Online Marketing for Authors: it's about Joy and Luck

I just read The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan and what an amazing book it is. I am quite overcome. It's not just the magical writing - it's the story of my life!

Near the end one the characters talks about being born in the Year of the Tiger. I paid close attention because I was born in the Year of the Tiger. As was my mother. And my daughter.

...Then she told me why a tiger is gold and black. It has two ways. The gold side leaps with its fierce heart. The black side stands still with cunning, hiding its gold between trees, seeing and not being seen, waiting patiently for things to come.

It is five months till the publication of Tall Story and my gold side is leaping.

So little time, so much marketing to do. Not to mention another novel to write.

At the same time, my black side is cringing in the shadows. Is it too soon to begin trumpeting my book? Isn't it too crushingly embarrassing to tell people yes, it's really good? What if I set up a Facebook page and nobody becomes a fan? What if I come across as vain and annoying? Whatifwhatifwhatifwhatif?

Chatting about the business of networking with my nephew, who is an aspiring conductor,  - he told me something that really brought home what an enormous task I have ahead. I paraphrase:

Our instinct is to be self deprecating. We don't want to shout about how good we are because we don't want people to dislike us. But there comes a point when this becomes a real problem. We actually have to get better at telling people that we are good at what we do.

Get over yourself, I tell myself sternly. Just get on with it.

So in the mornings, I write a few hundred words towards my new novel. And in the afternoons I work on a list of Things to Do to promote my book.

• This includes building a Facebook page - and if you're an author still wondering how to do it, here's a good how to , and what you can do to add a little extra something to it. 
• I've tarted up the profile I use to review books on Amazon.co.uk - it now has 'Author of Tall Story' tacked on to it. 
• I've set up my author profile on Amazon Author Central even though the US launch is not until 2011.
• Set up a profile on Author Hotline as well.
• I've reserved some blog domain names for future use.
• and I'm redesigning my website to try to look half as good as Amy Tan's website (which is gorgeous, full of story, and has cute videos of her dogs)

I'm sure I've missed a zillion other things that authors can do to promote their wares on the net. Any of you readers have other items, hints, tips to add to my list? Please feel free to add to the comments.

Lucky for me, I have managed to appear on some lists without having to beg too hard or at all - the Happy Nappy Bookseller (probably the best blog name in the world!) put me on a list of authors of colour

Becky at beautifully designed blog The Bookette put me on her debut authors list

My good buddy photographer/columnist Mandy Navasero (who once taught me how to eat a pineapple with one hand while driving with the other) added me to her new year's defining moments column

Neni Sta Romana Cruz, a fantastic children's writer from the Philippines, wrote a Sunday magazine piece complete with uncombed pictures of me and my kids (haven't seen it yet but my Mom bought hundreds of copies)

Fiona Dunbar, author of the utterly brilliant, smart and hilarious Silk Sisters and Lulu Baker trilogies, who not only introduced me to my agent but in the new year gave me an utterly luscious plug in her blog.

Gillian Philip, whose book Crossing the Line, had me raging and weeping and upset for days (it's a really good read .. but be strong) picked Tall Story for her list of books she's looking forward to in 2010

MC Rogerson of the Life Beyond blog put me on her reading list for 2010

Even my old high school, St Theresa's College put me on their website (oh my, the memories!)

The Noisy Dog Blog (Sue Eves is the author of the whimsical Quiet Woman and the Noisy Dog, now out in paperback) picked my short story as a bedtime read

And WikiPilipinas added me to their list of Ten Pinay Pride of 2009.

Wow. I am quite overcome by the kindness of friends and strangers.

Thank you so much.

What Blogging Writers Can Learn from Street Performers

How do you build an audience?

Do you sometimes feel like this Elvis impersonator, spewing hound dogs into a mic with an empty pavement for an audience?

Last Monday, I caught Passing the Hat, a BBC radio feature by Jolyon Jenkins, about street performers (it's on iplayer until 28 September).

In the programme, the world famous street magician Gazzo serves up the following pearls:

People think it's the performer that gets the audience. But it's the audience that gets the audience.

Yes! That's it! I wanted to shout. It's not about YOU. It's about the audience!

If I were to put a FAQ on my website, I would put "Should I start a blog?" as the top question. When writers realise that I am involved in websites, this is the question most frequently asked of me.

A lot of writers skip the question and simply inform me, "My book is coming out. I'm going to start a blog."

We-ell.

A blog is an incredible way to reach out to an audience. But so many bloggers use it as an indulgence and forget about their audience in a way that goes against the spirit of blogging. I blog primarily because I enjoy it, and I really make an effort to make it an enjoyable experience for my readers too. It's not about broadcasting your message, telling people Ding Dong Your Book is Out. Unless you win the audience, your message will not be heard by very many people. You might as well dress up as Elvis and stand on a street corner.

There is, of course, the book. The book will draw readers. And then after the book, there is the huge marketing spend your publishers will put behind your book (is that hysterical laughter I hear around me?). And then after the marketing budget, there's you. How do YOU build that audience? And keep it?

If you haven't got the time to listen to the BBC programme you can go straight to 12:10 on the iplayer where the show goes into the nitty gritty of pulling a crowd. It's about "marshalling" people, "taking control of the situation". Here's how a magician named Neill described it:

It's about unifying the people who are watching you into an audience ... when we go to the theatre, a performance still has a job to do of turning that crowd of people sitting in the auditorium into an audience.

But on a street .. they are just individual people going about their daily busness. To get those people to stop, to stand in one place, to feel connected as a unified whole as disparate groupings ... then it's better for the performer and it's better as an experience for the people who are watching it as well

Like the street performer, your blog draws them in with your talent and your humour. You make them stay by forging bonds, not just between you and the reader but bonds between the readers themselves.

Here are some ways to keep your audience:

• Be useful. Give stuff (information, freebies, anything that your readers like)
• Be entertaining. Make an effort to put that extra something into your posts eg. pictures, design. Give them a reason to come back.
• Be human. Don't just churn out the words. Reply to comments (and try to reply in a way that sounds like you are a real human being), praise, react, be real.
• Engage with your reader. Remember, blogs are conversations. You have to show that you are listening too.
• Visit your readers' blogs and comment on their posts. It's a relationship not a one way street.

