Gone In Seventy-two Hours--An Author's Point Of View

Have you heard about the concerns regarding KidsBookBuzz.com, a new business, I guess, that will organize blog tours for authors? (Though I'm having trouble finding real information about fees.) From what I can make out from the website, KidsBookBuzz gets paid a fee, and the bloggers it organizes receive free books.

One of the worries voiced regarding this set up is that the bloggers are, in a sense, getting paid to review, that author/publishers are buying reviews. I think a bigger concern is that bloggers aren't getting paid to review. The administrator gets a fee, but the bloggers get only the same book print reviewers receive. Print reviewers are paid--by the journals they work for, not the author/publisher of the book they're reviewing. So while there is definitely the appearance of buying reviews with KidsBookBuzz, the actual reviewer won't be receiving any cold, hard cash. I respect the entrepreneurial spirit, but something doesn't seem quite right here.

That's no skin off my back, though, is it?

No, I have a totally different concern. The KidsBookBuzz website says, "There is another kind of blog tour–the kind we do here–where we have fifty or more bloggers all linking to the same book for two or three days in a row...
This kind of saturation creates a different kind of buzz than the leisurely blog tour where you visit one blog a day. It’s like the difference between several weeks of light rains in the morning and one day of hurricane rains. Which one do you notice? We need the constant light rain, and we’d notice if we didn’t get it, but the hurricane often receives more attention on the evening news."

It's that three-day saturation business that bothers me because I feel book publishing is already way too much like opening weekend for movies. Realistically speaking, a new book has a limited window for getting attention, just a couple of months before publication date and maybe a month or two after. I've read articles in which publicists have advised authors who were looking for attention for a book that came out a few months earlier to give it up and get started on another project. Publishers are worrying about the next catalog. In July reviewers are thinking about books that are coming out in the fall. For spring authors, it is over.

The print journals have to run after the next new thing because that's their mandate. They are supposed to provide information for their readers on what's coming up.

But the blogosphere was a wild frontier where books from last spring, from last year, or from any time in the past were discussed. Readers were reminded of books they'd forgotten or never even heard of. Here in the blogosphere you never knew what you were going to find, but you knew you'd find something besides what everyone else was talking about.

These three-day blog blitzes will make the blogosphere just like the carbon-based world where everyone runs after the next new thing. Only a print journal hangs around for a month. The blog tours will be gone in 72 hours, and everyone will be on to something else. Three-day blog tours will actually speed up the process of being promoted and then forgotten about.

This is not a good thing for writers. I want people to be discussing my books for seven days, not three. To be perfectly honest, I want people to be discussing my books for seven weeks, seven months, seven years. But I'm very much afraid that if these three-day publicity blitzes take off, we'll all be seeing tinier and tinier openings for promotion.

And, believe me, the openings are already tiny enough.

Blogs And Writers

I just stumbled upon a couple of blog posts that discuss blogging and writers.

Colleen at Chasing Ray has a post up called Which Blogs Matter? on the subject of authors seeking out blog reviewers.

Editorial Ass has a question and answer post called Author Blogging, which is about authors blogging themselves.

I will add a point here that will be a sort of link between these two posts: Once you are a blogging author and part of the blogging lit community, as...ah...Moonrat...at Editorial Ass suggests, it becomes very difficult to approach bloggers to review your books, as Colleen at Chasing Ray suggests, because you know everybody. It's too much like asking the guy down the street or the woman in the cubicle next to you at work to put in a good word with you somewhere. The people being asked feel they can't say no, even if they want to, because they know you. Or else they feel they have to say no, even if they don't want to, because they know you. And how much good will the good word do you when the person receiving it knows the person giving it travels in the same circles with you?

It's sort of like finding out that that person you were getting on with like gangbusters at a conference and e-mailing with afterward is the children's editor for a review journal. You get all excited because you know this editor and she seems to like you. Then you realize "@#!!. Now she can never review anything I write because we know each other."

Really, it gets to the point where you begin to feel that networking is actually counterproductive and why don't you just lie on the couch and watch HGTV in your spare time?

