Exposed: A Lie About Book Marketing

“A book won’t sell itself.” True or false?

False. Seems to me plenty of books sell themselves. Take The Portable Abraham Lincoln. He isn’t around to promote it, but it sells.

Ah, you say, but Lincoln was a public person, a man of great character, beautifully articulate, historic, famous, exceptional. I say, consider then a workaday trade paperback such as Letting Go: The Parents’ Guide to Understanding the College Years (Third Edition). A college administrator saw a need for this book, first published in 1997; it caught on; and 12 years later it still sells.

You reply: But there was a market just salivating for that book. Look then, I reply, at Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way. That book (originally self-published) created its own market. Heck, it created its own industry; you can get it on audio CD, get workbooks, sequels, Morning Pages journals, and so on.

Yes, you say, but those books aren’t great literature. There’s no market for great literature. Bosh, I say. Has anybody who reads English gotten through this life without reading, somehow, To Kill a Mockingbird? At this moment it's at No. 509 on amazon.com!

Yes, you say -- but that’s a really, really good book.

I say, your book will sell itself for a long, long time if you are a public person of great character, exceptional; or if there’s an untapped market for it; or if your book can create its own market; or if it’s a really, really good book. If your book possesses none of these qualities you should keep working until it does – if you want your book to sell itself.

Selling Your Books Via Bookmarks

Most "Sell Your Book" seminar speakers advise, "Have bizcards printed." That's sensible. But then they suggest printing a couple of thousand bookmarks, too. They should match the cover of the book you're promoting. Carry them, give them away.

Then, always, the speaker distributes (her; this is a women's thing) bookmarks to the audience. I mean, woot. I've never bought a book I've seen on a bookmark. Never got into the habit of bookmarks. I don't like how they feel. I leave books open, face down; or I dog-ear a page if the book is mine. People give promotional bookmarks as if this cheapest kind of freebie were a gift. Next time a bookmark is offered I will decline to see what happens.

But I just heard a bookmark strategy new to me -- Take Your Bookmarks to the Bookstore and Stick Them Into Books That Aren't Yours, But Are In the Same Genre. Logic: Reader of big author will buy book, find YOUR bookmark, & feel prodded to buy YOUR book. The chutzpah, logic, and business sense of this marketing move are beneath commentary.

Awesome Small-Press and Litmag Database

Wouldn't it be nice to know: How long you'll REALLY wait between a submission and acceptance? What percentage of mss. a publisher rejects? If they pay a little or a lot? The top 25 publishing venues with the largest percentage of acceptances?

Fiction writers and poets, genre and literary: Toss your Writers Market and search over 2100 mags and small publishers with Duotrope Digest's free database and reports. Search by genre, payscale, length of your work. . . receive guideline info, plus unique Better-Business-Bureau info (see example below), updated daily by writers just like you! Click on Duotrope's file tab "Curious?" for aggregate info such the top 25 venues with the quickest response times.

Example: I searched Genre>Literary; Media>Print. Below is part of the report for the litmag The Painted Bride Quarterly (chosen at random). Good Lord, expect to wait 242 days for an acceptance -- a ghastly wait that inspired 44 percent of the authors to withdraw their submissions after an average of 150 days.

Days Reported	8 | 191.7* | 474 (min | avg | max)
Responses	(51.9%)
Acceptances:	7.4% (242 days avg. per acceptance)
Rejections:	44.4% (210.5 days avg. per rejection) | 16.7% personal, 50% form, 33.3% unspecified
Rewrite Requests:	-
Non-Responses	(48.1%)
Assumed Rejections:	3.7% (364 days avg. per assumed rejection without response)
Author Withdrawals:	44.4% (151.8 days avg. per withdrawal by author)
Other Information
Most recent response reported was received on: 14 Apr 2008 Responses have been received for submissions sent as late as: 17 Sep 2007 (74.1% of the responses reported to us for this market have taken longer than 60 days.)

The Future of Writing: Read Locally

The latest issue of Creative Nonfiction, #31, is about the Future of Writing.

In the future, says one of the essayists, Astro Teller, huge omnimedia publishers will publish and mass-market seven books a year. People will buy and read them. But readers will be far wiser about the string-pulling and adthink that goes on behind those books. They will want to do a new thing: seek writing directly from the writer, guaranteed no middleman -- the Real Thing, the Genuine Item, pure and honest. It will be "in" to "read locally."

Writers will still want to write and sell one of those seven big bestselling books. There will be more writers, which means more competition. But you won't be looking for an audience; the audience will look for you. Books will rise to the top by choice of the readership, not the publishers. Local will be cool. And with no middleman, you will get 100 percent, not 10 or 15 percent, of what your writing earns.