Self Publishing: I Wanna Know

Yesterday there was a link circulating around the pub-peeps Twitter-verse (along with commentary ranging from outrage to profanity) to an offer from Publish America.

(BE-EFFING-WARE!! THEY ARE EVIL AND ONLY WANT YOUR SOUL AND $$)

The link took you to a buy page: pay $49 and Publish America (my fingers burn to type it) will show your book to J.K. Rowling and "ask her what she thinks."

To me, this just sounds insane. Completely implausible. But I empathize with writers, and I sort of see how PA gets people. The suggestion that something might get an author published is a powerful thing.

I know this, too, because I see so many queries that start out "I self-published with _____ but the experience was not what I expected (or) I am disappointed (or) they totally jerked me around." And my heart goes out to these people! Because often that project is shot--without serious sales numbers (5K+) an agent will have a very difficult time leveraging a self-pubbed book for print sale.

So I want to ask you guys. What offers entice you/your compatriots to pay the $49, to sign a contract without representation? Is it resentment toward the Publishing Establishment? Snazzily worded pitches from the self-pub companies? What value do you see in the self-publishing world, in having to do it all on your own??

Further, what do you want to know from the Publishing Establishment? Does it make sense that agents cite such a high number of sales before a self-pubbed project is valuable for the traditional publishing world?

My instinct is that there was a lot of "Eff the Man" talk about a year ago. The sad stories I'm seeing in my inbox now are the result of the early adopters of self-publishing getting burned; the backlash. I feel now that there's a more cautious view of self-publishing: that it's a dangerous, potentially career-harming move if not done correctly, with a lot of back-end work. But then I still get emails asking what the point of an agent is...so I dunno.

MUST READ Online Marketing Post from Nancy Coffey Literary and Media Representation

It's sometimes hard to talk about online marketing because every book and every campaign is so different. The strategy changes 100% with each new project. It's easier to talk about what not to do, but that'll only get you so far.

Case studies, man. Case studies is where it's at.

Here's a great one from Joanna Stampfel-Volpe's client Boy Sees Hearts.

Online Author Marketing: Your Book Is Pubbing!

You're living the dream, man. An agent, a book deal...now your book is about to come out!

This is going to be AWESOME.

Publishers dedicate marketing and publicity staff to your book, with their biggest push focused around the launch. It's called "event marketing" in the industry.

What that means is that there's one big push, but no long term marketing strategy for the book...and this is where most authors (and some agents) get really grouchy. ("They're not doing anything anymore!")

But before we start Publisher bashing, as is so en vogue these days, consider that just as your book had some launch-time marketing (galleys printed, an ad somewhere, etc.) the next book on that publicist's list has to get the same attention. The publisher has to move on.

Which means that, at this stage, your own marketing efforts have to get more aggressive and your strategy more sophisticated. In post one, we talked about building the foundation of your online presence. On Tuesday, about focusing your online strategy. At this stage, you should focus on marrying your marketing foundation (blog, Twitter, Facebook, etc.) with specific marketing strategy.

This means getting creative. Your goal should be to keep your book(s) on people's minds in the online space, where attention spans are notoriously short.

This is not done by "selling" your book.

As you've no doubt heard before, broadcasting "BUY MY BOOK" is a quick way to get ignored. Create value for your audience--by being funny, like Maureen Johnson, finding interesting images on Flickr, or marrying your writing interests with something broader, as Sarah Fine does with psychology and YA literature.

Keep them coming back for your digital content and persona (separate from your book) and they'll get your book news (new releases, discounted ebooks, etc.) too. Organically piqued interest has a much greater chance of generating sales and word-of-mouth advertising.

Yes, this "online stuff" takes time. Or money (you can certainly pay some very talented professionals to do this for you). The online space has become a hugely important marketing and sales environment. If you choose to ignore that online space, you risk dooming your book to the "Launch and Fizzle" pattern so many books fall into.

Online Author Marketing: Agented!

You may have been an unagented writer before, just trying to build a basic online brand (see yesterday's post) but now...

YOU DID IT!

You landed an agent. Nice work! You've got a blog with a few followers and you've done some guest posts here and there for other bloggers who've even returned the favor. You may have figured out The Twitter. The two platforms, through cross-linking, support one another.

Things feel a lot more concrete than they did when you were just hammering away at different projects. You've got one to really focus on, with some in the wings (your agent hopes).

