Unused illustration for The Yellow Book, by Aubrey Beardsley
Airily attired ladies hawking THE BURLESQUE HANDBOOK (HarperCollins/ItBooks) across from the Saudi booth, whose all-male staff and visitors kept their eyes averted.As someone on Twitter commented after a day spent slogging through BookExpo, the book industry won't be dying anytime soon. However, BEA management wasn't on the ball, because many people were unaware that the show was down to 2 days (Wed & Thurs) from its usual 3. Thus they were miffed--to put it mildly--when they stayed at hotels Monday night and arrived for Tuesday appointments to find the show floor closed. That happened to 2 people I'd arranged to meet on Tues., who had missed the post-9am email "reminder" that the exhibition hall wasn't open till Wed. Due to popular demand (aka "complaints"), next year the show will go back to 3 days: May 24-26.
On Tues., after viewing Philippe Halsman's wonderful "Jump" photographs at the Laurence Miller Gallery, lunching with a literary agent and poking through fabric shops, I arrived at the Javits for a 3pm confab about the Virginia Festival of the Book with a Crown publicist. Fifteen lonely minutes later, I discovered that I was 24 hours early. Oops.
To console myself, I grabbed an ARC of Jennifer Donnelly's new YA novel, REVOLUTION, which entranced me until the 4:30 Editors Buzz Panel--and for the next 3 nights. It comes out in October. Don't miss it! I reviewed her first YA novel, A NORTHERN LIGHT, which deserved every prize it received, and then some.
As for the Editors Buzz, which unlike last year was SRO, I tweeted: "I see white people. They're all around me. And they're klutzy with microphones." Once again, most of the 6 panelists apparently hadn't practised their speeches beforehand, and droned/babbled on till I wanted to scream. Moderator John Freeman asked questions to help them out, but some were beyond saving. One notable exception was Cary Goldstein of Twelve, who--surprise!--started out as a publicist. He made a great case for THE EVOLUTION OF BRUNO LITTLEMORE by Benjamin Hale, a novel narrated by a talking chimpanzee who has an affair with a woman and commits murder. (I know: ICK! Goldstein says the book's fantastic, but I passed on picking up an ARC.)
After that I met Kevin Smokler, chief evangelizer for BookTour.com, for drinks & nosh at Hudson Yards Cafe. (Decent food! Reasonable prices!) Whether you're an author or a reader--but especially an author--you MUST check out BookTour.com. It's already good, but from what Kevin told me, it's going to get even better in the next few months.
On Wed. morning I attended an excellent program: "Designing & Executing an e-Strategy for Authors: A Publisher & Agency Perspective." No danger of being put to sleep by moderator Charlotte Abbott or panelists Kathleen Schmidt (Director of Publicity & Digital Media, Shreve Williams Public Relations), Ron Hogan (now ex-Director of E-Strategy, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt) and Jason Ashlock (principal, Moveable Type Literary Agency). They said a lot of the same things about online publicity that I've been telling my clients, only better, plus offered much information and thoughtful analysis. See highlights on Twitter: #eauthor.
Enterprising salesman (possibly a paid shill) just before a show manager escorted him from the hall.
For the rest of Wed. and all of Thurs. I snaked through the show floor, giving inhouse publicists--most of whom were new to me--info about VaBook. They were way friendlier than when I started representing the festival 8 years ago. Evidently publishers have realized that book festivals are a) good events that b) sell books.
Book bloggers were treated like gold. HarperCollins threw a (sweltering) party for them at the Algonquin on Tues., where I reconnected with old friends, and met authors as well as bloggers. There was an equally packed (slightly cooler) reception downstairs at the Javits on Thurs afternoon. Quite a contrast to the party Unbridled Books hosted at BEA 6 or 7 years ago, where lit bloggers Ron Hogan (Beatrice), Mark Sarvas (The Elegant Variation) and Dan Wickett (Emerging Writers Network) were regarded as an exotic species.
(right) Matilda holds court on a baggage cart in the lobby of the Algonquin Hotel.
From the Thurs. bloggers reception I went to the Radisson Martinique. There Ron Hogan and I gave a 90-minute "Polish Your Pitch" workshop for nearly 30 enthusiastic attendees of the Backspace Writers Conference & Agent-Author Seminar.
After that (still with me?), Darling Husband and I went to a party way downtown for The Faster Times, "a new type of newspaper for a new type of world," which officially launches in July. We soon left because I was starving and we had to pick up our bags at the hotel before catching the train at Grand Central Terminal. We just missed the 10:12pm, so got some dessert at Zaro's and moseyed over to the 11:12. And sat. And sat. Then we heard this: "Attention! The 11:12 to Poughkeepsie will be delayed indefinitely." Oyyyy... The train finally left nearly TWO HOURS later. We pulled into Our Gracious Home at 3:15am and fell into bed, aching all over, at 3:45. The birds were starting to tweet as I fell asleep over the denouement of REVOLUTION.
My BEA 2010 Stats
Acquired:
103 business cards
10 books
12 lbs of catalogs
Given away:
100 VaBook postcards
98 Book Promotion 101 business cards
2 Bella Terra Maps catalogs
2 Bella Terra lighthouse maps
Lost: 1 voice
From a consulting client:
I was contacted by a book club that told me their library has “book kits” for book clubs, in which they have a bag that contains 10 books, reading guide questions and anything else pertinent to the book, and that their library is using my book for one of the book kits.
I promptly sent a hand-written thank you card to the head librarian. Today, I got an email asking me if I’d like to do a reading/signing at the library. They would publicize it in their newsletter that goes out to 6000 homes, as well as on their website. Never would have happened if I hadn’t sent the thank-you.
