The art of the conversation a la SXSW
By now, most people in book publishing have heard about what happened at South By Southwest’s New Think for Old Publishers panel Sunday evening. The gist: while the panelists were talking, a second discussion among audience members transpired on Twitter. Many people in the audience follow each other on Twitter–the book publishing community being fairly insular–so when one person posted a Tweet about the panel, others saw. Within minutes, a spirited debate had emerged.
If you have not already done so, you will want to check the #sxswbp-tagged tweets. If a blow-by-blow recap of the panel isn’t your cup of tea, you can also read summaries of the online (and offline) discussions in Monday’s Publishers Lunch newsletter, or online at Austinist; Kassia Krozser’s invaluable publishing industry blog, Booksquare; Freebird Books & Goods; GalleyCat; Medialoper; or So Misguided, among other sites.
On the one hand, the conversation on Twitter was related (and a reaction) to the offline panel discussion; on the other, it took place without the involvement of the panelists—the Web 2.0 equivalent of passing notes behind the teacher’s back. Welcome to the New Think.
For authors attempting to connect with readers—and book publicists guiding authors attempting to connect with readers—there are a few lessons that can be learned from this experience.
– Relinquish control of the conversation. At a time when the Internet allows anyone and everyone to participate in a discussion, no one person can control the direction or tenor of a conversation. It’s like when movie stars insist they won’t discuss their personal lives with journalists. The stars may not talk, but we’re sure still devouring all the juicy details of their lives.
– Know where readers are and what they are saying. Is there a Facebook group dedicated to an author or a book(s)? Or a Twitter hash tag? Which websites and discussion groups come up when an author’s name / book are Googled?
– Adapt. You as an author / agent / editor / publicist may view a book in a certain way. Readers might not. Pay attention to the reception of a book and its messages. Be prepared to adapt your message in order to connect with anyone who might come to the book in any fashion.
– Roll with the punches. When you initiate a discussion, realize you’re opening yourself up to all manner of reactions, from sympathetic to vitriolic. I would say not to take negative reactions personally, although, having once been practically threatened with bodily harm for making a rude joke about some marathon runners, I realize that’s easier said that done. What’s important to remember is that there are benefits to publicly speaking up, to starting a conversation, to interacting with and listening to people (particularly when others don’t). This is how bridges are built, how change is made.
New media marketing — wisdom from SXSW
Today’s post is late because I’m in Austin for the South by Southwest Interactive conference!!! Imagine my excitement being in a room surrounded by hundreds of bloggers with laptops and / or iPhones. It’s just heavenly. Almost better than chocolate. Almost.
Thanks (or not, depending on one’s point of view) to the virus that has been wreaking havoc on the Eastern Seaboard, I found myself an 11th-hour replacement jetting to the Kingdom of Heaven—by which I mean SXSW—late Saturday night. By late, I mean too late to get a room at my overbooked hotel. So I found myself in a cab, at 1 a.m. in the morning (Eastern Time? Central Time? I forget which) to a place that was distinctly not my hotel. (Note to book publicists: remind your authors check in early whenever possible.)
No matter. New Hotel (I forget which) overlooked the Town Lake Hike and Bike Trail (to which my Austin-based buddies at Phenix & Phenix Literary Publicity had directed me when I requested a suggestion for a not-hotel-gym place to run). Kismet, no? Thus, Sunday morning found me sightseeing, i.e., hitting the trail for a 13-mile jog.
That afternoon, I attended the Marketing Meets New Media: Building Your Audience Online panel. It was geared more to artists, musicians and film makers, but there were takeaways for those of us in the book publishing business. The discussion soon turned to methods of communication with fans since some people like receiving email messages while others prefer accessing news via RSS or on a social network like Facebook or Twitter. The panelists agreed that it made sense to reach out to fans in as many formats as possible … but also that doing so is extremely time consuming. So one panelist suggested taking one day every so often to connect with fans (rather than feeling compelled to, say, Tweet every day). Another panelist advised linking content—posting a Twitter feed on a website, for example—to generate as much traffic as possible for each effort.
