Jan. 13, 2006
Two things came together to make me think about book marketing, that is to say, once your book is published, this dog & pony show authors perform these days to interest the public in shelling out their money for the book, or, at least, I think that's what we're doing.

I had a library event scheduled later this month--luckily with about 7 other authors--that I had to back out of due to a family conflict that just arose. My apologies to the Southfield Public Library. I'll see what I can do to make it up to you. I feel guilty, and if it had been a sole showing, ie., just me, I'm not sure what the hell I would do. Luckily it wasn't, so I've made my decision and I'll stick with it.

I also received the Mystery Writers of America newsletter yesterday, and they had a big article about author Janet Evanovich, who is the new MWA President, a position that tends to be largely ornamental, although it varies greatly depending on which author is doing it. Larry Block joked that the position was largely as a figurehead and he would do everything in his power to keep it that way. Michael Connelly, however, seemed to be a very active president. Either way, I don't have a judgement on it. The presidents are almost always well-known, bestselling authors so I suspect part of the job is to be high profile and bring attention to the organization, and having Mark Terry as president at this point in time wouldn't do much for the organization.

Anyway, Janet's a monster marketer. Her daughter does this amazing website with regular contests and constantly changing content, she shells out $80,000 a year or so on print newsletters, she gets literally thousands of people out for signings and she hires a band and caterer and turns them into big parties. Well, she can, after all, whereas none of that would be possible for moi.

What caught my attention in this regard was she said she's gotten sort of strict about what she does now. She only tours during "tour season," ie., around the time her books are out, she doesn't routinely go to the conferences any more. And she said, as many writers have commented before, her job is to write good books and if that part of the job starts to slack off, none of the rest of it will help.

I can never really tell when I hear a multi-millionaire bestselling author say things like this if it's bullshit or not. I respect Janet and her work quite a bit, and she goes well out of her way to give much of her success's credit to the independent booksellers, apologizing that she no longer does signings there because they don't have room. And since she often does signings at Wal-Mart or Kmart or Sam's Clubs, etc., and 2000+ people show up, it's hard to argue with that. A 400 sq ft indie's not going to be able to handle the stock, let alone the crowd.

And the writer of the profile mentioned that Janet had so many people at a signing, some coming from 8 hours away in other states, that she pretty much signed through the night after the store was basically closed and took the remaining stragglers out for breakfast the next morning. Hey, you think those people will continue to buy her books? You bet.

My problem here is the attention focusing on selling the book and branding and all that stuff, which, probably thanks to blogs and websites, seems to have taken on a life of its own, one that, like the celebrity phenomenon itself, threats to overshadow what's actually going on. You know what I mean, the movie stars who get all sorts of attention for doing mediocre work, the whole Paris Hilton phenomenon and that sort of stuff. And all I can say is that I'll do my best to sell my books and promote and market, but that the rest seems to be in the hands of the gods.

Best,
Mark Terry