Promotion, Promotion

Yesterday, The Writer’s Workshop at Authors Publish sponsored a pre-launch event for author Jennifer Givhan to talk about the development of her soon-to-be-published novel River Woman, River Demon. She was joined by Isabella Nugent, a publicist for Givhan’s publisher Blackstone, and the two discussed the publicity strategies they developed for the new book.

The inspiration for River Woman, River Demon, Givhan said, was a series of personal upheavals. She gives credit to both the strength and spirit of family for helping her weather these challenges and giving her a profound sense of herself as a person. This carries over into her book publicity strategy, where she looked for activities compatible with how she sees the world. It was an important idea that an author’s marketing activities have to be true to them as a person, in order to feel authentic (and doable). Otherwise, they can be awkward and unpersuasive.

This leads naturally to the notion that the author and the publicist need to develop a strong, mutually respectful, partnership. There are many ways to publicize a book, and the publicist has to hear it when the author isn’t comfortable with something.

The whole strategy development process for River Woman, River Demon took about nine months to plan and carry out. One of the first tasks was to cast a wide net for blurbs from other authors that then could be used to garner media publicity. During downtime, as the book was getting ready for market, Jenn made it a point to respond “yes” to as many requests for blurbs or other assistance from other authors as she could. Giving other writers uplift, she believes, not only makes her feel good, but in the long run will be of benefit to the larger writing community, herself included.

She recommends teaming up with other authors for publicity—doing readings together, interviewing each other, and so on. Authors working with smaller publishers may have a somewhat easier time making connections with their “sibs.”

Jenn also invested in an outside publicist, interviewing a great many, which resulted in some free consultations, even though she was up-front about her budgetary constraints. Even staying within budget, this extra help was useful. Jenn and Isabella talked about the importance of identifying all the different sets of contacts Jenn has. She is a novelist, but she’s also a poet, and those connections in the poetry world have led to some unpredictable good results and cross-promotions. “You don’t know who all of your readers are, and ultimately, they may connect.” I’ve certainly found that in promoting Architect of Courage. Reviews, help, invitations end up coming from all sorts of wonderful places!

Related
I describe my promotion strategy for not driving myself crazy right here.

Book Clubs are Authors’ Friends

So far, three library book clubs and one “unaffiliated” club in three states have decided to read my mystery/thriller, Architect of Courage, and give their members a chance to ask me questions about it. The first one of these occurred last week, when my “home” club—the mystery book club at Princeton Public Library—read the book.

This is one of those activities that Zoom has made much more doable! The group not only includes ten or so members from the Princeton area, but one of us has moved to Maine, one is here now but for some months was based in Richmond, Virginia, and I think one or two of us are Florida snowbirds.

Group leader Gayle Stratton and I agreed that, in the interest of candor, the group would have about 45 minutes to discuss the book before I joined the call for the second half of our meeting. That apparently was an unnecessary precaution, because it seems they were unanimous in reporting they enjoyed the book! Their questions covered plot, intent, research strategies, publishing, favorite characters—a whole array of issues.

In promoting the novel through interviews and book events, I’ve found I most enjoy the q&a. It’s always fun to see how different people interpret the same things. It’s a challenge authors frequently face. They have to walk the fine line between explaining too much and explaining too little. Although I work hard to make the text clear, questions still come up. In general, I’m a big believer in trusting the reader. When I’m reading, I hate the feeling I’m being spoon-fed. If an author tells the character’s dog died, she doesn’t need to tell me the character stayed in bed all day because she is sad. I know why she did that.

Just after Labor Day, I spent two days at the Library of Virginia genealogizing, and saw a big poster for its book group. The club was planning to discuss SA Cosby and Razorblade Tears on September 14. I’ve listened to the audiobooks of Razorblade Tears and its predecessor, Blacktop Wasteland, both of which delve into what Cosby has called “the holy trinity of Southern fiction—race, class, and sex.”

This was an opportunity not to be missed! Another Zoom success, I thought; I could call in from New Jersey. Disappointingly, he wasn’t on the call, so I missed my opportunity to ask whether part of his process is reading his books out loud. His dialog is so spot-on perfect, I figured he must do that. Then his publisher hires the genius narrator Adam Lazarre-White for the audio versions (highly recommended). I’ll just have to wait for another chance to ask Cosby my question.

If your book club reads fiction—be in touch!

You Can Help the Authors and Books You Love

You Can Help the Authors and Books You Love!

Raymond Chandler, Philip Marlowe, Humphrey Bogart
(art: wikimedia.org)

Friends and family members can be incredibly patient when they ask an author in their circle solicitous and innocent-sounding questions—like “How’s the book coming?”—and are met with blank looks, or, worse, groans and sighs.