Another online must do for authors: setting up a program like Google Analytics to research who goes to your website and how they get there. Panelists at this morning’s Beyond Aggregation–Finding the Web’s Best Content talk seconded this suggestion. They also advised checking to see which blogs and websites link to yours (which can be done with a service like del.i.cious, among other methods) and researching and reaching out to those blogs. The panelists also talked up FriendFeed, which aggregates information from multiple social networks. I must admit that although I’ve signed up for FriendFeed, I, uh, haven’t quite had the time to try it out.
Another important issue: how do you engage an audience and get them to help spread the word about a product or issue? Suggestions from the panelists: get the audience involved. Start a project that allows them to interact with the creator. Hold contests. Make up trivia questions. If a fan / readers feels like s/he is part of the experience, s/he will talk about it. And bring it to other communities. Also, depending on the situation, authors can explicitly ask readers to talk up / review a book.
Lastly, for authors who still equate new media, i.e., blogs, social networks, etc., with mumbo jumbo, you are actually in good company. Panelist and gamer Burnie Burns of Rooster Teeth Productions admitted he only signed up for Twitter two days ago—when he heard someone talking about how sick they were of it.
“I can’t learn how to use this stuff as fast as other people can learn to hate it,” Burns concluded.
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Stay tuned for a recap of the New Think for Old Publishers panel …
NPR Books Watch — 3/6-3/12
Here are the NPR interviews for this week. Anyone who emails me the imprints of all the books listed (or houses if no imprint is available) will win the NPR Books Grid for the prior week that includes, in addition to the information below, interviewer, pub date, imprint, post-interview Amazon ranking, pre-interview ranking (if the book was mentioned on Shelf Awareness and I was able to look up the number before the interview), and interview hyperlink.
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TOTAL book stories for the week: 30
All Things Considered: 6
Day to Day: 1
Diane Rehm: 4
Fresh Air: 2
Morning Edition: 2
News & Notes: 1
NPR.org: 4
Talk of the Nation: 5
Tell Me More: 2
Weekend Edition Sunday: 3
| All Things Considered | Infinity in the Palm of Her Hand | Sandinista Gioconda | Belli | Literary Fiction |
| All Things Considered | Frozen Thames, The | Helen | Humphrey | Short Stories |
| All Things Considered | Lowboy | John | Wray | Literary Fiction |
| All Things Considered | Rebellion of Ronald Reagan, The | James | Mann | History |
| All Things Considered | Out of Captivity | Marc | Gonsalves | Memoir |
| All Things Considered | Way Through Doors | Jesse | Ball | Literary Fiction |
| All Things Considered | Lowboy | John | Wray | Literary Fiction |
| All Things Considered | Inquiries into the Nature of Slow Money | Woody | Tasch | Science |
| Day to Day | Good Books | David | Plotz | Religion |
| Diane Rehm | Picking Cotton | Jennifer | Thompson-Cannino | Memoir |
| Diane Rehm | Sowing Crisis* | Rashid | Khalidi | History |
| Diane Rehm | Cheever | Blake | Bailey | Biography |
| Diane Rehm | Live You Can Save, The | Peter | Singer | Current Events |
| Fresh Air | Most Remarkable Fella, A* | Susan | Loesser | Biography |
| Fresh Air | Books We Like / Jury of Her Peers | Elaine | Showalter | Reference |
| Morning Edition | In Other Rooms, Other Wonders | Daniyal | Mueenuddin | Short Stories |
| Morning Edition | House of Cards | William | Cohan | Business |
| News & Notes | Near Black | Baz | Dreisinger | History |
| NPR.org | Books We Like / Delicate Edible Birds | Lauren | Groff | Short Stories |
| NPR.org | Book Tour / Cutting for Stone | Abraham | Verghese | Literary Fiction |
| NPR.org | Books We Like / Sailor from Gibraltar, The | Marguerite | Duras | Literary Fiction |
| NPR.org | Books We Like / Gamble, The | Thomas E. | Ricks | History |
| Talk of the Nation | Lucy’s Legacy | Donald | Johanson | Science |
| Talk of the Nation | Live Nude Girl | Kathleen | Rooney | Art |
| Talk of the Nation | I Love It When You Talk Retro | Ralph | Keyes | Reference |
| Talk of the Nation | Hands of My Father | Myron | Uhlberg | Memoir |
| Talk of the Nation | Fool | Christopher | Moore | Literary Fiction |
| Tell Me More | Basketball Jones | E. Lynn | Harris | Literary Fiction |
| Tell Me More | Expect to Win | Carla | Harris | Business |
| Weekend Edition Sunday | Fruits of Victory | Elaine | Weiss | History |
| Weekend Edition Sunday | Levittown | David | Kushner | History |
| Weekend Edition Sunday | Kindly Ones, The | Jonathan | Littell | Literary Fiction |
What do you do when an author event is cancelled?
