Crime Fiction Dossier

Big publishing speaks

Jason Pinter, author of The Guilty and formerly an editor at St. Martin's Press (among other places), offered the following thoughts on the subject of vanity press publishing. For background on the discussion, see my post "Big publisher is watching." (This was originally posted on Lee Goldberg's blog. Jason kindly gave permission for me to repost it here.)

Having worked in publishing, with actual editorial experience at three "big publishing" houses, I thought I'd dispel a few myths that have been bandied about here. In my five years in editorial, I acquired both fiction and non-fiction. I've sat in hundreds of editorial meetings, and gotten thousands of submissions from reputable--and disreputable--agents. This is not to toot any sort of horn, but merely to offer proof that I know what I'm talking about. Anyway:

1) Amazon, despite what Yvonne says, is not a distributor. They are a retailer. There is a huge difference. A distributor buys x number of books from a publisher, then "distributes" them among their sales channels. Levy is an example of a distributor. Ingram is a distributor. Distributors have a financial stake in the success of the book. If it does not sell, they lose money.

2) Amazon is not the preferred distributor, or retailer, or anything like that. They are a piece of the puzzle, sure, but as of today only about 3%-5% of that puzzle. Brick and mortar stores, with few exceptions, are the most important part of the puzzle (though big box stores, like Sam's Club and BJ's are growing in importance). It costs Amazon nothing to put up a page for a self-published book, and it certainly doesn't mean they have to order any copies. If a self-published book doesn't sell any copies on Amazon, they lose nothing but the time it took to post the page.

3) There are authors who benefit from self-publishing, but they are extremely rare. They are, with very few exceptions, non-fiction authors who have either a substantial platform or take part in many speaking engagements at which to sell their books. In this case, they benefit from increased royalties. Many NF authors that publish with traditional publishers actually negotiate to buy back a certain amount of copies--at a large discount--in order to both sell at their lectures as well as in B&M stores. Though yes, it is true that sometimes publishers do acquire a book solely because the author commits to a substantial buyback. Yes this is cynical publishing, but publishing is a business, and publishers do what they need to do to stay in business.

4) Big name publishing is only watching if you make them watch. The fact of the matter is, when a self-published novel comes in on submission, it is assumed, often correctly, that the novel could not find a mainstream publisher. Yes, there are self-published novels that are well-written and do eventually land contracts, but again they are exceedingly few and far between. Anyone who thinks self-publishing is the best route to getting a mainstream contract, give me a ring, I have some real estate to sell you...

5) "Big Publishing" generally takes longer to publish books because it takes months to properly sell and promote the book to their accounts. Any publisher, if they wanted to could, put out a book out lickity split. In fact, those books are called "crash books," and they're only done if a book is especially timely and/or publicity driven. But if you print a book in a month just because you can, Barnes & Noble, Borders, Amazon, etc...wouldn't take diddly squat because they'd have no reason to.

6) Publishers do drop the ball. That's the way it works, unfortunately. Good books go unread and don't get the promotion they need or deserve, and bad books become monster bestsellers. Hell, "Fools Gold" was #1 at the box office.

7) There's no doubt publishing is changing, though change is certainly taking its time. The Kindle might be doing well relatively, but ebooks are such a small fraction of book sales (like 1% of 1%) that it's far too early in the device's release for it to have made anywhere near a dent, or even a smudge, on the market.

Just a few thoughts.

Jason Pinter

Big publisher is watching

As part of the discussion on vanity presses mentioned below, Lee Goldberg cited a quote by the proprietor of a POD press that I wanted to address:

"In today’s emerging digital world, if you truly want to attract that big name publisher, use a professional POD firm to self-publish because the big name publishers are watching." --Yvonne DiVita, WME Books.com

If that were true, it might be a compelling argument in favor of the vanity press model. Unfortunately, it is patently false.

In the five years that I've been a professional book critic and commentator on publishing, I've had the pleasure of meeting hundreds of published authors, ranging from first-timers to seasoned pros, small press to large, mid-list to the biggest bestsellers.

Of those hundreds of authors, I am aware of only two that began their careers with a POD-printed book. One of the authors went from a vanity press to a traditional NY publishing house. After two books, she was dropped by the NY house and returned to self publishing.

The other author -- already something of a unique case in that he had significant publishing industry contacts -- used his POD books essentially as promotional items, sending them to reviewers, editors, etc. in an attempt to garner attention for his work. He eventually got a contact with a traditional publisher. Subsequent to that, he stated that he wouldn't advise others to go the POD route and that he didn't think it helped him significantly.

Contrast those two to the hundreds and hundreds of published authors who pursued their career the traditional way. They wrote a book, they submitted it to agents and/or publishers, they got published, they got paid.

