At every convention I’ve attended, there’s a table full of promotional items. These usually consist of postcards or bookmarks, but sometimes there are fliers or little gadgets intended to entice people into purchasing a product. Usually a book, in my experience. Everyone is clamoring for everyone else’s attention, and if you don’t have the weight of a publisher behind you, it’s a tough row to hoe. If no one has heard of you, what is to entice someone to buy your book?

I’m seeing more and more book trailers these days. However, these suffer from the same basic issue: If I haven’t heard of you before, what will entice me to click on a link and spend 1-3 minutes of my time watching an ad for your book? Sure, it has the benefit of being “free,” except my time isn’t exactly free. There’s a limited amount of it, so I’m judicious about what I spend it on, most of the time.

I started thinking about this topic because I received a familiar letter in the mail last week. A thick envelope from the agency that represents The Road to the Dark Tower, my first book. Every six months, they forward my royalty statements from Penguin. It’s thick because there’s a separate page for each type of sale. Regular sales, international sales, various kinds of eBooks. It’s all rather befuddling and could easily be condensed to a page or two, in my opinion, but the bottom line comes on the front page: Total revenue from sales for this period and the remaining balance on my advance. This time, the balance left was almost exactly the same as my revenue for the last six months. In other words, another period like this one and I’ll earn out. The book is still selling well and consistently, seven years after publication. The revenue for the past several accounting periods has been roughly the same, so I’m confident that I will earn out (± a few dollars) by early 2012.

One thing these statements reminds me of, though, is how much I make from each copy sold. For trade paperbacks, my share is about $1.25 per copy. For eBooks, it’s roughly double that. (Go eBooks!)

Let’s look at that from a different direction. Suppose I decide to give a few copies away to generate publicity. Suppose with my author discount I can get a copy of the $16 trade paperback for $8. (I don’t recall what the exact discount is, but let’s assume 50%.) That means I have to sell seven or eight physical copies or three or four eBooks to pay for every copy I give away. If that donated copy leads to a review then it’s not beyond the realm of possibility that half a dozen people reading the review might be inspired to buy a copy.

Similarly, if I buy a pack of 250 postcards with the cover image on one side and promotional copy on the other. I can get that for about $20. If I distribute them via various means (I often tuck one in with a package if I sell a used book on eBay, for example), I would need to get 8 people to buy an eBook or 16 people to buy a trade paperback to break even. Averaging that out to 12 of either variety, that’s a 5% response rate. Worth it? Hard to say. What’s the ultimate goal: to break even or to turn a profit? Or to gain readers who, through word of mouth might generate more sales? All of the above, naturally.

How much does a book trailer cost? Some of them are done on the cheap and suffer from the same issues as a lot of self-published books: low quality. The three companies offering to make book trailers that I sampled in an unscientific survey charged anywhere from $200 to $2000. I’m sure you can do the math. That means the trailer would have to generate on the order of 100-1000 sales to break even. At the upper end of that range (and I’m sure there are companies willing to charge much more than that), you’re approaching half the typical advance for a traditionally published first novel. Worth it? I’m not convinced. If you have mad graphic arts skills and can put something together for free and doesn’t look like it was made by a 12-year-old, then why not? But I’m not sure I’d shell out any money for one.

The other thing that got me thinking about the expenses of promotion was the publicity campaign behind the A&E miniseries Bag of Bones. The cable channel put a lot of money into getting the word out. There were the obvious: print ads all over the place, billboards, TV spots, a sophisticated web site. They also hired an award-winning photographer to spend a few days on the set before filming to create a series of photo essays that were posted to a companion site called Dark Score Stories in which the lives of the characters leading up to the beginning of the miniseries were profiled—a prequel of sorts. That site got a lot of fans of the King novel excited about the miniseries.

However, the part that the general public doesn’t see intrigued me. The photo essays were turned into a lavish, limited edition hardcover sent to what Klout calls “influencers.” People who might be relied upon to talk about the miniseries and generate word of mouth. (Full disclosure: I received a copy.) Then, A&E sent out screeners of the miniseries to generate advanced reviews. This wasn’t just a couple of DVDs in an envelope, though. The discs came in a wooden box roughly a foot on a side. Inside the lid of the box was a faux turntable that spun when you opened it. Digital music played. It was pretty cool. Underneath was a nice little book with promotional material and the DVDs, plus a disc of assets (PDFs and stills) to accompany reviews. It was an impressive package. Finally, the publicist arranged interviews with various members of the production. I spoke one-on-one with Mick Garris for three quarters of an hour while he was still editing the miniseries and participated in a conference call interview with one of the actors.

Did it work? Certainly there were a lot of published interviews and reviews of the miniseries in the days leading up to its premiere. Alas, the reviews were not all that glowing and in some cases were really harsh. Although the miniseries ultimately fared pretty well in the ratings, one can only wonder how much better it might have done if it hadn’t been roundly panned beforehand. Is it true that any publicity is good publicity? Hard to believe.

What’s my bottom line? As usual, I don’t think I have one. These are just things that I’ve been thinking about for the past few days as I ruminated over what I would write about this month. Food for thought, perhaps. Something to start a discussion, maybe. I don’t think there are any definitive answers about how to promote your work. But I think you should weight the costs and potential returns before sinking a lot of money into a campaign that might never pay for itself.

