Lucy

All I know is that I’m tiring of all the websites and weblogs and journals that purport to be entertaining and all about what fun the writer’s life is, but which turn out to be mostly a hard-sell shop for the book. I find that being told over and over about the book and how it’s doing and how you loved writing it and how I will love it does not typically make me want to go out and buy the book. Perhaps I am just a contrary old witch (there have been suggestions to this effect.) But what DOES make me go out and take a look at the book is if you’re interesting, you’re a good writer (as evidenced by your prose style on your journal), and you’re not always asking me to go buy the book. Perhaps the promotion does some good; perhaps it doesn’t do as much as we would like it to. So it goes.

(And I’m capitalizing “I” throughout this post; I suspect the stylesheet will lowercase it. Just noting for the record.)

I would have said I was arguing about language, not “semantics,” but as Philip K. Dick said in very different circumstances, here the possibility of recursiveness looms large.

Here’s the problem: Justine’s statement that “Promoting your books is part of a writer’s job” is a statement I have seen made by many writers in our field, and different speakers mean significantly different things by it.

Some of them mean “You may find that certain kinds of self-promotion are helpful.” Some of them mean “You may find that your publisher wants you to undertake certain promotional duties.” Some of them mean “You may be missing the boat if you don’t at least try certain kinds of self-promotion.” All of these are reasonable statements. But a non-zero percentage of respected writers in our field mean “I am comfortable engaging in a relatively high level of self-promotion, I regard it as part of my obligation as a writer, and if you differ from me in this you aren’t serious about being a writer.” That’s what some people mean when they tell you that X is “your job”: they mean “you had better do it or suffer (at the very least) a loss of respect.” And that’s what I was arguing against. I don’t think this was picky or unfair. So much is made by aspiring writers out of every public musing by successful writers–or by other publishing professionals!–that I think it’s reasonable for us to encourage one another to be more precise.

Maureen: Please! You’re much better known than I am!

I’m not asked to do all that much-the demands made on me are slight, as I am not as well-known as the other YA writers on this discussion. I’ve never had to change schedules to accomodate pr, aside from a day or two here and there. Also, I naturally embrace almost anything that can get me away from my desk. Give me an excuse to shirk my duties, and I will shake your hand. Besides, there are often snacks involved. And who amongst us is against snacks?

My response to the intital post was, yes, Justine is absolutely right–we have to play a role. I always end up wondering how I can go about this in a more organized way. It sounds like a very sound idea–but I end up staring blankly when considering how to actually go about it. But that is just me.

Jeff

One angle not raised: trying promoting your book when you live on an Indonesian island.

The Internet can only go so far.

Please continue it…

As per promoting, that’s my job. :0)

Diana: I believe we have a consensus.

AMEN!

Oh yes, very much so. Loved it!

I completely agree that it’s not black and white. Nothing is in publishing. I’ve also never said don’t do the promotional stuff. Just that a self-promotional blitzkrieg is not a silver bullet to success. Nor is anything else for that matter, but in general, based on my experience as an editor, agent and author, I would recommend putting more time and energy into writing than PR.

I also agree that if you’re good at promotional stuff (and not fooling yourself) it’s a very useful thing to do and can be a good change from the writing.

Sometimes I hate posts: I think we all basically agree but the serial nature of the conversation and various time lags confuse the issue.

To sum up: write the best book you can, find a good agent, choose the best possible publisher in the cirumstances, do as much promotion as seems sensible, be lucky and hope for the best. Repeat step 1 etc.

Fortunately, once I get on stage I’m usually OK, not least because I have a basic repertoire of talk/stories and I just do one of them, adding a new one every year or so to stop both myself and various publicists from being too bored.

I’m basically with Patrick on this, at least in essence. In the end, no matter how much schlepping around bookstores and events you do, no matter how many copies of your books your sign, and even no matter how many television or radio shows you apepar on, it all comes back to the book. If the book connects with readers and they like it and talk about it (that famous ‘word of mouth’) then nothing else matters.

Therefore, the single most important job an author has is to write the best possible book they can. (And I would say that at least the first five points in your list, Justine, are just a sub-set of ‘writing’.)

Borrowing from my earlier lost post, all the PR and appearance stuff is just icing on the cake. It will help attract people in the first instance, but if the cake is no good, then the icing just gets licked off and that’s it, and they won’t recommend the cake to anyone else.

I’m not saying it’s a waste of time for an author to do the publicity & marketing stuff, because it can be helpful as an acclerant to that word of mouth. (Obviously I do a certain amount myself.) Just that I agree with Patrick that it should not be at the expense of the real job of writing.

In the long term, I believe investing a much greater proportion of time in writing than in marketing will result in better books that deliver more personal satisfaction, will probably gain better critical attention, and may garner more life-time sales.

Hypocrisy Alert. I do believe what I’ve said above. But now I must return to writing . . I mean organising myself for my trip to the US in two weeks to blather on about my books at TLA, IRA, numerous schools and bookshops . . .

Niki: Yup, she’s much better off. It’s only fair I get the writing genes, since you have all the taking good photos, doing cool visual stuff genes.

Wow, Diana! Thanks so much for that. You hit on something with your distinction between how romance works as opposed to sff that I’ve been thinking about since Patrick posted above, which is that I think the Young Adult/children’s publishing scene is different from the adult sff world.

There are much more obvious ways to get yourself and your books known, because there are so many gatekeepers—mostly librarians—paying attention. I’m starting to lose count of how many best of the year lists my debut novel has been on. If my book had been sff it wouldn’t have been on all those lists, cause there aren’t that many, and there certainly aren’t as many that have the kind of impact that, say, the bbya list has.

