For independent publishers, it is the best of times and it is the worst of times. And yes, I know I took that line from Dickens—but it is absolutely true. Today’s breakthrough technologies have allowed more people to print books than ever before in the history of mankind. Years ago, the cost of editing, typesetting, printing, and promoting a book made publishing prohibitive for most. Now, we are able to digitally typeset and print a single copy for peanuts. This remarkable technology has ignited the entrepreneurial spirit in thousands of people here and around the world. Now, we can all be publishers! Every would-be author can see his or her name on books; children can give their grandparents a copy of their latest handy work in a bound edition; and no books need ever go out of print again. Could it be the dawn of a new golden age of independent publishing? I don’t think so.

About sixty years ago, an individual in England would have to work years to become a bonafide publisher. They would first work as a publisher’s apprentice, and then move up the ranks. After years of service, they would hopefully be granted a certificate letting the world know that they have proven themselves worthy of being called a “Publisher.” Publishing was considered a trade, but that was then. Today, it seems all you have to do is get on the right website, download your file, and within a few days your book will arrive at your front door. And yes—according to the website copywriters, you have just become a publisher. The truth—and what the website will not tell you--is that your book has been printed, which is, in fact, not the same as being published. And while it may look, feel, and even smell like a book, it is not a published work.

For the indie publisher today, publishing is a hard-nosed, fight-for-every-sale, better-know-what-you-are-doing business. Financially distressed distributors can bring you down; vendors think nothing of holding onto your money for months at a time; and, even when you think you are ahead of the game, there are those unexpected returns to put a dent in your cash flow. And just like that smell of napalm in the morning, I love it. What I don’t love, however, are all those people who tell anyone with a computer that printing a book makes them a publisher. For every one of those folks who buy into it, there is another person willing to teach them how to create a bestseller, how to get free PR, how to become rich—off of their book. The truth is the only people becoming rich are the people printing the books and selling the seminars.

Now don’t get me wrong, I have absolutely no problem with lots more people becoming publishers. Independent publishers have always been the driving force behind innovations, discovery of new voices, and quality over profits. However, if you are going to be a publisher, you not only need to know how to run a business, you also need the drive and instincts to run it. Take courses on the subject. PMA, the Independent Book Publishers Association, offers great workshops on the subject. Talk to people who are in the business. Read books about the subject. Send some time walking the halls of the BEA. Do all you can to prepare to be brutalized, and then when you think you are ready, ask yourself one question. Do I want to run a business or be a writer? And if you truly want to be a publisher, then go for it.

I answered that question years ago, and have never looked back.

Back to you.
Rudy Shur
Publisher
Square One Publishers

Posted by: Rudy Shur

The first year in any business is a sink or swim time. In publishing, there are two first years: the planning year, when you find your distributor, raise your capital, set up your web site, and buy your titles; and the printing year, measured from the day that your first book arrives crated at the warehouse. I am in my planning year now. My print year starts in the Winter season, 2009.  

For my first print year, I was looking for books that fulfilled both my creative and my capitalistic vision. The books needed to be good, but they also needed to be marketable. I wanted to fall in love.

And I did.  

My first book is Brian Evenson’s LAST DAYS. Currently the MFA director at Brown, Brian is my perfect kind of writer—a writer who walks the line between the literary world and the genre world, a writer who knows a good story and who knows how to write it well. He has everything: craft, structure, character-driven plots. He’s an NEA recipient, as well as an O. Henry prize winner. He translates from French, he’s won the Horror Guild Award, and his last book, The Open Curtain, was picked as one of the ten best books of the year by Time Out New York. All that, plus he’s a great guy to have across the table at a meal. You can read more about him here: http://www.brianevenson.com.

I met Brian at BEA, when I was an editor at Dark Horse. He agreed to write an Aliens novel for Dark Horse, which was a bit of a triumph, I thought. LAST DAYS is a detective novel set in a secret society of self mutilators. The detective was kidnapped by members of the society, and is forced to solve a murder mystery for them. It’s a down the rabbit hole kind of story, where nothing is as it seems.

My second book is Jeff VanderMeer’s third novel set in the Ambergris world, FINCH. I met Jeff through Brian, and, though Jeff and I have never talked face to face, we carry on a lively email correspondence. Jeff pitched me a Predators story when I was an editor at Dark Horse. The resultant Predators novel is also a bit of a triumph.