All Things Bologna

In our extended family, we have people trying to get started on careers, to stay in their new careers, to hunt for first homes, and to stay afloat in construction- related professions. So here at Chez Gauthier we do think quite a bit about what's going on in the economy and, I'm sad to say, how it impacts us and not just all those people we read about in the press.

So when I read the first line in Wrapping Up Bologna, about the Bologna Children's Book Fair, I thought, Doesn't this sound as if it could be a good thing for people like me? The article starts out, "The state of the U.S. economy hung over this year’s Bologna Fair, as American publishers found the market tough for buying, but great for selling." In a related article, also in Publisher's Weekly, an American publisher said, "For selling books, I say ‘Thank you, George Bush’ every day. But I would not want to be a European rights director selling to the U.S. right now."

What's going on, as I understand it, is that American rights for European books are pricie for us to buy now, but American rights are cheap for Europeans to buy. Our stuff is selling, but we're not buying as much as we used to.

I know that in the greater scheme of things, the world of literature suffers. Yes, I do want to be exposed to books from all over the world. But in terms of Gail, an American writer who needs to sell books, doesn't this mean that 1. Foreign rights to my most recent books have a better chance of selling? (It has been a few years since anyone has snapped up rights to my books, and I do have a new one coming out this year.) 2. Fewer foreign books coming into the U.S. market means less competition for buyers and readers here in this country? (Though, come on, we're still talking mind-boggling numbers of American books being published. I don't seriously expect to see any jumps in my sales because fewer European books are being translated into English and sold here. I'm just looking for a silver lining. For somebody. Anybody, but particularly for me.)

Well, I only took one baby economics class when I was in college, and I don't remember it having anything to do specifically with publishing.

Other Bologna news:

Horror may be the new fantasy.

There's supposed to be a lot of interest in books about humor with boy characters, which, you know, just happens to be my stock-in-trade.

Evidently in France publishers are being overwhelmed with electronic submissions.

And get this--Eddie Gamarra, who is with a management/production company was quoted as saying, "Some authors report that editors pressure them to tone down the prominence of adult characters in children’s lit. Hollywood needs castable roles for bankable actors. There are very few bankable child stars. This issue was another big point of conversation as book folks ask me to explain what the heck Hollywood is looking for and why."

This is so creepy. Editors of children's books are supposed to pressure their authors to tone down adult characters because they are writing...stay with me here...children's books. What is going to happen to children's literature if books are written not for kid readers but for Hollywood producers who are looking for adult characters in order to cast adult actors? Come on, just write a screenplay in the first place.

Though, this might explain why we got an inquiry from a production company about Saving the Planet & Stuff just on the basis of the Kirkus Review's review. That book did have a couple of great adult characters. Though, perhaps, not great enough, since no sale was made.

Well, I've never been all that interested in the Bologna Children's Book Fair. But after reading these two articles, I'll be paying more attention in the future.

The Way Things Are

As part of The Big Clean and a study month that I haven't quite named yet (the two events are sort of overlapping), I am trying to go through all the back messages in my listservs. I just found an e-mail at Adbooks with a link to Waiting for It, an essay that explains why there's such a long wait between a manuscript's acceptance and its publication as a book. In a word, it's all about marketing.

Waiting for It spells out what I think can only be described as the struggle to sell a book. It also explains what traditional publishers do for authors, or try to do for them.

Announcing The Hannah And Brandon Stories' Home On The Web

Last week we launched The Hannah and Brandon Stories mini-site and did a little shakedown. It's now ready for you.

I wanted a site specifically for The Hannah and Brandon Stories because it's a series, even if there are only two books in it right now. Well, only one book, because the second one won't be published until summer. I felt Hannah and Brandon needed a little different kind of promotional effort.

Plus, I wanted to try to create a brand for the books. We never actually named the series anything. One book is called A Girl, a Boy, and a Monster Cat and the other A Girl, a Boy, and Three Robbers. (That link is new, too, by the way.) But how would someone talk about the books together? My editor and I sometimes called them the girl/boy books. That was lacking something, so I gave them their own name.

I didn't want to just throw out an entirely new website onto the Internet because I try to avoid clutter. Making this site part of my main site is an attempt to remain organized. So my homepage directs readers to two different ways to read about the books--the original, more traditional material at my main site and a fun take-off of book marketing at the Hannah and Brandon Stories mini-site.

