Patricia J. Parsons

The virtual book tour: virtually useful?

Posted on 31 Oct 2011 by Patricia J. Parsons

Anyone who thinks that public communication about anything and everything has not changed much in the past few years is clearly living a life of denial. Organizations these days have learned this lesson – often the hard way. Now, in these days of do-it-yourself book marketing, authors need more than ever to be vigilant for new opportunities.

I’ve talked in the past about how book marketers at publishing companies seem to have a different role than marketers of other products and services. There is an urgent need for anyone who writes these days – and expects to be published – to be able to articulate clearly how the work can be marketed and to whom. And this isn’t just for self-publishers.

Traditional publishers these days are even requiring book proposals to have fairly well-developed section on exactly how this book might be marketed. This means that keeping abreast of the new approaches is vital for writers.

We’ve talked at length about book trailers and have yet to come to any conclusion about their effectiveness. The next newest approach to book promotion is the virtual author tour. It is much on my mind this week as I tackle such a plan for my latest book. So I thought I’d let my blog readers in on the research I’m doing and the action I’m taking. Maybe some of my work might help you.

Let’s start by defining the virtual book tour. Any kind of a book tour is a marketing technique that puts a writer front and center in public communication vehicles. In a traditional book tour, a writer moves from venue to venue giving interviews to media personalities – radio, television and print (newspapers & magazines). The traditional book tour (effectiveness notwithstanding) is generally predicated on the notion that the writer will tour around and talk about the book. In a virtual book tour, the tour is virtual (the book usually not!).

And there is a whole cottage industry that has sprung up around the notion of virtual book tours (also known as blog tours). There are even tour coordinators. Who knew? Precisely. The problem in my view is this: no one seems to know much about virtual book tours except the people organizing and implementing them. Excuse me for a moment, but I thought that the main purpose was to publicize a book to potential readers. If readers don’t know about virtual book tours or are not tuned into those pieces of social media where they take place, then what’s the point? I digress…

In his book Plug Your Book: Online Book Marketing for Authors, Steve Weber provides some useful guidelines for setting up these tours. In his view, these so-called blog tours are “especially valuable for authors unable to travel, uncomfortable with public speaking [remember my discussion about author readings?] or whose dispersed audience makes touring impractical.”[1] Of course, not only are book tours often impractical, they are expensive and the ROI (return on investment) is often not substantial.

My virtual book tour (because I told my publisher I’d do one) is currently in the planning stages. I’m following Weber’s advice and am doing the following:

I am first building a list of target blogs that might actually be read by potential readers of my book. I’m looking for content that is congruent with the kinds of things these readers might be interested in – since this is in the historical fiction genre, that’s where I’m looking. In this case, much of what I’m finding is book blogs – and there are hundreds of thousands of them. This is going to take a bit of time. If I were trying to organize a blog tour for one of my earlier non-fiction works, I think the job might be easier. The smaller the niche, the easier it is to find blogs whose owners might be interested in guest bloggers on their topic
are (especially if the guest blogger is an expert).
The second step that I’m going to take is to evaluate these blogs. I need to find out if it’s worth my time to even approach them. If the blog in question has only a trickle of readers, it’s probably not going to be worth it to me. I need to find those blogs spaces where large numbers of my readers accumulate. Weber suggests looking at not only traffic volume, but also reader involvement – this is what I’d call online engagement. (He provides details on how to accomplish this.)
While I’m doing the above, I’m working on the excerpt that I’ll offer to the blog and the Q & A author interview that some bloggers might be interested in using rather than sending along their own questions.

All throughout this process, I’m continuing to question the effectiveness of this marketing strategy. I’ve been looking for stats on this, but like in the case of the book trailer, no research yet exists on the effectiveness of these tours. Maybe one of my grad students will take this on? Hmm? Anyone out there listening??

[1]
Weber, Steve. 2007. Plug your book: Online book marketing for authors. Stephen W.
Weber, p. 87.

Author Readings: Purposeful or painful?

Posted on 25 Oct 201125 Oct 2011 by Patricia J. Parsons

Last week someone asked me if I’d consider taking part in an author reading event featuring my new book. If someone had asked me this question twenty years ago when I first started shopping books to publishers, I would have been flattered. I would have jumped at the chance. However, many years of writing and publishing experience later have left me a bit dubious about these events. And discussing these kinds of events with
other writers does little to disabuse me of the notion that they are largely a waste of time – depending on your objective. So, what precisely are the possible objectives of an author reading in public?

