# Kris Rusch says you should just keep writing



## Guest (Jan 2, 2014)

In another shot across the bow at the conventional wisdom around these parts, Kris Rusch has another Business Rusch blog post out, in which she says:



> None of the hype, none of the career stuff, none of the marketing works on just one book. Nor does it work well on only a few.


and



> How do you get discovered? You write a lot. You constantly improve.
> 
> And you have patience.
> 
> ...


Thoughts? Opinions? Violent reactions?


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## ShellyArbogast (Oct 18, 2013)

I've little to say on the matter except that I <3 and respect both her and Dean.


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## Edward W. Robertson (May 18, 2010)

Just a sec, have to find my pitchfork.


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## Ty Johnston (Jun 19, 2009)

Generally, I think she's right on this one. There are always the huge sellers, the outliers, but that only happens to a very small percentage of writers. The more books one has available, the better chance one has of being discovered by readers, and of having a career at writing.

In my opinion, Amazon itself is better at getting eyes on my books than any social media site. That doesn't mean one shouldn't do any marketing, but it can be a slippery slope if one isn't careful, finding oneself spending more time plugging one's books instead of writing the next one.


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## Monique (Jul 31, 2010)

I published one book. I marketed it. Wrote a few more, and marketed those. I have six books so far. It's worked pretty well for me and oodles of authors I know. 

I write books. I strive to improve. AND I market them and make ducats. Win-win-win.


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## Edward W. Robertson (May 18, 2010)

I replied to her post earlier, and am awaiting moderation. But I think that if you're going to wait to promote your books until you've got a backlist, then you shouldn't publish any of them until you're ready to promote them.

Otherwise, it's a waste of time and opportunity.


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## Thisiswhywecan&#039;thavenicethings (May 3, 2013)

*puts on reader hat*

Which am I more apt to choose:

1. A first book by an author who has a bit of a buzz going? OR
2. A fifth book by an author I have NEVER HEARD OF because there has been no buzz at all?

I will pick the first one every time. That's just me, you may have different criteria and I respect that.


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## Zoe Cannon (Sep 2, 2012)

Wait, writing and marketing are mutually exclusive? What have I been doing all this time?

Edit: The above is a response to the thread. As for the article, this part made me want to hug her:



> ...she built the album according to her vision.
> 
> Not, as so many of you keep asking me, on what she should have done or what someone else does. Her vision.
> 
> ...


That right there is my philosophy of writing.


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## daringnovelist (Apr 3, 2010)

Edward W. Robertson said:


> I replied to her post earlier, and am awaiting moderation. But I think that if you're going to wait to promote your books until you've got a backlist, then you shouldn't publish any of them until you're ready to promote them.
> 
> Otherwise, it's a waste of time and opportunity.


How is it a waste?

Books unnoticed in your drawer vs. books slightly noticed on Amazon's shelves. Seems to me that the unnoticed is more of a waste than the slightly noticed.

There's a huge learning curve to business and publishing. Might as well get your mistakes done with before you start drawing lots of attention to yourself. Why blast the world with your first awkward covers and nonsensical blurbs? Put them out slow, test, get responses. Learn.

(At the same time, I don't see anything wrong with a planned publishing schedule, or holding back the first few books to see if you still think you love them after you've written several more.)

Where I differ (and I don't think that Kris really disagrees with this) is that I think you might as well start working your way through the marketing learning curve as well. I think, though, that it is best to start with passive marketing -- learn to get your product (including cover, blurb, etc) in excellent shape as your fist step in marketing.

Camille


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## WordSaladTongs (Oct 14, 2013)

When I see these posts, I generally think that she's referring to the people who aren't "career" writers and have one book that they advertise over and over. If you have experience producing books, have a production schedule and will stick to the schedule, I think her advice would be much different.


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## Cleo (Jan 11, 2013)

"Write your books.

And always work to improve."

I hope we can all agree with the above quote at the very least.  

Interesting post. There are plenty of people here who have had success doing things differently. *shrug* I have a ton of respect for KKR. She's an incredible writer, a hard worker, and she deserves every bit of her critical and financial success. What she says resonates with me, but I suspect it will boil down to personality.


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## Edward W. Robertson (May 18, 2010)

daringnovelist said:


> How is it a waste?
> 
> Books unnoticed in your drawer vs. books slightly noticed on Amazon's shelves. Seems to me that the unnoticed is more of a waste than the slightly noticed.
> 
> ...


Maybe you know her, but I can only go by what she says in her posts. Here, she says:

"Don't even bother to try to be 'discovered' until you have a body of work. Not one novel. Not even two novels. Maybe not three or four or five. Worry about being discovered after you've published a good handful of novels or short stories or plays or nonfiction books. Enough to fill a computer screen when someone is scrolling, looking for something to read."

If you don't try to get discovered, you won't be. If your strategy of non-discoverability succeeds-and you sell nothing-you may as well not even publish until you're ready for a different strategy.

The learning curve to publishing _is_ huge. That's why you have to make efforts to be discovered. These efforts can be minimal, but the only way to learn what's going to work for your books is to get them in front of readers. Hitting "publish" and walking off to write the next book won't accomplish that.

Thus.. don't publish until you're ready to find readers. That's the logical extension of her philosophy.


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## valeriec80 (Feb 24, 2011)

Laura Vryhof said:


> 2. A fifth book by an author I have NEVER HEARD OF because there has been no buzz at all?


Huh. I discovered Gillian Flynn this summer. She'd been a NYT bestseller for a good long while before I ever heard of her. There had been tons of buzz. But I hadn't seen any of it. I definitely don't think that an author isn't good because I've never heard of him or her. Practically 80% of the stuff I read is from people I've never heard of.

When I see an author with five books out, I think, "Ooh, yay! If I like this one, there's five more to read."

Interesting that we have such different reactions.


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## Lady Vine (Nov 11, 2012)

I predict that this year will see authors writing more books and watching their sales decline.


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## Zelah Meyer (Jun 15, 2011)

Until Kris & Dean kept talking about her in their blog posts, I'd never heard of Nora Roberts - and I'm a romance reader.  Everyone is unknown to someone.

I don't care if an author has buzz about their book, I care about whether the story sounds like my type of story.

I'm taking their advice and not worrying about publicity until I have a decent volume of work.  I do stuff I'm happy to do - such as list the book on Goodreads, etc. - but I don't pay for any adverts, or chase bloggers for reviews.  In another few years, I might do.  However, for now, I'm happy to wait until I have enough work out there to make it worthwhile investing in publicity.


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## Justawriter (Jul 24, 2012)

Monique said:


> I published one book. I marketed it. Wrote a few more, and marketed those. I have six books so far. It's worked pretty well for me and oodles of authors I know.
> 
> I write books. I strive to improve. AND I market them and make ducats. Win-win-win.


This. While I loved that article for what she had to say about Beyonce, which was fascinating. I am less interested in what she thinks about marketing, especially as it pertains to having one book or even a few. That is her opinion. I'm more interested in facts and specific data that backs up opinions when it comes to marketing.

I have one book out. I marketed it with paid ads and sold way more copies than I would have without the ads. I also now know which ads I'm more likely to use to support the launch of my next book. I'm basing my marketing decisions on pure data, facts vs. someone's opinion. I think a lot of people get caught up in how they feel about marketing and that guides their decisions instead of looking at it from a business perspective and just trying something and seeing if it works.


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## Katherine Roberts (Apr 4, 2013)

I enjoyed this post and think KKR has a point - word of mouth sells books, but sometimes it happens fast and sometimes slow. "Keep writing" seems to be her main point here, whether you decide to change genres to reach a different audience (as I gather she has done a bit of in the past, looking at her pseudonyms?) or stick to your guns and work at whatever you do until it finds a larger audience. Nothing wrong with that!



valeriec80 said:


> When I see an author with five books out, I think, "Ooh, yay! If I like this one, there's five more to read."
> 
> Interesting that we have such different reactions.


As a variation of this, when I visit schools children often tell me they won't start reading a series until it is complete because they hate having to wait a year for the next book... that makes sense, since a long-running series suitable for 9 year olds might take so long to come out that the kids are grown up by the time it finishes!


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## Terrence OBrien (Oct 21, 2010)

Edward W. Robertson said:


> Maybe you know her, but I can only go by what she says in her posts. Here, she says:
> 
> "Don't even bother to try to be 'discovered' until you have a body of work. Not one novel. Not even two novels. Maybe not three or four or five. Worry about being discovered after you've published a good handful of novels or short stories or plays or nonfiction books. Enough to fill a computer screen when someone is scrolling, looking for something to read."
> 
> ...


I don't think that is a logical extension. In terms of her philosophy, she cuts off that path in the very next line after what you quoted when she says,

_"I am not telling you to wait to publish.."_

Then she says,

_"I think you should publish the very first thing you finish. If you want to be traditionally published, send that very first thing to editors who might buy it. If you want to be a hybrid writer or an indie writer, then publish that thing after it's gone through a first reader and a copy editor. Get it out into the world."_


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## MonkeyScribe (Jan 27, 2011)

I totally agree with the part that says keep writing and improving the craft. I'm confused by the part that suggests you should not make effort to sell your existing work.


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## vrabinec (May 19, 2011)

Hmm, trying to come up with some way to put a couple series out there before I publish my first book. Any help?


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## JRTomlin (Jan 18, 2011)

Joe Vasicek said:


> In another shot across the bow at the conventional wisdom around these parts, Kris Rusch has another Business Rusch blog post out, in which she says:
> 
> and
> 
> Thoughts? Opinions? Violent reactions?


Wait? You are saying the "conventional wisdom around these parts" is that "one book is enough"? When did THAT become the conventional wisdom? I missed it.

What she said is this:


> I think you should publish the very first thing you finish. If you want to be traditionally published, send that very first thing to editors who might buy it. If you want to be a hybrid writer or an indie writer, then publish that thing after it's gone through a first reader and a copy editor. Get it out into the world. - See more at: http://kriswrites.com/2014/01/01/the-business-rusch-in-the-beginning-discoverability-part-5/#sthash.LMdGkYbV.dpuf
> 
> You might not sell a single copy.
> 
> ...


- See more at: http://kriswrites.com/2014/01/01/the-business-rusch-in-the-beginning-discoverability-part-5/#sthash.LMdGkYbV.dpuf


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## daringnovelist (Apr 3, 2010)

Edward W. Robertson said:


> Thus.. don't publish until you're ready to find readers. That's the logical extension of her philosophy.


Okay, I can understand that as your interpretation. (I was trying to figure out why you thought post-poning publishing was _better_ than what she was proposing, not that it was the same.)

I think it's hard to interpret what KKR is saying if you don't read a lot of her work. She goes in depth, and often looks at one facet at a time. (She's got a very long, broad experience, and she reads in depth in the field.) But I won't say that you are misinterpreting her. Only that you're making extreme interpretations of what she is saying. (There is a difference between desperately trying to be discovered and become a star, and practicing at it from the start.)

One thing that I think is going on here, though, is a difference in perspective. KB is a little island where most people already know a lot of the things both KKR and DWS have to say. Kris, on the other hand, is looking at a larger world of publishing -- a place where there are a lot of people who are downright scared of self-publishing and wouldn't be caught dead in this forum -- and she's looking across not only the short term world of epublishing but also all the forms of publishing out there. And also the general entertainment industry, and legal aspects. She has a lot of experience with these.

And the advice about writing and publishing before marketing? That's not so much advice about what you should do as advice about whether you should listen to what she is about to say. What she has to say is for advanced writers who know something about publishing. She presupposes you know a thing or two. If you want to listen in, you can, but don't expect it to suit you.

And yes, some of the things she says are for traditional writers who are not even ready for this forum. But some of the things she says are worth at least reading (if not listening to) by even the most experienced indies here, because it has a larger scope, and someday some of it will matter to you. (I've already started to see that happening. I dropped out of here for about 18 months, and it was amazing how much the group-think had moved in that short time.)

For me.... I see here on KB what has happened in dozens of other online business communities. The attitudes are following an extremely predictable path. In the beginning, everybody is extremely short sighted (they aren't foolish, it's just they only have short term data). Slowly, as the field matures, people take a longer and longer view. They begin to see that those things they thought were so critical when they started are not really important at all, and many are more a matter of luck. Part of this change is because people learn, and part of it is because the short term thinkers get discouraged or angry and leave the group for something else that looks shiny and new.

And re that fifth book by someone you've never heard of: that's how most authors -- even already famous ones, are discovered. Even the biggest buzz does not reach the majority of readers. And buzz over new authors never reaches an audience as big as no-buzz on an established author.

All authors are new to most readers until they discover them. And most readers ignore authors who have only one book. (In some genres, most readers will literally not pick up a book until the author has six or seven books out there.)

Camille


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## Terrence OBrien (Oct 21, 2010)

MichaelWallace said:


> I totally agree with the part that says keep writing and improving the craft. I'm confused by the part that suggests you should not make effort to sell your existing work.


I don't think she makes that clear. So I look for an explanation that would be consistent with what she said.

It could be based on the idea that the greatest production efficiency will be experienced if one is doing nothing other than writing to the point of copy editor and pushing the KDP upload button. That would take the least total time to produce X books.

That would have to be coupled with subsequent efficiencies of scale in promoting multiple books rather than just one. The effectiveness of one hour of promotion of X books would be greater than one hour of promotion for one book.


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## MonkeyScribe (Jan 27, 2011)

Terrence OBrien said:


> I don't think she makes that clear. So I look for an explanation that would be consistent with what she said.
> 
> It could be based on the idea that the greatest production efficiency will be experienced if one is doing nothing other than writing to the point of copy editor and pushing the KDP upload button. That would take the least total time to produce X books.
> 
> That would have to be coupled with subsequent efficiencies of scale in promoting multiple books rather than just one. The effectiveness of one hour of promotion of X books would be greater than one hour of promotion for one book.


In general, I agree that most of the time the answer to the question "would I be better of writing?" is yes. I like Blake's 80/20 rule. I think this gets a good balance of producing new work while not neglecting the building of your career via efforts to increase your visibility.


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## Guest (Jan 2, 2014)

JRTomlin said:


> Wait? You are saying the "conventional wisdom around these parts" is that "one book is enough"? When did THAT become the conventional wisdom? I missed it.


No, more like the conventional wisdom is PROMOTE! PROMOTE! PROMOTE! no matter how many (or how few) books you have out.


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## Monique (Jul 31, 2010)

Joe Vasicek said:


> No, more like the conventional wisdom is PROMOTE! PROMOTE! PROMOTE! no matter how many (or how few) books you have out.


As far as I can tell, the conventional wisdom here is (regardless of how many books you have) write 80+% of the time and promote the rest. I "promote" my books, but I hardly spend 10% of my time doing it.


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## Edward W. Robertson (May 18, 2010)

Terrence OBrien said:


> I don't think that is a logical extension. In terms of her philosophy, she cuts off that path in the very next line after what you quoted when she says,
> 
> _"I am not telling you to wait to publish.."_
> 
> ...


So her philosophy contradicts itself.

Why does she advise publishing books you shouldn't be trying to sell? That accomplishes nothing. Worse, it incurs a large opportunity cost. Your career would be much better served by holding all those books in reserve until you're ready to be discovered.


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## Terrence OBrien (Oct 21, 2010)

MichaelWallace said:


> In general, I agree that most of the time the answer to the question "would I be better of writing?" is yes. I like Blake's 80/20 rule. I think this gets a good balance of producing new work while not neglecting the building of your career via efforts to increase your visibility.


If I extend my above speculation...

A day spend writing under 80/20 would be less efficient than a day spent writing under 100/0.

Likewise, a day spent promoting one book under 80/20 would be less effective than a day spend promoting X books under 80/20.



> So her philosophy contradicts itself.
> 
> Why does she advise publishing books you shouldn't be trying to sell? That accomplishes nothing. Worse, it incurs a large opportunity cost. Your career would be much better served by holding all those books in reserve until you're ready to be discovered.


That's a good question, and echoes what Michael asked. But it's an assumption to say her publishing recommendation accomplishes nothing. Opportunity costs would have to be measured against future gains and diversion of resources from other efforts. But we don't have a contradiction in what she said.


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## MonkeyScribe (Jan 27, 2011)

Joe Vasicek said:


> No, more like the conventional wisdom is PROMOTE! PROMOTE! PROMOTE! no matter how many (or how few) books you have out.


The conventional wisdom is first, you're probably not writing enough, and second, don't neglect marketing. In that order.


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## JRTomlin (Jan 18, 2011)

Joe Vasicek said:


> No, more like the conventional wisdom is PROMOTE! PROMOTE! PROMOTE! no matter how many (or how few) books you have out.


That isn't the conventional wisdom I am acquainted with either. It isn't why there is an active thousand words a day club (that I first started two years ago) and why Elle Casey just had an active thread about how she had published 24(?) novels in the last two years.



Edward W. Robertson said:


> Thus.. don't publish until you're ready to find readers. That's the logical extension of her philosophy.


That is actually the _opposite_ of what she said, Edward.

The point she was making (what I take away from it) isn't that I should never do any marketing but that it shouldn't be the basis of your writing. Don't change genres to write the 'next big thing'.



> Does that mean you should study the market before you write anything, jump into the bestselling genre, and hope for the best?
> 
> God, no.
> 
> Write what you love. Constantly learn. Constantly improve.


I realize that there are people who do study the market before they write and jump into bestelling genres. Some people would argue with her, but I personally think she is right. But then I think that because *I* write what I love.


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## Thisiswhywecan&#039;thavenicethings (May 3, 2013)

> Huh. I discovered Gillian Flynn this summer. She'd been a NYT bestseller for a good long while before I ever heard of her. There had been tons of buzz. But I hadn't seen any of it. I definitely don't think that an author isn't good because I've never heard of him or her. Practically 80% of the stuff I read is from people I've never heard of.
> 
> When I see an author with five books out, I think, "Ooh, yay! If I like this one, there's five more to read."
> 
> Interesting that we have such different reactions.


Yeah, but when you looked you found a ton of info. That's not quite the same as not buzz to be found and I should have been more clear what I meant.


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## blakebooks (Mar 10, 2012)

I think that's well-intentioned advice that's kind of a recipe for failure. I'll use three examples of why I don't think it's a smart approach if you want to sell books. Let's take Darci Chan. If she'd followed that counsel, instead of a massive deal and 700K+ novels sold, she's be working on number two or three, and lost the opportunity that only came in that time and place - because a year later, everything had changed. Her marketing combined with the time and place propelled her to a life-changing place, based on a single title.

Ditto for Colleen Hoover. She put out her first book in Jan of 2012. She's now mega massive. Her second book went huge. Her third even bigger. If she'd followed the advice in the article she wouldn't have done marketing, and would have missed that opportunity - one that, again, changed her life. She wrote more, and marketed - she did both.

Now let's take me. I started out writing a lot, and didn't market much other than Twitter. I didn't sell many books, either. Even with a dozen out by Dec, 2011, sales were anemic. That all changed when I started really marketing - dividing my time between marketing and writing, as I've counseled others is responsible and sustainable. I went from basically no sales to six figures in one year. 2013 saw 330K sales in that year. Nobody knows how 2014 will fare, but the point is that marketing and promotions did a lot for me, and if I'd stuck to writing instead of doing both, I believe my sales would be far, far lower.

The type of counsel that amounts to either/or is not good advice. We don't live in an either/or world. The fact is none of us knows what will break big and what won't, but if you don't market as well as write, it's pretty much guaranteed you won't break big. Waiting, especially in an environment that's constantly changing, and which is getting tougher every day, is just terrible advice. Write 75% of the time, market and promote the other 25%. It's manageable, gives you a break from writing, and ensures you're laying a proper foundation.

The counsel to write and not market makes as much sense as advice to market and not write. Both are sadly mistaken, IMO. But what do I know?


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## Jan Thompson (May 25, 2013)

Sometimes when I read KKR I mostly agree, and some days I mostly disagree, but this time, I'm half agreeing and half disagreeing.

Beyonce as an example. Dude, she's famous. Like Rowling trying to "go to the fans." They probably already have scarves with her name embroidered on them. Why not use unknown garage bands as examples if she wants to make a case for promotions? The example could fail.



> "And that's what I want you writers to take from all of this coverage. Every bit of the hype, every bit of the shouting, started after the album was done. The album itself is one of at least twenty original albums she's produced, not counting other projects she's been involved in." - KKR
> See more at: http://kriswrites.com/2014/01/01/the-business-rusch-in-the-beginning-discoverability-part-5/#sthash.KxcvEvkf.dpuf


This is the opposite of what Seth Godin and Joel Friendlander said. They both said that before you publish you need to start building up your brand and your visibility. Godin said you start marketing an unpubbed book 3 years ahead of time. Friedlander said in a recent Twitter chat that unpubbed writers should blog at least 2x a week to get their names out there (my paraphrase).

The right way is somewhere between KKR and Godin, right?



> "Write. Write a lot. Then write more." - KKR


I'm sure we all can agree on this. This works super great for tradpub authors who are told to just write 90% of the time and let their publishers worry about marketing... That was, until they realized that they had to do marketing too... Then now some of the writers are spending 60-70% writing and then they have to market their own books.



blakebooks said:


> The counsel to write and not market makes as much sense as advice to market and not write. Both are sadly mistaken, IMO. But what do I know?


This. Another sage advice.

I'm officially abandoning my "soft marketing" approach to my nonfic. I just did some Math, and I have to break even on the cost of publishing the book. I hate to admit that Russell Blake is right again (because he's not perfect). But he's right on marketing.


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## Christa Wick (Nov 1, 2012)

Laura Vryhof said:


> *puts on reader hat*
> 
> Which am I more apt to choose:
> 
> ...


I agree that the lack of positive social proof when there has been a significant period of opportunity is the same as negative social proof.


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## Thisiswhywecan&#039;thavenicethings (May 3, 2013)

Assuming there are degrees of marketing, seems like starting small and ramping up your efforts as your catalog increases would be sensible. Someone else posted about the Catch-22 of needing reviews in order to pay for ads, there has to be value in doing low level promotion in order to get enough reviews to do higher level promotion when you are eligible to do it.


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## Zoe York (May 12, 2013)

Wow, that was brilliant. I love the comparison to real estate. Build something that will continue to earn you money forever. And once you're clear on what that is, with each new part of your brand will come greater exposure, fan-driven. Don't manufacture that discovery, let it happen organically. That's not anti-promotion, not at all, but just saying, don't force it...if you do, it won't last. 

I'm not familiar with Darci Chan, but I think Colleen Hoover is an excellent example of someone who's discoverability is very much fan-driven, and her value keeps rising. But hoping to be just like her, or the handful of others with the same kind of success...that's not a PLAN. That's a wish and a dream.

Bring it back to the ground floor, entry-level options, when new authors are choosing where to invest their time and/or money.

What's a better investment: content or platform? I can think of MANY authors who have written one book, and thrown a lot of energy and some money into a platform, and had some success, but other than that brief spike in income, their careers are less solid than others who have, in the mean time, written a few more books.

Of course, I can think of even more authors who have a lot of content, no platform, and zero sales. My heart breaks for them, because platform building is out of their comfort zone, but oh so important. 

NEITHER group has the balance right. And for each artist and their reader base, the exact right balance is going to be slightly different. 

I read this post as a cautionary tale to anyone who skews too hard in the platform direction. (Because there's yet another group, who have a decent balance at first blush, but their content doesn't have the longevity to be earning them money 10 years from now...there's takeaways in the blog post for them, as well).

Hey, I'm still a newb. I don't have many answers. But this really resonated with me. Thanks to the OP for sharing!


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## Monique (Jul 31, 2010)

If I could write 12+ hours a day, that at least would have an internal logic, Mcoorlin, but I can't. Can anyone? Can people really not spare twenty minutes a day to market? Or set aside an hour or two in an entire week to market? I find that hard to believe. 

I really have tried, but don't understand the logic of waiting to market. 

Take me for example. I have six books out. If I'd waited to market, per KKR's advice, what would I have gained in doing so? I will have my 10 books in about another year. Why would I be in a better position one year from now with my 10 books out and virtually no fanbase? 

As I see it, I would lose a few hundred thousand dollars in income and be forced then to dive into marketing cold without knowing what works for me or having anyone to approach to light that fire of word of mouth. I see what I lose if I follow that advice. What do I gain?


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## JRTomlin (Jan 18, 2011)

blakebooks said:


> I think that's well-intentioned advice that's kind of a recipe for failure. I'll use three examples of why I don't think it's a smart approach if you want to sell books. Let's take Darci Chan. If she'd followed that counsel, instead of a massive deal and 700K+ novels sold, she's be working on number two or three, and lost the opportunity that only came in that time and place - because a year later, everything had changed. Her marketing combined with the time and place propelled her to a life-changing place, based on a single title.
> 
> Ditto for Colleen Hoover. She put out her first book in Jan of 2012. She's now mega massive. Her second book went huge. Her third even bigger. If she'd followed the advice in the article she wouldn't have done marketing, and would have missed that opportunity - one that, again, changed her life. She wrote more, and marketed - she did both.
> 
> ...


Dude, she did not say to write and not to market. She said if you only have one book, you are probably wasting your time if you market. And the examples of the people with one-book hits are the 'exceptions that prove the rule'. Can you name a lot of other people who did that? Are are more like Elle Casey who does extremely well because she has worked hard to put a lot of books out?

Not only does KKR think writers with a backlist _should_ market, she says:



> Some of the marketing I'll be discussing in the next few weeks will apply to people who have written enough to form a list of works.


Now that is an odd thing to say if what she were saying was that you shouldn't market.


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## Zelah Meyer (Jun 15, 2011)

I agree with Camille that Kris and Dean take a longer-term view, and their advice is given with this in mind.

Are they the best people to listen to if you want to launch your first book and make great sales?  Possibly not (except in matters of craft).  Are they great people to listen to if you want to have a long-term career in writing?  Definitely.

