Tag: book marketing

What do you Want from Writing? — Quick Note

I’ve been reading Jeff VanderMeer’s Booklife, and I was struck by one of his anecdotes. He had secured a limited edition 500-book print run of a novelette with a small press. To promote the release, he arranged an interview with Wired.com, and a quick blurb on BoingBoing.com. To get these, he worked with the publisher to provide a link to a free download of the same story in PDF—a link that would eventually be clicked 20,000 times.

VanderMeer’s description of the back-and-forth of promoting his story wasn’t what surprised me, it was my own reaction to it. My first thought was that it was a bit of a waste. Surely some of those people downloading the story would have bought a physical copy, right?

He was pleased with this result, at least partly because it led to other opportunities down the road. But I had to interrogate my own reaction. Why did the free download strike me, at least initially, as a bad idea?

The answer, of course, has to do with money. My thought was that this is a fairly successful professional author. Why give work away? The actual answer is complex: the high number of downloads led to later opportunities, the promotion helped sell out the print run, and the market for novelette-length work is very limited (and was even more so ten or fifteen years ago when this occurred.) However, my own reaction made me wonder if I’ve become overly-fixated on getting paid as a measure of the value of writing.

Like many amateur authors, I’ve spent years wondering what it would take to be able to write as a full-time job. Writing is a competitive field, and on the whole, not well-paid. It’s no surprise that so many of us become laser focused on seeking any opportunities we can find. But is that really why we’re writing? Does getting paid do us any good if it becomes the reason to write?

I realize these are not new questions. Artists have always struggled to find balance between art and commerce, and that isn’t getting any easier in a world hell-bent on commodifying art into “content.”

It’s good to sit down every once in a while and think about priorities. Is it better to be paid, or be more widely-read? Is it better to be published, or to improve your craft? Better to write in the format that has a market and a readership, or in the format that interests you? Are you motivated by making the stories you love, or the ones someone else wants to read?

In short, what do you want from your writing?

Reblog: Get the Big Things Right — Nathan Bransford

Today’s reblog comes from Nathan Bransford, who has worked as an agent, author, and now freelance editor and consultant. He knows that there is a lot of side-work that comes with publishing—from query letters and synopses to promotion and marketing. It’s easy to get overwhelmed by all the things that come with writing, but aren’t actually writing.

He gives us a reasonably-sized list of things to focus on when writing and selling a book:

Particularly in this day and age when so many authors are lost in the weeds of Amazon algorithms and marketing strategies and social media and querying etiquette, it’s shocking to me how many people forget this: it all starts by writing a book that people want to read.

And not just want to read: writing a book that makes other people press it into other people’s hands so they’ll read it too.

That’s it. That’s by far (BY FAR) the most important thing.

Unfortunately, it’s also really, really, really hard to do, which is why it’s tempting to focus on things that are easier and feel more in your control.

Read the rest over at Nathan Bransford’s Blog…