BOOK SIGNINGS: UTILITY OR VANITY

   In a prior life I used to manage local music talent, mostly helping teen garage bands make the transition into actual performance venues and the like. It was not uncommon, unfortunately, to schedule an opening act and a headline act for a venue and, no matter how much advertising is done - print, social, marquee, etc. - the bands are the only ones to show up, some stragglers aside. The headliners would sit and watch the opening act perform, and then they'd trade places on the stage and the openers would watch the headliners perform. I used to call nights like that, none too politely, Incest-a-poloozas. Maybe we could say it was good performance practice, but let's agree that's just putting lipstick on a pig.

   Sometimes an author's book signing can feel like that - the number of friends and fellow writers that show up can be counted on one hand, and the rest of the time you're left smiling at passers-by, attempting to look friendly and approachable, and just generally looking like a doofus!

   So why do we do book signings? It certainly isn't for the one book or two we might sell at every third appearance, which is a distinct kind of thrill, more like a drop of water on a dying man's tongue, great for what it is, but hardly life-saving. Is it vanity? Is it just to see our name on the chalk-board-sandwich-board set on the sidewalk outside the store? Does it make us feel somehow like real writers to sit idly behind a banner touting our latest release, sorting the three pens we brought with us, rearranging the books from one pattern to another? If we don't sign a single book, or even sell one or two, is there really any utility at all in working so hard to schedule book signings for ourselves?

   There are self-promotion superstars, personal-marketing gods who will tell you to pick creative, out-of-the-box venues for your signings; promote your appearances with contests and giveaways; don't wait for customers to come to your table but go out and engage them; etc. But the secret little truth is these people are making more off the money you pay for their advice than they are from putting their own advice into practice.

   So do appearances and signings have any utility at all? Or is it all just a single tear into the ocean?

   The answer is in how you, yourself, shop for books. I'm betting the vast majority of you out there are like me. How many of you have walked by the lady offering samples at the grocery store, maybe you take a sample, maybe you don't, but you don't take one of the boxes or packages she has stacked around her for sale. Then, later, on another aisle, you see the product, the very one she was pushing, and you take your purchase from here? No one likes to be sold stuff, even if later they decide it sounded pretty good after all.

   Like me, you are reluctant to pick up a book written by someone you've never heard of before. You almost always buy books by author's you already know, or someone whose opinion you respect has recommended. Name recognition is the key. Getting your name out there so often and so much that people begin to recognize it, even if they don't know where from. So much that one day they pick up your book, recognize your name and think, "I've heard a lot about this guy/gal before, so he/she must be good." And they buy your book!

   Book signings - indeed all self promotion - is all about name recognition, putting your name on the lips of customers, or in the backs of their minds like a seed to take root and bear fruit at a later time. So, book signings: vanity? Maybe. Sure. Okay, a little bit, yeah. But utility! Very much so!

OPEN LETTER TO A BOOKSELLER

    In today's post I'd like to reprint an email I sent to a local independent bookseller in response to their email detailing their outrageous policy for hosting book signings for local authors. This is not, of course, any representation of independent booksellers as a whole. In general these are some of the warmest, friendliest people with the biggest hearts that has ever been my privilege to know. But I do think the last paragraph of my letter to this particular bookseller says it all.

"Dear M. Bookseller,

    "Thanks for your courteous and professional email. Unfortunately it appears I will not be able to do a book signing at your store after all. Let me explain why.

    "Your requirements are, to be brief: a reasonable expectation of 40-50 attendees; at least 20 sales at the event to consider it successful; a $200 co-op fee; a 40% discount on at least 50 books; and a $5 voucher fee from each attendee. I am surprised if, under these strictures, you are scheduling any such events at all at your store.

    "For anyone to be willing to buy a $5 voucher to attend such an event, they would already have some certainty of buying the book, in which case they most likely have bought the book already, given all the more convenient options than attending a booksigning at a store to do so.

