Book is the New Gift

Turkeys and cornucopias are coming down, twinkly trees and fat dudes in red suits are going up, and they're piping Christmas music into every elevator in the country. This can only mean one thing, gentle readers: the holiday season is coming! And you've only got twenty-five more shopping days before Christmas. What on earth can you get your family, friends, enemies, co-workers, bookies, &c that says "hey, I didn't spend a ton of money on you, but that's okay because I clearly put a lot of thought into this gift and, check it out, I didn't make it myself"?

The answer: books!

Yes, books. It's no secret that books are great gifts: you can get a lot of hardcovers (as well as most trade paperbacks and any mass market paperback) for under $20, you can get something for pretty much everyone you know all in the same store/on the same website, and you indirectly finance the existence of great industry blogs like this one! Everyone wins. Especially you, when you see your five-year-old nephew's face light up on Christmas/Chanukah/Kwanzaa eve upon opening a copy of Vanity Fair's Proust Questionnaire. You can't put a price tag on moments like that.

NPR has put together a list of the best gift books of 2009, Laura over at Combreviations has posted on Penguin's list of books to give and get, and Big Brother Fearless Leader Amazon has some ideas for you as well.

So Friends, Roman (-à-clef reader)s, (No) Country (For Old) Men (fans), lend me your ears: write, write, write! And, once you're done writing, go buy some more books—your friends/family need you, your economy needs you, and dang it, I need you, too. At the end of the day, you're the ones paying my salary, and I'd be lying if I said I didn't have a vested interest in your continuing to buy books. That said, I'm off to my favorite independent book store—I've got a long list this year and, somehow, less time to complete it in.

Tallyho!

Rerun Week: Part 5 of 5

Episode: "No! Yes! No!: The Schizophrenia of Sell-Through"
Originally aired: Monday, July 13th, 2009

In another post, I mentioned the concept of sell-through. Simply put, sell-through is a percentage representing the number of books an account sells relative to how many it bought (books sold/books bought from the publisher x 100). Logically, low sell-through is bad, decent sell-through is good, and perfect (100%) sell-through is great, right?

Wrong.

It's a little more complicated than that. For the national chains, 70% sell-through is generally regarded as the floor for "good sales." Much less than that and it's clear the publisher, rep, and buyer agreed on too high an initial order, and the publisher will then suffer substantial returns (more on those in a future post). 80% sell-through is very good. Once you get toward 90% and higher, however, the tide turns; as sell-through approaches 100%, it becomes clear that demand is outstripping supply, and it's likely that a lot of sales are lost to other retailers (other chains, independents, Amazon, &c) because the account is out of stock. In this case, the publisher, rep, and buyer agreed on too low an initial order.

(Keep in mind that for most debut authors, the majority of stores at a given account rarely have more than one or two copies on-hand at any time. There are about 500 Borders stores and about 700 B&N stores nationwide.)

Someone recently asked me why it's such a disaster for a book to have too low an initial. (Having too high an initial is clearly a problem—the publisher will have to take the books back.) Too low can be worse, however, due to missed sales; it takes a significant amount of time for frontlist reorders to be processed, shipped to an account's warehouses, distributed from the warehouses to the stores, unpacked at the stores, and displayed. Without a high enough initial, stores and warehouses will often be out of stock during this time, and while some customers will order the book for future pick-up, the vast majority will simply buy it elsewhere.

The sell-through game is a little different for on-line retailers like Amazon, for two main reasons:

1. Amazon doesn't need to order more copies than it plans to sell. The chains have to do this in order to have enough copies in-store to attract consumers' attention, especially if the book is in promotion. Have you ever noticed how those front-of-store tables always have thirty copies of the new Janet Evanovich, no matter how many copies the store sells?

2. Amazon's search function is designed to guide you to the hardcover edition of a book even if the mass market or trade paper is already on sale. Whereas the national chains will return any hardcover copies of a given title to the publisher by about a week before the trade paper or mass market edition goes on sale, Amazon hangs onto them because they know they can continue to sell them. (They also have great discounting, so even if consumers find both the hardcover and the trade paper/mass market, the price difference may be so insignificant that they opt for the hardcover anyway.)

For these reasons, Amazon's sell-through is terrifically efficient: over 90%.

So there you have it: sell-through needs to be good (hopefully at least 70%) but not too good (90%+, Amazon being an exception). There's no such thing as having sales that are too high, but it's very possible to have sell-through that is.

