CanWrite! 2013: Day 1 publicity and marketing sessions

As promised yesterday, I’m going to talk about the good, bad, and downright ugly.

To start with …

The Good

I’ll start with Vikki Vansickle’s Mapping your Market presentation.

Vikki was enthusiastic, energetic, and clearly loves what she does, on both sides of the board.  Vikki is an author and a marketer, recently moving to Penguin Books (congratulations!).

Vikki has published four middle-grade (MG) novels since 2010.

• So what do you do when you get published?
• Celebrate!  Tell EVERYONE.  You never know who your champion will be.  Word of mouth is still king.
• Do some research (yes, it’s important in marketing too).  How do you find the books you like?  Work outward: How does someone like you in Houston, Whitehorse, or Harrison Hot Springs find the books she likes to read?  That’s where you want to go, to get in front of the wave.
• Who wants to read your book?  Who needs to read your book?
• Comparative novels (comps) are critical.  It doesn’t even need to be a novel, as long as it’s in popular culture.  “If you like X, you’ll love XXX!”  “It’s Dirty Dancing without the dirty ”  “It’s Looking at the Moon meets The Summer I Turned Pretty.”
• Who is your ideal reader?  Define her in every detail.  Who are your potential readers (again work outward)?
• Your elevator pitch should be about the length of a Tweet.  You have to tell people what your novel is about in pithy, taut, engaging sentences.
• Be prepared to wear different hats.
• Instagram is big with kids.  Facebook’s where their parents are (ew!).
• Goodreads is great for more mature readers.
• Writers Cafe (dot) org can help you with critique, beta readers, contests, conferences, etc.
• Find your niche and identify specialized groups that will help you reach your readers.
• The Ontario Blog Squad will set up blog tours.  6 blogs.  You create the content.
• Twitter giveaways.  People love free stuff!  Specify Canada only.  Make sure they enter using a Retweet (RT) and including a hashtag specific to you, your book, or blog.  This helps to spread the word to all of your participant’s followers (and so on, and so on).

The Bad

I won’t tell you the guy’s name, or who he works for, but he’s a publicist.  I thought a publicist would be better spoken, honestly.

His session had some good information, but he was almost too relaxed, too casual.  At times I thought he was bored with the topic.  At times he went off on tangents or mumbled.  He decided to wing it.  He didn’t have a plan.

• Print ads are not an effective use of funds.
• Look for web magazines that have “up fronts” (= previews) especially if they have a print tie in.
• A platform is not essential for fiction writers, but is absolutely key for non-fiction.
• In fiction, the publisher may work with the writer to build the platform.
• Build your relationship with your publisher.
• A P/L or profit /loss sheet may determine what will be expected.  Analysis determines what the most appropriate action or angle may be.
• Do you have a business or profession related to your book?
• Books = cultural entertainment product.
• You have to engage your readership on social media (SoMe).
• Some publishers spend more $$ on authors than others.  This will be different in the States.
• If a publicist is assigned, it’s usually for 3 months.  On-shelf promotion (during the initial sales period of the book).
• Marketing is different for every book.
• Book trailers are too expensive to be effective.
• Applications (apps) are even more inefficient and more expensive.

The Downright Ugly

One thing that emerged early on in the session and coloured the remainder of it was that this publicist works for a small imprint of a larger publisher and in non-fiction (politics, sports, world events).  His clients are men and of the imprints authors only a third were women.

He made an off-hand remark about the ladies liking their beach reads.  Fatal mistake when speaking to an audience of 90% women.

To be fair, I have to say that I don’t think the young man realized that he’d just insulted his audience unforgivably.  Even after several women from the audience spoke up and made some very salient points, I’m not sure our publicist got it, or if he did, he was so scared, he didn’t know how to save himself with any grace.

I think it has to do with the publishing environment he works in every day, his mentors, his colleagues.  I think the sexism is so ingrained, so rampant in his sector of the industry, that he wasn’t fully conscious of the prejudices he promoted.

For the remainder of the conference, our publicist was the topic of conversation, and not in a good way.

It immediately brought to mind Chuck Wendig’s posts on sexism and misogyny in publishing.

• http://terribleminds.com/ramble/2013/06/10/25-things-to-know-about-sexism-misogyny-in-writing-publishing/
• http://terribleminds.com/ramble/2013/06/11/challenging-responses-to-sexism-and-misogyny/
• http://terribleminds.com/ramble/2013/06/12/why-men-should-speak-out-about-sexism-misogyny-and-rape-culture/
• http://terribleminds.com/ramble/2013/06/19/the-silent-majority-fear-of-sexism-is-a-misogynists-best-friend/

It’s not a problem that has an easy answer.

Tomorrow: I’ll be moving onto the Day 2 panel and session.