Marketing as a Part of the Creative Process

Hello Violets!

I know we were scheduled for a rerun today, but since I’m back from the conference I wanted to report in.

The conference was Inspiration Central. Lots of great sessions on marketing, which I’ll be sharing with you over the next few weeks. I also got a lot of great ideas for promoting my upcoming release of Theodosia and the Staff of Osiris, which comes out in November.

One thing I wanted to share with you today was something I heard during a session with Eric Maisel, a creativity coach. He talked about not engaging in either/or thinking. He encouraged us to keep from thinking we were good writers but not good marketers, that there was nothing to be gained from that kind of thinking.

Instead, he encouraged us to rewrite that scenario so that our creative process included marketing. That we bring the full force and passion of our creativity to marketing and promoting our books, rather than telling ourselves we didn’t have the correct skill set. I thought that was a wonderful way to rephrase that.

Then after I got home, I stumbled on How to Avoid Marketing to Yourself by Robert Gorell, which had some major resonance for me...

Social media marketing should be a largely introverted activity, one where the marketer spend more time listening, researching, and refining their message than they do actually pushing one. It should be about creating environments, and playing in existing ones, where you learn juicy details about what’s actually important to your customer segments. Yet for most, it seems “social media marketing” has come to mean the tactics by which one goes about hunting down customers and annoying them under the guise of “friend”-ship.

Is he singing our song or what?? Marketing that is an introverted activity? One that requires active listening (an introvert’s special skill)? I am SO there!

So, let’s all put our heads down this week and do some brainstorming using our mad creative skills and come up with some outside the box, creative promotional ideas! I have one percolating for Mary and I. I’ll be back and share it next week.

Until then!

Robin

Making the Most of the Sometime Dreaded Book Signing

Dear Friends,

As a follow-up to Robin's post last week where she talked about our upcoming signing, I wanted to let you know that we've gotten a very enthusiastic response from people calling the bookstore and buying our books as a donation for Girls, Inc.  For friends and family that live out of town and can't come to our event, or maybe aren't interested in owning a children's book themselves, they seem happy to have a chance to support us, an independent bookstore and some under-served girls. So file that away in your Tips for a Successful Book Signing folder.  ~(:-] ) How might you connect your signing (or other event) to some greater good, beyond book sales for you?  

In addition to way looking forward to spending the afternoon with Robin at the bookstore, we will have plenty of books to sign for Girls, Inc.  And busyness begets busyness as we've discovered.  An author signing a big stack of books draws more customers over to the table than one sitting alone looking frightened/desperate/embarrassed/bored/catatonic.  Robin doesn't know this part yet, and please don't tell her for god's sake, but we'll be assembling book gift bags at the signing. So, we'll have fun, stay busy, and be making a difference in the lives of some girls that will be getting a cool gift.

I'm going to post the number of our indie bookstore here if you'd like to participate, which you can do through 5:00 pm this coming Sunday, July 13th. We've had some Violets do so already. Thank you so much!! Chaucer's Books phone number is 805.682.6787. Tell them that you want to buy a $35.00 gift certificate for the Mary Hershey signing for Girls, Inc. This allows each girl to get a personally autographed copy of my book and Robin's book.

Lastly, for the duration of the summer, Robin and I will be posting a new entry once per week, instead of twice weekly. The new post will be on Monday. On Thursdays, we will be featuring a previous post from our archives. We have a wonderful wealth of new readers that have joined us, and we look forward to their input on our previous posts. Starting in September, we'll resume our twice weekly Monday/Thursday new postings.

We hope you'll each find some ways to treat yourself a little bit of extra breathing room during the summer months! Give yourself some time to read (the brain candy kind), to try something new, to fully inhale (and exhale), to live in present time.  Dig down and retrieve that blissful summer feeling that you had as a kid, lie down and roll around in it. 

  :o]      "-]

Mary & Robin

The Power of the Independents

Hand selling. Word of mouth. These are worth their weight in gold in the publishing business. And it's just one of weapons the independents wield with brilliant success. In spite of discouraging numbers of books being sold in outlets other than bookstores, such as discount stores and warehouse stores, as well as the proliferation of big chains, the independents are still a force to be reckoned with. (And don't you forget it!) Having them on your side is golden, and it’s important to recognize exactly what a passionate committed group of bookselling professionals can do when they put their minds to it.