Jeff is one of the most prolific writers I’ve met. He has ten (yes, ten!) books coming out next year. He’s widely considered to be one of America’s best fantasy writers, having won the World Fantasy Award, been translated into 17 languages, been featured on the NYT’s blog and Wired.com. He’s kind and intelligent, and also a gonzo marketer, with ideas coming out of his ears. Read more about him (and see some pretty cool art) at www.jeffvandermeer.com.

FINCH is a noir tale, set in a world where the gray caps, mysterious underground inhabitants, have taken over the city. Martial law is in place. Against a backdrop of oppression and rebellion, the hero, John Finch, must solve an impossible double murder while trying to make contact with the rebels. His girlfriend, Sintra, might or not be the leader of the resistance. Something is about to happen.  

Third up? Will Elliott’s PILO FAMILY CIRCUS. Talk about the genre / literary crossover… The book is about a troupe of demonic clowns working in a between-worlds circus. The currency that the circus runs on is bits of white crystal—or souls. The writing is smart, dry, and humorous. The book made me both look over my shoulder in fear, and laugh out loud. The word Elliott creates crackles with tension. He’s a fantastic writer, and to think that this is only his first book…

I bought the North American English rights to Will’s book from Quercus, his U.K. publisher. The book was originally printed in Australia, where it won the ABC prize. The novel also won the Aurealis Award, the Shadows Award, and the Ditmar Award. Elliott got a nod from the Sydney Herald as the best young novelist for 2007.  

And about the wovel? Last week, I found my wovelist. He’s young, he’s smart, he’s ready for a break out from the limited edition publishers. He’s Kealan Patrick Burke, and if you haven’t heard of him, you will.

His wovel, called The LIVING, is set in a world torn apart by civil war—the undead humans versus the living humans. The undead are not your typical zombies. They were created by genetic mutation, and they are the underclass of this new world. Our heroine, Madison, might be the last hope for peace in this world. The wovel follows Madison’s attempted escape from a city ravaged from the civil war.

In preparation for writing this wovel, Kealan sent me not a plot synopsis but a conflict synopsis. With the help of the readers, who will vote on the plot branch points as they come up, Madison might escape from the city alive. Or she might not… The readers get to decide. Read more about Kealan at his web site www.kealanpatrickburke.com.

I can’t announce my fourth print title yet, because the contract isn’t signed…

Know these authors? Have thoughts about the lineup? Comment here, or write me at Victoria@underlandpress.com.

And thanks for reading the blog. It’s been fun to write for ForeWord. Keep in touch by visiting www.underlandpress.com, and signing up for our newsletter.

Best of luck, and happy reading…

Victoria

Posted by: Victoria Blake

My hunt for a web writer continues. I’ve been knocking on doors, sending out emails, calling friends, pitching hard. I’ve gotten one writer lined up, but I’m looking for one more.

Here’s the idea:

I want to publish a Wovel, or web novel. The concept is to allow readers to participate in the formation of the plot arc, while leaving the writing, characterization, setting, description, and problem solving up to the author.  

Here’s how the Wovel works: The author posts an installment every week, say every Monday. Every post ends with a plot branch point. For example: the heroine, chased by zombies, reaches her car. The car a) starts, b) does not start. The readers get to decide. Every installment is between 1,000 and 3,000 words: long enough to get somewhere, but short enough to read Monday morning in your cubicle at work.

The post would go up on Monday, voting would be open until Wednesday, the writer would work on a draft until Friday, I would edit it, turn it around for final correx on Saturday, to repost it Sunday night.

Sound like a magazine or newspaper schedule?

It is. And that’s one of it’s strong points.

We wouldn’t be asking the readers to read fifteen or twenty pages of text. We’d be asking them to read short, and then vote. It could work out magically.

To my knowledge, this structure for writing on the web has never been tried before. There have been other variations, and each has had its own failings. Remember Steven King's much-publicized e-book The Plant? He kept it up for six chapters, before bowing out, saying that too many readers had jumped ship. The Wovel form, by contrast, gives the readers a stake in the book, providing them a reason to come back for more.

I’m incredibly excited by this idea. As with everything on the web, though, it takes a certain slantwise look to understand how it would work, and what the practical benefit would be.

For the author, the benefit would be a pure and simple readership build. The principle is that the more people read, the more people want to buy it. Interest equals monetization. It’s the same principle behind publishing for pittance in quarterlies.  

