Don’t Just Write Your Books – Market Them!
By Judy Gruen

I’ve just spent the better part of a morning doing the boring yet necessary job of copying e-mail addresses of people who read one of my columns in someone else’s newsletter, and have asked me to subscribe them to my own, semi-monthly humor column.  I’m delighted, of course, to have had so many enthusiastic responses, though this work doesn’t pay, at least not directly.  The e-mail column I write for free will only make money if I turn around and sell them to paying publications, which I try to do regularly. But the column is a marketing tool to help sell my book, Carpool Tunnel Syndrome: Motherhood as Shuttle Diplomacy.  In January 2003, when my next book, Till We Eat Again: Confessions of a Diet Dropout, is published, the column will do double-duty.

Fact is, while I write humor, the marketing work I do is serious business. No writer who isn’t already a literary star such as John Grisham or Mary Higgins Clark can expect to turn in a manuscript, no matter how gleaming the prose, and sit back and wait for royalty checks. It amazes me how many people still don’t realize that the real hard work of being an author begins AFTER the book is finished!  In a country where more than 75,000 books are estimated to be published each year (a number that keeps rocketing upward because of POD and self-publishing), what kind of chance do any of us have to have our own get noticed and sold? 

Even if only a small fraction of this number, say, 5,000 books a year, were published, our chances for success would still be slim. Bottom line: It’s one thing to write a book. It’s quite another to sell it. I have many friends who have written books. Most of these authors have invested little or no time in helping to sell their books. Not surprisingly, most of their books have died on the vine. I know that even my little e-mail humor column is just a tiny drop in the vast Internet ocean of information (overload) out there, jockeying for position. But I need to do what I can to help my books move and to build my name as a writer.

If I had a dime for every contact I have made, letter I have written, e-mail I have sent, or any other attempt I have made to network and push my book, I could go to Tahiti for a week and bring friends along as well! Marketing books takes time, effort and persistence. Marketing needs to be viewed as an essential component of life as an author. That includes writing e-mail newsletters or columns, giving readings, doing book signings, and looking for print publications and Internet sites (including web sites hosted by organizations that would have an interest in your book topic) that will publish your work.

In general, major media outlets don’t like authors to directly cold call and ask for reviews, because they will immediately suspect a self-publishing venture. And because so many self-published books look and are awful, this can be the kiss of death to your proposal. They are far more likely to respond to a professional publicist instead. Believe me, I learned a lot of this the hard way, and I also learned that there are exceptions to the rule. In October, 2000, I self-published my first book, Carpool Tunnel Syndrome, with a partner who was a graphic designer and typesetter. 

Neither of us had published a book before. We found immediately that  publishing entailed arduous administrative duties, not the least of which was establishing vendor relationships with the wholesalers to the book trade – many of whom had little interest in carrying a one-book publisher. My job as publisher became far more difficult when my partner backed out of our deal. The rest of the work all fell on me like a ton of bricks. I easily spent full days just working on promotion, shipping, invoicing, and other paperwork for a book that was a long way off from making any money.

However, I believed in my book. I knew it was well written, funny, and well designed. Because I had achieved some successes with marketing and sales all by myself, I was able to attract Champion Press, who republished “Carpool” in April, 2002, giving it a new lease on life. I also signed a contract with Champion to produce two more books, one of which, Till We Eat Again, is in galleys as I write. It has been an enormous relief to stop being a publisher and to have the staff of Champion Press doing the yeoman’s work of getting letters out, contacting media, dealing with wholesalers, dealing with returned books and even administering my e-mail column for me. 

Still, having worn the publisher’s hat, I know how important it is for me to continue to work with them and to put my best efforts out there to help sell the books. For example, I always pass along marketing and media contacts that would benefit my books. I help write promo copy for my books. I drive far distances for book signings that they have set up for me, and it’s my job to be as cheerful when I read to groups of three as I have when speaking to groups of 350 --  and I’ve done both!

I said before that most major media outlets don’t want to hear directly from authors, and that’s true.  Still, I sold an excerpt from “Carpool” to Woman’s Day magazine and also sold 2,500 books to Scholastic Book Fairs for distribution in their annual book fairs around the country. The Woman’s Day sale led to an exciting chain reaction, when an editor at Ladies Home Journal (who had just rejected some work I had sent them) saw the Woman’s Day excerpt and contacted me, asking me if I was interested in an assignment!  I have since sold two pieces to LHJ and three for Woman’s Day.

Since I know editors at both magazines now, I know that my work gets serious consideration when I submit to them. I also have these impressive clips to send to editors at other major magazines when I submit queries or essays there.

As with almost anything else in life, persistence pays off.   Your chance of any one of them resulting in a “hit” may be small, but you have to keep putting yourself out there. You can’t let yourself get discouraged. If you do, people will sense it, and your chance of making a “sale” of an article, excerpt or review will be shot. If you believe in your book enough to have written it, you must believe in it enough to help sell it after it’s born. In the past year, I’ve also been asked to speak to large groups, and was a presenter at the most recent Erma Bombeck Humor Writer’s Workshop at the University of Dayton. In November, I will speak at a major book festival in St. Louis.

Truth is, we never know what may result from our marketing efforts.  All we can do, and must do, is keep plugging away out there!

Read an excerpt from Judy Gruen’s Carpool Tunnel Syndrome at http://www.championpress.com. Click on “Authortown,” then on “Carpool Tunnel Syndrome.” E-mail the author at judy@championpress.com. 

Recommended Resources:

1,001 Ways To Market Your Books by John Kremer

Jump Start Your Book Sales: A Money-Making Guide for Authors, Independent Publishers and Small Presses by Marilyn Ross, Tom Ross

The Complete Guide to Self-Publishing: Everything You Need to Know to Write, Publish, Promote and Sell Your Own Book (3rd edition) by Tom Ross, Marilyn Ross

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