Rerun Week: Part 4 of 5

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

Episode: "Terms to Know"
Originally aired: Wednesday, August 5th, 2009

Lo, a brief glossary of terms I think you need to know to understand book sales (or at least, to understand what I'm talking about at any given time). It's necessarily incomplete, so if you need a definition I haven't listed here, please ask in the comments!

Account—A book retailer (e.g. Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Costco, &c). While "store" can mean "account" or refer to an individual store (e.g. the Borders on Park Avenue in New York City), "account" always means "group of all stores with a given name." Roughly synonymous with "company."

Buyer—A person who works for a given account and is charged with buying books (or a select subdivision of books, e.g. science fiction, biographies, &c) from publishers for the account.

Co-op—Advertising/promotional space in book stores (front-of-store tables, in-section face-outs, endcaps, &c) that the publisher pays the account for, often on a monthly basis.

Hardcover—Also called "hardback" or "cloth," a book with a rigid cover (generally cardboard covered in cloth). Comes with a fancy dust jacket and a price in the $20.00 - $40.00 range (USD).

Mass market—Also called "paperback" or "rack-size," these are the "pocket-sized," extra-thick paperbacks printed on lower quality paper and at a smaller trim size. The price is generally in the $4.00 - $8.00 range (USD). Rather than being returned or remaindered, mass market editions are often stripped (see below).

Nielsen BookScan—A service provided by the Nielsen Company since 2001 that tracks book sales. It is estimated that BookScan captures about 70% of total sales, as not all retailers report to BookScan.

Remainder—Remaindered books are books that are no longer selling in sufficient quantities and are being liquidated by the publisher (i.e. sold to a third party at significantly reduced, often near-unit, cost). Oftentimes authors are given the option of buying their remaindered stock at unit cost before the title is offered up to other parties.

Retailer—Book store.

Returns—Often expressed as a percentage, returns are the books sent back to the publisher by the account(s). The return rate is described by (# of books returned by the account)/(# of books shipped to the account).

Sales call—A meeting during which a publisher's rep(s) meet(s) with an account's buyer(s) to sell books to the account.

Sales rep—A person employed in the sales division of a publishing house whose job it is to sell books to an account or accounts.

Sell-through—Also often expressed as a percentage, sell-through is the number of books sold by an account compared to how many it bought. It is described by (# of books sold by the account)/(# of books shipped to the account).

Stripped book—A book without a cover, almost always a mass market edition. Because it is not cost-effective to return or remainder mass market editions, their covers are torn off by the retailer and shipped back to the publisher as proof the books have been destroyed. The retailer then destroys the books. This is the reason for the "If you purchased this book without a cover..." note on the first pages of many mass market editions. Strippable books are marked with an "S" inside a triangle, often on the inside of the front cover.

Trade paperback—Also called "quality paperback," this is a paperback edition of a book with a trim size roughly comparable to the hardcover edition (if there was one) and larger than that of a mass market edition. The price range is generally $10.00 - $20.00 (USD).

Trim size—The dimensions of a book (generally in inches).

Vendor—Publisher.

Rerun Week: Part 3 of 5

Rerun week continues with the ten commandments of blogging. Enjoy!

Episode: "The Ten Commandments of Blogging"
Originally aired: Thursday, September 3rd, 2009

1. I am thy blog. If you're an author, you should already have a blog. If you're not yet published, now is the time to start.

2. Thou shalt have no other blogs before me. We all love reading blogs—we wouldn't be here if we didn't—but yours comes first. Write your own posts before you spend all afternoon reading someone else's.

3. Thou shalt not make of thyself an idol. Keep your ego in check; you always want to portray yourself positively in your blog. Your reputation is all you've got in this business, and if you earn yourself one as a likable person as well as a great writer, you're a golden calf.

4. Remember thy Schedule and keep it, wholly. You don't have to write a post every day, but keeping a regular schedule is a courtesy and a sort of unwritten contract between you and your readers; they'll know when to expect new content and will come to appreciate and respect you for that.

5. Thou shalt honor thy agent and thy publisher. You couldn't have done this without them. Give props where props are due.

6. Thou shalt not commit character assassination. Everyone has authors or critics they don't like, sometimes personally. Don't pull an Alice Hoffman. And, I guess, don't try to kill anyone in real life, either.

7. Thou shalt not commit adultery, but thou shalt pimp thyself. No one sells you like you do. Facebook, Twitter, &c. The more pervasive your presence, the more likely it is that people will buy your book.

8. Thou shalt not plagiarize. Always quote. Always cite your sources. Always link back to them if they're on-line.

9. Thou shalt not deceive thy audience. Never post anything you don't believe is true, and be sure to provide links to any research you've done. Always be sure to clarify whether a point you're making is an opinion or a fact.