The author would come out of the Wovel term with a workable manuscript for possible reprint in the traditional book form. Some authors and agents say that publishers won’t want a manuscript that’s been online already. It seems to me, however, that the growing trend of print publishing blogs has well paved the way for a second print life for a Wovel. In fact, I would think that the print life would equal the online life, the two would build off each other. Heard of how well the Radiohead album In Rainbows is doing, despite being offered free online? What about the book Julie and Julia? It sold more than 150,000 in trade and cloth, and it was based off a blog.

For the publisher (Underland), the benefits would be to drive traffic to my site, to increase interest in my books, and to build my stable of authors. It’s a no-brainer for me, if the author and I can make it good, and if the readers keep coming back for more.

There’s a certain amount of experimentation that goes with this online territory. I don’t yet know what will happen with the Wovel, and there’s a possibility it will fall flat on its head. What do you think? Good idea? Bad idea? Scary idea? Interested in hearing more? I’m still working on my web site. I have a holding page up there now with an email capture. Sign up, and I’ll send you news as it comes. Underland Press is online at www.underlandpress.com. Or email me directly. I’m at victoria@underlandpress.com.

Next week is my last week as a guest blogger for ForeWord. I’m planning on announcing my first-year title list, plus announcing who my Wovel writer will be…

Posted by: Victoria Blake

A few months ago, I invited a group of my smartest web developer friends to sit at my big table, bought a case of Terminal Gravity, a pack of Oreos, and said “Go.”

They went.

Among the ideas for the web page: an RSS calendar that ticked through the worst things that happened on the day in question; an “eye” that hacked into the computer’s on-screen camera, re-routed the feed, and reflected the user back to himself; a room that the user could wander inside, picking up knives, opening doors, finding links, etc.

Impressive? Yes.
Overkill? Possibly.
Exciting? Absolutely.

My intent with Underland has always been to try to use the web not only to market and sell the books that Underland publishes, but to push the boundary of what is currently being done with text on the web. It occurred to me early on that print publishing is where music was in 1996: pre-Napster, ready for something big.

I don’t think that big thing is going to be the new digital readers. I’m in the camp that thinks paper and ink are pretty close to the best technology we need for books. But text has gone digital, and we haven’t yet figured out what to do with it. The issue might not be a readability issue. Finding and keeping online readers might require a new way, or at least a new style of writing.

Consider: A journalist writes an A1 story differently than a newspaper feature, differently than a long-form magazine feature, differently than a front-of-book news item. Each of those forms has its own requirements and limitations and opportunities. Indeed, professional journalists are extremely good at writing for all the various content platforms: newspapers, magazines, radio, TV. They have courses for this in their degree programs. They specialize.

Fiction writers? Fiction writers are lagging a bit behind. The majority of fictional prose I read online is originally written for print. Or it might have a second life in print. Or it wanted to be print, before it was put up on the web.

When I hear industry people talking about web publishing, I hear them talking about intellectual property rights and technology issues. I have never heard anybody talk about writing style and form issues. I recently had a writer send me a sample as a "audition" for an Underland Press web novel. The sentences were long and complicated, the paragraphs were long and complicated, and I couldn't find a story outside of the synopsis.

I don’t know if I’m right about this, but it seems that in order for prose to be successful online the sentences would have to be shorter, the story more obvious (ie less subtle), and the paragraphs would have to move more quickly. Chapters would have to be shorter, too. Maybe even short enough to read in the cubical at work, with the back turned to the hallway and the finger on the minimize button…

You know. Like blogs.

I’m going to keep thinking about this problem. I’m going to talk to the writers I know. I’m going to talk to the lawyers. I’m going to talk to my web guys. I might not be the one to crack the problem, but I’m in the generation of publishers who will.  

As before, and as always, I welcome your comments. Unlike print journalism, the blog gives us a way to talk back. I love that, though it might force me to develop a thicker skin.

Posted by: Victoria Blake

Say “genre fiction” and you bring to mind books about aliens, about vampires, about mutilation, about kidnapping, about incest, and about straight up good old fashioned murder. You bring up images of mass market trim sizes and covers with foil and embossing and a dark road with maybe the shadow of a tree and noose in the background. You also bring up the idea of books that are more plot driven than character driven, books where the language and syntax sometimes seems ignored, books that rely on cheap thrills more than craft for effect. Say “genre,” and the nice lady talking to you at the dinner party will turn away.