My Competition

Years ago I was told by more experienced writers not to bother sending any kind of publicity mailings to booksellers because they're overwhelmed with marketing materials. They have too much to contend with and any kind of postcard or brochure I would send them would hardly be noticed.

In case I didn't believe it, Alison Morris at Shelftalker posted photos of just the arcs/galleys her bookstore has received for books coming out in the months March through August of this year.

Remember, the new Hannah and Brandon book comes out in July.

Singing His Praises

I'm very happy with my computer guy this week. We're working on a mini-site within my website forThe Hannah and Brandon Stories. Computer Guy is picking up and running with all my ideas. He's improving on my ideas. He even likes my ideas.

The next volume of Hannah and Brandon Stories comes out in July. I suspect marketing people would say, therefore, that I'm late getting this website going. I try not to let things like my own ineptitude get me down.

No, if I want to get down, I'm going to do it over things like a website I found called Juvenile Series and Sequels. The number of series and sequels is far, far beyond my wildest imaginings. It sort of makes whether or not I'm late with my website a moot point because the chances of all of us getting attention for our books is pretty remote.

But my computer guy might get some for me. Not that I want to make him feel pressured or anything.

Patterson Does YA

The New York Times article, An Author Looks Beyond Age Limits, about James Patterson's attention to his YA sales, is interesting for a number of reasons.

Patterson really keeps an eye on his sales numbers. (I'd rather not know about mine, in large part because they don't come anywhere near his.) He's concerned that his YA books don't sell as well as his adult books do and worries that placement in the back of bookstores with the other kids' books could be keeping buyers from finding them. So his publisher is asking booksellers to commit to keeping his YA titles at the front of the store for the same length of time as his adult titles. YA titles should be treated as well as adult titles. Yeah, it's too bad all books can't get this kind of treatment, but that's life, as Mom used to say.

Patterson is interested in attracting female buyers for his YA books, as in mothers. He wants to encourage parents to buy books for their kids as long as they're in the bookstore, anyway. While some might charge that he wants to get parents to buy his books, I'm hoping that if he trains them to buy for their kids whenever they go into bookstores, the resulting sales could help all of us. (Patterson can't have a new YA book in the store all the time, after all. Oh. Wait. Maybe he can.)

YA titles are becoming popular with adult readers. So Patterson's latest book has a cover designed to attract adults as well as kids. I've heard of other books that were published in two editions, one for adults and one for kids, in order to cast a nice big net. Patterson's publisher is trying to be more efficient.

Patterson's Maximum Ride series has an "uncredited co-writer." (Gabrielle Charbonnet) It's too bad she's uncredited, but I respect that Patterson brought in help instead of taking the attitude that just anyone can knock off a YA book.

Our Lives On The D-List

While I was on vacation last week, I caught an episode of My Life On The D-List. (That link didn't go to a site with Kathy Griffin doing standup when I plugged it in here. If it does now, I deny all responsibility.)

Watching The D-List made me think of my trip to the Twilight Zone Convention last year. The TZ Convention was similar to a literary festival, and the life Kathy Griffin projects on The D-List is similar to life for a lot of us kidlit writers.

Maybe I'm just self-centered, and everything reminds me of my own life.

But, think about it. In last week's episode, Kathy was going to London where she was going to do a stand-up routine, and she was trying to promote it. Sort of the way we writers try to promote an appearance at a bookstore, see? Or even a new book. Or an old book. Or even just our names. Evidently Kathy has a following in the U.S., and she was trying to promote herself to the same group in London. That's similar to how we kidlit writers try to promote ourselves to librarians. Wait. No. We should be trying to attract reading teachers. No, no, no. Booksellers! We've got to make sure the booksellers know who we are!

Kathy and her posse were always looking for ways to get her some publicity. Writers do the same thing. Should I contact bloggers? Make a trailer? Submit workshop ideas to conferences? Mail postcards to schools? Throw myself a book launch party? What should I do, what will I do, to get a little higher up on the literary hierarchy?

Man, I so related to that show.

This is good place to mention that the September issue of School Library Journal has an article called Rules of the Game: Focus on Middle School that includes Happy Kid!. And the print issue uses the cover!