Most authors today—OK, James Patterson’s an exception, and so’s JK Rowling—find that reaching “The End” is just the beginning of their work. Now they have to let the world know about it.  

If you have a sense of how much time and effort authors invest in their books, maybe you’ve wondered “What can I do? How can I help?” Yes, indeed, there are things you can do that will help! And, whatever you find time to do, you can be sure it will be greatly appreciated!

Ten ways you can help promote an author or book you admire:

  1. Buy the books! The author may have written it with readers like you in mind.
  2. Don’t be too quick to pass around a book; instead, encourage others to buy it. Amazon, or book stores, and the author’s publisher keep most of the price of the book. If a book sells for $16, the author receives $2 to $4.
  3. Remember, books make great gifts! Maybe a friend or family member needs a thank-you or has a special day coming up.
  4. Word of mouth is the most powerful form of book marketing. So, tell people about a book you’ve loved.
  5. What you say about the book in an Amazon or Barnes & Noble review will influence other would-be purchasers. No need for cringy flashbacks to high school book reports. Just say the two or three things you’d tell a good friend who asked, “Read any good books lately?”
  6. Share a few words about what you’re reading on social media—GoodReads, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, etc.
  7. If you enjoyed a book, your book club might too! Many authors are willing to participate in book club discussions in person or by Zoom, etc.
  8. You can “follow” your favorite authors on Amazon. Search for one of their books, click on the author’s name, and their author page will come up.
  9. If your author has a newsletter, sign up! Author newsletters often include interviews, reviews, and favorites.
  10. An author’s blog and website are another way to keep track of their new releases and to learn more about them.

Many thanks, and happy reading!

Movie Titles as Mood Creators

Years ago, because I arrived late for a showing of The Three Musketeers, I missed the opening credits. I wanted to see them, though, so when the film ended I stayed in my seat. They were so good, I watched the film a second time. (As a result, I learned what every stage actor knows: No two audiences are alike. Not one laugh was in the same place the second time around!)

Last Friday, we watched an entertaining Zoom program on “The Art of Film Titles,” presented by genial film historian, critic, and mega-fan Max Alvarez, sponsored by New Plaza Cinema in conjunction with New York’s Museum of Arts and Design. It was a fun excursion through the ways in which film titles have evolved over the years and how effective they can be in establishing a film’s mood and tone.

A good example is the beautiful and compelling main title sequence from the 2010 HBO miniseries, The Pacific, created by Imaginary Forces. Combined with the score by Hans Zimmer, you learn—and feel—a lot before the story even begins. Likewise, M & Co NY’s titles for Silence of the Lambs show FBI agent Clarice Starling training alone on a foggy and demanding obstacle course—a metaphor for what she will face (also alone) and the grit she will need when she is assigned to interview Hannibal Lector. A gentler example is the sensuous title sequence by Elaine and Saul Bass for the 1993 film, The Age of Innocence. She cut the sequence to the music of Charles Gounod’s opera Faust, which opens the film. Elmer Bernstein, who was slated to score the titles, said the Faust was so perfect, “keep it!”

In the early days of film, the opening title was a simple affair—one or two static slides, with a lot of facts crammed in. The slide for the 1931 Academy-Award-winning Bad Girl above,, for example, includes not just the film title, but the director (Borzage), the studio (Fox), and the leading cast members. Nothing about it hints what’s coming or how audience members should feel about it. So much data, no information.

Up until the 1990s, film titles and animations were hand-produced. Today, of course, they are mostly computer-generated. That doesn’t automatically mean they are more complex. Alvarez cited one of the masters of film title creation, Kyle Cooper, who has produced more than 350 visual effects and main title sequences. He created his jarring, multi-layered titles for the 1995 movie Se7en without computers, in what Alvarez dubs “serial killer font,” complete with real scratches on the film. You can revisit a great many film title sequences at Cooper’s website, The Art of the Title. You may even find some titles you liked better than the actual movie. I hate when that happens!

What Do Book Club Audiences Want?

Author Kathryn Kraft in Writer Unboxed says book clubs have “the potential to serve as a word-of-mouth marketing machine for novelists.” We’re all familiar with the marketing boost books have received thanks to the endorsement of Oprah’s book club and now Reese Witherspoon’s (with more than 800,000 followers), among many others.

Millions of Americans belong to book clubs—the formal kind that have regular meetings in libraries and living rooms—and the loosely organized kind that operate through social media, including GoodReads, with its 90 million members. A 2015 BookBrowse survey of people who read at least one book per month found that over half belong to at least one book club, with the percentage of readers who are book club members rising with age.

