Selling Books at Barnes and Noble

The first thing you do is find your table. It is by the door which is a good thing. You will be the first person someone sees when they walk in and walk out. Your books are piled up and displayed. Your sign is in place. The Community Relations Coordinator asks if you need anything. No you say. Water. No. Ok. She walks away and you pull out your bookmarks. These are your ammo. They have the name of your book and and the name of your forthcoming book. They are the giveaway. There is a chair behind the table. You won't use it.

You have seen those authors before. They are sitting in stores behind a table with their books piled high. People walk by the oprhan who stares into space. Some stop to ask the author if he or she knows where the bathroom is. Or do they know where they can find the next Harry Potter book. The forlorn author tells them in fact they are an author. People are not quite sure what to make of the them and they go back to being invisible.

In the year 2017 no author can afford to sit back unless you are a runaway bestseller and many are not. So that chair remains empty while you talk to every person who walks in and introduce yourself and your book. People actually like to talk to authors. They have chose a funky career path and that in itself is interesting. Four hours later you leave with your voice hoarse and your brain spent. You have sold seventeen books and handed  out fifty bookmarks. Not bad.

Madam President The Secret Presidency of Edith Wilson

The Best Way to Push a Book

There is no best way. There is every way. As a publisher said to me a long time ago you have to do everything now. And what everything is nobody can say. One thing is for sure you better get creative and always be thinking about the next thing. Online promotion is clearly the best ways authors can affect their sales. Going to bookstores will only get you so far if most of the bookstore don't have your book. In essence you are now the bookstore.

And that does mean social media. And that does mean paid promotions. And it does mean standing outside Kane County Cougar Stadium handing out baseball cards for your book. Something which I have done many times for The Pitcher. And going to every festival you can find and always carrying the card with your book on it because you never know who you might bump into.

And it means trying to network And it means doing libraries and schools and bookstores. It means doing radio and television if you can get it. And it means trying the weird stuff that is just emerging on the net. Who had ever heard of Fiverr six months ago?

So the best way to promote your book? Do everything then do everything else.

www.williamhazelgrove.com
The Pitcher

Googling into the Abyss or Book Marketing for Infants

In football there is a thing called broken field running. I used to do it in high school. Basically you run to the side of the field while everyone else is running the other way. You cut back against the grain. So on a sweep to the right with everyone flowing over to the right side you turn and go to the left and go against all that momentum. At the end of the year  2013 this to me seems an apt metaphor for how we should treat tech.

Google is a great thing. We in the book marketing world use it all the time as does everyone else. But there is a point of diminishing return where Google turns against us and the best thing to do is run the other way. We see this in someone who wants to find the very best deal and googles until their eyes fall out and misses the deal anyway. Versus the man who calls the friend at the car dealer who scores a better deal than the googler every could.

Why is this? Because the human factor still trumps the Google factor. Authors now pound the Internet looking for readers but in fact they are running where everyone else is going. So the portals they find are already bursting with authors pushing their books. Versus the author who picks up the phone and calls the editor who gets their book covered in a magazine that leads to a book signing that leads to a book club picking up the book. Or the person who visits the Independent bookstore who takes on their book and talks it up.

These things happen because we still live in a world of humans and most people now prefer the Internet as a means of interacting. It is safer  and more convenient and not embarrassing. But that is exactly why you should run against the grain and go to the opposite side of the field. Who knows. You might even score a touchdown.

www.williamhazelgrove.com
The Pitcher...sometimes a dream is all you have
 

I Will Do a Book Club Anytime and Anywhere

For authors a book club can not be beat. First of all you are in  a room of people who have read your book. Does it get any better than that? And they have all bought your book which is also amazing. And usually it is a group of ten people or more so that means a real nice spike in sales for you. I am always asked if I will speak at the book club...YOU BET. Why not if it is within a hundred miles I am there. It is the least I can do for people who have bought my books.

So then you go there and not only has everyone read your book there is usually dinner first and drinks. Bonus. So now you are being fed and having some glasses of wine or a drink and good conversation with people who want to talk about what you just wrote. Ok. So if there is an author heaven then it has to be a book club of about thirty people who just want to talk to you about what you do. Do any of us get this in this life?

