Many bookstore signings result in few sales, leaving the author mistakenly thinking he or she has wasted their time. (Unless you are famous, never do just a signing at a bookstore, always make it an event. Come up with a talk or other presentation that will attract a crowd of people interested in your subject and have the bookstore promote it accordingly.)
Even if you don’t sell any books at the event other positive things will occur:
• The store will bring in twenty to thirty copies of your book when they would have normally brought in zero to two.
• The staff will usually build a display of your books two weeks before your event. (Be sure to call to make sure they have enough left two or three days before the event.)
• The bookstore will put up a sign a couple of weeks before your event with your name and the book’s title on it.
• The bookstore will mention you, your book, and your event in their newsletter.
• The staff will become familiar with your book and will hand-sell it when people come in asking for recommendations. (Ratchet this up by introducing yourself to all the staff members who are there the day of your event.)
• Most local newspapers run an event calendar at least once a week in which you and the name of your book will be mentioned.
• On a slow news day, you may get TV or newspaper coverage. (Increase your chances for this by faxing a notice of your event to each of the local TV and newspapers’ news desks the morning of the event.)
• If you sign any remaining copies, the store will likely add a sticker that says “Signed Copy” and display them prominently.
• Bookstore sales are reported to BookScan, a company that collects sales figures relied upon by chain buyers and others when deciding which books to buy or promote. Any sales you have before, during, and after your event will help make your book stand out as popular.
• Even if you only sell one copy of your book because of this event, every book is an ad for itself and other sales may result.
Wednesday, March 5, 2008
Saturday, December 22, 2007
Use the Top Searches to ID what’s Soon to Be Hot
"If you want to see how a society thinks, look at what it searches for."
—George Bernard ShawAllow me to slightly rewrite Shaw’s wise counsel: “If you want to know what a society is thinking about, look at what it searches for.”
As writers of nonfiction books, magazine articles—even novels—it behooves us to be on top of whatever is about to break into the collective consciousness. In other words, to be able to predict what a majority—or at least a large segment—of us are going to be interested in next week, next month, or next year.
Easier said than done
I don’t know about the rest of you, but it seems to me that, by the time I notice a trend exists, it’s already fading.
So how do you figure out what will be hot and thus what you should be pitching to editors? Check out the "Top Searches" lists supplied for free by the many Internet search engines. Most of them keep the lists updated, and archives of past lists are even available.
Check out more than one list. The searched-for items that appear on each list are undoubtedly what people are interested in at the moment and these subjects may be old news by the time you do your research and write about them, so look for subjects that are just beginning to show up here and there on these lists. Editors love fresh and new.
I was going to include a list of search engines with links to their locations for you, but Wendy Boswell’s article on About.com “How to Find the Top Searches on the Web” does a superb job of it and saves me the time. Thanks Wendy.
By the way, George Bernard Shaw is the only person to have been awarded both the Noble Prize for Literature and an Oscar.
Merry Christmas.
Monday, December 17, 2007
How to Sell a Book for 6.7 Million
“Experience is what you get when you don’t get what you want.” —Randy Pausch
According to news reports, Hyperion recently paid 6.7 million to acquire the rights to Last Lecture a book by Carnegie Mellon professor Randy Pausch and Jeff Zaslow, a reporter for the Wall Street Journal. The book is based on a lecture Pausch, 46, gave at Carnegie Mellon. Pausch called the lecture “How to Achieve Your Childhood Dreams.”
The lecture was part of a "Last Lecture Series" universities around the country have been holding. In this series, universities ask their best professors to deliver talks about what matters most deeply to them, as if it were the professor’s last lecture.
Pausch’s was especially poignant. At the time of the lecture Pausch, who was suffering from pancreatic cancer, had only weeks to live.
Videos of the lecture—or parts of it—reportedly have been viewed over 6 million times.
According to news reports, Hyperion recently paid 6.7 million to acquire the rights to Last Lecture a book by Carnegie Mellon professor Randy Pausch and Jeff Zaslow, a reporter for the Wall Street Journal. The book is based on a lecture Pausch, 46, gave at Carnegie Mellon. Pausch called the lecture “How to Achieve Your Childhood Dreams.”