With this in mind, I’m going to describe a book, and I’d like you to tell me if it fits in “genre.” Here goes:

After a catastrophic nuclear event, America has become a vast, deadly field of starvation, crime, and man-against-man contests for survival. Through this wasteland, a man and his young son walk along the left over roads of America, confronting their basic fears and searching through the rubble of civilization for hope.

Know the book? It’s one of the best genre books to be published in the last twenty, if not fifty years. It has murder, suspense. It has mutilation and cannibalism. It sold incredibly well—about a million copies so far according to Bookscan. It’s a page turner: Everybody I know read it in forty-eight hours, and passed it on to everybody they knew. Its author won a well-deserved Pulitzer, as well as a spot on Oprah’s list.

Know the book? It’s The Road, by Cormac McCarthy, and I swear it’s as genre as they come.

Here’s my argument. It’s the argument at the center of what I do and what I’m interested in, and it’s the creative push behind Underland Press. Here’s the argument: A genre is a body of work defined by similar characteristics. A category is a marketing niche. The two things should not be confused.  

When I say genre fiction, I mean fiction that takes on weird and scary subjects. I mean books about aliens, apocalypse, vampires, mutilation, kidnapping, incest, and murder. Weird is my genre. Horror, fantasy, dark fantasy, those are my categories, my BISAC codes, my cover designs. When I say genre, I do not mean fiction that ignores craft in favor of the cheap, easy thrill. The word “genre” does not imply a license to ignore character entirely, nor does it allow a writer to write badly. When I say genre, I mean books that entertain me. Books that I can pass with confidence to my friends and family members. Books that keep me coming back. And yes, sometimes books that make the nice lady at the dinner party turn away.
    
Argue with me. This is slippery terrain, and it’s something I think about a lot. How do you define it? What do you mean?

Posted by: Victoria Blake

3.0 Approach to blogging: three key web tactics proven to work

Almost every author has a blog. Anecdotally, it hardly seems credible to claim — as I do — that the blog is the most important marketing tool for publishers and authors. Why, if it’s so important, doesn’t a blog automatically translate into sales?

It’s not magic — or how blog marketing actually works

It’s not the willingness to blog or the act of blogging that leads to success. Authors and publishers who succeed with runaway sales on their books — as proven by dozens of our own writers — are those who take a three-pronged approach to blog success (hence Web 3.0!) The proven tactics are:

• Create multiple blogs, at a minimum twelve or more, each on separate themes
• Blog daily and power-blog weekly
• Guest blog and blog tour on high-profile blogs and on social networks (Myspace, Facebook, Goodreads, Authorsden.com, and as many as you can manage).

Blogertizing, it’s a beautiful thing—no cost (other than time) and it works

Okay, I’ll come clean and admit Blogertizing is my own trademark and a book releasing to major buzz and print run in fall 08 (Blogertize: A Leading Expert Shows How Your Blog Can Be a Money-Making Machine — www.kunati.com/blogertize .) But I’ll share, step-by-step, some important quick-start top-level tips here, and invite you to visit www.blogertize.com throughout the year to learn more.

First — why blog at all?

Most publishers cannot commit the time to provide blogs on behalf of authors. It’s really up to authors, to empower their own success. The most a publisher can hope to do is coach the authors to develop the daily blog habit. The key reasons to blog at all:

• No cost — other than time. Most blog services are free
• Editorial-style credibility: where a website is often viewed as an online ad, a blog is more often thought of as an “E-Zine” (online magazine, for those who don’t speak web lingo)
• Google and other search engines automatically rank blogs higher than websites (in part because they own many of the free blogging services, but mostly because blogs offer “timely” and current content)
• Blogs encourage return visits, subscribers and loyalty if the following techniques are deployed
• While it makes no sense to have multiple websites, it makes plenty of sense to create multiple blogs on various themes to mine readers from different interest groups
• Since the ultimate goal is to sell books, blogs allow hundreds or thousands of opportunities to direct traffic to book pages on online stores via “inbound links” (more on this nifty concept in a moment.) Websites might offer, at most, dozens of links.