Yesterday I received an email blast from a bookstore informing me that an author event had been cancelled. I felt a twinge of sympathy, since yours truly — and, indeed, most book publicists — have had the pleasure of having to deal with a cancelled event, whether it be the result of illness, travel delays or an act of God. (Although I did once have an author, who, upon being informed of a tornado watch for the area after having arrived at a library, simply packed up his laptop and decamped for the building’s basement; the staff equally calmly shepherded all 300+ audience members to said basement. That one left me speechless. Truly.)
Last-minute event cancellations are a nightmare. There’s simply no other way to put it. Bookstores have already spent money promoting the event (and time talking it up). This money has now gone down the drain. Further, there’s no way to keep track of who is planning to attend an event, so there’s no effective way to contact everyone to inform them of the cancellation. Lastly, stores are counting on the revenue generated by author talks, since attendees often browse and buy before and after the talk itself. (And that’s just from the bookstore end — the publicist meanwhile has spent time getting the word out about the event and before that time scheduling it.)
So what can bookstores (and book publicists) do in the event of an unavoidable cancellation? First, to get word out about the cancellation, the store posted the cancellation on their web site and also sent out a notice to their subscriber list in an attempt to give people a heads up. I’m assuming they would also have posted a sign in their store to that effect.
In some cases it might be possible to reschedule events, but realistically, given how far ahead of time events are scheduled — at least two months, usually, but up to a year or more in some cases — and how limited an author’s time often is, rescheduling isn’t viable. Another option is arranging for signed books, since many people do, after all, go to readings to get books signed. (The bookstore in this case did offer signed books to interested readers.) Publicists, for their part, should offer to make arrangements to have an author sign — and if possible, personalize — books for a bookstore whose event was cancelled.
What did you (as a book publicist or author) do the last time an event was cancelled? Any event cancellation “success” stories?
How book publicists can be more efficient
The other day I attended my company’s annual results meetings. Not surprisingly, the CEO spoke about the importance of increasing efficiency and about saving money. Now, efficiency is one of my very favorite topics in the whole world! I time my visits to the bathroom to coincide with trips to the mailboxes / printer / bookroom — heaven forbid I leave my chair for only one reason. Although I realize the rest of the world probably does not, in fact, plan their office jaunts with quite so much precision, it certainly is worthwhile in this economy to consider how we can work more effectively. (And passing on an onerous task to an assistant or an intern does not count as being more efficient.)
So how can a book publicist be more efficient?
– Be judicious about the size of your mailing lists. Although it’s true that I cast a wider net with my mailing list than with, say, my call list, I try not to go overboard with the number of books I mail out. Common sense will guide you here. If, for example, you’re trying to nail down some morning radio coverage for an author, you probably don’t need to send a book to every single morning show producer who might consider interviewing said author for all of five minutes. A lot of people can determine “yea” or “nay” based on a couple paragraphs in an email message. (Not to mention, a lot of people don’t like receiving unsolicited books).
– Make sure the addresses in your media database are up to date. UPS and Federal Express charge senders for returned packages. When publicists send out hundreds of books a day, a handful of incorrect addresses per mailing can really add up. Don’t depend on someone else to update a contact record — as a book publicist, it’s your job to keep tabs on the media.
– Learn your systems. Well. I’ve used Bacon’s Online for years now and while I consider it God’s gift to the public relations world, I’ll be the first to admit it isn’t the easiest system to use. I’ve heard about people taking hours to pull a list that could take a minute (using the proper search parameters) — think about how much less list pulling and how much more pitching you could be doing.
– Use the appropriate program for a task. Once upon a time, there was was a word processing program. And then God invented Excel. As book publicists, we maintain a lot of media records and a lot of lists. None of these records should ever, ever, ever be stored in Word, which cannot automatically organize the information. In other words, if you need to alphabetize a list in Word, you need to alphabetize it (rather than in Excel, in which you can click the Easy, I mean Alphabetize, button.) Think about it this way — you wouldn’t you read a manuscript written in Excel, so why would you compile a list of contacts in Word (or in an email)? Remind your authors about this the next time they submit names for complimentary and review copies.
