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[Reality Check] When Authors Don’t Try
Contributor
Written by
Zetta Brown
May 2012
Contributor
Written by
Zetta Brown
May 2012

No one ever said getting published and building an audience was easy.

Wait a minute...yes they have. There are lots of online gurus who say this all the time. Can’t write? No problem! Can’t tell the difference between an infinitive and a run-on sentence? Who cares! Readers don’t care if you can’t write. They just want to spend money on your book! It’s all about the big bucks and getting published!

Yeah. Whatever. I think it’s safe to say that those who follow this route quickly come to realize that 1) it does take more work and commitment than they present and 2) you DO need to put some time and care and effort in your writing if you expect to build an audience as a writer and be seen as credible as a writer. Not everyone who buys your work will leave a review, or if they do and they are all negative, that doesn’t inspire confidence in your work.

Did you read my post “What’s in a name? Your reputation”?

There are many publishers who invest the money and time to nurture new, talented, never-been-published-before authors. Our publishing houses publish new talent and will continue to do so. The “big dawgs” don’t care to gamble money on a newbie, unless that newbie has done all the ground work, built their own audience/market, and got some positive reviews. Then the major houses step in, offer a contract, and present the world with the latest “overnight success.”

Writing and creating your work is only half the picture (or half the book) with regard to the publishing industry. Publishing industry is a business regardless of whether your writing is your main source of income or not. Businesses must make money to survive. Period. If your work doesn’t sell, it’s not earning the publisher any money and you’re not getting a royalty payment.

REALITY CHECK #1: Authors cannot avoid self promotion if they really want people to buy their work. If you’re in a rush and just eager to get your name out simply to say that you’re a “published author,” I suggest you seek a vanity press.

REALITY CHECK #2: If your work doesn’t sell and you’re with a publishing house, then prepared to be dropped from your contract. If your book has poor or very poor (as in zero) sales, then don’t make yourself comfy at that house.

REALITY CHECK #3: No one is safe—unless you self publish. Authors get dropped from major houses for the same reason. Their books don’t sell or there are massive returns from bookstores and other retailers means the publisher is not making money, they are losing money.

We’ve had to let authors go, and I hate it. Not only because we’ve spent our own time and money getting their product to market, but because these are talented authors who deserve an audience. It’s a risk we take.

We’ve even had to release an author who won an award with the book we published. We even entered the contest for him! But this author, despite never being published before and winning an award for his first-time effort failed to promote himself or his work!

It’s not like we didn’t try. HE didn’t try.

After all the time you took to write your novel and get it accepted for publication,  can you squander the chance that others would love to have? That’s what this guy did.

Would you do this?

Here’s a tip from me: if you’re not ready to promote your work AND yourself, DO NOT SUBMIT YOUR WORK TO A PUBLISHER.

Waste your own time, not ours.

 

©2012. Zetta Brown is editor-in-chief for LL-Publications and Logical-Lust Publications. If you like this post, then stop by Zetta’s Desk or any of her other blogs.

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Comments
  • Zetta Brown

    Hey D.L.! What do you mean "you're not good at it?" Girl, I don't know what you're doing but whatever it is it's working. You're one of our best sellers. :)  But that's the bad thing about this business. I don't care what all the online gurus say, it's impossible to track each and every sale--unless you only sell print books and handle the transactions yourself. We try different things to promote ourselves and our work and *sometimes* you might be able to see a correlation in royalty reports. Personally speaking, I may see an upsurge in sales when I haven't done anything special. Weird.

  • D. L. King

    Good post, Zetta.  I'm not very good at it.  I do the best I can but never know what might be working and what isn't.  Considering royalty statements are from an historical period by the time they get to you, it's practically impossible to point to any one thing you tried as having worked.  I guess we just have to keep spending time, and sometimes money, slogging away at it.

  • Zetta Brown

    Hi Lynn, and thanks. I'm not trying to scaremonger or be negative, but I hope that the blogs I post help.

