A Publisher's Conversation with Authors: How Book Tortoises Cross the Finish Line
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 slow-selling books. Books that look like tortoises. They do not take off upon release. In some cases, you could say that they fail to launch. Generally, in my experience, tortoise books fall into two categories: late discoveries and slow crawlers.
Late discoveries are books that sell few, if any books, at launch. Even some years later, they are not selling in any quantity. Authors are likely to move on at this point, defeated. If they persevere, however, sometimes little miracles happen over time.
- Our bestselling book of all time, laid low, napping, for TEN years; then it was discovered by an Influencer and overnight began selling 30 copies a day, which is a substantial amount for a small press. After some months, the Influencer moved on to other topics, but the book had already gained good grounding, and it continues to sell hundreds of copies.
- Another book, the first to introduce a European psychological theory into the US publishing market, laid low for nearly eight years. Then, the field caught up with the topic, and the book, considered the seminal work in the field, took off. Not zooming, given the niche market, but healthy sales every single week.
- A third book, another niche market book related to travel, started out as a slow crawler but came to a dead stop when the pandemic hit. After the pandemic, apparently more people had started traveling and the book had already acquired a fan base. It, too, sells some amount of books nearly every day.
The other category of book, the slow crawlers, are like that travel book, but they never get a late discover or new jump start. They just keep on crawling. They may sell only a book a day or a book a week, but those days and weeks add up. By the end of the year, their royalties are higher than the rabbits that lept high after launch but ran out of steam much long after that. These slow crawlers are the bread-and-butter of the small publisher.
- One of our authors has produced a series of three books; they are all slow crawlers. They sell in small quantities but some amount every week. It adds up to several hundred a year, enough to keep that author plugging along.
- We have another book, in a very general category (sometimes, the competition there is extremely high), but the author has continued every day to expand her platform. That has contributed to continuing and slowly increasing book sales. More important for her, it has opened up a lot of consulting opportunities for her.
- We have some seasonal books that are slow crawlers mainly because they are seasonal; who wants to buy a book on summer vacation in January? However, advertising, promotion, marketing, and platform strengthening need to occur year-round if these books are to surge in the pertinent seasons and make up for lost territory during other seasons.
Bottom line: Slow sales are not the end of the world. If they keep coming and coming, they do add up and sometimes surpass other books.
Lesson for today's Tuesday talk: If your book is a slow crawler, keep crawling. Do something every week to promote your book and build your platform. Tortoises, after all, win those races!
See more Publisher Conversations with authors HERE.
Learn more about publishing from an acquisitions editor -- how to get your book proposal accepted, why proposals are turned down/accepted, and how to find the right publisher for your book. On special sale for $5 while inventory lasts at MSI Press webstore.
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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