Self promotion is a little bit more clear cut in YA/children’s land.

Jeff: Thanks for that. I confess I was very surprised by some of the initial responses, so it’s lovely to have the case restated so cogently. Bless you.

Patrick–I think you’re quibbling about semantics, to be honest. It’s the “writer’s job” bit that seems to have stuck in your craw. Maybe it’s not part of the core description of the writer’s job, but a writer would be a fool not to consider it, at least.

I think there’s also an assumption here that PR takes the place of creativity, of “output.” Not true. Anecdotal evidence here, like everything offered on this thread: I schedule PR bursts for times when I can’t write. Like, right now, I spent eight years on a novel. I need to recharge my batteries. No way would I be starting right in on another one anyway. So I feel no guilt and no qualms about putting most fiction writing aside for a few months and focusing on promoting the books I have coming out, instead.

Also, word of mouth is key, true. But saturation is also key–it’s part of getting word of mouth. Any publicist will tell you this. And a writer with some PR savvy can, through his or her contacts, most definitely help with saturation.

Anyway, this all seems to be a case of people seeing the discussion too much in black-and-white–and misinterpreting Justine’s initial post, where she specifically says the writing is paramount.

And, yeah–duh–you have to have a good book (usually) for the PR to make any difference.

Jeff

However, I also thought that “RWA-style categorical assertions” about printing up a billion emory boards/rubber duckies/pens/whirligigs with my name on them were basically a waste of my time. I’ve taken what I consider to be a very aggressive stance in the field of self-promotion, but I try not to do things that I think will eventually be a waste of my time.

I do not think that Justine was saying anything about what was or was not a writer’s main job. Of course it’s writing. And rewriting. And rewriting. And then editing. But even though she frames it as a response to PNH’s comments, I don’t think this post was directed at the really experienced industry folks out there. I think it was directed at the newbie writers or non-writing folks who are baffled when you tell them that you’re staying in all New Years/Valentine’s Day/Easter weekend to work on a book that you turned in last August. The ones that don’t get that copyediting isn’t just something that “happens” or that all writers aren’t Stephen King or Mary Higgins Clark and no, they can’t have a part “in the movie.” Yes, writing is the main job, but it’s not the only job, and I think a LOT of people go into it thinking that it is and then getting a rude awakening.

Also, I think that in romance, especially, you get this promote or perish attitude because it’s a volume business in the way no other genre is. Of course, the best way to promote is to be CONSTANTLY on that new release shelf. Sherrilyn Kenyon wrote a gazillion books a year. But if you haven’t got that kind of deal, if your publisher is spacing you out, if you haven’t tiered into a place where they are willing to put out everything you write, then you’ve got ONE chance a year to rise above the 953,702 other romances released that month. And you gotta do something.

Maybe it’s like TNH said above, that it helps us feel more in control. The illusion of control is a very powerful thing. Do I think the tchotkes help? Eh. Do I think that booksignings and readings are a good thing? I think it depends on the genre. I’m not sure that romance readings come off well. Maybe if it’s cross genre, Janet Evanovitch style romance. But though there may not be IMMEDIATE benefits to a signing where you sell five or six copies. you’re in that store, you’re making connections, you’ve now got a store where they are much more likely to hand sell you… that is, if you aren’t one of those people who PNH says will ruin your career if you attach a face and a personality to the name on the spine.

Of course, the romance writers I see who get the most out of signings and such are (aside from the superstars) the ones who are writing stuff MOST like SFF. Why? Because for some reason, those bring out the rabid fans. The urban fantasy romance writers and the paranormal romance writers and the whatnot are the ones who get the long lines of people at the booksignings, wearing vampire fangs and shaking in their boots and crying when they meet the author… there’s something so magical about that facet of SFF fandom

And we don’t have the convention system that the SFF world does — our conferences are for writers, not fans, and I get the idea (smack me if I’m wrong) that the science fiction conventions are more of a mix. There are plenty of writers who’d I’d call conference-famous — i.e., well known in the conference circuit, but not so much outside, and concentrate most of their promotional efforts on other writers. Sometimes this translates to a larger audience, but often not.

Though no matter what you do, it seems like the people that are most interested are other writers. I attend many reading events in the city when my fellow writers are touring and need butts in seats, and I’d say about 90% of the people who show up at these things (unless it’s the vamp fans, again) are writers looking for “the secret” to breaking in. The author is there to talk about the book, but the audience wants to talk about fonts and finding an agent. My blog hits shoot way up when I talk about the industry. Etc. Novel promotion is rough, which is why publicists are always looking for an angle. you don’t talk about your book, you talk about, say, plastic surgery innovations (scott). I think that might be another reason romance promotion is a tough gig, because it’s so personal. Often, there’s no overarching theme of nanotechnology or the downside to cloning or whatever that you can use to sneak in a mention of your book.

This summer, the Borders/Waldenbooks buyer for romance was telling a roomful of RWA members (in an effort, I think, to TNH-style tell us all to cut it out with the lapsed focus) that they only truly useful thing she’s seen authors do, promotion-wise, is have a good website.

Wow, that was epic, and a bit more romance-vs-SFF than I wanted it to be. What it all boils down to is this:

1. No one is arguing that writing isn’t the point, and that writing well and writing more isn’t the best thing you can do to promote yourself.

2. Self promotion is a FACT. Yes, it would be lovely to skip out on all that and just have seventy five books out a year, but sometimes that option is not made available to you. If you DO have just the one book, then you DO have to promote it or risk being forgotten or lost in the shuffle.

3. Self promotion is oftena big crapshoot. The results vary wildly and are often not readily apparent. Doesn’t mean it’s not better than doing nothing.

4. I’m up too late. (early?)