Book Sales: A Day in the Life

Random aside: happy 9/9/09 at 9:09 AM!

Now then: a couple of you asked, among other things, about what I and my bosses actually do all day. Come with me then, gentle readers, on a magical journey...

FADE IN

MAJOR TRADE PUBLISHER — TYPICAL MORNING

Enter INTREPID SALES ASSISTANT at 9:00 AM sharp. He turns on his computer and begins downloading, formatting, and e-mailing information on electronic orders that came in from ACCOUNT overnight.

Enter BOSS #1.

BOSS #1: "'Morning, INTREPID ASSISTANT. Did you print out IMPORTANT EXCEL REPORT for me?"
INTREPID ASSISTANT: "Yes. I highlighted your titles and left it on your desk. I also left you sales kits I made for IMPORTANT DROP-IN TITLES."

BOSS #1 thanks INTREPID ASSISTANT and locks himself in his office for the rest of the morning. Several titles have DROPPED IN (i.e. been added to the list with little or no notice) and must be sold to ACCOUNT over the phone, as BOSS #1 already sold in that month/span the last time he went to visit ACCOUNT.

Enter BOSS #2.

BOSS #2: "Good morning, INTREPID ASSISTANT. Before I forget, could you upload XYZ TITLE to ACCOUNT? I was asking them about it yesterday and they don't have it listed in their system."
INTREPID ASSISTANT: "Sure thing."

INTREPID ASSISTANT busies himself for the next two hours with relaying information on electronic orders, placing orders that came in non-automatically from ACCOUNT, formatting and distributing daily/weekly sales information from ACCOUNT, and uploading missing titles to ACCOUNT's system so they can be properly sold in.

10:00 AM: INTREPID ASSISTANT e-mails daily sales information to various folks in-house.
10:01 AM: INTREPID ASSISTANT receives 1,042 responses, which comprise of out-of-office messages, requests to be removed from the e-mail distro, and requests for confirmation that these sales numbers are, in fact, correct, as they appear either far too low, far too high, or, somehow, both.

BOSS #1 (opening door a crack): "INTREPID ASSISTANT, could you please go over to ACCOUNT's local store and let me know what the CO-OP looks like?"
INTREPID ASSISTANT: "Sure. Can I do it after lunch?"
BOSS #1: "Yes. Also, I just e-mailed you the report on XYZ MONTH's SELL-IN. Could you update all those estimates in FANCY COMPUTER SYSTEM?"
INTREPID ASSISTANT: "Yup!"

INTREPID ASSISTANT spends the last half-hour before lunch (12:00 sharp—INTREPID ASSISTANT likes to eat ASAP) entering BOSS #1's estimates into FANCY COMPUTER SYSTEM.

MAJOR TRADE PUBLISHER AND SURROUNDING NYC AREA — TYPICAL AFTERNOON

INTREPID ASSISTANT does one of the following for lunch:

1. Eats in the ever-pricier but nonetheless pretty good company cafeteria;
2. Acquires a sandwich/hot dog/&c from an inexpensive local restaurant/vendor;
3. Works through it because PUBLISHING IS A HAPPENIN' PLACE

After lunch, INTREPID ASSISTANT goes to ACCOUNT's closest store and examines the CO-OP.

INTREPID ASSISTANT: "Hark, kind sir! Where is ABC TITLE that is supposed to have FRONT OF STORE CO-OP?"
HELPFUL STORE CLERK: "I don't think that's how you use 'hark.' And it's right here."
INTREPID ASSISTANT: "Thank you for your assistance! And what about HIJ TITLE?"
HELPFUL STORE CLERK: "...I actually don't see that one here. We'll get it out right away!"
INTREPID ASSISTANT: "Most excellent!"

Having recorded (and possibly helped correct) the CO-OP, INTREPID ASSISTANT returns to the office around 1:30 PM. He spends the next hour or so going over CO-OP contracts for previous months, entering them in FANCY COMPUTER SYSTEM, and, when necessary, untangling any mysterious financial errors in said contracts. It should be noted that INTREPID ASSISTANT has been answering dozens of e-mails all the while (they start around 8:15 AM and end around 7:00 PM).