So who are all these writers who are attracting the "big name publishers" with their POD books? If the big name publishers really are watching, would any of them care to write in and let me know that? I'm sure my readers would be interested in hearing the news.

Vanity press "publishing"

There's an interesting (and often nasty) discussion going on over at Lee Goldberg's blog regarding the merits of vanity press "publishing." (I put that in quotes because what these presses do is much closer to printing than it is publishing.) The discussion started with a particular vanity press operation and has expanded beyond that to include the method in general.

I've written on this subject before, but as vanity publishing (usually masquerading as POD publishing) becomes more and more popular, it becomes an increasingly important topic for writers to be aware of.

Obviously I don't think very much of the vanity press business. But regardless of your own views, it would behoove any prospective customer of such a company to do extensive research on the subject before they spend their money.

There are too many operations out there that are little more than con jobs, preying on the gullibility and desperation of aspiring writers. Be sure you've done your homework and educated yourself before handing over your credit card number.

Ask the Critic: Do critics request books or are they sent automatically?

In the comments to the post below about my TBR stack, C.T. Henry asks an interesting question that I pulled out to answer here:

Did you request most of these books or were they just sent to you?

Usually, publishers send me the books automatically, without me having to request them. That's the easiest way to operate and it ensures that the books are at least considered for review.

Sometimes, though, the system doesn't work so smoothly and I have to seek out the books and request them. This is a lot more inefficient and doesn't always work particularly well. For one thing, it means I have to be aware of the book in the first place. (I try to keep up with everything, but often books slip through the cracks anyway.)

Also, it means I have to either figure out who the publicist is or just start querying people at the publisher to try to track the book down. For those publishers where I have good, ongoing relationships with the publicists, this is pretty easy to do. But if all I know is that a book is published by Random House, getting my hands on a copy can sometimes be more trouble than it's worth.

(As with all things, some publishers do a lot better job of sending books than others. This has a real impact on which books get reviewed. Too often I'm not even able to consider a particular book for review because I never got a copy.)

In this particular case, most of the books were sent to me, but a few I had to request.

I love this book trailer!

I'm not much of a fan of book trailers. There are a lot of problems with the whole concept, I think, not the least of which is that they're nearly always cheesy.

But I got a kick out of the one for Stephen King's new book, Duma Key. If I hadn't already read the book, this might actually have made me interested in it.

(Tip o' to MJ.)

Final thoughts on marketing/publicity

Everybody knows that it's tougher than ever to get attention for books in today's market. Authors have to work twice as hard and twice as smart in order to achieve success. Furthermore, every person's goals and experiences are different -- that's why it's crucial to gather as much information as you can before you commit to spending your hard-earned bucks. The purpose of these posts isn't to try to convince anyone to do one thing or another. They are, however, intended to get people thinking and to provide information to help authors make smart decisions.

I hope you found them useful.

Discussion on marketing/publicity, part 4

Continuing our discussion on marketing and publicity for authors...

Allison Brennan, New York Times bestselling author, shares her views:

I considered hiring a publicist. As background, I have six published romantic thrillers all of which hit the NYT list, the last two the print list. I'm published in PBO and my publisher distributes my books well, with co-op, etc. The reason I was thinking of hiring one was to help push me to the next level, find non-traditional means of publicity like through working mom's magazines (I have five kids) and bookstores -- particularly indie bookstores since I already have a strong presence in the chains.

I made a list of why I thought I needed a publicist, then sat down at a conference with my agent. We went through all the things I wanted a publicist for, then she talked with others at the agency, and while she came back with publicist recommendations (and I also asked M.J. Rose for recommendations because I trust her about all this stuff!) she also said it really would be a waste of money. Basically, what I wanted was all stuff my publisher could do. We needed to tell them what was important to me, and then talk with them about each individual item and see if they would do it.

They agreed to almost everything, and even came up with some other ideas (like having two different covers for my next book, ala Greg Iles' True Evil. But some of my ideas weren't great, and while I'm sure a publicist would have happily taken my money and worked them, I don't know that they would have translated to more sales.

One other thing is that publicists can't guarantee anything -- reviews, interviews, radio, tv, etc. So it's a lot of money for a crapshoot -- unless like M.J. said you have some big meaty hook that would have media people salivate to get you in their magazine/on their tv show.

Also, good publicists are expensive. I would never recommend to anyone to spend their entire advance -- or half their advance -- on a publicist. Okay, if you're James Patterson and have made money in marketing and want to run your own PR campaign for your book, go for it, but for most of us we don't have that kind of money to spend. And remember -- anything you do had better be backed by your publisher in terms of distribution. For example, are your books going to be readily available for people to purchase? If you spend all this money on promo and publicity, and then your books are only available at select bookstores or online, then you've wasted a lot of money (IMO).