– Use the appropriate mode of communication for a message. If you’re one of those people who hate the phone and never use it, or who hate email and never use it, suck it up and realize that what’s most important is getting your message across in a quick, simple manner. Sometimes this means making a phone call because it’s quicker to hash out details in a conversation rather than typing back and forth. Other times this means sending an email message because it’s easier to see written details rather than having to talk and take notes.
***
These tips speak more to saving time rather than money (and therein lies the problem), but still, at the end of the day, time is money. Feel free to chime in with your own time (and money) saving book publicity tips.
The not-so paper news
Yesterday, Yahoo! News posted a list of the 10 newspapers most likely to fold / move entirely online. Some of these newspapers are in cities with more than one daily newspaper (Chicago, Detroit, Philadelphia); others are their city’s only source of daily (paid circulation) print news (Boston, San Francisco). On the other end of the spectrum, TechCrunch listed the 50 most linked to media sites. (Fortunately for the beleaguered newspapers, there is some overlap.)
More bad news for book publicists? Well, yes, obviously, if the newspaper disappears entirely. But maybe not so bad if the paper goes, but the news remains.
The Papyrus Files — Earthlink
A long, long time ago (in a galaxy far, far away, of course), I decided to start a feature on this blog called “The Papyrus Files“ about outdated practices / systems / technology / etc. that are still in use. Except then it lapsed for lack of inspiration. Until now.
I had thought Earthlink’s drawbacks as an email provider were limited to the most antiquated spam filter in the post Civil War era. Apparently, I was wrong. I’ve been emailing back and forth with a producer, but it’s been difficult actually reading her messages because the Earthlink account she uses places her responses … at the very bottom of the message chain.
Now, anyone who has ever used a Blackberry, iPhone or other PDA knows that only a small amount of information in an email message can be viewed in the absence of an Internet connection. (And now those of you who never have, do.) Needless to say, this “small amount of information” does not include responses that appear at the very bottom of message chains. Which means, then, that anyone viewing messages on the go — including a preponderance of journalists, producers and bookstore event coordinators — are well, not viewing those messages on the go.
Earthlink also boasts a spam filter that I thought went out around the time the British army decided it actually was not an appropriate badge of honor for their officers to be attired in red (which was, coincidentally, around the time German marksmen were searching for targets for their newly-invented machine guns in the haze of the French countryside). The way the Earthlink filter works is anyone who is not already in the users’ address book — including a preponderance of well, everyone — must click through to a spam filter page and type in the series of letters they see in order to ensure delivery of their message. Often, the spam filter link does not actually work. While this serves as a deterrant to spammers, it also serves as a deterrant to, say, a book publicist trying to respond about a requested review copy of a book or interview. Also deterred are literary agents being queried about submissions, as Colleen Lindsay has pointed out.
Devoted Earthlink users who simply can’t bear to part with their accounts should — for the sake of anyone and everyone with whom they do business — set up a Gmail account and then simply activate the forwarding function that allows Gmail to be sent to any other email address. (This will allow people to bypass the inconvenient and frequently faulty Earthlink spam filter.) Also, there should be settings options that allow one to change the location of responses so that they appear at the top rather than at the bottom of messages.
This has been a Public Service Announcement from The Book Publicity Blog.
NPR Books Watch — 2/27-3/5
Here are the NPR interviews for this week. Anyone who emails me the imprints of all the books listed (or houses if no imprint is available) will win the NPR Books Grid for the prior week that includes, in addition to the information below, interviewer, pub date, imprint, post-interview Amazon ranking, pre-interview ranking (if the book was mentioned on Shelf Awareness and I was able to look up the number before the interview), and interview hyperlink.