Nutshell analysis of the “New Think for Old Publishers” panel at South by Southwest 2009: there was a not a single new think in the room.She ends with advice for publishers that works just as well for authors seeking to promote their books:
Might as well address the blogger question. It’s quite simple. Find the bloggers big and small in your various genres, develop a relationship with them, understand their tastes, like, dislikes, deadlines, lead time, preferred method of communication, preferred formats for books.... Treat the bloggers with respect — you need them more than they need you. And note, the publishers [and authors!] who are already doing this well are leaps and bounds ahead of you.
In brief, it hasn't affected me. Here's the situation: Decided a few months back to pitch the "Writers 365" book I've been posting at my blog. Prepared a proposal, sent it out to about 40 agents. An agent at a respected agency thought it wasn't for him, but thought it was salable. Two agents called, and I signed a contract with one of them after rewriting the proposal three times with her suggestions.As of last week, the proposal is in the hands of two editors, both at reasonably large publishing houses. So it's good news, but I guess the real answer comes when:a) we hear back from them; and
But so far, it's been good. And as Lauren Baratz-Logsted commented, the only thing you can control is writing the best book possible.
b) what, if anything, will they offer.
There's a great lesson that I'm trying to learn about control and worry. The philosophy is to not worry. Period. If you're doing the best with what you can control, what is there to worry about? And for those things you can't control, why worry about them? So why worry at all?
The "don't worry" philosophy is one that took me a long time to understand, and even now I still fret. But I'm getting better. Last week, I received a poisonous e-mail from someone objecting to an essay I posted. Years ago, it would have left me a puddle on the floor. Now, hardly mild irritation.
Age probably has a lot to do with it. I'm just too tired to deal with other people's nonsense when I have so much nonsense riling me already.
What is one thing you would do to change book publishing for the better?See the (mostly) intelligent responses in The Future of Publishing.
"I can imagine your crushing disappointment," I wrote back.I've done everything you suggested, to no avail. At a marketing meeting with my "Acme Publishing" crew before the book was published, I told them what I was planning. They told me nothing of what they intended to do. In hindsight, that should have been my first clue.
My agent told me not to believe anything the Acme publicist promised, but to follow up on everything myself. I thought my agent was exaggerating; it was unbelievable to think that the publisher who had paid thousands of dollars for my work wasn't going to promote it.But it seems my agent was correct, because all of the interviews, newspaper articles, book signings and speaking events I did were set up by me. Distribution was excellent, but publicity? Zero.
I suspect sales are below my publisher's expectations, and worry that Acme is going to blame me. I feel like a failure, even though I know I did everything I could to promote my book.
I found out about the Cybils from a YA blogger conference I went to last September. I never would have heard about it otherwise. Initial nominations were made by the public; once the books were nominated, a panel of judges from the YA blogging world chose the finalists. Winner will be announced Feb 14.
One thing I learned at the conference: There are teen YA bloggers, and then there are adult YA bloggers (librarians, many of them, although some just love kidlit). The conference was by and for the adults. Before that, I wasn't aware of them (they don't seek out authors on MySpace and Facebook, like teens do), and I think many weren't aware of me.
At the end of the conference was an authors' hour in which attendees could browse our titles. Many authors sold their books, but I gave mine away because I wanted to get copies into as many hands as I could. There I met one of the bloggers and conference speakers, Jen Robinson. [Check out her EXTENSIVE blog roll.] After we chatted a bit, and I promised I wouldn't hassle her for a review, she took a copy of my first novel, TALLULAH FALLS. A few months later, she posted a lovely review on her blog. I offered to send her the second novel, she accepted, and she gave that a great review, too.
So between meeting people passionate about kidlit, learning about the Cybils, and having the chance to raise awareness of my books, it was a Saturday very well spent.
As far as the teen reviewers, I sent Ten Cents a Dance to five or six, hoping I could get some online buzz going. It did get picked up by others and so far, they've all given the book great reviews. One blogger, Reviewer X, invited me to participate in a week-long celebration of strong heroines on her blog. I wrote a guest post, which went up the same day as Reviewer X's interview with Libba Bray (she of A Great and Terrible Beauty trilogy NYT bestsellerdom.) It was fabulous exposure--lots of comments on my guest post, lots of hits on my website, tons of people entering the contest for my book.
Long story short: When it comes to YA, I am a BIG believer in online promotion.
I read your blog post [Frame These Words!], and while I certainly agree with an author's viewing their relationship with their inhouse publicist as a partnership in theory, in my experience, the reality was much different.My response:
I asked my publicist how they wanted to work together when they were first assigned to me, and only got a vague answer. I kept them informed of all of the publicity I had lined up; they told me nothing of what they were doing (and aside from their sending out arcs and galleys for review, I saw no evidence of any initiative on their part). At one point, I asked for a copy of the press release they'd been using, and was told that sending out press releases was my responsibility.
It's all well and good to advise authors to try to be a team player, but what's an author to do if there's no team to play with?
Writing the press release is Y's job; don't step on their toes. Ask--very politely--if they've written one yet, and if so, could you see it. If they haven't, only then say that you took a crack at it yourself, to serve till they do a better one. (Note the flattery.)Jane said she's going to frame my final words:
You have to walk a very fine line: There's a lot they won't do for your book, but it's insulting to them--and needless additional work for you--to assume they'll do nothing. This is why you have to have a meeting--or at least a conversation--in which you find out exactly what they plan on doing for the book, and what you can do to augment their efforts. [Note augment, not replace.]
Remember: You are business partners, not adversaries; working together, not at cross-purposes. What happened with X is ancient history; you're with Y now and have to make the best of it there.
My next author TeleSeminar will be on January 22, 6-7:30 pm EST. (Date was originally Jan 21.)
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