New-Fashioned: How to (Maybe) Sell Books in the Digital Age

By Jenny Milchman

 

Maybe it’s the time of year, but a lot of writers seem to feel weighed down lately with the effort of trying to sell books. I’m getting emails about how impossible it is to fit everything in, we need thirty hours in a day, that kind of thing.

And I understand. Look at the range of things there are to do—places there are to be—if an author wants to try and cover all the bases.

Blog, guest blog, blog tour. Tweet, update statuses, figure out what the heck Google + is all about. Maintain a website, solicit reviews, host giveaways, try and arrange for book signings, travel to conferences or book fairs. And the list could on. Way on.

As more writers publish independently or with small presses, and as major houses cut back on marketing budgets, it seems that a great deal is resting on the author’s shoulders besides writing the next book.

Even worse than trying to do all of the above, is the fact that nobody really knows what works. Should you kill yourself taking part in a twenty stop blog tour if this doesn’t sell a single copy? It begs the question—what, in the end, are we doing all of this for?

This is a time of year when I think that taking a step back is often required. The holiday bustle sometimes requires a breather. And book marketing is the same. What I’m going to suggest may sound radical. And I’m not going to promise that you’ll wind up selling more books than ever. But you may sell as many as you would by running all across cyberspace, hoping FB friends will spread the word about a great review.

So why don’t we all do this for the next couple of weeks. Let’s stop marketing.

I don’t mean stop tweeting, updating, and posting. I mean stop doing all of that with any intention of selling books. Let’s use social media to be social—to connect. Spend the end of the year trying to catch up on what friends have written. And spreading the word about their books.

Let’s go to sites and talk with readers about which books they loved this year. Read the “Best Of” lists on listservs like DorothyL, and look for books you might have missed. Then weigh in on the discussions about them. Go to GoodReads and join a group that has nothing to do with the genre in which you write. Chat with the people there. If you’re traditionally published, go to a Kindle board and get to know what people who love their e books are saying. If you’re digitally published, go hang out at a bookstore, and talk to the booksellers about what they envision for their stores and e books.

In other words, immerse yourself in this writing/reading life for the pure joy of communing with people who love what you do. Make new friends, and rediscover the pleasure of an unread book.

Then, if you want to, blog or tweet or post about what you did. Start a conversation about what happens when we put down what we’re told to do, or think we have to do, and just partake in what brought us here in the first place.

A shared love of story.

Who knows? You may even sell a book or two in the process.

Happy holidays, and merry reading!

Jenny Milchman is a suspense writer from New Jersey. Her short story ‘The Very Old Man’ has been an Amazon bestseller, and another short piece will appear in the anthology ADIRONDACK MYSTERIES II in fall 2012. Jenny is the Chair of International Thriller Writers' Debut Authors Program. She is also the founder of Take Your Child to a Bookstore Day, and the Made It Moments forum on her blog. Jenny teaches writing and publishing for New York Writers Workshop and has designed curricula to teach writing to children. Her debut novel, COVER OF SNOW, will be published by Ballantine in early 2013.

Guest Blog with Carl Brookins on Internet Marketing

I have the honor of being the first person to ask Carl Brookins to guest blog. When you see what he has to say you will wonder why no one has picked his brain before this.

This document is a deliberate exercise in individual marketing considerations. It is for authors who want to consider Internet marketing in this world. I deliberately did no research, relying on my memory of what’s available. I found it instructive. What I looked up are the references to links so you aren’t sent on a weird journey. I have no particular axe to grind.

As an aside, it occurs to me that weird journeys are sometimes useful. Porn for example. If you believe what you read on the Internet, nobody in the crime fiction writing community ever wants to be exposed to porn sites. Ewewew! Disgusting! Demeaning! Awful, etc etc. Well, a man I know spends a good deal of his time cruising porn sites looking for illegal stuff. Exploited children for example. He’s a cop. If he spends every waking hour he will never visit all the porn sites (use your definition of porn) that exist. Pornography, as defined by federal statutes and testimony as a multi-billion dollar business. Annually. Who’s buying? Nobody I know. Uh huh. Why is this stuff so successful? Why don’t customers buy my novels instead? And yours?

Nobody really knows what works in comparison to other techniques of marketing. That’s been true since marketing was invented and nobody I know is willing to try restricting themselves to a single method and then later changing to another method for long enough to really know what doesn’t work. Anybody who tells you they have the answer(s) is prepared to take your money. Branding, marketing yourself, selling yourself and/or your book; it called exposure, or branding if you like that label better. It’s all good. If you do it the right way. And I have the Right Way. Pardon me, I have to wipe away my tears of laughter.

For one thing, Internet marketing and advertising is new and constantly changing. The business models that worked yesterday are dysfunctional today. There’s a new cyber network popping up every time you turn around. What will tomorrow bring? Do you know about these sites?


http://www.authorbuzz.com/; http://www.librarything.com/; http://www.mysterywriters.org/; http://www.shelf-awareness.com/index.html; http://www.sistersincrime.org/; http://www.goodreads.com/; http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Working_Writers/; http://www.murdermustadvertise.com/; http://www.shortmystery.net/markets.html; http://brennalyonsden.blogspot.com; http://www.jeffreymarks.com/; http://www.ascamacho.com/; http://www.dorothyl.com/; http://www.facebook.com/; http://www.myspace.com/; http://www.jakonrath.com/freebies.htm; http://www.authorsden.com/;


That’s just a sampling of web sites with information and services that may be useful. Some of them offer specific books on modern marketing. I neither endorse nor disparage any of the above and you’ll find my books and stories at several of them. You’ll also find more sources if you visit my website, www.carlbrookins.com or http://www.minnesotacrimewave.org/.

I could go on for a very long time and build a very long list. You can do it yourself. My point is this: There are a variety of inexpensive and pricy tools available to market yourself and your writings on the Internet. There is one thing we know for sure. The easier you make for a reader of your marketing efforts to buy your product, the more sales you will have. From that it follows inevitably that Internet links to sales outlets are important. There are still a great variety of non-Internet tools which you should not eliminate from your marketing mix without careful consideration. The number of people in the nation with regular access to high speed Internet is less than 50% A lot of people use library computers for their on-line addresses. The mail is important! Do you want to ignore half the reading population?

In the end, it’s just like anything else you do, or it should be. Proceed cautiously, be disciplined, particularly when spending money. Keep track of what you doing and allot adequate but not endless time to blogging, texting, emailing and so on. Be active on the Internet, but not to the neglect of your serious writing. If becoming a successful well-paid author is your goal, you must continue to write seriously and thoughtfully. Dancing on the Internet or spending large sums on advertising and mailings unless you have the resources, can consume you. Don’t let it.