    "If I do not have a reasonable expectation of drawing 40-50 people to a signing event you will not host it. On the other hand, if I already had a reasonable expectation of 40-50 such people in any one community attending such an event my sales would already be strong enough in the community not to warrant the 40% discount, $200 co-op fee, and $5 vouchers to do such a promotion. I would simply choose another, more writer-friendly venue. I am scheduling book signings to attract new readers for my books, not to simply glad-hand the readers I already have, grateful as I am for them.

    "The margin of markup for all of the participants involved in publishing a book - writer, publisher, printer, distributor, retailer, etc. - is already narrow, and you are asking me or my publisher to remit a $200 co-op fee for an event only considered successful if it sells 20 books, which comes to $10 per book if that many are sold, more than that if fewer books are sold, when books in general are priced between $12 and $20 retail. Then, additionally, you want a 40% discount on 50 books provided for the event, and the right to return unsold books.

    "In short, you will only host a book-signing event at guaranteed revenue for yourself, 0 risk, while beggaring every other participant along the supply chain who also has fair expectation of making a profit on the enterprise.

    "Finally, I was not even asking for a formal signing event, with reading and discussion and Q&A. I was only asking to set up a table somewhere in your store to sign books purchased by your customers. Such an arrangement requires minimal but equal effort on both our parts (you have an employee set up a table, I carry boxes of my books in from my car) and $0 in cost to each of us, since the retail space my table would take up in your store is presumably empty at the moment anyway. As to promotion, we each do promotion on our own parts utilizing our own resources to benefit the enterprise collectively.

    "Respectfully, in today's anemic print-book-selling climate I feel it is the responsibility of all of us in the industry, especially us independents (publishers and booksellers) to work in unity to promote reading and the enjoyment of the written word, not to further the demise of reading as an entertainment form by seeking to exploit each other out of all possible profit.

    "It pains me that we cannot help promote each other in that spirit of cooperation.

"Sincerest best wishes,
"Kevin Paul Tracy"

DIY PROMOTION...OR "SELLING OUT"

Artistic purists aside, the vast majority of we troubadours tell our stories in the hopes that someone will hear them. We write them in hopes that someone, preferably many someones, will read and enjoy them. These days audiences rarely come on their own to gather at the campfire and listen to us weave our tales. Add to that the white noise of thousands of other writers out there competing for the same readers and the need to stand out and be noticed becomes readily apparent.

But of any job ever, sales is the single hardest. Ever looms the question of how to get someone's attention and, once gained, instill in them a desire to take your story home and read it. Setting aside the equally impossible task of packaging (cover design,) how do we promote our books in a way that will garner the greatest audience. Even if you've been published by a big New York house with an advertising budget and scheduled book-signings and the like, is it wise to merely sit back and let someone else promote your book and do nothing on your own to contribute? And of course if you're independently published (self-published) then you have no choice - promoting your book is absolutely essential - there's no one else to do it for you.

Let's first ask the question - what are you selling? Are you selling a single book? Even a series, or a collection of books? Well, not really. You are actually selling yourself. Marketing surveys have proven that readers are more likely to buy a book if they like the writer. Not just the way she writes, not just the stories he tells, but her look, or his perceived personal impression. Why do publishers often like to put a head-shot of the author on the inside-cover of a book? It is a way of saying, "See my smile? See this cozy, eclectic library-like setting in which I'm sitting? See, I'm a nice guy! Buy my book, it's like me: friendly and personable!"

So when marketing your book you aren't selling the book so much as selling yourself. And that means, as time consuming and uncomfortable as it may be for us reclusive writers, you must put as much of yourself out there as possible. The book is important, too, and don't forget to put it forward, but it is almost of secondary importance to promoting yourself.