10. Thou shalt monetize. I don't do it because I don't consider blogging a part of my livelihood, but you, as authors, should consider self-promotion as part of the job. Let Google or whomever run a few relevant ads on your blog and make a little cash on the side. (Unless you've got a large readership, though, it probably won't be much.)

Rerun Week: Part 2 of 5

Today, self-publishing. Enjoy!

Episode: "Self-Publishing: Great Idea... or Worst Idea Ever?"
Originally aired: Tuesday, September 1st, 2009

Well, it really depends on why you want to self-publish. In my humble opinion, self-publishing is great if:

• You have an idea for a book that would only be targeted at an extraordinarily small "market," i.e. your family. If you want to bind your great-grandmother's recipes into a cookbook, create a collection of stories for your children, &c, and you only need a few dozen copies, self-publishing is for you.
• For whatever reason, you have no interest in selling your work and merely want to see it in print before you die.
• Alternately, you have no interest in selling your work and merely want to disseminate it widely on the Internet as a (fre)e-book. (If this is the case, though, you might not even really need the self-publishing company, unless you need their website to legitimize your book.)
• You do not have enough copies of other peoples' books to keep your coffee table level.

I consider the following reasons for self-publishing to be very bad:

• Your book has been rejected by every agent and his/her mom, so now you're going to show them/the world/your own mom/&c that you really are a published writer.
• You believe you can sell more books on your own than you could through a traditional publisher, so you're going to forgo the whole system.
• You say you have no interest in selling your work and merely want to disseminate it widely on the Internet, but secretly believe as soon as it's out there you'll start getting phone calls from all those silly agents and editors, offering seven figure advances and instant literary stardom. Later, Brad Pitt will call to politely ask if he might be considered for the role of your protagonist once the details of the movie deal(s) are all hammered out.
• You believe your book is too literary for 99.9999% of agents/publishers and won't sell within the traditional publishing framework because you and your book are just too darn smart.

Before I go much further, I want to make this clear: I think the traditional system is flawed. All systems are necessarily incomplete. (That's a math joke, folks. I don't really think Gödel's incompleteness theorems apply to books. Man, if only you'd read my self-published book, 1010010010101111 Binary Math Jokes—which, by the way, is way too intellectual for the average agent, editor, or reader—you'd get that.)

All joking aside, though, just because the system isn't perfect doesn't mean you're better off avoiding it altogether. Consider these stats (and also these) over at How Publishing Really Works, courtesy of this SFWA article. Compare that to the sales of the average traditionally published book—around 12,000 copies—and you'll understand my general skepticism. Very occasionally, a self-published novel will be something that was somehow overlooked by the publishing industry as a whole and is actually quite good and/or salable. 99%+ of the time, however, these books are either written by the functionally illiterate, are tangled messes of inane plot and one-dimensional characters, do not appeal to the vast majority of readers, are way too long or way too short, or some combination of all of these. In short, most self-published novels are crap.

You might argue that most traditionally published books are crap, too, and if that's the case, you could very well be that guy who believes he and his book are too smart for the entire world. Whether or not this is true, it is a sad and inescapable fact that the market for your book is a subset of all the people in the entire world, so you're S.O.L. even if you and your book really are that smart, which is unlikely. I mean, really, how many Prousts can there be?

So, in summary:

• If you just want a couple dozen copies of your book for family and friends, my recommendation is: self-publish.
• If you ever want to earn money from your book, my recommendation is: do not self-publish.
• If you've tried and tried and done absolutely everything humanly possible and still can't sell your novel, it's probably not very good. Lock it in a drawer and write a better one.

The publishing industry is a creaking, hulking, slow-moving, kerosene-burning juggernaut of 19th-century jerry-rigged methods and models all built pick-a-back one atop another, but it does adapt and is your best bet for getting an audience and a halfway decent check for your writing. Unless you're one of those very few who are better off self-publishing (as described above), get back to work and write something engaging that any agent or editor would be proud to show the world.

Rerun Week

Dear Readers,

Since I'm on vacation this week, I've set the blog to re-run some of my more informative posts. Happy Thanksgiving, and I'll be back again on Monday, 11/30!

Yours in print,

E

Episode: "What You Can Do: Twelve Easy Steps"
Originally aired: Tuesday, August 4th, 2009

So, caveat: this isn't meant to be a complete list. I'm sure I'll revisit this post and add to it as time goes on, but I've been thinking about it for awhile now and would rather share it with you sooner than later.