    Some writers are power promoters as well, but some of them have to be because profiting from their writing pays the bills.  Sometimes it's just a matter of practice. The more you do something, the easier it gets.

  • B. Lynn Goodwin

    I like your honesty and directness. I suppose some authors are better writers than promoters.

    Lynn

    www.writeradvice.com

    Author of You Want Me to Do WHAT? Journaling for Caregivers

    (available on Amazon--thanks for the opportunity to promote)

  • Zetta Brown

    Thanks, Katherine. Sunny has some excellent posts and gives valuable insights from experience. She's a wise woman. :)

  • This is a great post. For the last year or more, Sunny Fraiser has been saying the same thing. The Posse has taken it to heart and has worked hard to promote themselves and each other. If you're not ready to promote, then don't waste editors and publishers time.

  • Zetta Brown

    Thanks, everyone, for your comments! :)

    @Velda - I truly believe that with the constant changing of technology and people claiming this new outlet is the "best" over that one, there comes a point where it intimidates people to even BEGIN. I'm trying to be very selective how I go about it and build a presence/following in only a handful of places than try to jump on the latest bandwagon.

    @Marquita - I thought I was the only one who felt this way! Unfortunately, I don't know if there's really anything for it than to get use to being the center of attention. The way the Cult of Celebrity operates, I can see why just as many people shun the thought of being in such a position as there are those who dream of it.

    @Lauryn - until recently (I'd say perhaps 30 yrs ago) publishers DID spend a lot of money promoting their authors, etc. But the bottom has fallen out because of the way traditional publishers and most bookstores insist on doing business (e.g. unlimited credit and allowing returns). If traditional publishing actively incorporated and promoted more economically and eco-friendly business practices, they could probably afford to give their authors more assistance and benefits (royalty speaking) than they do now.

    @Nissi - LOL writing is like anything else worthwhile. You gotta keep doing it to see results. :) I'm no angel. I keep having to kick my own butt to write something. :)

  • Nissi Mutale

    Great post! I am at that stage where I am no longer phased by other people, it is my own laziness and lack of planning that slows me down.

  • Lauryn Doll

    This is an interesting post. I just wrote about this on my site from a pro-self-publishing perspective. I'm not a writer by what I suppose you could call "genuine passion." I kind of naturally progressed to this field. (I'm more nonfiction too.) I've questioned, what significance would a traditional publishing setup have if not to assist in promoting an author, especially when authors have to do just as much legwork with a book deal as they would on their own. 

    Overall, reading from your perspective is refreshing. It doesn't fully answer my question, but it does make sense from your point of view and I'm grateful to have read it. Food for thought, to say the least. I look forward to reading more of the posts here. 

  • Marquita Herald

    Yep, that self-promotion stuff is tough for some of us. As a class A Introvert I have no problem with the solitary life of writing - but when it comes to the marketing and promotion it's down right painful at times. One of my readers posted a lavish review of one of my books on Facebook last week and I was literally sick all afternoon from the anxiety of the attention it created. Crazy I know, but at least I'm aware and work'n on it. Thanks for the inspiration!

  • Velda Brotherton

    Good Post, Zetta. Hope all readers pay attention. I spent almost a year learning to promote online, and that learning never ends. Still run across a new outlet for promotion each week through links in email and from members of groups to which I belong. It's a never-ending process, this promoting of our work, and in today's publishing world every bit as important as the writing itself. Thanks for reminding all writers of this.

  • Zetta Brown

    @ Lorna and Timothy - I'm not going to lie. I was completely flummoxed when my first book came out because I realized I had NO CLUE what I needed to do to attract people to it. I had the cold sweats. I kid you not. It was a steep learning curve, and I'm still learning all the time.

    With the way technology and social networking keeps changing all the time, it's impossible to keep up, and frankly, that's the problem. You can't expect to stay on top of everything all the time, and if you try, you end up hurting yourself. 

