Anatomy of a PR Campaign

Valerie Britton-Wilson reports in regarding the promotion of her excellent book “A Touch of India”

You asked to hear news of promotional stuff - I’m not sure how much info you want but I’m attaching here all the successful exertions of Wendy McWilliams - it’s her ‘Media Report’ doc and has more than you need - but if you scroll down from page 18 onwards you will find pretty much everything. She was very good indeed.

But even so, book sales generated during her efforts nowhere near covered costs. Hiring a PR person, even at Wendy’s more moderate rates, is expensive - I put a cap on it at the outset and would recommend others do the same as the chargeable hours mount up v quickly.

I still have not got a handle on FaceBook or blogging though I have tried. (I even paid a teenager for a few hours of lessons!)

I’ve got a few book groups and speaking events coming up so that will help.

I’m so glad I put a gmail address on the back cover because the biggest pleasure for me has been feedback from strangers.

Here are a few of them:

Love the photos. It's interesting, the photo of your mother on the back cover does make her look perfectly beautiful, but in other shots, I can see what you mean, that she was lively and appealing, rather than classically beautiful. There's a photo of your parents both laughing, where she looks absolutely irresistible.

All the threads are fascinating. The bios of your parents, and your feelings for them. The extraordinary story of the Indian great-grandmother, the poignancy that you could find out no more about her, the illusiveness, some care and love for her which was good, but so removed from the record. Your impressions of India are vivid and thoughtful. Thoughts on Indian culture, politics, history all extremely interesting. Bits of history always just what I needed; never felt like information dump.The stories from people you knew in India. All those threads are very well woven together, which is very impressive and effective. Very difficult to pull that off, I would have thought.

It is intriguing – did you find this disconcerting? – that her writing style is somewhat similar to yours. Voices in families are often similar. Great quotes from all the primary sources. The letter from the fiancee is utterly heart-breaking. Can he really have written hundreds of thousands of words to her? All buried in the jungle.

Your relationship with your parents, your scattering of their ashes, is very moving.

MOTI was a remarkable achievement, especially since neither you nor Sue really had any experience in fashion design, let alone the business. It was perfectly pitched – wearable, flattering, but really interesting and stylish design. Pearl is such a nice name. I've been waiting for it to come back into fashion, but that doesn't seem to have happened.

I found A Touch of India such a compelling read and enjoyed every page. I wanted the story to go on forever and saved the last few chapters to read very quietly by myself at home.
When I arrived at the part which mentioned Pearl receiving Woody's letter I could feel my eyes brimming with tears which did not stop until well after the Postscript: Note to Mabel.
I commend your courage in writing about your family with such honesty and sharing with readers your personal thoughts and feelings.

I just have to tell you how much I am enjoying your book. I ordered it from the local library because I thought it looked interesting but I had no idea that it was in part the biography of Mr Britton. It is so beautifully written. I love the humour. I have not visited India but your descriptions tell me that you have a very deep love of the country.

I knew your dad in his capacity with music education in Brisbane. I had asked different people about him some time ago but nobody knew where he lived at that time.

I found your book in the Hill of Content Bookshop the Saturday before lockdown, and I read it from cover to cover at Pellegrini's Coffee Shop over the next two hours. I too have had a long association with India, and found it very evocative with many similar experiences.

Audiobook production by Australian Narrators

As recommended by an author client, this audiobook production agency would be worth considering for those thinking about trying an audio format for their book. The site’s blurb states that:

“Jacqui & Brenton Edgecombe are Australian audiobook narrators and recording professionals ready to create an ACX standard reading of your book  for distribution via all audiobook platforms. We look forward to bringing your words and your story to life for those who prefer to enjoy their books audibly.

All work recorded in our Adelaide-based home studio. We use Rode Mics, Logic Pro recording softwater and Izotrope RX7 for audio analysis.”

https://www.australiannarrators.com/

Streamline Publishing presents Events for Authors

Bookings are now open for a series of author-centric events held by Streamline Publishing here in Melbourne. Located above the Eltham bookstore.

  • June 19: Jackie French AM, well-loved author for all ages, wombat whisperer, guest TV gardener and conservationist, will talk to us via private Zoom on ‘Writing for Children’. Entry to this Zoom event includes a Jackie French paperback title of your choice and light refreshments.

  • June 26: Bookseller Meera Govil: ‘How readers, writers, illustrators, publishers and booksellers can create meaningful books’.

  • July 3: Editor Cathy Oliver: ‘What makes the best Non-fiction books for children?’

More events to come in August:

August 7 ‘Publishing options in 2022’.
Traditional, Self, Indie? Open access? What do these terms mean and which is right for you? What costs are typical?

August 14 ‘The publishing process’.
From the final first manuscript to a finished book: what do editors do? Editorial and production schedules and costs. How much control will you have over your work?

August 21 ‘What do publishers want in submissions?’
Tips and some models.

Cultivating Superfans from Reedsy

Reedsy has an interesting newsletter item on superfans. I cannot find a link to it, so here’s a bit a text dump, with apologies to Ricardo Fayet. Make sure you sign up for their newsletter.

So if you missed it, here’s the huge publishing event of this week: two days ago, science fiction and fantasy author Brandon Sanderson launched a Kickstarter campaign for four secret novels… which has already raised over 18 million dollars in less than 72 hours!