Imagine Kathy Griffin and me jumping up and down.

Why I'll Never Go Far

I just can't stay on task with promotion. It's not just that I'm not that great at forcing myself out there. Almost everyone has trouble with that. No, I can't seem to make any kind of organized marketing effort. If I get some promotional ideas, I don't move on them fast enough or never bother carrying through with them at all. If I do carry through, I forget about them afterward.

A case in point: While looking up another author, I just now stumbled upon an interview with myself at Young Adult (& Kids) Books Central. I remember answering these questions now but I'd forgotten about the whole thing up until about ten minutes ago. I probably forgot about the interview as soon as I'd submitted the answers.

And, yes, I forget about short story submissions after I make them, too.

Really, it's a miracle that I've gotten as far as I have.

Maybe I'm Just Easily Annoyed

I sometimes feel as if I'm missing the boat and being a bit of a wet blanket because I'm not a Harry Potter fan. Really, I wish I could be part of the whole experience. I don't think J.K. Rowling is a bad writer, and her work has brought a lot of attention to children's writing, which is good.

But it really ticks me off when she starts teasing between books. The-guess-who-I'm-killing-off-this-time? schtick was pulled out before the last three new books for what purpose other than keeping the fans riled and interested? And now she's toying with readers by suggesting she might write another book about Harry Potter's world.

This kind of thing isn't about writing. It's about marketing. While I know writers need to do it (this is what this blog is about, after all), traditionally a writer markets her writing. She doesn't manipulate her readers. There's something distasteful about the way she twists the process, as if she's using her readers instead of writing for them.

Or You Could Wait For The Movie

Mark Peter Hughes has his Lemonade Mouth Across America blog up. Look what those maniacs did to their minivan. On Tuesday afternoon, NPR is going to be running another one of his commentaries on All Things Considered. I'm sure I'll miss it, so I'll try to catch it later at the NPR website.

Here is my book promotion plan for this summer. I'm going to Portsmouth, New Hampshire for one weekend next month to celebrate a family event. If I stumble upon any bookstores, I'll go in to see if they have any of my books. Then I'll offer to sign their copies.

Yeah, I'll let you know how that goes.

When Radio Stations Do This Isn't It Called Payola?

The Hidden Price of a Christmas Bestseller lays out the fees involved in getting books promoted in English bookstores. Similar set-ups exist here in the States. In fact, this practice is supposed to be one of the reasons publishers are taking out fewer ads in U.S. newspaper book review supplements, which is said to be one of the reasons those supplements are folding. Publishers are shifting their advertising money to paying to have books promoted in bookstores instead of taking out traditional advertisements.

I think this isn't considered a questionable practice because the publishing industry has accepted it. Bookstore chains probably have employees whose entire job is to sell window and table space to publishers. Publishers probably have employees whose entire job is to buy window and table space from bookstores. Heck, both groups probably have entire departments to handle this stuff.

My guess is that if both buyer and seller agree that something is an acceptable business practice, it's an acceptable business practice.

So Now We Will Consider Book Videos

Once a Novel Idea, Now a Must in the L.A. Times states, "No one makes definitive claims that videos increase sales, but publishers and booksellers agree they can help," which sounds a little contradictory to me.

I'm loving this idea, though. Think about it--authors singing, dancing, bumping and grinding in skimpy clothes. Walking down mean streets looking p.o.ed. Videos may not move books, but they could be seriously entertaining.

Ah, thank you artsJournal.

Do Bouncing, Floating, Skinny Little Banner Ads Sell Books?

Maybe not.

Whenever I went to Fuse's new home*, I tried to swat the ad like a fly with my cursor. I wondered if it was one of those games they used to include with educational software for kids--you study your spelling words for a while and then you get something to shoot at.

And yet, a lot of people are talking about it. Though, in my case, I don't actually know what "it" is because I never actually got what the ad was about.

*I had to link to Fuse's old home because her new one appears to be out of order tonight. What could that be about? Gee, Fuse, you haven't even been there a week. I hadn't even had time to mention the new place in my blog. You haven't brought the whole thing down, have you?

And What About Book Trailers? Do They Sell Books?

