By Rachael Phillips
In this day of cyber marketing, some rate book signings right up there with smoke signals. But my target market, women, want more than just eye contact with a computer. So I held signings for my first published fiction, as I did for my nonfiction books. From these, I culled suggestions I hope will be useful.
First and foremost: Bring chocolate. If customers are seeking emergency exits in order to avoid you, offer these treats and watch them smile. (Think of this as your chocolate ministry.)
Almost as important: Bring books. At my first signing, I naively assumed the bookstore would order my books. They did--too late--and forgot to inform me of this little glitch. Meeting an author with no books does not thrill the public.
Team up with other authors. More authors = more attendees. Most writers are friendly people with many contacts. Also, as serious students of human nature, they know sufficient family dirt to blackmail numerous relatives to attend and buy.
Besides, there is safety in numbers. Your survival chances will increase if readers storm the store because someone mistook you for Karen Kingsbury.
On the other hand, if bookstore clerks expire from boredom, authors can comfort each other, trade books to up sales numbers, and eat all the chocolate.
Note: Do not accept unknown signing partners. I once spent two eternal hours with an assigned author whose cheery personality rivaled that of a cement block.
Do not schedule a signing where you know no one (unless you really are Karen Kingsbury). Also, get acquainted with bookstore personnel, including owners, sales clerks, and janitors, beforehand. Extend appreciation and small gifts, and they will lead customers to you and your books.
Publicize until even you are sick of you. Flyers, mailings, posters, press releases, blogs, Facebook, Twitter, tap dancing--whatever it takes.
Connect with an event. It there is no event, manufacture one. My most successful signing involved reading my humor columns at a coffeehouse next door to the bookstore. Offer helpful hints or demonstrations that connect with your book. Push free drawings. Sell and sign books at family reunions and gatherings. (Exception: funerals.)
Give input on your signing location. Big crowds, good publicity, nice weather--all in vain if you and your books are locked in the furnace room. A group of quarantined authors and I generated near-zero traffic at a large event, and the cooperating Christian bookstore put us on their blacklist, to be revoked only by the Rapture.
Avoid the prison visit look. Bring a table cloth, flower arrangement, nostalgic memorabilia, or travel posters of your novel's setting. For my Christmas novella, I fa-la-laed with a holiday tablecloth, angel, and faux evergreen boughs. Put prizes and free materials on prominent, colorful display. And, if really desperate for sales, you can always exhibit photos of your children gnawing crusts of bread.
Smile, smile, smile. You smiled six hours for your wedding photos. You can do it now. Have your picture taken with other smiling authors/visitors for your website, blog, and Facebook page.
Send the bookstore a thank-you note. Yes, you supported this business. But they will continue to keep your name out there--if you and your rowdy literary friends didn't trash the place.
Do not get discouraged. Even Erma Bombeck's signings sometimes bombed. At one, only desperate patrons who couldn't find the restroom approached her. The sole customer she attracted wanted to buy the table at which she sat. Still, Erma did good.
Do you have signing stories/tips that might aid in author survival? (Or suggestions for effective medications?)
Showing posts with label publicity. Show all posts
Showing posts with label publicity. Show all posts
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
Saturday, October 9, 2010
Under the Influence
Until a day or so ago, I didn't know what I'd write about for the blog this time. I mean, we write, we pray, we eat, we sleep, we take bubble baths, some of us sing...lather, rinse, repeat. Right? Sometimes it's hard to find something fresh, new, and different to pique interest and get writers thinking.
And then...something happened.
A friend of mine read another author's book. Liked some things a lot, liked some things not so much. Wrote up a nice review, extremely balanced, with the negative stuff soft-pedaled. (I know. I saw it.) And, bless her heart, she sent it to the author in question, telling her in effect, "This is what I wrote about your book, I thought you'd want to see if before everybody else does."
Was the author pleased at this courtesy--which my friend was not obligated to do?
Nope.
The author got upset because there was a sentence or two that said parts of the book were weak.
The author proceeded to tell my friend that, as an influencer, she was supposed to say only good things about the book.
The problem with that scenario is...my friend didn't know she'd been put into the "influencer" category.
