Tags
book marketing, Create Space, fictioin book marketing, non-fiction book marketing, self-publishing, waste of time, webinar
I listen so you don’t have to
Before the “But”
I’m a huge fan of Create Space. Though as a cooperative publisher my main squeeze is LSI, as a freelance editor I am happy to recommend CS to writers who want to self-publish quickly. I find the CS website remarkably intuitive and free of extraneous crap. The CS Interior reviewer makes my heart sing, and its cover templates, with the automatic bar-code insertion, are easy to use and well documented. Their phone help is incredible: you call, you get through immediately, the people on the other end of the phone know everything you need to know. Their distribution channels are useful if not all-inclusive (and I expect that all-inclusiveness is right around the corner). And it’s all free, if you want it to be. It all works.
So I was excited to read that CS was hosting a free webinar about marketing. I signed up. I marked my calendar. I phoned in at the appropriate time.
But
Unfortunately this webinar was a waste of an hour for me. Admittedly, most of the problem had to do with the expectation I had built up, based on the erroneous title, but then who would sign-up for a webinar titled “Create an Outline for Business Plan that is so Generic You Can Use it for Anything from Ashtrays to Zucchini”?
Mr. Jud, author and marketing strategist, could have been talking about selling coffee mugs or acne cream. His approach in this webinar was that of the entrepreneurial business person, with literally nothing that is specific to writing or publishing. He came across as a business man who chose writing as his business. I view myself as a fiction writer who embraces the challenges of marketing. As such, I found it impossible to identify with what Mr. Jud was saying on any level. Strike one.
Strike two was the lack of marketing specifics. Jr. Jud said he was going to describe a plan. What he did was provide the bullet points for a plan (a generic right that would do for any product, right?), then left it at that. See “What He Actually Said” below.
Poor Mr. Jud, you were undermined by CS and never stood a chance. Or possibly you really do not know the difference between facts and relevant facts. Your webinar was remarkably generic and full of buzz works with zero—and I mean zero—ideas specific to book marketing.
The Fiction v Non-fiction Dynamic
Despite the generic nature of the webinar, Mr. Jud did frequently mention the words book marketing, particularly with reference to his own books, which he markets, all of which appear to be non-fiction. Including the one on how to market books.
I admit to a prejudice. I am sick and beyond tired of being promised information on book marketing only to discover that the information provided is ninety-five percent about non-fiction books. Which are much easier to market than fiction, particularly if you are self-publishing. My prejudice began with the estimable Dan Poynter, whose book was vaunted as _the_ book for self-publishing authors some twelve years ago when POD first made the concept financially viable. I diligently scoured Mr. Poynter’s book and on-line writings, in search of the same information Mr. Jud promises: solid business advice on how to sell books. And I got exactly what I got from Mr. Jud: the occasional bone thrown to those of us in the fiction wilderness in the form of: “this also works for fiction.” Mr. Jud even mentioned Dan Poynter (in a sort of “he got there first” competitive way). But in fact the sorts of things Mr. Jud was talking about (the “sell yourself” approach as outlined below under “What Was Actually Said) really don’t apply to fiction, or to most fiction writers. A fact that the tales of ebook and online-marketing successes have illustrated. Most fiction writers do not aspire to become consultants or public speakers to moderate their own TV shows. They mostly bloody well mostly just want to write fiction, which takes immense amounts of time.
Early on in his presentation, Mr. Jud stated that mystery writers need to define their target audience and figure out ways to reach them. I’m not paraphrasing, that’s as far as it went. You have to take it as read that there were no specifics in this webinar, remember? That was his first mention of fiction. At minute 49 in the 60 minute webinar, during his bullet points how to grow a publishing business, he said the magic words “This also works for fiction” and then spent two minutes lauding an author he is promoting, a doctor who writes mysteries and has successfully used his doctor status to speak publicly about deaths in mysteries.
Now as we know, it is a great thing for a fiction writer to be an expert in something; expertise gives authority and makes the best possible foundation for promotion. I think warmly of noted mystery author, Martina Navratilova. But what about those fiction writers whose expertise is, y’know, writing? What about those of us in the same expertiseless boat? But I digress. At 51 minutes into the webinar, Mr. Jud ended his discussion of applications for fiction writers. Strike three.