It’s all about "inbound links"

If you haven’t heard of this nifty term, make it your mantra: inbound links drive success, inbound links drive success…

Inbound links are almost the sole driver of Google Page Ranks. Google, and most search engines, rank sites based on how many quality inbound links are offered TO your site or blog. This means I, and all your other friends, associates and supporters, have to embed a link TO your site (usually in return for likewise consideration from you.)  Since links are “online referrals” they weight higher than any other consideration. People visit sites — and buy books — based on referrals.

As a goal, in your first year, focus on a minimum of 6,000 inbound links. To find out how many you have now, go to Altavista.com and type in LINK:www.yourwebsite.com (substituting your website name, of course).

Google Page Ranks — the true measure of success

To measure your success, as it stands right now, install the Google Toolbar on your browser. Once installed, you’ll see the all-important Google Page Rank on the top right after you land on a page. You can get this mandatory tool here:

• http://toolbar.google.com

If it seems like I’m plugging Google, I’m not. The reality is that Google drives the internet these days. A Google Page Rank tells you all you really need to know. Now, check out your author or publisher blog and your website.

If you see a 1/10 rank or a 2/10 rank — or the all too common 0/10 rank — you now know why your blogs haven’t translated into sales. It’s unlikely you achieve much above a 3/10 or 4/10 in one year, since the rank is incremental, but this should be your minimal goal. A 4/10 rank means you’re selling books. Any less, you’re definitely missing sales.

The 6,000 inbound links I mentioned above probably translates into a 4/10 Google Rank. And a lot of books sold.

Equity and content rules in blogs and books

You’re building equity in your blogs through inbound links and page ranks. It will take months, but as your rank climbs on your various blogs, your book sales will as well. Content rules on your blogs. Talk about yourself and your book at your own risk. People want information, news, tips, commentaries — but not a synopsis of your book.

The best way to do this — and to create more and more audience subscribers — is to have multiple blogs. Since they are free on services such as www.blogger.com, it costs only time. For example, most books have multiple themes, whether non-fiction or fiction. For example, my current novel, MADicine (www.kunati.com/madicine) has several themes that can each be turned into interesting topical blogs:

• The dangers of genetic research
• The global power of pharmaceutical giants
• The evolving dangers of super viruses (perhaps talking about bird flu, and so on)
• The stupidity of reality television

There are four blogs, to start. Add to this an “author blog” for a more “commercial” push on the novel, and there are five. Then, drill down to the smaller topics.

Editorial content is the key to success

The critical aspect of this is to write the blogs as you would an article or and editorial for a magazine. If it’s informative, researched or helpful, readers will find you through the almighty power of Google. Since the goal is daily short blogs, and a weekly “major” piece on each blog, you have to diversify:

• How-tos are popular (something like this blog topic)
• Feature stories on any of your thematic topics. I advise you too create a Google Alert for each of your keyword topics so that you’ll have daily fodder for your stories. You can set up Google alerts here: www.google.com/alerts)
• Snippets of other people’s news with links to the sources
• Editorials (opinion pieces, but not usually rants)
• News — for example, on “the stupidity of reality television” theme mentioned above, I might announce and review a new reality show
• Reviews of other people’s books on the theme.

Guest blogging and touring
Without question, the above techniques — thematic blogs, many of them, editorial content — will incrementally grow your sales, audience, fans, and page rank. In the meantime, you need faster results, right?

The secret to fast results in Guest blogging and blog touring. It’s simple, free, but time-consuming. The advantages include:

• Driving immediate traffic to your blogs and book pages if you embed links in your guest blog. For instance, here’s a link to the Amazon page with my novel MADicine, mentioned above: http://www.amazon.com/MADicine-Derek-Armstrong/dp/160164017X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1204041923&sr=8-1

• The inbound links created improves your long-term page rank
• You can sell books instantly if you seek out the high-profile, high-traffic sites.

Unpaid freelance writing
To succeed in a Blog Tour — the most important type of author tour these days — you’ll need to query the blog owners as you would a magazine editor. The query must be valid, well-written and offer something to the blog owner’s audiences. Most blogs have a contact email for this purpose.

Finding candidate blogs is a little more involved. Search your theme’s keywords — for example, for MADicine, I’d search: pharmaceutical, genetic research, reality TV — on the popular blog engines:

• www.technorati.com/blogs
• www.blogsearch.google.com
• any of the dozens of other blog search sites.