Here are more tips from the Pro Blogger blog 9 Ways to Make Sure Your Post is Read By More than Just Your Mom

And if you care enough to do it right, your reward is a loyal reader who might just buy your book. As Gazzo says:

Every street trick needs some form of pay-off. That's what will get you the money

Book Trailer for Mortlock by Jon Mayhew

Now it gives me GREAT pleasure to see someone I met on the internet get some mileage! Here's the trailer for John Mayhew's book, coming soon ... and it's wonderful!

Brrrr!

Charlie Higson's Zombie Trailer for The Enemy

Just saw this terrific new zombie trailer flagged on the Tall Tales and Short Stories blog.

Mind you, some author trailers manage to achieve Charlie Higson's look without having written a zombie book.

Something from the Vogon Postal Service and Proofs of My First Little Book

Well I got some Vogon post the other day!

The message was: DON'T PANIC!

I tried not to but it was hard given that the envelope contained an advance copy of EoinColfer's sequel to Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - titled And Another Thing. Well ... actually only half of it. No point marketing the product to oblivion I suppose.

It was a tabloid size newsprint edition. I don't think it will be easy to read but it's a cool collector's item!

Meanwhile, elsewhere in the book marketing world, Jacqueline Wilson's Tracey Beaker is about to launch as a computer game!

Meanwhile, the proofs of my forthcoming book for Oxford University Press Treetops series arrive and it's very very pretty! It's illustrated beautifully by three very fine artists Galia Bernstein, Margaret Chamberlain and Thomas Docherty. Boy, what a difference illustrations make to prose!

Me happy!

Wanna sell your book? Just go on Oprah!

If you feel for this guy, spare a thought for all the other authors out there.

If you can't see the video click here
(It's long by YouTube standards but this is your chance
to show you have an attention span longer than 4 minutes!)

Twitter vs Facebook - what's a children's writer to do?

Social Networking is dangerous territory for writers. Perhaps more so for novelists. All the writers I know seem to suffer addictive tendencies - coffee, tea, alcohol, pasta, Facebook ... the compulsion that drives us to write pushes us in other directions as well.

The writing is going slowly. So what do you do? Instead of forcing yourself to work a chapter out, you check your Facebook profile for comments. An hour later, you've watched eight YouTube videos and exchanged pleasantries with an ex-classmate who used to bully you in high school.

We have to do it, we tell ourselves. Times have changed. The author can no longer rest on his or her craft - to sell our work in this big bad techno world, we have to be actors, podcasters, bloggers, marketers, facebookers and now ... twitterers.

Techno-savvy agent Peter Cox, interviewed on the Tall Tales and Short Stories blog, talks about publishers expecting authors to have a "platform" -

Publishers talk about a platform. They say what has the author got as a platform? In other words can you attract publicity can you bring buyers with you? In the non-fiction area it might be diabetics or left-handed people or pilots ... is there a public out there who already recognises you who will buy your book?

That's why every Tom, Dick and JK in the book world has started up a blog (well, not JK - she doesn't have to blog). I know authors who don't blog who have been advised by their publishers to start one.

What fascinates me is that some of the very people who are urging authors to blog do not read blogs, much less blog themselves. They don't understand the care that goes into blogging, the time it takes to write a post, the time and emotional investment in building an audience.

At the recent London Book Fair, there was so much talk of Twitter amongst publishing people that I signed up to find out what it was all about. Here are my findings:

• It's like blogging. Except it's in 43 characters. I like that I can update my blog by embedding my Twitter feed at the top of the page. As a result, I blog less. But I've lost readers because not all my readers are on Twitter.
• It's like blogging. Except your followers are somewhat more anonymous because your micro-blog is in such a big alphabet soup, any comments are quickly drowned in other Tweets.
• People carry on conversations - but it feels a lot like eavesdropping ... and there's already enough noise in my home without eavesdropping on the conversations of strangers.
• It's like blogging because it's addicting.
• It's not like blogging because it's quick and you don't have to say much.
• As in blogging and facebook, the early adopters and more sophisticated Tweeters are based in the US. If you live in the UK, you lose out because of the time differential.

In the Tall Tales interview, Peter Cox also said:

There is a 97% BS factor involved and if all you do is listen to the latest things ... you've got to twitter, you've got to have a blog ... it can drive you mad ... You have to look at these things strategically and work out how is your time best spent.

My decision: I'm going to stay on Twitter and Tweet occasionally - to see where it's going to go. BUT I think it's more important to make the social networking that already works for you work better. That means giving my blog some TLC and creating websites that are forward- thinking and audience building - as in, audiences that I actually am engaged in ... not an anonymous mass.

And of course most important of all: I'm going to concentrate on writing my book and writing it well.

After all, what's the point of having a platform if you've got nothing to show for it?

What Matters?

I am so buried in work and hayfever at the moment that this blog is suffering serious neglect. But  I'm trying to keep things going by microblogging on Twitter so do follow me if you want Notes from the Slushpile in mini form.

Meanwhile, here's something that really cheered me up from marketing guru Seth Godin's blog:

• When you love the work you do and the people you do it with, you matter.
• When you are so gracious and generous and aware that you think of other people before yourself, you matter.
• When you leave the world a better place than you found it, you matter.
• When you continue to raise the bar on what you do and how you do it, you matter.
• When you teach and forgive and teach more before you rush to judge and demean, you matter.
• When you touch the people in your life through your actions (and your words), you matter.
• When kids grow up wanting to be you, you matter.
• When you see the world as it is, but insist on making it more like it could be, you matter.
• When you inspire a Nobel prize winner or a slum dweller, you matter.
• When the room brightens when you walk in, you matter.
• And when the legacy you leave behind lasts for hours, days or a lifetime, you matter.

Nicola Morgan's hilarious DIY video

Yes you can! Make your own promotional video that is - and you don't need a camera or video skills or sound equipment. All you need is a computer, wit and the text-to-movie website Xtranormal ... as Nicola Morgan (Deathwatch
) demonstrates on her blog, Need2bPublished:

If you can't see the video, watch it on YouTube

Further Education: be published, be seen and be sold.