Do I Hear a Counterpoint?
“You are being negative,” I hear you say. “That is the problem with you fiction writers; you have no business sense; you are unwilling to do the grinding work of promotion.” Not true. The distinction I am making is one of approach. I am driven to write; writing fiction defines who I am; it is the thing I do best. I don’t choose what I write because it might (accent on the “might”) lead to the most opportunities to consult, or line up the most and best speaking engagements, or getting a TV show. I might do those things because they sold books, but they are not an end unto themselves for me.
Marketing for fiction writers, from what I understand, needs to be approached from exactly the opposite direction; you look inside, at what you create, and figure out the best ways to market it to the audience you decide your work will most appeal to. Yes, you look for opportunities while writing that will help with your later promotion, and yes, if you have the wonderful expertise, you focus on that. Yes, you market like a fiend and as creatively as possible. And above all you manage your time as both a writer and a marketer—a struggle that Mr. Jud does not seem to be aware of.
So What Did He Actually Say?
If you’ve ever taken Business 101, you will have heard everything Mr. Jud talked about before on the first day. Now it happens I’ve never taken Business 101, but I’ve organized conferences at which it was taught, so I’ve heard this stuff a number of times. I will post one small graphic from the webinar (just as proof), and summarize a few others. For example:
Did you know that if you set aside an hour before work in the morning, an hour at lunch, two hours each evening, and ten hours over the weekend, you can have 30 hours to devote to your publishing business and still keep a full-time job? Of course you can’t have kids, or a social life, or, y’know, write, but that doesn’t seem to have occurred to Mr. Jud.
Did you know that 95 percent of all new business fail? But that 95 percent of all successful business are founded by people who have previously failed with a new business. Now you do.
Did you know that you have to have a plan for distribution channels, including retailers and ecommerce?
Did you know that you should try to interest a venture capitalist in your publishing business (I am not kidding!). And do you know what you have to have to do that? If not, here is your answer:
- Mission statement
- Executive Summary
- Company description
- Market Analysis
- Internet Plan
- Financial Plan
- Marketing plan — objective, strategies, action
And finally, did you know that you should “have fun with plan”. This apparently to Mr. Jud involves putting cutsy graphics in your flow chart (still not kidding).
I had the great pleasure of listening to the wisdom of mystery author and speaker Christine Kling at a recent conference in Sarasota FL run by the Florida chapter of the MWA. May I say that there was more useful content in once of Ms Kling’s sentences than in the hour I spent with Mr. Jud? She never talked about writing process; she only talked about sales and marketing, but it was clear that she was a writer and was coming from the same place I come from, which made her business approach To be sure, her experiences and creative ideas were wholly fiction oriented, but no doubt they could be applied to non-fiction as well.
Come on, Create Space! You’re better than this. Figure out how many of your users are publishing non-fiction and how many are publishing fiction and plan accordingly. You only embarrass the estimable Mr. Jud by promoting him as something he is not. Take his advise and know your audience.
The webinar and power-point charts are available free from Create Space here.
Kaz Augustin said:
Thanks for your post. I, too, am sick to death of people pitching “marketing”, only to find out that everything depends on your day job tying in with what you write, with the hope that, in 99% of the cases, it’s non-fiction.
I am waiting for a so-called expert to actually show some ^&%%^% (er, bravery) and market to us genre fiction writers. THEN, I’ll be listening.
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Jacqueline Seewald said:
A very thoughtful post. As writers, we receive pitching on how to market our novels constantly. Unless you’re at the top of the profession, publishers won’t market authors. So it falls upon us to do so. No small feat! We’d all like the magic formula. But I’m not certain it’s out there.
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Mary W. Walters said:
I listened too and had many of the same thoughts. Am just about to blog about it also. A big disappointment.
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The Constant Pen said:
A fellow sufferer! I’ll be interested to read your take, Mary. You know when I was hunting up the flow chart I noticed that there is another marketing pamphlet on the CS page for this webinar. I guess it’s also written by Mr. Jud and was a source for his presentation. It was indeed not about books at all, just a general basics of book. Pfff.