Now that you have something specific to promote, whether sold or unsold, you should reevaluate your online strategy and perhaps expand into new platforms. Hopefully your agent can help you. For instance:

• Are you writing nonfiction as an expert in some area? You could join Quora and start answering questions there--it's a great way to build platform.
• Facebook. This is more complicated because everyone thinks they know how to do The Facebook. Most people have a Facebook page of some sort, but few have one that's really effective in building an online brand, (see here for some details). Think of a strategy for Facebook: what are you promoting? A single title? A series? You as an author?
• Flickr. If you're an artist or illustrator, Flickr is a great place to showcase your work and build stories--supplemental, perhaps, to your book--in a new way.

There are many more ways to build an online brand; your agent can and should help you with this strategy, although you shouldn't expect them to do it for you. If you're too busy for social media, see here. Apply to all social media platforms.

A word on oversharing: you're going on submission now. It's a nervewracking experience for all involved and it can be really frustrating. Don't blog about it. Don't tweet it. Don't write angsty poetry about it and post it to your Tumblr. Don't.

So in the agented stage you get an online presence with a little more flair, guided by your agent. You've also got a more focused message, since you'll have a project to promote. Go get 'em!

Online Author Marketing: Pre-Agent

On Friday, I participated in an amazing interactive interview on Krista Van Dolzer's Mother. Write. (Repeat.) Blog. One of the questions asked, concerning author online marketing, was too complex to discuss in the comments section:

How can a writer get the most out of the Internet at each stage of the writing journey (pre-agent, post-agent, pre-book release, post-book release)?

Since we couldn't talk about it on Friday, it'll be the subject of a series on the blog this week.

First, we'll cover pre-agent online marketing and platform-building tactics.

Since your online presence is the foundation for your online marketing in the future, you should have a strategy before you just jump on Blogger. What brand are you trying to build? What other people are already talking about what you want to? How can you possibly collaborate with them? Unfortunately, blogging about "your writing process" or "your publishing journey" is not going to cut it if you really want to build a following--too many are already doing it. For tips on blog topics, check out this post here (and the surrounding posts).

I suggest a blog and a twitter account as a good online foundation for an aspiring writer.

You don't have to be super active on Twitter as soon as you sign up. Go ahead and find 20 or 30 people to follow--a mix of writers you admire, agents, editors, and non-publishing people--and just lurk. Listen to conversations, jump in where you feel like you have something to say. As you get more comfortable with the platform, you can tweet more. A fully active account should be tweeting no fewer than three times a day.

The hashtags #askagent and #yalitchat are examples of ways to find others interested in the things you're writing about: both agents/editors and beta writers. You can search those terms on Twitter and read the transcripts of the chats, which are always full of great info.

A blog is another good way to get started building an online presence. As you'll see as you get your feet wet with Twitter, the writerly blogosphere is incredibly interconnected. Bloggers guest post, start series together, and share thoughts on books they loved (And hated). But here more than anywhere else you have to worry about oversharing.

Many writers serialize their work on their blogs. I cannot encourage you strongly enough to avoid that. Authors nearly always list "getting an agent" as the reason they put "teasers" on their blogs. But there is already a mechanism for showing your work to agents: the query. Trust that process; it is highly unlikely that an agent will just stumble on your blog. They usually find it by clicking links in a query. So why put it on the blog?

If you choose to do so anyway you may put yourself breach of the warranties and indemnities clause of the publishing contract that you haven't even signed yet. I like Krista's strategy: she has a widget on her sidebar that lists a logline for her book. That's interesting without crossing any lines. Kathleen Ortiz has a great author website post here that lists website elements you should focus on.

You should try to post about twice a week on your blog--a link with a caption is still a post, but try to make a habit of producing real content--between 100 and 400 words.

So what do you think? Any questions? Tomorrow we'll talk about changes you should make once you're an agented writer.

If nothing happens...

First line in a query today:

"What happens when everyone expects the apocalypse--and nothing happens."

Well, this agent stops reading, for one. If you say the words "nothing happens" in your query you're just sinking yourself.

Your query should tell me what happens. Not what doesn't.

Meredith in the ATL

The Atlantic, that is.

I'm honored to be featured with some much more impressive names than my own in an article about YA literature, growing up, and what "art" means anymore at TheAtlantic.com.