    "Jack of all trades, master of none." Unfortunately, that's the state of things these days...Hey! That sounds like another blog post! :)

  • Lorna Collins

    Zetta,

    I don't understand how authors can think that their job ends when the finish the last page. It's just starting! Even with major publishers, authors today are required to market and promote in every way possible. Even the so-called gurus tell them that. Many smaller publishers now require a marketing plan from all their new authors - no exceptions.

    Thanks for telling it like it is. But then, I'd have expected no less from you!

  • Timothy Desmond

    Thanks for this on the author responsibility aspect of promotion. And, it's so true. In the business end of things, the sales are the last word. And since the '90s, the e-marketing has evolved, which has also effected changes in print marketing. I don't think any of this has settled down yet. But, any author ought to be out front in the promotions if one is lucky to be in print with a house financed product.

  • Zetta Brown

    @Kenya - the only way you'll wear out your welcome is if the ONLY thing you're doing is self promoting your work and your book. If you're in a community, remember it is a community...it's not all about you. LOL :) But you should feel free to self promo as much as you like on your own blog/website/fan page, etc.

    One thing I hate is if someone wants to "friend" me and I accept...and the next thing I know I'm on their promo mailing list. I don't mind the occasional promo plug, but don't spam me.

    If you want to share this post, just share it as you normally do. This post is open to the public. They don't have to join SheWrites unless they want to comment.

    @Unikorna - You are so correct. You must do your homework and check out a publisher to make sure they're a good fit. If you have questions, find out whom to contact and ask. You can avoid this if you self publish, but you still need to find those who can compile and distribute your work for sale, and you still need to make sure they're "right" for you and your needs.

    @Grace - Thanks! LL-Publications is not open for submissions but we do take queries. However, our publishing schedule is full for the next 12 months so anything we consider won't be on the horizon until 2013/14.

  • Grace Peterson

    Interesting article, Zetta. Thank you for sharing. Is LL Publications receiving queries or submissions? I went to the website but didn't see anything. 

  • Unikorna

    It takes a lot of determination and perseverance for an aspiring author to fight for publishing his book, and finding the right publisher may be even harder than writing the "right" book.

  • Kenya G. Johnson

    This is a great article. I didn't realize when I self-published my book that marketing was going to be the hard part. I have a hard time with wondering if I'm "wearing out my welcome" on social networks so I tend to back off of self-promoting. I wanted to share your article but I can't find it on your blog Zetta's desk. If I tweet or share on FB from here I didn't know if readers would have to sign up with She Writes in order to read it. 

  • Zetta Brown

    You're right, Joanne. People can go anywhere and read about or listen to authors who have "made it," but what you don't hear about--or what they don't dwell on--is the amount of hard work that came AFTER publication.

    Some authors brag about the number of rejections they got before finding a publisher who signed them, but if that author is later dropped because of low/no sales...do you think they'll say anything? If they do, can you guess who they will blame?

    Every publishing house is different and some have a huge staff and lots of money, but the truth is that many of us are hustling to stay alive. We don't have tons of cash lying around to promote every single title/author we publish.

    I don't have anything against people who self publish (except those who throw stuff together, call it a book, and then expose it to the world hoping to make a quick buck). Self-published authors can teach house authors a valuable lesson because their success--however they define it--or failure ALL comes from them. They don't have a publisher to blame. There are lousy publishing houses too, but it is STILL the AUTHOR'S book and they have a vested interest even AFTER publication. If they abandon it, they may be abandoned too. 

  • This is the side of the business that's a hard lesson learned for most writers. You (speaking for myself) grow into this feeling, the compulsion to write, you invest years in writing, and more years in finding an agent and/or publisher, and then think your job is done, and when you discover (usually by experience when you're already in the deep end) what's expected of you from the promotion and sales end (realize that it's not exactly where your natural talents lie and you don't have a plan). But like you said if you don't want to be dropped and if you want to find an audience (and it can feel overwhelming and you can feel a bit lost but) you've got to find ways to get over that reticence and get your work out there (with, hopefully, though not always guidance and support from the publisher). Oh Gad! is constantly forcing me to step out of my comfort zone even more than my previous books; but if it fails, it won't be because I didn't put in the effort.