They aren't looking at where you'll be in a year, they're looking at where you'll be in ten years - and what you'll wish you'd done or not done then.  Their advice comes from a place of experience.

If their advice doesn't fit who you are as a writer and what you want to achieve, then don't listen to it.  Listen to people who are successful doing things the way you want to do things.  You've got to find what works for you and for the type of writer you want to be.


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## zzzzzzz (Dec 6, 2011)

Well, that's it exactly. The point is: The value of your marketing correlates to how many books you've published. Write more books. Marketing is fine, but writing will add more value to your platform for the same time investment.

Spend that 20 minutes or whatever marketing, but most of your effort and energy should be devoted to creating new quality content as efficiently as possible.


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## Justawriter (Jul 24, 2012)

JRTomlin said:


> Dude, she did not say to write and not to market. She said if you only have one book, you are probably wasting your time if you market. And the examples of the people with one-book hits are the 'exceptions that prove the rule'. Can you name a lot of other people who did that? Are are more like Elle Casey who does extremely well because she has worked hard to put a lot of books out?
> 
> Not only does KKR think writers with a backlist _should_ market, she says she will spend the next several weeks discussing how to market.


But that's the point. She made it clear she thinks promoting one book or even several is a waste of time. That is what I disagree with because I know that it's not true. I've seen others do well after promoting one book...Darcie Chan, and recently Darren Wearmouth, are great examples. And I had a very good first month myself on my first book...because I promoted it. I look at it this way, it's like having a party, you can hope that people show up.....or you can send out invitations and be fairly certain that some will come. I could have just put out my first book and then released my second with no promotion, but I didn't see the sense in that. Why not leverage my efforts and build my platform and visibility from book one so that I sell even more of book two and grow more quickly. Why is that not seen to be a good idea? I honestly don't understand. It's easy to write and promote at the same time. There are 24 hours in a day. 

Edited to add, many people view promoting a first book as short-term. I view it as part of a long-term plan. Slower isn't necessarily better.


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## MonkeyScribe (Jan 27, 2011)

JRTomlin said:


> Dude, she did not say to write and not to market. She said if you only have one book, you are probably wasting your time if you market. And the examples of the people with one-book hits are the 'exceptions that prove the rule'. Can you name a lot of other people who did that? Are are more like Elle Casey who does extremely well because she has worked hard to put a lot of books out?
> 
> Not only does KKR think writers with a backlist _should_ market, she says she will spend the next several weeks discussing how to market.


There are people _on this thread_ who have sold a lot of books without having written 10 novels, as she has suggested. Terrence had a solid hit (maybe not a homer, but certainly a double) with his Templar novel. That guy needs a lot more writing and less KB chatting. 

But if he'd done no marketing, he wouldn't have those thousands of sales under his belt for his first and only book. How would he be better off?

I really like both KKR and DWS. They were mentors for me in my early days and Kris bought my first pro story when she was at F&SF. But in this case, I think they're still a little old school and their advice is not right, at least for me.


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## dalya (Jul 26, 2011)

I know that when someone with 1 book starts a thread on here asking for shortcuts and secrets, I do feel the urge to post a "just keep writing" response. However, that's an emotional response. Maybe we all feel that way, after struggling for so long and working so hard. Maybe we resent the idea that some newcomer might swoop in and find out the 1-2-3 magic steps.

There definitely are "trade secrets" that authors hold close to their chests. Something I've done, specifically, is keep very detailed records of everything I've tried, so I can take note of the 1 in 10 things that returns a positive investment on my time or money. I keep doing what works and happily quit stuff that doesn't. Perhaps one day I'll write an ebook about the 150 things I tried and the 15 things that worked as of 2013 or 2014, but my god, I can't type all that stuff out on demand every time someone with 1 book asks for the keys to the castle.

It really is much easier to tell people to keep writing, isn't it?


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## Jan Thompson (May 25, 2013)

JRTomlin said:


> Not only does KKR think writers with a backlist _should_ market, she says she will spend the next several weeks discussing how to market.


But wasn't KKR saying that you market AFTER you have published a bunch of books? She's saying that when you have just one book out, don't bother. Go write more books, and then only market when you have a handful or "enough" books. What is "enough" books? She didn't say. Maybe to some it might be 3 books, but to others it might be a dozen titles.

I might be wrong but what I thought Russell Blake was saying is that you need to market every book you publish without waiting. You publish a book, you market it, you publish the next book, you market that. He doesn't seem to advocate waiting for a stack of books before you start marketing each one. I think Blake is saying you market it hot off the press.

To me, that's more in tune with Amazon's 30-day window for new books. If I do what KKR says, then I would publish a bunch of my books before I go back and market the first one in the series. I think that is sort of "stale." Who wants stale bread? I like Blake's idea of selling the hot cross buns as soon as they are baked.


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## Jan Thompson (May 25, 2013)

MichaelWallace said:


> There are people _on this thread_ who have sold a lot of books without having written 10 novels, as she has suggested. Terrence had a solid hit (maybe not a homer, but certainly a double) with his Templar novel. *That guy needs a lot more writing and less KB chatting. *


LOL. What about us unpubbed writers? Could I blame KB for my failure to launch?


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## Terrence OBrien (Oct 21, 2010)

I figure there are lots of factors and pressures at work in a market. Strategies are built around them. Any chosen strategy may not deal with all of them. However, it's good to know how they work so I can develop the best strategy for me.  

If I do choose a strategy that does not utilize or address some market factor, it doesn't change anything about the market. All those factors and pressures still operate. What I want and prefer has zero effect on the market.


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## MonkeyScribe (Jan 27, 2011)

Mimi (was Dalya) said:


> I know that when someone with 1 book starts a thread on here asking for shortcuts and secrets, I do feel the urge to post a "just keep writing" response. However, that's an emotional response. Maybe we all feel that way, after struggling for so long and working so hard. Maybe we resent the idea that some newcomer might swoop in and find out the 1-2-3 magic steps.


That's exactly how I feel. In some cases, I just want to say 




But I'm even more dumbfounded by the sit back and let it happen method. You never know when your career might take off. It might be with book one, book fifty, or book never. But at every step of the way you should be doing your best to make that breakout hit your current novel.


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## MonkeyScribe (Jan 27, 2011)

JanThompson said:


> LOL. What about us unpubbed writers? Could I blame KB for my failure to launch?


*JanThompson
posts: 1836*

YES!


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## JRTomlin (Jan 18, 2011)

JanThompson said:


> But wasn't KKR saying that you market AFTER you have published a bunch of books? She's saying that when you have just one book out, don't bother. Go write more books, and then only market when you have a handful or "enough" books. What is "enough" books? She didn't say. Maybe to some it might be 3 books, but to others it might be a dozen titles.
> 
> I might be wrong but what I thought Russell Blake was saying is that you need to market every book you publish without waiting. You publish a book, you market it, you publish the next book, you market that. He doesn't seem to advocate waiting for a stack of books before you start marketing each one. I think Blake is saying you market it hot off the press.
> 
> To me, that's more in tune with Amazon's 30-day window for new books. If I do what KKR says, then I would publish a bunch of my books before I go back and market the first one in the series. I think that is sort of "stale." Who wants stale bread? I like Blake's idea of selling the hot cross buns as soon as they are baked.


Yes, she says that marketing one book is a waste of time. I don't altogether agree with that, but I also think that someone with only one book should be told they_ most likely_ won't get much return from marketing. They shouldn't expect to be the next Marcie Chan.

I can't say I agree with KKR here 100%. Probably only 90%. 

ETA: However, I disagree strongly with both you and Blake. Books aren't buns. They don't get stale. My best selling book long-term, the one that I got an email about this morning from a reviewer saying how good the writing is in it, is the first in my trilogy which has been out several years.

That is, I'm afraid, a terrible analogy.


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## Jan Thompson (May 25, 2013)

MichaelWallace said:


> *JanThompson
> posts: 1836*
> 
> YES!


Wow, I had no idea I'm that prolific.

Oy. Slinking away now to my writing cave...


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## Zoe York (May 12, 2013)

I really didn't get "sit back and let it happen" from that blog post. I got, "build a body of work, because once you have that, you can do so much more than you can with just one book".

In the meantime, while building that body of work, do the usual things: connect with readers, build a fan base, share review copies, do interviews, have a FB page, Tweet if it interests you, blog along the same lines. These aren't really optional activities anymore, they're a basic part of the writing business.

Spending $500 on advertising for a debut novel? That's a risk. It might pay off, absolutely. But you're probably better off saving that money for when you can promote one book and have it sell through to a few others. And if you concentrate on writing, hopefully that won't be too long in the future.

Spending hours a day on marketing? That's a risk. It might pay off, sure. But you're probably better of spending that time WRITING.

And, I think this is the point of where she's going in this series...when you do have a body of work, and you've started to build some buzz, get some credibility, etc., when you're ready to take your work to the next level...think outside the box. (I'm super excited to see where she's going with this, and I don't yet have that body of work).


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## MonkeyScribe (Jan 27, 2011)

JanThompson said:


> Wow, I had no idea I'm that prolific.
> 
> Oy. Slinking away now to my writing cave...


It's time to release your stories into the wild. You can do it!

P.S.


Spoiler



Don't forget to market them.


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## ElHawk (Aug 13, 2012)

I thought it was a great article. I usually love Kris's big articles.



> The first rule of being an artist is to be an artist


So true. There is absolutely nothing wrong with picking a hot genre to write in, nor is there anything wrong with making your decisions about what you'll write based on the relative money you might earn compared to some less popular genre. But I think it's the _art _ that a writer brings to a book, no matter what led him or her to write in that genre or choose that theme, or _whatever_, that makes a book resonate with readers. What makes a writer successful is not the genre she chooses to write in, but her ability to use her skills to touch the audience of that genre. Some genres have larger audiences than others by nature, but especially in the indie world, no crap writer is going to become a big hit just by writing in a hot genre. She has to write _well_.

And her points about Beyoncé and her long career are very smart. The majority of people who have big and long-term success work their way there over time. There are some who are lightning strikes, but not many. And even the lightning strikes work their butts off to keep selling after their initial run of crazy luck. If you want it to be a business, it's just not something you can [email protected] It's lots of hard, careful work, patience, time, and creativity.

And I really don't get the people who feel the need to backlash against the "write more books" advice. It's just _numbers_. The more books you have out, the likelier it is that one will catch on and become your "lightning strike." Or you'll not have a lightning strike, but the smaller sales of many books will add up to a sustainable income, eventually. Obviously you have to be writing good books that people want to read, but that seems so obvious to me that I don't even understand why anybody, including newbies, wouldn't just take that as a given. Nobody wants to read a bad book.


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## Edward W. Robertson (May 18, 2010)

Everyone agrees that you should write more books. What we're saying is you're infinitely more likely to catch fire if you throw some gasoline around, too.


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## Monique (Jul 31, 2010)

Zoe York said:


> I really didn't get "sit back and let it happen" from that blog post. I got, "build a body of work, because once you have that, you can do so much more than you can with just one book".
> 
> In the meantime, while building that body of work, do the usual things: connect with readers, build a fan base, share review copies, do interviews, have a FB page, Tweet if it interests you, blog along the same lines. These aren't really optional activities anymore, they're a basic part of the writing business.


I didn't get that at all from the blog. I got "don't waste time doing any marketing until you have X number of books out."


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## JRTomlin (Jan 18, 2011)

Zoe York said:


> I really didn't get "sit back and let it happen" from that blog post. I got, "build a body of work, because once you have that, you can do so much more than you can with just one book".
> 
> In the meantime, while building that body of work, do the usual things: connect with readers, build a fan base, share review copies, do interviews, have a FB page, Tweet if it interests you, blog along the same lines. These aren't really optional activities anymore, they're a basic part of the writing business.
> 
> ...


Pretty much what I got from it and I think her advice is solid. On the other hand, no one person's advice will suit everyone, so if it doesn't suit then just ignore her. 

I'm not going to twist anyone's arm who hates her advice, but I am going to very closely read her next posts about what she thinks works in marketing for those of us who have a number of books already out.


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## Justawriter (Jul 24, 2012)

ElHawk said:


> And I really don't get the people who feel the need to backlash against the "write more books" advice. It's just _numbers_. The more books you have out, the likelier it is that one will catch on and become your "lightning strike." Or you'll not have a lightning strike, but the smaller sales of many books will add up to a sustainable income, eventually. Obviously you have to be writing good books that people want to read, but that seems so obvious to me that I don't even understand why anybody, including newbies, wouldn't just take that as a given. Nobody wants to read a bad book.


I don't think anyone has an issue with the advice to write more books. It was her advice not to promote them at all until you have a certain number of books that was questionable.


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## ElHawk (Aug 13, 2012)

Edward W. Robertson said:


> I replied to her post earlier, and am awaiting moderation. But I think that if you're going to wait to promote your books until you've got a backlist, then you shouldn't publish any of them until you're ready to promote them.
> 
> Otherwise, it's a waste of time and opportunity.


I disagree, to an extent. I didn't promote my first book at all (at first), and it took off on its own. Once I realized it was taking off (oops) I wrote more in the series to give those readers a place to go. It would have been nice to have those books in place from the get-go, but I don't think my business has suffered any for doing it the way I did. I've seen my sales continue to grow even though I've done very minimal promotion.

I get your point, but I don't think it's _always _ a waste of time or opportunity to just publish what you've got and leave it alone to do its thing. My book netted quite a nice little following with virtually no effort from me, and it's funneling into steady sales of all these new books I'm publishing. I think what's more important than whether you decide to do publishing and promotion simultaneously, or just focus on building a backlist first, is how quickly and effectively you can respond to increased demand for your work, if it comes along.


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## Zoe York (May 12, 2013)

With one title, you're only promoting that: a title. A single book. Once you have more books, maybe even multiple series, you're promoting something completely different: a brand. 

And for sure, you can pour gas on a fire, but I'm pretty sure the rest of that analogy is that something gets burned to a crisp.  

Patience is a virtue. And it will pay off.


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## ElHawk (Aug 13, 2012)

Edward W. Robertson said:


> So her philosophy contradicts itself.
> 
> Why does she advise publishing books you shouldn't be trying to sell? That accomplishes nothing. Worse, it incurs a large opportunity cost. Your career would be much better served by holding all those books in reserve until you're ready to be discovered.


No, I think her point wasn't that you shouldn't try to sell them. I think her point was that you shouldn't expect to launch the album "Beyoncé" mid-week, blow up Twitter, and have the selling power to kick Target and Amazon in the nuts at a Minnesotan Wal-Mart until you've done the writer equivalent of practicing your singing for seventeen years.  That's all. I think she was just meaning to say that usually in entertainment, this kind of selling power -- the kind that allows many authors to "be discovered" with sudden dark-horse coups on bestseller lists, or suddenly appearing all over the media when they never did before -- comes after a whole lot of work at your craft.


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## Zoe York (May 12, 2013)

And another thing! Crap, I really need to do:
a. day job work
b. writing

But I just can't let this go.  

I think of all the writers that I want to be compared to, and none of them hit their stride until their second/third/fourth series. I'm pretty confident in my ability, but I don't think I'm somehow crazy special. If I burn myself out NOW, pushing my first series like mad, with some success but some disappointing failures that surprise me because I'm NEW...I'll never get there. I want to publish my 20th book. I've got my eye on that prize. And I want it to be AMAZING. So I've got a lot of work to do between now and then, and it won't get done if I'm flogging my current books constantly. And readers won't still be with me at that point if I do, either.


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## ElHawk (Aug 13, 2012)

PamelaKelley said:


> I don't think anyone has an issue with the advice to write more books. It was her advice not to promote them at all until you have a certain number of books that was questionable.


Ah, I see. I didn't get that impression from the article. I got the impression that she was saying "Don't expect a massive ginormous hit from your efforts (whether writing or promoting) until you've done the equivalent work of Beyoncé's 17-year career. That's how she got the promotional power to launch this album so successfully: by working for it." Can authors still break out huge without a ton of experience? Sure! It happens fairly frequently. Statistically, is it LIKELY to happen to you until you've worked your butt off and garnered all the experience that turns you into Beyoncé of Books? Not likely.

I didn't see her saying to never promote until you've got a big backlist...just to have realistic expectations about what your promotional efforts are likely to bring at different points in your experience- and skill-building.

I think we can all agree that promotion of some kind is very important. It's hard to be found if nobody even knows where to look. But managing your expectations relative to where you are in building up your career is always a smart thing to do.


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## Edward W. Robertson (May 18, 2010)

ElHawk said:


> No, I think her point wasn't that you shouldn't try to sell them. I think her point was that you shouldn't expect to launch the album "Beyoncé" mid-week, blow up Twitter, and have the selling power to kick Target and Amazon in the nuts at a Minnesotan Wal-Mart until you've done the writer equivalent of practicing your singing for seventeen years.  That's all. I think she was just meaning to say that usually in entertainment, this kind of selling power -- the kind that allows many authors to "be discovered" with sudden dark-horse coups on bestseller lists, or suddenly appearing all over the media when they never did before -- comes after a whole lot of work at your craft.


I think Beyonce also found a little time for self-promotion between albums. ;P


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## JRTomlin (Jan 18, 2011)

Edward W. Robertson said:


> I think Beyonce also found a little time for self-promotion between albums. ;P


When she only had one song out? And how much would that have gotten her? Yes, she found time for self-promotion between albums. And she has a huge body of work to promote.

ETA: Let's be clear. KKR is _not_ saying not to promote, in spite of what several people have posted. She said that she thinks promoting only one novel is a waste of time, and that instead early in your career your efforts should go into building your body of work so you have something TO promote.

Maybe an intermediate position, that you shouldn't put much effort into promotion early on is the best. I would absolutely advise against spending a lot of money on promoting one novel. I really do think the chances of success beyond maybe making your money back, possibly, are vanishingly slim.


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## ElHawk (Aug 13, 2012)

JRTomlin said:


> When she only had one song out? And how much would that have gotten her? Yes, she found time for self-promotion between albums. And she has a huge body of work to promote.
> 
> ETA: Let's be clear. KKR is not saying not to promote, in spite of what several people have posted. She said that she thinks promoting only one novel is a waste of time, and that instead early in your career your efforts should go into building your body of work so you have something TO promote.


Yep, that's what I got out of the article. I guess lots of others didn't, so maybe her delivery of the message wasn't as clear as it could have been.


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## JRTomlin (Jan 18, 2011)

ElHawk said:


> Yep, that's what I got out of the article. I guess lots of others didn't, so maybe her delivery of the message wasn't as clear as it could have been.


Maybe not. I thought what she was saying was pretty clear, but obviously it wasn't to a lot of people.


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## MonkeyScribe (Jan 27, 2011)

JRTomlin said:


> Maybe not. I thought what she was saying was pretty clear, but obviously it wasn't to a lot of people.


Some of this interpretation no doubt traces back to the OP of this thread, who is quite vocal in other threads against marketing. Also, I agree with much of what Kris says, but being of a contrary nature, choose to argue with the parts I don't.


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## Monique (Jul 31, 2010)

I think it's quotes like this that led me (and many others) to believe she's talking about more than one novel.



> Don't even bother to try to be "discovered" until you have a body of work. Not one novel. Not even two novels. Maybe not three or four or five.


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## Zoe York (May 12, 2013)

I'm a big fan of marketing, and I agree with that quote.


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## JRTomlin (Jan 18, 2011)

MichaelWallace said:


> Some of this interpretation no doubt traces back to the OP of this thread, who is quite vocal in other threads against marketing. Also, I agree with much of what Kris says, but being of a contrary nature, choose to argue with the parts I don't.


I cringe a bit (adding it up as tax time approaches) thinking about how much I spent on marketing last year. But I cringe even more when I think of someone possibly spending that kind of money marketing only one novel or even two novels. You know I'm not against marketing, but I do think we need to be sensible about it. She might be a bit extreme in saying an author shouldn't market their first novel at all, but she isn't totally wrong that in that it isn't where most of their effort should go.


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## Monique (Jul 31, 2010)

_"...but she isn't totally wrong that in that it isn't where most of their effort should go."_

But seriously, is ANYONE saying most of their effort should go into marketing and not writing?


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## beccaprice (Oct 1, 2011)

ElHawk said:


> Yep, that's what I got out of the article. I guess lots of others didn't, so maybe her delivery of the message wasn't as clear as it could have been.


given that this is the path I'm taking, I agree with her. I'm a slow writer, but hope to have 3 fairy tale collections out by June, and a couple of individual fairy tale stories in addition to the collections. *then* I'll start really promoting. So far all I've done is Netgalley, and Goodreads and LibraryThing give-aways.


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## ElHawk (Aug 13, 2012)

Monique said:


> I think it's quotes like this that led me (and many others) to believe she's talking about more than one novel.


I thought in terms of "be discovered" she meant "hit it really big" (hence the comparison to the recent Beyoncé release). Not just selling reliably, but having a breakout hit.

I could be wrong! But that's how it struck me.


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## Monique (Jul 31, 2010)

ElHawk said:


> I thought in terms of "be discovered" she meant "hit it really big" (hence the comparison to the recent Beyoncé release). Not just selling reliably, but having a breakout hit.
> 
> I could be wrong! But that's how it struck me.


Hoping to be "discovered" in that sense is silly and not something anyone controls. Discoverabilty is something else and that's what I figured we were all talking about.


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## S.K. Falls (Jun 17, 2013)

The best way to get more people to read your work is to instill confidence about said work by gaining more readers and more reviews. You increase the chances of you being one of the huge bestsellers any time you put out new work. You never know what's going to resonate with readers, and, perhaps just as importantly, you improve your craft with each book you write (or at least, that should be one of your aims). Writing more is not a surefire way to success, but then again, nothing is. So you may as well write--it's what most writers enjoy doing most.


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## MonkeyScribe (Jan 27, 2011)

ElHawk said:


> I thought in terms of "be discovered" she meant "hit it really big" (hence the comparison to the recent Beyoncé release). Not just selling reliably, but having a breakout hit.
> 
> I could be wrong! But that's how it struck me.


I agree that it's silly to try for that sort of thing. It's like capturing lightning. Of course, once you've done it once, then it becomes progressively easier, but even then. I've been reading Write. Publish. Repeat. and the key to their method (which includes some marketing, BTW, a la David Gaughran's books), is that you don't have to be a genius or get a big hit to succeed. You just have to produce tons of work and do your best to aid your own discovery.


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## Christian Price (Aug 3, 2012)

(Frantically looking for my car keys to run to the store for some popcorn.. plus, it's just popcorn kind of weather)


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## JRTomlin (Jan 18, 2011)

Monique said:


> _"...but she isn't totally wrong that in that it isn't where most of their effort should go."_
> 
> But seriously, is ANYONE saying most of their effort should go into marketing and not writing?


I worded it poorly. What I meant was that "she isn't totally wrong that very little of their effort should go into marketing."

Better? Well, at least it reflects what I was thinking. ETA: My own opinion is that beyond a good cover, no money should go into marketing with a first novel. IMO, connecting with readers, etc is worth the effort but should be only a minor effort at first.


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## anniejocoby (Aug 11, 2013)

I don't get why this is so controversial. It's not like marketing has to be difficult or time-consuming. So, what's the problem with doing both marketing and writing?

In November, I purchased a BookBub ad. It was $140 and took up about five minutes of my time to apply. That BookBub ad netted me 30,000 downloads of my first book and I went on to sell over 1300 of my second and over 1100 of my third, just in the month of November, just on Amazon. Sold another 1,500 or so of each book across all other channels, just in November. Last month, I sold about 500 of each book on Amazon, and another 500 of each book on Apple and Barnes and Noble. 

Before the BookBub ad, I sold around 200 of each book on Amazon, which is ok, but not full-time income. Because of BookBub, and the fact that I made around $11,000 in just one month, I have the cushion to go full-time, and, guess what? I now have more time to write other books! Without marketing, I would still be working my other job, and would be much less productive. 

I admit, I don't want to do the marketing that actually takes up time. Rah-rahing myself all over the Internet isn't for me, both because I'm kinda intimidated to do it and also because it is just too much time away from writing. But purchasing BookBub and things like that, which work, take up zero time and really isn't that much money, can take you to the next level, where you can have the time to focus only on your books. So, why foreclose those wonderful options? 

What am I missing here?


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## MonkeyScribe (Jan 27, 2011)

Maybe Kris just means something different than we do when we say market. Maybe she means hiring a publicist, going on book tours, and running ads in Publisher's Weekly, whereas we're just talking about using pulse sales, buying BB ads, gaining a mailing list, and other stuff that's either cheap or has an immediate and measurable payoff. If that's the case, then I agree with her 100%.


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## Guest (Jan 2, 2014)

Seems pretty simple to me: Do you want readers? No? Then do as KKR suggests. 

I write because I both enjoy it, and I want them read. Seems to me the sensible approach is to find ways of getting those books in front of readers rather than letting them slip into oblivion never to be seen again. Seems KKR thinks Ed's 'harmful to artists'... o.0


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## Sarah M (Apr 6, 2013)

JRTomlin said:


> I worded it poorly. What I meant was that "she isn't totally wrong that very little of their effort should go into marketing."
> 
> Better? Well, at least it reflects what I was thinking. ETA: My own opinion is that beyond a good cover, no money should go into marketing with a first novel. IMO, connecting with readers, etc is worth the effort but should be only a minor effort at first.


But everything I've heard here about gaining visibility says this counterintuitive?

And wouldn't it depend on genre as well?


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## Zoe York (May 12, 2013)

I would add author website, mailing list, FB page and Twitter account to that pretty cover, but yes, that would be my recommendation to a first time author. Put the book out there, get your head down, and write the next one. Make it good, and get it out there. Rinse and repeat. If you're naturally chatty, take FB and Twitter breaks. If you see an EASY and CHEAP opportunity, seize it, sure, but no amount of marketing beats the bump of new content. Because it's way more authentic. And on book 3/4/5, start spending money. 