And then the discussion begins. You get to listen to not only peoples view on your book but also far ranging discussions on theme and relevancy and what they liked and didn't like. It is mostly a stacked deck and pretty much everyone likes your book. And the booze continues and sometimes these things go pretty late and then you drive home feeling very good about being an author.

So I say it loud and clear. You want me to do your book club then email me. bhazelgrove@gmail.com
I'll be there with bells on.

www.williamhazelgrove.com
The Pitcher

Why Do Anything?

It comes like that. It numbs out your head and you are paralyzed. A fog really before the world and you sit in your car or in front of your computer or at your desk and the enormity of the task hits you. And it comes just like that. Why do anything? Maybe it is better to go back to bed because it all seems so hard. Writers know what I am talking about. Entrepreneurs  know it. People who have  lost their jobs. It is the knowledge that if you don't do it nobody else will

And that can get you in the strangest times. Take book marketing. A thankless toiling job with little result. And yeah the writing is great but marketing feels like a trudge up a hill with a weight on your back with buckets of mud on each foot. You get the picture. Its a bit like Walt in Breaking Bad. The reason that show was and is so popular is not because of the meth component but because Walt is a middle class guy who goes bad. He hits the f it moment.

And who has not felt that? But of course right behind this is the moment where you try again. You put one foot in front of the other and really what is the alternative? To do nothing. Certainly the odds are against you but isn't that true in life? So it is the action taken that wins out. Really it comes down to just do something. Anything.

You can always deal meth if all else fails.

www.williamhazelgrove.com
 

Giving it Away Again or...FREE

I will be doing it again. Mica Highways my third novel (Southern Mystery) is the story of an African American  man and a woman in 1968 who are murdered for having a relationship and will go on FREE kindle download November 19-23. This novel is the follow up book to Tobacco Sticks that was on free download before and while I understand the logic behind these giveaways they are hard to get used too. Why in the world would you give something away to sell more?

But that is the new marketing. Read it to sell it and of course this is only possible with the ebook because a publisher would go broke doing this with a real book. But of course the big publishers do give them away. They give away a thousand copies and more to create buzz for their lead titles. For their smaller titles maybe twenty ARCS (advanced reader copies) And these publishers knew then that if they flood the booksellers with comp copies the booksellers  will read it and recommend the book.

Now take the new modality. You allow people to download as much as they want of a book for a restricted time period say five days. On Tobacco Sticks 31,000 people downloaded the book. Staggering. That many people got the book for free. Is there anyone left who will pay to download the book? Maybe.

But that is what is now. Free to sell. Crazy world we live in.

www.williamhazelgrove.com
Mica Highways
 

What Media Does an Author Pursue?

You could just go after the newspapers. They used to be pretty good at covering novels. But a lot of these journalists are gone. I know that most of the people who covered my other books are no longer employed by the paper. If there are reviews they are assigned out. So that leaves radio. The bookshows used to be a safe bet. A lot of them are gone and the ones that are left are on a shoestring. Of course there is NPR and I have done that but it is not a sure thing ever. And the other question is how many books does radio really sell?

So that leaves the internet. This is where most authors now make their stand. At least one can take a shot. But again what do you pursue? The Social Sites? Twitter. Blog. All of it. Yes all of it. That is the approach now. Do it all but of course you quickly realize this is impossible. There are just not enough hours in the day and if there were you would be bleary eyed and spent. Forget about writing. That is not even an option.

So what media does an author pursue? Local media is not a bad bet. A local author has a good shot at a local paper. And local papers can be picked up by bigger papers. And of course blog. Tweet. Interact socially. Do your newsletter. Do giveaways. Take a shot at a radio interview. Give speeches. Go to festivals. Jump up and down. Scream. Build a website. Build another website. Give books to teachers. Give books to anyone who will review. Pray.

www.williamhazelgrove.com
The PItcher

The Authorial Spammer

Authors are between a rock and a hard place now. They either are called spammers or they are called nothing at all. I just had a man ask if I would please quit spamming. Sure. Point taken. Spam can be defined as advertising anything  and certainly advertising a book can be spam. But here is the new authors dilemma. Quietly publish your book and wait for reviews or the Gods to make sure people know about your book or let people know and be accused of laying spam all over the Internet. But first some history.