***
TOTAL book stories for the week:
All Things Considered: 6
Diane Rehm: 2
Fresh Air: 5
Morning Edition: 1
News & Notes: 1
NPR.org: 5
Weekend Edition Saturday: 1
| All Things Considered | Down and Out in the Great Depression | Robert | McElvaine | History |
| All Things Considered | Me, Cheeta | James | Lever | Outdoors |
| All Things Considered | Will to Whatevs, The | Eugene | Mirman | Entertainment |
| All Things Considered | Dickson Baseball Dictionary | Paul | Dickson | Sports |
| All Things Considered | Wandering Stars | Sholem | Aleichem | Literary Fiction |
| All Things Considered | David Foster Wallace’s Final, Unfinished Novel | |||
| Diane Rehm | Khomeini’s Ghost | Con | Coughlin | History |
| Diane Rehm | Sowing Crisis | Rashid | Khalidi | History |
| Fresh Air | Lush Life | Richard | Price | Literary Fiction |
| Fresh Air | How We Decide | Jonah | Lehrer | Business |
| Fresh Air | Jesus, Interrupted | Bart | Ehrman | Religion |
| Fresh Air | Pinnochio | Carlo | Collodi | Literary Fiction |
| Fresh Air | Joker One | Donovan | Campbell | Memoir |
| Morning Edition | Gamble, The | Thomas E. | Ricks | History |
| News & Notes | Vegan Soul Kitchen | Bryant | Terry | Cooking |
| NPR.org | Publicist: Ousted Illinois Governor Signs Book Deal | |||
| NPR.org | Books We Like / Piano Teacher, The | Janice | Lee | Literary Fiction |
| NPR.org | Book Tour / Women, The | T.C. | Boyle | Literary Fiction |
| NPR.org | Three Books … / Of Swords And Sorcerers: Books For Magical Escape | |||
| NPR.org | Books We Like / 08 | Michael | Crowley | Graphic Novel |
| Weekend Edition Saturday | Valentina | Kohle | Yohannan | Photography |
Amazon, Kindle and iPhones! Oh, my!
I was scrolling through my New York Times yesterday morning when lo! Amazon releasing a Kindle application for the iPhone? With alacrity I set about downloading said app — a painfully slow process, what with the wonky Edge in the concrete bunker of an auditorium in which I was sitting.
On the subway ride home, I tested out my Phindle. Although I found it amusing that I could simultaneously enjoy Kanye and Stephanie Meyer on the very same device (and by “simultaneously enjoy” I mean “be equally distracted by” since I can’t quite imagine how Bella swooning over Edward makes us harder, better, faster, stronger), it’s no Kindle killer. For the iPhone users among you, it’s adequate and convenient, but pages must be turned with a flick and you can’t view them horizontally. Plus, the iPhone battery is, well, an iPhone battery. Still, I’m guessing that somewhere at Apple heads are rolling.
As a human being, ebooks interest me because I live and die by my gadgets. As a book publicist, I want to know more because I’m starting to get more requests from journalists for review copies of books in an electronic format. I would love to shoot off PDFs of our books to reviewers — saving time and money — but that of course raises the concern that nefarious deeds could be committed with a PDF easily resaved as text.
Sarah from Soho Press blogged the other week about emailing a book to a reviewer. As Sarah points out, this saves loads of time, money and trees. Not to mention space — some of the massive tomes we publish are simply begging to be categorized under “Weapon, lethal.”
As a book publicist, how do you feel about distributing ebooks to reviewers rather than mailing hard copies? As a journalist, would you want the flexibility of an electronic copy of a book? For those book publicists who have sent out ecopies of books (or for those folks who have provided free downloads of a book in an attempt to promote it), how do you ensure the book — or large parts of it — cannot be easily reproduced? Do you care? Weigh in at will.
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Yesterday when I updated my list of freelance book publicists, I did (or didn’t do) something idiotic and a lot of people couldn’t access the document. I’ve made a change so this revised revised list should be viewable whether or not you have a Google account or are signed in. Also, if you haven’t already seen it, Bella Stander maintains a list of freelancers too. Her list is smaller because she only lists people with whom she has worked (and whose work she recommends). I took the other route and listed everyone who submitted information, so I think you get the best of both worlds.
Updated list of freelance book publicists
A couple weeks back, I posted a list of freelance book publicists. I’ve updated the list here. I’ll continue to update the list, so email me at bookpublicityblog[at]gmail[dot]com with corrections / additions.
Publicity expert Bella Stander also maintains a list of freelancers in the book business here. (The difference is that while I’ve listed everyone who has submitted their information and who has a website / LinkedIn profile, Stander only lists those freelancers whose work she knows and can recommend.)