Annie...would you have bought that BB ad with just one book out? I wouldn't have (I didn't). I'm releasing my third novel next month, and THAT'S when I'll have my first BB ad. Nothing wrong with trying it sooner, but I know people who haven't earned back their outlay, or just barely. Common link: not enough books.


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## Sarah M (Apr 6, 2013)

Is this another way to say slow writers are doomed again?  

ETA: I'm not actually slow. I'm a neurotic perfectionist who needs to stop clutching her precious manuscript to her bosom, and let the darn thing go. *sob*


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## Zoe York (May 12, 2013)

Oh, and I do think the balance shifts from genre to genre. A New Adult author can market the hell out of a debut author label. Certainly New York publishers can sometimes do the same thing with literary fiction writers.


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## ElHawk (Aug 13, 2012)

MichaelWallace said:


> I agree that it's silly to try for that sort of thing. It's like capturing lightning.


I don't know how silly it is for a well-established writer to try for something like, say, a run up the bestseller charts...or a book launch that blows up Twitter. There is a large degree of luck involved, but careful strategy certainly could make it happen. It's not the kind of strategy that's likely to work well for an author who has fewer books out (and thus probably has a smaller audience than an author who has lots of good books out.)



> Of course, once you've done it once, then it becomes progressively easier, but even then. I've been reading Write. Publish. Repeat. and the key to their method (which includes some marketing, BTW, a la David Gaughran's books), is that you don't have to be a genius or get a big hit to succeed.* You just have to produce tons of work * and do your best to aid your own discovery.


Which was Kris's point, too, I think...though there have been so many different interpretations of what she said that I think she could have been clearer. 

I finished Write. Publish. Repeat. recently...loved it. (But I loved their podcast already...that book might confuse some people who've never heard them interact with each other on the podcast before! Ha ha...poor Dave, getting sat on again...)

I think everybody here, including me, acknowledges that promotion and aiding your own discovery is a really important part of success. But how _heavily _ you promote ought to depend on how many books you have out. If you've only got one or two, your time is _probably _ better spent writing than doing a ton of promotion. You should still do some, but what helps shoot an established author up a bestseller list is not _likely _ to work well as promotion for somebody with only one book out there, you know?



MichaelWallace said:


> Maybe Kris just means something different than we do when we say market. Maybe she means hiring a publicist, going on book tours, and running ads in Publisher's Weekly, whereas we're just talking about using pulse sales, buying BB ads, gaining a mailing list, and other stuff that's either cheap or has an immediate and measurable payoff. If that's the case, then I agree with her 100%.


And I think as she wraps up her series on discoverability, that will become more clear. This post taken all by itself...I can see why people are reacting to it the way they have. I'm looking at it tied in with all the previous weeks of posts on the same topic...especially the one about how marketing was and is done in Tradpub, and why it doesn't work for (most) indies today. This post is just the most recent chapter in a long essay on the topic of changes in modes of discoverability.


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## anniejocoby (Aug 11, 2013)

Zoe York said:


> Annie...would you have bought that BB ad with just one book out? I wouldn't have (I didn't). I'm releasing my third novel next month, and THAT'S when I'll have my first BB ad. Nothing wrong with trying it sooner, but I know people who haven't earned back their outlay, or just barely. Common link: not enough books.


No, I admit that I wouldn't have bought an ad with just one book out, or even two. I did have three to market, I admit. And it helped that they are a series. So, I guess that I went with both routes - writing more, and then marketing when I had enough to make it worthwhile. But that ad was, by far, the best money I have EVER spent. It literally changed my life. So, I have to go with BookBub, at the very least, for authors with a few things out there to sell.


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## Pnjw (Apr 24, 2011)

Zoe York said:


> I would add author website, mailing list, FB page and Twitter account to that pretty cover, but yes, that would be my recommendation to a first time author. Put the book out there, get your head down, and write the next one. Make it good, and get it out there. Rinse and repeat. If you're naturally chatty, take FB and Twitter breaks. If you see an EASY and CHEAP opportunity, seize it, sure, but no amount of marketing beats the bump of new content. Because it's way more authentic. And on book 3/4/5, start spending money.
> 
> Annie...would you have bought that BB ad with just one book out? I wouldn't have (I didn't). I'm releasing my third novel next month, and THAT'S when I'll have my first BB ad. Nothing wrong with trying it sooner, but I know people who haven't earned back their outlay, or just barely. Common link: not enough books.


Just for another viewpoint, I bought an ENT ad (before BB was all the rage) when I only had one book. What did it get me? An extra 1K in my pocket and some new subscribers to my mailing list. Smart marketing when you only have 1 book is not a bad thing. That marketing will go a lot farther once there are more books, no doubt. But I'm not sure why anyone would ignore smart marketing. BTW, that 1K came at a time I needed to pay the editor for book 2. So yeah. Very helpful.


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## ElHawk (Aug 13, 2012)

Deanna Chase said:


> But I'm not sure why anyone would ignore smart marketing.


A lot of people don't understand what that is yet.  "Don't buy an expensive ad until you've got more than one or two books out" is, believe it or not, something some newbies need to be told.


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## blakebooks (Mar 10, 2012)

JR: Failing to market your product when you launch it is a mistake, plain and simple, in my humble view. If Darcie had done that, she wouldn't have had her hit. If Darren had done that, he wouldn't have had his. If Colleen hadn't, she wouldn't have had hers (she's brilliant at guerrilla marketing, BTW). If Tracey Jarvis Graves had done that, she wouldn't have had hers. They are people who marketed what they had. In other words, it's not either/or. You can and should do both.

You may disagree. That's fine. And yes, there's a shelf life, or rather, there's an opportunity life. No point in the future is going to have all the same dynamics as this - if you wait, you're betting on an unknown. Imagine if you'd waited and not taken advantage of Select's golden days? If you had a book out, you'd have foregone thousands, and possibly tens of thousands, of sales - real sales - in the hopes that at some point in the future, when you started promoting, you could do as well.

Nothing in the future is assured. The only thing we have is now, and then. We know it was easier to market effectively two years ago than it is now. Even one year ago.

Waiting is silly. Just do both. It's called hedging your bets.

I also think that people think of marketing as running ads. It's way more than that. It's having an online presence, being on Twitter, Facebook, the whole social media thing. Doing interviews. Blogging. Contests. Interacting with fans and would be readers. Etc. etc. etc.


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## valeriec80 (Feb 24, 2011)

Here's how I feel about marketing. You can't really do effective marketing until you're at a point where you probably don't really need to do it anyway.

First of all, there's like one really effective bit of marketing, and that's Bookbub. There's nothing else that really works, and Bookbub doesn't even work all that well anyway. The thing is, to get Bookbub ads, you have to have reviews. And if no one is reading your books, then you don't get any reviews. So... you can only market books on Bookbub that don't really need marketing.

Second of all, I guess the only other effective kind of marketing is amassing an email list. But if no one reads your books, then you can't really get people to sign up for an email list, now can you?

So... it seems to me that there isn't really any marketing you can do anyway. (Sure there are the smaller email lists, but they don't really work very well. Or at least, they don't for me.) You need to do well in order to market.

So if you don't do well in the first place, you're just screwed.

Sorry. I'm really effing bitter today.


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## JRTomlin (Jan 18, 2011)

SBright said:


> But everything I've heard here about gaining visibility says this counterintuitive?
> 
> And wouldn't it depend on genre as well?


I don't think it depends on genre. Look at the most successful romance writers (possibly the genre you were thinking of). They have multiple works out. Some, like Elle, have many out. And even KKR admits (if you read closely) that at three or four books out, it may be time to start marketing more actively.

I do think that KKR was not very clear in what she was trying to get across though.



blakebooks said:


> JR: Failing to market your product when you launch it is a mistake, plain and simple, in my humble view. If Darcie had done that, she wouldn't have had her it. If Darren had done that, he wouldn't have had his. If Colleen hadn't, she wouldn't have had hers (she's brilliant at guerrilla marketing, BTW). These are not exceptions. They are people who marketed what they had, WHILE writing the next one. In other words, it's not either/or. You can and should do both.
> 
> You may disagree. That's fine. And yes, there's a shelf life, or rather, there's an opportunity life. No point in the future is going to have all the same dynamics as this - if you wait, you're betting on an unknown. Imagine if you'd waited and not taken advantage of Select's golden days? If you had a book out, you'd have foregone thousands, and possibly tens of thousands, of sales - real sales - in the hopes that at some point in the future, when you started promoting, you could do as well.
> 
> ...


Blake, when I took advantage of Select's golden days, I had multiple books out. (I started with multiple books ready to publish) I don't think I would have gotten much out of it with one.

I don't think we are going to agree on this. I have never depended on a big release for sales, nor have I found books to have a 'shelf life'. The dynamics may be different but the book is not 'stale' and unsellable as you are saying. _Outlanders_, published in 2004, is STILL the #2 novel in Historical Fiction. I really hope in a few years my novels are even close to that 'stale'.


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## Hugh Howey (Feb 11, 2012)

What am I supposed to do when I'm NOT writing?

Writing is my life. This business is my life. When I had a day job, that was just where I went to daydream what I was going to write as soon as I got off work.

I can't possibly write every single minute I'm awake. So I spend my not-writing time on social media, on my blog, doing interviews, all that stuff.

You can do both. Just requires having no life outside of this business of writing.

In fact -- I think that's the commonality I see with all the authors who do really well: They are obsessives. We are obsessives. Who has time for anything that isn't getting us closer to our goals?

Totally helps that I don't have friends. Other than you monkeys.


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## blakebooks (Mar 10, 2012)

JR: I am not saying a book gets stale. I am saying that with every day, it gets harder to market a book, new or not. So the longer you wait, the harder it's going to be. What's the logic in waiting, and why does it have to be either/or? What's wrong with writing 80% of your time and handling marketing 20% of your time? Is that such an impossible task? I frankly just don't get it at all. At. All.

You couldn't be more wrong about Select and single titles. I actually did an author spotlight on a guy who had one book out. He did a Select spot, and after his free stint, sold over 10K copies in a week, with a long tail that lasted another good month or so. He's now getting ready to produce his first film based on that book - just that one. He wouldn't have done any of that if not for taking advantage of the marketing he could do at the time.

Advising people to write more and forego marketing is not good counsel, as far as I'm concerned.

Hugh: Yup. Being all OCD is one of the traits that most successes in any field have in common. Boon and curse. But one makes hay while the sun is shining...

And now I must go back to my WIP. I think my view's pretty clear on this one.


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## JRTomlin (Jan 18, 2011)

Hugh Howey said:


> What am I supposed to do when I'm NOT writing?
> 
> Writing is my life. This business is my life. When I had a day job, that was just where I went to daydream what I was going to write as soon as I got off work.
> 
> ...


LOL Hugh, at least you made me feel normal.

Of course, at the moment, I'm not speaking to my daughter which puts some extra time in my day.


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## ElHawk (Aug 13, 2012)

Hugh Howey said:


> When I had a day job, that was just where I went to daydream what I was going to write as soon as I got off work.


It's where I go to screw around on Kboards.


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## Guest (Jan 2, 2014)

Hugh Howey said:


> What am I supposed to do when I'm NOT writing?
> 
> Writing is my life. This business is my life. When I had a day job, that was just where I went to daydream what I was going to write as soon as I got off work.
> 
> ...


Pretty much describes my current outlook/life. I see the aversion of promotion/marketing a result of (perhaps) fear of failure.


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## JRTomlin (Jan 18, 2011)

blakebooks said:


> JR: I am not saying a book gets stale. I am saying that with every day, it gets harder to market a book, new or not. So the longer you wait, the harder it's going to be. What's the logic in waiting, and why does it have to be either/or? What's wrong with writing 80% of your time and handling marketing 20% of your time? Is that such an impossible task? I frankly just don't get it at all. At. All.
> 
> You couldn't be more wrong about Select and single titles. I actually did an author spotlight on a guy who had one book out. He did a Select spot, and after his free stint, sold over 10K copies in a week, with a long tail that lasted another good month or so. He's now getting ready to produce his first film based on that book - just that one. He wouldn't have done any of that if not for taking advantage of the marketing he could do at the time.
> 
> ...


I'm not going to argue Select. I had great success with it, but I really have doubts about it usually having been that good for a single title. One example doesn't convince me.

As for the 80/20 split, I would say that is not a bad idea. I never said I agreed with KKR that a new author shouldn't market at all. But I don't think that buying Bookbub ads, for example, is generally a good use of their money. I mentioned already that new authors should connect with readers, either by email, facebook, twitter or whatever they prefer to use. Those things make sense, but when it comes to spending money on marketing or spending large amounts of time, I really do suggest waiting. You aren't likely to have a mailing list when you first put out a book, or not one with more than a few names on it, so that's not going to take up your time. What else would you say is helpful the day an author puts out that first novel?


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## Sarah M (Apr 6, 2013)

JRTomlin said:


> I don't think it depends on genre. Look at the most successful romance writers (possibly the genre you were thinking of). They have multiple works out. Some, like Elle, have many out. And even KKR admits (if you read closely) that at three or four books out, it may be time to start marketing more actively.


Elle and other writers who've switched genres have said that they didn't have much crossover, though. She published Shine Not Burn without a backlist of romance, and was able to get it to the top 100. Her marketing strategy and hitting the genre wave at the right time probably played more heavily into it than her backlist than anything, and runs directly against what you're suggesting.

Of course, I could be wrong. But that's my analysis from the past few months, and watching what other authors have done when switching genre. The marketing savvy that came from the backlist, though, is likely invaluable.

Hugh, that really helps to hear. Maybe I'm not neurotic, simply...obsessed.


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## JRTomlin (Jan 18, 2011)

SBright said:


> Elle and other writers who've switched genres have said that they didn't have much crossover, though. She published Shine Not Burn without a backlist of romance, and was able to get it to the top 100. Her marketing strategy and hitting the genre wave at the right time probably played more heavily into it than her backlist than anything, and runs directly against what you're suggesting.
> 
> Of course, I could be wrong. But that's my analysis from the past few months, and watching what other authors have done when switching genre. The marketing savvy that came from the backlist, though, is likely invaluable.
> 
> Hugh, that really helps to hear. Maybe I'm not neurotic, simply...obsessed.


It all works together, having a backlist, that reviewers and advertisers are more likely to work with someone with a backlist, that you know more and are more savvy if you've been at it for a while. I'm not sure what you think I'm suggesting though, since I'm not suggesting anything. I simply agree with KKR that marketing in the traditional sense is not usually very successful for people who have only one book out.


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## Justawriter (Jul 24, 2012)

ElHawk said:


> A lot of people don't understand what that is yet.  "Don't buy an expensive ad until you've got more than one or two books out" is, believe it or not, something some newbies need to be told.


Why do newbies need to be told this? I haven't run an expensive ad yet, but only because I'm not eligible for a Bookbub ad. The minute that I am I will do one. I'll have a second book out by then. But, like Debra, I've more than covered all of book costs and advertising costs because I ran a few ads on my first book. I think it's interesting how few people seem to do it though. Maybe it's because I come from a marketing/business background. It never occurred to me NOT to run an ad! I have to say I'm very glad that I did and am looking forward to doing the same on my next book. It seems like the most effective and efficient way for people to find me.


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## ElHawk (Aug 13, 2012)

SBright said:


> Elle and other writers who've switched genres have said that they didn't have much crossover, though. She published Shine Not Burn without a backlist of romance, and was able to get it to the top 100.


She'd also written a bunch of books by then (even if in a different genre.) Her craft was super-tight and it's a fantastic book that resonates with its readers. That's the most important factor, I think. Having that skill to really stick your story in readers' brains. Yes, promotion is necessary for the readers to even know it's there in the first place. But it's not going to have any long-term impact on your career if it's not a rad book.

That idea goes back to the Beyoncé example Kris used in her article. The launch was huge because Beyoncé had the power to make it huge. But what stuck the album at the top of the charts was how good it was...the word of mouth that kept it selling after its big launch. It was that good because of Beyoncé's craft-honing.

ANYWAY, here is one thing I guarantee you we can all agree on:


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## Guest (Jan 2, 2014)

valeriec80 said:


> Here's how I feel about marketing. You can't really do effective marketing until you're at a point where you probably don't really need to do it anyway.
> 
> First of all, there's like one really effective bit of marketing, and that's Bookbub. There's nothing else that really works, and Bookbub doesn't even work all that well anyway. The thing is, to get Bookbub ads, you have to have reviews. And if no one is reading your books, then you don't get any reviews. So... you can only market books on Bookbub that don't really need marketing.
> 
> ...


You hit the nail on the head.


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## Guest (Jan 2, 2014)

MichaelWallace said:


> Some of this interpretation no doubt traces back to the OP of this thread, who is quite vocal in other threads against marketing. Also, I agree with much of what Kris says, but being of a contrary nature, choose to argue with the parts I don't.


Kris Rusch's advice in this article is almost a perfect explanation of my own approach, which is (and has always been) to avoid spending time, money, or mental space on marketing until I've got at least ten full-length books out. The only real amendment I've made to that is to count novellas as full-length books, rather than short story experiments.

I must say, though, the discussion on this thread is quite interesting. But really, I should be writing.


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## Guest (Jan 2, 2014)

valeriec80 said:


> Here's how I feel about marketing. You can't really do effective marketing until you're at a point where you probably don't really need to do it anyway.
> 
> First of all, there's like one really effective bit of marketing, and that's Bookbub. There's nothing else that really works, and Bookbub doesn't even work all that well anyway. The thing is, to get Bookbub ads, you have to have reviews. And if no one is reading your books, then you don't get any reviews. So... you can only market books on Bookbub that don't really need marketing.
> 
> ...


Nah, it's just like all of those classic computer games where scarcity and resource management are key elements of the gameplay. Like FTL, for example--you can (usually) buy level 2 shields after the first level, or a better gun (or drone systems, crew teleporters, etc), but you can't have them all. In fact, publishing is a lot like FTL, especially the part where you die twenty times for every time you win. CHOOSE WISELY.

(okay, seriously, back to writing)


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## Jim Johnson (Jan 4, 2011)

When topics like this come up, I think of the WIBBOW concept Dean and Kris talk about (I think they got it from Scott William Carter).

Would I Be Better Off Writing?

I'm in the early stages of my writing life; a few titles tradpubbed, three novels written but not pubbed, self-pub stuff in progress to start publishing this year. Still learning my craft and having fun writing. I have neither the money nor the inclination to spend a lot of time marketing once I start self-publishing. I'd rather write and publish and build my inventory. I'm also patient. Really patient. And I don't care about success. I write for the love of writing and if I get a few fans along the way, I'll be super appreciative and will cultivate them when I can. I'll update my blog and website, mention the new titles to friends and mailing lists, and...that's about it. Anything else that comes up I'll ask myself "WIBBOW?" and almost certainly go on to focus on the most important part of my writing life, and that is...writing. And publishing. And learning more about the craft.

I'm confident this mindset makes me something of an outlier on kboards, but...I don't care. Everyone finds their own way.


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## Sean Sweeney (Apr 17, 2010)

Just keep writing, just keep writing, just keep writing, writing, writing.....


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## cinisajoy (Mar 10, 2013)

Who is this Kris Rusch and why is her/his opinion so important?   I have never heard or seen any books from this particular author.   Or at least I am guessing it is an author.   

Now my personal opinion is do what you think is best for your book.   What anyone else does is their own business.


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## Terrence OBrien (Oct 21, 2010)

Monique said:


> _"...but she isn't totally wrong that in that it isn't where most of their effort should go."_
> 
> But seriously, is ANYONE saying most of their effort should go into marketing and not writing?


If one subscribes to the noition that incremental resources should go to the most profitable endeavor, then it's reasonable to have a 0/100 system.


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## Jim Johnson (Jan 4, 2011)

cinisajoy said:


> Who is this Kris Rusch and why is her/his opinion so important? I have never heard or seen any books from this particular author. Or at least I am guessing it is an author.


http://kriswrites.com/biography/


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## Guest (Jan 2, 2014)

JimJohnson said:


> http://kriswrites.com/biography/


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## cinisajoy (Mar 10, 2013)

Ok I now see the person is a blogger.   I don't click links to blogs.  

So I have no clue so I guess this Kris has done no marketting herself.


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## Sean Sweeney (Apr 17, 2010)

Kristine Katherine Rusch has written Star Wars novels and a slew of books in her own worlds. She's pretty darn good.


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## Edward W. Robertson (May 18, 2010)

ColinFBarnes said:


> Seems pretty simple to me: Do you want readers? No? Then do as KKR suggests.
> 
> I write because I both enjoy it, and I want them read. Seems to me the sensible approach is to find ways of getting those books in front of readers rather than letting them slip into oblivion never to be seen again. Seems KKR thinks Ed's 'harmful to artists'... o.0


I guess she doesn't think writers have the constitution to take responsibility for their own careers.


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## Jim Johnson (Jan 4, 2011)

cinisajoy said:


> Ok I now see the person is a blogger. I don't click links to blogs.
> 
> So I have no clue so I guess this Kris has done no marketting herself.


Gently, you simply have no clue. Kris Rusch has written for over 25 years, has a pile of awards as both editor and writer, and blogs extensively on writing and the business of writing.

Here's her Amazon page for some of the works under her own name. She's used multiple pen names over the years.
http://www.amazon.com/Kristine-Kathryn-Rusch/e/B000AP60YK/ref=sr_tc_2_0?qid=1388702681&sr=8-2-ent


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## Terrence OBrien (Oct 21, 2010)

> What's wrong with writing 80% of your time and handling marketing 20% of your time? Is that such an impossible task? I frankly just don't get it at all. At. All.


Depends on the resource allocation strategy one is using. If one was using a strategy where marginal efforts generated equal returns, it would not be the optimal strategy if the returns from hour-80 differed from the returns from hour-20.

I prefer to look at what is right about a system. I will look for the point where returns from the last writing hour equal returns from the last marketing hour. That might be 80/20. But it also might be 50/50 or 10/90.


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## 41413 (Apr 4, 2011)

Hugh Howey said:


> What am I supposed to do when I'm NOT writing?
> 
> Writing is my life. This business is my life. When I had a day job, that was just where I went to daydream what I was going to write as soon as I got off work.
> 
> ...


I agree with this completely, except that I also obsess about my son, so I don't do many interviews and whatnot. But that's pretty much it. Family + writing. Mostly writing. (Sorry, husband.)

Most of my free time is engaged in writing-related activity, though. I still write a fuckton of words per day.


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## cinisajoy (Mar 10, 2013)

JimJohnson said:


> Gently, you simply have no clue. Kris Rusch has written for over 25 years, has a pile of awards as both editor and writer, and blogs extensively on writing and the business of writing.
> 
> Here's her Amazon page for some of the works under her own name. She's used multiple pen names over the years.
> http://www.amazon.com/Kristine-Kathryn-Rusch/e/B000AP60YK/ref=sr_tc_2_0?qid=1388702681&sr=8-2-ent


Thank you very much for making my point. She was talking about marketing/not marketing and there are some people who have no clue as to who she is or what she does. So that basically tells me that is one person's opinion on the marketing idea. Because obviously she is not known to everyone.


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## 60911 (Jun 13, 2012)

ゴジラ said:


> I agree with this completely, except that I also obsess about my son, so I don't do many interviews and whatnot. But that's pretty much it. Family + writing. Mostly writing. (Sorry, husband.)
> 
> Most of my free time is engaged in writing-related activity, though. I still write a fuckton of words per day.


I totally agree, but I also don't do interviews because I'm afraid someone will ask to Skype the interview, and then they'll see I'm wearing this tasteless sweater that SM Reine gave me for Christmas. It's a legit fear.

Also, why all this sturm and drang about marketing? If someone wants to market, let them. If they don't want to market, let them.

"Marketing for some, tiny American flags for others!"

ETA: Modified to correct the Simpsons quote I borked on round one.


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## MonkeyScribe (Jan 27, 2011)

Why are モスラ and ゴジラ suddenly posting here? And when is キングコング going to show up?


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## 60911 (Jun 13, 2012)

MichaelWallace said:


> Why are モスラ and ゴジラ suddenly posting here? And when is キングコング going to show up?


It's a Team Up. Ed is supposed to become King Caesar, but he's resisting.

ETA: And thanks for reminding me to put MMM in my signature line, Michael.


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## blakebooks (Mar 10, 2012)

JR: I mention that person as just one example. There are plenty of others. Reality is that Select made a number of careers, whether on first books, or tenth. There has never been a better marketing device for discovery than the first six months of the Select free promos. I deeply regret its passing.

I think another thing that gets confused here is advertising being marketing. Advertising can be marketing, or rather, ads can be part of one's marketing strategy. But you can still do plenty of meaningful marketing with no advertising. For example, most of 2012, I did no advertising. At all. Around the end of the year I started doing BB, and an occasional ENT promo. I've tried all the others, and they are, at least for me, a waste of money. So I stick now with an occasional BB, and that's it. But I blog, I do interviews, I do cross-promos, I do guest blogs, I maintain a social media presence, I contact alternative media outlets whenever I think I've got a newsworthy story to tell, I send out books to reviewers that look promising...all of which takes up time. That's time I am not writing. But what I am doing is building a book selling presence.

KKR's philosophy is one that doesn't seem to jive with mine, namely to operate a book selling business, and a writing career - the two being complimentary, but separate from each other. Again, the wisdom or lack thereof of her approach becomes immediately evident if you remove yourself from the equation as a writer, and simply wear your book selling hat. As a book seller, would you rather be able to generate revenue with each new release, and build an audience for the books you are trying to sell, or would you rather stockpile them, making no money, until the author (whoever they are) or authors get around to writing their (insert arbitrary book number here)th book?

