A Lesson in Literary Humbleness
In the midst of running the Guys Lit Wire Book Fair for Ballou High School in Washington DC, I am reminded again just what it means to be humble. I've done this four times now for Ballou (and three times before for other schools) and while we started out with a bang a few years ago, it is now a vast struggle to cut through the collective social media noise and get noticed. Based on twitter retweets, for roughly every 1,000 followers one book is bought. When you add blog posts to that, I imagine the number is more like 10,000 followers/readers for every single purchase. It could require even more; I have no way of knowing.
This year has been the hardest yet for the book fair. We are way down in books bought - only a couple hundred this spring and not even 50 yet this week. Harder still has been persuading folks to spread the word in blogs, facebook and twitter. Maybe it is election fever gripping us but while people like the idea of a book fair like this one, getting them to move towards concrete action of posting (let alone purchasing) is very difficult. I am not competing with other charitable efforts on this score but simply indifference which, as we all know, is the toughest competitor of all.
All of this has made me reconsider my own book sales in a different light. There is a lot of talk with publishers in the initial flurry of a book's release and yet it quickly becomes apparent for most of us authors that other than a lot of marketing emails there isn't much else that's going to happen. (Unless you have a big push from your pub but that is the exception not the rule.) If you want to do readings/signings then you'll need to set them up and get there on your own. If you want to participate in a festival then you need to make the contacts on your own and get there. And if you want to move beyond the standard marketing destinations (like aviation museums/college classes for me) then you're really on your own in terms of making contacts and persuading the people in power that your book is worth their time and attention. Every new author thinks the world will pause when their book is released, which is okay, and every new author learns that, well, the world never pauses. Necessary humble pie is eaten that's for sure.
Where I'm sitting now with MAP, the first printing of 6,000 copies has sold out and a second print run of 1,000 came out in July. The paperback is due in May. I am delighted with the 6,000 sales and determined to sellout the 2nd print run as well. (That's part of the impetus for the outreach to colleges and museums - I hired an independent publicist to help with all this and she's been great.) But what I have learned from marketing MAP is the same thing I've learned from the GLW Book Fair - cutting through the noise is enormously difficult and if you don't keep the long game in sight every single second then you will be easily defeated.
It's one book at a time folks, one single book.
There are 435 books on the Ballou wish list at Powells. I do hope we sellout as I know the kids are watching the list, I know the district has cut budgets yet again, and I know how very important this library is to the school. (Have you seen the pictures on the GLW post of what goes on in the library? Check them out!) But the most significant thing for me about this entire experience is the perspective it has given me on my own book's sales. If it is this crazy hard to get booklovers to buy a book for a school library with established need, then persuading them to take a chance on a debut author they've never heard of writing about Alaska is truly monumental. All you can do, in either case, is try.
And stay humble and grateful for every forward step you take toward your goal.