Another BookBrowse survey of more than 5000 book club members, conducted last year, found that “overwhelmingly, book club members want to read books that will promote good discussion.” In other words, they’re looking for books whose features intrigue them.

Recognizing a learning opportunity here, Kraft analyzed a number of book club reading guides to discover major topics presumed to promote book club discussions. They relate to issues writers ponder all the time, and it’s encouraging to know they get readers talking too. Here they are:

1. A protagonist with a unique perspective – Think Maggie Gee’s new book Blood, with its unforgettable narrator Monica Ludd or Rice Moore in the Appalachian noir prize-winner Bearskin by James A. McLaughlin. Characters with strong voices like these give book club members “a chance to look at life in a new way,” Kraft says.

2. A character or characters readers can relate to – I have nothing in common with manipulative New Orleans gangster Frank Guidry in Lou Berney’s November Road, but I certainly related to him. A character doesn’t have to be exactly like me (please, no!) for that to happen; the character just needs to be richly portrayed.

3. A story that reflects some larger issue – In this way, the character’s deeply personal experience can become “universal and political,” Kraft says. Gin Phillips’s thriller Fierce Kingdom begins with a mother wanting to take her toddler home, and the rest of the book is about that thwarted journey. Home is always more than an address.

4. A structure that helps set expectations and convey meaning – Denise Mina’s Conviction, with its story-within-a-story format not only engages the reader in two plots, the relevance of the second story gives the protagonist a chance to reflect on her past and motivates her current actions. Think Dov Alfon’s A Long Night in Paris or Chris Pavone’s new The Paris Diversion that puts the time of day at the head of each chapter in this fast-paced thriller that takes place over a jam-packed 11 hours. The ticking clock is one of the thriller genre’s most popular structural devices. It sure sets expectations.

5. Endings that are tidy or open-ended? I’m sure there’s lots of discussion on this point. Kraft comes down on leaving endings looser, which gives readers a chance to think about all the novel’s foregoing elements and, in an act of co-creation, what’s most likely to happen next. “Imaginations are not constrained to what occurred between the covers of the book,” Kraft says. It’s like movies that end with a “where are they now?” feature as the credits roll, which evoke that same feeling of limiting the possibilities I might prefer. I believe Delia Owens’s Where the Crawdads Sing would have been stronger without Tate’s final discoveries. Let readers puzzle it out.

Photo: Free-Photos from Pixabay   

Painless Public Readings

microphone

If you write, you may receive invitations to read from your work to a book group, at a public reading, or for a bookstore event. It’s a chance to connect with an audience, to find places in your work that still need work, and to build fans. But writing doesn’t prepare you for reading.

Viet Thanh Nguyen, who won a Pulitzer Prize for The Sympathizer, has written a spot-on essay for lithub on “how not to bore your audience at a reading.”

Before I give you Nguyen’s tips, here’s an important one from Walter Moseley. He told an audience at Princeton last year that “the longer I read, the fewer books I sell.” Author venues like Noir at the Bar, Mystery Writers of America, and my own Princeton-based writers group limit authors to 10 to 12 minutes. A taste and a tease. Nguyen’s tips and a couple of my own:

1. A reading is a performance. Writing is storytelling and good storytellers put some pizzazz into their reading. Your audience wants to be moved by your words and how you share them. He recommends listening to skilled readers, like author T.C.Boyle (here reading from his The Harder They Come, starting 7:50 in).

2. Create a script, rather than simply reading from your book. With a script, you can enlarge the type (I use really big type—18 to 20 points), so you don’t have to bury your head in the pages, and you can see the words easily even if the lectern is poorly lit, a lesson learned the hard way. Mark your script with underlinings and squiggly lines where you want to speed up, slow down, get louder, pause. Number the pages. Circle words you trip over in rehearsing. You may trip over them again. Authors with younger eyes tend to read from their tablet or cell phone, but paper never has a low battery.

3. “Practice, practice, practice,” Nguyen says. And time yourself. Cut out a paragraph here or there if, at the twelve-minute mark, you want to reach a particular point. A description that seems slow to you as a reader, probably is.

4. Make eye contact with your audience. Repeatedly. Those rehearsals you did will let you take your eyes off the page for longer too.

5. Be aware of how close to the mike you need to be and cement yourself  there. A little movement  is fine, especially with the arms, but avoid weaving back and forth, shifting your weight from one foot to the other in a seasickness-inducing way. Plant your feet and keep them planted.

