The power of advertising

…or not. iUniverse has a cooperative advertising program where you pay a certain amount of money to share an ad in a publication having wide circulation. When I asked them about the efficacy of the ads, they said they had no idea. So I thought I’d do a quick little study of my own. This is unscientific for all kinds of reasons, but it may provide an interesting glimpse into what your ad money might buy.

One of the companies providing co-op ads through iUniverse is The New York Review of Books. For $250, you can purchase advertising for your book, and it will appear in a single larger ad identified as promoting independently published books.

On March 29, I looked at their most recent and relevant ad, which had 13 titles in a single large display. Of course, independent books sell by various means, but the only information I had access to was the Amazon ranking, which only indicates their own sales relative to all other books they sell. They don’t divulge hard sales numbers.

Today, April 8, I looked at the rankings again.

Here is a summary:
—Six of the titles had no significant change in sales ranking.
—Two of the titles fell significantly (from 70,000 to 900,000 and from 500,000 to 1,000,000).
—Five improved significantly, the biggest change being from 1,800,000 to
80,000)

It will take more than this to know for sure, but this quick look suggests to me that authors should be careful about how they spend their ad dollars.

Some new articles

El Paso Magazine just published two of my articles in their April issue, so that has made my week! One article is about the Border Book Festival being held in Mesilla, NM on April 20-22. (Sadly, the magazine doesn't link to their content.) The accompanying photos were supplied to me by some of the participants, such as Sandra Cisneros. The other article is entitled Trekking to the Copper Canyon, and all the pictures are mine. I'm very pleased with how everything came out. This weekend I'm working on a short article on self-publishing for The SouthWest Sage, a publication of SouthWest Writers.

My WPF isn't for kids

One day, it was bound to happen. A lovely lady on the staff of a local retirement home had missed my reading of When Pigs Fly in their library yesterday, and she sent word to me that she'd like to buy a copy. Her friend's email passed along a request that I inscribe the copy "to Darian." So today I swung by with a copy for her, then asked her who Darian is. "My thirteen-year-old granddaughter," she said. I replied that this is an adult novel with some profanity and adult situations, and didn't think it was an appropriate gift. She completely agreed, and I lost the sale.

This has been a concern of mine, that some people might mistake WPF for a children's book. Even before its publication I wondered if there were a better title, but the one I chose seemed best to fit the story line.

Of course sales are important, but so is being remembered well.

An honor from iUniverse

Well, iUniverse just awarded When Pigs Fly its "Editor's Choice" designation, based on a couple of good reviews from Kirkus Discoveries and Midwest Book Review. The icon thingy on the right will start appearing on the back cover of
my books. Cool!

Spitting nails

Stand back whilst I spit virtual nails.

I’d wondered why several people had come up to me and said they’d visited Barnes & Noble to see me at a December book signing only to be told B&N didn’t know anything about it. The signing was elsewhere. I’d never realized until yesterday that the Sun-News entertainment writer had run an article about me and several other authors. I had personally delivered to the newspaper a copy of my news release (which didn’t mention the signing), my business card with contact info, and a complimentary copy of the book. So this morning I went the Sun-News website and paid $2.95 for the full article so I could post it on my own website. Here is the relevant portion of the
article:

Tis the season to get a book signed from a local author

S. Derrickson Moore Sun-News reporter LAS CRUCES — A signed first edition is a rare gift that can be easy to give ? [one of several declarative sentences ending with a question mark, but maybe that's only in the online version.]

[snip]

Just out is "When Pigs Fly" by new Las Crucen Bob Sanchez, (iUniverse, paper, $18.95) a recently retired technical writer who also writes short stories, book review [should be plural] and magazine articles.

He chronicles the adventures of retired Massachusetts policeman Mack Dugan [NO! It's DURGIN! That's right on first line of the back cover!], who is asked to scatter his friend's ashes over the Grand Canyon. In his quest to fulfill his friend's request, he encounters colorful characters that include "a pair of loony housebreakers, a bald Elvis impersonator and a dopehead with an outline of his brain tattooed on his skull."

A winning lottery ticket and a javelina are also involved.

Critic David Daniel calls the book "part road trip, part crime caper, part love story? 'When Pigs Fly' reads like it was written with an ice pick, and he drives it right into the heart of the American dream of the Golden Years."

He [No! Misplaced pronoun. It should say Sanchez.] will sign books at 7 p.m.
Wednesday at Barnes & Noble at the Mesilla Valley Mall [NO! I never told her this. It was held at the library].