So, without further ado: what can you do to sell you book, and more importantly, when should you do what?

1. Completion of your novel. Congratulations! You've written an entire novel (~60,000 – 100,000 words)! Now go edit it. No, don't tweet about how awesome your book is (yet). Edit.

2. Six months later... congratulations again! Between your critique group, your trusted first-readers, and your biggest editor/critic (i.e. you, at least at this point), you've polished your novel to a high lustre. Such a high lustre, fact, that you've begun using British spelling and grammar without even realising it. Ace! (Apparently you are also stuck in the 1980s.)

Have you written a truly smashing query letter yet? You have? Ace again. All mod cons, as they say. (British slang, incidentally, is weird.) Anyway—time to start querying Nathan, Janet, Kristin, Jessica, and all the rest. Cast a wide net, and remember: no exclusives!

3. Three months later... you're still querying? Of course you are, unless you're luckier than Malachi Constant. What, did you think this was going to be easy? Keep at it.

4. Three months after that... Hooray! After several form rejections, a few polite refusals on partials, and one or two fulls, you've gotten an offer of representation. (To make this as simple a scenario as possible, let's say this is one of your dream agents and you accept the offer immediately.) Don't start the party just yet, though. Now you've got real work to do.

If you've got representation, you're that much closer to getting published, and so at this point you need to start expanding (or straight-up building) your platform. If you've already got a blog, ramp it up; if you've already got a Twitter account, tweet it up; if you're on Facebook, start making connections like crazy. If not, get going right now. Start playing the networking game. Check Go Daddy to see if your name has already been registered as a domain name. If not, consider buying it. If so, try and figure out a good alternate name. (Hint: http://www.newjohnsmith1-2-3today.info/ is not a good name.)

To be honest, there's no such thing as "too early," but the offer of representation is, in my mind, when things get serious. If you haven't given thought to blogging/Twittering/website-ing/Facebooking/&c, start now.

5. Another three months after that... O frabjous day! Your book has been sold to an editor! You must now do the following:

• Party. Nothing major: you're a working author now. Live it up a little, but do not get outrageously drunk or stab your wife with a penknife. You are not Truman Capote or Norman Mailer (respectively).

• Hit the ground running. Discuss everything with your agent and newfound editor. Ask as many questions as you can think of. If you are, like me, unmarried, childless, and have relatively few obligations outside of your day job, I highly recommend you make promoting yourself and your book your new, all-consuming hobby. Figure out what you're willing to commit to (I recommend as much as you think you can safely handle) and let your agent and editor know you're willing to work hard. If you've got substantial commitments (e.g. sextuplets, reality TV show), find a balance.

• Ramp it up. If you haven't bought that mega sweet domain name yet, do it. Blog about yourself and your book. Tweet about it. Change your latest Facebook employment to "author" and announce your good fortune in your status. Network, network, network.

Let your critique group know. Go to literary events. If you don't already know the booksellers at your local stores (national chains and indies) by their first names, now's the time to start. Aside from the fact that they're most likely wonderful people who will turn out to be excellent friends, they're going to be very helpful later on (see below).

An aside: definitely talk this over with your editor, but if you feel like it's a good idea and your advance is big enough, consider hiring your own publicist. He or she may be able to work wonders for you.

Oh, and yes—if you're not too up on all this computer mumbo-jumbo (although you should be), see if you can get your computer science major nephew (or some similarly inclined relative or friend) to help you out for a nominal fee (or, better yet, for free). If you happen to know a web designer who can make you an awesome website, so much the better. At this point, it's all about who you know. Keep asking yourself that: who do you know who is able and willing to help you?

Now, in case you weren't keeping track, in this oh-so-magical best-case scenario, it's been fifteen months since you finished your novel. You now have representation. Is this unrealistic? Yes, I think, slightly, but don't assume that novel you finished fifteen months ago was your first one, and do assume that you're a talented writer with a good story, and suddenly it's not so far-fetched after all.

Oh—and order business cards. You're an author now.

Now then—

6. Nine months before on-sale: You might have comp titles already. Ask your agent to check on them for you. If you're neurotic and wealthy enough, pay to track the sales of your comps on BookScan. Discuss potential sales numbers with your agent. Be as realistic as possible. Do not drive your agent insane.

7. Six months before on-sale: You signed your contract long ago and the book has already been through launch meetings over at your publisher's house, meaning that everyone who's going to be involved in selling your book to retailers (marketing, publicity, sales, &c) has known about your book for a few months now. You've got your very own ISBN, retail price, descriptive copy, sell sheets, title information sheets—the works. What's happening now? Well, sales calls. And, if you're lucky, co-op. That means book stores are about to find out all about you.