The lecture was part of a "Last Lecture Series" universities around the country have been holding. In this series, universities ask their best professors to deliver talks about what matters most deeply to them, as if it were the professor’s last lecture.
Pausch’s was especially poignant. At the time of the lecture Pausch, who was suffering from pancreatic cancer, had only weeks to live.
Videos of the lecture—or parts of it—reportedly have been viewed over 6 million times.
Thursday, December 13, 2007
Even the Pros Get Lazy
Isabel Allende spent decades as a journalist in South America and had three plays produced in Chile, the country of her youth. She has written a number of award-winning novels, one of which, Daughter of Fortune, is a New York Times best-seller and an Oprah Book Club pick. You don’t reach these rooftops by being a hack.
Yet when I read Daughter recently, I was surprised at how clumsily Allende uses a literary device or two and how much exposition she employs.
Overuse of a Parallel Theme
In Daughter, Allende writes a colorful story about young women suffering from and overcoming strict societal conventions of mid-nineteenth century Protestant England, “papist” Chile, and wild, unrefined California. This makes the story line appropriately attractive to women and may have been the reason Oprah liked it. (Hold onto those letters! I am not being sexist here. Novels are written with the reader in mind. Some are written for men, others for women. Some for young adults, some for those over fifty. This is as it should be. Readers vary, novels vary. Trying to write a novel for everyone is a recipe for failure.)
Still, Allende seems to over use this theme. In the first quarter of the book we are introduced to three women, Rose, Paulina, and Eliza, each of whom have extramarital affairs with men their families don’t approve of. In Rose’s case she is seduced by a married Viennese tenor. The other two young women fall in love with men who, according the women’s relatives, are born into ranks beneath the family.
Eliza is the main protagonist and Rose, her maiden aunt, is thrust into raising her. Although the family has relocated to Chile, Rose afflicts Eliza with the same strict conventions she encountered in England. Allende’s use of the parallels over the two generations to establish the existence of long-instituted social norms works. But, to me, to add Paulina into the mix within so few pages simply brings Allende’s use of the literary device into focus; something one doesn’t want to do to his or her reader.
Introducing a Character
In another instance, at a point in the story where Eliza and her friend Tao Chi’en are on a ship journeying to California, Allende increases the suspense, by having Eliza, who is a stowaway and must remain hidden, become ill and reach the brink of death.
Since Tao’s duties as shipboard cook made it illogical for him to have the time to take care of a person so ill, Allende needed someone he could call upon to help. But, at this point there is no appropriate character for her to use, so—it appears—Allende simply went back in the storyline and introduced one.
This is all fine and well. As novels are crafted the author often finds she needs to go back to earlier parts of the story and lay the groundwork for something that will happen later in the story.
But Allende, in an apparent moment of laziness, went back a scant five pages and suddenly and clumsily introduces a new character, Azucena Placeres, the archetypical whore-with-a-heart-of-gold. (Remember Miss Kitty in the old Gunsmoke TV shows?)
In one long paragraph of exposition Allende tells us the background of this woman: Although a prostitute, she’s a kind soul who has nursed a young sailor back to health. Because of this she had earned the respect of the ship’s captain and the freedom to move about the ship, thus she is free to administer to Eliza. After this paragraph, Azucena disappears until Tao calls on her for help.
Show Don’t Tell
The suddenness of the appearance this character and the transparently contrived use of her to fulfill a plot twist is something one might expect from an author of less skill. And, by choosing to tell us Azucena’s background, rather than showing us, Allende missed a superb opportunity to weave this potentially colorful character into the story. She could have done this by showing us the how the sailor was injured and how it came about that Azucena ministered to him.
Allende could even have created some tension between Tao and Azucena since Tao was a healer in his old country and one of them could have felt threatened by the other. This tension would add to the scene where Tao approaches Azucena for help.