PERSONAL APPEARANCES

Does that mean personal appearances and book signings? Yes, but there is only one of you, and that you can only be one place at a time, or cover so much ground on any given week. So the trick is to maximize your appearances to reach the audience you want. Book stores are great for reaching readers, and don't neglect them. But book stores appeal to the broadest possible audience of readers - some could be there to buy a fantasy, some horror, some romance, others may be there to buy an English-Tagalog dictionary! In point of fact the percentage of readers there who might be interested in just what you've written is no greater than any other venue.

So where else can you go? Well, think creatively. One of my colleagues (I hope she doesn't mind me mentioning her name) Jeanne Stein, who writes the Anna Strong series of vampire novels, went straight to comic and science fiction conventions. Here were fans of a range of genres in which hers - vampires - were not only part but quite hot, and while many of them might prefer to watch films or TV instead of reading, there were still bound to be many readers there as well.

Another friend, John Turley, does speaking engagements to groups of oil and gas professionals around the country to promote his book, A Simple Truth, about the BP oil blowout in the Gulf of Mexico. "Because my research is important to understanding the multi-billion-dollar tragedy," says John, "I've traveled extensively and made dozens of by-invitation guest-speaker and keynote presentations to universities, professional societies, major oil-&-gas companies, federal research entities, and civic groups, including a wonderful evening with The Sierra Club in Lafayette, Louisiana." And how does he land these gigs? "I have to be proactive, 24/7, and knock loud with letters and phone calls, and be prepared to defend my credibility, which combines my first career as a professor and an offshore drilling expert, with my second career as a writer...along with stand-up public-speaking skills "

You can read more about John and his book at www.JohnTurleyWriter.com.

The point is, try to be creative about where you go to personally promote your books. Put some thought into where your target audience is liable to congregate, and work to get into those venues.

GOD BLESS THE INTERNET

Of course every writer puts up a website, or maintains a blog (short for "Web Log," a sort of online journal...you're reading one right now) or both. But too many call that done and then sit back and wait for the web-hits to come rolling in. Those same writers soon wonder why they don't.

The Internet is a godsend when it comes to interpersonal communication, especially when advertising a product or service. You can reach a vast number of people with much less effort or expense than was once needed. But in many ways putting up a website or a blog can actually double or triple your work. It isn't enough to simply put up a website - you must then drive traffic to your website, and that means promoting it. Suddenly now you are not only trying to promote your book and yourself, now you have a website and/or a blog to promote as well!

That's not to say that a website/blog isn't a great idea - it is - but that alone isn't enough.

One of your strongest tools in sales is word-of-mouth, a chain of customers who, having read and enjoyed your book and recommend it, verbally, to others. Imagine if one reader told five friends, and each of those five told five friends, etc. You can see how quickly the word of your book can spread to vast numbers of people very quickly.

And one of the greatest tools for getting that word of mouth chain going is...

SOCIAL MEDIA

We've all heard the term. But what is social media, really?

Social media sites are websites at which Internet users congregate to interact. In most cases they not only swap information about themselves and others, they can share photos, video clips, links to things they like, etc.I'm sure you've seen and even joined in at sites such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, etc. And there are many others not so widely known.

Here you can place a promotion for your book for your friends to see, and hope that they will share the link to your ad with others. Be careful not to "spam" your friends with ads that make them want to block you. But there are more subtle ways to keep your ad ever present in their minds.

Promoting a contest in which those who see the ad must answer a trivia question, preferably something related to your story, to win something desirable, such as movie tickets or amusement park tickets. Of course a free copy of your book comes with the prize. This will drive traffic to your website, where people will have the chance to browse your other content, learn more about you and the books you've written.

A friend and ebook publisher, Terry Wright (www.TWBPress.com) produces short trailers for the books and short stories he publishes and disseminates them to sites like YouTube. They are often simple, but very effective in driving traffic to his website, where a great number of publications await to dazzle fans of online reading.

In conclusion, the trick to promoting your book is promoting yourself. And the trick to doing that is to be proactive, imaginative, and persistent.