Writing

How Did You Get Your Novel Published? (Part 2)

I’ve gotten a few requests to finish the story of how Infoquake got published, so I’m going to go ahead and finish that tale now.

When last we left our intrepid hero (i.e., me), I had spent several years working on my science fiction manuscript, carefully researched literary agents, and sent out about two dozen packages to all of the major players.

What was my original query letter like? I reproduce it here in its entirety:

Dear [Insert Agent Name Here],

Did a flashy marketing campaign persuade Lando Calrissian to buy the Millennium Falcon? Did the company that built the Star Trek transporters have a branding strategy? Did a military contractor sell arms to the Starship Troopers — and what kind of PowerPoint presentation did he use to sell them?

As a programmer and dot-com executive, I am often frustrated by the short shrift science fiction gives to the business world. Authors who go to great lengths to make their work conform to the laws of physics will completely ignore the laws of economics. This frustration was the impetus for my first novel INFOQUAKE, a literate techno-thriller in the tradition of Neal Stephenson’s Cryptonomicon.

The book’s hero Natch is an entrepreneur in bio/logics, the programming of the human body. He’s a crusader in a war being fought through product demos, press releases and sales pitches. His Holy Grail? The number one spot on the Primo’s bio/logic investment guide.

Now Natch is willing to do anything to get his hands on a radical technology that harnesses the computing power of the mind. But so is the competition in the rough-and-tumble world of bio/logic programming. So is the ruthless Defense and Wellness Council, which sees Natch’s technology as a grave threat to public order. And so is a shadowy organization that wants to bring humanity to its next phase of evolution — ready or not. Eventually Natch must ask himself the eternal question: how far should you go to make a profit?

A little about me: I have trained Members of Congress on computer software, programmed websites for the U.S. Army, and run the marketing departments of biometric and e-commerce companies. My non-fiction has been published in the Washington Post, Baltimore Sun, Chicago Sun-Times, and Publishers Weekly. My fiction has been published in Urban Desires and Zeniada.

I would be happy to send you the complete manuscript (120,000 words) or its opening chapters, along with an outline of two proposed sequels in the INFOQUAKE trilogy. An SASE is enclosed for your convenience.

The world’s greatest cover letter? No. Good enough to get someone to crack open the manuscript? I certainly thought so. I used Andrew Zack’s example from Writer magazine as my model (Adobe Acrobat file, 89K), and I think I followed his example pretty closely. If you’ve read the final marketing copy that’s on the final book cover, you’ll see that a lot of that copy comes from this exact cover letter.

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Tips on Promoting Your Author Blog

Inspired by an e-mail from my friend Matt Jarpe yesterday afternoon, I decided to extend this promotional kick I’ve been on further and discuss author blog promotional tactics. I know there are approximately 2.6 zillion gajillion posts out there on effective blogging, so feel free to transfer that grain of salt you were serving with my recent blog posts about book promotion to this one. This is just what’s worked for me; your mileage may vary.

Website for 'Radio Freefall' by Matt Jarpe(Matt Jarpe, by the way, is the author of the upcoming Radio Freefall, due out this summer from Tor. Matt’s also a very smart guy with a very wry sense of humor, so his blog should make for interesting reading. I’ve gotten a chance to read about half of Radio Freefall, and it’s quite a delectable concoction. I told Matt it reads like something Philip K. Dick might have written if he’d roadied for Metallica, and it’s absolutely true, and I’m going to repeat it as often as possible in hopes that Tor will stick it prominently on the book jacket.)

(I should also disclose that Matt hired me to design and program his Radio Freefall website. Not that I’m lying when I say those good things about the book, but just thought you should know.)

Now on to some blog promotion tips:

1. Write about interesting things that relate to the subject of your book. Seems obvious, doesn’t it? If your novel is about Jewish Marxist werewolves in Bolivia, write about Judaism, Marxism, lycanthropy, and Bolivia. Review other books that relate to yours. That doesn’t mean you need to be straitjacketed by these topics, but make sure that anyone interested in these topics will have some pertinent reading material on your blog.