I came up through traditional publishing. I was given an advance with Bantam and went to New York and had dinner with  my agent and publisher and sat back to wait for the two books to come out. I never spammed  a thing. I never went online. Yes it was there I just didn't care. I depended on the Gods and publishing to do the work for me. Some would say that was stupid but that was the way it was. Well publishing has changed and if it is for the better remains to be seen but the days of sitting back are way over.

The author today has to all the work. All of it. They have to get out there and push and with the bookstores slowly disappearing there is only one place for this and that is the Internet. Now one might not be comfortable with this. I know I am not. But all you have to do is go online to see thousands of authors screaming from the rooftops; READ MY BOOK. And that would be spam but does it matter? I had a man say to me the other day he didn't know I wrote books. This after a hundred posts about my book on facebook.

So the authorial spammer is here to stay. Some would say no no go out and talk to people and that is the way to do it. Authors only have so much time to chat and so many end up just leaving a calling card as the authorial spammer. You always have a choice. Be the quiet literary author waiting for the Gods or start yelling from the rooftops. I did the first one for years and paid a price.

 It's time to get the megaphone out.

www.williamhazelgrove.com
The Pitcher
 

The Nuttiness of Social Media

Is it me or did social media just take another step into the insane asylum? Nobody knows what is going on really anymore. In the world of selling anything your game plan is to network network network. The problem is with the interconnected world now is you could be marketing condoms to your mother in law and never know it. I have seen pictures I have taken of my dog end up on the internet. How I have no idea. But with the next generation of uber connectedness and everyone from Google to Facebook trying to out media each other we are the guienna pigs.

I mean you take selling books which is a full time job and requires enormous amounts of energy savvy and just plain luck. You post something and you tweet it and your facebook it and you google plus it and you are pretty much done. What is weird is your own phone goes off and lets you know you just posted something to your site. So now you are marketing to yourself. Forget privacy issues. What is privacy anymore anyway? I mean I appreciate the NSA is monitoring us though data mining but I would just tell them, save your money with your Prism computer and go on Facebook...everything you want to know is right there.

Add Amazon to the mix and now you have a perfect storm. Everyone is trying to figure out what will really drive book sales and the authors are in the middle posting, blogging, tweeting, skyping, surfing, writing, harassing, networking...basically going crazy. Dare to turn off your computer and go back to the stone age. Or worse yet risk eating beans.

So here is to the nut house of social media. Truly the inmates are running the asylum.

www.williamhazelgrove.com
The Pitcher...Junior Library Guild Selection

The Powers That Be: Marketing Books in the Eat What You Kill World

So now nobody knows how it works. Used to be the old send out review copies and get reviews in the trades and start the buzz and bookstores order up and people see your book or they hear about it in a review in a newspaper and there was some order to the process. And this all started with an advance and a publisher who was going to build you up.  Gone with the Wind in the new world of the internet and the new norm of Eat What You Kill.

And it is not so different from all those grads sitting at home because they cant find a job. Those jobs are gone too. The same digital revolution obliterated business as we know it and publishing got the double hit of the ipodifcation of books. So for the author the marketing became make it up as you go. You might send out review copies and you might not. You may just go straight to the internet and upload your book and hang out on the kindleboards. Or you may look for that traditional publisher and bank on the fact that some people still want to hold a book between their sweaty hands.

But the point is the rules are all gone. As a publicist said to me: you have to do everything now and as a web designer said to me: you basically take on the whole world. So you either sell or you don't. That is it in the rudimentary nubby bottom line. You can upload all you want but if nobody buys does the tree really fall. Probably not. And so you have to dig in and do those a million and one things and hope one of them hits the bell.