If you're operating a book selling business, of course you want a product you can sell to generate revenue. If you don't, you're in the book collecting business, not the book selling business. As a commercial enterprise, you want the best possible product, and you want to be able to market it so it can make you money - because that's what book selling is all about. If an author told you, "Hey, I'm still working on my oeuvre, so don't market those other four I've released yet" you'd be reluctant to go along with it, unless it made a lot of sense for your book selling business to do so. Which it probably wouldn't, as you need to pay the light bill from books sold, not from books you're waiting to sell at some future point - maybe, if at all.

It's only when you stop being a book seller, and put your author hat on, that it all becomes confusing. KKR is offering advice to authors, not to book sellers. She's essentially making the assumption that as an author, you can't do both book selling and writing effectively, so if you have to choose, you're better off writing than trying to operate a book selling business.

She might be right for certain personality types. But it's dangerous advice, because it assumes that it will be as easy or effective to market at some point in the future as it is now (and it's not easy now). So she's basically saying, don't try to be a book seller until you have X books out. Focus on being a writer.

Which is fine, if you don't particularly want to sell books. I, however, prefer to both write books, AND sell them. I have no trust or faith that it will get anything but harder to sell books in the future, and I know from harsh experience that books do NOT sell themselves. So anything I can sell today, right now, is good, while I continue to write. And to do that, I need to invest time and money in my book selling business.

What I keep hearing on these boards can be boiled down to two general approaches: One where you don't differentiate between the business of selling/publishing books, and you sort of mingle being a writer with being a publisher, and argue about how your focus as a writer would be diluted if you actually invested time and energy into being a competent publisher (meaning commercially successful), and one where you do differentiate, and you make publishing/marketing decisions based on what's best for your publishing company, and then make writer decisions based on whatever occurs to you with your writer hat on. But you are business-like and commercially driven when in publisher/book seller mode, and writer-like when in author mode.

Those two philosophies naturally result in different approaches. So when I say I don't agree with the "think like a writer and do little marketing until you have X books out" approach, what I'm really saying is I don't agree with not clearly separating your book selling business from your writing thing. If KKR were offering advice to new publishing companies, I guarantee you she wouldn't be advising them to just allow their authors to write for months or years, until they have sufficient backlist to justify marketing them. They'd laugh at her. "Why? Why would I as a publisher even think about doing that? That's terrible publisher advice."

She's a writer/editor who is offering counsel on how to approach all this as a writer/editor, not as a business person who owns a publishing company that wants to be commercially successful. As such, she is offering writing advice, namely, don't bother much with marketing until you have X books out. Fine advice for a writer, maybe, but lousy advice for a publisher.

And unfortunately, as a self-publisher, you are both a writer, and a publisher. So you need to make smart decisions for BOTH businesses, not only one, or you won't make it as a publisher. 

I think her advice is fine for authors who don't plan on selling much, certainly at first, and probably, ever. But for authors who want to operate commercially viable publishing businesses, it's not such hot advice.


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## Terrence OBrien (Oct 21, 2010)

> Again, the wisdom or lack thereof of her approach becomes immediately evident if you remove yourself from the equation as a writer, and simply wear your book selling hat.


There is a third hat. That is the owner of the enterprise. He has to decide how to allocate his resources, and how to schedule their deployment. He can pretend to be just a writer, or just a seller. But that isn't reality because it removes the very important responsibility to coordinate everything.

Of course the seller wants to sell immediately. He doesn't have the option of doing anything more productive.


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## Guest (Jan 3, 2014)

Edward W. Robertson said:


> I guess she doesn't think writers have the constitution to take responsibility for their own careers.


I found her response to you as baffling as the 'do no marketing' approach to discoverability. Still, different paths and all that jazz.


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## Trish McCallan (Jul 16, 2011)

She was saying the same thing 2 years ago when I self-published. Thank God I didn't listen to her. I promoted my one book, and within three months had sold enough copies to quit my day job and write full time. Six months after I self-published it,  I sold that book, along with four more books to Amazon Publishing--all because my sales on that one book had caught their attention.

As icing on the cake- after Montlake published their editon, I was able to enter the book in the Romance Writers of America's RITA contest where it finaled in both the romantic suspense category (along with such greats as Nora Roberts, Cherry Adair and Laura Griffith) and the best first book category. 

I doubt any of this would have happened if I hadn't decided to ignore the prevailing advice and promote it.


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## valeriec80 (Feb 24, 2011)

Welp, as a result of this thread, I just spent an hour attempting to spam groups on Goodreads that tied in with my new genre. It took forever, and I only found three groups that even fit. One had an Author's Corner, so that was okay. The other two gave me that oily, unwashed feeling because everyone knows it's a shit thing to do to try to tell people who might be interested in your work that it's available.

And the other thing is, the whole time I was even trying to do it, I knew it was going to make absolutely no difference whatsoever.

It's not like it's taking time away from my writing or anything, though. The thought of writing kind of makes me physically ill right now. Especially when I think about the amount of time I've put into it. Lifetime words: 2,700,000. And unless something gives, I'm going back to work in two months. I calculated how many books I'd need (if I sold the average number of copies I sell on the slow months per book) to make $30K a year, and it came out to 150. I only have 120 left to write. Even if I managed to write 12 books a year, that's still TEN YEARS away. I seriously feel like a really stupid schmuck who's sunk her life, her dreams, and her whole stupid identity into a black hole.

Um.

Yeah, anyway. So, about that bitter thing. Guess that's still happening.

Uh, but marketing. Yeah. I'm trying to do that. Really. I even gave Bookbub another book to reject. (I fondly remember the days when they accepted my books, back when I still had hope. )


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## Weirdling (Jun 25, 2011)

daringnovelist said:


> Where I differ (and I don't think that Kris really disagrees with this) is that I think you might as well start working your way through the marketing learning curve as well. I think, though, that it is best to start with passive marketing -- learn to get your product (including cover, blurb, etc) in excellent shape as your fist step in marketing.


Good points. I think marketing is a skill. Like any skill, you have to practice it and test it and improve on it. Just don't expect a miracle from your first marketing attempt any more than you would expect a miracle from the first 100,000 words you write.

Jodi


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## blakebooks (Mar 10, 2012)

Trish: +1 on this. But who are you going to believe, her or your lying eyes?


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## BillSmithBooksDotCom (Nov 4, 2012)

Kris's comments are so common sense...I mean if "write one book and promote it like hell" works for you, great, but I get visions of Weird Al Yankovic behind the counter at "Spatula City": 

"What do you sell?" 

"Spatulas!! And only spatulas!"

"Do you have bowls?"

"Nope!"

"Spoons!"

"Nope. Spatulas only!"

"Pans? Glasses? Oven Mitts?"

"No, we sell spatulas and only spatulas!"

Having one and only one product to sell with no hope of repeat business is...erm, kind of a limited business model.

It is just probably a better plan to have several products for people to buy because sales show that once a reader discovers and enjoys an author they tend to go buy all of their other books. 

Better to make a living hitting a bunch of singles by coming out with new books that are slow but steady if not spectacular sellers than feel like you MUST swing for the fences and try to hit it out of the park every time.


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## anniejocoby (Aug 11, 2013)

blakebooks said:


> Trish: +1 on this. But who are you going to believe, her or your lying eyes?


Oh Russell, after my own heart, using one of my all time favorite quotes! I say that to everybody....yeah, as I said earlier, promote and write more both. It will make you more successful, even the ones who think it won't!


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## JRTomlin (Jan 18, 2011)

Deleted my response since the person who posted the comment was simply being disrespectful to KKR rather than actually asking for information. My mistake but I wont bother.


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## lynnfromthesouth (Jun 21, 2012)

BillSmithBooksDotCom said:


> "What do you sell?"
> 
> "Spatulas!! And only spatulas!"


ROFL!! My dad wanted me to go shopping with him this morning. He said he needed a spatula, and I told him we should go to Spatula City. He said "We don't have one of those nearby."

As for writing vs. marketing, I think you can do little things all along that help in the long run without taking away from your writing time. I don't really want to write every hour of the day. Sometimes I want to talk to people about my books, too. This could be in different ways for different people, too. Blogging, Twitter, Goodreads, etc. I don't aggressively market, but I do join things and participate like a member, and it has helped sales.


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## Avis Black (Jun 12, 2012)

There's a psychological aspect to Rusch's point.  Let's say you market hard after your first book.  A reader reads it in one week, along with two other novels by other authors.  Someone asks the reader, what have you been reading lately?  Your book has a one-in-three chance of being mentioned and of getting word of mouth.  However, the book that the reader will talk about is going to be the one the made the greatest emotional impact on her, and it might not be yours.  You may be overshadowed.  You may be the one that doesn't get mentioned.  You have 4-5 minutes of allotted random chance to get word of mouth from that reader, and you miss it.

Now look at marketing after your third book.  Let's say it's a series.  The reader spends all week reading your three books.  Someone asks the reader, what have you been reading lately?  Your series is going to be the first thing on her tongue.  What's more, when you spend that much time with an author's work, you become more emotionally immersed and involved with it.  It's more likely to become part of the reader, and be one of those series that hit her at just the right time in her life.

From this perspective, I can see Rusch has a point.


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## JRTomlin (Jan 18, 2011)

blakebooks said:


> JR: I mention that person as just one example. There are plenty of others. Reality is that Select made a number of careers, whether on first books, or tenth. There has never been a better marketing device for discovery than the first six months of the Select free promos. I deeply regret its passing.
> 
> I think another thing that gets confused here is advertising being marketing. Advertising can be marketing, or rather, ads can be part of one's marketing strategy. But you can still do plenty of meaningful marketing with no advertising. For example, most of 2012, I did no advertising. At all. Around the end of the year I started doing BB, and an occasional ENT promo. I've tried all the others, and they are, at least for me, a waste of money. So I stick now with an occasional BB, and that's it. But I blog, I do interviews, I do cross-promos, I do guest blogs, I maintain a social media presence, I contact alternative media outlets whenever I think I've got a newsworthy story to tell, I send out books to reviewers that look promising...all of which takes up time. That's time I am not writing. But what I am doing is building a book selling presence.
> 
> ...


She does not say an author should "stockpile" their books, so you are arguing with yourself.

By the way, she was managing editor at Asmiov Magazine, wasn't just someone who did some editing there, which means she was involved in the marketing. Since she been a business person on and off for years (as you'd know if you had followed her fascinating career) and having run a publishing company, Pulphouse, herself, I rather doubt that what you are saying is advice she would ever give. She certainly does not give that advice in her blog post.

ETA: Sorry for the brain fart. As Doomed Muse pointed out, she was managing editor at Fantasy & Science Fiction Magazine, not Asimov's as I said.


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## Justawriter (Jul 24, 2012)

JRTomlin said:


> She does not say an author should "stockpile" their books, so you are arguing with yourself.
> 
> By the way, she was the senior editor at Asmiov Magazine, wasn't just someone who did some editing there, which means she was involved in the marketing. Since she been a business person on and off for years (as you'd know if you had followed her fascinating career) and having run a publishing company, Pulphouse, herself, I rather doubt that what you are saying is advice she would ever give. She certainly does not give that advice in her blog post.


I don't know...that's how I read it too.

"Don't even bother to try to be "discovered" until you have a body of work. Not one novel. Not even two novels. Maybe not three or four or five. Worry about being discovered after you've published a good handful of novels or short stories or plays or nonfiction books.

None of the hype, none of the career stuff, none of the marketing works on just one book. Nor does it work well on only a few."

Sounds like she's advising stock-piling to me. I think she's great, and loved the post. I just haven't found this bit of advice to be true, based on my own experience and that of other writers who have promoted their first books.

It's fine if people are against promoting and just don't want to do it. But I find it frustrating when people give advice like this as if it is an absolute when it isn't necessarily so. Promoting a first book can work very well if someone takes the time to really understand what they are doing and why.


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## NoCat (Aug 5, 2010)

JRTomlin said:


> She does not say an author should "stockpile" their books, so you are arguing with yourself.
> 
> By the way, she was the senior editor at Asmiov Magazine, wasn't just someone who did some editing there, which means she was involved in the marketing. Since she been a business person on and off for years (as you'd know if you had followed her fascinating career) and having run a publishing company, Pulphouse, herself, I rather doubt that what you are saying is advice she would ever give. She certainly does not give that advice in her blog post.


F&SF, not Asimov's.  What Kris advocates works for her. Clearly other people do different things. I don't get why there is controversy here. Try stuff. Keep writing. Do what works for you.


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## JRTomlin (Jan 18, 2011)

PamelaKelley said:


> I don't know...that's how I read it too.
> 
> "Don't even bother to try to be "discovered" until you have a body of work. Not one novel. Not even two novels. Maybe not three or four or five. Worry about being discovered after you've published a good handful of novels or short stories or plays or nonfiction books.
> 
> ...


I consider "stockpiling" to be not bothering to publish and holding onto the books until you have several to publish. She never says to do that.

She obviously is not against marketing (which is different from promotion), simply believes that it is not effective with only one book out. Nowhere does she say she is against marketing. But with only one novel, you put all that work and money into marketing, sell one book and then ... by the time your next one is out people who bought it have probably forgotten about it and you. Is this really a good use of your time and money?

As a career move, it simply isn't effective.


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## JRTomlin (Jan 18, 2011)

Doomed Muse said:


> F&SF, not Asimov's.  What Kris advocates works for her. Clearly other people do different things. I don't get why there is controversy here. Try stuff. Keep writing. Do what works for you.


Duh! You're right. Sorry about that. Brain fart.

She was managing editor at Fantasy & Science Fiction Magazine and won a Hugo for her work there. A managing editor basically runs the place. 

You make a good point. If what she says doesn't set right with you, don't do it. My concern is that some people seem to be saying she gave advice that I don't see in the blog post. But there are plenty of theories and different experiences. Do what works, but if you're still learning, she is a good person to learn from imo.

ETA: I also think most of it (I have a few niggles but agree with 90%) is good advice for most authors. It is certainly worth actually reading the blog post, not just our chattering and arguing here.


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## Terrence OBrien (Oct 21, 2010)

Seems there are some problems reconciling the arguments from authority.


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## Justawriter (Jul 24, 2012)

JRTomlin said:


> I consider "stockpiling" to be not bothering to publish and holding onto the books until you have several to publish. She never says to do that.
> 
> She obviously is not against marketing (which is different from promotion), simply believes that it is not effective with only one book out. Nowhere does she say she is against marketing. But with only one novel, you put all that work and money into marketing, sell one book and then ... by the time your next one is out people who bought it have probably forgotten about it and you. Is this really a good use of your time and money?
> 
> As a career move, it simply isn't effective.


Ok, I was viewing stockpiling as meaning don't do any marketing on your early books, just let them sit there and hope they get found. You don't have to put a ton of money into marketing your book, you can put a little, just enough to give your book a boost up enough to help with visibility. It's a very good use of your time and your money. Especially if you release another book within a few months. As a career move, I think it can be extremely effective.


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## Zoe York (May 12, 2013)

And there are some who DO recommend stock-piling books so you can launch 3-5 titles in a row or all at once. I've seen that work for people as well. (I've also seen it bomb...like any other strategy, nothing is guaranteed, not even for Really Good WritersTM or Awesome MarketersTM).

One risk of promoting hard when you are new is that you ARE discovered...as an amateur. There are fixes for that, of course. Time. Reinvention. A new pen name. A rock-solid new book/series. 

This debate feels like a fight for the One Right Way. Of course there isn't one right way. There are many ways to get to the end. What they all have in common is some combination of good luck and hard work. 

But it also feels a little bit like certain people are convinced that hard promotion is a short cut to success, and I'll be honest...I don't think it is. I bet that a year from now, just as many who market hard out of the gate will still be early in their career arcs. The exceptions are the rockstars, and we can't all be rockstars.

I'm betting my hard work on what I feel is the safer path...one of craft and content. And I think well-crafted content will sell itself if placed in front of readers. (And there are people who are further on the craft spectrum than me, who think I'm a crazy marketer, so it's all relative).


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## JRTomlin (Jan 18, 2011)

PamelaKelley said:


> Ok, I was viewing stockpiling as meaning don't do any marketing on your early books, just let them sit there and hope they get found. You don't have to put a ton of money into marketing your book, you can put a little, just enough to give your book a boost up enough to help with visibility. It's a very good use of your time and your money. Especially if you release another book within a few months. As a career move, I think it can be extremely effective.


We are actually in at least some agreement. Where I differ with KKR is that I don't think it hurts to put a_ little_ time and money into marketing that first book, especially so you can build a mailing list for future novels. But I understand the theory she is espousing that I also agree with, that a lot of marketing when you only have one 'product' isn't going to build a career. So... I'm half way in between.

By the way, there are, as Zoe posted below, some people who do advocate stockpiling the novels in a series to release them all at once or at least close together.

ETA: Zoe is right that there isn't 'one right way' or I don't think there is. I am very interested in seeing what she has to say about marketing in future posts though. And we'll probably argue just as vigorously about those.


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## 60169 (May 18, 2012)

ElHawk said:


> A lot of people don't understand what that is yet.  "Don't buy an expensive ad until you've got more than one or two books out" is, believe it or not, something some newbies need to be told.


>
Yep. Believe it or not, I was/am one of those newbies.

Until just a few months ago, I had one book and one short story out. I ran ENT ads, I ran BB ads, I did KBT and Bookblast and anything else I thought would show a profit for me on that one little book. And they did. I sold over 10,000 copies of that first book in 2013 because I marketed it.

Would that time have been better spent writing two or three new books? Maybe, but I don't think so. Now I enter 2014 knowing that if I could do that with one book, I might have a shot at really doing something with four or five books. I'm certainly not an outlier - basically nobody's ever heard of me, but marketing has encouraged me to make a huge commitment to writing this year - because now I think I can make it pay.


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## Crime fighters (Nov 27, 2013)

MichaelWallace said:


> I totally agree with the part that says keep writing and improving the craft. I'm confused by the part that suggests you should not make effort to sell your existing work.


This.

We should always write. And then write, write, write.
But to not promote at all? Because it's a waste? 
Different strokes, different folks. I wont be publishing my first novel for another 3 months and I'm already promoting, (subtley)


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## Justawriter (Jul 24, 2012)

JRTomlin said:


> We are actually in at least some agreement. Where I differ with her is that I don't think it hurts to put a little time and money into marketing that first book, especially so you can build a mailing list. But I understand the theory she is espousing that I also agree with, that a lot of marketing when you only have one 'product' isn't going to build a career. So... I'm half way in between.
> 
> By the way, there are, as Zoe posted below, some people who do advocate stockpiling the novels in a series to release them all at once or at least close together.


Yes, we are in some agreement! I also agree with her cautioning people not to go nuts with a first book and focus on that instead of continuing with their writing. I think you have to do both. I think I just get a little excited and want to share with other writers, especially newbies that there are things you can do that are very effective and don't cost a ton of money. I've been on these boards for so long that by the time I finally released something, I had researched advertising and marketing analytics extensively. I'm kind of a geek about it, and like to share what has worked because I believe in paying it forward and because I really appreciated these kinds of posts myself and have benefited from them so much here.


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## blakebooks (Mar 10, 2012)

JR: How is marketing different in your mind than promotion?

KKR might be a splendid person with a magnificent CV. But as the owner of a successful self-publishing company, I must respectfully disagree with her counsel. Now, you may disagree with my disagreement, however your disagreement doesn't in fact change the numerous success stories who wouldn't have been commercially successful, had they followed her advice (you have but to look up the thread to hear from one), nor does it change my opinion. This is very much like the stock market, in a way: countless "experts" and talking heads trot out their pitch each day, and it's up to you, dear reader, to differentiate between, well, fact, and fiction.

If this were easy, everyone would be successful. Oh. Wait. Depending upon which thread we're on, everyone is successful based on how they feel.

Never mind. 

Everyone's entitled to their opinion. Mine obviously ain't the same as KKR's. I'm pretty sure that won't change the price of tea in China, regardless of whether they're soft launching it or going all out.

Avis: Write a good enough book, the reader won't forget you. The trick being, write a good enough book...


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## JRTomlin (Jan 18, 2011)

blakebooks said:


> JR: How is marketing different in your mind than promotion?
> 
> KKR might be a splendid person with a magnificent CV. But as the owner of a successful self-publishing company, I must respectfully disagree with her counsel. Now, you may disagree with my disagreement, however your disagreement doesn't in fact change the numerous success stories who wouldn't have been commercially successful, had they followed her advice (you have but to look up the thread to hear from one), nor does it change my opinion. This is very much like the stock market, in a way: countless "experts" and talking heads trot out their pitch each day, and it's up to you, dear reader, to differentiate between, well, fact, and fiction.
> 
> ...


Thanks for asking the difference in marketing and promotion soooo respectfully, Blake.

Here: http://managementhelp.org/marketing/advertising/defined.htm


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## Lisa Grace (Jul 3, 2011)

Monique said:


> I published one book. I marketed it. Wrote a few more, and marketed those. I have six books so far. It's worked pretty well for me and oodles of authors I know.
> 
> I write books. I strive to improve. AND I market them and make ducats. Win-win-win.


This. Except I get paid dollars. I do believe marketing is important to gain visibility. 
KKR has tons of books out there and seems to be happy making a pittance on most.


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## JRTomlin (Jan 18, 2011)

PamelaKelley said:


> Yes, we are in some agreement! I also agree with her cautioning people not to go nuts with a first book and focus on that instead of continuing with their writing. I think you have to do both. I think I just get a little excited and want to share with other writers, especially newbies that there are things you can do that are very effective and don't cost a ton of money. I've been on these boards for so long that by the time I finally released something, I had researched advertising and marketing analytics extensively. I'm kind of a geek about it, and like to share what has worked because I believe in paying it forward and because I really appreciated these kinds of posts myself and have benefited from them so much here.


I've seen them do that. I have also seen them get really, really upset when a month or two after spending a lot of money on a release and marketing, they still aren't selling. Are there exceptions? Yes, but they are very few. By far most authors need several books out before their sales start building.

People need to know this so they won't give up in despair when it takes time and a lot of effort.


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## blakebooks (Mar 10, 2012)

JR: If you read what you linked, you'll note that promotion includes most of what marketing does, and marketing includes most of what promotion does. There are additional features, but they're basically talking about the same thing: Gaining visibility via the use of, among other things, advertising, etc. Now, I wouldn't argue that advertising = all aspects of marketing = all aspects of promotion, but for the purposes of these sorts of non-pedantic discussions, it seems to me that marketing kinda = promotions, i.e. promotional activity.

I think it's safe to say this discussion has outlived its usefulness to most readers.

Thanks for your input. And have a happy NY.

Lisa: Yes, it's always nice to have your cake and eat it too. I've been doing that for some time. I haven't bothered to look up KKR's rankings (and god knows, nobody should evaluate sales and marketing advice based on what someone's actually selling using their formula), but my guess is there are a lot of books, and very, very few sales, all the awards and smooches notwithstanding.

Then again, I'm a bad, mean man with all that prove it bunk I espouse. Go figure. Hrmph. Humbug. And so on.


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## Edward W. Robertson (May 18, 2010)

I asked KKR whether she waited until she'd written ten books to submit one to an editor, and whether her first rejections caused her to quit writing when they weren't the responses she wanted them to be. She didn't answer. But if a lack of initial sales is going to cause you to quit.. well, I don't know. I don't think those people are slated for a long-term writing career no matter what they do.

Meanwhile, we've got multiple people in this thread who marketed their very first book and are building a career around those results.

I think it's more helpful to treat people like they're capable of using sales tools and adapting them to their own situation than acting like they're hothouse orchids who will be ripped out at the roots by the first setback. Teach a writer to fish, and all that.


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## pjchasesports (Nov 27, 2013)

I just want to point out that there's been about 20 people on this thread making more than 10,000 dollars a month in royalties that have all been on one side of the argument.  Then there's a small smattering of people that make less than a thousand dollars a month on the other side of the argument.  When in doubt, go with the highly successful people.  

Besides, if you can get off to a quick start by marketing your first book, it's so much easier to use that built up fan base when you release that second book.


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## Terrence OBrien (Oct 21, 2010)

pjchasesports said:


> I just want to point out that there's been about 20 people on this thread making more than 10,000 dollars a month in royalties that have all been on one side of the argument. Then there's a small smattering of people that make less than a thousand dollars a month on the other side of the argument. When in doubt, go with the highly successful people.
> 
> Besides, if you can get off to a quick start by marketing your first book, it's so much easier to use that built up fan base when you release that second book.


This thread is a self-selected sample and does not provide statistically reliable results of following any given proposition.

Whenever we are provided with examples for or against some proposition, we need to also look for opposite examples in order to recognize the full range of experience. An advocate for a proposition cites his own success and that of a few others. A rigorous analysis would have us also find examples of failures who embraced the proposition. A statistically reliable sample would employ sampling methods that do not let advocacy bias the results.

An analyst looks for the facts and relationships. An advocate then selects the facts that support his position. Advocacy should not be mistaken for analysis.


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## Lisa Grace (Jul 3, 2011)

Terrence OBrien said:


> An analyst looks for the facts and relationships. An advocate then selects the facts that support his position.


And then there's Terrence.


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## Lisa Grace (Jul 3, 2011)

Trish McCallan said:


> She was saying the same thing 2 years ago when I self-published. Thank God I didn't listen to her. I promoted my one book, and within three months had sold enough copies to quit my day job and write full time. Six months after I self-published it, I sold that book, along with four more books to Amazon Publishing--all because my sales on that one book had caught their attention.
> 
> As icing on the cake- after Montlake published their editon, I was able to enter the book in the Romance Writers of America's RITA contest where it finaled in both the romantic suspense category (along with such greats as Nora Roberts, Cherry Adair and Laura Griffith) and the best first book category.
> 
> I doubt any of this would have happened if I hadn't decided to ignore the prevailing advice and promote it.