Showing the reader would have worked for a seamless introduction of this necessary character and worked to move the plot along as well.
In another missed opportunity, Tao is faced with the problem of sneaking Eliza onto the ship. Yet, the reader only learns how Eliza makes it on board when Allende writes:
Eliza was taken aboard in a sack over the back of a stevedore, one of many loading cargo and luggage in Valparaiso.
Here Allende had a chance to put the reader into the sack with Eliza. We could have felt how scratchy the sack was, how hard it was to breathe in it, how humiliating it was to be tossed over this brute’s shoulder like so much carriage, and how frightened Eliza was that even the slightest movement on her part would result in being discovered.
There is an old saw that every writer needs an editor. Isabel Allende is a hugely successful author and one wonders if an editor somewhere along the way was too intimidated to suggest a few changes that would have made her excellent work even better.
How does this apply to your writing? Go back over your work and look for places you tried too hard to make a point. Also, search out and replace exposition with vivid scenes that will take your reader into whatever is happening so they become part of the experience.
Sunday, September 23, 2007
Harry Potter Meets Jesus
I ran across an interesting article in my local paper the other day. It was written by two professors at Fresno Pacific University a well-thought-of Mennonite institution. In it Eleanor Nickel and Audrey Hindes make note of the many nods they feel the Harry Potter series gives to the Bible.
For instance, the writers note the grave of Potter’s parents bears a biblical quote from Corinthians, and a war monument in a town square metamorphoses into a statue of Potter’s mother holding the infant Harry “replacing an image of violent conquest with one of the Madonna and Child.” Even in Harry’s mother’s name, Lily, they see “overtones of peace and the resurrection of Easter.”
The professors also remark on the parallels in the journeys of Potter and Jesus:
• Both have a “Gethsemane experience” where they agonize over the sacrifice they will choose to make.
• Both turn to a mentor for guidance, Potter to the white-bearded Dumbledore, Jesus to God the Father.
• Both walk willingly into death’s arms.
• Both return to the world they left.
Stories of struggle, death, and rebirth fascinate us and it may be that the trigger for this fascination is to be found buried deeply in our own psyches.
It was mythologist Joseph Campbell who first identified the twelve stages of what has come to be known as the “hero’s journey.” He found that these stages existed in stories told across all cultures and times. Campbell surmised that, on a primal level, all of us are drawn to this universal pattern.
The four stages demonstrated in the list above, in order, are:
• Refusal of the call—The hero's reluctance to leave the ordinary world.
• Meeting the mentor—The mentor may appear numerous times and take any guise.
• Supreme ordeal—This is the hero's greatest challenge. The hero often appears to die—metaphorically or otherwise—at this stage.
• Return with the Elixir—After the supreme ordeal, the hero returns with his new knowledge and shares it with those who stayed behind. Often the hero, since he has changed, no longer fits in the ordinary world and is unable to stay and enjoy the fruits of his journey.
Christ and Potter are archetypical heroes on a journey, and the writer of fiction—and biographies—desirous of a wide, lasting readership is wise to take a hint from their appeal and include as many of the stages of the hero’s journey in his stories as he can.
For more on the hero’s journey and how it applies to writers read Chris Vogler’s excellent book, The Writer’s Journey.
For instance, the writers note the grave of Potter’s parents bears a biblical quote from Corinthians, and a war monument in a town square metamorphoses into a statue of Potter’s mother holding the infant Harry “replacing an image of violent conquest with one of the Madonna and Child.” Even in Harry’s mother’s name, Lily, they see “overtones of peace and the resurrection of Easter.”
The professors also remark on the parallels in the journeys of Potter and Jesus:
• Both have a “Gethsemane experience” where they agonize over the sacrifice they will choose to make.
• Both turn to a mentor for guidance, Potter to the white-bearded Dumbledore, Jesus to God the Father.
• Both walk willingly into death’s arms.
• Both return to the world they left.
Stories of struggle, death, and rebirth fascinate us and it may be that the trigger for this fascination is to be found buried deeply in our own psyches.
