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NY Times Today
Did anyone see the Pushing a New Author Upstream article in the NYTimes today? Its worth the read..
When I was at HCI we would do this for some of our key books/authors. It rarely had much effect.
I think for a book to become a bestseller a LOT of different factors must converge, not the least of which is that the book must be really good. They touch on that in the article, but it can't be overstated.. word of mouth is such an important factor and if the book isn't good enough for one friend to recommend to another - no amount of wining and dining a bookseller or buyer will make a difference. Sure they may bring in a few more books to their store, but that doesn't mean consumers will actually buy them... and then they'll all go back to the publisher as returns!
I also am surprised that the article gives so much credit to the power of bookstore employees to handsell books. I WISH that were the case. It seems to me that whenever I go into a bookstore the customers are just browsing or looking for something specific. I rarely see the kind of interaction where a recommendation is taking place. I'm know it happens more in independent bookstores, but the majority of booksales take place in chains and online, as unfortunate as that may be.
I guess my rather long-winded point is that this sort of parading an author around to the buyers etc may work, but only as part of a comprehensive marketing plan. I think bestsellers happen when someone sees a review of the book, hears it reviewed on NPR, goes to the bookstore and sees it on a table, has a friend recommend it to them etc. etc. etc.
In my opinion it takes several of these things to actually get someone over the purchasing hurdle.
When I was at HCI we would do this for some of our key books/authors. It rarely had much effect.
I think for a book to become a bestseller a LOT of different factors must converge, not the least of which is that the book must be really good. They touch on that in the article, but it can't be overstated.. word of mouth is such an important factor and if the book isn't good enough for one friend to recommend to another - no amount of wining and dining a bookseller or buyer will make a difference. Sure they may bring in a few more books to their store, but that doesn't mean consumers will actually buy them... and then they'll all go back to the publisher as returns!
I also am surprised that the article gives so much credit to the power of bookstore employees to handsell books. I WISH that were the case. It seems to me that whenever I go into a bookstore the customers are just browsing or looking for something specific. I rarely see the kind of interaction where a recommendation is taking place. I'm know it happens more in independent bookstores, but the majority of booksales take place in chains and online, as unfortunate as that may be.
I guess my rather long-winded point is that this sort of parading an author around to the buyers etc may work, but only as part of a comprehensive marketing plan. I think bestsellers happen when someone sees a review of the book, hears it reviewed on NPR, goes to the bookstore and sees it on a table, has a friend recommend it to them etc. etc. etc.
In my opinion it takes several of these things to actually get someone over the purchasing hurdle.
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Comment by Matthew Vossler on April 5, 2009 at 1:20pm
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Thank you Fallen Sky for posting this. We authors need all the help we can get, and many like me, don't have a huge budget to market our work in case we don't get a big House behind us. I am going to be self-publishing on Amazon Kindle within a couple of months, and although I have an MBA, I wonder if I am doing all I can to get the word out. I do Facebook and have a blog, and even have come up with a somewhat unique gimmick, which I will talk about at Ning a little later, if it comes to fruition. The part about writers being homebodies who are pushed onto sophisticated social scenes is interesting. That is one part I think I would enjoy! --Matt
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Comment by Lorne Epstein on April 9, 2007 at 6:07am
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Sounds like the author of the article was appearing to also be part of the "inside" track to success and fame. Thanks for sharing.
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Comment by Fallen Sky on April 4, 2007 at 6:47am
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Yes, I'm sure you're right. Can you tell we don't have a great indie bookshop near where I live? :)
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Comment by John Kremer on April 3, 2007 at 3:36pm
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Oh, yes, booksellers do hand-sell -- and they can make a very big difference in book sales. But most bookstores can probably only cite one to three such cases in any one year where they had such an impact. The bad bookstores, of course, can't cite one. The chains can rarely cite such instances because they don't have the committed personnel to have such an impact.
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Yes, the New York Times article was obviously very superficial. It misses a lot of what goes into making a book a bestseller. Authors and publishers who have been involved in creating bestsellers knows that 95% of all bestsellers are the result of a very integrated marketing program. Perhaps 5% are the luck of the draw.
Even for well-known authors like John Grisham an integrated marketing plan makes the difference of thousands of copies in book sales. Grisham could publish a cookbook and have a bestseller, just because of his name. But his publisher never leaves anything to chance. The people there do a lot for every new title he has to make sure his fans know about any new book of his they publish.
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