I admit it. I'm becoming increasingly dependent on YouTube videos to keep my blog updated regularly.

But seriously, you guys, I am interested in your FURTHER EDUCATION. Especially you PUBLISHED writer guys, the ones who are no longer on the slushpile, the ones who have a book out, or a book about to come out, the ones who are still asking yourselves everyday, 'should I have a website?' 'should I blog?' 'should I do a video?' 'is it worth the time?'

My answer is ... AAAARGH. Some people don't deserve their success.

Anyway, here is John Green (again!) showing you guys how to keep faith with your young audience:

If you can't see this, view it on YouTube

Moral of the blog post: if you're about to be published, be seen by your audience and your book will be sold. You can't procrastinate over marketing your book (unlike when you're writing it).

Maureen Johnson manages to be funny in a serious book video

MJ is one of the funniest YA bloggers around and here's her new video!

It looks  like the Scholastic had this serious video made and Maureen got hold of it before the release.

If you can't see it, watch it on YouTube.

Performing authors and Fiona's video

My friend Fiona Dunbar's new book Tiger-Lily Gold has just come out and to celebrate she made this video (I helped!)

Meanwhile, Nicola Morgan (Deathwatch) is aiming for a world record in school visits.

Anthony Horowitz (The Power of Five: Necropolis) is appearing in a virtual event targetting nine thousand children in 216 schools.

And big name authors are guaranteed roles at a proliferation of children's book festivals to draw the crowds.

The Book Brunch children's column wonders "how much the life of a children’s author has become about personal contact with children as well as contact through books ..."

 Have we lost anything since the days when we only knew writers and illustrators through their books? When we weren’t necessarily sure what sex E B White, E Nesbitt, P L Travers, and L M Montgomery were, let alone what they looked like? (Though A A Milne and C S Lewis and J R R Tolkien had got famous enough for us to know.) Was there something to be said for imagining an author through his or her work? P L Travers looked liked Mary Poppins in my head.

Is the standard of performance getting too high for authors who are "merely" good at writing? So it is not enough to write a gripping tale: you also have to be Eoin Colfer in front of an audience. Or do these showmen do the whole profession the favour of giving it glamour, and making kids want to be in it, as they want to be other kinds of celebrities? Read more

Should we resist the demands of our ever-more-swiftly spinning world? Should we insist that writers be allowed to do only that, write?

I recently acquired a Flip Mino - one of those easy peasy pocket camcorders.

I figure the Flip would make it easier for me to build up some useful footage for a future marketing campaign.

There is never a better time to surrender to the inevitable than now.

Sue and Sarwat Reading at the Crystal Palace Book Festival

Book Crow put this up on his website and I'm thrilled because I went to the book festival but missed these readings by my SCBWI friends -

The Quiet Woman and the Noisy Dog by Sue Eves

Devil's Kiss by Sarwat Chadda

London Book Fair: What UK Editors want (apparently)

More of this?

So ... since a wannabe like me can't rub shoulders with the great and good of children's publishing (more like sneak a look at their notebooks) - here's a list compiled by one US agent of what UK children's book editors at the LBF told her they wanted:

--More boy adventure books (although one publisher specifically said their list is full in this arena so not as high on their list)

--YA historical

--would love a prize-winning new teen voice along the lines of HOW I LIVE NOW

--Funny with beautiful writing (so a blend of literary with a really fun story line)

--a modern Anne of Green Gables

--middle grade fantasy that is a girl-driven narrative

--humorous girl stuff that is more than just boys and relationships but is warm, and character driven. Not necessarily issue driven

--high concept middle grade with a really original voice so it can stand out.

--anything that can crossover solidly to the adult market (ie. THE CURIOUS INCIDENT OF A DOG IN THE NIGHTTIME)

--fantasy

--a contemporary author with a literary, classic voice. (hum.. that seems to tie in with the modern Anne of Green Gables example above) Read the whole post

Meanwhile over at Publishers Weekly, an article titled 12 Steps to Better Publishing - included the following advice:

Stop the copycat books: They are the equivalent of pack journalism, and most of the time, we wind up looking like a bunch of rats chasing a chunk of stale cheese.

Edit: I struck those last lines out because I thought I was being unfair to jump to conclusions. Any thoughts?

London Book Fair: The digital dilemma - obsessed or overwhelmed ?

Is it just geeky me or was the London Book Fair rather preoccupied with the challenge - threat? - of the digital life?

"Waiting for the iPod moment" was the headline of a Media Guardian interview of Harper Collins chief exec Victoria Barnsley to mark the opening of the London Book Fair.

The word "digital" "e books" "e publishing" "e reading" figured oftentimes repeatedly on the titles of the seminar list.

In the free London Book Fair Daily supplied by the Bookseller, an article by Chris Meade argued that though printed books "may have already had their day", it was not yet the end of reading "as long as publishers fully embrace the multimedia possibilities of the digital age".

A keynote seminar with the title "Digital Publishing: Where is the money?" resulted in a heated discussion that ranged from ebooks to piracy. The answer? Nobody knows. Read reports from Publishers Weekly and Book Brunch

A panel on the subject of "Online Publicity: Making the Most of the Digital Media" scheduled for one of the smaller seminar rooms ended up totally oversubscribed. And even as audience members were hunkering down in the aisles and spilling out the doorways, Bloomsbury was announcing that shortlisted Orange Prize title Burnt Shadows by Kamila Shamsie will be made available for iPhone users as a free download for 24 hours from 12 noon, 22 April.

At a discussion comparing book trends in the US and the UK, Kelly Gallagher, VP of publishing services at Bowker, summed up the radical changes confronting publishers today:

Mass change is going on in the industry today, no one can deny that ... change is happening at an exponential rate ... and many times we are playing catch up and often it is from the rear view mirror that we discover the book market has moved on.

We have a lot of motivation for change – no denying economic marketplace – if ever there was a reason to engage in changing your strategy for publishing, today is the day.