It was mythologist Joseph Campbell who first identified the twelve stages of what has come to be known as the “hero’s journey.” He found that these stages existed in stories told across all cultures and times. Campbell surmised that, on a primal level, all of us are drawn to this universal pattern.
The four stages demonstrated in the list above, in order, are:
• Refusal of the call—The hero's reluctance to leave the ordinary world.
• Meeting the mentor—The mentor may appear numerous times and take any guise.
• Supreme ordeal—This is the hero's greatest challenge. The hero often appears to die—metaphorically or otherwise—at this stage.
• Return with the Elixir—After the supreme ordeal, the hero returns with his new knowledge and shares it with those who stayed behind. Often the hero, since he has changed, no longer fits in the ordinary world and is unable to stay and enjoy the fruits of his journey.
Christ and Potter are archetypical heroes on a journey, and the writer of fiction—and biographies—desirous of a wide, lasting readership is wise to take a hint from their appeal and include as many of the stages of the hero’s journey in his stories as he can.
For more on the hero’s journey and how it applies to writers read Chris Vogler’s excellent book, The Writer’s Journey.
Friday, July 27, 2007
Fresno Bee's Insipid Reporting
One of the things that pushes a button for me is to read a news article that doesn't include all the necessary information. Needless to say, to leave your reader without important information is not good writing—or reporting.
I remember a couple of years ago a study reported that mega-doses of vitamin C were not healthy. I must have read half a dozen articles based on this report and none of them identified what constituted a mega-dose. I imagine they were all generated from one wire story, perhaps an AP bulletin, that omitted this bit of information and no subsequent reporter or editor took the time to correct it.
An article by staff writer George Hostetter in Thursday's edition of the Fresno Bee commits the same sin. Hostetter's story reports on the ongoing saga of the Running Horse golf course. Running Horse, started a couple of years ago with the promise of a PGA tour event, is now in bankruptcy with only two of the 18 holes completed. A PGA event would be a huge boost to Fresno's national image, to say nothing of its self-image, so it is important to readers of the Bee.
The story has extra drama to it because, a few weeks ago, out of blue, riding a white charger, Donald Trump—yes The Donald—arrived with visions of saving the golf course and building a huge, fancy resort or some similar project around it. (Okay, it wasn't a white charger, but I think his private jet is white.)
According to Hostetter's article, Trump's plan has hit a snag because, Trump feels he needs six additional parcels that were not part of Running Horse's 420 acres. The subtitle to the article is "Six parcels seen as crucial to Fresno's project's viability." It goes on to quote Trump's daughter, Ivanka Trump, his VP of real estate development: "If we can't come to an agreement, [on the six parcels], we say thank you very much, we loved the experience, we loved the city of Fresno. But this is not negotiable for us." Obviously this is a story about six parcels.
However, Hostetter doesn't identify the six parcels, their location relative to the project, or who their owners are. Nor does he say anything about ongoing negotiations for these parcels if there are any. Property ownership is a matter of public record and Hostetter undoubtedly knows how to get the names of the property owners. He should have attempted to contact these owners to learn of their thoughts and intentions.
On the other hand if he for some reason couldn't identify the parcels, he needed to explain that, at press time, this information was not available and why.
In Hostetter's defense, newspaper articles are a team sport and perhaps the night editor didn't have enough column inches available and deleted the necessary information. Whatever, incomplete reporting makes for fewer readers and who among us vying for a seemingly dwindling number of readers has any to spare?
I remember a couple of years ago a study reported that mega-doses of vitamin C were not healthy. I must have read half a dozen articles based on this report and none of them identified what constituted a mega-dose. I imagine they were all generated from one wire story, perhaps an AP bulletin, that omitted this bit of information and no subsequent reporter or editor took the time to correct it.
An article by staff writer George Hostetter in Thursday's edition of the Fresno Bee commits the same sin. Hostetter's story reports on the ongoing saga of the Running Horse golf course. Running Horse, started a couple of years ago with the promise of a PGA tour event, is now in bankruptcy with only two of the 18 holes completed. A PGA event would be a huge boost to Fresno's national image, to say nothing of its self-image, so it is important to readers of the Bee.