Congratulations!


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## Terrence OBrien (Oct 21, 2010)

LisaGraceBooks said:


> And then there's Terrence.


God Bless the margin of error, for the Collective relies on the self-selected.


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## Guest (Jan 3, 2014)

pjchasesports said:


> I just want to point out that there's been about 20 people on this thread making more than 10,000 dollars a month in royalties that have all been on one side of the argument. Then there's a small smattering of people that make less than a thousand dollars a month on the other side of the argument. When in doubt, go with the highly successful people.
> 
> Besides, if you can get off to a quick start by marketing your first book, it's so much easier to use that built up fan base when you release that second book.


No, pick the person whose has the career that you would like to have and follow them. Success is not a binary, on/off, either/or type of thing; it's something that has to be defined individually, based on your own goals. If your goal is to have a career like Blake, listen to Blake. If it's to have a career like KKR, listen to her.

What I see here is a smattering of writers who have had spectacular short-term success arguing with a writer who has built a solid long-term career, and who has the benefit of several decades of experience, not only in the publishing industry, but in business in general. The reason I respect KKR's opinion, and DWS, and Daring Novelist, is because they can see the patterns that point to the things that haven't changed, even with all the disruption that this industry is going through.

Yes, there are plenty of newer writers with impressive sales numbers on these boards, but how sustainable is that success? How many of them are still going to be around in ten, twenty, and thirty years? Only time will tell. What I do know is that time _has_ told for writers like DWS and KKR, and since that's the kind of career I hope to have, when in doubt, that's who I go with.


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## JRTomlin (Jan 18, 2011)

pjchasesports said:


> I just want to point out that there's been about 20 people on this thread making more than 10,000 dollars a month in royalties that have all been on one side of the argument. Then there's a small smattering of people that make less than a thousand dollars a month on the other side of the argument. When in doubt, go with the highly successful people.
> 
> Besides, if you can get off to a quick start by marketing your first book, it's so much easier to use that built up fan base when you release that second book.


And you would know how much I make a month... how? You're wrong at any rate, wherever that assumption come from--not that it's any of your business.

ETA: You are right in one statement: " if you can get off to a quick start by marketing your first book, it's so much easier to use that built up fan base when you release that second book." However, that is a very, very big 'if'. Good luck to those who are counting on doing it though.


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## Trish McCallan (Jul 16, 2011)

The thing that the keeps getting lost in this argument is that nobody on the pro-marketing side is saying to quit writing and and switch to promoting. They are saying to do both. They are doing both. Russell has 25 books out for God's sake. Ed has eight. They haven't quit writing to market. They are saying you can do both. Divide your time. Work smart. 

Of course most people's first book won't hit it big. They won't be able to make enough money to quit their job. But some do, more than you would expect, and how do you know for sure you book isn't going to be one of those outliners unless you try? What does it cost to try? An extra couple of weeks of work on the new WIP? How does it hurt to start building your audience and connecting with your readers now?

The funny thing is that KKR is the one who turned me completely off traditional publishing and convinced me to self-publish.  I will always be thankful to her for that.  I trusted her advice back then and was all set to do it her way.  But when I started looking at who was succeeding and who wasn't in the circle of friends self-publishing around me, the people who weren't selling at all were following her approach. So I started looking into both DWS and KKR ranks and from the ranking charts they didn't seem to be selling either.  So I started tracking people in my genre who were selling and I mimicked what they were doing, and for the next year my book rode the romantic suspense bestsellers list right alongside all the authors I had mimicked. Authors like Liliana Hart, Theresa Regan, Denise Grover Swank and Kathleen Brooks.  All these authors have sales in the 500k to 1 million range now. Their sales haven't dwindled because of their promo, they have soared. Their new releases haven't slowed, they are still putting out 3-6 new titles a year.

In contrast I have so many friends who followed DWS/KKR advice of high prices and no promo when I started out and their books have never made it out of the 200-400K range. Two years later, and they still aren't selling. These are good authors, with professional products and multiple titles and their books don't sell AT ALL. Yes their books will sell for years and add up in sales/royalties--but so will Liliana's and Theresa's and they have a million book head start. They have a million more readers. 

As a new author, with no platform or audience, it was so much easier to get movement on a book two years ago. If my friends who followed DWS/KKR had tried to years ago, I honestly think they'd have built their audience and be living off their writing by now. But they waited, and the widow started to close, and now it's even harder to get noticed. You can't count on the industry staying static, you can't count on what works today to work a year from now.  You can't count on your audience stumbling across you down the road. You can't count on the world or industry being the one that DWS/KKR envision. The only thing you can count on is the opportunity in front of you. The one you have right now.


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## JRTomlin (Jan 18, 2011)

Trish McCallan said:


> The thing that the keeps getting lost in this argument is that nobody on the pro-marketing side is saying to quit writing and and switch to promoting. They are saying to do both. They are doing both. Russell has 25 books out for God's sake. Ed has eight. They haven't quit writing to market. They are saying you can do both. Divide your time. Work smart.
> 
> Of course most people's first book won't hit it big. They won't be able to make enough money to quit their job. But some do, more than you would expect, and how do you know for sure you book isn't going to be one of those outliners unless you try? What does it cost to try? An extra couple of weeks of work on the new WIP? How does it hurt to start building your audience and connecting with your readers now?
> 
> ...


No one has said that promotion would make sales dwindle. I'm not even sure where that remark came from. I don't know any promotion that costs a couple of weeks extra work on a novel. What it costs is quite a bit of time and money.

Some of us question is whether throwing a lot of money into advertising a first novel is a good idea. I would say it is not. If you think it is, then it's your right to follow your own opinion and I sincerely hope you're one of the outliers for whom it pays off.


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## Guest (Jan 3, 2014)

You know, after reading over this thread and thinking about it a while, I think the underlying principle that KKR is trying to get at is that you have to be able to let go.  You have to be able to release your books into the world and move on to the next one.  In the days before indie publishing, the advice went along the lines of "books are never finished, only abandoned," and "don't rewrite your manuscript endlessly; send it out and write the next one." For beginning writers who see sales numbers as validation, promotion can be a way of holding on to those first few books and never letting go.

In the days of slushpiles and gatekeepers, the path to publication was paved with rejection letters.  The danger in that system was that writers saw acceptance as validation, and therefore proof of a book's quality.  That led to all sorts of stupid writer myths, and discouraged a lot of beginning writers.  The ones who made it were the ones who learned not to take rejection personally and kept at it, working on their craft and keeping their manuscripts on submission until they found a home.

With indie publishing, the danger is that we see sales as validation.  Therefore, we have to do all we can to boost our sales numbers in order to prove our quality.  If our sales start to lag, we get an awful sinking sensation and our heads start to fill with all sorts of self-doubts.  Short-term promotional tactics are like a drug, giving us the validation that we crave in spades.  But then we crave more, so we start doing promotions without any sort of coherent strategy, or we turn to gimmicks that leave us with that oily feeling that Valieric mentioned earlier up the thread.  And the more time and money and mental space we spend on these promotional tactics, the tighter we clutch onto our books, until it's almost impossible for us to let go and move on to something else.

I think what KKR is saying doesn't have to do with marketing or promotion so much as learning to let go.  Yes, there is a place for short-term promotions and marketing tactics--but you've got to approach it as a business person selling a product, not an artist hungering for validation.  For the artist side, the writing itself has to be its own validation.  If you're going to self-publish, you've got to learn how to let go, just like under the old system when you sent a manuscript on submission.  That doesn't mean to completely forget about the book, or "stockpile" it or whatever, but to get to the point where sales =/= validation.  And for most of us, that doesn't really come until we've written and published several books.


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## Guest (Jan 3, 2014)

Trish McCallan said:


> In contrast I have so many friends who followed DWS/KKR advice of high prices and no promo when I started out and their books have never made it out of the 200-400K range. Two years later, and they still aren't selling. These are good authors, with professional products and multiple titles and their books don't sell AT ALL.


May I point out that in order for a book to not sell "AT ALL," it would have to be in the 6,000,000 range or thereabouts.  A book that sells a copy every two or three days is still selling, it's just not selling at a level that you consider acceptable.


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## Trish McCallan (Jul 16, 2011)

Joe Vasicek said:


> May I point out that in order for a book to not sell "AT ALL," it would have to be in the 6,000,000 range or thereabouts.  A book that sells a copy every two or three days is still selling, it's just not selling at a level that you consider acceptable.


Very good point!


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## GUTMAN (Dec 22, 2011)

What might be very helpful for newbies is to hear what those who advocate marketing would suggest _specifically_.

I've read in this thread:

FB
Twitter
Blogs
Blog Tours
Author Site
Mailing List
Bookbub

Now the last one comes with a bar to reach before they'll even consider letting you advertise. If you have one book and don't have the reviews yet, you have to get that, I imagine, by the other ways listed above.

So what else should be on this list for a new writer with one book?


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## ChrisWard (Mar 10, 2012)

Here's my take on it. Read into it what you will.

I have a certain number of books out and make a certain number of sales. It makes sense to concentrate my marketing on those books that will make me the most money, i.e. the first in the series. But the other books? They're still good books. What doesn't make sense is to just shove them out there and forget about them, or even leave them sitting on your hard drive until you reach some undefinable number at which you consider yourself ready. (I'm talking of course of novels aimed at publication - I have a different view on "practice" novels). At the very least you can do some zero cost, zero effort marketing like putting them on Select free promos or submitting them to ENT. It costs nothing, takes no time.

When I spend an evening writing, there's usually half an hour or so at the end where I'm too wired to sleep, but too tired to write anymore. it makes sense to use this period for a bit of easy marketing.

I don't understand the antipathy towards marketing I sometimes read on this forum. Lots of simple marketing like setting up a Facebook page or posting your books on Goodreads takes very little time and doesn't cost anything.


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## MonkeyScribe (Jan 27, 2011)

Joe Vasicek said:


> If our sales start to lag, we get an awful sinking sensation and our heads start to fill with all sorts of self-doubts. Short-term promotional tactics are like a drug, giving us the validation that we crave in spades. But then we crave more, so we start doing promotions without any sort of coherent strategy, or we turn to gimmicks that leave us with that oily feeling that Valieric mentioned earlier up the thread. And the more time and money and mental space we spend on these promotional tactics, the tighter we clutch onto our books, until it's almost impossible for us to let go and move on to something else.


_We _do? Or by "we" do you mean its something you fear for yourself? If so, you've got to work in the way that makes sense to you. But if you're trying to convince me that someone like Ed Robertson or Russell Blake is "clutching" onto his backlist, afraid to work on the next book, all you have to do is a take a look at pub dates to debunk that theory.


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## Andrew Ashling (Nov 15, 2010)

blakebooks said:


> Avis: Write a good enough book, the reader won't forget you. The trick being, write a good enough book...


There's the rub&#8230;



Terrence OBrien said:


> Whenever we are provided with examples for or against some proposition, we need to also look for opposite examples in order to recognize the full range of experience.


I'm telling this real-life story from memory.

A few years ago there was this guy who had written a book. He was a very nice guy with a huge Facebook following. His book was priced at 99¢.

He promoted the hell out of it, and, sure enough, a lot of people bought it. Why not? It _was_ only 99¢ and he _was_ a nice guy. The book soared in the rankings. He gained visibility. Now people who _weren't_ his friends started buying the book, based on his ranking. And here the rub appears. They didn't like it and started telling their friends exactly why they didn't. In a matter of weeks his sales imploded.

Basically, he had promoted his little nipples off to tell the world that his book wasn't very good.

Does this mean you shouldn't promote a first book at all? Of course not. But it might be sensible to gain some feedback from readers who are not your friends or family before you go all out.


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## 41413 (Apr 4, 2011)

Andrew Ashling said:


> promoted his little nipples off


I'm going to somehow write this phrase into my next book.


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## MonkeyScribe (Jan 27, 2011)

Andrew Ashling said:


> He promoted the hell out of it, and, sure enough, a lot of people bought it. Why not? It _was_ only 99¢ and he _was_ a nice guy. The book soared in the rankings. He gained visibility. Now people who _weren't_ his friends started buying the book, based on his ranking. And here the rub appears. They didn't like it and started telling their friends exactly why they didn't. In a matter of weeks his sales imploded.


If he hadn't promoted it, he would still have a crappy book on his hands, only he would be poorer. We're often the worst judge of our own work. In this case, maybe he got a good reality check that he needs to work more on his craft.

I'm just not sure that by promoting his book he's out anything except for a little ego.



> Basically, he had promoted his little nipples off to tell the world that his book wasn't very good.


Well, he's out a pair of nipples, too. There is that.


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## Guest (Jan 3, 2014)

Joe Vasicek said:


> You know, after reading over this thread and thinking about it a while, I think the underlying principle that KKR is trying to get at is that you have to be able to let go. You have to be able to release your books into the world and move on to the next one. In the days before indie publishing, the advice went along the lines of "books are never finished, only abandoned," and "don't rewrite your manuscript endlessly; send it out and write the next one." For beginning writers who see sales numbers as validation, promotion can be a way of holding on to those first few books and never letting go.
> 
> In the days of slushpiles and gatekeepers, the path to publication was paved with rejection letters. The danger in that system was that writers saw acceptance as validation, and therefore proof of a book's quality. That led to all sorts of stupid writer myths, and discouraged a lot of beginning writers. The ones who made it were the ones who learned not to take rejection personally and kept at it, working on their craft and keeping their manuscripts on submission until they found a home.
> 
> ...


Joe. You're speaking for yourself there. There is no we in the third paragraph. Everyone is different. I and many others certainly don't behave in that same manner. I get you don't want to market and you're drinking the KKR/DWS koolaid, but you're reading into things what you want to see. KKR isn't talking about letting go. She quite clearly states that she doesn't believe you should market your work until you have ten+ (or some other vague number) books. If you don't want readers, then do that. Let your books out into the world and let them drift away never to be found again. If you want readers, and I'm kind of assuming that's the point of publishing, then I think it makes sense to make readers aware of your books and build a fan base. That starts with book 1. Otherwise, what's the point of publishing it?

One thing to bear in mind that colours of all this. Both KKR/DWS are still very much from the old school and the majority of their business seems to be in selling workshops to other writers. Also, they have an extensive backlist, most of which they already got paid for, so it's easy for them to say: wait until you have X amount of stuff. They're not the ones starting out in the game. They can have 200 titles floating about in the bottom reaches of charts picking up a sale here or there and have that pay. Most of us won't get that backlist any time soon, therefore you have to market what you've got now. You're alive now, not in 20, 30, 40 years time.


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## dianasg (Jan 8, 2010)

Joe Vasicek said:


> With indie publishing, the danger is that we see sales as validation. . . . I think what KKR is saying doesn't have to do with marketing or promotion so much as learning to let go.


Well, someone only sees sales as validation if they can't separate the business side of things from the art side of things. I don't think using sales as a measure of the validity of business advice means that one sees sales as _validation_ -- most of us aren't so foolish as to conflate the two. I often see your posts suggesting that there is some great danger in considering sales or approaching things from a purely business perspective, but I don't really get that. It's important to do both: to be a business person and an artist, to market and to write. I'd argue that anyone who lacks the maturity to step back from their work and "let go" should find another line of work. Or keep writing and forget about publishing.

I've never seen any _experienced_ KB author treat short term ads/sales like a "drug." I always hear things like BB or a free promo described as a way to hit some new eyes and perhaps collect some fans. I don't think those who know what they're doing are using these promo efforts as ways to get sales and therefore validation. Who is doing this? Who is this "we"? Most of KB's long time or experienced authors know that short term promo is a building block for a long term career. The emphasis here on developing a mailing list - and other advice - reflects that.

Maybe the people who need this lesson of "letting go" are too green to be found in large numbers at KB. KB is, after all, quite the bubble.

As a spectator, it is interesting that everyone seems to be reading their own belief systems into what KKR said! I love what she said about being an artist -- but after 7 pages, I still have trouble understanding why she is so adamant that any marketing before a backlist is detrimental. (Her response to Ed baffled me.) It's such an extreme stance to take.

As someone starting out, the question of how to spend my time/money is something I've really been trying to figure out, so THANK YOU to everyone who has contributed - on both sides of the fence. It _seems_ like the general consensus is that it's a-ok to promote your first couple of books, but not to get hung up on them or go overboard with promo.

What I take from KKR and DWS is that the keys to longevity are adaptability and writing more, more, more. What I take from our KB authors is that it's silly not to do at least some basic promo from the start.


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## LeonardDHilleyII (May 23, 2011)

Monique said:


> I published one book. I marketed it. Wrote a few more, and marketed those. I have six books so far. It's worked pretty well for me and oodles of authors I know.
> 
> I write books. I strive to improve. AND I market them and make ducats. Win-win-win.


^^^Yes.


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## lynnfromthesouth (Jun 21, 2012)

DianaGabriel said:


> Maybe the people who need this lesson of "letting go" are too green to be found in large numbers at KB. KB is, after all, quite the bubble.


I doubt what I'm about to say is universally true, but nearly everyone I know who put out one fiction book then spent several years trying to sell just that one, really wanted to be traditionally published and got rejected. They are maybe still a bit stuck in the idea that you only put out one book at a time, and only publish more after your first book is a success. Most of them spent several years writing and revising that one book.

Or they are nonfiction writers who can't think of anything else to write... (though I concede that this type of marketing might work better in nonfiction)


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## Justawriter (Jul 24, 2012)

Mad H said:


> What might be very helpful for newbies is to hear what those who advocate marketing would suggest _specifically_.
> 
> I've read in this thread:
> 
> ...


Newbies can't really do Bookbub, at least not right away. However, if they are willing to release or put their book on sale temporarily at .99, there are a number of places they can advertise that effectively. The top two for me were also the least expensive, ENT (ereadernewstoday) and Kindle Books and Tips combined cost me $67 and generated about 800 books sold. Other places to consider are Kindle Nation Daily (which comes with a free Bookgorilla ad), BookBlast and Kindle Fire Department. There are other places too. You don't have to do all of these to launch a book. Some of them require more reviews than others, so you have to take that into consideration as well and try to get the word out a bit ahead of time so you will get some early reviews....


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## Indecisive (Jun 17, 2013)

Speaking as someone with 2 books out, not enough reviews to even think about applying for Bookbub, zero mailing list sign-ups (but it's all set up), and a hundred-odd sales, total, I am not a big fan of DWS and KKR. They have some good advice, I'm sure, but I'm not buying the anti-marketing line.

For book 1, I told my Facebook friends, and emailed some people. I sold maybe a dozen copies out of the gate, a year ago. I think I''m up to 21 now, maybe 22.

For book 2, I did the above, sent out about 25 review copies, mentioned it on a couple of relevant goodreads groups, did a tiny bit of paid advertising ($20 total), and did a Kindle countdown sale. Two months in, I've sold over a hundred copies. It's not a runaway success, and it's less than I'd hoped for, but it's progress. 

IME, there's a learning curve to marketing, and even though I lost a couple of writing days to researching and emailing book bloggers (with dismal results), I feel that it was a good investmont of time. I'll know more, and hopefully do better, when I put out my next book. 

(The bit of DWS math that always gets on my nerves is his assumption that backlist will sell indefinitely, at measurable levels. As someone who has gone months on end with zero sales, that doesn't sound right to me).


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## Jim Johnson (Jan 4, 2011)

And on the marketing tip: http://davidgaughran.wordpress.com/2014/01/03/if-you-dont-enjoy-marketing-youre-doing-it-wrong/


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## pjchasesports (Nov 27, 2013)

I still don't understand why you can't do a little marketing and write the next book.  I mean, you can sign up for a promo on ENT, POI, Bookblast, Kindle Books and Tips, etc...in the span of less than five minutes each.  If you signed up for all four you'd be out a whole twenty minutes.  Then you could go right back to writing.    

I don't think anyone is implying that you should write the first book, then be on facebook and twitter every moment for weeks following the release.  Most people have actually had way more success through the promo blogs anyway.  The idea of an 80/20 model like Russell's makes a whole lot of sense.  It's worked for a lot of people.


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## MonkeyScribe (Jan 27, 2011)

JimJohnson said:


> And on the marketing tip: http://davidgaughran.wordpress.com/2014/01/03/if-you-dont-enjoy-marketing-youre-doing-it-wrong/


THAT RABBLE-ROUSER!!


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## Jim Johnson (Jan 4, 2011)

ameliasmith said:


> (The bit of DWS math that always gets on my nerves is his assumption that backlist will sell indefinitely, at measurable levels. As someone who has gone months on end with zero sales, that doesn't sound right to me).


For whatever it's worth, I've read Dean's and Kris's blogs for a while now, and I think they'd argue that two books does not a backlist make. You can't really evaluate the assumption until you have the pieces in place.


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## Jan Thompson (May 25, 2013)

JimJohnson said:


> And on the marketing tip: http://davidgaughran.wordpress.com/2014/01/03/if-you-dont-enjoy-marketing-youre-doing-it-wrong/


Oh boy. I didn't see this. I just started a new thread about this very thing. Sorry. Here is the thread:

http://www.kboards.com/index.php/topic,173145.0.html


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## ElHawk (Aug 13, 2012)

Mad H said:


> So what else should be on this list for a new writer with one book?


When I was a newbie writer with only one book, what worked well for me was approaching a few active readers on Goodreads and contacting them privately to ask whether they'd be willing to read and write an honest review, whether they loved the book or hated it. When I say "few," I mean few. I think I got in touch with six or seven, and four took me up on it...or something like that. That's it -- that's all I did in the way of promotion. There are probably strategies that work better or faster, depending on your genre, but I was selling my book for $5.99 at the time (back when $2.99 was the smart price) and it found its audience and started to sell about ten to twenty copies a day within a few months, which is a very healthy number for historical fiction.

I did the occasional guest blog or interview or whatever if I was asked, but I didn't go seeking them. They never seemed to increase my sales much. Getting a direct line to influential reviewers within my genre on Goodreads was the only thing that ever seemed to effectively get the word out.

ETA: I saw David Gaughran's link above earlier, and loved it. Talking to people on Goodreads about books I loved reading is something I genuinely enjoy. I don't like Twitter, Facebook, blog tours, etc. Those are poor marketing avenues for me. Goodreads worked, and works, so well for me in large part because I like it. I think anywhere you can be yourself and interact in a genuine way with your potential audience, that's a good place to spend your marketing effort.


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## valeriec80 (Feb 24, 2011)

Joe Vasicek said:


> You know, after reading over this thread and thinking about it a while, I think the underlying principle that KKR is trying to get at is that you have to be able to let go. You have to be able to release your books into the world and move on to the next one. In the days before indie publishing, the advice went along the lines of "books are never finished, only abandoned," and "don't rewrite your manuscript endlessly; send it out and write the next one." For beginning writers who see sales numbers as validation, promotion can be a way of holding on to those first few books and never letting go.
> 
> In the days of slushpiles and gatekeepers, the path to publication was paved with rejection letters. The danger in that system was that writers saw acceptance as validation, and therefore proof of a book's quality. That led to all sorts of stupid writer myths, and discouraged a lot of beginning writers. The ones who made it were the ones who learned not to take rejection personally and kept at it, working on their craft and keeping their manuscripts on submission until they found a home.
> 
> ...


Thanks, I needed this.

Apparently, the rest of the cafe is peopled entirely by sane, level-headed people, but I'm neurotic. Not only am I neurotic, I don't care if other people know that I am.

YES--I feel worthless because I am not selling enough copies to make a living writing.

There. I said it.

And when anyone who sells well goes on about stuff, I think to myself, "You don't even understand this. You're worth something. And I have worked just as hard as you have, but I'm worthless, and how is that fair?"

Anyway... I think I'm going to have to stop clinging to this idea that I can force the world to give me what I want. I just can't. Right now, I'm failing at reaching my dreams, but maybe it will all turn around. I just need to let go and write the next book. That's all there is. The next book.

And I don't care what some of you say. I don't not sell books because I don't market. I do try. It's just that it works a heck of a lot better for some of you than the rest of us. But...darn it... it's not my fault, and I'm sick of feeling guilty and sick to my stomach and worthless. I'm going to try to stop thinking like that.


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## Zoe York (May 12, 2013)

I'll say this: I've pushed a first book really hard, and released a third book while only popping my head up briefly to talk about it, but most of the time I've been buried in writing my fourth book and... the third book has done really well for itself. Much better than the first book did. And I'm in a much more positive headspace about releasing the fourth book into the wild than I was my second.

Anyone who thinks that my sales are lackluster is expecting a lot more from an author who's only been published for 6 months than I think is reasonable. I've had phenomenal success compared to where I would be if I was trying to traditionally publish. I have a growing fan base, and am starting to see really decent royalty payments. If you want to disregard what I'm saying because I'm not yet outearning you by bucketloads, that's your perogative. But I'm not on a train to nowhere, I promise you.

Since when did the bar of success become $10,000/month? That's a LOT of success.


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## Jim Johnson (Jan 4, 2011)

Zoe York said:


> Since when did the bar of success become $10,000/month? That's a LOT of success.


It's the internet. Virtual genital waving is par for the course, even on kboards. 

Congrats on your success! If I have a fraction of that when I start pubbing this year, I'll be thrilled. And then writing more.


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## Zoe York (May 12, 2013)

LOL Oh Jim, aim higher than a fraction of what I have. I don't have that much.