In the meanwhile,  you just keep pumping in those nickels and playing the slots. It works in Vegas. Sometimes.

www.williamhazelgrove.com
The Pitcher...sometimes a dream is all you have

On Marketing Books: Bestsellers Dont Magically Happen Part I

Yeah. People still expect you to do it effortlessly. A man I know asked why I market my own books. I told him all authors have to market their own books. He said I must not be with a real publisher. But most people still think bestsellers just magically happen and authors are sitting on the left bank drinking absinthe and thinking about their next novel while it magically flies off the shelf. And everyone nods like yeah its an Indie world now but the powers that be are still shocked when authors market their own work. They are still stupefied to find writers acting like salesmen.

Because people want to believe that literary prowess is enough. They want to believe that cream rises to the top and that a good book will carry the day. It just aint true. Good books get buried all the time. Good books die a thousand deaths and no one even hears them.  Do we really believe a good book can make enough noise on its own against the titanic forces of mass culture. The internet?

But this belief persists. I run across it all the time. A lot of people just cant believe an author has to get down in the trenches and they are shocked when they realize there are no publicists and handlers and all those people that used to do all the work for authors. Well they are long gone and authors have to do it all.

Even when I was with Bantam I had to do it all. Even more. What is amazing is that the people  still just don't get it. They just see the bestseller.

Part II
Guerrilla marketing on the boards.

Killing Yourself for your book

Writing it was hard but that doesn't compare to marketing it. In fact the writing is very nice in comparison with long quiet stretches. Then you go into the hell of online marketing. Think of taking on the whole world and beating your head against the wall. Add to that the pipe is clogged with millions of authors who found they could publish that book with a keyboard stroke. It is like the internet...empowering but eviscerating in the sheer numbers.

But you do it. You send your books to everyone who will listen and each book is like starting over. And each time the rules change. Try getting on radio. Try getting on television. Try getting reviews. It can happen but it requires ten times the energy that writing the book took. And then of course there is no guarantee at all it will come to anything.

So you better write something you believe in because you will need something to keep you plowing ahead when every bit of your being says this is too hard.

www.williamhazelgrove.com
 

Getting Blurbs for your book

When your book is about to come out the first question out of the publishers mouth is: can you get any blurbs? A blurb is an endorsement by a hopefully well known author. They are not easy to come by because if authors are well known and you are say moderately known then it is up to the Gods whether they deign to lower themselves to read your even lower book. Of course you try and knock on every door you can find. My most interesting blurb experience was trying to get Harper Lee to read my second novel. I came as close to getting the book on her bedside table. There is stayed according to her "man" Roy.

But some people have all the luck. Or the inside track. My dad recently heard George Saunders read and bought me his book. I am into the first story and he seems like a very good writer. But what hit me over the head and maybe it is because I have two books coming out within the year...was the sheer amount of blurbs. The book is awash in blurbs and from just about every big name there is.
So lets go:

Zadie Smith, David Foster Wallace(how did he do that?) Karen Russell, Thomas Pynchon, Joshua Ferris, Tobias Wolff, Sarah Vowell,  Jennifer Eagen, Dave Eggers, Zadie Smith, Jonathan Franzen, Thomas Pynchon.

WOW! HOLY HECK BATMAN! I mean Saunders it the one percent of literary publishing and he has the one percent endorsing him! It's like he got the A list of Hollywood to line up and their endorsements are glowing! So...the book is really unbelievable or his publisher (Random House) really lined up the soldiers for this one. I mean this is a very very rarefied crowd of writers and old George should do very well...if blurbs sell books and no one is quite sure of that. So I had to doff my hat and my coat and my shoes. The man had knocked it out of the park in terms of blurbs.

So then I read his bio. A professor at Syracuse University. Not bad. Not bad. Then...GENIUS GRANT. A cool half million in the account of one George Saunders for that (at least that is what a friend of mine received.) Anyway, George is a very lucky man or...maybe he is an extremely talented writer. Maybe both.

We will see. In the meantime. I wonder if old George would give me a blurb for Rocket Man? Or I wonder if any of the A List would give me a blurb? It doesn't hurt to ask. I'm sure they are listed.
Hmmm...


www.billhazelgrove.com
Rocket Man...the American Dream Upside Down