From a publisher’s point of view there is only one bottom line objective, and that is the bottom line. Their objective is to sell more books. Publishers seem to believe that putting an unknown author in front of twenty people will result in massive book sales. Given the effort involved in doing a reading and the sales potential from such a small audience, one has to question the wisdom of this approach. Keep in mind, though, that there is no effort on the part of the publisher – only on the part of the writer and the organizers. And in fact, in Canada, the Canada Council for the Arts even offers grants to publishers for readings. Who knew?

From a reader’s point of view, it’s a free night (or afternoon) of entertainment. Sometimes there are refreshments and often there will be like-minded people attending. Sometimes readings are at bookstores, sometimes they’re in libraries or other related public spaces. When I was in New York city in July, I visited a gargantuan bookstore on Broadway where they had a more or less permanent dais and chairs set up for readings. Only in a large city would you ever see this! But, is an author reading really “entertainment”?

My most recent experience of doing a reading was at a “literary festival” where a number of authors would take part in workshops and do readings. This particular afternoon when I was scheduled to read from my memoir (it was about one month pre-publication at the time), I was on the agenda after three others reading from their varied recent books. What can I say? At the risk of being lambasted by fellow authors, my only conclusion that (painful) afternoon was that writers are crappy speakers. To say I was appalled would be an understatement. One after the other they took to the stage and monotonously read. Every single one of them. It was all I could do to stay awake.

A couple of weeks ago, there was a piece in the Globe and Mail titled “The season of readings is upon us, let the misery begin.” It was delightful to see that I am not the only one who cringes at the thought of authors reading from their work. Douglas Bell who wrote the article quotes Irish author Aidan Higgins. He says it so much better than I could:

“There’s nothing more calculated to cause a gritting of the teeth, a shudder of the spirit or even a rising of the gorge than to be voluntarily confined in a Function Room to endure an hour-long ranting by the author in person, of predigested matter now regurgitated, delivered in a monotonous drone. It is enough to make a cat laugh or a dog throw up.”[1]

[I beg you to click through and read the article – If it doesn’t make you laugh out loud, you have less of a sense of humor than I do.]

I’ve been teaching and doing public speaking for many years. I’ve taken the time to hone my skills and it was clear when I came to the podium and began speaking about my writing and then reading, that this was a breath of fresh air for the audience. They couldn’t get to me fast enough after the readings were over to tell me how much they enjoyed the presentation. But sell books? LOL.

When you spend so much solitary time with your work as writers do, I think it can be fun to share it with a live audience. But if you are a crappy speaker, just back away. Please. The fact is that unless you’re a celebrity to begin with or have a rabid following from previous books, the reading will not sell many books. And if you already are a celebrity or have a fan base, they’re going to buy the book anyway. So, the reason to do it has to be more than to sell books.

So, here are my tips for doing an author reading:

Don’t focus on selling books. Just focus on connecting with live people.
Prepare. Take the time to consider what you’ll say to put your reading into
context for the audience.
Consider your presentation skills. If you’re not a good presenter and can’t make your work come alive for the audience, either get some coaching or just don’t do it.
For the love of god, don’t drone on and on. Or you’ll have to carry a gun – to put the audience out of their misery.

[1] The Globe and Mail, October 15, 2011. http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/arts/books/the-season-of-readings-is-upon-us-let-the-misery-begin/article2201498/

Backstory, Ideas generation

The genesis of an idea

Posted on 18 Oct 2011 by Patricia J. Parsons

I’m not a literary writer in the artistic sense of the word. I don’t write literary novels or short stories. I write both fiction and non-fiction stories (and make no mistake, the non-fiction is based on story-telling in its best sense) that result from an active process of looking for ideas. Oh, once in a while I stumble on something, or I end up using an idea in a very different way than the way I started out; but on balance, finding ideas is for me a very proactive process. And although I am not part of the high-brow literati, I can still appreciate that those who are might be able to articulate an idea in a different way – not better or worse, but differently.

Emily Dickinson, a literary-minded writer in her own right of course, put it this way: “Not knowing when the dawn will come, I open every door.” I wish I had written that – I didn’t but I identify with the concept. I open every door to see where those doors might lead.