**Then in a sidebar she repeats the incorrect location and gives my website instead of my email address as a source of more information—and she gets my website URL wrong.**

Shoddy work. Just shoddy work. Grr.

Internet Writing Workshop

So I don't post for a month, and nobody notices? What's up with that? Well, never mind. No offense taken. Meanwhile, may I commend you to the Internet Writing Workshop, a superb online venue where writers critique each others' work in a safe and friendly environment. They have a variety of mailing lists where you can submit your work for critique. It's open to writers of all skill levels, and it's quite well run by dedicated volunteers. No flamers allowed.

A public reading

Last night was my first public event, a book reading and signing at the Branigan Library in Las Cruces. In addition to Mike from Coas Bookstore, there were nine folks in the audience, and they bought five copies of my book. It was great--I felt comfortable with a friendly audience, and they reacted quite well to chapter 1.

Check out Moni's Nook

My friend Moni from India asked me to send her remarks about When Pigs Fly so she could post them on her blog, Moni's Nook. She has interesting insights into life and writing, and you may enjoy checking them out.

An unexpected reader

I tend to be quiet among relatives and non-writing friends about my passion for writing. So when my former neighbors in Massachusetts heard that I'd published a novel, they seemed quite surprised. My wife's 101-year-old grandmother just called the other day, expressing delight and saying she intends to buy the book. We'll just send her a copy as a gift, my wife said. No, no, she said, she wants to buy it. Barbara and I have been acquainted for about 45 years, and she said she had no idea that I wrote fiction. If you write, you may know that squeamish feeling you get when you tell someone that you write novels but haven't been published yet. Oh, folks are nice about it, but no one ever seems surprised that I'm not fighting for bookstore shelf space with King and Grisham.

Barbara is a wonderful lady, a Holyoke College Phi Beta Kappa from the 1920s who recently told us she's surrounded by too many old people at her assisted living facility in Vermont. She is blind now, and one of her many friends will have to read the book aloud to her. This leaves me a little apprehensive; of course she has never heard me swear or utter anything inappropriate, so I hope my book doesn't shock her.

That is what happens when you put your work out for the world to see, though, isn't it?

Notes from a writer's conference, part 3

The final session of the Pitch, Publish and Promote conference covered promotion, and Jerry Simmons of WritersReaders gave a fine presentation. Jerry is not a writer, but has been in the publishing and promotion business for a lot of years.

Publishing is a business. Think of it that way, and you'll succeed as a writer.

Key concept: Sell-through. This is the ratio of books sold versus books shipped, so if the publisher ships 1000 copies to retailers and 400 copies are returned unsold, the sell-through is 60%. A minimum acceptable ratio is 60%; a lower rate is very bad.

If the publisher ships 500,000 copies of your book, that sounds fantastic. But if you sell only 200,000 copies, your book is a disaster. You are far better off as a writer if only 50,000 copies ship and 30,000 sell. It may sound counterintuitive, but the sell-through rate is critical. A 50% sell-through will doom a writer's future, no matter how many copies actually sell. What a writer should want is a low initial ship rate. It's much better if the book requires a second printing.

Writers need to know this type of thing, because many publishers will cynically screw over the writers. But if you can speak the language of the publishing business, they are much more likely to treat you with respect.

You need to separate yourself and your book from everything else being published.

90% of revenue is generated from 10% of the titles.

At least 500 titles are published daily.

Develop relationships with decision makers who can help you sell your book. It helps to know someone in the publishing business.

If you are a self-published author, you will be sure to get publishers' attention by selling a few thousand copies.

Publishers also want to be able to sell your earlier published titles--this is the back list.

Visit and observe what's in book stores.

Write on a schedule.

Use small focus groups to evaluate what works in your writing.

Ingram and Baker & Taylor are big jobbers, or distributors.

Writers should look at these independents for possible distribution:

• Powells
• Tattered Cover
• Page One

The market for audio books hasn't grown in 10 years, but the market still exists.

Best opportunities to focus:

• Tap into online sales.
• Specialty groups--organizations, groups, book clubs (Google this). This is bigger than the traditional marketplace. You might sell quantities of your book to an organization at a discount, and let them sell at list.

But don't neglect traditional bookstores.

Jerry Simmons has a free newsletter. See his website for this.

Ways to sell your book:

• Advertising
• Promotion--drawing attention to your book.
• Publicity--by far the most effective--any attention you can get for free. This can be about the author as well as about the book. Find some kind of newsworthy tie-in.