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Mary W. Walters said:
P.S. I am trying to collect information that is actually useful to those of us who are trying to promote novels and other books that we have written. My blog is The Militant Writer and it’s at maryww.wordpress.com — I’ve put up about 12 different posts about book promotion so far. Geared for the average joe, like me.
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The Constant Pen said:
Good job Mary — I for one will be following you. This blog is my record of the promo I’m doing for In Retrospect and what I run into as I work up to the pub date. So I think our blogs complement each other nicely.
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Alice Duncan said:
Wow, I signed up for the webinar, but wasn’t able to attend because I’d forgotten I had to drive to a doctor’s appointment in Albuquerque. I was sorry at the time, but I’m not now. Thanks!
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Julie Compton said:
Ellen, I’ve found this to be true of most of the “free” webinars. The information presented in them is usually so generic and basic, they’re useless to most except the newbies in the crowd (which is fine if they had been marketed that way, but usually they’re not). Almost always, I come away feeling as if the real point of the webinar was to get the attendees to sign up for the “expanded” course, which, of course, you have to pay for. They are merely ways to find customers for the presenters’ paid seminars, which makes me believe the presenter might not be quite the expert he/she claims to be (because if he’s selling a lot of books, why does he need to put on these expensive seminars about how to sell more books?) . . .
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Maryann Miller (@maryannwrites) said:
Great post. I, too, tire of people who tell us what we should do, without giving us specific examples of what works. I recently read an article I hoped would help me with query letters, but it basically was just saying “You must write an engaging query letter.” I know that, I want to see examples of how to do that.
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kaye george said:
Thanks so much for this! You’ve just save me an hour of listening. This webinar was on my list to do, but now it’s scratched off.
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Jack E. Romig said:
Thanks for reminding me that this marketing boat fiction writers are in is the size of a cruise liner. There are thousands of us and we are all being fed a bunch of garbage about marketing.Recently a marketing “expert” suggested I do as she does and upgrade my Facebook page 2 or 3 times a day to generate interest, or write a blog to achieve the same end.
Excuse me, but isn’t this taking my ‘limited time’ to write non-fiction to sell my fiction? What don’t they understand about the words “I am a FICTION writer.?” If I wanted to write blogs and spend the day in gossiping on social media or writing copy, I would have been a non-fiction writer.
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Kris Bock (@Kris_Bock) said:
Thanks for the roundup. I think one reason we hear so little about how to successfully market fiction is that no one’s sure how to do it, beyond the basics: Write a great book, have an excellent and appropriate cover and synopsis, price competitively, and as Joe Konrath says, “Wait to get lucky.” I’ve been focusing on writing and publishing more books and doing minimal marketing. Sales are low, but I made five times as much in 2012 as in 2011, and I’m even selling a few books each month through Amazon stores in foreign countries, where I’m doing no marketing at all. If you don’t put your writing first, nothing else can follow.
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Christie Maurer (Elisabeth Christie) said:
I’ve been to a number of “how to market” talks at writers’ conferences, etc. and, unless it’s given by a writer, I got the impression that what the speaker was actually selling was his/her own book. Where you really do get good marketing advice for writers is through RWA (Romance Writers of America). Their magazine articles and speakers are right-on.
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The Constant Pen said:
Agreed. The interesting thing about this one was that Mr. Jud was not openly shilling his book. Which was a plus for him that he was trusting that interested persons would seek out his site and find his book on marketing there. I don’t actually have a problem with an expert shilling a book, as long a they give a presentation that has some freaking content.
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Kathryn J. Bain said:
I was lucky enough to have not listened only because I was at work. I actually began listening on the taped link they sent after and realized it was dealing with non-fiction and quit. I wish there were someone out there who wrote fiction that could give us some better points. But alas, I have yet to find one.
I hope you have a good day, and thanks for sharing your thoughts with us.
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Lise McClendon said:
Thanks for your honest appraisal! I get email come-ons from Brian Jud all the time. Also other marketing people. I have yet to see any of them that persuaded me they were worth the money for fiction. Brian was probably just trying to get some biz.
