Does a new publishing book marketing model really exist or is it still a work in progress? During the past decade all authors have gone through the frustrating efforts of trying to solicit a dialog with a publisher or agent. Notice I said dialog, never mind getting an actual deal or a sizable advance. Back in 2005 I went through the initial book marketing exercise briefly and found it perplexing, incredibly wasteful and somewhat amusing because of its inherent inefficiencies. As part of my first book marketing exercise I sent out ten inquiry letters to a few random agents and got only a few replies. In one case, I actually did get a formal rejection notice that I kept, as do most fledgling authors. I won’t mention the agent’s name because they at least had the courtesy of returning a rejection notice but their response was curious in that the agent claimed to be working with an author on a project of a similar nature. Yeah right, more likely the agent never bothered to read my synopsis in its entirety but this is my opportunity to vent my spleen about this naïve book marketing effort. Oh, yeah, where the hell is that novel they were working on anyway? DOA because of the publisher’s inept book marketing?
Slush piles and the like were the norm for this industry as editors failed to keep pace with submissions from wannabe authors. Michael Allen, who wrote the depressing “The Truth About Writing”, observed that there are many more lotto winners than there are financially successful authors. And as a form of mea culpa, authors are to blame also with advent of the word processor and Internet any blithering idiot can now string some words together and proclaim to be a writer. By the way I include myself among the league of blithering idiots but I will continue to work to improve my writing form. In any case I’m probably better at book marketing than I am being an author.
So what about the traditional publishing industry and book marketing? Is the end near and what of book marketing in the future? Well, I’ll tell you a little anecdotal story that might give you a little insight. I have a good friend who works for Doubleday and I met up with her at a friend’s party. She knew of my work and she gave me the name of a head honcho to forward my manuscript to. I dragged my feet for a few months frankly because I felt the manuscript wasn’t ready. Now keep in mind I have my other friend telling me to write another book and move on because nobody cares if you have written one book. However, this book is my obsession and getting it right is more of a priority to me than writing other stories. Anyway a couple of months pass and the word gets back to me that my friend is looking for a job because the entire Doubleday division was laid off! I didn’t know if I should laugh or cry and so much for my initial book marketing efforts.
So what the heck is going on? I’ll tell you since I am marketing type and I see this type of book marketing fail all the time. We call it convergence with new technology being disruptive and challenging the established traditional business models. Nothing is more traditional than the present publishing model but the Internet, ebooks, podcasting and blogging are changing the book marketing model in so many different ways. It happened to the computer industry and now it is happening to newspapers, television, music and other traditional educational/communication forms. Change is a bitch and it is up to us to separate the noise from the facts particularly when it comes to the challenges of book marketing.
More to follow in “The Sad Truth about Old School Book Advertising”
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