Remember those friends you made at your local book stores 6+ months ago? Call them. If you haven't already told them about your book, tell them now. Ask if you can do author events, readings, signings, everything, anything. (Discuss this with your agent first.) If you have friends who are established authors, talk to them. See if they'll blurb or promote your book, allow you to guest-blog for them, read with them at area book stores, and so on. You can't do too much of this. You really can't.

Continue to blog, update your website, tweet, guest-blog, &c. The more people hear about you, the better. (Assuming you're always polite and professional—and you are, aren't you? Good.)

8. Three months before on-sale: Keep up your relentless self-promotion, but keep it classy. Follow through on everything. Keep the lines of communication between you, your agent, and your editor open. If you've committed to readings, tours, podcasts, blog posts, e-mail blasts, local radio shows, infomercials, impromptu subway performances, &c—make good on those commitments. If you got your own publicist (see Step #5), he or she will be helping to organize all of these things. Oh, and speaking of organizing, have you scheduled yourself a release party yet?

9. On-sale date: Breathe. Do not check the sales figures yet, they won't be up. Relax. You feel good, you feel great, you feel wonderful. Have that release party you planned three months ago, publish one more blog entry or tweet, and call it a week. You've earned it.

10. One week after on-sale: Your publisher will have your week one sales available. Ask your agent/editor if they can forward them to you. If you're sufficiently neurotic and wealthy (see Step #6), compare these numbers to your BookScan numbers and to the first-week sales of your comp titles. Celebrate or panic accordingly.

11. One month after on-sale: You might have some reviews. If they're positive, blog, tweet, podcast, &c about them. If they're negative, say nothing. Do not try to explain away a bad review in your blog—you're only creating more links to negative press. And for the love of God, do not pull an Alice Hoffman.

12. Three months after on-sale: You're hard at work on your next novel, mate. (This British slang thing is seriously addictive.) Publishing is a business and you're a professional now; celebrate your victories, be gracious about any pitfalls or shortcomings, learn from your mistakes, and keep writing.

Waffling On the Issues

And on the fifth day of the workweek, Eric rested and forgot to edit Laura's round up. Sucker. (Vicious lies! —E)

Buenos dias, amigos and -as. I thought I'd start with the bad, and just rip the Band-Aid off the day. Yes, I'm afraid it's true: Google does own your life. Well, it owns your orphaned books, at any rate. Google says it'll open "new avenues" for writers with out-of-print titles, but can you really trust the Goog? Especially when you know that they hosted the after-party for the National Book Awards and didn't invite you? To round out this section, which I have mentally titled "confusion and hypocrisy," I thought you should know that WalMart is denying any predatory pricing, and Barnes & Nobles won't let you buy e-books with their gift cards. But it's not all bad! Turn your frowns upside down, and check out the contest below.

B&N says they'll fix the e-book gift card problem soon, but Amazon has no intention of fixing its gift card problem: you can't use a gift card to buy anything bundled with a gift card. Womp womp. This no-e-book-for-gift-card thing is going to be a problem for romance readers, who are notoriously promiscuous with their formats. Harlequin is intent on cashing in on this promiscuity with its new imprints, Carina Press (for e-books) and Harlequin Horizons (for self-pubbers). A number of people have weighed in on the latter, most people being unhappy, unhappy, more, more, and more.

A problem these imprints won't come up against is being nominated for the worst sex (because romances are sexy). But some people have been nominated! This of course begs the question: where is the good sex in literature?

The good sex is (duh) in the last Twilight book, because it is sanctioned by the holy bonds of matrimony and vampire effing. The movie comes out today, as your scream-induced eardrum punctures should attest. See some sweet Twilight tats and products here, and see what National Book Award nominees say about the series. Spoiler: everyone tries to be nice, but kind of fails, because authors are awkward.

Speaking of awkward, those who have been reading Combreviations may have noticed that I am in lurve with things you can make with a waffle iron. So far we've seen waffle cookies, waffle cake, waffle bacon, and waffle brownies (that last one is courtesy of Alicia, my hero). In honor of my slight obsession, and, perhaps, as justification for buying a waffle iron, I'm bringing back Ye Olde Weekly Contest (please, contain yourselves). My challenge to you: come up with a use for a waffle iron other than waffles and the deliciousness above. Ground rules include nothing oddly sexual or distressingly violent. But other than that, I need excuses to buy a waffle iron.

So that's it from me, see you here next week, or all week at Combreviations.