The five biggest weaknesses of publishers:

• They don't think outside the mainstream, so the specialty book market is growing at their expense.
• They don't gather information on who is buying their books. Writers should do this--know who is buying their books.
• They sell to the masses and miss the niche markets.
• They don't sell on the Internet, because they are afraid of alienating Amazon and Barnes and Noble. The Internet is the next big platform for writers.
• They tend to hit only the 30 biggest media markets.

Self-published authors should stay away from competition in the major markets.

An author should expect to make $0.60 or $0.70 profit from each sale of a book published by a NY publisher.

Publishers tend to dislike working with writers who write in multiple genres. If you do it, you should consider using a pen name.

Marketing success depends on persistence. 99.9% of authors don't know this stuff.

Notes from a writer's conference, part 2

Here are more of my notes from the Pitch, Publish and Promote conference. I've made no attempt to put these into a narrative, but I think they'll still convey worthwhile information.

The second part featured Bob Sanders, CEO of Mundania Press, which he co-founded to republish the works of Piers Anthony. They publish paranormal fiction. He says that to check the process, he has anonymously submitted work to his own company and been rejected.

It's critical for you as a writer to know your audience. What are their reading tastes? (Genre is a starting point.) What else does the market read? What kind of disposable income do they have? It's not enough to say your audience consists of adult males over 25.

A writer needs a business plan and a marketing plan. The business plan can be brief. Try to write it before finishing your novel.

A publisher looks for a reason to say no. The quickest way to get rejected at Mundania is to not follow submission guidelines.

You should have a critique partner, someone who knows the genre you're writing in.

Market like it's your last day on earth.

The publisher sells the book to book buyers.

The author has to market the book to the reading public.

Use Yahoo groups to set up a small focus group to test your work.

An author's business plan should encompass not just one book, but your writing career. Who will sell your books? Who is your fan base? What media will you use to reach them? What is your vision for your writing career? Answer the Who, What, Where, When, Why, How.

Set your expectations for a given time frame. How much time do you realistically have to write?
Think about why the audience should care about your books? Why should they enjoy them?

Your marketing plan deals with the individual books.

Set objectives--what do you want to accomplish? Three objectives you want to accomplish within a year, for example. Share this plan with friends and family.

Need to set measureable goals--describe the activity required, what will happen and when, and what is the expected financial impact.

An author needs visibility and mystique (referring to how the person appears to the public). Look the part for the type of author you are and the type of business personality that's appropriate for the kind of writing you do.

Where to find customers:

• Workshops/associations
• Newspapers/publishers/coalitions
• Referrals
• Internet/TV/radio
• Trade journals

Considerations in thinking about your potential customers:

• Age
• Gender
• Location
• Income/occupation/education
• Purchasing loyalty
• Hobbies
• Social class/lifestyle

Think about how you'll promote to the top three categories of readers.

A question he posed over and over: "Is the juice worth the squeeze?" Always consider whether any given effort is worth the expected result.

Make use of Google and Yahoo. Leverage your resources.

List the problems you're facing:

• What's the root cause?
• What needs to change?
• How will I measure results?

Hold online writing workshops, as does paranormal author Michele Bardsley.

Authors can coordinate group ads.

Find and develop a niche.

Planning

Plan on the specific actions you intend to accomplish, then do it. ("Plan the work, work the plan.") Say how you'll do something and why--specific tasks that will affect the bottom line.

Think about where your time and attention are going.

Regularly re-evaluate your plans. Treat your writing like a business.

Don't give the public too much information about yourself.

Mentioned: Fictionwise

Notes from a writer's conference, part 1

I just came back from the Pitch, Publish and Promote conference in Albuquerque, which lasted a day and a half and was organized by SouthWest Writers. Over the next few days, I will post some of my notes.

The pitching segment featured a talk by Katharine Sands, a New York literary agent who offered plenty of advice on how to approach agents. She tossed around lots of arcane-sounding terms such as "dysfiction," which I didn't find all that useful, so I didn't write them all down.

She distinguishes between a writer and an author; the latter is a published writer. Writing is solitary, while publishing is collaborative.

A manuscript does not become a book until it is published. Never refer to your manuscript as "complete."

When querying agents for non-fiction (I think she meant for fiction as well), don't just give the facts of your story. You should show your voice and provide a lens that lets us see into the book.

Don't pitch multiple ideas at once. Just one at a time.

A query is a one-page pitch. Nobody reads two pages. The query must "infotain," provide a spark, give the agent a memorable takeaway nugget.

In your query, lead with what is the most interesting. Don't waste your first paragraph.

Elevator pitch: about 25 words to grab the agent's attention.

Your pitchcraft becomes your jacket copy, your hook.