RANDOM CO-WORKER: "INTREPID ASSISTANT, the printer is jammed!"
INTREPID ASSISTANT: "'Zounds! I'll repair it post-haste!"
RANDOM CO-WORKER: "Also, the copier!"
INTREPID ASSISTANT: "Great Caesar's ghost!"

BOSS #2 (emerging from office): "INTREPID ASSISTANT, could you please mail these 842 galleys and ARCs to the appropriate buyers at ACCOUNT? Also, could you print out X, Y, and Z covers and send those, too? We didn't have them for sell-in last month."
INTREPID ASSISTANT: "Most assuredly!"

BOSS #2 returns to office to continue endless call with BUYER at ACCOUNT who agreed to certain BUY and CO-OP but is now changing his/her mind about it. Meanwhile, BOSS #1 is on the phone with IMPORTANT IN-HOUSE PUBLISHER to explain why some of his titles got different buys than previously anticipated at ACCOUNT.

2:30 PM – 3:00 PM: INTREPID ASSISTANT takes periodic breaks to read industry blogs. Hilarity occasionally ensues. Whenever IMPORTANT COWORKERS walk by, INTREPID ASSISTANT pretends to have been studying IMPORTANT-LOOKING EXCEL GRID the entire time. He is not generally successful. But industry blogs, people! Publishing research is publishing research!

3:00 PM – 4:00 PM: IMPORTANT MEETING at which INTREPID ASSISTANT records minutes. This is pretty much the only IMPORTANT MEETING that INTREPID ASSISTANT is required to attend. BOSSES #1 and #2 are required to attend several such meetings every day. IMPORTANT MEETING chiefly concerned with monthly sales figures, year-to-date sales figures, important titles about to go on sale, anything newsworthy going on at ACCOUNTS, &c.

INTREPID ASSISTANT spends the last hour of the day replying to e-mails, both in-house and from ACCOUNT, following up on random requests from BOSSES/ACCOUNT/various people, and tying up any loose ends so he will not have to deal with additional panic/doom when he returns to the office the following morning.

NYC AREA — TYPICAL EVENING

INTREPID ASSISTANT leaves work at 5:00 PM (if he can afford to—he sometimes works as late as 7:00 and has been known to work as late as 10:00) and heads directly to LOCAL BAR, often with other ASSISTANTS, where he imbibes

1.) Four beers or
2.) Two martinis or
3.) One pitcher of beer

But never 4.) all of the above unless it is 5.) Friday. He leaves LOCAL BAR by 7:00 (again, unless it is Friday).

INTREPID ASSISTANT'S APARTMENT — TYPICAL EVENING/NIGHT

INTREPID ASSISTANT, now garbed in white t-shirt and superhero pajama pants instead of collared shirt and dress pants, sits at his laptop, e-penning another post for his blog while eating SLIGHTLY UNDERCOOKED PASTA with perhaps SOME KIND OF CHICKEN. He generally goes to bed by 11:00 in order to be well-rested enough to begin the cycle anew the following day.

FADE OUT

THE END

Prithee, Inform Me: What Interests Ye?

Special announcement! PMN has been shortlisted for Best Publishing/Industry Blog over at Book Blogger Appreciation Week (we got a great button from them, which I'll add to the blog ASAP), so if PMN has been of help to you, I'd be eternally grateful if you'd vote for us! Many thanks in advance. This blog wouldn't be possible without you.

Now, it's been awhile since I've asked you what you'd like me to blog about, so I figure I'll open the gates once more. Do you want to know what I do all day (besides blog, that is)? What the Dan Brown juggernaut (just one week away!) will do to the market? More on e-books? More doom and gloom on the state of the industry?

Prithee, inform me (in the comments)!

Happy Labor Day!

No post today, folks. Enjoy the rest of your long weekend!

Sexy Friday Round-Up

Book worshippers and novel pimpers alike, gather round: today is Judgement Day, on which I judge your suggestions for book-based faiths. I present to you the one true way, the Church of the Rye Catcher, brought to us by the Apostle MattDel, follower of the prophet Holden Caulfield. Phonies, repent! Or at least get out of my personal space.

