book marketing – Page 5 – Patricia J. Parsons

Who will buy your book?

Posted on 17 Jun 201417 Jun 2014 by Patricia J. Parsons

Someday I hope to write a book where the royalties will pay for the copies I give away. — Clarence Darrow

Oh how I empathize with Clarence Darrow. I cannot tell you how many books I’ve given away over the years, and these days of the hideous deluge of ‘free’ eBooks as promotional tools makes the problem even worse. I often wonder how many of other writers’ relatives and friends actually buy their books.

My family, for example, largely feels that they are entitled to receive free copies of my books. Well, with the most recent one, I decided that this wasn’t going to happen anymore. Even my 91-year old mother didn’t get a copy (to be fair, I really didn’t really want her to read it – to much *sex*). The only family member who actually received a hard copy (and that was after he downloaded and paid for an e-book) was my 25-year old son who was one of my final editors. His keen eye and firm grasp of the English language made him an ideal beta reader for which I paid him. The least I could do was to give him a copy of the book when he was home from London last weekend.

Then there are all those other copies we give away. And this refers equally to my books (and your books) published by traditional publishers and the self-published ones. These are the review copies.

There is little doubt that review copies are important, however, it can get out of hand. In addition it seems to me these days that we need to be vigilant that a so-called reviewer does not feel obligated to be a bit less critical of a book that he or she has received gratis. (Although some bloggers seem to think that a free book might end up as a more critical review. Not sure why.)

When I wrote the piece When is a book review not a book review? I was thinking about these kinds of issues. So, we need to consider carefully how many books we give away for free in the hope of acquiring a positive review.

And then there are those free book giveaways that started this rant. There is little doubt that giving books away can help you to accrue new readers: sometimes, readers who would otherwise pass over your books might try them and like them, then return to buy future offerings. So that seems like a good investment in marketing. We need to be very mindful, however, that if as writers we don’t value our work, we can hardly expect others to value it either. In fact, many readers are just as likely to troll the online bookstores seeking only free books, never returning to your work when the book is not free. There is no actual hard data on either of these situations although you’ll find plenty of anecdotal stories extolling the virtues of giving away your work.

It would be my greatest wish that writers value their work. I often wonder if writers who don’t value their work know in their hearts that it isn’t really that good. There is a difference, however, between the writing a book specifically for yourself and to give away to others, and one you hope to sell. This is the kind of book you may write simply hoping that a few others might benefit from it in one way or another.

It is quite a different matter to work hard on a piece of writing that you hope readers, unknown to you at this point, will buy, read and appreciate. This is the kind of work that we have to stop giving away so freely.

So, fellow writers, keep a very careful count of how many copies of your work you give away and the return on that investment. I’d love to know how it has worked for you. Perhaps we can build a database of information. There are marketing reasons to give your work away, but that needs to be balanced by a sense of value. Tread carefully.

It might be worth remembering what Jules Renard once wrote:

“Writing is the only profession where no one considers you ridiculous if you earn no money.”

Now I think I’ll surf over to Amazon and set up a free book giveaway and see what happens!!

For a few different perspectives on this issue, here are some ideas from other sources:

Why Successful Authors Are Giving Their Books Away for Free http://www.huffingtonpost.com/simone-collins/why-successful-authors-ar_b_4115300.html

Why publishers should give away eBooks http://www.roughtype.com/?p=1573

Book Reviews

When is a book review not a book review?

Posted on 26 Mar 2014 by Patricia J. Parsons

It seems simple enough. You write a book, someone reads it, likes it (or not), writes a review, and other potential readers interpret the review for themselves, deciding whether or not to read your book based on their own criteria. One of the most important factors readers might use to interpret a review is the identity – and therefore perceived credibility – of the review writer.

For example, for some readers there might be a big difference between a review written by the New York Times and one penned by Oprah (or at least endorsed by her). Or between the writer’s spouse and someone who doesn’t know that writer personally. That may be the line we cross into territory where a review is not really a review – it is an advertisement. And these are not the only kinds of ‘advertisements’ masquerading as book reviews.

There can hardly be a writer or ‘wanabe’ writer around these days who is unaware of the current book review scams visited upon readers.

In August of 2012 The New York Times published an article titled: “The Best Book Reviews Money Can Buy.” Author David Streitfeld reported on what appeared to be a newly established business model: writing book reviews for cash. He tells the story of Todd Rutherford’s gettingbookreviews.com, a business based on writing online book reviews – paid for by the writer. One of the service packages he offered was for him to write 20 online book reviews for $499. What could be better? Twenty reviews proclaiming a book to be worthy of 5 stars, the work of a literary genius. In my view, what would be better would be some honesty.

And Rutherford was merely one among myriad businesses that have been springing up all over the place to provide exactly the same service to writers desperate for sales. Quite often, the entrepreneurs offering this service are themselves wannabe writers.

But what happens when a reader finds out the truth of the review? Maybe the book is a good one; but maybe it isn’t. Readers searching for new, indie writers will soon become jaded from being burned. Buying book reviews hurts everyone.