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## David &#039;Half-Orc&#039; Dalglish (Feb 1, 2010)

ColinFBarnes said:


> Joe. You're speaking for yourself there. There is no we in the third paragraph. Everyone is different. I and many others certainly don't behave in that same manner. I get you don't want to market and you're drinking the KKR/DWS koolaid, but you're reading into things what you want to see. KKR isn't talking about letting go. She quite clearly states that she doesn't believe you should market your work until you have ten+ (or some other vague number) books. If you don't want readers, then do that. Let your books out into the world and let them drift away never to be found again. If you want readers, and I'm kind of assuming that's the point of publishing, then I think it makes sense to make readers aware of your books and build a fan base. That starts with book 1. Otherwise, what's the point of publishing it?
> 
> One thing to bear in mind that colours of all this. Both KKR/DWS are still very much from the old school and the majority of their business seems to be in selling workshops to other writers. Also, they have an extensive backlist, most of which they already got paid for, so it's easy for them to say: wait until you have X amount of stuff. They're not the ones starting out in the game. They can have 200 titles floating about in the bottom reaches of charts picking up a sale here or there and have that pay. Most of us won't get that backlist any time soon, therefore you have to market what you've got now. You're alive now, not in 20, 30, 40 years time.


I could kiss you. But you'll have to settle for a manly internet hug instead.


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## ElHawk (Aug 13, 2012)

DianaGabriel said:


> Maybe the people who need this lesson of "letting go" are too green to be found in large numbers at KB. KB is, after all, quite the bubble.


Yep, that's what I think is going on here.  KKR was writing her article to a wider audience than exists at KB. Most of the regular posters here are a little more secure in the balance of writing-to-promotion that works for them, so no wonder her post seemed kind of funky to lot of users here. If you took it like she was telling YOU, the average KB forumgoer who's got relatively more success under his or her belt than somebody who's still super-new at this, of course it's going to seem like terrible advice. It doesn't apply to you. It doesn't make sense for you.

But somebody out there probably needs to hear what we've all heard a zillion times, and know by heart already: the best marketing you can do is to write another book. That doesn't mean _no _ other marketing will work for you, _ever_. It means writing another book should be very high on your priority list. There are plenty of new people out there who haven't realized that yet, who may still be thinking of self-pub the way everybody thinks of trad pub: get one book out, promote the hell out of it and expect it to have a six-week lifespan, and that's it. Books have longer lifespans now, so it's not as critical to promote the hell out of your early books. You still can, but not promoting them won't be a career-ending move like it might be in trad pub...just a career-_delaying _ move. On the other hand, only having one book out there...that _might _ be a career-ending move.


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## Jo Clendening (Apr 9, 2011)

valeriec80 said:


> When I see an author with five books out, I think, "Ooh, yay! If I like this one, there's five more to read."
> 
> Interesting that we have such different reactions.


This is my reaction as well. When you like an author's voice and style, it's comforting to know they have more for you to consume. I can get addicted to an author quite easily and I must read every piece of work they had created. And then it's a big let-down when there is nothing more to read.


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## Indecisive (Jun 17, 2013)

JimJohnson said:


> For whatever it's worth, I've read Dean's and Kris's blogs for a while now, and I think they'd argue that two books does not a backlist make. You can't really evaluate the assumption until you have the pieces in place.


I wouldn't say that I have a backlist, not a published one, anyway.

And I would argue that the first 5 years (or less) of mainstream digital publishing will not be typical of the next 50. Just because their backlist titles have sold steadily for a year or two, in a relatively uncrowded marketplace, does not mean that they will continue to sell at that rate forever, or even for the next 20 years. It's possible, but it is not a safe bet in my book.

Now I'd better get back to writing (editing, actually. Lots of editing in the next couple of months for me).


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## Edward W. Robertson (May 18, 2010)

Mad H said:


> What might be very helpful for newbies is to hear what those who advocate marketing would suggest _specifically_.
> 
> I've read in this thread:
> 
> ...


The basic formula for growing a self-publishing career is this:

*1)* Reach potential readers

I'll get back to this in a minute.

*2)* Convince them to hit "buy"

This is all done via your book's packaging; everything accessible from its product page. The cover, the blurb, the concept expressed in that blurb, the price, your reviews, and the sample.

*3)* Give them value for their time

Basically, "write a good book." I'm not going to try to define "good" beyond "anything a reader enjoyed enough to want more of."

*4)* Build channels to reach people who enjoyed your books so you can tell them when you have a new one

Steps 1-3 are about creating readers for your work. 4) is about hanging onto them. Ensuring they don't just wander away, and that 1-3 is a cumulative process rather than a fleeting series of sales spikes.

Of all of this, 3) is the most obvious, necessary part of the process. If your books are no good, nobody is going to want to follow you to 4), and over time, 1) and 2) will become harder to achieve too, because your reviews will become worse, making it harder to convince people to click that button or for advertisers/bloggers/whoever to deal with you in the first place.

I feel like this sometimes gets lost in marketing threads, like those of us who are pro-promotion don't care about the quality of what we're selling, like it's all some big hustle. In fact, it's so vital to everything else that it should be a given.

So, how do you achieve 1), which is probably the second most important step here? Well, for new writers--and I still do a lot of this myself, so "new" covers a lot of ground--I think advertising and giveaways will work for virtually everyone who's got 2) and 3) in place. (And if your results are mediocre, can help you figure out you need to hone those things.) Running sales and freebies isn't about being "unproven" and worthless, it's about overcoming a lack of readers by taking advantage of the external infrastructure that various ebook sites have built around presenting free and bargain books to their own readership.

The best sites for this are, in very rough order, BookBub, Pixel of Ink, EreaderNewsToday, Kindle Books and Tips, and Book Blast. All of those sites are effective and can be relied on to be worth your money most (and sometimes all) of the time. After that, you've got some smaller sites like Book Basset and eReaderCafe that may or may not provide immediate ROI, but which do have real readers, and may be worth pursuing, depending on your strategy and where you're at in the process.

Of course, like you say, places like BookBub won't take a brand new book. Pretty much every site has some base requirements, typically number and average of reviews. To gin up those first reviews, you can try hustling around doing giveaways on LibraryThing, Goodreads, or approaching book bloggers. I hate doing that junk, though, so before I had readers, I got reviews by doing free runs. Even when I had no other books in that series to point them to. Who cares if you give away 1000 copies of book one before you have a book two to point them to? You're not exactly exhausting the pool of readers. And if you've got 4) in place--a mailing list, a Facebook page, a blog, etc.; ideally, more than one, to give readers the option of following you through whatever channel they prefer--then there's no sense in which this is a waste, because these new readers will be there waiting when you _do_ send book two out into the world.

The other big advantage of making your book free, especially for new authors, is that price is the biggest component of 2). So if you reduce your price to $0.00, you've overcome the biggest point of resistance between your book and convincing potential readers to hit that download button. You're casting a wide net, and a lot of people who download it will never read it, let alone sign up for your mailing list, but again, who cares? If you're starting from scratch, zero fanbase, anything is better than nothing.

There are more free sites than there are sites for bargain prices, too, and it's easier to get listed there. A lot of them will list you on their own, with no effort on your part. Also, you pick up extra visibility through your rank on the free book bestseller lists. The Golden Age of Select may be gone, but I still think free books are a great way for new authors to get started. Heck, I don't think it's crazy to make your first book permafree right off the bat. You may want to wait a few weeks, just to make sure you're not that one book in a thousand that's going to sell on its own, or you may want to get strategic about it and wait to go permafree until you drop book two, but sacrificing one book for the good of the rest has been a great career move for a ton of authors.

A quick note, you may not have to get this extreme in certain genres. Romance has a big, wonderful infrastructure built around introducing new books to that genre's voracious readers. If you can tap into those blogs and such, you totally should. Also, it seems like erotica has an easier time selling itself because its readers are likewise actively hunting for what they like.

In other genres, it's tougher, I think. But not impossible. Every genre likes free.

Anyway, to get back to the larger process, this whole thing is about identifying your options for fulfilling those 4 steps and then building away on them. Facebook, for instance, is primarily useful for 4), building a channel between you and your readers, but it's also got some use for 1), reaching new readers. An unadvertised price drop is mostly about 2), convincing readers to hit buy, but also has some use at 1), because that sale price is going to convince more people to take a look at your book's product page in the first place. Getting an awesome cover is about 1) and 2); sites are more likely to list your book, and readers are more likely to click on it and buy it, if it looks awesome and professional. A mailing list, meanwhile, is definitely about 4), and is the single best way to keep in contact with your readers, but if you can use it to launch a new book up the charts, then it's also hugely valuable toward achieving 1).

Again, it all comes back to 3), and the more times you write good books, the more tools you'll have for putting together the other steps of building a career. But on the assumption you're writing books, and they're good, surrounding them with a plan, even one that's improvised and messy, is going to get you where you want to be much, much faster.

There are many ways to reach readers, but a lot of it is going to come down to what kinds of books you're writing and what you're comfortable doing to promote them. In general, the less you have to start off with, the more extreme your methods should be. Give it away like crazy. Launch at $0.99 and leave it there. The more it hurts you as an author, the more it's likely to appeal to readers.

Anyway, that is even longer than one of KKR's posts. Sorry! But as I see it, that's all it comes down to. If you've got any questions, fire away.


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## jackz4000 (May 15, 2011)

Seems to me that if one is the author and the publisher that as the publisher they should do some marketing--goes with the turf, I think. 

I have only one book and I've done limited marketing and it was fast and painless and I spent $10 and actively spent maybe 1 hour of time. It did get me more readers I would not have otherwise had.

You could have the best book or widget in the world, but if nobody knows about it how can they possibly buy it?

As I add more books I'll do more marketing--pretty simple. 

If you want to wait until you have 7,8,9, or 10 books that's fine with me--they are your books. But, you might want to think it over.    Common sense should prevail.


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## 60911 (Jun 13, 2012)

A lot of you should bookmark Ed's post, because that's AWESOME.

So, here's the deal. I started self-publishing in 2011, and I followed DWS and KKR's advice not to market. I waited until I got three books out, and then I stumbled on Lindsay Buroker's advice about permafree, and I set the first series book free. I started making a modest/small living. I had another series I had started that I thought was much better than the first, and I hurried to get to three books in that series and I set it to permafree. 

The month I released my 7th book I made $15,000 dollars. If I waited until 10 books, I'd likely still have been making less than $100 per month. By the time my 10th came out I was making between $20,000-$30,000 every month. My promotional strategies are WEAK. I do the stuff Gaughran suggests, I've never done a guest blog post, I refuse to do interviews, and I wrote something like 650,000 words last year because I chewed gum (wrote) and walked (marketed) at the same time. 

What if I'd waited? Well, I probably wouldn't be releasing my 13th and 14th books this month, because I couldn't afford to be a full-time writer. 

Do it however you want, but in a lot of these cases promotion/marketing can help you make a living from your writing NOW. Will it result in a long-term career? I dunno, but as long as they're paying me I'm going to keep doing it.


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## valeriec80 (Feb 24, 2011)

All right. I'm really sorry to pick on Michael Wallace here, and I don't mean to single him out personally at all. From what I can gather from his posts here over the years, he's a real stand up guy, really great, and deserves every bit of success he's had. He's a crack writer, too. I'm a fan.

But I do think that it's well... it's weird that the kboards conventional wisdom has snapped into market-market-market mode. I picked these posts because I remembered them, and I knew where to find them. But please realize that these are very typical kinds of statements for successful authors back just a few years ago, and that includes others who were around, like Daglish and the like.

These are from this thread: http://www.kboards.com/index.php/topic,75368.msg1205283.html#msg1205283, started July 12, 2011.

Michael Wallace says:



MichaelWallace said:


> I agree. I like to think I had success because my books are good, but there are other good writers who aren't selling, and plenty of mediocre writers who are selling. Quality never hurts, but it's not the most important thing.* I got lucky earlier this year with a couple of important blog mentions just at the time *when my books came to the attention of the algorithms and I surfed the wave into shore. I'm now at the point of paddling back out to position myself for the next wave. Unfortunately, I have no way of telling when the tide will be out.


Bolding mine.

Later in the thread:



MichaelWallace said:


> I don't know anything about Twitter, and I'm not convinced that the time I would spend learning how to use it effectively wouldn't simply be time subtracted from writing. Anything that causes me to write fewer books is not worth it, in my opinion.


Oh my God! He sounds like Joe, people!!

Finally: 


MichaelWallace said:


> Back to the original subject, I did *some giveaways, experimented with the price* (the aforementioned Victorine Method thread) and things just took off. Literally every week saw higher overall sales, from mid-January to the last week of April. After that, sales crashed at a similar pace. It was exciting, but stressful, then depressing and stressful. These last few weeks have been the first time that I've seen stable sales and I feel a lot more peaceful. I haven't been checking my sales nearly as much and have been able to focus on the long term goals instead of short term fluctuations. I'm not going gangbusters at the moment, but I'm making enough to plausibly continue writing and publishing and call it a writing career, instead of just a hobby. After twenty years of writing, that's a first for me.


So... this is the marketing that he advocated then, right after his books had started to take off. "Some" giveaways. Experimented with the price. (The "Victorine Method" is to price the first book in a series at $.99. This was the height of innovation back then. Seriously.)

Anyway, again, I have the utmost respect for Michael Wallace and others on this board who have been publishing for years and been successful for years. But I do think it's strange that they go to such efforts to deny whatever it is that Joe says and are now such firm, staunch supporters of marketing, when--in the past--they seemed much more, er, um, humble about the whole thing.

I'm left to speculate that possibly there's some kind of personal animosity towards Joe, so they disagree with him because he's got a way of putting things that often borders on offensive (on offense, Joe!).

Or... possibly they now believe in marketing. But if that's true, then it tends to prove my point that marketing is only effective when you already have an audience.

There's some speculation that we should pay attention to the people making loads of cash to model our business. I'm not sure. Most of them made it big back when things were different (Michael acknowledges the algos, which were much more giving in those days. Russell Blake acknowledges Select, which no longer works). What they all do have in common is this, though: Highly readable books that appeal to a wide audience. And innovation. Being one of the first on the scene.

This leads me to conclude that new writers today should be paying attention to craft and learning to write stories that pull people in. And that they should be thinking outside the box and trying crazy stuff to see what sticks.


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## ElHawk (Aug 13, 2012)

Harper Alibeck said:


> I am going to gently recommend that you read Brene Brown's books, starting with "I Thought It Was Just Me": http://www.amazon.com/Brené-Brown/e/B001JP45BA


thread derail: After seeing your recommendation, Harper, I looked up Brene Brown's TED talks and am listening to one right now. It's fascinating! Thanks!!


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## blakebooks (Mar 10, 2012)

Ed's post should be required reading. I'm knee deep in my WIP or I'd do one of my usual lengthy polemics, however Ed's expressed the whole idea far more eloquently than I could.

Write 75% of the time. Focus on marketing/promo/non-writing chores 25% of the time. If you philosophically believe that's an impossible approach, best of luck to you. It's working nicely for me, and for an awful lot of authors I know.


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## Terrence OBrien (Oct 21, 2010)

> But I do think that it's well... it's weird that the kboards conventional wisdom has snapped into market-market-market mode.


The CW tends to shift around a bit. Not too long ago it recommended just writing because the cream will float to the top.

Something curdled.


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## Justawriter (Jul 24, 2012)

Someone else already posted the link to David Gaughran's post on how marketing should be fun....if you haven't read that yet, it's excellent. I also found his book, Let's Get Visible to be a great resource. It was especially helpful in understanding the marketing stuff that Amazon offers, how the algorithms work and how important it is to choose effective keywords and categories to help drive traffic to your book. I tinkered with that stuff quite a bit at first, trying to figure out what would work best and it definitely helps readers find you.


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## 60169 (May 18, 2012)

Edward W. Robertson said:


> The basic formula for growing a self-publishing career is this:
> 
> *1)* Reach potential readers
> 
> ...


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## JRTomlin (Jan 18, 2011)

Zoe York said:


> I'll say this: I've pushed a first book really hard, and released a third book while only popping my head up briefly to talk about it, but most of the time I've been buried in writing my fourth book and... the third book has done really well for itself. Much better than the first book did. And I'm in a much more positive headspace about releasing the fourth book into the wild than I was my second.
> 
> Anyone who thinks that my sales are lackluster is expecting a lot more from an author who's only been published for 6 months than I think is reasonable. I've had phenomenal success compared to where I would be if I was trying to traditionally publish. I have a growing fan base, and am starting to see really decent royalty payments. If you want to disregard what I'm saying because I'm not yet outearning you by bucketloads, that's your perogative. But I'm not on a train to nowhere, I promise you.
> 
> Since when did the bar of success become $10,000/month? That's a LOT of success.


You know that is an interesting question.


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## Nope (Jun 25, 2012)

.


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## JRTomlin (Jan 18, 2011)

ColinFBarnes said:


> Joe. You're speaking for yourself there. There is no we in the third paragraph. Everyone is different. I and many others certainly don't behave in that same manner. I get you don't want to market and you're drinking the KKR/DWS koolaid, but you're reading into things what you want to see. KKR isn't talking about letting go. She quite clearly states that she doesn't believe you should market your work until you have ten+ (or some other vague number) books. If you don't want readers, then do that. Let your books out into the world and let them drift away never to be found again. If you want readers, and I'm kind of assuming that's the point of publishing, then I think it makes sense to make readers aware of your books and build a fan base. That starts with book 1. Otherwise, what's the point of publishing it?
> 
> One thing to bear in mind that colours of all this. Both KKR/DWS are still very much from the old school and the majority of their business seems to be in selling workshops to other writers. Also, they have an extensive backlist, most of which they already got paid for, so it's easy for them to say: wait until you have X amount of stuff. They're not the ones starting out in the game. They can have 200 titles floating about in the bottom reaches of charts picking up a sale here or there and have that pay. Most of us won't get that backlist any time soon, therefore you have to market what you've got now. You're alive now, not in 20, 30, 40 years time.


You're putting words in her mouth. She does not say you should only market with 10+ books.

Funny that someone who only has books "floating about in the bottom reaches of charts" has a good number of books in the 20k to 100k region which I assure you means between 5 and ten sales per day per book. With a that number of books in that range, she is making a very good living. And some of those are not backlist.

Maybe you should debate the topic instead of distorting what she said and trying to insult her.


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## Zoe York (May 12, 2013)

Right?

In my day job, I work at a university, where people spend 3-15 YEARS getting enough education to _hopefully_ earn $10,000/month. And when they graduate, it's not immediate.

Now, most of us aren't brand new to adulthood, and we come to writing with various experience and credentials that just might make what we have to say interesting enough to allow us to leapfrog ahead of people still learning craft. So I hope it doesn't take any of us 3 years, let alone 15, to make our mark and find a comfortable place in the marketplace. But surely we can agree that it will take SOME of us that long, and not because of some failure of marketing, right?

I read David's blog post, and really liked it, as well. I like all publishing conversations. Especially the ones that caution against hubris.


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## lynnfromthesouth (Jun 21, 2012)

I know some of those 1 book superpushy marking writers. But the difference between 1 book and 10 books is pretty wide.

Not everyone here is saying "Promote like crazy" or "Don't promote until you have a lot of books out". There's a lot of people just saying that a middle ground makes more sense. I feel KKR's philosophy is just as extreme as spending years marketing one book. 

I liked DG's blog post today, and I think he did a good job of giving some easy/quick ideas. I disagree with him that Goodreads is useless, but I think it depends on age group and genre. There's a large younger audience using Goodreads, and I get some traction there because I target them. Small things can make a big difference; I've seen it with my own books.


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## ElHawk (Aug 13, 2012)

C.C. Kelly: best post in this thread.  Maybe on the whole forum, ever.


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## Guest (Jan 3, 2014)

C.C. Kelly said:


> <Rant>
> 
> Feel free to skip to the bottom to read my summary...
> 
> ...


Awesome post. Thanks.


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## JRTomlin (Jan 18, 2011)

C.C. Kelly said:


> <Rant>
> 
> Feel free to skip to the bottom to read my summary...
> 
> ...


Shhhh.... Someone who sells a gazillion books and thus knows everything doesn't want to hear that.


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## valeriec80 (Feb 24, 2011)

C. C. Kelley, you are my hero.

(So is Caddy, for other reasons. And ElHawk and Mimi/Dalya and SMReine and... well, there are a lot of heroes round these parts.)

Epic post.

Love this bit:



> <Snark>
> 
> Don't believe me though, I don't have the sales to back it up. Go read a real marketing book, not "how I sold a gazillion e-books in one weekend" and yes, that information trumps short term amazon author rankings in the credibility department. Smiley
> 
> </Snark>


You're probably fighting an uphill battle with getting people to use proper terminology, of course. But your point about marketing being a much bigger world than most of us understand is very well taken.

And, yes, HECK YES, product matters.


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## Victoria J (Jul 5, 2011)

I think what always gets lost in these types of threads is what GENRE you write in. I see posts where the author is making anywhere from $5,000-$10,000 a month from their books and I always look at their books and see: "Ah! You write romance." or "Huh. You write thrillers. _That_ is why you are making so much so quickly." I don't see this financial phenomenon so much with spec-fic authors until they have a row of books out in their signature. Genre makes a massive difference, at least as far as I've observed.

And it follows. Whenever I see a thread about marketing vs no marketing I see roughly two camps: those who write romance/thrillers or some variant of those (Pro-marketing) and those who write speculative fiction (wait on marketing). Of course, there are always a few exceptions. If you write in the former, you have a far bigger audience that reads these genres and they are often voracious. Readers of fantasy and science fiction are a much smaller group and their reading and buying patterns seem to be very different. My own experience writing speculative fiction confirms it. Perhaps I've overlooked some people but I haven't seen very many spec-fic writers on these boards who started making massive sales right out of the gate with their first book, unless they write paranormal romance. And I mean sales, not perma-free book downloads. For writers of spec-fic, from my observations, sales from marketing and promotion don't come as quickly and are not always as impressive. Sometimes serious sales only come after several books are already out in these genres.

This boils down to your personal experience in the genre you write in. That seem to make the difference. I really don't see the point in arguing about it.


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## WHDean (Nov 2, 2011)

It’s ironic that this thread came up right after the fight over “authority” thread, because this is a classic case of why authority doesn’t always mean much. About a year ago I pushed out over 30,000 words on a WC thread explaining why DWS’s theories about publishing are inconsistent with consumer behaviour, economics, and, more importantly, empirical evidence. Now we have Russell Blake and a rejuvenated Edward W. Robertson taking up the fight. 

I will only add one thing. The claim regarding long tails and spill over sales is grossly exaggerated. Some people here mentioned that they’ve bought all five of a writer’s books after reading one they liked. Well, DWS has over 300 books and stories to his name. How many readers do you suppose go out and buy the other 299 after enjoying one? Not many. The long tail is subject to diminishing returns, because next no one reads hundreds (or even dozens) of books by the same person. So it beggars belief that anyone would peg his hopes on selling hundreds of books to that necessarily small segment of fanatical fans—supposing he finds them in the first place without marketing.


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## Victoria J (Jul 5, 2011)

C.C. Kelly, that was a brilliant post!


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## Guest (Jan 3, 2014)

valeriec80 said:


> Apparently, the rest of the cafe is peopled entirely by sane, level-headed people, but I'm neurotic. Not only am I neurotic, I don't care if other people know that I am.
> 
> YES--I feel worthless because I am not selling enough copies to make a living writing.
> 
> There. I said it.


Don't worry, you're not the only one, even if you are the only one who can admit it. 

I'm sure there are plenty of people on these boards who can laugh about selling only a couple of books (or none) each month, and plenty of mega-bestsellers like Hugh Howey who can still be humble about it. There are also people like Ed Robertson and David Daughran who approach marketing not as a way to validate their artist side, but as a part of a healthy business strategy.

But there are also a lot of bestsellers here who are not humble about it, and plenty of low-selling writers still stuck in the sales=validation quagmire who flock to them like unpublished writers on the query-go-round fawning over an agent blog. And honestly, I wonder sometimes if some of the bestsellers aren't also stuck in that quagmire.

Writers tend to have massive egos, and it's hard for anyone with a massive ego to let go of anything that strokes it--indeed, to even admit an addiction to ego-stroking in the first place. So maybe that's where the wall of this echo chamber lies. We can disagree about all sorts of marketing methods, or even on the balance that needs to be struck between production and promotion, but try to suggest that sales =/= validation, and suddenly you're a heretic.


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## bmcox (Nov 21, 2012)

Thank you, CC. That was post was fabulous.


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## Nope (Jun 25, 2012)

.


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## Guest (Jan 3, 2014)

Victoria J said:


> I think what always gets lost in these types of threads is what GENRE you write in. I see posts where the author is making anywhere from $5,000-$10,000 a month from their books and I always look at their books and see: "Ah! You write romance." or "Huh. You write thrillers. _That_ is why you are making so much so quickly." I don't see this financial phenomenon so much with spec-fic authors until they have a row of books out in their signature. Genre makes a massive difference, at least as far as I've observed.
> 
> And it follows. Whenever I see a thread about marketing vs no marketing I see roughly two camps: those who write romance/thrillers or some variant of those (Pro-marketing) and those who write speculative fiction (wait on marketing). Of course, there are always a few exceptions. If you write in the former, you have a far bigger audience that reads these genres and they are often voracious. Readers of fantasy and science fiction are a much smaller group and their reading and buying patterns seem to be very different. My own experience writing speculative fiction confirms it. Perhaps I've overlooked some people but I haven't seen very many spec-fic writers on these boards who started making massive sales right out of the gate with their first book, unless they write paranormal romance. And I mean sales, not perma-free book downloads. For writers of spec-fic, from my observations, sales from marketing and promotion don't come as quickly and are not always as impressive. Sometimes serious sales only come after several books are already out in these genres.
> 
> This boils down to your personal experience in the genre you write in. That seem to make the difference. I really don't see the point in arguing about it.


I think you hit the nail on the head. Thrillers really do get stale over time, because the geopolitical situation shifts and suddenly all those cold-war novels seem like they should be shelved with the historicals. And romances can really benefit from a short-term promotional push, because romance readers are ravenous and will devour five or six books in a weekend. Speculative fiction, on the other hand, tends to depend more on cultivating a loyal fanbase. In the old days before indie publishing, SF&F imprints like Tor tended to make most of their profits on hardback sales, whereas romance and thriller imprints tended to depend on mass market and volume.


