A Publisher's Conversation with Authors: Two Avenues to Successful Book Sales
It is Tuesday. Monday's madness is over, and Wednesday will take us over the hump, so Tuesday it is--for some serious discussion with authors. Tuesday talks mean to address authors in waiting and self-published authors who would like to go a more traditional route or who would at least like to take their steps with a publisher by their side.
Today's topic addresses two distinct and different paths to decent book sales. One is via author's reputation and the other through direct promotion and marketing efforts. The former has a choice of using the latter approach as well, but that does not work in reverse.
Authors with well-rcognized names definitely have a leg up in the book sales department for a number of reasons:
- Readers are pulled to read books by famous people; fame often comes from position in life (social class) or political power -- something about the lives and thoughts of successful people are attractive (well, I think we all know why).
- Writers who have achieved previous success fall into the same class of the famous and admired, and readers are more likely to pick up their works than those by an unknown author, regardless of the craft of the writer or the attractiveness of the cover.
- Although this generally means that authors can make less effort in marketing and promotion, leaving a lot of that to the publisher, who is likely to see a good return on investment, most famous folks who have written books do spend a fair amount of time initially on a book launch and other promotional activities.
Authors without name recognition have a very different, more trying, and much longer path to good sales, seeing that most do not have a built-in market. They end up working on promotion and marketing in a number of ways (not limited to the ones listed here):
- Some authors may have at least a small built-in market, particularly those associated with businesses in the field in which they are writing or who have an obvious niche.
- Book launches will need to be planned well in advance, with a realistic understanding of potential results and readership.
- Authors will need to have a strong platform -- the sooner one gets built (months or years before publication), the better; if later, then just expect fewer immediate results and keep building.
- Publishers will not be able to market your book effectively without your active and continuing involvement through the life of the book; when author support lags, so do sales, in spite of whatever advertising, publicity, promoting, and marketing that publishers can do.
- You might want to take on a publicist, in addition to any publicist on staff at the publisher since small publishers usually do not have one, and large publishers will need to split the publicity department's services among a great many authors.
Bottom line: Authors without name recognition (or niches) should expect to put in much energy and long-term activity in order to see good book sales.
Lesson for today's Tuesday talk: Treat your book like a business: effort and building brand (name recognistion) are generally the most successful paths to successful books.
Read more posts about publishing HERE.
The Tuesday talks reflect real discussions between the management of MSI Press LLC and our own authors or those would-be authors who come through our doors but don't make the cut--yet. If you have a topic that you would like addressed, leave the question in the comment section. Chances are, in our 18 years of publishing first-time and experiences authors, we have had a conversation with one of our authors that we can share with you.
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