We're All Liars

April 13, 2008

I received an e-mail this morning from a young woman I had run into at a book talk last summer. She had a first novel, a tech-thriller, coming out in the fall, from Berkley, I believe.

She e-mailed me to ask my opinion on whether it was worthwhile to participate in a couple of book events I had participated in.

It seems her publisher is putting her at the #2 spot in their catalogue and going to promote her book.

What I most wanted to say was: You're asking ME? Hell, you're already further ahead in this game than I've ever been. You're being published by a major publisher. You're getting a mass market publication (no hardcover, but PBO), and your publisher is getting behind your book. Jesus Christ, go ask somebody who has a clue.

Okay, maybe I was a tad envious.

Instead I gave her my opinion on the two events and wished her well.

Here's the thing about all this advice I and so many writers give on our blogs. We're all liars, all frauds, all full of shit.

Nobody knows what works.

Because nothing works and everything works. Sometimes you can do everything--book signings, book tours, mailings, newsletters, website, MySpace, CrimeSpace, write an article for the Mystery Writers of America newsletter, be profiled in the International Thriller Writers Report, AuthorBuzz, conferences--and your book still won't sell. How do I know? Because I have and they didn't. Simple as that.

Or you can do nothing and it will.

Or it won't.

I recently interviewed a bestselling author of true crime books who has turned to writing fiction and asked him about promotion, and he paused and said, "Well, I've finally decided that the only thing that really works is co-op."

Co-op, in case you didn't know, is your publisher spending money to get your book onto the front tables at Borders and Barnes & Nobles, or on endcaps, to be featured prominently in the bookstore.

If you're in mass market paperback and your publisher pays for it, you'll be on that little table near the front of the store that features 20 or 30 newly released paperbacks; same in hardcover. Usually it's reserved for bestsellers or, just as likely, for books your publisher thinks shows promise. Or, they pay money to get your book on the shelves or next to the cash registers at Wal-Mart and KMart and Meijers and Sam's Clubs, because publishing's dirty little secret is that more books are sold through those outlets than through bookstores (especially Amazon, which sells a lot of books, but very few of any single author).

But there ain't nothin' you can do to convince them to do that. It's up to them.

[and a note about a potential backlash with co-op, also learned through first-hand experience: if your publisher pays co-op and the book doesn't do what they hoped, they won't pay co-op for the next book... with the expected results of even fewer sales; the publishing gods giveth (sometimes) and the publishing gods sure as hell taketh away].

So, did I leave you feeling all perky on this Monday morning? Let me repeat something I said above:

Here's the thing about all this advice I and so many writers give on our blogs. We're all liars, all frauds, all full of shit.

Nobody knows what works.

Cheers,

Mark Terry