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The Constant Pen said:
I think you’re right, Lisa. In fact, when I decided to write this blog entry, I had to decide whether or not I was actually giving Mr. Jud the much-desired free publicity. LOL In the end I decided it was better to speak up. Frankly, it’s Create Space that I was disappointed in. There are better people out there, people who really want to teach, or provide information–whether or not they are also in the business of selling their services. Six day after listening to the webinar, my thought is that Mr. Jud seriously underestimated his audience. And Create Space should know that.
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pianomusicman said:
Amen. Thanks. I remember how my heart sank when I read Dan Poynter’s book for the first time, back when he was telling you how to deal with “bluelines.” He apologetically stated, with a self-conscious cough I could almost hear, that this information is, er, for non-fiction books. I have come across a good deal of contradictory info since for fiction-marketing: reviews are important vs. reviews matter not at all; social networking is everything vs. social networking is useless. The only thing that seems constant is the quaint idea (I find it quaint, at least) that books are sold by word of mouth, or their electronic equivalent, I suppose. But I even have trouble believing that some days.
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Elaine Orr said:
I not only agree, but in the middle of the seminar I sent an email to Create Space saying this was a general discussion of marketing and he “might as well be selling plumbing parts.” Little did I realized that the post went to Mr. Jud. He sent me a polite reply saying the topic was to discuss developing a marketing plan, and it was the third time he’d done this for Create Space. I’m rarely smarmy, and would have been polite had I realized it would go to him. (Shallow, I know.) But what annoyed me most was that I devoted time to this. The word “fiction was mentioned 48 minutes into the webinar, and was quickly dispensed with. Thank you for your very thoughtful comments. I recommend Jeffrey Marks’ book, “Intent to Sell: Marketing the Genre Novel”–5th edition. I have never met Jeffrey and this is an unsolicited comment.
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The Constant Pen said:
Good for you, Elaine. I’ve been pondering what I would say in an email to Create Space, and it helps to know I’m not alone. Frankly, it’s ridiculous that they forwarded the letter to Mr. Jud when the fault lies with them for hiring him and apparently not noticing that what he is delivering is awful. Who cares how many times he has delivered a contentless webinar with a misleading title? It’s still a waste of time. And Create Space should improve (and focus) the content they present.
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Elaine Orr said:
I don’t think they forwarded it to him. I think it went to him directly. I simply did not notice that a reply to the email noting the webinar start time would go directly to him. I then sent CS a separate email, referencing the plumbing parts. 🙂
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The Constant Pen said:
Oh, I see. Good to know. When I write to them about this, I will try to do so to CS, not Mr. Jud.
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Pingback: Book Promotion Tip of the Week #11: Don’t Give Up | The Militant Writer
Mary W. Walters said:
Ellen, Re: Writing to CreateSpace, you should just send them a link to your eloquent post on the subject here! And to all the comments on it. I was going to write a critical review as well, but my post de jour (about self-confidence and book promotion) started to get longer and longer so by the time I got to the subject of the webinar, I figured you had done it such perfect justice that I would just send everyone over here. So I’ve added two links to your sites on my latest post. https://maryww.wordpress.com/2013/04/02/book-promotion-tip-of-the-week-11-dont-give-up/ Having perused your sites a bit more myself tonight, I’m also wondering if you’d care to do a guest blog on The Militant Writer at some point re: the ins and outs of crowdsourcing a novel? No rush! Just wondering.
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Noelle MacLeod said:
I’m REALLY glad you listened so I didn’t have to! I’m another writer who is tired of listening to or reading advice from “experts” only to find I’ve wasted my time because they either don’t give any specifics, or the specific examples they do give are useless to me.
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Christiane Corbin said:
Thank you for saving me an hour!
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Bill Peschel said:
I wish I had read your comment before wasting my time on this. I didn’t mind the nonfiction focus, but I did mind his constant repetition of his job-search book and the lack of specifics about what a marketing plan is, what areas you should focus on, and what a campaign entails. I’ve downloaded his workbook, but I don’t hold out much hope.
I expected better from CreateSpace.
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