When I first heard about book trailers a couple of years ago, I got quite excited because what reader wouldn't be excited about seeing a book trailer? I've even thought, briefly--very briefly--about finding out how I could have one done for one of my books. Then I read Mitali Perkins' blog post about working on a trailer for her new book, First Daughter.

I started thinking that maybe I should give this a shot. After all, I've got a computer guy, and except for trying to figure out whether I should get a new hard drive or limp along with the one I have, what's he got to do? Surely, he'd love to make a book trailer. He's a computer guy.

But then I started wondering--What do you do with these things once you've got them? Who sees them? Do they make a difference to anyone? I've seen a few really long trailers, and, having the attention span of a gnat, I couldn't sit all the way through them. I certainly don't want to do that to any viewers. That can't be good.

My favorite...moving?...visual for a book is from Kenneth Oppel's Airborn site. It's short and intense. Is it a book trailer? Or, as Computer Guy believes, just a bit of business at a website? What's the difference?

Of course, I saw that piece for the first time after I'd read, and liked, the book. I don't know if it would have encouraged me to read the book if I'd gone to the site first.

So, to make a long story short, I'm now mulling over whether or not creating a book trailer would be a good use of my (and my computer guy's) time. Discuss among yourselves and comment if you have any thoughts on the subject.

Will You Read Moby Dick Because Alton Brown Is?

The issue of how to get book titles out in front of the public was of interest to me even before all the excitement over the demise of the book review section. Even with the newspaper book reviews that were recently dumped there were nowhere near enough review spots for all the books that are published each year, forget about reminding people about the books that came out three years ago that they still haven't read.

But I'm into history, and for me that means that I can accept that things change. Other ways of talking about books are evolving even as we speak.

I have a family member who is a big Alton Brown fan. While said family member was at AB's website, he noticed a page called What I'm Reading. As you might expect, a couple of the books are about food, but AB is also reading Moby Dick (seafood!) and Watchmen.

I found this interesting. Is this a way for entertainers and other people who the public enjoy following to share their interest in books? Will their fans care enough to check out their reading material?

I know some will blow off this sort of thing as being celebrity-based and thus shallow. But a lot of TV viewers feel close to the personalities they watch regularly, especially the ones who, like Alton Brown, appear as themselves. How is this exchange of book info substantially different from talking about books with friends?

Well, except that the friendship is one-sided, of course.

The publishing industry isn't in such good shape that anyone can give these kinds of recommendations a cold-shoulder. Read faster, Alton! Read some kids' books!

Another Example Of My Marketing Ineptitude

As if you need one.

Liz B. mentioned Meg Cabot's Pants on Fire Tour this morning. This reminds me that Cabot will be at R. J. Julia Booksellers in Madison, Connecticut tomorrow at two o'clock, by the way.

What am I doing to support my new book, A Girl, a Boy, and a Monster Cat? I'm giving away books on publication day, June 21st. My plan was to mention the giveaway every Thursday to build up to the big day.

That was all I had to do.

Needless to say, yesterday I forgot. I was all excited about someone else's book and forgot about mine.

So, anyway, the giveaway is five weeks from yesterday.

I swear, last night I was reading the list of upcoming author events in the local newspaper and thought I felt what might have been the beginning of a panic attack coming on. It passed very rapidly, though.

I don't actually panic much. If I did, maybe I'd do more.

This Kind Of Thing Depresses Me

I should probably be reading more articles like this one describing how Jackie Davies did this great job at a bookstore promoting her new book The Lemonade War. You'd think this kind of thing would inspire me, wouldn't you? Oh, no. Not at all. I'm just left trying to repress the memories of many of my own book signings.

Actually, I was recently contacted by a bookstore (can't tell you how seldom that happens here) and asked if I'd do an appearance with Davies and another author. I had to pass because we'd already committed to going to a wedding that day. After reading this article I'm glad because all I bring to book signings is a pen, and how lame would that be compared to a lemonade stand and chocolate chip cookies?

Sigh. I'm doing a couple of readings at a middle school tomorrow night. I was thinking of looking in the office for my business cards tomorrow. You know, so I won't be totally empty-handed.