Google Giveth and Google Taketh Away

I'm a Google enthusiast, I admit it. I've switched from Internet Explorer and Firefox to Google Chrome. I enjoy Google Earth. I use Google Docs. I use Google Maps. I run Google Adwords. I blog on Google's Blogger.

But for every wonderful thing Google giveth, Google taketh away. 

Today, literary agent Lynn Chu of Writers Representatives took a microscope to the labyrinthine terms of the recent Google settlement and spelled it out in language even an author can understand .

Chu warns authors to pay attention (all authors who've ever had anything published in the United States) -

(by 5 May 2009) ... every author and publisher in America is supposed to decide whether to "opt in," "opt out," or simply "ignore" a vast compulsory licensing scheme for the benefit of Google.

Given that authors are notorious at procrastination, I am helpfully bullet-pointing the highlights of the article below. But do read the complete article in the Wall Street Journal  titled 'Google's Book SettlementIs a Ripoff for Authors: Why allow a single publisher to throw out a functioning copyright system?'. 

• who are the winners of the settlement? the lawyers get $30 million, the Book Rights Registry gets $ 35 million, and infringed authors? $ 60 a book.
  
  
• "every rights-owner in America is supposed to hand over all their private contract data, on every edition of every work they ever wrote -- and every excerpt permission ever granted to others -- at the peril of losing the money Google will be making on their backs"
  
  
• The Book Rights Registry - Says Chu:

  The Internet was supposed to eliminate middlemen, not pack multiple layers on. The BRR is in fact merely Google's contract negotiation and claims department

  • "Google's erstwhile adversaries are paid off with the aforementioned Book Rights Registry (BRR), which will compete with the U.S. Copyright Office and the federal courts"
  
  
  • "The BRR expects to read everyone's contracts to say who is owed what of Google's revenues -- net again of all its costs, which are sure to be huge"
  
  
• "The U.S. Constitution grants authors small monopolies in their own copyrights. Author market power is talent-based and individual, not collective. This class action seeks to wipe all this out -- just for Google. But U.S. law does not grant any single publisher monopoly power to herd all of us into its list"

Meanwhile, several authors have suddenly woken up to the realisation that books are fair game to the piracy that has previously plagued other media.

Publishers and agents representing the authors J. K. Rowling and Ken Follett were battling last night to get free copies of their novels removed from a Californian website that claims to be the most popular literary site in the world. Read More

Scribd.com has earned the dubious title of the "YouTube for books".

I kind of disagree with Liu's point that the current copyright system is good enough. 

I think it's under siege.

Add: Kristin Nelson of the Nelson Literary Agency posted this advice

Google, Google Everywhere

I love that Google is today celebrating the 40th anniversary of Eric Carle's Very Hungry Caterpillar which apparently sells a copy somewhere in the world every 30 seconds.

Today is also the launch of Google's Street View, by which anyone can punch a city post code into Google Maps and see the location in 360 degree photographic views.

The launch of anything that smacks of new technology has of course prompted fear and trembling over issues of privacy, with Google acting quickly to remove objectionable photos. When the service was launched in the US, a new past-time of streetspotting was invented.

The literary possibilities of Google Street View are mind-boggling. Do have a listen to tonight's episode of Front Row (20 March, Friday), the radio arts programme, in which Ian Rankin and Graham Hurley discuss the cons (readers can visit fictional locations and the disconnect between story and reality might might get in the way of the story's believability) and the pros (oooh, the story ideas... Street View as murder alibi ... Street View revealing the future).

And then there's Google Earth. I had a Marketing Big Idea last week - if location is important to your story - like Sarwat Chadda's forthcoming Devil's Kiss which is set in dark and scary corners of London - why not use the new movie-making features of Google Earth and create a tour of your novel's locations? 

If you've written a book that has to do with archaeological digs and ancient civilizations like The Mummy Snatchers of Memphis by my friend Natasha Narayan - Google Earth claims to be able to give you access to the past, "With a simple click, take a look at suburban sprawl, melting icecaps, coastal erosion and more". As well as dive under oceans, etc etc.

There is some muttering that Google's ubiquity, so dangerously Microsoft-like, has pushed the corporation over to the Dark Side ... that Google has betrayed its famous motto, Don't Be Evil.

Are we in danger of being exploited by the Google juggernaut marauding into every corner of our lives?

Perhaps. 

Meanwhile why not exploit everything that Google has to offer first?

Tips for Authors on the Brink of Fame (and even maybe Fortune)

I've just finished building Sarwat Chadda's website in anticipation of the May launch of his "goth-lit" thriller, Devil's Kiss. Check it out on sarwatchadda.com.

I'd always wanted to do a website with a dark, dark theme and Sarwat has now fulfilled that wish, thanks for hiring me Sarwat!

I thought I'd blog about a few ideas that came to me while making the website. Here goes:

TIP FOR AUTHORS WAITING FOR FAME AND GLORY NUMBER ONE: Have your author portrait taken as soon as possible, preferably five or ten years ago, before the crow's feet, thinning hair, wattle chin,  and other signs of aging have totally set in.

The most dangerous part of this project (for Sarwat) was handing over a CD of studio portraits for me to pick and choose from. Woo hoo!  I tried hard not to rub my hands gleefully in front of him. Oh the magic one can do with Photoshop! But then Sarwat of course was wise to my game and threatened me with the kind of violence even his book would blush at if I dared upload anything silly to Facebook. 

Luckily we came to a compromise and I got to make these humorous mash-ups for his 'About Me' page.

Sarwat on holiday in the East.

Sarwat realising he was in competition with Buffy.

Sarwat being told he should write for Bette Midler (hey, I love Bette Midler!)

Sarwat winning a place in the Undiscovered Voices anthology. 

Oh I didn't go ahead with that last one. I couldn't get a satisfactory blend of Sarwat's neck with Miss America's.

