Posts Tagged ‘marketing’

Career Planning in the Wild, Wild West

November 19th, 2012 | Agents, Career, Conferences, Proposals, Publishing, Self-Publishing, Trends | 22 Comments

 

While on an agent’s panel at ACFW in September, I sat next to Lee Hough, one of the smartest and hardest working agents in the business. While we all fielded the typical questions we get as panelists, someone asked a question about the current state of affairs in publishing, and how agents are faring.

 I tend to take a positive, entrepreneurial, and philosophical approach when answering questions about the challenges of publishing.

Lee, however, hit the mark when he said “It’s like the wild, wild west out there right now.” His summation about the new landscape of publishing has really stuck with me. In fact, it’s a new constant on the landscape of my daily work life these days — right alongside MacGregor Literary’s long-standing company philosophy that “good is always better than fast.”

As positive as I try to remain, I’ll admit, it’s felt exceptionally difficult to place books and find homes for authors these past few months. Even with the successes I’ve enjoyed this year in spite of it all, it feels like I’m on more uneven ground than ever. And I know agents aren’t the only ones who feel this way.

Marketers are constantly scrambling to orient themselves to what it takes to get readers to buy in a noisy online environment. Sales teams are faced with succeeding in spite of the literal crumbling of their brick & mortar customer base. Publicists are being asked to do more with less. Editors are overworked. Authors are no longer just invited by publishers to help market their books, but are expected to do so. In fact more and more, the strength of an author’s proposal is weighed as much for the type and number of readers they bring to the table as it is for the quality of their writing. Maybe more.

Top that off with the consideration that authors are not only competing with other authors for shelf space, but with the reality that booklovers are so easily lured away from the rewards of leisure reading by endorphin fixes that pummeling pigs with birds, or outrunning evil demon monkeys can deliver far more instantly.

If I think about it too hard, it can start to feel fruitless to spend time and energy building a serious novelist’s career in a time when e-books have flooded the market and caused so much confusion over what is good and what resembles cow dung. But, I have faith in my ability to help sort out the good from the bad for publishers and authors, and I figure that’s worth something. A lot, actually.

Still, I’m sure I’m not the only agent who feels like it’s us in the hot seat these days. We’re constantly having to urge our authors who want to go the traditional publishing route to be patient and wait for the right timing. It’s not always easy to encourage authors to continue to wait for decisions from acquisition boards – decisions that seem to be taking so much longer than ever – when the seemingly instant brass ring of self-publishing is flashing in the corner of our collective eye.

E-publishers have an edge, of course, when it comes to delivering content at rapid speed. But I believe it’s the new frontier for them as well. In the end – finding readers and making the grade still comes down to effective marketing, word of mouth, and content.

The good news on this front is that where we’ve tended to take an either/or approach, I do think the two are starting to merge. I’m excited to be talking with publishers about how authors can do both successfully. We’re talking more and more about how market savvy, and marketing savvy, authors can help publishers lead the way.

While I continue to take the long view and keep my eye on the horizon, as we always try to do here at MacGregor Literary, I’ll admit, Lee’s perspective gave me a huge pick-me-up when I needed it, and actually has me riding a little higher in the saddle these days.

Go ahead. Call me an optimist. (Or, I suppose you could call me a cowgirl. Wouldn’t hurt my feelings — I’ve got a hand tooled leather belt with my name on it, a silver buckle, pointy black boots, and everything.)

I’m excited about authors who are in this for the long haul and are willing to ride on rough ground. This new territory – Lee’s “wild, wild west” is most definitely not for the faint of heart – and, honestly, that suits me just fine.

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Thursdays with Amanda: Marketing in Your Home Town

November 8th, 2012 | Marketing and Platforms | 18 Comments

Amanda Luedeke Literary AgentAmanda Luedeke is a literary agent with MacGregor Literary. Every Thursday, she posts about growing your author platform. You can follow her on Twitter @amandaluedeke or join her Facebook group to stay current with her wheelings and dealings as an agent.

Alright. Confession time. Before I could write this post I had to go watch “Jenny From the Block” music video by Jennifer Lopez. Because whenever I think about marketing locally, that song starts playing over and over in my head.

But I’ll spare you from having to watch it, unless you really want to (WORTH IT), as I try to collect my thoughts and be eloquent and practical without busting into rhyme.

J-Lo’s song is about keeping it real. Not letting fame and fortune change the fact that she came from humble beginnings. Being the same person now (despite the rocks that she got) that she was then.

But I think in a backwards way, that theme could also be applied to book marketing. The Internet, though flashy and trendy and popular, shouldn’t give us license to live a double life. In other words, it’s so easy to go online and be a strong marketer, and then turn it all completely off the moment we step away from Facebook. It’s like we go from “Famous Author” to “Car Pool Driver” or “PTA Member” or “The Person Who Always Brings Cookies to Work” or other lackluster personas that follow us in our day-to-day lives. When in fact, being an author pursuing the dream is actually quite extraordinary.

So let’s pretend that I’m an author with a book.

I live in a city of 250,000. While I’m online, trying frantically to find people who enjoy reading, there are about a dozen library branches in my city. Not only that, but there are at least a dozen bookstores. Furthermore, my contact with the city goes beyond those typical venues.

  • I go to a salon, a dentist office, a doctor’s office, and a church.
  • I know people involved in clubs and organizations that cover everything from Junior League to Easter Seals.
  • I frequent two different Starbucks and one Dunkin Donuts, and though I don’t have go-to bars that I frequent, I’m beginning to think it wouldn’t hurt for the sake of promotion.
  • I’ve held five different jobs here, meaning I have strong relationships with lots of businessmen and women.
  • I went to college here, so though I don’t have a strong family network, I have professors, classmates and more within mere miles of me.
  • I know people in the radio, print, and news industries here.

So imagine if I mobilized these businesses, clubs, organizations, individuals and networks. Imagine if I got them excited about my book–if I constructed some sort of incentive to get them buzzing. (Truth be told, many of them will be incentivized just by knowing you’re an author).

Imagine if I viewed the 250,000 people living in Fort Wayne, Indiana, the same way I view readers on the Internet.

An author I know (and one that i now work with), epublished her first book on her own. To promote it, she turned to Fort Wayne. In one year she sold 20,000 copies. It just goes to show how a little hometown connection can get people excited.

So as you’re making your marketing plan and devising your promotional strategy, don’t forget where you come from. The connections you already have. The people who already love you. Because “hometown hero” isn’t just a term for high school athletes and soldiers (though I’d argue the soldier would be the most fitting of the title). It can be for authors, too.

What local resources do you have that could help you with promotions?

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