The story has extra drama to it because, a few weeks ago, out of blue, riding a white charger, Donald Trump—yes The Donald—arrived with visions of saving the golf course and building a huge, fancy resort or some similar project around it. (Okay, it wasn't a white charger, but I think his private jet is white.)
According to Hostetter's article, Trump's plan has hit a snag because, Trump feels he needs six additional parcels that were not part of Running Horse's 420 acres. The subtitle to the article is "Six parcels seen as crucial to Fresno's project's viability." It goes on to quote Trump's daughter, Ivanka Trump, his VP of real estate development: "If we can't come to an agreement, [on the six parcels], we say thank you very much, we loved the experience, we loved the city of Fresno. But this is not negotiable for us." Obviously this is a story about six parcels.
However, Hostetter doesn't identify the six parcels, their location relative to the project, or who their owners are. Nor does he say anything about ongoing negotiations for these parcels if there are any. Property ownership is a matter of public record and Hostetter undoubtedly knows how to get the names of the property owners. He should have attempted to contact these owners to learn of their thoughts and intentions.
On the other hand if he for some reason couldn't identify the parcels, he needed to explain that, at press time, this information was not available and why.
In Hostetter's defense, newspaper articles are a team sport and perhaps the night editor didn't have enough column inches available and deleted the necessary information. Whatever, incomplete reporting makes for fewer readers and who among us vying for a seemingly dwindling number of readers has any to spare?
Sunday, July 8, 2007
Psychic Gifts
Jim Frey e-mailed me the other day and said he had written a book I ought to take a look at. It was the biography of Annette Martin who, Jim told me, is America's greatest psychic.
I admire Jim's writing, but wasn't particularly excited about publishing a memoir and didn't know a thing about Annette. Still, I asked Jim to send me the manuscript. He and Annette have been friends for years and Jim evolved from a position of skepticism of Annette's abilities to a believer.
I read parts of the manuscript and thought, "How nice it would be to get a book in that doesn't require heavy editing or worse yet, rewriting." Jim's, as would be expected from one of the best novelists and writing teachers on the planet, is not only well written but tells an amazing story. Still it is a memoir, one of the toughest genres to market unless the subject is famous. I had my doubts that QDB should get involved.
Friday, Annette, Jim, and my friend Cassandra Williams—who, coincidentally, knew Annette from 20 years ago—met at Annette's house in Los Gatos. It's a beautiful house with a gorgeously-flowered back yard. Annette had spread photos and articles out on the dining room table for us to go over.
Annette has an amazing set of accomplishments. She is active with police departments across the nation and has about 10 ongoing investigations where she has identified the killer, helped find the body, or otherwise helped solved the case. These she can't discuss until the appeal process ends, but she has dozens of ones she can.
The episode of Psychic Detectives that chronicles a missing person case she solved is the third most popular of all of the episodes and was sold from whatever cable TV network it's on to NBC which still airs it now and again. She also has done a show for Psychic Investigators which airs in Canada. She is an entertainer/opera singer who still performs. She's had stories about her in Cosmopolitan, the San Francisco Chronicle and dozens of other publications.
She has been on lots of TV programs, Montel Williams, and others. She had her own radio show in the Bay Area and in Hawaii.
She still does readings of the standard love and health kind for individuals and she channels Edgar Cayce--the most famous psychic of them all when the situation calls for it. Yes, seemingly sooo strange, but likely not without some kind of merit. Hordes of intelligent, well-educated people endorse her—including Buzz Aldrin.
She is delightful. I'd say she has recently passed the 70-year milestone, but looks and acts 10 years younger. Lots of irons in the fire, a real go-getter. She has a film agent and currently has three shows she is hawking to TV.