2. Give your posts straightforward, keyword-heavy titles. A lot of people will discover your blog randomly from Google searches, and you want to help that process. Irony is not your friend here; make your post titles simple, specific, and enticing. Remember that the person wading through search engine results doesn’t know anything about you or your book, and the title is just about the only thing that will lure them in to sample the merchandise. (Some people title all their blog posts with lyrics from pop songs. There’s a special demon waiting in Hell for these people, and he’s got a big, nasty, acid-drenched pitchfork.)

3. Make sure your blogging software is displaying your post titles the most efficient way possible. Some blogging platforms will give you lousy HTML titles by default. WordPress, for instance, will automatically give your pages titles like this: David Louis Edelman’s Very Groovy Blog » Tips on Promoting Your Blog. Which is fine, until you see that Google cuts off your title in search engine results so it looks like this: David Louis Edelman’s Very Groovy Blog » Tips on Promot. Front-load the titles of your blog pieces so the most interesting stuff comes first. Make sure HTML titles still make sense when you bookmark, save, or e-mail the page.

4. Promote your book, but don’t just promote. People understand that you’re trying to sell your book — but if you have nothing to say in your blog except pure promotion, people won’t pay attention. You gotta include the cake with the icing. I also find it useful to give your audience advance warning when you’re about to put on your promotional hat. “Hey, I’m gonna get all used car salesman on you now, so wocka wocka wocka! [does Fozzy Bear dance]”

5. Interact. I try to mix up the posts where I stand on my soapbox and megaphone my opinions to everyone with the posts where I’m soliciting feedback and initiating a discussion. Ask questions of your readers. And when they post comments, get in there and mix it up with ’em. When they post something that really adds to the discussion, thank them.

6. Link to others freely, and use Trackback or Pingback. Several people have asked me now if there’s some kind of etiquette for adding a link to someone else’s blog. I mean, you can’t just link to Bruce Sterling’s blog, can you? Actually, you can. And you want to link to other, more established blogs, for several reasons: a) it’s a helpful service to point your readers to other blogs that might interest them, b) other bloggers may notice that you’re linking to them, and thereby discover who you are, c) it gives your readers a taste for exactly what kind of person you are. As for Trackback/Pingback: it’s polite to notify someone you’re commenting on their blog piece. Oh, and it’s a nifty way to get a link back to your blog.

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Why You Bought That Book

After I posted a blog piece last week asking people Why Did You Buy That Book?, it turned into a nice little mini-meme. In addition to the discussions here and on my MySpace blog, there were also discussions on Jim Hines’ LiveJournal, Alma Alexander’s LiveJournal, John Joseph Adams’ blog and guinwhyte’s LiveJournal.

I know that there are scientists and pollsters vomiting blood when I say this, but based on the 40+ responses spread around these various locations, I’m ready to declare a winner.

Here’s how I kept score. I went through the comments one by one and gave one vote for each influencing factor. Multiple factors were allowed per book. So if a commenter said they purchased Book X because they had heard about it from a friend and liked the cover, I gave “friend recommendation” one vote and “cover/packaging” one vote. A lot of the comments were fairly nebulous, so I simply used my best judgment. (Mwuuah-ha-ha!)

  1. Familiarity with the author’s previous works (50 votes). Based on the evidence, this was the biggest factor by far. Science fiction and fantasy readers tend to be very loyal to the authors they like; or I suppose you could also characterize this as conservative. But once you’ve written a book or short story or even blog that’s knocked someone’s socks off, the bar for inspiring a purchase of your next book lowers considerably. That’s good news for already-published authors, and good news for those who tend to write series. On the other hand, it underscores the difficulty new authors have breaking in to the market.
  2. Recommendation by a friend or acquaintance (35 votes). Validation of the commonly held belief that word-of-mouth is what sells books. Get people to talk about your book, and you’ve got a leg up on the competition. Extra credit goes to MySpace user U is N as I is X who says, “I know a few people (over ten, but below twenty) that have bought your book as well as Mr. [Michael J.] Cavallaro’s book [Cybernetica] based upon me telling them about it and lending them a copy to preview.” Everyone, please whip out your checkbooks and send U is N as I is X twenty bucks immediately.
  3. Liked the cover and/or packaging (16 votes). In most cases, this seemed to be a secondary consideration or a reinforcing factor. Few people claimed to have picked up a book solely because they thought the cover was bitchin’; but many said that a bitchin’ cover helped convince them to buy a book that they already had a good feeling about.