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## cinisajoy (Mar 10, 2013)

WHDean said:


> It's ironic that this thread came up right after the fight over "authority" thread, because this is a classic case of why authority doesn't always mean much. About a year ago I pushed out over 30,000 words on a WC thread explaining why DWS's theories about publishing are inconsistent with consumer behaviour, economics, and, more importantly, empirical evidence. Now we have Russell Blake and a rejuvenated Edward W. Robertson taking up the fight.
> 
> I will only add one thing. The claim regarding long tails and spill over sales is grossly exaggerated. Some people here mentioned that they've bought all five of a writer's books after reading one they liked. Well, DWS has over 300 books and stories to his name. How many readers do you suppose go out and buy the other 299 after enjoying one? Not many. *The long tail is subject to diminishing returns, because next no one reads hundreds (or even dozens) of books by the same person. * So it beggars belief that anyone would peg his hopes on selling hundreds of books to that necessarily small segment of fanatical fans-supposing he finds them in the first place without marketing.


I want to say something about the no reader. Now I am not your average reader, but I do know that readers do read everything put out by an author. If you read westerns, there is a good chance that you have read everything by Louis L'Amour and Zane Grey. Heck I have read over a dozen by Louis L'amour myself.
In 1979, I finally finished reading all the Nancy Drew/Hardy Boys books that were out at the time. It took me 5 years. I also went through a Harlequin phase. I have also read everything Stephen King did up to about 1984. I know 2 people that have read everything John Grisham has written. 1 that has read all of Tom Clancy. I have also read all the original VC Andrews books. And I do believe that I have read all of the Jack Daniels series by JA Konrath.

So can you please tell me where you got the information that people do not read everything that an author has out?
Usually if an author is good then yes people will seek him/her out and a good backlist is a help.


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## MonkeyScribe (Jan 27, 2011)

valeriec80 said:


> All right. I'm really sorry to pick on Michael Wallace here, and I don't mean to single him out personally at all. From what I can gather from his posts here over the years, he's a real stand up guy, really great, and deserves every bit of success he's had. He's a crack writer, too. I'm a fan.


It's a different time and I've learned quite a bit. I still feel the same way about a lot of that stuff and still don't use Twitter. I'm not hanging out on Goodreads or trying to get big followings on Facebook. In short, I'm not in favor of lots of marketing effort or money, but mostly because they seem either not to work or seem slimy, and I'm allergic to both of those things.

But I don't like the idea of purposefully laboring in obscurity, either. If you have an ad opportunity that other people are saying works, why not take it? Try to get those lucky blog mentions or run countdown promos, or try permafree on the first book in a series. You don't have to blow lots of money or time, but what does it hurt you to try the tools that are already out there, that your fellow KBers are trying?

It's true you might not sell many copies. I have a couple of crap selling books myself and my sales are all over the place month to month. Some things I've tried haven't worked. Every once in a while I get lucky. As the NY Lottery says, you've got to be in it, to win it.



> Finally:
> _Quote from: MichaelWallace on July 12, 2011, 02:22:53 PM
> Back to the original subject, I did some giveaways, experimented with the price (the aforementioned Victorine Method thread) and things just took off. Literally every week saw higher overall sales, from mid-January to the last week of April. After that, sales crashed at a similar pace. It was exciting, but stressful, then depressing and stressful. These last few weeks have been the first time that I've seen stable sales and I feel a lot more peaceful. I haven't been checking my sales nearly as much and have been able to focus on the long term goals instead of short term fluctuations. I'm not going gangbusters at the moment, but I'm making enough to plausibly continue writing and publishing and call it a writing career, instead of just a hobby. After twenty years of writing, that's a first for me._
> 
> So... this is the marketing that he advocated then, right after his books had started to take off. "Some" giveaways. Experimented with the price. (The "Victorine Method" is to price the first book in a series at $.99. This was the height of innovation back then. Seriously.)


That's all I'm doing now! Seriously, when I talk about marketing, I'm just talking about messing with price, doing countdowns, trying stuff like Select and BB ads, setting the first book of a series free, joining group promos and box sets, etc. I'm not talking about a publicist, running ads in USA Today, or making expensive book trailers. I'm just talking about messing with the easy stuff people say is working. That's all I mean by promotion.


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## Terrence OBrien (Oct 21, 2010)

> "Marketing includes many disciplines and functions, only one of which is promotion. The basic grouping is called the 4 P's, Product, Place, Price and Promotion - the latter is the category that includes advertising."


God Bless a man who knows what he's talking about, for truth trumps sales.



> Some people here mentioned that they've bought all five of a writer's books after reading one they liked. Well, DWS has over 300 books and stories to his name. How many readers do you suppose go out and buy the other 299 after enjoying one?


I don't know. I wonder how many buy five?


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## blakebooks (Mar 10, 2012)

CC: Of course product is part of marketing. I think everyone who argues for a balanced approach to marketing, which includes promotion/advertising (although is not limited to only those, as nobody said it was), does so with the clear caveat that the book's quality matters. Just as the cover, blurb, author bio, website, etc. matters. And genre, of course, matters. Pick an unpopular genre for which there's not much enthusiasm, and you'll have trouble shifting books.

The point being that, whether it's a convenient idea or not, there are numerous authors who have had good to great success marketing their first tomes, as well as their follow-up offerings, while writing. By way of example, Fatal Exchange, my first, has sold somewhere around 20K copies by now. Not enough to live on, but possibly, depending on where you live, if you consider that each copy nets about $3. Over 30 months, that title's made me $60K. I promoted it (not with ads, as there was no BB back then), but by sending it to bloggers, interacting on twitter and facebook, doing interviews. 

Since I released that title, I've released another 24. While Fatal is in a different genre than my more popular work (think Tom Harris as opposed to Ludlum or Forsyth), it stands up well to my new releases in terms of writing quality, etc. 

I'm personally very glad I trusted my gut on this. Then again, I have about three decades of sales and marketing/business acumen to draw upon, so I'm not reliant on the counsel of gurus, especially when it runs contrary to my own experience. I also don't derive my income from hawking seminars or how to help - I make my money selling books, so my advice is just that - advice on how I sold a bunch of books.

These threads invariably devolve into snipes over hubris, style, philosophy, tone. Ed's reasoned post is simple enough so that a chimp can grasp it. I sincerely hope that everyone pauses to ask themselves why Ed, who doesn't always, or even mostly, agree with me, lands squarely in my approach on this. Or why so many who are selling well, for years now, do. Yes, we can pretend that if you've "only" been selling well for two or three years you don't know as much as someone who's been selling a tenth as much for ten years, but again, I don't buy it.

I think it does newbies a disservice to advocate not marketing/promoting their first book while writing their second. They are not such delicate hothouse flowers that they need to be coaxed along, incapable of handling both book writing, and book selling. If they are, then that's their problem, and they need to figure out how to overcome it, not hear choruses of cheers celebrating strategies that embrace non-performance on the marketing/promo side. It's just bad advice.

There, I said it. The advice is bad, if you want to sell books, and especially if you want to sell books from the git go. Does marketing/promoting your first title guarantee you'll be Gone With The Wind? No. But if you don't market/promote it, guess what? The odds overwhelmingly say it won't sell itself, all philosophy and hope to the contrary notwithstanding.

That's my takeaway. Fortunately, I don't have to pay any attention to KKR's advice, because I'm just happily blundering along, selling books as I write em, and making a decent living doing it. I'm no longer a newbie, so it doesn't apply. But I do think it's disastrous counsel to follow. You may feel differently. I respect your right to do so. I may think you're wrong, but only time, and circumstance, will tell.

Now back to writing. I've used up way too much of my marketing time on KB, and have another 9K I need to write before midnight - and it ain't gonna write itself, sad to say.


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## Amanda Brice (Feb 16, 2011)

valeriec80 said:


> I definitely don't think that an author isn't good because I've never heard of him or her. *Practically 80% of the stuff I read is from people I've never heard of.*
> When I see an author with five books out, I think, "Ooh, yay! If I like this one, there's five more to read."
> 
> Interesting that we have such different reactions.


This. There are very few authors out there who are household names.

I very rarely pick up a single title by a debut author unless I see right away that there will be other books in that series WITHIN QUICK SUCCESSION. Otherwise I'll wait until that author has 5 or 6 books out before ever starting. If I end up loving an author, I want to glom on and read everything they have.


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## Zelah Meyer (Jun 15, 2011)

WHDean said:


> The long tail is subject to diminishing returns, because next no one reads hundreds (or even dozens) of books by the same person.


I've read 82 books by one author from my Goodreads bookshelves, and 44 by another. Is that enough to qualify as 'dozens' by your calculations? That's just the ones I could find on my shelves too. There's probably another dozen or so stuck in a box somewhere to add to that first 82!


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## Amanda Brice (Feb 16, 2011)

WHDean said:


> Well, DWS has over 300 books and stories to his name. How many readers do you suppose go out and buy the other 299 after enjoying one? Not many. The long tail is subject to diminishing returns, because next no one reads hundreds (or even dozens) of books by the same person.


Um...Nora Roberts has published more than 200 novels. And I know plenty of people who have read all 200.
I've read the entire Nancy Drew series (both the originals and the newer ones) and am working my way through the Hardy Boys.
My hubby -- who by the way is NOT a voracious reader AT ALL -- has read every Tom Clancy ever written.
My mom has several cozy authors who she has read all of their books, even if that numbers several dozens of titles per author.


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## WHDean (Nov 2, 2011)

Joe Vasicek said:


> I think you hit the nail on the head. Thrillers really do get stale over time, because the geopolitical situation shifts and suddenly all those cold-war novels seem like they should be shelved with the historicals. And romances can really benefit from a short-term promotional push, because romance readers are ravenous and will devour five or six books in a weekend. Speculative fiction, on the other hand, tends to depend more on cultivating a loyal fanbase. In the old days before indie publishing, SF&F imprints like Tor tended to make most of their profits on hardback sales, whereas romance and thriller imprints tended to depend on mass market and volume.


You're right that books get stale. I loved Clancy's Red Star Rising, but I can't imagine picking it off the shelf now. Much the same goes for Azimov and the rest of Golden Age SF. But DWS says you should bank on people reading your long tail way off into the future. How plausible is that if books get stale over time?



cinisajoy said:


> I want to say something about the no reader. Now I am not your average reader, but I do know that readers do read everything put out by an author. If you read westerns, there is a good chance that you have read everything by Louis L'Amour and Zane Grey. Heck I have read over a dozen by Louis L'amour myself.
> In 1979, I finally finished reading all the Nancy Drew/Hardy Boys books that were out at the time. It took me 5 years. I also went through a Harlequin phase. I have also read everything Stephen King did up to about 1984. I know 2 people that have read everything John Grisham has written. 1 that has read all of Tom Clancy. I have also read all the original VC Andrews books. And I do believe that I have read all of the Jack Daniels series by JA Konrath.
> 
> So can you please tell me where you got the information that people do not read everything that an author has out?
> Usually if an author is good then yes people will seek him/her out and a good backlist is a help.


Your self report doesn't conflict with what I've said. With the exception of the Hardy Boys, you've read authors sporadically-maybe what, 10-20 books by each? When I was younger I read a lot of the biggies you've mentioned-King, Clancy, Grisham-and a few more besides-like Bradbury-but I haven't read everything they've written-not by a long shot. And sure, there are people like L'Amour who have devoted fans. But how many of them have bought and read all 100+ of his books and stories? Judging by his sales rank, they must've finished up awhile ago.

Anyway, the burden isn't on me to prove this point or answer every anecdote. The burden of proof is on DWS and his acolytes to produce evidence that people read the way he says they do, because all the evidence I can find-sales ranks of books, bestseller lists, economics, and consumer data-says the opposite.


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## MonkeyScribe (Jan 27, 2011)

WHDean said:


> Anyway, the burden isn't on me to prove this point or answer every anecdote. The burden of proof is on DWS and his acolytes to produce evidence that people read the way he says they do, because all the evidence I can find-sales ranks of books, bestseller lists, economics, and consumer data-says the opposite.


This is a little bit of a tangent, but I don't read the way I hope my own readers do. I jump all over the place and can love a book without necessarily wanting to scoop up the author's entire backlist. I also have learned my lesson and never pick up a series until it is complete (thanks, GRRM!), but I've got more than one open series of my own at the moment and absolutely want my reader to pick them up as the series is ongoing.

And I do occasionally get an email from a reader who says she has read every book I've published. As a writer, that's awesome.


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## cinisajoy (Mar 10, 2013)

WHDean said:


> You're right that books get stale. I loved Clancy's Red Star Rising, but I can't imagine picking it off the shelf now. Much the same goes for Azimov and the rest of Golden Age SF. But DWS says you should bank on people reading your long tail way off into the future. How plausible is that if books get stale over time?
> 
> Your self report doesn't conflict with what I've said. With the exception of the Hardy Boys, you've read authors sporadically-maybe what, 10-20 books by each? When I was younger I read a lot of the biggies you've mentioned-King, Clancy, Grisham-and a few more besides-like Bradbury-but I haven't read everything they've written-not by a long shot. And sure, there are people like L'Amour who have devoted fans. But how many of them have bought and read all 100+ of his books and stories? Judging by his sales rank, they must've finished up awhile ago.
> 
> Anyway, the burden isn't on me to prove this point or answer every anecdote. The burden of proof is on DWS and his acolytes to produce evidence that people read the way he says they do, because all the evidence I can find-sales ranks of books, bestseller lists, economics, and consumer data-says the opposite.


Where are you getting I read sporatically? I will probably eventually finish all the Louis L'Amours. He just gets boring to me if you read one after the other. King went way to commercial and I don't like his later stuff.
I have read everything that VC Andrews wrote. I refuse to read anything published after her death because the ones I picked up just had literally the names and places changed. Every other word was exactly the same as her living works and I refuse to support her ''plagiristic'' children. I have still read over a dozen by most authors.
And like I said I know people that have read everything by several authors. 
If people don't buy everything by an author why did John Grisham and Veronica Roth immediately hit the bestseller list with their new books? 
Are you trying to say that people move on and never go back to an author.


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## Edward W. Robertson (May 18, 2010)

Joe Vasicek said:


> Don't worry, you're not the only one, even if you are the only one who can admit it.
> 
> I'm sure there are plenty of people on these boards who can laugh about selling only a couple of books (or none) each month, and plenty of mega-bestsellers like Hugh Howey who can still be humble about it. There are also people like Ed Robertson and David Daughran who approach marketing not as a way to validate their artist side, but as a part of a healthy business strategy.
> 
> ...


Artistic validation shouldn't have much if anything to do with sales. I'm with you on that all the way. When it comes to validation as a publisher/businessman, sure.. but even then, as Ratatouille taught us, a good cook can come from anywhere. You surely don't have to be a bestseller to have good ideas about how to run a sale or build a career.

But really, low sales mean nothing about whether a book is any good. It doesn't _feel_ that way, of course, and that sucks like none other. But I really don't believe good books sell themselves. At all. Left alone, they languish and sink.

That was one of the hardest, most miserable things I've absorbed from this: you have to do a heck of a lot more than write a good book and roll out of bed. Most books need a lot of pushing no matter how good they are. Even then, your efforts can fall flat if you've got a great book with the wrong cover or blurb. (Which just makes everything more confusing...)

That has been my experience, at least. But that's part of why I'm so gung ho about taking an active role in promoting your stuff. We're very lucky if we can get our books to sell _with_ a big ol' marketing campaign. The few who can sell without promotion are freaking unicorns.


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## Guest (Jan 3, 2014)

MichaelWallace said:


> But I don't like the idea of purposefully laboring in obscurity, either. If you have an ad opportunity that other people are saying works, why not take it? Try to get those lucky blog mentions or run countdown promos, or try permafree on the first book in a series. You don't have to blow lots of money or time, but what does it hurt you to try the tools that are already out there, that your fellow KBers are trying?


I've never said anything about "laboring in obscurity." With the exception of countdown promos, since I'm not a fan of giving Amazon exclusivity over my books, that's exactly the approach that I have taken, and that I have always advocated.



> Seriously, when I talk about marketing, I'm just talking about messing with price, doing countdowns, trying stuff like Select and BB ads, setting the first book of a series free, joining group promos and box sets, etc. I'm not talking about a publicist, running ads in USA Today, or making expensive book trailers. I'm just talking about messing with the easy stuff people say is working. That's all I mean by promotion.


Again, this is exactly the approach that I have taken, and the view of marketing that I advocate. So what, exactly, do you disagree with me about so strongly that you feel compelled to single me out on these marketing threads? I have to admit I'm just as boggled by this as Valerie.


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## Alan Petersen (May 20, 2011)

One book author here. My name is Alan P. and I'm a slow writer. There, I said it. I published one book in February of 2012. That's it. 

I hoped to have book #2 out in the summer, then the winter, it didn't happen. But I started marketing before I hit the publish button. Marketing didn't take time away from getting my second book, I'm just slow when it comes to the rewrite/editing stage. 

I'm so glad I didn't publish and ignore my one book. It sold a lot better than I ever dreamed (for an unknown). It wasn't a blockbuster, but it's been a steady earner, and I didn't spend all my time promoting it. But you bet I marketed it, and I'm glad I didn't wait around. At my pace it would be five years before I would have enough books to market my work if I followed that advice. So that I say poppycock. There isn't any shame in marketing your work, even if it's just one book.

I have readers emailing me asking when my next book will be out. I have built a nice little email list of readers. I think I'm in a good position for my second book and future books. And my book has been selling copies every day since April, so I wouldn't suggest to my fellow one-book authors not to publish it and forget it.

Okay, back to writing... and then marketing.  

If you can publish five books quickly, then sure, that's a better strategy, but don't ignore marketing because you're slow.


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## WHDean (Nov 2, 2011)

Amanda Brice said:


> Um...Nora Roberts has published more than 200 novels. And I know plenty of people who have read all 200.
> I've read the entire Nancy Drew series (both the originals and the newer ones) and am working my way through the Hardy Boys.
> My hubby -- who by the way is NOT a voracious reader AT ALL -- has read every Tom Clancy ever written.
> My mom has several cozy authors who she has read all of their books, even if that numbers several dozens of titles per author.


Everyone has an uncle who smoked and drank all his life and lived to 103. No doubt there are people who've read all Nora Roberts's books. But there's the confounding factor that she wrote them all recently. How many people who pick up a Catherine Cookson book today go back and read the stuff she wrote in the 1970s? How many people read Harlequin from the 1980s?

Anyway, the topic is changing slightly, but I'll respond to it. People are getting the anecdotal evidence backwards. Nora Roberts's backlist doesn't sell because she has a backlist; her backlist sells because she's Nora Roberts. More importantly, she only has a backlist to sell in the first place because she was able to move the first book she released. And this is the causal link that DWS et al. have reversed: the length of the backlists and the income therefrom are both caused by the saleability of the author; income and saleability are not caused by the backlist.


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## Amanda Brice (Feb 16, 2011)

WHDean said:


> Everyone has an uncle who smoked and drank all his life and lived to 103. No doubt there are people who've read all Nora Roberts's books. But there's the confounding factor that she wrote them all recently. How many people who pick up a Catherine Cookson book today go back and read the stuff she wrote in the 1970s? How many people read Harlequin from the 1980s?


Really? I wasn't aware that during Nora Roberts' 30+ year career she wrote all of her more than 200 novels "recently." /sarcasm


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## MonkeyScribe (Jan 27, 2011)

Joe Vasicek said:


> I've never said anything about "laboring in obscurity." With the exception of countdown promos, since I'm not a fan of giving Amazon exclusivity over my books, that's exactly the approach that I have taken, and that I have always advocated.
> 
> Again, this is exactly the approach that I have taken, and the view of marketing that I advocate. So what, exactly, do you disagree with me about so strongly that you feel compelled to single me out on these marketing threads? I have to admit I'm just as boggled by this as Valerie.


What I object to is not what you actually do to market your books, it's when you say things like this:



> Kris Rusch's advice in this article is almost a perfect explanation of my own approach, which is (and has always been) to avoid spending time, money, or mental space on marketing until I've got at least ten full-length books out. The only real amendment I've made to that is to count novellas as full-length books, rather than short story experiments.


That's not actually what you do, and if you were doing that, I'd tell you I thought it was a mistake. I'm not singling you out, but you did start the thread.


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## cinisajoy (Mar 10, 2013)

WHDean said:


> Everyone has an uncle who smoked and drank all his life and lived to 103. No doubt there are people who've read all Nora Roberts's books. But there's the confounding factor that she wrote them all recently. How many people who pick up a Catherine Cookson book today go back and read the stuff she wrote in the 1970s? How many people read Harlequin from the 1980s?
> 
> Anyway, the topic is changing slightly, but I'll respond to it. People are getting the anecdotal evidence backwards. Nora Roberts's backlist doesn't sell because she has a backlist; her backlist sells because she's Nora Roberts. More importantly, she only has a backlist to sell in the first place because she was able to move the first book she released. And this is the causal link that DWS et al. have reversed: the length of the backlists and the income therefrom are both caused by the saleability of the author; income and saleability are not caused by the backlist.


Can we find the Harlequin books and yes I would gladly read a backlist from 1970. People are still reading the classics too. Oh I am not fond of Nora Roberts but I do plan to read all her JD Robb series.


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## Guest (Jan 3, 2014)

WHDean said:


> You're right that books get stale. I loved Clancy's Red Star Rising, but I can't imagine picking it off the shelf now. Much the same goes for Azimov and the rest of Golden Age SF. But DWS says you should bank on people reading your long tail way off into the future. How plausible is that if books get stale over time?


That's not what I was saying. What I was saying is that in _some genres_, books have a tendency to get stale, whereas in other genres, that simply isn't the case. Even within genres, there can be a great deal of variation based upon the quality of the writing.

Take _Ender's Game_, for example. That book was written in the middle of the Cold War, and as such things like the Warsaw Pact are still around, still influencing the political situation. For a lot of books, that sort of thing would make it feel dated and stale. But _Ender's Game_ is just such a fantastic book that it really doesn't matter. It has staying power because the story, and the characters, and the insights into leadership and human nature are just amazing.

Or take _Dune_, another science fiction masterpiece. Do you know when _Dune_ was written? Back in the 60s. _The 60s._ Pick just about any sci-fi book from that era now, and the gender issues are bound to make it feel hopelessly outdated. But in _Dune_, you don't get any of that--in fact, when you consider Lady Jessica's role in the story, the book feels surprisingly ahead of its time. Again, the quality of the writing and storytelling gave that particular book an aspect of timelessness.

Within the romance genre, look at _Pride and Prejudice._ Within the thriller genre, look at _Jurassic Park._ Within the mystery genre, look at Sherlock Holmes. These books have not gone stale with time. And even in the example of the SF Golden Age that you bring up, Asimov still sells quite well to this day, as do Clarke, Heinlein, Bradbury, Hubbard, Dick, Pohl, etc etc. Whether or not they feel dated, those books have not gone stale.


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## bmcox (Nov 21, 2012)

WHDean said:


> Anyway, the burden isn't on me to prove this point or answer every anecdote.


The reason you are getting the kickback though is because your rhetoric is shaky. You are making a grossly exaggerated claim to counter what you see as a grossly exaggerated claim.

However, I will agree that most writing does not benefit from the long tail theory. Other people make the decision of what will survive the test of time and be revisited. Promotion and marketing doesn't continue ad infinitum. And many of us are producing primarily consumable, contemporary, entertainment. Few of us will crossover the King, le Carre, Greene, Highsmith, PKD, Bradbury divide of becoming classics, taught in classrooms, adapted into film years in the future, etc. But it is impossible to control for that outcome. As a writer, all you can hope to control is to be read now.

Additionally, my personal experience doesn't line up with yours (and I can only assume that your observation is completely anecdotal as you do not provide evidence, just opinion and conjecture). Of writers that I completely love, I try and read everything they write. However, that list is not long. Various family members read every book a writer may produce. Friends will follow writer's careers for years. And while it's true we may not get to everything, it's not for lack of trying. Does 50%, 70%, 90% count? For example 50% of 100 books is 50 books, that's quite a bit, and I can't be the only one engaging in that behavior.

As for these marketing/promo threads, it seems so manic, black or white. Can't it be yes and?

In the beginning, when I decided to self-publish I did the small requisite marketing: free promo sites, blogging about my experience, started a Facebook page, joined Twitter, made my first story free. And I saw movement on my free story. The other ones, not so much. But then again, my stories are odd, more literary than genre. Magical realism wrapped in SciFi/Fantasy, featuring primarily Queer characters (though the free story is about a straight couple). Hard to describe, let alone market.

In April, I landed a job after being unemployed for awhile and I let all my promo activity fall by the wayside. This included publishing more work. When I was promoting though, my stories were only selling one or two copies a month each. After I stopped they sold one or two copies every two months, maybe. That being said, my free story moves about 80 a month and has, for the most part, stayed in the top 100 in its category on AZ since its publication.

My plan this year is to be more active and balance out work with writing, publishing, and promoting. I will have to find a traditional publisher for my next round of work (novel, play), as I need the national publishing creds for my job. My shorter stuff will continue to be released indie as it's easy to do so, and will hopefully create a reader base for future trad/hybrid work. I am not hoping for a reader base as large as Casey, Ward, Strong, Blake, Robertson, or Hugh. But I am hoping for a reader base of some sort. Maybe one day as large as Chiang, Link, or Le Guin!!! Le Guin is really what I am aiming at, which is still quite large, but nowhere near on par with Gaiman or the like. At the pace I am moving, it will take many more years to reach that level. And I am happy with that.

The next thread I'd like to see blow up is a craft thread. Like _Get Ye to the Sentence Shed_, _Crafting Crafty Characters_, or _Representing Dolphins in Fiction as the Real Jerks They Are_. Something like that.