TIP FOR AUTHORS WAITING FOR FAME AND GLORY NUMBER TWO:
When you have that pictorial with the professional photographer, make sure while they are shooting off the customary 101 frames, that as well as the formal I am a glamorous author pose, you pose with different expressions. Smiling, looking right, looking left, looking upwards, looking downwards, making silly faces ... this will be useful for future digital compositions by your friendly neighbourhood designer. I suggest this because Sarwat had exactly two expressions on his CD which made it hard to make him look truly ridiculous. Dang.

Part of the job was redecorating Sarwat's blog to match the livery of the website. Sarwat's early blogging has been targetted mainly at fellow writers. With his book out, he will have to change gears, target his readers - without alienating his currrent following. 

Spooky that Nathan Bransford picks this moment to blog about blogs - authors' blogs - citing a piece in the Globe and Mail about how the new intimacy between reader and author has resulted in some extraordinary public blow ups.  

Apparently some authors have had to endure severe lambasting by fans when they're late with the next book or not living up to their duties as Famous Author!

These days, writers invite personal involvement and intensity from their readers. In direct proportion to the way in which they share their personalities (or for-consumption personalities), their everyday lives, their football teams and word counts, their partners and children and cats, it encourages in readers a sense of personal connection and access, and thus an entitlement to comment, complain, recommend cat food, feel betrayed, shriek invective, issue demands: “George, lose weight, dammit!” More

Fans can be deployed to attack critics

The flip-side of course is that authors like Stephenie Meyer (her fans threatened to bombard Stephen King with hate mail for saying he didn't like Twilight) and Patricia Cornwell ("slimed" by several Amazon reviews, she called on her fans to counteract the bad reviews).

...“Release the fans!” seems to be the phrase that applies ... Globe and Mail

Hmm. So what is my Tip Three?

TIP FOR AUTHORS WAITING FOR FAME AND GLORY NUMBER THREE:
Sure, go ahead and blog. Blog because your editor and your agent said you probably ought to. Blog because you've enjoyed keeping a diary since you were five. Blog because that's what they say authors have to do. But remember: it's a two-way relationship. The fans can dish as much as they take.

... And now here's Neil Gaiman

These are the best of times and the worst of times.

Continuing on the bitter theme of how authors have to become stand up comics, film makers, actors, performers, self publicists etc etc.

And yet if times were not like these, would we have wonderful videos like this one just released by Neil Gaiman?

If you can't see the video, watch it here

Think what a writer could do with the help of a friendly artist ... and an animator.
 
 

My advice to authors in these hard times: don't go wide, GO DEEP

One quick check of my blog reader before I go to Costa Coffee to avoid Facebook and I find this link to a nice piece about how the recession is going to make it even tougher to sell books.

The author Novella Carpenter is in nail-biting mode, awaiting the release of her book Farm City: The Education of an Urban Farmer in June 2009.

Holiday book sales were abysmal, and most of the major publishing houses have announced job losses in recent months. One publishing behemoth, HarperCollins, lost 75 percent of its operating income during the first six months of 2008. Over all, the publishing industry has struggled as bookstore sales -- and the economy -- have slowed drastically.

My agent told me the other day that things were not as bad as that yet in the UK, but what's going to stop me being miserable anyway?

The point of Carpenter's article is that authors will just have to work that much harder to promote their books (though we can't all be as good at it as John Green). One editor told her:

"The best advice for today, and really in any financial climate, is to be fanatical and motivated to promote your book ... Do as many events as possible. Become a shameless self-promoter."

Note: Carpenter in fact forgot to mention the title of her book in the article. I had to check out her website. And when I checked out her website, her upcoming book wasn't even promoted on the front page. When you clicked on Publications, the book was listed but there was no link to any promotional page or synopsis whatsoever (and the listing on Amazon doesn't tell us anything either). She's obviously a nice person who ain't shameless. I think we should all pre-order her book.

A writer friend asked me yesterday if she should Twitter as well as Facebook to get her name out there.

I found myself giving the same advice I offered to a client for whom I designed a website.

The client wanted to know if they were doing enough to get their site listed by search engines. Someone had told her she should stick a long list of key words into her code to make sure her site could be found.

My advice: when you are trying to market yourself, don't go wide, go deep.

If you are a children's author writing about aliens, you don't want someone searching for "book" to find you. You want someone searching for "children's book about aliens". It's the quality of the traffic that counts, not the number. You don't want to be found by just anyone. You want people who are actually likely to reach into their wallets.

If you are trying to use social networking sites to raise your profile, sure, set up an account with Facebook, Bebo, MySpace and what have you. But it's better to have one social network that really works for you than half a dozen that don't. It's the quality of the network, not the quantity (ie. You don't want to friend 3,000 people who will never buy your book) ...

The caveat is that social networking is not just about marketing. And if you'd like to have a go at Twitter, or blogging, or other kinds of social networking , don't let me stop you. But do it because you want to have some fun not just because you're looking for a database to market to.

And of course, we must not forget, as one bookseller reminded Carpenter in the article: "the most important thing is to write an awesome book. That's the biggest hurdle. Just write an awesome book."

***

Last night I watched Millions again, the story by Frank Cottrell Boyce about a boy who finds a millions of pounds in a holdall by a railway. I had forgotten that it was directed by Danny Boyle, pre-Slumdog. Later, I read this interview of Boyle talking about what sold the script to him —

Basically, page seven where the kid first uses the excuse of his mum's death to gain an advantage - it's a killer moment. You'd think you would examine scripts and weigh them up, but you don't in fact. You read the American ones and they're good and very impressive, but basically when you have a giddy moment like that in a script, that's it.

— it's the scene where the boys tell a shopkeeper, "Me mam's dead" and the shopkeeper immediately hands over some free sweets.

Made me think of rejections. Have you ever received a rejection from an editor or an agent with the words "I liked your book. But I don't love it."

That means your killer moment didn't slay them enough.

Today I resolve to make my killer scene more killer than it is.

Oh how can we measure up to John Green?

So, if you are an author/soon-to-be author worried about the fact that authors now have to be not only writers but speakers, entertainers, web designers, educators, video editors, voice talents, marketers, etc etc etc and etc ... look away now because this is John Green's latest vlog (as in video blog) and it's relevant, funny, intelligent, touching (and he even manages to quote some ee cummings) and oh how are we to measure up?

