.  It's coffee.  When a friend phoned and suggested I submit my "Ode to Nescafe" to a contest to be published in a coffee table book about coffee, I jumped, hit the send button, and tweeted my submission...a few times.  And then a few more.  And...

Writers must promote their own work.  Dispense with any delusion that one day a publisher knocks on your door, asks you if you happen to write, and offers to publish your work. 

Comments surged on my poem and the feedback was all positive.  But then in a sad twist of fate, a close relative of mine, whom I've always admired, made some poorly timed meant-to-be-private comments which worked their way back to me.  Whether in a Freudian way he meant for me to hear it, I cannot say, but the message was clear and it hurt.  My work wasn't the issue either; I was.   To compound my humiliation, I signed into the website offering the contest with disqus and all my "HEY - READ MY POEM!" tweets were instantly posted below the original comments about the poem itself.


In fact, you can see them all here at A Word With You Press

From the moment I submitted, I knew the editor wouldn't choose based on comments or even popularity alone.  I promoted my poem, because I love my poem.  When I lived in Santiago, I drank dainty cups of instant Nescafe coffee until the wee hours at my friends' homes and then snored my way back to my apartment on the public transportation-ah, fond memories.  And as a revered poet from Chile wrote odes about mundane objects such as tomatoes, I followed his example.  The result was an ode that shares my uncommon love of instant coffee.

All said and done, you must self promote if you want to put your work in the hands of readers and social media offers an excellent platform to achieve this.  I've laughed many times at people tweeting for followers on twitter.  Self-promotion I'm not interested in, I ignore.  I would never advise anyone to stop having a silly night begging to round off your follower number to the nearest hundred or letting people know that no one read your blog post *hint, hint.*.  That's priceless and endearing behavior to some of us.

After my relative took offense at my coffee poem, his mother gave me this advice: don't worry about what others think.  This advice balanced with the ever timeless advice, DON'T SPAM, reveals a golden mean of social media wisdom.

Her reminder also prepared me for another phenomena.  Tweets and messages about spelling and grammar errors.  I went six months without a single one once...

I have enough experience to know that some mistakes are actually INVISIBLE.  I know the grammar rule and I'd see it when I read other people's work, but on my own it's INVISIBLE.  My eyes pass over it and it does not register.  LIKE MAGIC. 

Though I consider this coffee poem experience my personal shame, I wasn't deleted, blocked, or reported for spam.  I just annoyed someone who mattered and I embarrassed myself.  Now wiser, I can speak from personal experience both as the victim and the perpetrator of shameless self-promotion.

And I will share my DOs and DONTs of promoting yourself on social media:

• DO use social media such as Facebook and Twitter to promote your work
• DO start promotion BEFORE any work is complete
• DO tell friends and family about your work
• DO ask for feedback, reviews and comments
• DO allow the people you know to invest in you
• DO reciprocate
• DO keep track of how frequently you post
• DO EDIT YOUR WRK MORE THAN ONCE

• DON'T use social media ONLY to promote your work
• DON'T promote where the receiver cannot delete or unsubscribe
• DON'T forget that different generations use social media differently
• DON'T FORGET TO EDIT YOR WORK
• DON'T take most correspondence personally
• DON'T forget that anything you post online can and will be seen by everyone.  

Not everyone you care about will be supportive.  When they see your tweets... or receive a bulk message... They may feel less important to you.  That can be the unintended consequence of having your family, your former classmates, and your online contacts communicating through the same medium.  But don't stop sharing your work over negative feedback, it comes with the territory and only makes you a better writer.   
 

By the way that contest ends this week!   （ ^_^）o自自o（^_^ ）

Twenty Years of Teaching People How to Write Books

Tweet

by Michael Crawley

 

Over my twenty years of teaching people how to write genre fiction books, I’ve distilled my pontifications on the basics to just over a single page.  This is it.

We’ll start with some vital trivia.  (How’s that for an oxymoron!)   

               

There are a few things that I tell all my pupils in their first lesson.  If they can learn them, they are 50% of the way towards selling their work. 

1) Please format double-spaced, 1 1/4" margins, ragged right, paragraphs indented three spaces and with no gaps. Use a plain 12-point typeface.

2) To sell, write exactly what one specific editor wants to buy.  Submit it. To do that, you must know what that editor is currently publishing; have a copy of his guidelines, and follow them! Don't write the story or novel that's been mulling around in your head, write the book they want to buy.

From there on, what I teach is simply the details.

2a) It doesn’t matter what you want to write, if you are writing to sell. If you don’t sell your story or novel, it won’t be read.   Write what the editor thinks his readers want to read.  He might be wrong but he has the cheque book.  That does not mean ‘selling out’.  There are over a million English language publishers.  Whatever your pet topic or favorite genre, someone publishes it.  Find that someone.  Get their guidelines.  Adjust to fit them.  Write what you enjoy writing - but in their language, following their rules, to their length if you're serious about publishing.

3) It’s hard work, but write simply.  The more readable your text, the more it will sell.  Ask Messers King, Spillane, Churchill, Melville, etc..  Convoluted, verbose text is easy to write.

We write with ease to show our breedin’ 

But easy writin’s cursed hard readin’~Sheridan.

Your words, sentences and paragraphs should all be, on average short and simple.*  Avoid conjunctions and subclauses.  Write SVO - Subject, Verb, Object.  That’s the natural order in English.  Keep your ‘ing’ words to a minimum and in particular, don’t open sentences with them. 

4) Write dynamically.   If you write fictional books, your opening sentence and paragraph should be a) Action, b) Dialogue, c) Intriguing.  If it is passive or ‘explanation’, your opening paragraph will be both the first and the last that is read.  If you write nonfiction, your opening should either offer a benefit or be intriguing.  Every word should do something. 

If I write anything a reader might skip over, I delete it.  Elmore Leonard.

5) Use structure.  Unless it is very short, fiction should be three acts.  25% dynamic introduction of the elements.  50% development and complications.  25% unraveling towards a cathartic ending.  You should have plot-twists at those 25% and 75% points. 

If you write nonfiction books, you do almost the same.  Open by telling the readers what you are going to tell them.  Tell them.  Tell them that you told them. 

6) In fiction, write a plot.  Plot is: A sympathetic character has a problem.  Her efforts to solve it are thwarted by complications.  In the end, out of her character and the circumstances, there is a cathartic resolution. 

7) Edit and rewrite.

I never write four words but I cross out five.   Dorothy Parker. 

The first draft of anything is ****.  Ernest Hemingway.

8) Finish your text and submit it.  

In this piece, my average word has five letters.  My average sentence has eight words.

I teach people how to write what will sell; not how to sell what they write.