A Brilliant Novel Marketing Idea

I found the following story in Roland Hachmann's Web Jungle. It's a wonderful example of an entrepreneurial author:

Back in 1897, novelist W. Somerset Maugham, now best known as the author of Of Human Bondage, was having trouble selling his first novel Liza of Lambeth because his publisher wasn't interested in advertising the book. So he took matters into his own hands.

He placed classified ads in a few daily newspapers in London. The copy read: “Young millionaire, lover of sports, cultivated, with good taste of music and a patient and empathetic character wishes to marry any young and beautiful girl that resembles the heroine of W.S. Maugham’s new novel.”

By the end of the week, the first edition had sold out. The novel went on to get critical praise and many, many more sales.

Now, in today’s world, a classified newspaper ad like that won’t work because people don’t read the classifieds like they use to.

But the basic strategy of tying your book into your potential reader’s dreams and aspirations, that will always work. Maugham tapped into his potential reader’s desire for love (a universal perennial yearning that every romance novel taps into).

For more such success stories of debut novelists, see http://www.bookmarket.com/debutnovels.htm.

Teleseminar: Magazine and Newspaper Publicity

My friend Steve Harrison is hosting a free teleseminar on Seven Things You Absolutely Must Know to Get Publicity in Major Magazines and Newspapers at 2:00 p.m. or 7:00 p.m. Eastern on Thursday, August 9th.

The 90-minute call will explain the three biggest mistakes most people make trying to get publicity in magazines and newspapers. You'll learn how to create relationships with top magazine editors, how a woman was so good at getting advance publicity that her book hit the New York Times bestseller list before publication date, a simple strategy for scoring an Associated Press story about you that runs in dozens of newspapers across the country, and how to spin a small story into a much larger feature for yourself.

To join in on this phone call, go to: http://www.freepublicity.com/printpublicitycall/?10005.

Where will you be in 10 years?

Martin Foner of NPL Consultants wrote a rant on book publishing in 2007. I don't agree with much of his rant. He gets carried away with depression. But his conclusions out of the rant do make sense: Publishers do have to move toward more selling online and more marketing online and more distribution online.

Unlike him, however, I do not believe that the bookstore trade is a dinosaur, about to be obliterated. And that book distribution is a dinosaur, also about to die a quick, painful death. But I do believe that smart publishers do not put all their eggs into one basket. You diversify. You find multiple ways to sell your books, via multiple markets, via multiple distribution strategies.

In his rant, Martin wrote that in ten years most publishers will be in one of four categories:

1. Sold out.

2. In business with a huge content-driven website.

3. In business with a substantial web presence and multiple channels to sell books (direct to consumers, premium sales, non-book trade retailers, web sellers, etc.).

4. Dead.

I hope most of you fall into category 3. I think that's the best plan for most book publishers, given the talents we have.

But category 2 can also be a good plan (and perhaps more profitable, especially if you hit it Google big or Bing middling). But you will have to be a talented software engineer or hire such talent to make this pay off in a big way. As publishers, we tend to be content-driven while most successful websites are software-driven. Note: In today's world, you only need a great WordPress website to carry this off. WordPress offers so many wonderful plugins that allow your website to be whatever you want it to be: sales site, content driven, forums, membership site, article directory, etc.

As many of you know, I've become more and more of an advocate for Internet marketing. There are so many incredible opportunities to sell books via the Internet. The toughest part for many publishers will be deciding what paths to take (of the growing number of possible ways to market via the Internet). You can easily get overwhelmed by the possibilities. My advice: Focus. Don't buy into every new Internet promise, every new program. Find one to three ways that you like doing and which you find to work -- and continue to pursue and build those ways.

Personally, I'll never participate in Second Life (something that was in the news a lot in 2007, but is now is nearly invisible except for the fans it attracted early). I have no interest in participating in such virtual worlds. They can be a real time-sucker. And, yet, I know that some publishers will create great successes using virtual worlds. For me, though, I'd rather focus on email marketing, blogs, joint venture opportunities, creating relationships, teleseminars, webinars, HangOuts.

Plus, of course, I'll keep my fingers in offline ways to sell my books: speaking, premium sales, direct sales to consumers, and book trade distribution. I suggest you do something similar if you want to be around in ten years.

Where will you be in ten years? Where do you want to be in ten years? Please choose one of the first three options Martin described. Don't die.

A sidebar: Fifty years ago, everyone said that television would kill radio. It didn't happen. During the past 15 years, radio has been stronger than ever. What happened to the naysayers? They sold out a long time ago. Lost a chunk of money in the process.

Now everyone is saying that newspapers and books are dead. Magazines, too. I don't agree. I think they will all continue to exist for many, many years to come -- both in print and in electronic forms. The smart print publishers will migrate content to the web. They are already doing that. Forbes magazine already gets half its revenue from online. The New York Times is moving in that direction. Book publishers should do this as well. But don't ignore print. It still drives the online strength of most successful publications.

Newspaper Book Review Sections

In recent days, again, many book publishing commentators are lamenting the paring down or elimination of newspaper book review sections. Well, I'm not one of them. Most of these sections have been doing such a poor job that they don't deserve to continue to exist.

Too many of them review the same, same books (all from New York publishers) when they should be reviewing books that would truly interest their local and regional readers. Far too many of them ignore books from local and regional publishers, books that would truly interest their readers.

As I've traveled around the country, I've noticed that most book review sections review the same books, write about them the same way, etc. It has been a long, long time since newspaper have served their local readers with reviews of local books. Once in a while, they throw in a review of a local book, but most newspaper book review editors review, as many have told me, "only major novels, major memoirs, and major nonfiction," which, of course means, no local or regional books for us.

No wonder no one reads the book review sections anymore. No wonder newspapers are dropping them like flies or paring them down to nothing. No wonder so many major newspapers now feature reviews syndicated from other newspapers. They might as well. If they had written their own review, it would have sounded the same anyway.

Seth Godin, my favorite business blogger and the only one I read regularly, wrote a post about the demise of newspaper book review sections (and other mass media options). You should read it. Check it out here: http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2007/05/ reaching_the_un.html.

Approaching Newspaper Book Reviewers

The following three paragraphs of advice are from a newspaper book reviewer. You should heed her advice if you are approaching newspaper book reviewers.

The best way for unknown writers to get their work reviewed is to look at the papers and reviewers they would like to see cover their books and then write to these people as if they actually had an interest in the paper or reviewer.

The sort of bitter, demanding letters I have been getting (the legitimate letters) are off-putting as hell. The idea seems to be that just because someone has written a novel--and had it published by some POD outfit--he has the God-given right to have it reviewed.

BUT, if the writer had spent a little time (about 1/100th of the amount he is asking the reviewer to spend) looking into the reviewer's work and bothering to, shall we say, CURRY the reviewer's favor in some way, there is an outside chance someone might give the book a shot. You probably know this--but you are in a miniscule minority.

This advice is crucial. Get to know the people and groups that you want to work with. Don't ask them to work with you without first getting to know them. This should be so obvious but it is amazing how many book authors ignore this simple advice.

For every minute you spend getting to know someone, you will earn — and I do mean earn — 10 minutes of real attention. It's that real attention that gets you real notice, real approval, and real friends and followers.