I noticed a post on
Facebook today that stated that for a literary agent to show an interest in a
self-published book, the author should be able to present sales figures of
around 20,000 copies.
I have news for that
literary agent … if I can sell 20,000 copies of my books, I don’t need her
services.
Let’s face it, some
books fly off the shelves, because of the name of the author while others
gather dust because the author is a nobody.
Does that make the books of the big name authors any better … I doubt
it. I’m sure there are excellent
self-published novels, while some stories of name authors never should have
been printed.
Take J.K. Rowling latest
effort for instance. To say that it gets
mixed reviews is putting it mildly. Some
critics rave about her writing abilities, others are less than enthused. Fact is, A
Casual Vacancy was a best seller before it was even available. Proof that readers care about a name, not a
story.
Personally I don’t put
much stock in what critics have to say, I’d like to see for myself.
On the one hand A Casual Vacancy is brilliantly
written. Rowling paints the picture of a
cute little town and strips away all the veneer to show its inhabitants in all
their disgusting glory. The question is …
do readers want to be confronted with such reality?
The story holds an “interesting”
variety of characters, but there’s nothing likeable about them. I don’t know about you, but if I don’t like certain
characters I don’t care about them, and
if I don’t care about them why would I want to know what happens to them? Why would I
care about:
A heroin addict
A teenage town whore
Two perverted boys
A man who is abusive to
his wife and children
A wife who is a doormat
In my opinion, if a
nobody had written A Casual Vacancy,
nobody would have shown any interest.
But because the book is of the hand of the great J.K. Rowling it turns
into a bestseller.
But back to self-published
books. What they mainly lack is good
P.R. If nobody knows about the book, how
is it ever going to sell? Robin mentions
a few interesting strategies in her blog post http://robintidwell.wordpress.com/2012/10/24/selling-books/?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=facebook
Meetups, writers’
groups, book clubs, volunteer organizations. All of these are places to meet
people, talk to people, and mention your book.
Good advice Robin, but
who has that kind of time? Most people
have jobs and when they come home there cooking and cleaning to be done.
Send a review
copy to your local stores. If they see it, in their hands, and look at it, they
might take a chance on you.
Another good idea, but
here’s the thing. I did that and was
greeted with a lot of enthusiasm, until the store owner found out that my book
was self-published and suddenly I was cold product.
In suburbs where book
stores are privately owned a self-published author might have a chance, but
where I live (Toronto) the book industry is monopolized by Chapters Indigo and
they won’t touch a self-published author with a ten foot pole.
Organizing book signings
is a tricky situation. Let’s say that an
author does manage to get a signing, he needs to invest in a certain quantity
of his work. That requires not only
financial resources but a car. Have you
ever tried to lug around + 50 books?
If they sell, great, if not you’re a few hundred dollars out of pocket.
It all comes down to
money. If you have money you can enlist
the help of a P.R. firm, you can stock your own books and you can devote all
your time to blowing your own horn. If
you don’t have money … well, you’re pretty much on your own.
Still, I’ll take some of
your advice and I’ll let you know what happens.
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