New You Can Use
Authors Must Promote Themselves
(or ask Smarketing to help them with it!)
By Hillel Italie
Associated Press Writer digital
Thursday, March 7, 2002; 4:52 PM
NEW YORK
Nancy Newman took five years to write her first novel and 10
years to get it published. But when "Disturbing the Peace"
was finally released this winter, her life only became harder.
Although she has been
assigned a publicist from HarperCollins, the author spends at least
40 hours a week promoting the book herself. She has made hundreds
of phone calls and sent hundreds of e-mails. She has arranged readings
and conducted her own research.
"I have not been
a writer lately, I've been a publicist," Newman says.
Newman's experience is
part of a trend highlighted by recent reports that David A. Vise,
author of "The Bureau and the Mole," purchased more than
15,000 copies of his book from Barnesandnoble.com.
With thousands of titles
coming out each year, just getting someone to notice your book can
be as challenging as writing it.
"It really does
highlight the problems writers have getting their books sold,"
says Robin Davis Miller, who as counsel to the Authors Guild has
led many workshops on self-publicity.
"It used to be authors
would write and publishers would package and sell. ... That's absolutely
no longer the case."
These days, writers often
set up their own tours, compile mailing lists and help make sure
copies of their books are available at readings. Newman, whose novel
features a woman's journey to find her birth mother, contacted hundreds
of adoption organizations, and, in April, will speak at an adoption
conference in Philadelphia.
"HarperCollins has
been wonderful, but the big publishers don't have the time and money
to do everything themselves," Newman says.
Thanks to the Internet,
authors increasingly are using Web sites to promote, sell and even
publish their work. The most notable case has been Stephen King,
who self-published the novella "The Plant," serializing
it in electronic installments.
M.J. Rose, a columnist
for Wired.com, self-published her novel, "Lip Service,"
in 1998 after she was turned down by 12 publishing houses. She not
only set up a Web site, she persuaded over 50 Internet sites to
review or excerpt the book, purchased ads and gave away hundreds
of free copies in both electronic and paper form
"Authors walk this
fine tightrope. We have to balance ourselves between promoting ourselves
in a nice way and doing something outrageous. We're all just trying
to get some attention."
"The whole world
is more aware of promotion, publicity and marketing and authors
have become more savvy about it.
© 2002 The
Associated Press
*Note. Smarketing
now has a book publicist as part of the team. Call for more information
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