Edward Eaton | Marketing and the Writer: One Author's Journey

I have had a busy summer. Three of my books have been published. ROSI'S TIME (the sequel to ROSI'S CASTLE and the second book in the Rosi's Doors series) was released just recently. My publishers also released one of my plays, ELIZABETH BATHORY, and rereleased my verse drama, ORPHEUS AND EURYDICE (the old publisher went under—part of me suspects that this was because of my book). Yes, I am listing all the titles because I want you readers to look them up and buy them. I am trying to market my books. Herein lies the fun part of being a published author and the thrust of this essay. ‘Fun part' is used, of course, somewhat ironically, perhaps even sarcastically.

Do not get me wrong. I am not opposed to authors marketing their books. I understand that marketing is one of an author's chief jobs. Mark Twain, arguably America's most significant author, was a master of self-promotion. We remember him as a perceptive commentator on human foibles and a powerful stylist, but he got into the public eye by, well, getting himself into the public eye. It happens that Mark Twain was a great writer. With a few notable exceptions, greatness has traditionally been coincidental; most writers, including Shakespeare, were professionals—out to make money. Fame and success in any art form are not indicators of quality, but of popularity. Are the literary megastars of today necessarily good writers? Some may be. Some are, on the other hand, notoriously bad writers, perhaps even inept (and, NO, I am not going to name names—I am not that stupid).

I am going to come out and say it: I am not good at self-promotion. I do not like doing it. I would love to be one of those writers like Mark Twain who makes huge money and is world famous. I would probably prefer the career of someone like Trevanian, who wrote THE EIGER SANCTION. He was successful, but hardly in the public eye—he wrote under a pseudonym, after all. I am more inclined to that sort of life. Then again, if I avoid the public eye to such an extent, I'll probably end up like, well, some guy who wrote a few books that no one ever read. I suppose it is like teaching. I love standing up in front of a class and doing my thing, but I hate grading papers and I have little more than contempt for literary scholarship. The teaching is fun. The other two aspects are what teachers have to do to keep their jobs. So, I have written several books that have been published. Now the work begins.

I have followed a fairly standard approach. I have arranged for a handful of reviews for ROSI'S CASTLE. These have, for the most part, been positive (the one ‘negative', three-star, review I received at least said that I was a talented writer). I have given interviews, and have yet to copy and paste anything more than my webpage URLs onto them. I give long interviews, so these take time. I have done guest blogs like this one. Again, I do not copy and paste. I also try to write about some aspect of writing and not just treat these blogs as simple advertisements. This is my soapbox. I want to do more than simply sell my wares.

I enjoy doing interviews and writing guest blogs. I like getting glowing reviews (ROSI'S CASTLE is even a finalist for the Reader's Favorite Awards). I do wonder how many readers read these book sites.

When I was growing up, my father got the New York Times Book Review. One of the first things I would do was rush to the best sellers list. I remember this particularly when THE SILMARILLION came out and it stayed at the top of the list for so long. I certainly did not read the articles or reviews in the NYTBR. I read it occasionally as an adult. The reviews appear to be written to impress other writers, other reviewers, academic superiors, and tenure/promotion committees. That is, they come across as a bit pompous and self-indulgent. The people who buy and read the NYTBR tend to be academics and other literary snobs, er, types. In short, they are not general readers. Elizabeth Bathory and ORPHEUS AND EURYDICE have been labeled ‘literature,' and might be the sort of thing regular readers of the NYTBR might like. ROSI'S CASTLE and ROSI'S TIME are not. They are labeled Young Adult books. Few young adults are really going to read the NYTBR. Chances are, the NYTBY is not going to review my books anyway. Major journals and magazines do not bother with the little guys like me. They review books published by houses with advertising budgets or by authors whose books are going to sell anyway. That is, they review books that do not really need their reviews.