She hadn't volunteered to be an "influencer." And now she's in a position where she perceives a need to "rebuild a relationship" with said author.
Hogwash.
I've been in the writing business a long, long time, and the first--and only--place I've ever heard of such a thing as an "influencer" is in the Christian fiction biz. Perhaps it's been out there for awhile. Perhaps it's some tool a marketing genius thought up, and it's taken off in this particular niche in a way it hasn't taken off anywhere else. All I know is, I actually had to ask someone what an "influencer" was when I thought about doing the task--because I had no earthly idea what was entailed. The answer I got was, "You read the book, and then you spread the word about it. Mention it in your blog, mention it on a web page, you know...the usual."
Fair enough. So the idea is, you volunteer to talk about a book. You know you're going to do it. You read the book with that in mind. But does anybody see what wasn't mentioned in that description above?
Right. The expectation that you will say only good things when you do that talking.
In other words, the author wants you to censor what you say...or she wants to do it for you.
How is that serving anyone in this business?
"But, Janny!" you may be saying. "If an influencer goes on a blog and says, 'This book wasn't great,' how is that going to help an author's career?"
Fair question. But that only brings up the second, and more crucial question: since when does "talk about the book" translate into "help me sell a boatload of these things, or don't bother"? Independent readers aren't obligated to go out and sell your book. That's your marketing department's job. That's your publicist's job. That's your job. The reader's job should be...to read. And remark. And evaluate.
Yes, of course, they shouldn't set out to slam your book--that's just as bad as setting out to deliberately sugarcoat it. But they do all of us a disservice when they're not allowed to point out where an author could have done better, or something that may not have worked for them, in context of an overall positive experience. That's not panning a book. That's giving a fair evaluation of it, and it's giving people who look to "influencers" for news about new books an even playing field from which to make a purchase decision.
Unfortunately, though, as things stand now, the moment we engage a reader as an "influencer," in effect, we want sugarcoating out of her--and we're apparently appalled if we get anything else.We put her under a hidden agenda. In other words, we engage in duplicity. In plain English? We lie to ourselves, and we want cooperation from others in doing so as well.
Last time I looked, lying was a sin. Or doesn't it count if it's among Christians?
Think I'm being unduly harsh? Well, consider this. If I read an account of a new book from a person I know, whose taste I trust, and she raves about the book--while holding back on all the flaws she saw, but is forbidden to talk about--how does that help anyone in this business? It makes me fighting mad, because I trusted this person to give me a fair and honest scoop--which she's hogtied from doing. Worse in the long run, it lulls an author into a false sense of complacency--because, trust me, if you don't hear about the flaws, you're going to think there are none.
Yes, common sense "should" take over, and you "should" realize no book's perfect. But are you going to...really...if no one's allowed to say so? You and I both know the answer. Of course you're not.
Then, when truly independent readers pick up that book and find those flaws, and are under no unspoken expectation to ignore them, they're going to mention them, loud and long, in review sites. What happens when that author weeps about those reviews to her friends and influencers? You and I both know the answer to that one, too. Her friends rally around her, saying those are just"bad reviews." That she should "pay no attention to them," or that the reviewers "just didn't get" her book, or...
Like I said before, hogwash.
And it's all the worse hogwash because we actively encourage and demand the process continue.
We as Christian writers owe each other more scrupulous honesty than the world gives. We owe each other the truth, spoken in love. We owe each other transparency, not duplicity. Right now, people can be blindsided by these hidden and--let's face it--unfair expectations. Because "influencers," if they're allowed to say only good things, aren't "influencing" anyone at all; they're selling. They're acting as publicity agents. They're creating buzz.
People get paid for doing that in the real world.
Why we don't do so in the Christian fiction world is a question we owe it to ourselves to answer...and a bad situation we owe it to ourselves to fix.
Thoughts?
Janny
And then...something happened.
A friend of mine read another author's book. Liked some things a lot, liked some things not so much. Wrote up a nice review, extremely balanced, with the negative stuff soft-pedaled. (I know. I saw it.) And, bless her heart, she sent it to the author in question, telling her in effect, "This is what I wrote about your book, I thought you'd want to see if before everybody else does."