I had gone to the meeting thinking that I'd leave telling Jim and Annette I needed to think about it before making an offer for the book. Yet, after about two hours of conversation, I was sold. I cemented my decision by asking Annette, "If Quill Driver Books were to publish the book, would it be a success?" She instantly shot back a vigorous "Yes!" So there you have it, for the first time in my decade-and-a-half career as a publisher, I know in advance that I have a book that will sell well.
Since it is already written and doesn't need much editing, we can make it a spring 2008 title.
Annette will be a delight to work with. She'll travel and do free readings at bookstores and conferences. We should be able to draw a crowd anywhere she goes.
She's used to being interviewed and she and her psychic journey should be good fodder for talk shows. We'll have her do readings at the Northern California Independent Bookseller Association's annual October conference to whet the appetite of Bay Area books sellers and get us mentioned in Publishers Weekly's coverage of the show.
The working title of the book is The Gift of the White Light: The Life and Times of Annette Martin, America's Greatest Psychic. Watch for it, it'll be fun to see if Annette's prediction of best-sellerdom materializes.
I admire Jim's writing, but wasn't particularly excited about publishing a memoir and didn't know a thing about Annette. Still, I asked Jim to send me the manuscript. He and Annette have been friends for years and Jim evolved from a position of skepticism of Annette's abilities to a believer.
I read parts of the manuscript and thought, "How nice it would be to get a book in that doesn't require heavy editing or worse yet, rewriting." Jim's, as would be expected from one of the best novelists and writing teachers on the planet, is not only well written but tells an amazing story. Still it is a memoir, one of the toughest genres to market unless the subject is famous. I had my doubts that QDB should get involved.
Friday, Annette, Jim, and my friend Cassandra Williams—who, coincidentally, knew Annette from 20 years ago—met at Annette's house in Los Gatos. It's a beautiful house with a gorgeously-flowered back yard. Annette had spread photos and articles out on the dining room table for us to go over.
Annette has an amazing set of accomplishments. She is active with police departments across the nation and has about 10 ongoing investigations where she has identified the killer, helped find the body, or otherwise helped solved the case. These she can't discuss until the appeal process ends, but she has dozens of ones she can.
The episode of Psychic Detectives that chronicles a missing person case she solved is the third most popular of all of the episodes and was sold from whatever cable TV network it's on to NBC which still airs it now and again. She also has done a show for Psychic Investigators which airs in Canada. She is an entertainer/opera singer who still performs. She's had stories about her in Cosmopolitan, the San Francisco Chronicle and dozens of other publications.
She has been on lots of TV programs, Montel Williams, and others. She had her own radio show in the Bay Area and in Hawaii.
She still does readings of the standard love and health kind for individuals and she channels Edgar Cayce--the most famous psychic of them all when the situation calls for it. Yes, seemingly sooo strange, but likely not without some kind of merit. Hordes of intelligent, well-educated people endorse her—including Buzz Aldrin.
She is delightful. I'd say she has recently passed the 70-year milestone, but looks and acts 10 years younger. Lots of irons in the fire, a real go-getter. She has a film agent and currently has three shows she is hawking to TV.
I had gone to the meeting thinking that I'd leave telling Jim and Annette I needed to think about it before making an offer for the book. Yet, after about two hours of conversation, I was sold. I cemented my decision by asking Annette, "If Quill Driver Books were to publish the book, would it be a success?" She instantly shot back a vigorous "Yes!" So there you have it, for the first time in my decade-and-a-half career as a publisher, I know in advance that I have a book that will sell well.
Since it is already written and doesn't need much editing, we can make it a spring 2008 title.
Annette will be a delight to work with. She'll travel and do free readings at bookstores and conferences. We should be able to draw a crowd anywhere she goes.
She's used to being interviewed and she and her psychic journey should be good fodder for talk shows. We'll have her do readings at the Northern California Independent Bookseller Association's annual October conference to whet the appetite of Bay Area books sellers and get us mentioned in Publishers Weekly's coverage of the show.
The working title of the book is The Gift of the White Light: The Life and Times of Annette Martin, America's Greatest Psychic. Watch for it, it'll be fun to see if Annette's prediction of best-sellerdom materializes.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