If you can't see the video, view it here.

Ten simple pleasures on my visit to Manila

MANILA -- On Facebook, I keep getting invitations to create lists – 25 random thoughts, seven things about me, 10 unusual facts I know etc.

Well here’s a list. And all my online friends can breathe a sigh of relief ... I’m not tagging anyone to do the same.

Watching London engulfed in snow on TV, with the electric fan on full blast.


Drops of water on palm leaves after a tropical rainshower.


The Indonesian print on my mother’s pyjamas.


Seeing this lovely painting of Remedios Circle, a place near the flat where I used to live. It’s become quite rundown now, and I’m glad there’s a memory of its better days here.


Going to a good bookstore. Power Books in SM Megamall.


Stumbling upon an empty restaurant with a piano, late at night, while in the company of musician friends


Having my family go bananas playing bananagrams.


Watching my niece play volleyball for my university.


Enjoying the way Filipinos find their use of English so hilarious. Without Further Adieu illustrated by Elbert Or, published by Tahanan Books


... and PURPLE plants!

Do websites and book trailers sell books?

Yesterday on Facebook, I launched my new wheeze - web mentoring workshops.

I've been trying out all the different website-creating tools that have emerged online since the advent of Web 2.0 ... and have come to the conclusion that like the dinosaurs, I as a web designer, have finally become extinct.

It's not that people don't need websites anymore, it's just that if you are a small business, a self employed individual or small organisation like most of my clientele it doesn't make sense to shell out a thousand quid for:

• A website that you don't have the skills to maintain and update.
  

• A website that will become obsolete from Day One. Read about it in the Trouble with Websites
  


• A website that you can't afford to constantly be contacting your web designer for support and advice (unless of course, you marry one, which is what my husband did).


• Something you have no idea what to do with. A website is only a tool. Once it's up there you've got to use it. That's something a lot of people who already have websites really ought to understand.
  

Anyway, I am hoping that a lot of authors will agree with my reasoning and sign up for my workshops. I like authors. I really believe that authors can do a lot more for themselves online.

Interestingly, the New York Times yesterday came up with an essay on whether websites sold books:

A survey released last June by the Codex Group, a research firm that monitors trends in book buying, found that 8 percent of book shoppers had visited author Web sites in a given week. It didn’t, however, say how many clicked on the “buy the book” link. Read it all

With publishers continuing to set new lows for book marketing budgets, the beleaguered author really has no choice but to face up his/her e-fears and engage with the internet. This has prompted the rise of a mini industry ...

Still, a sizable industry has sprung up around persuading them to do so. AuthorBytes, a multimedia company started in 2003, has built sites for more than 200 clients, including Paul Krugman, Chris Bohjalian and Khaled Hosseini. They cost from $3,500 to $35,000 — with writers paying about 85 percent of the time. The staff of 20 even includes three employees whose entire job is updating.

I love the Authorbytes websites. If and when my famous writer friends are ever granted lots of marketing spend, I will urge them to go get an Authorbyte site!

If and when.

Otherwise, I suppose they will just have to settle for cheap old me.

My first workshop is on 3 March 2009 in North London.

YouTube Bit Me! (But I Deserved It)

I've gotten away with it so far but now, technology is catching up with me.

I got the following email from YouTube today:

Dear Candy Gourlay,

Your video, Why Writers Need Agents, may have content that is owned or licensed by WMG.

No action is required on your part; however, if you're interested in learning how this affects your video, please visit the Content ID Matches section of your account for more information.

Sincerely,

- The YouTube Team

Readers of Notes from the Slushpile will have seen this film I made with the kids on my street, to a soundtrack that included some blues guitar from Ry Cooder. I was rather spooked by the statement 'no action is required on your part' so I went straight to the video and had a look.

YouTube had solved the copyright violation problem by turning off the sound of my video. Next to the video a button appeared, offering to "Swap Audio". Thinking that some audio was better than none, I clicked the button and followed the wizards. Now the video now boasts a totally mismatched bit royalty- free blues soundtrack.

I was totally guilty as accused of course. I knew what I was doing. I'd even read the YouTube notices.

• It doesn't matter how long or short the clip is, or exactly how it got to YouTube. If you taped it off cable, videotaped your TV screen, or downloaded it from another website, it is still copyrighted, and requires the copyright owner's permission to distribute.
• It doesn't matter whether or not you give credit to the owner/author/songwriter—it is still copyrighted.
• It doesn't matter that you are not selling the video for money—it is still copyrighted.
• It doesn't matter whether or not the video contains a copyright notice—it is still copyrighted.
• It doesn't matter whether other similar videos appear on our site—it is still copyrighted.
• It doesn't matter if you created a video made of short clips of copyrighted content—even though you edited it together, the content is still copyrighted.

But of course I thought to myself, surely, in the vast scheme of YouTube video-dom, my itty bitty film was not going to attract any attention?

Not that I was unwilling to pay some kind of license to use lovely music for my little videos. But how?

I bought a book called Podcast Solutions:The Complete Guide to Audio & Video Podcasting 2nd Edition (I like reading manuals). The chapter on using music in podcasts opens thus:

Welcome to the minefield.

Apparently using music is not just a matter of one payment. You have to pay the writer of the song (composer's rights are handled by ASCAP, BMI and SESAC), the performer (record labels), and the owner of the master recording (or mechanical rights handled by the Harry Fox Agency). That's a lot of people to pay for a bit of fun.

The podcast book says:

Your best bet is to find music anywhere else but in your CD collection, unless of course your CD collection is made up only of independent artists who would be willing to grant you all rights to use their music ...

YouTube has not quite taken things to the level of the fingerprinting technology that MySpace uses to police its pages. But it's getting there. And giant media owners like Viacom spend zillions paying people to scour YouTube 24/7 for violations of their copyright.

I once was involved in the making of a radio programme for Radio 4. We were discussing adding some background music. I wanted to use some obscure Filipino pop music and asked my producer if there would be any copyright problem doing so. "Oh no," she said. "The BBC pays some kind of license that covers all that."

How I wish YouTube would charge us users "some kind of license that would cover all that". I would gladly pay.