I'm sure some people will disagree with me. I'm sure some people have had success with a publicist and spending mega bucks on promo. But I still think writing another good book is the single best promo for your backlist.

So before you spend big bucks, first see if you can get your publisher to pay for any of your ideas. You might be surprised. For example, if you have an idea of putting ads in a specialty magazine -- like dog magazines -- because your series is about a dog walker, maybe they would do it. If you want to send ARCs to specific booksellers, maybe your publisher will print up another 50 and cover your list. I'm sure there are other ideas.

Discussion on marketing/publicity, part 3

Following up on the question of hiring a PR person, I shared this:

I tend to think that an independent publicist is of little value to most authors when it comes to getting reviews, profiles or feature pieces. Thinking back, I believe I've only reviewed one book as a result of a publicist's exhortations -- and that was because her pitch intrigued my editor. (And the author in question was a bestseller who had a cool off-the-book-page hook.)

Unless you're well known, a major newspaper is extremely unlikely to run a piece about you. However, your local paper is a decent shot, especially if you have some compelling hook. And you can contact them on your own. (A solicitation from you directly might even be more helpful than one from a publicist.)

As for reviews...The usual tactic by independent publicists is to send out mass emails to reviewers with a synopsis of the book, asking if the reviewer is interested in receiving a copy. But your in-house publicist is probably already doing that. And even if they're not, this approach has a very limited rate of success. (And you can always send out books yourself.)

I have also found that some publicists do more harm than good, mostly by being annoying or demanding. Sometimes the actions of a publicist will make me less likely to review a book, rather than more.

Getting reviews is mainly just a matter of sending books to the right reviewers and hoping for the best. A publicist will not increase your chances of success.

There are certain kinds of publicity -- radio & tv especially -- that only a publicist can help you with. But when it comes to the kinds that I've mentioned above, you can often do just as well with a little effort yourself.

Discussion on marketing/publicity, part 2

Continuing our discussion on marketing and publicity for authors...

The question was raised about the pros and cons of hiring a PR person. M.J. Rose responded with this advice:

The press is not interested in fiction/fiction authors in general. Only the biggest/richest/most famous. In general, I'd say that 80% of us don't need big traditional PR people, but combos of other things.

So to beat those odds, you need to know:

1. What's the book about?

2. What is your goal in hiring someone? Reviews? Off the book page stories about you/book? Interviews?

3. Who is the publisher? What is the expected print run? How important is the book to the house? Is it a lead title? Are they doing anything for the book you know about other than review copies and coop?

4. Who are you, other than "an author"? Famous, infamous, background, specialty? (Meaning: Barry Eisler was in the CIA so he wrote a CIA novel - he'll have a better shot at getting PR than me, an ad exec, writing a CIA novel.)

5. What do you think someone would write about in the press when it comes to your book? Other than, "this authors wrote this good book." What's the news? What's the story?

6. What is your budget? $2000-5000? $5000-10,000? $10,000 plus?

7. Pub date of the book?

Once you have the answers to those questions, you'll be in a much better position to start making informed decisions about what to do with your promotional money.

Discussion on marketing/publicity, part 1

There's been an interesting discussion on marketing/publicity on ITW's ThrillerWriters message list recently. It started out as a discussion on book trailers, but has moved on from there. A few people have contributed some excellent advice that I wanted to pass along because I think it's worthwhile for all authors (or prospective authors) to read. (The posters gave their permission for this to be used.)

M.J. Rose, marketing guru and thriller author, was first up with these thoughts:

The rule of thumb is this: When figuring out where to spend your marketing/PR dollars, a video comes after a website and advertising. A video is what to put in your ads. It’s not an ad PR effort on its own. The questions to ask are: How will this help me? Where will people see it?

Never do a video as the only effort. Never do a website as an only effort. They are both static -- meaning no one sees them unless they go looking for them. The bulk of your money and effort have to be on outreach, not in-reach. Videos and websites are both in-reach.

Make sure to ask your publisher: if you do a video, will they pay for it? Will they pay for half of it? If not, and you pay for it yourself, will they use it? How?

There's no magic bullet to marketing your book. The only way to do it is do a lot of different things in as many places as you can. The goal is get exposure for the book in as many places as you can, in as many ways as you can.

The other goal is: for every PR dollar you spend, spend an equal marketing dollar. Meaning: if you hire a publicist for $10,000 you should be spending the same thing on marketing. The reason is that PR is a gamble even with the best PR people, and marketing is an absolute.

(With non-fiction it’s easier to get PR, but with fiction it’s very hard even for the biggest names. For instance, Jon Stewart has 200 books a year on his show. None are fiction.)

I'll share more thoughts in the next post.