lydamorehouse | (Reply)

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Book promotion and how (and IF) it works is one of those endless conversations authors have among themselves. There are, I think, two things that are sure bets. One you and I already mentioned is book reviews. For the most part, NY Publishing houses are in charge of making sure your galley/ARC goes to the right places. I should note that I had at least one of my books not get a galley. I had to scramble to try to make sure that reviewers got something. Not everyone is considered worthy of the in-house cost it takes to print up a galley. Without a pre-version of your book, sometimes you're stuck sending out author's copies to reviewers on your own dime AFTER the book has come out.

I think, in fact, that it's a result of this kind of laissez faire attitude a lot of publishers have towards the ONE SURE-FIRE way of getting readers to be aware of your next book, that sent authors into a tizzy of "hustle."

I kind of blame Scalzi (whom I know and like) for the idea that authors can build their own audiences via a clever blog. Whatever is an outlier in terms of its success and it started long before Scalzi started publishing. But, there's no doubt that if you get one of the coveted Big Idea spots, you can get a boost. (Though I don't know that it helped Resurrection Code all that much.)

This is why at this point, I kind of think "magic" is the actual answer for what sells books. When Archangel Protocol came out I busted my butt doing all the self-promotion things I could possibly think of. Fallen Host got remaindered right before it made the preliminary Nebula Ballot. I remember running into Penguin's sales rep at the Midwest Booksellers Conference and asking him about that. He just shrugged and said, "Your books sell great... REGIONALLY." From what I could tell, that meant that the only promotional stuff I'd been doing that worked was the bookstore signings (I didn't get a tour, so I booked myself anywhere I could drive to reasonably) and convention appearances. (And MAYBE the local press articles I managed to get.)

I did NOTHING for my romances and they out sold my science fiction by leaps and bounds.

Magic, I'm telling you. MAGIC.