Note: We're only a week away from book release day! Oy! This is a long explanation about all the book promo, and worth reading (I hope)...but feel free to skip it and just enter the contest at the bottom!
You’ve probably noticed
that I’ve spent a lot of time over the past months talking about my books,
rather than my garden, the writing process, the practice of witchcraft, or the
antics of my adorable felines. I hope you’re not getting bored! I do try to
keep it fun and amusing, and periodically reward people for sticking around by
giving out goodies…but I thought it might be time to explain why I—and lots of
other authors—do so much promotion when they have a new book coming out.
You’re still free to skip
all the promotional stuff, of course, and wait for me to get back to putting up
cute cat pictures and the occasional spell, but I figured that I might give
y’all some insight into the realities of the modern publishing world, and why
there is So Damn Much Book Promo.
Reason One: Publishers
Don’t Do Much Promotion Anymore
In the good old days, an
author could sit at home and write in his skivvies, and his publisher would
take care of most of the promotion. If the author went on a book tour, the
publisher paid for it. Not anymore. These days, if your book is coming out from
one of the major publishers (like Berkley), they will do some promotional
things—find you a few guest blog spots, maybe, put your book up on their
website and include it in their newsletter for those who have signed up for it,
even make you some bookmarks (yay! Giveaway!). But not much. For those authors
who are self-publishing, like my friend Mindy Klasky is these days, it is all
on the author. So if you want people to find out about, and hopefully buy, your
book, it is up to you to spread the word.
Reason Two: Fewer
Bookstores
Back in said ancient days
of yore (you know, ten or fifteen years ago), most people found new books and
new authors in one of three ways—at a bookstore, at the library, or through a
friend’s recommendation. Sadly, there are fewer brick and mortar bookstores
these days (I miss you, Borders!), and many people are buying their books
online, where instead of competing against thousands of books to be noticed,
you are literally competing against millions. Mind you, many of those millions
are crap, but that doesn’t mean they’re not completion. Thankfully, there are
still libraries, and Indy bookstores are making a comeback, and now your
friends can recommend your books on Facebook and Goodreads. But still, it is
tough to ensure that people even know a book exists. Hence the promo. (Even the
big name authors have to do it to alert their fans that the long-awaited sequel
to Kinky Sex with Steampunk Zombies is
finally out.)
Reason Three: It is Harder
than Ever for an Author to Make a Living
I know, I know—everyone thinks
that authors get rich once they have a book published. If I had a nickel for
every time someone asked me, “So, do you make a lot of money as a writer?”
well, I’d have a lot more money than I got from my last royalty check. Just
sayin’. There certainly are authors out there that are doing quite well for
themselves (Stephen King, I’m looking at you, dude), but for most of us, the
income is simply a supplement to the day job we have to keep to put food on the
(cat’s) table. Not that I’m complaining—nobody makes me do this wacky job—but don’t
be fooled; most authors need to sell a lot of books to make anything resembling
a living wage.
Most people think that if
a book sells for, say, $16, that the author makes that much every time one is
sold. Oh, har. Yes, you heard me. I said HAR. First of all, even the publisher
only makes about half of that (because after all, the book seller has to make
money too, although if you buy directly from Llewellyn, they make more than if
you buy one of their books from a bookstore or Amazon, for instance). So on
that $16 book, the publisher might make $8. That’s not so bad, right? But the
author only gets the percentage they agreed to in their contract—usually 6% to
8%. Maybe 10%, if they’re very lucky. And that’s out of the money the publisher
makes, not the cover price of the book. So for my Llewellyn books, I might
average .60 cents or .70 cents on each book that’s sold. No, don’t ask me to
multiply that by anything in my head. I’m a word person, not a math person. Ah,
NOW you’re beginning to see why promoting books is so important to an author,
yes?
Reason Four: In Matters
How Many Books Sell and When They Sell
It isn’t just about the
money. (Okay, it is, but not how you think.) When you buy a book can make a big difference. The reason most
authors pile on the promo right before a book comes out (and encourage people
to preorder), and also as the book is actually released, is because some
important decisions are made based almost entirely on the sales of a book in
its first WEEK. (Preorders count towards those.) All those best seller lists
you see? Based on early sales or preorder numbers.
A publisher may also
determine whether or not to contract for another book from an author based on
early sales, and will certainly do so based on sales numbers in general. For
instance, Berkley will probably make a decision on whether or not to give me a
contract to write Baba Yaga 3 at some point in late September or early October—based
entirely on the early sales numbers for Wickedly
Dangerous and the preorders at that point for Wickedly Wonderful. Don’t get me wrong—I’m not saying this is a bad
way to do things. After all, it they’re going to invest money in a third book
in a series, they’re going to want to see that the first two are succeeding…but
there isn’t much time allowed for that success to happen. So I need to do
anything I can to make those numbers as impressive as possible, because darn
it, I want to write that third story!
So, hopefully you can see
now why so many authors can be found all around the Interwebs casually dropping
the title of their upcoming book into conversations about just about anything.
“You had pizza for lunch?
That’s great! Did I mention that my protagonist in the upcoming Mary Does
Lunch eats pizza almost every day?”
All of which is a very
long-winded apology for spending so much time lately promoting MY UPCOMING
BOOK, OUT SEPTEMBER 2nd. And if it is any consolation, I would much
rather be writing the next one. Or reading Kinky
Sex with Steampunk Zombies, which I hear was really good. On the bright
side, soon the book will be out, and I’ll go back to posting cute pictures of
my cats. You know, until book two comes out in December.
Here, have another
giveaway. You guys are the best.
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