“Great, but how is that relevant to me?” you may ask. “I’m not a NYT bestselling author who’s been dubbed as the new J.R.R. Tolkien in epic fantasy. I don’t have millions of followers. There’s no way I could pull that off.”

And you’d be right: he’s probably the only author (or even creative in general) who can break Kickstarter like he just did. But that aside, what is truly interesting about this campaign is that he didn’t achieve this thanks to his millions of followers. So far, his campaign has been backed “only” by 74,000 readers, meaning that each backer pledged $250 (!!) on average.

And this is really the key here: the success of this campaign largely comes down to the way that Sanderson has cultivated, over the years, a legion of superfans. Fans who, in other words, are ready to pay hundreds of dollars to get four premium hardbacks, merch, book boxes, etc. And that is definitely a lesson for all of us here.

It’s not all about numbers

You don’t need hundreds of thousands of readers to make a living writing. You might only need a few thousand. 

Most of the highest-earning indie authors I know write in a specific niche (or two). As such, they’re unlikely to reach a wide, general readership and become famous like Brandon Sanderson or J.K. Rowling. However, they have become prominent enough in their niche to have thousands of readers ready to buy every single book they release.

Think about it this way: you’ll earn just as much money from selling one book to 500,000 readers, as you would selling 25 books to 20,000 readers — and the latter is usually easier to achieve for indie authors (provided you’re prolific enough to write those 25 books, of course).

But it doesn’t stop there: if you’re able to build this kind of loyal following, you can start offering them premium, high-value items — like limited edition hardbacks, signed copies, book boxes, merchandise, etc. Which is exactly what Sanderson is doing with this Kickstarter (hence the $250 average pledge).

So how do you create such “superfans” in the first place?

Cultivating your superfan readers

Write amazing books

First, and most importantly, you need to write amazing books. The kind of books that pull readers in so much that they’ll immediately want to buy the next one — whether that’s because they loved your story, your characters, your voice, or the information in the book.

Of course, you then actually need to have that “next book” to sell to them. Which leads me to…

Be prolific

Think about the authors that you, as a reader, love the most. How many of their books have you read? I bet it’s more than one. Because here’s the thing: it’s hard to fall in love with an author after just one book. You might fall in love with the book, but not with the author. 

That’s why it’ll also take more than just books to sway readers all the way. You’ll need a proper relationship with your audience.

Build a relationship

The easiest way to achieve this is usually through a mailing list. Of course, you can also leverage social media for that — like Sanderson did with his YouTube channel. The end goal is that you want to make them feel part of a community, let them further into your world (both fictional and personal), and interact with them.

Yes, interact. It’s not enough to just send them information and content. You also need to be approachable.

Be approachable

Before the pandemic, Brandon Sanderson spent a third of his time traveling to cons and tours to meet his fans, give talks, hang out with them, sign books, etc. And guess what? Readers love that, because it feels like they have a special connection with the author.

Now, you may not be able to do book tours or speak at cons like that, but you can be approachable online. Answer emails, respond to comments on social media, engage in conversations, etc. Heck, look at Sanderson (yes, him again) on Reddit: he responds to people on a daily basis — which is exactly how authors should interact with readers on social media.

Thinking you don’t have the time to answer every single email? Weigh the time one email takes you against how surprised and delighted the reader will be to find out that you actually took the time to answer. That one minute you spent will have earned you a superfan for life.

Of course, all this isn’t easy. It takes time, dedication, positivity, and probably a bit of luck. But it very much is possible to replicate Brandon Sanderson’s success on a smaller scale. 

An Authors Report — A Winter Sowing

Adrian Caesar is a talented and experienced writer, the author of: Novels: The White: Last Days in the Antarctic Journeys of Scott and Mawson 1911-1913 (1999), The Blessing (2015), Collected poetry: Hunger Games (1996), Life Sentences (1998), The June Fireworks: New and Selected Poems (2001), High Wire (2005), Dark Cupboards New Rooms (2014).

He reports on the recent publication of A Winter Sowing under the Arcadia imprint with Australian Scholarly Publishing:

”I’m happy to report I’ve had some fabulous responses to A Winter Sowing in the form of twenty-odd personal emails, texts etc. Someone mentioned it on the ABC Book Club website and a small book club down here read it. All this is great, but it isn’t as yet translating into sales. I’m finding the contrast between reader response and sales frustrating but it was the same story with my previous book. My wife and I will plug on doing what we can. A couple of bookshops are interested in hosting events in late Feb and March and we’re thinking of hiring a student to do some marketing work via social media. I’ll keep you posted. I’m not giving up. I’m learning to live with the idea of ‘fit audience, though few’!”

Why Do Publishers Still Use Half Title Pages?

Though somewhat rarer than they used to be, half title (or bastard) pages sometimes appear at the beginning of books, followed by a blank verso page and then the full title. The practice of half title pages arose as a means of protecting the full title page from the wear and tear of the printing and binding processes. Of course, an alternative solution would be to simply add a blank page, and indeed, some book designers do exactly that. When books have to lose a couple of pages to fit into a certain page signature, the half title is the first thing to go. Personally, I think some publishers like the extended throat clearing involved in blank pages, half titles, full titles, endless prefatory pages and so on because it distinguishes their work of literature from other less exalted works that get down to business within half a dozen pages. It is a bit like those high art movies that start by listing all the nested organisations responsible for the production of that particular masterpiece — the list is sometimes startlingly long.