The point really of talking about videos in this blog about children's books is that we are in the midst of a massive digital revolution in which conventional notions of copyright and royalty demand redefinition. The music and film industry have been struggling to define the terms of this new relationship that people (like me) have with media.

We are no longer just consumers, we want to become creators too.

What lies ahead for the book industry, late as usual, inching its way into the digital world?

How We All Used to Think Getting Published Was Like

Lucy Coats (Coll the Storyteller's Tales of Enchantment) posted this on Facebook:

How sweet it is to remember those days when getting published seemed such a happy, easy thing to do.

Btw you might be thinking, she's just posting videos. She's not really blogging. But hey, I'm writing! I'm writing! That's what we're supposed to be doing. Oh, and I've got some website work too. Boo. ZZZ.

"I wish ... " video by my baby brother

My baby brother, Armand, who lives in the Philippines, just sent me this video he made using his own art and my daughter's voice:

Suddenly I can see a future full of animated book trailers.

Thrilling to What Kids Read in 2008

I took this survey of what the kids in my orbit were reading in 2008. What did I discover? They were all reading, they loved what they were reading and they loved talking about the books they read. Hooray! Reading is not dead after all!

If you can't see the video, view it here

An Action Movie to Make Your Day and Thinking about Book Trailers

So over on my friend Addy's wonderful fiction blog about Wilf there's an action movie to watch in case there aren't any James Bond replays on at Christmas.

Screenshot from Addy Farmer's Action Movie. Watch it here

Addy's action movie comes as my other writing pal Sarwat Chadda discovers that his publishers have released a book trailer for his forthcoming novel, The Devil's Kiss. Here it is:

Agent Kristin Nelson over at the Pub Rants Blog posted this book trailer for one of her authors which takes the form of a West Side Story themed MTV rap - very interesting, but probably out of the league and budget of DIY book trailer makers like me and some of my friends.

All this adventuring in film-making is interesting and important if you're an author or author to be, as book trailers are now a must-have marketing tool and if your publisher doesn't give you a budget to make one, you might find yourself making one for yourself!

Rather fortuitously, social media consultant Angela Wilson at the AskAngela: Market My Novel blog, posted on the whys and wherefores of book trailers the other day. Her interviewee Sheila Clover English gave these five top tips for producing an effective book trailer:

1. Determine what you want people to know about your book and include that in the trailer.
2. Know what your goal is for the trailer.
3. Create a measurable goal to check how effective the trailer was.
4. Make the first 10 seconds of the video the most gripping or interesting
5. Know your audience and get the trailer to places where you will find that audience Read the whole article
   

As a YouTube dabbler myself may I add my own unprofessional advice:

1. Keep it short and to the point.
2. What IS your point?
   
3. Make it funny (unless of course it's horror - then make it scary)
4. Nobody wants to see ads on YouTube - try to have an angle (I've mentioned this before but Meg Cabot's video for her book Queen of Babble Gets Hitched has hook, arc and punchline and a bubbly, hilarious feel very attractive to her readers.
   
   
   
   
5. And finally: make the book trailer something people will want to forward to all their friends.
   

Desperately Seeking A New Model for Selling Books

I am extremely busy, coping with the pre-Christmas rush.

But not too busy to comment on some potentially industry-changing news from across the pond.

Last month I attended a Children's Book Circle event at which booksellers representing the supermarket, the chainstore and the independent explained how the business of selling books worked.

Here they are being very friendly with each other despite the title of the event: "High Street vs Supermarket - the Gloves are Off"

From left to right: independent, Borders and supermarket. At the end of the panel discussion the three booksellers on impulse picked up some props that the supermarket bookseller used in his talk. The cards read (l to r) "They only take bestsellers", "They get huge discounts", and "They are evil".

I suppose I'll have to report back what I learned: that most booksellers are nice people, including supermarket booksellers who are only doing their best considering they've got such limited display space. That they are all crazy about books and that's why they sell them. If they're crazy enough about a book, a book really stands a chance of success. That supermarkets can't afford to stock losers, chains have to compromise and independents take the road less travelled - they try not to discount despite commercial risks.

I had expected the audience to ask some sharp questions (I didn't ask any ... I'm only an author). But I was taken aback at how docile and polite the editors and publishers were. I suppose at the end of the day, the booksellers hold the whip hand when it comes to the success or failure of a publisher's books.

Well there has been some interesting news from the United States where Borders has accepted to accept books from Harper Studio on a non-returnable basis.

Nathan Bransford, the blogging agent, describes the problem:

The returns model has long been a problem for publishers, who often end up having to print (and pulp) twice as many copies as actually sell, an economic and environmental mess. While it allows bookstores to be flexible with ordering and theoretically allows them to take chances on unknown commodities without being stuck with the bill if they don't sell, some have called the process, well, sloppy and inefficient. It's a system that few people have any affection for, and now Borders is signaling a willingness to tweak the model (of course, at a steeper discount). Read the whole thing

Earlier this year I had listened to Barefoot Books publisher Tessa Strickland describe how focusing their sales on gift shops had freed Barefoot Books from this wasteful tyranny.

Literary agent Richard Curtis wrote the definitive piece that declared the returns model:

As a student of publishing history, I'm aware of all the "death-of-publishing" prophecies that have proven false in our time. But I don't think I'm risking much by stating that the publishing industry cannot endure much longer the way it is being run. The need to change our ways is particularly acute in light of revolutionary developments in electronic publishing. Read the whole thing

The fact that he wrote this editorial in 1992 (just one year after the birth of the world wide web) is a chilling reminder of how long it has taken for the industry to take baby steps towards saving itself. The recent slashing and burning in major US publishing houses led Curtis to republish his essay on December 4 (way before Borders announced the deal with Harper Studio). He ended the re-posting with: "It gives me no pleasure to say I told you so."

But if Borders - a MAJOR publisher - is willing to dump returns, surely, there is hope? Will other booksellers follow suit? Will the practice travel across the Atlantic to the UK? Will this result in a natural cull of the "overcapacity" that characterises the writing world as described in the other day's New York Times essay?