6. How you look is important. “Dress up, whatever that means to you,” he says. It shows you are rising to the occasion. If certain colors or outfits perk you up and you feel good wearing them, choose one of those.

7. Bring energy into the room. “Your energy level will be the room’s energy level, which comedians understand,” Nguyen says.Here’s the bottom line: Once you’re on stage, you’re a performer. “You are putting on a show, whether it is for five people or fifty or five hundred. That’s what people have come for. If they just want to read your words, they can do it at home. Respect their time.” Don’t be boring. And if you’re really prepared, you won’t be.

And see advice from Jane Friedman‘s blog: “How to Plan a Book Reading that Wows Your Audience”!

Photo: Pete on Flickr, creative commons license.

The Ironies of “Living Coral”

Spent much time with graphic artists? Then you’re probably familiar with Pantone, the professional color standard for design in advertising, publications, fashion, cosmetics, and a whole range of products, including book cover design. It already popped up a few years ago. Remember Crazy Rich Asians?

Every year,  Pantone’s color trend-watchers proclaim a “color of the year,” and for 2019, it’s Pantone 16-1546, a soft pinky orange called “Living Coral.” Pantone considers it a life-affirming, nurturing shade, never mind the irony that the life-negating, destructive reality of global warming is fast making “living coral” an anachronism.

But let’s nod to the intent here. To Pantone, designers, including book jacket designers, will be gravitating toward this optimistic color. “It’s truly a reflection of what’s needed in our world today,” Laurie Pressman, the Pantone Color Institute’s vice president told the Associated Press.

That all sounds so positive, I thought I’d check it against a couple of my color analysis books.

My Fortune-Telling Book of Colors has a one-word signifier for many colors, and for coral, it’s “wise.” The color in the book that better matches Pantone’s shade is “persimmon,” which signifies “healthy.” Something off there, though it captures the optimism. You like the color? Then flowers that book recommends for you are roses, tulips, dahlias, peonies, and orchids.

Especially helpful to us writers is the advice to wear this color when we want to motivate ourselves and get results.

The closest shade to Pantone 16-1546 in The Secret Lives of Color is actually amaranth, if it were a few shades paler. In another irony, garlands of amaranth (the plant) were used to honor the Greek heroes because their everlasting blossoms suggested immortality. If only that were the case for our real living coral.

Further Reading

“12 Questions to ask when hiring a book cover designer” by Diana Urban on the BookBub Partners blog, 23 January 2019.

Your Website’s “About Me” Page

house, Texas

(photo: Carol Von Canon, creative commons license)

Just in time for a spring spruce-up of your web home, my favorite book marketing guru Sandra Beckwith posted a how-to on upgrading the “About Me” page. On this website, the page is called “Who Is?”—a faint echo of the mystery theme (perhaps should be “Whodunnit?”). The post was written by serial entrepreneur Andrew Wise whose online success means his advice is worth listening to, and it’s of interest to all authors maintaining a web site or thinking about starting one.

The biggest reason not to “create and forget” this page is that our visitors read it. In fact, says Wise, it’s usually one of the 10 most popular pages on a site. I was surprised to learn that’s true of my site, too. New visitors want to know we’re reliable—regardless of what kind of stuff we write. He’s distilled a lot of insight into this infographic (click on it for a larger view).

At a minimum, the About Me page should:

  • Prove yourself to be an authority in your field – a bit of a stretch for me, since I write about crime and am not a former cop or lawyer. But, my publication credentials speak to a different aspect of credibility, and they’re on another page altogether, my “Writing . . .” page. Hmmmm.
  • Show your personality – make your text more of a conversation and less of an information dump; be positive and friendly.
  • Include a picture of yourself – this responds to the human love of visual images. My page has only a thematic picture.
  • At the conclusion, provide a way for readers to be in touch. I do that! But that area need tweaking. The ask is buried.

As blogger Rob Orr reminds us, “you never get a second chance to make a first impression.” In reviewing many About Me pages, he says the most important common denominator of the best ones is that they make a connection. In that sense, they are less about the author than about the visitors, a point many others make as well. How to translate that insight from commercial sites to the writer-reader experience is something I’ll be thinking about.

If you were coming to my website the first time, what would you want to know about me? Anything? Are you finding it? Come back in a month to find out “Who Is? 2.0”!

Bees to Honey, Moths to Light, Readers to Books

Anthony DoerrA recent post by “Sarah” for Written Word Media described four principles of book cover design that psychological research  shows influence most people. Although individual preferences of course vary, there are enough common denominators to help readers understand why they’re drawn to a particular book on the bookstore table and to help authors and designers increase the odds that their book is the one picked up. On my next trip to the bookstore, I’m going to check this out!

