Writers Must Be Willing To Promote Their Own Book
By Jerry D. Simmons | February 28th, 2006 | No Comments » (Click to add yours!)
Writers must be willing to promote their own book! This is especially important if you are self published. I recently had dinner with an excellent small California publisher who commented on the fact that too many authors are not willing to do what is necessary to help their publisher sell books. From knocking on doors of booksellers to contacting their local media, most authors are not comfortable with what is required to make a book successful, meaning sell copies.
My fellow writers, this is a problem! Forget the fact that my conversation was with a small publisher; let’s take the larger New York houses for which I worked for more than 23 years. If your book is positioned somewhere in the middle of the seasonal list, you will be expected to do a certain amount of promotion on your own. Obviously, the more you are willing to do the better your sales. These companies cannot afford to spend resources on every book, so in order for you to be successful as an author, you must promote your own book.
The competition for book sales is intense, if you sit back and depend on your publisher to do everything; the chances of your book being successful are slim. Even the best-selling authors, with whom I have spent time, work hard at writing and generating publicity for their book(s). They are always looking for ways to get their face in the news and let the public know they have a new book.
Most of the authors that I meet are less than enthusiastic about walking up to complete strangers and asking for help selling their book. It can be uncomfortable, but necessary in today’s marketplace. If you fit this scenario, please let me know, I will seek out writers who have been successful with making unsolicited calls to booksellers. I will put together some information that will help you promote your book. However, you must accept the fact that self-promoting is not only important, but also necessary.
Writing Contest
By Jerry D. Simmons | February 23rd, 2006 | No Comments » (Click to add yours!)
The Society of Southwestern Authors is sending out its annual call to all writers interested in entering its national writing contest. Cash prizes will be awarded for short stories, poetry, personal essay/memoirs, and short stories for children ages 6 – 12. The winning stories also are published in the Society’s annual publication.
The children’s short story category, new this year, honors the memory of Michael Lacapa, the nationally recognized Apache/Hopi/Tewa Native American Storyteller and well-known writer and illustrator of children’s books, who died on March 15, 2005.
Entry forms and requirements are available on the group’s website: www.ssa-az.org; or by contacting the Contest Chair, Mary Ann Hutchison at douglashutchison@comcast.net; or by mail at: SSA Writing Contest, P.O. Box 30355, Tucson, AZ 85751. The deadline for entries is June 30, 2006.
This is the press release from the Society of Southwestern Authors.
CBS Sunday Morning
By Jerry D. Simmons | February 21st, 2006 | No Comments » (Click to add yours!)
For those of you who missed it, Sunday Morning the CBS news magazine show ran a segment a week ago entitled “Between The Covers.” The focus was romance writing and readers of romance novels and the reporter centered the piece on the annual meeting of the Romance Writers of America. There were some interesting statistics and an interview with the current President, Tara Taylor Quinn.
The reporter indicated that total sales in 2004 of all romance titles (including all formats: hardcover, trade paper, and mass-market) totaled a whopping $1.2 billion dollars. That number represented 54% of all mass-market sales and 39% of all fiction sales. A representative from Harlequin, the quintessential romance publisher, indicated that the category is growing at enormous proportions and that readers were both men and women.
Tara Taylor Quinn said in her interview that between 3 and 10% of all romance writers are men. It seems plausible that the percent would be much closer to 3% rather than 10%. It should be noted that romance as a category is most dominant in the mass market format and not hardcover or trade paper. The only relevance to this point is that Harlequin is a mass-market publisher of romance titles.
The program made note of all the various workshops offered by RWA at their convention and of course the issue for me, as a former publisher, is that the one workshop that is probably not offered is one preparing writers for a future as an author. My message and the focus of all that I do is that writers must have an understanding of what goes on behind the scenes in the offices of publishing companies.
It cannot be stressed enough why this is so very important. If anyone is listening, PLEASE forward this message to the national offices of ALL writers organizations and encourage them to start preparing their members for life as authors. Thank you.
Comments on Memoirs
By Jerry D. Simmons | February 14th, 2006 | No Comments » (Click to add yours!)
Since the Oprah fiasco over the James Frey book there have been some interesting comments made about the subject of memoirs that I want to share with you. Carole Goldberg from the Hartford (Conn.) Courant wrote a newspaper article that asked the question: “What should a reader expect from a writer when the book is labeled a memoir….absolute truth or just emotional truth?”
According to Lary Bloom, a teacher of memoir writing: “There are tenants the honest memoirist should honor, and they speak to issues of authenticity: You have a duty to present facts as they happened and not make them up. If you intentionally mislead the reader, you undermine everything.” One of Mr. Bloom’s guidelines is the “Blood on the Sidewalk Rule: Writing a memoir that has resonance and an honest tone requires including raw things about yourself.”
The author of two memoirs, Haven Kimmel, says “There is an implied contract between writer and reader, and its terms are genuineness, candor, an adherence to truth as much as it’s possible, an avoidance of sentimentality and manipulation.” Marge Piercy, a novelist and writing teacher says memoirists “Can skip whole sequences of events that do not bear on the theme of the memoir. But you cannot invent whole parts of your life, adventures you never had, people you never slept with, travels you never took.”
Even though one of my most trusted former colleagues in New York may disagree, I strongly believe that a publisher has a responsibility to check facts that surround the main themes in a memoir, regardless of the cost. It is their responsibility to their readers. This blog was written taking excerpts from Carole Goldberg’s article in the Hartford (Conn.) Courant and reprinted in newspapers around the United States.
When Publishers Launch A New Series
By Jerry D. Simmons | February 3rd, 2006 | No Comments » (Click to add yours!)
There was a recent USA Today article written by Carol Memmott, entitled NASCAR, Harlequin teaming up for romance. When publishers launch a new series or imprint this creates opportunities for writers. In this case, writers who can meld romance with an understanding of racecars in such a way that readers see it as believable, has an opportunity to get their work published.
With the launch comes problems that every writer should be aware of. In publishing, any aggressive launch has a ripple effect in the industry. It requires lots of extra copies to be distributed to the market. In order to secure this distribution added incentives must be offered to booksellers. The publisher will announce they are spending heavily on advertising and promotion during the initial phase of the launch. This means there has to be enough readers to purchase these new titles during the launch to warrant the additional incentives, advertising, and promotion to continue.
Here are a few of the problems: A launch means other publishers will soon follow. The added copies have to displace titles currently on sale, which creates a short-term return problem in that particular category. The publisher has a very short window in which to convince readers the new series has merit. Otherwise, the series gets dumped and the publisher will move on to new things.
If you can take advantage of this new opportunity as a result of the new series or imprint, make certain your publisher has a commitment to making it work. Ask the right questions. There is an article that I wrote last fall regarding another Harlequin launch that will provide you the information you need to properly evaluate the publishers commitment to the new series and their authors. To read that article, CLICK.