Nathan Bransford writes:

It's going to be interesting to see how this shakes out, particularly if it is adopted in a more widespread fashion. But BRAVO for experimentation in a time when we desperately need to see some new ideas in action.

Which leads me neatly to the story of this one bookseller who has found other techniques of pulling customers:From the blog of Eric Stone who visited the naked bookseller in Quartzite, Arizona.

Book Trailers on My Mind

I've been giving book trailers some thought recently. I've just realised that I have two rather talented brothers in the film-making business (one does animation the other is a corporate film maker) ... I wonder if they would do a skills exchange and make me some videos?

While thinking, I was scanning the web of course and discovered that someone has already put up a book trailer website! BookScreening.com goes by the catchline 'Know what to read next'. Check out this rather fabulous video for Neil Gaiman's The Graveyard Book, voiced by the author:

The Graveyard Book Trailer Narrated by Neil Gaiman from The Graveyard Book Tour on Vimeo.

While you're browsing the site, here's a geeky thing to notice - the videos from the video-sharing site Vimeo are much better quality than YouTube.

The Overnight Fame of Steffi McBride and Us Too

The Overnight Fame of Steffi McBride Youtube book trailer

I was going to focus today. FOCUS!

But when I heard about the Steffi McBride book, all the little bits of blogging material that I've been trying to ignore in the name of writing my novel came rushing to the fore - so important to share this, especially in the current downturn. So I've got to just quickly tell you about Steffi McBride and all the other stuff that might be meaningful to the Rise and Fall of Us as writers.

I heard about Steffi McBride in today's Guardian RSS feed which highlighted Andrew Croft's new novel The Overnight Fame of Steffi Mcbride - or more precisely, how the author is using Web 2.0 to the hilt to promote the novel:

But what, arguably, makes Steffi more interesting than your average airhead celeb is that she's the figment of an author's imagination and these tantalising - or annoying - insights into her star-studded existence come courtesy of her updates on Twitter, the social media "microblogging" site, and her Facebook page. Read the article

The book trailer is appealing (a bit long but quite appealing - makes authors want to rush out to the nearest drama school in search of cheap but capable talent to star in their book trailers). And suddenly all that wasted time in Facebook turns out to be an investment in my future success as a writer ... I'm off to friend Steffi now (for the record, her friend count is only 33 at the moment, will be interesting to check back in a few weeks). It will also be interesting to see what FB does to the page. FB took down the FB page of Vern, Sarah Macintyre's wonderful comic creation for the DFC comics, on the basis that Vern was not human.

The article appears on the heels of a series of guest blogs on book marketing running on the agent Nathan Bransford's blog . Bestselling author Michelle Moran (Nefertiti) blogged in two parts. The first part was about the nitty gritty of the business, the lingo, the marketing department, the publicity department ...

So you’re a few months away from publishing your debut novel. Your publishing house has suggested that you pitch in to help promote your own work, but you don’t have the first clue as to where you should start. Or perhaps you’ve already published your first book without doing any of your own publicity and marketing and now the hard realization has hit that this time around, without a significant change on your part, your career is going to end as quickly as it began. Now you’re willing to try something – anything. But what works? What doesn’t work? What should you be doing? Michelle Moran on Book Marketing Part 1

Michelle's second blog was about blogging, websites, online reviewers ...

... don’t be afraid to try new ways of publicity and marketing, even if you’ve never heard of anyone else doing it before. This is what a great publicist will do for you, and what you want to do for yourself. There are so many ways of promoting a book that aren’t widely used, and many of them are free. Michelle Moran on Book Marketing Part 2

And finally, the guest blogger on Nathan's blog today is M.J. Rose (The Reincarnationist), who shares this lovely kernel:

Not even the most brilliant pr and marketing can sell a book people just do not want to read. M.J. Rose on Book Marketing

Having gotten that off my chest, I can now go back to work. Enjoy, everyone.

Tripping the Blight Unfantastic

This is Carol Burnett as Scarlet O'Hara, in the scene where
Scarlet too proud to be poor makes a dress out of curtains. Except this Scarlet O'Hara leaves in the curtain pole.

This unfantastic economic Downturn has everyone speculating about the future.

The Media Guardian actually wondered if there was a silver lining for TV.

Sipping champagne, more than one TV executive said that when the economy goes down the pan, people turn to home entertainment to cheer themselves up.

"Depression time is a good time for entertainment programming," says Rob Clark, vice-president of worldwide entertainment and production for FremantleMedia, home of The X Factor and Britain's Got Talent. "People don't want to go home and be clobbered with dreary stuff." Read more

Apparently rental firm Lovefilm had a 40 percent jump in business since the credit crunch began.

Hey, does that mean people will be READING more as well?

Well, not quite so, based on according to this report on the ongoing Frankfurt Book Fair:

Looking at the numbers, the answer is yes, it already has been. There are fewer exhibitors here than there were last year (7,373 compared to 7,448), and a recent survey of 90 German publishers shows that business was down 3% in Germany over the first nine months of the year.

However, like their TV counterparts, there is much optimism amongst publishers:

But publishers here are resolutely optimistic about the fate of books in a recession - one agent said that "books are good in the good times, and great in the bad times". In the words of Richard Charkin, former Macmillan chief, now Bloomsbury executive director, "banks may crash, derivatives flounder, hedge funds wither, dotcoms rise and fall but somehow or other writers, publishers, booksellers, literary agents, publishing consultants and old bookish friends always manage to congregate for the autumnal bunfight known by the single word, Frankfurt".

It's a good time to remind ourselves WHY we are in this business. It's because we like to write, not because we like money. As Justine Larbalestier (Magic or Madness) blogged today:

I keep coming across wannabe writers who believe that writing is an easy way to make heaps of money. Nope.¹ Your odds of being paid good money to write novels year after year are vanishingly small. Most published writers aren’t.

I cannot emphasise this enough: If you don’t love writing don’t try to get published. (emphasis mine!) Read more

And speaking of calamity, disaster and poverty, Julie Bertagna (Exodus, Zenith) over on Facebook posted this link about great children's books about financial ruin!