After this, there were nearly identical scores of 7-8 votes each for:

  • read a glowing review of the book
  • impressed by the author’s blog and/or website
  • heard about the book from someone else’s website
  • spoke to the author in person or saw him/her at a public appearance (e.g. a con)
  • Amazon recommendations

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Why Did You Buy That Book?

One of the regular commenters on the DeepGenre blog I belong to, Jellyn Andrews, posted this in response to author Elaine Isaak‘s comment on some of her promotional methods:

Elaine, I wanted to let you know you’re doing something right. My father and I were at Albacon and attended your reading where you did the drawing for prizes. So now I’m on your mailing list and I recognize your name. I think it was your appeal to bloggers on the fliers you posted that initially caught my attention.

And my father also recognizes your name now, because when we were in Borders Express, he took note when he saw your books. You’d been in there and signed them. And one of the staff overheard us talking about it and joined in. I think he said he went to high school with you, so he liked to promote your work whenever he could.

We often hear in the book business that word of mouth is what sells books, and this comment is a prime indicator of that. In fact, this comment shows that a number of Elaine’s promotional efforts came together to help her out here: word of mouth, a convention reading, a mailing list, fliers, a book signing, and encouraging old friends/classmates to act as evangelists. (Of course, I’m unclear from this comment whether Jellyn or her father actually bought a book, but we’ll let that slide.)

Traditional marketers have a variety of tools they use to test the efficacy of their methods. If you’ve ever registered your DVD player with the manufacturer, you’ve given the manufacturer vital information about where you bought it, what influenced you to buy it, and what factors you took into consideration. Booksellers don’t have that option, because the incentive for the customer isn’t there; you’re very, very unlikely to encounter a defective book that needs returning or servicing. (Although remind me to tell you the story about the time I was trapped on a cruise to the Bahamas with a defective copy of Clive Barker’s Weaveworld that was missing 50 pages.)

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Contemplating My Next Laptop

As a nice, juicy little carrot to inspire me to finish writing “MultiReal,” I’ve decided that I’m going to finally buy a new laptop once I’m done. So the question is: which one?

How I Promoted My Book, Part 2

Since so many people seem to be interested in my blog entry on How I Promoted My Book, I thought I’d post a few more random thoughts and suggestions about book promotion here. Keep in mind that there’s no one set way of marketing anything, or we’d all be swilling down New Coke. This is especially true with the book publishing business, which certainly must rank as one of the most bizarre businesses in existence. … Read more

Whose Books Do You Buy in Hardcover?

I happened to look at the listing for Infoquake on Amazon the other day and see that there are 57 (update: actually only 19) used copies for sale there, going as low as $7.50 per. People sometimes ask if I “mind” them purchasing used copies of my book at a discount rather than paying the full $15 cover price for a brand-spanking-new copy. And my answer is always “no, buy the book anywhere you can … Read more

A Shout-Out to Johns Hopkins Alumni

While I was at WorldCon a few weeks ago, I was pleased to run into an acquaintance of mine from my days at Johns Hopkins. Edward Einhorn was there hanging out in the dealer’s room signing books just like me. Ed, I discovered, is the author of not one, but two books in the venerable Oz series: The Living House of Oz and Paradox in Oz. If you’ve got a soft spot for the Oz … Read more

From First to Final Draft: A Case Study

[Note: I generally try not to cross-post entries between this blog and the DeepGenre group blog I belong to. But in this case, I’m making an exception. Feel free to read and respond to this entry on DeepGenre instead.] This weekend, I did something that’s guaranteed to strike fear in the heart of even the most accomplished writer: I looked back through the old drafts of my novel. Every writer has a different method of … Read more