It’s all in the page rank
Since query writing takes time, and your only payment will be publicity and inbound links, choose carefully. This is where the Google Toolbar comes in. Go to the sites referred on Technorati and Google Blogsearch, and view their page rank (top right of your browser if you installed the tool.) Include in your query list any blog with a page rank of 3/10 or greater. 3/10 might not sound like much, but it indicates a maturing site with a nice-sized audience. Each rank up from there is at least a “doubling” of rank, so 4/10 is twice the value of 3/10.

Guest blogging without permission
You can also be a guest of all the high profile blogs without asking. Comment on blogs, even the high profile ones on Variety Magazine, ForeWord Magazine, Entertainment Weekly and the New York Times. To avoid being “moderated” keep your comment informative, add statistics or useful tips and bury a link to your blog at the end. Mention all your important keywords in your comment: name, book name, publisher name, ISBN, web address. Most of the time, you will not be screened out unless you overtly spam. “Nice post, visit me at www.mysite.com” is spam. If you create a thoughtful comment, you’ve created an inbound link to your site on one of the biggest blogsites on the net.

Finally, some Tips
Whether you’re guest blogging or writing for your own dozen or so blogs (which soon will have GPRs of 4/10 right?), you’ll want to keep these tips in mind:

• Keep your posts informational: news and content drives traffic and links
• Write a daily post in each blog, even if they’re short
• Write personally, in the first person. Use I, you and we.
• Work hard on your headline and be sure to include all your keywords so that audiences can find you
• Provocation helps. My most popular blog title, still going strong on several sites, was:
Are Readers and Movie-Goers Addicted to Sex and God-Killing?
• Work equally hard on perfecting your first paragraph and be sure to ask a question that must be answered
• Don’t preach or proselytize
• Be truthful, honest and sincere. You hurt yourself with any form of exaggeration.
• Write your best prose. As a writer or publisher, your writing style will be evaluated based on your blog
• Link liberally to other blogs, especially your other blogs
• If you can’t break news, provide a fresh point of view on the what’s happening
• Be chatty and conversational. Blogs are editorial, but more conversational than a magazine feature article
• Tell as story
• Be useful
• If you rant, do so with good humor and provide facts. Don’t whine
• Allow commenting on your blogs to increase your page ranks and inspire audience participation. To prevent spamming go to your blog settings and turn on moderation
• You don’t have to remove negative comments (except for racist, sexist, or rude comments) as long as they are intelligently argued. Construct a reply that is equally thoughtful and you’ve created a conversation
• Only write how-tos if you’re an expert. Otherwise, be helpful and simply point people to the experts
• Write a major feature a week on your blogs, and a daily short post. Monthly, plan on a killer post that will drive new audiences
• Use your important keywords in every post.

Posted by: Derek Armstrong

Let’s call it Web 3.0 — The Cure-All For Book Sales Horror Stories

How do publishers and authors beat the odds—that terrifying Nielsen Bookscan report that nearly 80% of books in the market sell less than 99 copies in total?

One of the key reasons authors bury Kunati Books in submissions—8,500 submissions per year is pretty much a “drowning in manuscripts” scenario—is our “marketing-first” approach to publishing. Quill and Quire profiled Kunati Books as “what a publisher looks like if the marketing department runs things.”

A How-To: Web 3.0 from the Experts

Step-by-step I’ll cover the top-line tactics that we’ve proven work, starting this week with our own killer applications: book/novel trailers and the author marketing group. Next week, I’ll reveal our Web 3.0 Social Marketing Program.

Bear in mind these are methods we’ve proven to work, beating the odds with all of our released titles—by a good margin. It’s not Quantum mechanics, and anyone can do it, but I’ll warn you—these methods require talent, hard work, long hours, commitment, discipline, planning and heart. Heart, because that’s what keeps you going seven days a week during launch phase. If that sounds like too much, stop reading now. You’ll get nothing from this how-to.

The Author-Publisher Partnership—Your Online Marketing Group

The most important anchoring strategy I can offer, fundamental to that all-important author-publisher partnership, is the Author Marketing Group. Every publisher who works with more than one author should have one. We set ours up as a free private Yahoo Group, inviting all our authors to participate by email.

Everything from author ideas to tips to events are discussed, topic by topic in this private “forum.” Our authors get to know each other. They buzz each other’s books and events. They tell everyone about their friends. They link their blogs to each other.