Was the author pleased at this courtesy--which my friend was not obligated to do?
Nope.
The author got upset because there was a sentence or two that said parts of the book were weak.
The author proceeded to tell my friend that, as an influencer, she was supposed to say only good things about the book.
The problem with that scenario is...my friend didn't know she'd been put into the "influencer" category.
She hadn't volunteered to be an "influencer." And now she's in a position where she perceives a need to "rebuild a relationship" with said author.
Hogwash.
I've been in the writing business a long, long time, and the first--and only--place I've ever heard of such a thing as an "influencer" is in the Christian fiction biz. Perhaps it's been out there for awhile. Perhaps it's some tool a marketing genius thought up, and it's taken off in this particular niche in a way it hasn't taken off anywhere else. All I know is, I actually had to ask someone what an "influencer" was when I thought about doing the task--because I had no earthly idea what was entailed. The answer I got was, "You read the book, and then you spread the word about it. Mention it in your blog, mention it on a web page, you know...the usual."
Fair enough. So the idea is, you volunteer to talk about a book. You know you're going to do it. You read the book with that in mind. But does anybody see what wasn't mentioned in that description above?
Right. The expectation that you will say only good things when you do that talking.
In other words, the author wants you to censor what you say...or she wants to do it for you.
How is that serving anyone in this business?
"But, Janny!" you may be saying. "If an influencer goes on a blog and says, 'This book wasn't great,' how is that going to help an author's career?"
Fair question. But that only brings up the second, and more crucial question: since when does "talk about the book" translate into "help me sell a boatload of these things, or don't bother"? Independent readers aren't obligated to go out and sell your book. That's your marketing department's job. That's your publicist's job. That's your job. The reader's job should be...to read. And remark. And evaluate.
Yes, of course, they shouldn't set out to slam your book--that's just as bad as setting out to deliberately sugarcoat it. But they do all of us a disservice when they're not allowed to point out where an author could have done better, or something that may not have worked for them, in context of an overall positive experience. That's not panning a book. That's giving a fair evaluation of it, and it's giving people who look to "influencers" for news about new books an even playing field from which to make a purchase decision.
Unfortunately, though, as things stand now, the moment we engage a reader as an "influencer," in effect, we want sugarcoating out of her--and we're apparently appalled if we get anything else.We put her under a hidden agenda. In other words, we engage in duplicity. In plain English? We lie to ourselves, and we want cooperation from others in doing so as well.
Last time I looked, lying was a sin. Or doesn't it count if it's among Christians?
Think I'm being unduly harsh? Well, consider this. If I read an account of a new book from a person I know, whose taste I trust, and she raves about the book--while holding back on all the flaws she saw, but is forbidden to talk about--how does that help anyone in this business? It makes me fighting mad, because I trusted this person to give me a fair and honest scoop--which she's hogtied from doing. Worse in the long run, it lulls an author into a false sense of complacency--because, trust me, if you don't hear about the flaws, you're going to think there are none.
Yes, common sense "should" take over, and you "should" realize no book's perfect. But are you going to...really...if no one's allowed to say so? You and I both know the answer. Of course you're not.
Then, when truly independent readers pick up that book and find those flaws, and are under no unspoken expectation to ignore them, they're going to mention them, loud and long, in review sites. What happens when that author weeps about those reviews to her friends and influencers? You and I both know the answer to that one, too. Her friends rally around her, saying those are just"bad reviews." That she should "pay no attention to them," or that the reviewers "just didn't get" her book, or...
Like I said before, hogwash.
And it's all the worse hogwash because we actively encourage and demand the process continue.
We as Christian writers owe each other more scrupulous honesty than the world gives. We owe each other the truth, spoken in love. We owe each other transparency, not duplicity. Right now, people can be blindsided by these hidden and--let's face it--unfair expectations. Because "influencers," if they're allowed to say only good things, aren't "influencing" anyone at all; they're selling. They're acting as publicity agents. They're creating buzz.
People get paid for doing that in the real world.
Why we don't do so in the Christian fiction world is a question we owe it to ourselves to answer...and a bad situation we owe it to ourselves to fix.
Thoughts?
Janny
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