A Modest Proposal

artsJournal indicates that there is lots and lots and lots of concern regarding the loss of book supplements in newspapers. Newspapers are cutting these sections of their newspapers (and eliminating book editor positions) to save money. Readership is supposed to be going down due to the quick availability of news on-line and at all news cable stations. In addition, publishers aren't supporting such supplements with ads, instead using their marketing money to pay to have their books displayed at chain bookstores (among other things).

Remember, the number crunchers say that somewhere in the area of 150,000 to 175,000 books are published each year. Even if each book were reviewed and marketed properly, how could the average reader have time to even know of the existence of all those titles, let alone read them? What is the likelihood that readers will ever be able to connect with books that are perfect for them?

Now realize that there's not enough marketing money in the world to market them all perfectly. It is physically impossible for all books to be reviewed and becoming more impossible as publications cut back on their review space.

Think of a funnel with the fat part being all this year's books and the narrow part being review space and the white space beneath the funnel being the public. Now you can get some idea why people are concerned about this.

Here at Chez Gauthier, we have noticed that a great deal of the national news in our local big city paper is day old. It's stuff we read the day before on-line. Word for word because the paper is just printing news service stories.

Not a lot of reason for us to keep up our subscription. As I said earlier, evidently others feel the same way.

What might keep me interested in reading a daily paper? Well, expanded local news, of course, which we can't get on-line. And then how about expanded features? More arts coverage both national and local. More coverage of what's going on at museums, clubs, theaters, and...publishing. More coverage of local authors, local literary awards, author appearances at schools.

Am I the only person who would read more of this stuff? To me, this is the kind of material I can't get on the Internet. Why not give me that in the newspaper instead of cutting it out to give me more wire stories that I've already read?

This Time Last Year

Louise Doughty has a nice little column on the publishing experience. Though I have to say I've never had a publisher send me flowers, I've never had a book party, and I don't get much in the way of really good interviews in the papers. And as I was reading this thing, I kept thinking that Doughty had lucked out majorly with this column. As she was lamenting the lack of attention for her new paperback release, she was giving it a nice little shot of press.

I had a book come out last May and another is coming out this June. I've been thinking about the difference between last spring and this spring.

Last spring I made, what was for me, a major marketing effort. I thought I had a really good hook for publicity, and I spent a great deal of time working on a press release and sending press packages to area newspapers, my alumni magazines, and even a couple of radio stations. I arranged for a store appearance in my hometown, though my contact at the bookstore made it clear that this was really against his better judgment because people don't come to see children's authors. Then I sent press packages to the newspapers up there.

For all my effort, only one area newspaper was interested in me and the resulting article was so poorly written I was embarrassed to show it to anyone. In Vermont I got nothing but tiny mentions in "Calendar" sections of newspapers. I am no longer a hometown girl.

Late in the summer or early fall, I found that my alumni magazine did give me a nice little review and the local NPR affiliate gave me a mention during a book review show, for which I am very grateful.

On the other hand, the bookstores around here wanted nothing to do with me. I was clearly being given the brush-off by a couple of places I called several times and sent arcs. Ten years ago when I was a new writer without an ALA Notable Book and foreign editions to my credit I could get into a few bookstores. I couldn't make much in the way of sales there, but they would have me. Not any more.

This year I sent out a few arcs, contacted an alumni magazine, and at some point I'm supposed to have an essay published in an on-line publication, which should get my name in front of new people. But instead of making calls and mailing packages to people who have no interest in receiving them, I'm working on a new book.

My self-esteem is a little healthier this year than last.

Literary Fight!

The end of last month Meg Rosoff got a nice little pissing match going over at The Guardian's Books Blog. Do these kinds of things happen over here between writers and general readership?

In Selling Yourself As A Writer Rosoff wrote a "how-to" list for writers based on what she learned during her years working in advertising. One reader, in particular, took offense because "Marketing is important" was placed at the top of the list. The fight was on, with Rosoff, herself, getting a couple of pops in.

At one point she said, "Stop reading the blog. It'll improve both our lives." I have to agree with the reader who didn't find that response terribly profound.

Well, she did call the post Selling Yourself As A Writer. What did readers expect to find there? It's not like she suggested that writers plan to spend their advance on promotion, hire private P.R. people, or send gifts to their publishers' marketing staff, all of which I've heard elsewhere.

Thanks to not your mother's book club for the link.