The Big Green Tent, Ludmila UlitskayaSymmetry in the placement of image, title, author name, and so on. The examples used include All the Light We Cannot See, in which every element is centered on the page, except the later-added National Book Award notice, which stands out by its very non-symmetrical placement. A recent book cover I found myself quite drawn to was that for The Big Green Tent, and you’ll see that it gets a check mark in the symmetry box, too.

The Long Fire, Meghan TifftSimplicity in design also gets points. A chaotic cover may suggest chaos within. Give a prospective buyer too many images and text blocks, and the eye doesn’t really know where to look. There are lots of bad examples (some hilarious), but a good one is The Long Fire. Only after you’ve started reading do you realize the smudging over the lips has significance, but you don’t need to understand (or much notice) that beforehand. Subtle. Simple.

Ghost FleetColor. While I’m notorious for saying, “I don’t care what color it is, as long as it’s green,” in fact a more universally attractive color is blue. As Sarah says, color conveys (or should) a lot about the book’s mood. Note the color similarity between All the Light and the techno-thriller Ghost Fleet. Romance novels tend toward red (hot!), chick-lit toward pink and purple, thrillers toward red and black, darkness and fog. Glance at the rack in an airport and you can pretty much peg the books’ genre without reading a word of cover copy.

In Cold Blood, Truman CapoteContrast allows some elements in the book cover to stand out more than others. A book by a new author will likely emphasizes the title. Truman Capote was pretty well known when he wrote In Cold Blood and the cover reflects that. When it was written, there was a lot of buzz about that book, and the cover was designed so you couldn’t miss it. Admire the single drop of blood. (Or is that a hatpin?)

Typography – I’m adding a fifth item here that unlike Sarah’s tips relies not on science but purely in the domain of opinion. Color choice, use of images, and density of information on covers all have styles and trends. Sometimes a designer innovates to make a cover stand out; sometimes designers just copy what has worked well for another book—thinking or hoping readers will make some association with these past successes. Typography has gone through or may still be in the middle of one of those copycat phases, in which the cover’s words are designed to look hand-written in chalk or crayon. I first noticed this technique with The Fault in Our Stars (2012). Three years later, there are a half-dozen uses of it in this roundup of “most anticipated” new books for fall 2015. At that link you can see 42 new covers and Sarah’s principles followed and flaunted. Which are most attractive to you?

With all this in mind, read NPR’s recent deep dive into the significance and impact of the covers of the 2015 National Book Award shortlist with new appreciation!

A Bookstore for Invisible Authors

book store

Gulf Coast Books, Fort Myers, Florida (photo: facebook)

A great idea recently came out of Florida—and, no, I am not talking about aspiring Republican presidential candidates. According to a Publisher’s Weekly story by Judith Rosen, the first bookstore dedicated to self-published authors opened in Fort Myers earlier this month. The Gulf Coast Book Store was launched by two self-published authors: Patti Brassard Jefferson, who writes and illustrates children’s books and history author Timothy Jacobs.

The store addresses one of the biggest difficulties facing self-published authors—the near-impossibility of getting their books into stores. In traditional book stores, self-published authors—who conservatively publish some 450,000 books per year—are essentially invisible. Even books published by small presses may have difficulty appearing on store shelves if the publisher doesn’t invest in relationships with book distributors. Distributors’ sales teams are the people who promote a new author’s book to book store buyers. (A useful discussion of the difference between book wholesalers and distributors is here, a distinction many publishing services gloss over.)

At Gulf Coast, which is located in Fort Myers’s Butterfly Estates, self-published authors’ works are not vetted, but writers must be local. They can rent shelf space for three months for $60, plus a $15 set-up fee. In return, they receive 100% of every sale. (Bookstores willing to take a local author’s books typically do so on consignment, and the author may receive only about half of each sale.) Gulf Coast can offer these full returns because it doesn’t need staff. Butterfly Estates—which includes shops, a café, and butterfly conservatory—handles sales and credit-card processing.

In April, the store offered books by 36 local authors, plans to add 16 more in May, and currently has no spaces available. Each writer can display up to 10 books, and the 10 may be all the same title or multiple titles. Authors can display promotional materials—bookmarks, brochures, and the like—and are featured on the store’s website.

Gulf Coast’s space is available for book signings, too. For Jefferson and Jacobs, “the store is about building community and helping other authors,” writes PW contributor Rosen. Though Gulf Coast provides a tiny solution for now, if it caught on elsewhere, indie authors would rejoice.