The idea of inspiration, and what it is, has shown up here before; being open to inspiration is a kind of internal process. There is clearly a relationship between the ethereal notion of being inspired to create something – whether it’s a piece of choreography, a new theory, a strategic plan or a new book – and the idea upon which that creation will be based, but in my view they are not exactly the same thing. So, finding ideas is an external process – or at least requires interaction with the external world.

Being open to inspiration requires a certain frame of mind that makes that mind a fertile place for that idea generator to take root and grow. The question now is not how to keep your mind open, but how to find that genesis.

So, where does an idea for a creation come from? I’ve gleaned ideas from any number of places over the years. Some of these have included the following:

Long conversations over wine (this is essential) with my husband and sometime collaborator. Never underestimate the power of those meandering conversations with someone whose ideas you respect. Putting your two heads together even without the goal of finding a writing idea often results in transformative ideas.
Newspaper articles. This is a no-brainer for writers no matter what kind of writing you do. It might be that headline story (you’ve heard of the ripped-from-the-headlines type stories), but my experience tells me that more often the idea is likely to come from a small piece, the piece that you might easily have overlooked. I’m currently working on a contemporary piece that is based on a ten-line article in a newspaper. This is when you take up your trusty scissors or those newspaper cutters that should be beside your reading chair at all times, cut it out and paste it in your journal. Or if you re reading electronically, use a select and paste tool (but I do need to point out that often these ten-line gems of stories that fill up column inches often don’t make it to the electronic version).
Interviews with both celebrity types and every day people. Sometimes you’ll be watching someone being interviewed on television, or hear it on the radio while you’re driving your car and one line might get you thinking. You need to have a way to capture those lines – a journal if you’re not driving, a voice recorder if you are.
Conversations overheard. Everyone expects writers to be slightly odd, so eavesdropping isn’t as far off the radar as you might think. If you take public transit for example, you are awash in a sea of possible writing ideas. I’ve sat on the subway in Toronto more than a few times and overheard snippets of conversation that seem to evoke a sense of character or even a story. (I don’t live in Toronto and never take public transit at home – so I really feel I’m missing out on that one!). And what about listening to other parents when you’re waiting for your children at school? Or at the school concert? Or audience members around you at the ballet, the theater or even the movie? The hockey rink? On a beach while on vacation? At a bar?
Online conversations “overheard.” This is a bit more controversial, but nevertheless full of juicy material. If you lurk around on social media sites, people might think that you are spying, but practically everyone does it to one extent or another. Reading posts on forums without actually participating in the conversation is the definition of lurking and it has its controversial side – but it can be for the greater good. For example, if you are interested in women’s health issues and you lurk around a social network focused on these issues, you might very well be inspired to write an article or book that will help people. So, it’s not all bad!

And finally, my personal favorite…

Academic articles. For anyone who happens to read academic articles, you’d be surprised how often one of them can contain the germ of a story. I once read an article in a medical journal back in my medical writing days about how Edgar Allan Poe died (or what wasn’t known about it to be more specific), and that ignited an idea.

These are just a few places where ideas spring forth. Ideas come from everywhere and often coalesce to form that big idea that eventually becomes the genesis for a story. It then takes on a life of its own as the settings, characters and plots take over the writing. Ask a writer where his or her idea actually had its genesis, and sometimes it’s hard to pinpoint. But for me, I can usually tell where the germ actually comes from.

And when it comes to my historical fiction work, the idea is usually as a result of an unanswered question from history.

GRACE NOTE began to take shape many years ago. In the late 1990’s, there was a resurgence of interest in a little-known Roman Catholic mystic who lived in 12^thcentury Germany. Her name was Hildegard of Bingen.

Hildegard was born in 1098 and when she was about fourteen years old (the historical dating is inconsistent) she was tithed to the church and walled up in a hut attached to a Benedictine monastery, proclaimed dead to the world, to live her life as an anchorite. Of course, history tells us that she didn’t stay walled up forever, rather went forward and accomplished a great many things in her career as a nun and abbess. She has been proclaimed a feminist (!), physician, mystic, teacher, and very prominently, a composer, often referred to as the very first female composer to live. The problem is that there isn’t hard evidence of the actual authorship of her music and in 1998 an article appeared in the journal Early Music provocatively suggesting that there is no evidence that she accomplished so much. That’s where my story began. And GRACE NOTE is the outcome of the idea genesis followed up by lots of research on what is known and what is not known.

Where have you found your ideas?