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## Guest (Jan 3, 2014)

WHDean said:


> Nora Roberts's backlist doesn't sell because she has a backlist; her backlist sells because she's Nora Roberts.


Yep, and my backlist is going to sell because I'm Joe Vasicek.  See KKR's first rule of being an artist:



> ... in the arts, all we have is our individuality. The minute you try to do something the same way someone else did-from composing a story to choosing a genre to marketing your work-you've failed.
> 
> The first rule of being an artist is _to be an artist._
> 
> ...


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## Guest (Jan 3, 2014)

MichaelWallace said:


> What I object to is not what you actually do to market your books, it's when you say things like this:
> 
> That's not actually what you do, and if you were doing that, I'd tell you I thought it was a mistake. I'm not singling you out, but you did start the thread.


But the marketing stuff that I'm doing _doesn't_ cost me time, or money, or mental space. Neither does the stuff that you advocate, with the exception of advertising. So really, it comes back down to you misreading me, or thinking that you somehow know what I'm doing better than I know myself (which is absurd).


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## GUTMAN (Dec 22, 2011)

As I read through this highly interesting and often helpful thread, I am reminded of the late Sen. Daniel Moynihan's quote:

_Everyone is entitled to their own opinions, but they are not entitled to their own facts._


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## 60911 (Jun 13, 2012)

C.C. Kelly said:


> Why is Hugh doing well? What about Blake or Elle, Holly or Liliana Hart? Pick any of the writers around here that are doing even reasonably well and the bottom line is that they are d*mn good writers. (PRODUCT)
> 
> I'll say it again for emphasis --- *They are d*mn good writers!*
> 
> How can you possibly separate out the quality of the writing from the marketing or promotional activities? You can't, because PRODUCT, the book, IS part of marketing.


Uhh...sorry...I missed the post where someone was saying just write a bunch of crap, throw it out there and market it/promote it/flog it/whatever term you want to use, and you'll be a huge success. Maybe it was just assumed by Ed and some of the other veterans that writing a good book would be part of the equation?



Edward W. Robertson said:


> *3)* Give them value for their time
> 
> Basically, "write a good book." I'm not going to try to define "good" beyond "anything a reader enjoyed enough to want more of."


Oh, no, wait, he said it flat out - "write a good book."

I honestly don't understand what's so controversial about what Ed or Russell are saying - you can build an audience from book one, like DA Wearmouth, like Darcie Chan, like Colleen Hoover, Marko Kloos...etc, etc. Will you likely hit it out of the park like them? Probably not. *Assuming you've written a good book*, you'll probably have to get to a few books in the series, maybe even a couple series in order to start making decent money (whatever your definition of that is). Even that is no guarantee of success, but if you don't get exposure to a wider audience somehow, you're pretty well guaranteed not to succeed. And what works today may not work tomorrow.

Up to you, but if I'd waited longer to market promote bludgeon readers and drag them back to my cave gather an audience through various means I probably would have lost about $300 grand this last year. For me, that's the opportunity cost. For you, maybe it's way different. Do whatever you like.


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## MonkeyScribe (Jan 27, 2011)

Joe Vasicek said:



> But the marketing stuff that I'm doing _doesn't_ cost me time, or money, or mental space. Neither does the stuff that you advocate, with the exception of advertising. So really, it comes back down to you misreading me, or thinking that you somehow know what I'm doing better than I know myself (which is absurd).


Well, maybe we're not that far off. But to be fair, I wasn't the only one reading your advice as being of the "quietly write without telling anyone" sort.


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## WHDean (Nov 2, 2011)

Joe Vasicek said:


> That's not what I was saying. What I was saying is that in _some genres_, books have a tendency to get stale, whereas in other genres, that simply isn't the case. Even within genres, there can be a great deal of variation based upon the quality of the writing.
> 
> Take _Ender's Game_, for example. That book was written in the middle of the Cold War, and as such things like the Warsaw Pact are still around, still influencing the political situation. For a lot of books, that sort of thing would make it feel dated and stale. But _Ender's Game_ is just such a fantastic book that it really doesn't matter. It has staying power because the story, and the characters, and the insights into leadership and human nature are just amazing.
> 
> ...


My claim was not that every book goes stale, such that finding an old but fresh daisy would undo me. I observed that the DWS strategy depends on most books not going stale over time, when the overwhelming majority of books do go stale over time. Has Dune topped the bestseller list lately? How about Jurassic Park or Pride and Prejudice? Not even classics sell like they used to.



bmcox said:


> The reason you are getting the kickback though is because your rhetoric is shaky. You are making a grossly exaggerated claim to counter what you see as a grossly exaggerated claim.


I exaggerate, yes, but only a little. My defence is that I prefer to illustrate the absurd than to quantify the obvious. Either way, the basic idea is sound: Quantity is a dependent variable in success, not an independent one. If this were false, the world would be otherwise-e.g., the extremely prolific DWS and KKR would top every bestseller list in the world. The lesson is that prolific writers are not successful because they're prolific. Writing more doesn't increase one's likelihood of success in any meaningful way (i.e., it's about equivalent to buying more lottery tickets as a strategy for winning the lottery).

By the way, and just so we're clear, I don't presume to offer this as advice-even if someone might be able to act on it. What people do is their business. I offer it as an objection to an argument.



Amanda Brice said:


> Really? I wasn't aware that during Nora Roberts' 30+ year career she wrote all of her more than 200 novels "recently." /sarcasm


You got me there.


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## Guest (Jan 3, 2014)

WHDean said:


> Has Dune topped the bestseller list lately? How about Jurassic Park or Pride and Prejudice? Not even classics sell like they used to.


Just because a book isn't currently topping a bestseller list doesn't mean that it's "stale." Bestseller lists only measure velocity, so it's only important to sell a lot in the short-term in order to hit them. There are plenty of books that have never hit a major bestseller list that are outselling books that have, simply as a function of continuing sales over time. Likewise, there are bestsellers from as recent as ten years ago that hardly anyone even knows about or remembers. If anything, the bestseller lists are probably some of the best places to find the books that will go stale--especially for the books that hit the list for one week/day/hour and then fall off immediately thereafter.


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## Terrence OBrien (Oct 21, 2010)

> : Quantity is a dependent variable in success, not an independent one.


What does quantity derpend on? What are the independent variables?



> . I observed that the DWS strategy depends on most books not going stale over time, when the overwhelming majority of books do go stale over time


Our experience is in a system where books go out of print, shelf space is constrained, and economic incentives favored new books occupying available shelf space. We haven't had time to determine how books become stale when those constraints are removed.


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## gorvnice (Dec 29, 2010)

I do think some of the miscommunication is about goals.  For instance, do the math: If I'm able to sell just five copies a day of a given book at 2.99, I make ten bucks.  Now let's say I have ten or twenty or thirty books out that average out to five copies a day a piece.  You see how it adds up, correct?

I think that is essentially the way people like KKR and DWS make a living.  They write a lot, they sell wherever and whenever they can, repackaging things, bundling, doing classes, whatever--just so long as they can run a business and work for themselves in a creative fashion.

However, there are others that use the Russell Blake methodology.  In this method, you actually try to go for those home runs.  If you just hit one ball out of the park, it makes up for swinging and missing once in awhile.  Ironically, many of the "Russell Blake" types also write fast.  So not only do they swing for the fences every time up at bat, but they also get a lot of swings at the ball.

In this way, they not only hit some home runs, but they also get lots of stuff in play at once.

I'd say that Russell's methodology is actually superior in many ways to DWS and KKR.  However, the one caveat to that opinion, is that I think it depends somewhat on genre.  The cool thing about DWS is he works in a much less popular genre (SciFi).  And yet he's had a long career doing what he loves.  I think for people in smaller markets, that kind of approach can pay off over the long haul.  Whereas, working like Russell, you might tend to get discouraged if you don't get your home run.

But I believe Russell would simply go where the money was if he needed to.

There are people who don't have the talent nor the interest to take Russell's approach.  There are people who don't have the work ethic or the craft to take DWS's approach.

And in actuality, I'm of the opinion that 99.9 percent of writers can't really sustain either approach.  Only the very top of the top of the top few percent of writers will have long, successful careers.  

Not because it's impossible--they just don't want it badly enough.  That's why Hugh talked about, in some post on these boards, how his obsession with writing is shared by other success stories.  That single-mindedness is a rare enough trait that most people just don't possess it.  It's not the methodology that fails, mostly it's the person.

And if you don't want to fail, it's simple.  Don't give up.


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## Jim Johnson (Jan 4, 2011)

WHDean said:


> Writing more doesn't increase one's likelihood of success in any meaningful way (i.e., it's about equivalent to buying more lottery tickets as a strategy for winning the lottery).


I have to disagree with this. Playing the lottery isn't the same as writing and publishing a story. A lottery ticket is a one-time purchase to play for a jackpot. If your number doesn't come up, too bad, so sad, buy another ticket and play again. If the number does come up, well, hey presto. Good for you. You can buy more tickets to increase your chances of winning, but they're still one shot purchases (season subscriptions notwithstanding).

Writing and publishing a story is product on the shelf. It'll sit there for as long as you want it to, as product with potential to make an endless stream of revenue. The more stories you write, the more product you have on the shelf, and the more potential revenue streams available to you. More revenue streams, in my mind, definitely increases one's likelihood of success.

Granted, "success" will mean something different to every person. I might define success as being able to pay my mortgage with my writing income, but other writers will have different expectations for their success.


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## valeriec80 (Feb 24, 2011)

モスラ said:


> Will you likely hit it out of the park like them? Probably not. *Assuming you've written a good book*, you'll probably have to get to a few books in the series, maybe even a couple series in order to start making decent money (whatever your definition of that is). Even that is no guarantee of success, but if you don't get exposure to a wider audience somehow, you're pretty well guaranteed not to succeed. And what works today may not work tomorrow.


I'm with you. My only quibble would be this, and I'm not singling you out, because we all say it from time to time.

"Good" is too much of a subjective, loaded word to mean anything.

I feel that books that sell well are books that a lot of people want to read. I feel like that's a much more quantifiable thing to say. And it also sidesteps a bunch of weird insecure kind of reactive emotional junk (and maybe I'm the only person who cares about that.)

You could write a very "good" book, but no one might want to read it. And then, you know, you'd be Walt Whitman or Picasso or whatever.

Anyway, that's a useful distinction for marketing (or promotion? Help me, O Wise C.C.). Because if you stop worrying about whether your book is "good" and instead start worrying about what audience of people that it will appeal to, then you're that much closer to thinking about where that audience is and trying to find some way to reach them.


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## Maia Sepp Ross (May 10, 2013)

Quote from: Andrew Ashling on Today at 04:05:09 AM
promoted his little nipples off



ゴジラ said:


> I'm going to somehow write this phrase into my next book.


+1


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## Maia Sepp Ross (May 10, 2013)

ColinFBarnes said:


> Both KKR/DWS are still very much from the old school and the majority of their business seems to be in selling workshops to other writers. Also, they have an extensive backlist, most of which they already got paid for, so it's easy for them to say: wait until you have X amount of stuff. *They're not the ones starting out in the game. *They can have 200 titles floating about in the bottom reaches of charts picking up a sale here or there and have that pay. Most of us won't get that backlist any time soon, therefore you have to market what you've got now. You're alive now, not in 20, 30, 40 years time.


Yup, I agree. I enjoy reading KKR's posts, but I just can't agree on the marketing side. I've sold 7,000 books in just a smidge over a year, and I couldn't have done that without promoting my work. I look to people who've started up in the last few years and are doing well as examples of how to do things.


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## ashleyrose (Aug 4, 2012)

I agree 100%.  I write good books and I publish them, and then I write more.  I have a small mailing list, less than 100, and I rarely update my blog.  I made six figures in 2013, so this method works for me.


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## bmcox (Nov 21, 2012)

WHDean said:


> My claim was not that every book goes stale, such that finding an old but fresh daisy would undo me. I observed that the DWS strategy depends on most books not going stale over time, when the overwhelming majority of books do go stale over time. Has Dune topped the bestseller list lately? How about Jurassic Park or Pride and Prejudice? Not even classics sell like they used to.


The reason why Pride and Prejudice is still printed is because it still sells, maybe not a ton but enough. I'd venture to guess that Jurassic Park (which is still in print) saw an uptick in sales when the retrofitted 3D IMAX movie came out.



WHDean said:


> I exaggerate, yes, but only a little. My defence is that I prefer to illustrate the absurd than to quantify the obvious. Either way, the basic idea is sound... I offer it as an objection to an argument.


The argument is muddy. Also you are not addressing the objection to your statement--


> because next no one reads hundreds (or even dozens) of books by the same person


--which is, if we are using anecdotes, demonstrably wrong. I understand that you wrote this to support your following statement:


> So it beggars belief that anyone would peg his hopes on selling hundreds of books to that necessarily small segment of fanatical fans-supposing he finds them in the first place without marketing.


 But the argument does not line up and is the reason for the confusion and backlash.

So let me rephrase it and feel free to correct me, as you are wont to do. The argument you seem to want to make is: _Writing more books without marketing will not bring readers. Also, writing books with marketing is not a guarantee to bring readers. Just because DWS has 300+ books doesn't mean all or any of them are selling._ Yes, I agree.

The separate idea that readers don't read most or all of a writer's oeuvre is incorrect. And while it's probably not the case that a writer's backlist will be read--many writers and their works fall into obscurity--I think it's fine to hope. It demonstrates a drive to do better. Just know that the odds are slimmer than slim.


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## Jana DeLeon (Jan 20, 2011)

My first book was trad published in 2006 by Dorchester. It was used to launch a new line, so it got Walmart placement, Target, grocery stores, co-op and all the cool stuff that used to happen sometimes for debut authors. I got rights back and released my backlist as indie books late 2010. That book, which is a standalone - not part of my two bestselling series - still sold 75% as much as it did the year of original release. I think that's darned good.

I honestly think an author's backlist does not become obsolete until the author stops writing. Assuming fiction, of course. Non-fiction is a totally different story.


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## WHDean (Nov 2, 2011)

Terrence OBrien said:


> What does quantity derpend on? What are the independent variables?


In quasi-logical terms, quantity only increases success (i.e., revenue) when saleability is present. You can't reap the rewards of quantity if you can't sell anything in the first place.



> Our experience is in a system where books go out of print, shelf space is constrained, and economic incentives favored new books occupying available shelf space. We haven't had time to determine how books become stale when those constraints are removed.


Only if you assume that being in print didn't correlate with demand. I'm at a loss to explain how that could be possible-did publishers just stop printing books on a whim? Besides, lots of old books have been digitized, but they haven't retaken the bestseller list.



Joe Vasicek said:


> Just because a book isn't currently topping a bestseller list doesn't mean that it's "stale." Bestseller lists only measure velocity, so it's only important to sell a lot in the short-term in order to hit them. There are plenty of books that have never hit a major bestseller list that are outselling books that have, simply as a function of continuing sales over time. Likewise, there are bestsellers from as recent as ten years ago that hardly anyone even knows about or remembers. If anything, the bestseller lists are probably some of the best places to find the books that will go stale--especially for the books that hit the list for one week/day/hour and then fall off immediately thereafter.


But what counts for the DWS approach is constant sales across titles over time. Every historical indication is that book sales simply doesn't pan out that way. Plot books from a biggie like Stephen King on a curve from the oldest title to the newest. If people buy books the way DWS supposes, you should see a smooth line sloping up toward his most recent title, as new readers start working their way through the backlist that old readers already have (allowing a small spike for The Shining). But you won't see that because people don't buy books that way.



bmcox said:


> Also you are not addressing the objection to your statement----which is, if we are using anecdotes, demonstrably wrong. I understand that you wrote this to support your following statement: But the argument does not line up and is the reason for the confusion and backlash.


If you think I'm wrong, you're looking at the wrong thing. The DWS formula says more books = more revenue. For that to work, both these things must be true: (1) most people have to buy all (or almost all) an author's books and (2) they have to do that most of the time. My claim is not that this never have happens. My claim is that it rarely ever happens that people buy "dozens or hundreds of books" (my words) from the same author, and when it does happen, there are diminishing returns-meaning there's (a) a limit beyond which no one buys any books from the same author and (b) the number of people who'll buy all an author's books decreases as the number of books increases.

Look at the anecdotal evidence people cited here. Amanda's aunt bought all Nora Roberts's books. Okay, but what about other authors? Didn't her aunt buy dozens or hundreds of books by other authors? And what about Amanda herself and the rest of her family and friends? Have they not bought dozens or hundreds of books by the same author? Apparently not. The same goes for Cinajoy and Zelah. Each only named one case where she had read dozens or hundreds of books by the same author. But that's it. Neither claimed to have read all the books by the other authors she mentioned. So who's generalization does that contradict? Not mine.



JimJohnson said:


> I have to disagree with this. Playing the lottery isn't the same as writing and publishing a story. A lottery ticket is a one-time purchase to play for a jackpot. If your number doesn't come up, too bad, so sad, buy another ticket and play again. If the number does come up, well, hey presto. Good for you. You can buy more tickets to increase your chances of winning, but they're still one shot purchases (season subscriptions notwithstanding).


All I meant was that adding one, two, or even tens or twenties of books to the millions available doesn't improve your odds much. The difference between being one in a million and ten in a million isn't all that significant from a statistical standpoint.


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## Terrence OBrien (Oct 21, 2010)

> In quasi-logical terms, quantity only increases success (i.e., revenue) when saleability is present. You can't reap the rewards of quantity if you can't sell anything in the first place.


Quasi-logical? This tells us nothing. It tells us nothing about quantity, and nothing about success. It tells us a market has to exist before something can sell. Deep.



> Only if you assume that being in print didn't correlate with demand. I'm at a loss to explain how that could be possible-did publishers just stop printing books on a whim? Besides, lots of old books have been digitized, but they haven't retaken the bestseller list


No. There is no reason to assume anything like that. Relative demand determined what was on shelves. That happens with all kinds if products. The demand for a new book can be greater than the demand for an older book. Hence, the limited shelf space goes to the new book. The correlation with demand stands.

Old books have been digitized. Those books also have been off the shelves for some period of time. We are in the middle if a transition. We haven't had time to determine if a book becomes stale when relative demand never pushes it off the digital shelves.



> All I meant was that adding one, two, or even tens or twenties of books to the millions available doesn't improve your odds much. The difference between being one in a million and ten in a million isn't all that significant from a statistical standpoint.


Its very significant from a statistical perspective. The difference is a factor of ten. One might be adding ten or twenty books to the millions, but one is also adding ten or twenty to the individual authors offerings. The total number of available books increases by a very small percentage, but the total number of the authors books increases by 1,000% to 2,000%. It really has nothing to do with a lottery.



> The DWS formula says more books = more revenue. For that to work, both these things must be true: (1) most people have to buy all (or almost all) an author's books and (2) they have to do that most of the time.


Why does that have to be true? For #2, they can buy half of his books and he sees increased revenue.


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## Guest (Jan 4, 2014)

WHDean said:


> But what counts for the DWS approach is constant sales across titles over time. Every historical indication is that book sales simply doesn't pan out that way. Plot books from a biggie like Stephen King on a curve from the oldest title to the newest. If people buy books the way DWS supposes, you should see a smooth line sloping up toward his most recent title, as new readers start working their way through the backlist that old readers already have (allowing a small spike for The Shining). But you won't see that because people don't buy books that way.


Not all people are going to read you that way, but your diehard true fans will. They will also recommend your books to others, bringing people in to read your more recent works. And the way to turn readers into voracious fans is to have lots and lots of books out that they love.

I became a David Gemmell fanboy when I read _Legend,_ but if he didn't have thirty or forty more books out for me to read, I wouldn't still be talking about him today. I read _A Canticle for Leibowitz_ the same year I read _Legend,_ and I enjoyed them almost equally as well, but Walter M. Miller Jr. doesn't have a backlist like Gemmell does, so I don't really talk about that book as much as I do the latest Gemmell book I've read.

It's like stoking a fire--if you want a lot of really hot coals, you've got to keep stoking it.


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## WHDean (Nov 2, 2011)

Terrence OBrien said:


> This tells us nothing. It tells us nothing about quantity, and nothing about success. It tells us a market has to exist before something can sell. Deep.


You didn't ask me to define quantity or success. You asked, and I quote you, "What does quantity depend on?" and "What are the independent variables?" And I answered: The number of books you have for sale (= quantity) only increases your revenue when someone's willing to buy them. In other words, just publishing more and more books doesn't make books sell. Isn't that obvious?

If not, let me give you a simpler illustration of dependent and independent variables. Suppose I feed my dog a burrito and he farts on your house. The burrito is an independent variable in this scenario because it's what caused my dog to fart-without it, in other words, your house would not have been farted upon. Your house is a dependent variable, because my dog could've farted anywhere-he just happened to have farted on your house. It's true, of course, that he could not have farted on your house if you didn't own a house. But don't let that fool you: your house did not play a casual role in the farting. Now, quantity is like your house. It plays a role in the revenue scenario. But it does not cause the books to be sold.

By the way, you should direct your complaints about the lack of depth in my comments to the person who invited my rebuttal, namely, DWS. It's hardly my fault that he makes weak claims. Of course, you'd have to criticize someone more important than little old me.



> No. There is no reason to assume anything like that. Relative demand determined what was on shelves. That happens with all kinds if products. The demand for a new book can be greater than the demand for an older book. Hence, the limited shelf space goes to the new book. The correlation with demand stands.


Yes. Relative demand of old to new is irrelevant because there's no such thing as limited shelf space in a free market economy-that's Economics 101. Bookstores would've been as big and as common as Walmarts and mail-order catalogs if demand was there. It wasn't, so they weren't. And how long does it take for old books to take over the bestseller lists and prove me wrong? Ten years, twenty years? Methinks the question was answered on day one.



> Its very significant from a statistical perspective.


You should look up statistical significance.



> Why does that have to be true? For #2, they can buy half of his books and he sees increased revenue.


Your own response to your question answered it. I'll revise to fit: (2) they have to buy half the rest of an author's books most of the time for the formula "more books = more revenue" to work. I'm fine with your revision, by the way, because it's no more plausible than my original version.


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## Nope (Jun 25, 2012)

.


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## Terrence OBrien (Oct 21, 2010)

> You didn't ask me to define quantity or success. You asked, and I quote you, "What does quantity depend on?" and "What are the independent variables?" And I answered: The number of books you have for sale (= quantity) only increases your revenue when someone's willing to buy them. In other words, just publishing more and more books doesn't make books sell. Isn't that obvious?


You still tell us nothing.



> If not, let me give you a simpler illustration of dependent and independent variables. Suppose I feed my dog a burrito and he farts on your house. The burrito is an independent variable in this scenario because it's what caused my dog to fart-without it, in other words, your house would not have been farted upon. Your house is a dependent variable, because my dog could've farted anywhere-he just happened to have farted on your house. It's true, of course, that he could not have farted on your house if you didn't own a house. But don't let that fool you: your house did not play a casual role in the farting. Now, quantity is like your house. It plays a role in the revenue scenario. But it does not cause the books to be sold.


More nothing.



> By the way, you should direct your complaints about the lack of depth in my comments to the person who invited my rebuttal, namely, DWS. It's hardly my fault that he makes weak claims. Of course, you'd have to criticize someone more important than little old me.


No. Stand behind your claims.



> Yes. Relative demand of old to new is irrelevant because there's no such thing as limited shelf space in a free market economy-that's Economics 101.


Wrong. Econ 101 says nothing of the sort. Free markets do not mean unconstrained resources. There is an observable limit to book store shelf space. It can be counted. We can watch as it shrinks today.

Relative demand is what determines what occupies that space. We observe goods with a higher demand push out goods with a lower demand. We do not observe a situation where anything with a positive demand induces vendors to build more shelves.



> Bookstores would've been as big and as common as Walmarts and mail-order catalogs if demand was there.


That is exactly what Amazon is doing. They have the virtual equivalent of a bunch of Walmarts. The shelf constraint has been lifted. That makes the supply curve the dominant factor in an eRetailers inventory.

Demand curves are downward sloping. Demand exists at each point on the curve, and each point represents a different quantity. When we put this together with supply, we get shelf space in the physical bookstore.



> It wasn't, so they weren't. And how long does it take for old books to take over the bestseller lists and prove me wrong? Ten years, twenty years? Methinks the question was answered on day one.


They don't have to take over the best seller list to prove you wrong.



> You should look up statistical significance.


Quantities that differ by a factor of ten have a significant statistical difference.



> Your own response to your question answered it. I'll revise to fit: (2) they have to buy half the rest of an author's books most of the time for the formula "more books = more revenue" to work. I'm fine with your revision, by the way, because it's no more plausible than my original version.


It refutes your statement that:
_For that to work, both these things must be true: (1) most people *have to buy all (or almost all)* an author's books and (2) they have to do that most of the time. _

You set the conditions in a model you proposed. They were wrong.


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## Cherise (May 13, 2012)

Victoria J said:


> *I think what always gets lost in these types of threads is what GENRE you write in.* I see posts where the author is making anywhere from $5,000-$10,000 a month from their books and I always look at their books and see: "Ah! You write romance." or "Huh. You write thrillers. _That_ is why you are making so much so quickly." I don't see this financial phenomenon so much with spec-fic authors until they have a row of books out in their signature. Genre makes a massive difference, at least as far as I've observed.
> 
> Whenever I see a thread about marketing vs no marketing I see roughly two camps:
> 
> ...


Yes. I was going to say this, and you beat me to it.

We spec fic fans are also the type who buy every book our favorite authors ever wrote.


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## Guest (Jan 4, 2014)

Cherise Kelley said:


> We spec fic fans are also the type who buy every book our favorite authors ever wrote.


Guilty as charged (so long as used bookstores and libraries count).


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