I’m sure many of you have heard of the book WATER FOR ELEPHANTS. But what you might not have heard of is the tremendous role the independent booksellers played in making this book the enormous success it was. Even better, the American Booksellers Association put together a case study of how this book came to market, and the series of steps that led to it’s phenomenal success.

It’s worth taking a look, for a whole host of reasons. Not the least of which is to see how the clout of the independents can propel a book straight to the top .

Avoiding Burn Out

One of the things we talk a lot about here on SVP is how introverts can make marketing work for them, how it’s important to find what you can do comfortably and let go of the rest. I was struck again this week by just how important—critically important—it is to find one’s comfort zone and stick with it.

I’m on an email list with some other kids’ authors and this week they started talking about burn out; as in, how incredibly burnt out they are. They are scrambling all the time, booking events and school visits, promoting their books, worried because they have to carry most of this load themselves, with their publishers providing little material—indeed, even moral—support. And they’re tired, and frustrated, and at this point in their career, they are beginning to question if it’s worth it and if writing is even something they want to be doing.

And there, in a nutshell, is why balance is so vital. It’s a juggling act every writer needs to perform, weighing the needs of a creative endeavor like writing against the business demands of publishing. The two do not mix well, sort of like putting ground up liver in your brownies.

But here’s the thing; for most writers, writing is an act that feeds our soul. The act of writing, while it may be horrendously difficult sometimes, fills some deep, creative need within us. This is a gift we’ve been given in this life, and we need to cherish that and nurture that. And that often means striking some kind of devil’s bargain with Publishing. Because the very last thing we want to happen is for Publishing to destroy our love of Writing. And it can happen.

Interestingly, just like in relationships, it is often the person who wants it the most who has the least power. The more desperate you are to be published, stay published, etc. the more subject to the random vagaries of publishing you will be.

Luckily, there are ways to structure your writing life to minimize this sense of desperation and burn out. One critical way is to find your comfort level with promotion, and do that and no more. You really don’t want to make yourself sick and run down from forcing yourself to do things associated with your writing career that you hate. Soon that negativity leaches over into your writing, which is the kiss of death.

One of my most beloved rules about writing is this: Protect the work. That is our job as writers, to protect our creative work from negative or corrosive forces. You have to come to terms with publishing and marketing in such a way that it protects your work; even, or maybe especially, from the rough and tumble affects of publishing.

You need to protect yourself, too. Step back from the edge, take a deep breath, remember cream rises, and that for most of us, it takes time to build a marketing presence in the book world.

Marketing to Bookstores

There were a couple of session on promotion that I attended at the SCBWI Conference that I wanted to talk about, but I think I’ll save that for next week as a recent link on our So Cal SCBWI listserv directed me to this booksellers blog post that I thought I’d like to discuss today.

It has some very good news for fellow Violets…

Here’s the link to the blog post entitled: The Cookie Theory: Author’s Secret Weapon or Crummy Mess?

I think every author and pre-published author should read it. Go ahead, I’ll wait.

Wasn’t that an incredible amount of helpful information on how to approach booksellers? The whole article was helpful, but there are a few things I’d like to discuss in terms of how they work well for us Shrinking Vis.

In rare moments of quiet, booksellers on the front lines share their war stories about off-putting cold calls, misguided interruptions, unpublished manuscripts about pets and grandchildren, and frustration at the number of would-be authors who want stores to carry their self-published books on consignment.

Here is a good example of one of the many benefits of being an introvert. We are very unlikely to do any of those things, preferring in fact, to have our wisdom teeth pulled.

ABC fields hundreds of calls from authors and publishers every year about who we are, and whether or not we can help them promote their books. (We can’t, other than providing a great network should they want to join.)

I think that last part is really important. Even an association of booksellers can’t really help us promote our books. Doesn’t that take the pressure off? I don’t need to come up with a scheme/trick/schtick/gimmick to get their attention, because they can’t help me with promotion anyway!

But they do have a network we can join. That doesn’t mean quick, drop by postings or massive promotional emails. What it does mean is feeling that independent booksellers selling childrens’ books is of passionate interest to you. Enough so that you’re willing to add one more organization to your busy life in order to support that cause.

More and more, authors in the current publishing climate think that a little guerrilla marketing might help them get ahead.

(I would be willing to bet dollars for donuts that an extrovert coined this phrase!)

They recognize that building relationships with booksellers is important. And they are right, but how to do it? What’s most effective?