Agents are looking for voice, elements, alchemy.

Good news/bad news: The good news is that talent comes from everywhere, and agents are always on the lookout. The bad news is that the agents are flooded with queries.

Talk about your platform in your query letter, if warranted. If you are a recognized expert in the field you're writing about, for example, be sure to let the agent know. Also, tell how your other writing has been noticed, how you will get readers, or anything that makes your work interesting or different.

Agents do not log submissions. If you don't get a reply, sometimes you can get away with waiting a while and querying again.

Radio sells more books than television.

Categories of published books:
Front List: Books by the very top authors, whose work automatically stands out in the market place.
Mid List: Where most work ends up. This is a very wide range.
Back List: Books that are not ordinarily marketed in bookstores except under special circumstances. They might be specialty books, or they might be earlier books in a series. So if the latest Harry Potter book comes out, bookstores might also trot out all of Rowling's earlier titles to try selling those at the same time. Those earlier titles have been back listed.

Booksellers don't buy books. They take them on consignment.

Book buyers frequently get to retitle a book if they think the original title won't sell.

A good query might wind up becoming the catalog description.

As an author, you must be an impassioned ambassador for your work.

Generally okay to query multiple agents at once.

You can often find the names of literary agents on the acknowledgement pages of recently published books.

The Preditors & Editors website is a good place to learn what some of the shadier folks in the business may not want you to know.

My novel is published!

My comic novel, When Pigs Fly, is published and available through my website, iUniverse and Amazon. Exciting stuff! I noticed that Powells has it as well, but their price looks too high, three bucks over list. Also, B&N doesn't seem to have the title yet.

Meanwhile, my friend Bev tells me she just received her copy in the mail. That makes it seem more real.

Free bookmark

Here's a promotional bookmark I created, now that I know the price and page count of the book. If you would like to have a free bookmark, send me an email (bobsanchez1@comcast.net) with your name and address. I will gladly send you one, wherever you are in the world.

iUniverse ran into a couple of production delays recently, but they are working hard to get back on track. I'm still hoping for the book to be available by early December. We shall see.

A reflection on duct tape

The online pub Laughter Loaf just accepted my short piece, You Can't Be Too Careful, a reflection on the importance of duct tape. It's on their docket for May 15, 2007, so we'll all have to hold our collective breaths until then.

Ready? Take a deep breath and hold it...

Seriously, I'm pleased.

An endorsement

The other day, well-known author Leslie Meier (The Lucy Stone Mystery Series) offered this praise of When Pigs Fly:

"Bob Sanchez hits all the right notes in this zany comedy that will keep you turning the pages -- and laughing out loud!"

Thanks, Leslie!

Poetic lament

I entered a haiku contest sponsored by a Japanese organization, and months later received the sad news that they saw through my lack of poetic talent. Herewith my lament:

Rejected haiku
Seven hundred others won
Hara kiri looms.

The cover

My cover design came in today, and I'm quite pleased with it! Here is what it looks like. People do just books by their covers, and I think this one conveys a sense of humor without appearing to be a children's book.

The next step in the process is to review a proof, which I hope to get soon. I've already gone over the text time and again, so there shouldn't be (m)any typos.

Proofread your work!

I recently read a mystery published by a small press--let's keep names and titles out of this gripe. The writing was fine in many respects; the chapters were short, the pacing was excellent, the characters were sympathetic. The plot and dialogue worked well.

So why mention it? Because apparently no one proofread the manuscript. Wouldn't you think that if a novel is about a kidnapping, that someone would notice that there are supposed to be two p's in kidnapped? It's spelled wrong dozens of times, because no one thought to look up the word. Frequently the author is too close to catch these errors, but someone should catch them before the reader does. Running a spell-check program would have caught "kidnaped" or "kidnaping." Even the spell-checker is not sufficient, but it should be a writer's first line of defense.

Typos--at least typos in quantity--distract from my enjoyment of a book and from my appreciation of its author.

The cover in progress

This week, an iUniverse graphic artist is designing the cover for When Pigs Fly. My idea had been to show a silhouette of a pig or javelina flying over Arizona's Sonoran Desert at sunset. There are several children's books by the same name, so I stressed the importance of designing the cover to appeal to adults. They referred me to several stock photographs that they could work with.

I didn't much care for the pig they found, which looked vaguely creepy. So I found a more suitable one and superimposed it on the sunset. The graphic artist should be using something like the image on the right. They plan to use a Nueva font with a drop shadow for the title and my byline. This doesn't look like a children's book to my friends who've seen it, so that's a relief.