I’m currently indulging in one of the perks of being an audiobook publisher – I’m listening to SINEATER, by Elizabeth Massie, narrated by Joe Geoffrey.  I read this book a long time ago.  If I recall correctly, it came out first in the UK.  My personal copy was purchased from the author and her agent at a convention like the day it was available.  I read the book, and I loved it, but that was a long time ago.  I’ve changed, and the world has changed.

Now I am listening to that story again, and I’ve fallen in love with it again.  It’s not for the weak at heart.  Missy Campbell and her firre-breathing holy-go-to-meeting clan are too close to home for someone living in rural NC.  There are some very difficult places to get through. Luckily, I have Joe Geoffrey for that…and boy has he brought this book to life.

The beginning is tough – it’s very graphic and very intense.  I fear some people may not get past it, if they don’t know going in what Beth can do with a horror story … but if they do … I can guarantee that the ride is one they will never forget.  The plight of Joel Barker is SO easy to empathize with – ostracized, caught up in beliefs and events he would have nothing to do with, given a choice.  And all the while…lurking in the shadows…his father.  The Sineater.  Avery Barker.

This is a wonderful, suspenseful tale, and told so vividly in this narration that it’s easy to get lost in it and forget that when the drive to work is over, it’s time to step back into the real world.  For any of you who like audiobooks – Beth is a long time Storytellers veteran, and you should really give this one a try.  It is no coincidence that this book won the Bram Stoker Award for best first novel…the amazing thing, once you get into it, is that it WAS her first.

Sorry for this digression into review / etc…but that’s where my head is, and it’s late, and it’s my day to spout off.  I hope you’ll understand.

You can find SINEATER at Audible.com, Simply Audiobooks, or at the Crossroad Press site http://store.crossroadpress.com

Listen to an audio sample…

DNW

Ninety minutes ago I realized that I had a column to write that should have been posted in the wee hours of the morning (some 12 hours ago), which prompted me to begin furiously typing away.  There are many excuses for the late posting in the day of this column, including:  1) I didn’t get my 2010 calendar until last week, and have not yet included my handy reminder notations on the fourth of every month to produce said column; 2) I was out of town; 3) I am still on 2009 time; 4) Because it is the fifth, I plead the Fifth, which means I do have the right to not incriminate myself.  Enough said.

Just because I am not incriminating myself, though, doesn’t give me a right to back out of this month’s writing column commitment.  Today’s topic is criticism.

Six months ago I took on a new writing gig:  a sometimes book reviewer for a daily newspaper.  The rationale for my taking on the job was that since I do a lot of reading anyway, I might as well get paid to review some books.

I do about one review a month.  I wish I could say that I had my pick of books, but my editor is the one that does the selecting.  Typically he chooses books written by local authors.

Unlike some book reviewers, I don’t enjoy eviscerating books or running up the insult totals.  If I don’t see any merit in a particular book I have been assigned, I usually try to opt out of doing the review (my editor sometimes has me interview the author as a compromise).

Having always been on the other side of the fence (having my books reviewed by others), I never appreciated the difficulties in writing a good review.  In a short space I have to summarize the plot of a book, and describe what I liked or didn’t like about the book.  Like an attorney wanting to make a point, I have to bring in corroborating evidence (usually a written passage, or description of a scene).

As a reviewer, my aim is to be scrupulously honest.  My review is my own Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval.  I believe I bend over backwards to be fair.  I am aware that no author ever sets out to write a bad book; I am also aware that what I am reading probably took at least a year out of the writer’s life.  That is why I never savage a book.  At the same time if I perceive that the writer falls short in any given area, it’s my job to point that out.

As is often the case, a review sometimes comes down to reflecting personal taste.  When my fifth novel was published the reviewers for both Publishers Weekly and Kirkus both happened to cite the same scene; one of the reviewers thought it was a tour de force, while the other wrote that it was over the top.  It was a great example of the saying, “One man’s meat is another man’s poison.”

Overall I feel very fortunate in having received a number of wonderful book reviews over the years.  It’s great to be appreciated.  At the same time, I also remember one or two less than stellar reviews.  It’s terrible to be misunderstood.  As writers we need to remember that not everyone is going to love our words.  The only time I have taken umbrage with a review is when the reviewer mixes up characters, or the plot (dammit, I want to say, are you reading from the right book?).

One of the reasons I agreed to be a reviewer is that so many daily newspapers have axed their book sections, and these days it is harder and harder for an author to get reviewed.  As a writer, I fear that trend.  When I was offered the chance to be a reviewer, I felt obligated to take the job.  For the sake of our livelihood, we need readers.  As a reviewer I can only hope I am helping to prime the pump.

I am not sure if my part-time job is helping my full-time work.  Criticism is not creating, but at the same time I hope to be more aware of practicing what I preach (and have criticized) in my future novels.  Physician heal thyself.

Elmore Leonard probably offered the best writing advice I have ever heard:  “When you write,” he said, “try to leave out all the parts that readers skip.”

As writers, it’s our job to try and figure out what parts those are; it’s the job of the critic to say whether we have succeeded or not.

Pax,

Alan Russell

January 5, 2010 (Mea Culpa – 2:15 P.S.T.)