One of their answers? WRITE A TRULY EXCELLENT BOOK.

Which relates back to Favorite Marketing Advice #1! Write the most amazing book you can. Spend extra time on it, push yourself and your craft. This is something all introverts can do!

But I’m adding some others, and hope other booksellers might chime in.

* Offer a day’s gift-wrapping backup during the holiday season.
* Put up posters for bookstore events.
* Help staff an out-of-store event.
* Help read and evaluate galleys.

Wow! Aren’t those some great ideas!! And those feel very doable to me; I’m offering to do something helpful and useful, the focus is no longer about me, but supporting stores I believe in! As an introvert, doesn’t that feel more doable to you?

And here’s some more good news listed under the five LEAST effective things you can do to work with independent bookstores:

* Mail a single flyer and then follow up with a hard sell either by phone or in person
* Make a cold call to a bookseller, and then monopolize their precious time with a lengthy sales pitch

Look at that! They hate when people do that! Which means we can permanently cross that off our I-Don’t-Want-To-But-I-Feel-Like-I-Have-To List. Oh, the freedom!

At the most basic level, creating successful and long-lasting relationships in the children’s book business is really about understanding and helping booksellers do their jobs better.

Which really, goes back to one of the introverts strengths that we discussed earlier: making deep, personal connections.

She then goes on to list five ways to make friends with booksellers (where again, she reiterates that written communication trumps a cold call—YES!!) and help them build their business, and I recommend you commit those to memory.

After all, if you’re a writer, chances are books are your passion, and you and the independent booksellers have much in common. And a much better introvert strategy than cold calling or hard selling is building on existing common passions.

And a big, fat THANK YOU to Kristen McLean and Carol Chittenden for telling us exactly what we needed (and wanted!) to hear!

The Good Karma Networking Approach

Most writers—and this applies especially to children’s writers—are pretty good at paying it forward. Because of the nature of our business, we tend to be very aware of how serendipity and luck factor in to our success. Most of us have been helped in some way by some writer somewhere who shared a tip, wrote a great how-to book, taught a class, or made an introduction. And while the idea of networking gives me a bad case of the collywobbles, saying thank you to people who have touched my writing life in some way feels very doable. In fact, good manners demands it.

So when I find myself trapped in an elevator or standing in the buffet line with a conference speaker, I realize Fate is giving me a perfect opportunity to say thank you. I shove my aforementioned collywobbles aside and force myself to let them know how fascinating, helpful, or insightful I found their talk. They are usually glad to hear it. Sometimes, more small conversation may ensue, or it may not. But either way I have made the effort to express my appreciation. I have also not asked for anything back, which is my preferred method of networking. Actually, it's about the only way I can deal with it.

I try to use this same approach with any “marketing” I do with my books. I am full of genuine gratitude for every librarian or bookseller that has ever handed one of my books to a child. I have nothing but admiration for those parents who scour bookstore shelves and review sites, looking for books that will delight their young, emerging readers. And I am absolutely beholden to any reader, young or old, who invests a few hours of their life in my books.

So I look for ways to express that gratitude. I am pretty much a sucker for anyone who asks for book donations,* and very rarely worry that it’s a con. People who are con artists have much bigger fish to fry than trying to snag a copy of my midlist title. And even if their intentions aren’t sincere, I’m willing to give them the benefit of the doubt. If they are willing to risk their personal integrity in pursuit of a free book, then I am more than willing to give them that free book. The rest is between them and their conscience. Plus, you just never know where or in whose hands that book will end up.

Not every author will agree with this approach, but I’ve been known to donate the majority of my author’s copies to libraries or schools around the country, as a form of karmic viral marketing. My goal is to attract readers, and I can’t do that if no one has ever heard of the book. And extra copies sitting on my home bookshelf aren’t really helping the cause.

So if you’re staring at your stack of author’s copies, feeling guilty because you haven’t used those to promote yourself effectively, consider donating them to school or public libraries around the country. More than ever, these vital institutions are strapped for funds, and it will be a way to get your name and title in front of those with buying power. Your kind gesture may just garner you a sale when your next book comes out. And if not, you at least know it’s being read, which is the whole point, really.

So think about it, anyway. It’s painless, it’s easy, and it makes you feel good afterwards.

*This confession may rise up and bite me on the backside if I suddenly end up on scammer's lists nationwide.