On one hand it certainly would be a coup to have my book reviewed by one of the major players in the book review world. On the other hand, I have to wonder how influential they really are. Sure, I look at the blurbs on the backs of books. But how honest are they? I could blurb that one reviewer said ROSI'S CASTLE was well written, imaginative, and original. She did use those words, and I am not really taking them out of context. However, she did not like the book. How many book covers or movie posters take negative reviews and edit them creatively to come up with glowing blurbs? I have seen gushing reviews on movie posters for films that were universally reviled. I am suitably impressed when I see the blurbs on the back of a book, but more so because the writer (or publisher or publicist) was able to get a prestige review. Let's face it though: I've never seen a negative blurb on a book or on an advertisement for a book.

I simply do not have the time to spend too much of it reading book reviews. I do, from time to time, but I cannot remember ever buying a book based on a review. Or not bought a book, for that matter. I am much more likely to buy the book based on the short synopsis. Anyway, book reviews are becoming harder and harder to find. At least in print media. So, I am trying to get reviews on online sites. As I said, I have a handful already. My interviews are appropriately fascinating. My guest blogs are erudite and compelling. This is all exciting. I visit these sites from time to time. Again, I wonder how many readers are out there searching the Internet for book recommendations. The answer might astonish me, but I suspect that it would depress me. I am sure that the numbers are fairly high, but there are so many sites out there that few of them will have particularly high numbers. I spent the better part of a week drafting and polishing an interview for a website a couple of months ago. When I visited the website to see my interview and show it to a friend, I learned that it has 50 people following it. Many of the people who I find making comments are my fellow writers.

My next step is to use social networking. Yes: Facebook. I also barrage my friends with emails. A few weeks ago, I received a rather harsh message from the moderator of one Facebook page saying that the page was for writing support, not self-advertisement. I looked at the group's page. Out of the previous hundred or so posts, four or five told members about other sites or groups that supported writers; a handful were about conferences; dozens were announcing giveaways by new authors; the rest were linking readers to reviews, guest blogs, and interviews; the moderator herself had recently posted covers from her American edition and her UK edition (she said she wanted to start a discussion about the different ways the English and the Americans would see a book; I suggested that she was simply announcing that her book was being published in two countries). In the end, I was told that I had simply posted about too many reviews, interviews, and guest blogs. So, I was removed from the group for, on a certain level, successfully marketing my book. I wonder why she did not simply ‘like' my posts and then ignore them, which is what I generally do with most of the of nonsense that shows up on my ‘newsfeed.' I also get to email all of my friends and colleagues. I wonder how many of them consider me spam by now. I also wonder what is the moral difference between posting or emailing that I have published a book or gotten a review, and thirty pictures of flowers from one guy's front lawn; the joy of your daughter making the JV Volleyball team; or Junior lying on his stomach, his back, his left side, his right side, with grandma, Uncle Jesse....

Frankly, I find this whole process kind of fun. My wife says that the sales, or lack thereof, of this book are not a reflection on what I have written. The trick is how to get readers to get the word. A publisher once told me that the chances of getting published are about the same as getting struck by lightning. Most lightning, of course, strikes in the middle of the forest where no one will see it. I get the popularity and kudos for a lot of books. Then there are those works I really have to wonder about. They are bad. Even their fans have to apologize for liking them. Then there is the real tragedy of the literary world: human garbage like Snooki and the Kardashian girls have book deals and probably more influence on what the average person reads than the New York Times Book Review.

For those of you who are writers, you know what I am going through. For those of you who are readers, I hope that you will appreciate to some degree what we have to go through. If you know a writer, then ‘liking' a book on Amazon or Facebook or Goodreads takes just a few seconds and can make a difference (I have often bought books because they were recommended to me on Amazon, and their computers figure out what books go where in part on how many ‘likes' there are). Please also understand that one of the reasons we barrage you with emails and constantly post is because we have agreed to do so with our publishers. In my case, it is in my contract.

Thank you.

My websites: www.edwardeaton.com | www.rosisdoors.wordpress.com | www.rosisdoors.com | www.orpheusandeurydice.webs.com | www.elizabethbathory.webs.com

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