It is these same phonies who don't realize how hard book blogging can be. But if you hope to be a successful book reviewing blogger, you should follow this advice. Part of it says to be professional, which was clearly inspired by my conduct. You didn't know I do reviews? Well, if you send me your book and fifty bucks, I'll give you top notch reviews in my diary. Unless your book sucks, in which case I will keep your cash and fulfill a beloved aphorism, parting fools and money. But I promise I'll read the whole thing, even given the joys of half finishing novels. I might even read it while walking, a method I am not particularly good at (thank you, girl on the street, for stopping me from walking into traffic while reading the other day), but that I hear can be quite fabulous.

Another thing I hear is fulfilling: sex. At Smart Bitches Trashy Books there's a discussion of the type of sex possible with a Sony Reader and with an iPhone. Don't worry, my office procrastinators, it's SFW. And, sexy sexy, the iPhone has a ton of bookish apps. Kindle sex isn't mentioned here, but it turns out if you lose your Kindle you can't track it back down, so you probably should just stick with it and not cheat.

Maybe directly referencing boning is in poor taste—and, in fact, literature may be swinging back toward sexual modesty (hey, if Twilight can sell Wuthering Heights when it's free at Project Gutenberg, anything is possible). Although I'd prefer it if literature would swing toward steampunk romance.

I think steampunk romance would be good. And Lev Grossman (whose new book looks great, btw—Lev, read my review policy above! Top billing in my diary if you send me your book!) tells us that good books don't have to be hard. But then we heard that they don't have to be easy either, and Andrew Seal writes that Grossman could learn a little something about promoting himself by postulating theories from other writers. Honestly, I only link to all of these things because Grossman responds to all the hubbub, sums up all the arguments people have been throwing at him, and writes, "I'm not actually a dick." I say that all the time. And while I'm usually lying when I say it, I believe Grossman is, in fact, not a dick. Tintin, on the other hand, is a racist dick, and is getting sued.

Also dicks: book pirates. Among the top ten most pirated books are the Kamasutra and The Complete Idiot's Guide to Amazing Sex. Also, the Madoff sex book is selling really poorly—no one wants to read about old man sex. I. Am. Shocked.

Why is everything in book news this week about sex? Are these the book morals we're teaching our children? And killing off Reading Rainbow was low—butterfly in the sky, children will no longer fly twice as high. We will be teaching them to appreciate the written word in one of two ways: a point system, based on a numerical interpretation of art, or the hippie "read your feelings, not the classics" method. What's so wrong with forcing children to read classics they won't appreciate until their twenties, if ever? Kids today. Can't even walk barefoot through the snow to school.

On that depressing note, I take my leave. No contest this week (I'm only so creative, people, and I had no Internet all week, which crippled my soul and my contest-thinking-up brain lobe), but I really loved this post on what editors eat while they read. What have you been eating while reading? Let me know in the comments!

The Ten Commandments of Blogging

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.)

Finally, the Fame & the Glory

After all the blood, ink, and tears I've put into this blog and my job as a sales assistant in the wild and crazy world of publishing, CBS has decided to air a show about my life. And by "air a show about my life" I mean "air a show about the world of book publishing":

The project, tentatively titled "Open Books," has received a pilot commitment from the network. It revolves around book editor June and her circle of friends.

"Books" is inspired by the time Lerner spent as a temp in the publishing world at the beginning of her career and by the experiences of her sister Betsy, who worked as a book editor for 15 years before becoming a literary agent.

I have no idea how accurate or entertaining this show will be, but I think it's worth seeing the pilot. No word on a date for said pilot, but I'll keep you posted. On the one hand, I'm hopeful that a really good show about the publishing world will not only make for great TV, but will also educate people about how the industry works and, to some extent, get people excited about reading. On the other hand, if it's mega boring, it might do more harm than good. Thoughts?

Self-Publishing: Great Idea... or Worst Idea Ever?

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.