So if a book review is not a book review when it is written for money, what about when it’s written by your spouse (or mother, or sister etc.)?

The Amazon review by a certain party whose last name is the same as mine was not penned by a relative.

I was mortified when I went onto Amazon.com to see that one of the reviews (and a 5-star one at that) of one of my historical novels Grace Note was penned by someone whose last name is PARSONS. I’m quite certain that anyone looking at that would make the reasonable assumption that it was written by one of my relatives. It wasn’t. I’m just glad the reviewer liked it! The bottom line, however, is that a review by one of your nearest and dearest isn’t really a review either.

So…and here is the one where I’m going to get myself into trouble… what if the review is written by a member of your co-dependency group. These are those writing groups, usually virtual, or Twitter communities, wherein everyone gushes about everyone else’s books mostly so that when yours is published everyone will do the same. I have to admit that this really bothers me. It puts me off buying the promoted books, which is a shame for the writers. However, I just don’t trust these reviews.

I follow a number of otherwise interesting indie authors who also review books on Twitter, but I find that the reviews are always 5-star ones, or very close to it. I’m presuming that they only tweet their 5-star ones (surely there are books they dislike?), but I’d like to be directed to one that might be a 4 or even a 3 ½ star review so that I can make up my own mind. When everything is ‘awesome’, then nothing is ‘awesome.’

Let’s get back to some truth in advertising among writers and publishers. Please.

Social Media

5 ways your social media platform might be turning toxic

Posted on 21 Nov 2013 by Patricia J. Parsons

At least twice in just the past week I have acquired new Twitter followers who themselves boast over 10,000 followers. Imagine that! 10,000+ followers! I always surf over to see the profiles of my new followers and never cease to be astounded by these huge numbers. But before I click to “follow” back, I always hesitate in these instances. I always seem to have the same question for myself: “Why in the world would I want to follow someone (or some organization) with that many followers unless I’m looking for their information. They certainly won’t be interested in anything I have to say. Dear god, they’ll never be able to find it!” And I’m left wondering how anyone can possibly be in a balanced give-and-take situation when there are so many hangers-on involved.

In my day job, I’m a university professor. To be more precise, I teach in a communication studies department with a focus on public relations and corporate communication. Throughout my long career in the real world and in academia, I’ve specialized in two areas, one of which is strategy. In that capacity, I’ve helped hundreds of students develop successful promotional plans for non-profits and small businesses, and was an early adopter of social media, teaching our first undergraduate course in the new applications some years ago. It’s funny now that I’m looking at my own promotional work, I’m struck by a number of oddities in the world of social media – and authors.

My last post found me wondering if publishers really care about a writer’s life on Twitter, and thinking about that led me to contemplate the problems of social media ‘platforms’ in general. So, at the risk of alienating all of those authors and wannabe authors that I might be connected to online, here goes.

A social media platform no doubt supports sales of independently published books. Okay, I’ll buy that – but with a few caveats, the most important of which is that there needs to be some recognition of the point of diminishing returns.

I submit that a there is a point at which a writer’s online, social media presence morphs from supportive and beneficial to toxic. So here are some symptoms of toxicity that I’ve observed. You might be developing social media toxicity…

When you find yourself falling victim to group-think. It’s so easy to retweet mindlessly, to find yourself nodding in support of ideas that you hadn’t really given enough time to figure out on your own. I’ve noticed that except for the odd outlier, most reply tweets are supportive, and I even find myself falling into this trap, ignoring the tweets that I think are just plain stupid. And note that on Facebook and even Linkedin there is no “dislike” button.
When you have an over-inflated notion of how many books you should be selling based on your number of followers, friends etc. I have to hearken back to my last blog post where I began to find research to support the notion that online ‘likes’ don’t translate into behavior.
When you fall victim to that co-dependency problem. Codependency is known in mental health circles as a relationship addiction, excessive social or emotional reliance on another person who often has a problem. I’m suggesting that writers who toil in isolation often look for support among other writers who understand them, and this begins the cycle. Over-dependence can become toxic leading to inertia and the next symptom of toxicity…
When your social media activities become a major time suck. This can happen so easily. It’s like several of my students suggested the other day in class: they find themselves spending inordinate amounts of time on assignments as a result of keeping their electronics devices at their elbow and responding to every ‘ping’ as texts and tweets arrive. My advice: just turn them off!
And finally, when your admiration is seriously misplaced. I’m talking about the odd phenomenon of actual best-selling writers like Sheila O’Flanagan having fewer than 5,000 Twitter followers (and wisely following far fewer yet selling books in millions) while some indie authors who have sold a few thousand books having tens of thousands of followers. It might be worth the unknown writer’s (like me) time to follow the ones who have been on the real best-seller lists. Maybe we could learn a thing or two.

So, you might conclude that I’m just sour because I have a very few Twitter followers. But I’m not. I might have at one time when I thought that those followers might actually buy and retweet to actual buyers about my work. But that rarely happens in reality. It’s a bit like viral video: You can’t plan to use one for promotional and marketing because you have no way of knowing if a video you produce will catch fire or not.

I’m going to spend less time on my social media presence and more time on my writing. At least for now.