Big news is conveyed seamlessly to authors. As long as the group remains dynamic and interesting, every post is read by authors. Our Kunati Authors Group now has an archive of 6,500 past posts, fully searchable by new authors who join and want to “catch up” on how-to manage a book signing, how-to approach a bookseller CRM or manager/owner, how-to set up a Facebook page, how-to use Widgetbox. It’s all there. Priceless.

The Author Brand—Everyone’s Secret Weapon

I write this without fear that our authors’ egos will suddenly inflate to unmanageable levels. I also write this as a publisher who virtually specializes in debut authors with no brand awareness. Ultimately, this is the “secret weapon” we wield, the key to beating the odds. Even a debut author must become a “name brand.”

Treat Every Author as a Celebrity and a Friend

Celebrities can be friends, too. We hope to make our authors celebrities. And we hope they’ll stay friends forever. It requires hard work, a true partnership between author and publisher. Starting, of course, with the Online Marketing Group.

Step two is an innovation of our creative director Kam Wai Yu. Kam invented the book trailer back in the dark ages when 1 megabyte of Ram was too expensive for most designers—back before anyone even know what QuickTime was in the distant 1990. His innovation, an innocent one, would change everything online. Now, no one in publishing would think of launching a book without one, right?

Book Trailers—If Done Right, the Most Important Tactic of All

Pretty much everyone does them now, but hardly anyone does them well. Why? Because they’re too rushed, not thought out; they try to do too much.

To do a trailer that works requires time and talent. The trailer should be as good as the book. Remember, we’re building the author brand. The trailer is the 30 second stand-in for a book that someone is going to invest days in reading: reviewers, librarians, booksellers, readers.

It must build the author’s brand in two minutes. At Kunati, Kam spends weeks on each trailer, not days, carefully scripting, adding sound F/X, building it in proper animation software. And it shows. Each one is a priceless work of art. Each one is memorable. Each one is distinctly the author’s brand.

A Good Trailer Results in Reviews

With Kam’s trailers, every single one of our debut authors has received big trade and newspaper reviews that sold books. The credibility alone, of an apparently big budget trailer, overcomes the “debut author” stigma. I remember one magazine editor (it might even have been someone at ForeWord), commenting on how the “trailer DVD” sent with the galley made such a difference, especially since they’d never heard of either Kunati or the author.

The book trailer alone for The Last Troubadour directly sold thousands of books, and helped build my own author brand. If we had done nothing else, the trailer would have made the book a success and built a fan base. You can view it here: http://www.kunati.com/the-last-troubadour-historical/

Burn it to a DVD for Reviewers, Load it On Your Web, Watch the Sales Come In

Each prospective reviewer should receive your trailer with an author sell sheet, the galley and a nice presentation. The trailer should be right on top on the book web page—the first thing a visitor sees. They sell books! Every time.

Quick Trailer Tips

• Take your time and do it right. Hire the best if you can’t render the best. If you can’t afford to do either, skip the trailer altogether and find another way to impress reviewers, readers, librarians and booksellers (next week’s topics)
• Burn a DVD for reviewers. It can make a difference when a reviewer is deciding where to spend his or her valuable time. A typical reviewer or editor must choose which of the thousands of books in the pile to review. Stand out from the pile.
• Use YouTube to host your videos. Not only do you build a social network at YouTube, you can embed their code on your website, in your emails and in your blogs without uploading the video countless times.
• Do not use voices or actors. It’s doubtful you can afford a good actor. A bad actor can cheapen the author’s brand, turn away reviewers and readers. Even a good actor weakens a book video because readers want to visualize their characters for themselves.
• Use images, appropriate music and sound effects and—one long, run-on sentence, just a few words per screen sequence. Skip the punctuation and paragraphs. It’s just a teaser!
• Do it right, or don’t do it.

Three Examples of Correctly Rendered Trailers that Sell Books
I’ll share three we launched recently for three spring titles, two for debut authors. Almost immediately after the trailer launch, advance orders doubled. The only other tactic proven to hit advance sales so hard are good reviews. And trailers help there as well. It’s win, win.

Try these links out, and see if you don’t agree. These not only sell books, they sell author brands to reviewers, librarians, booksellers and readers. Take them for a spin. You’ll love them:

• The wild and wacky world of Alban Bane in MADicine: http://www.kunati.com/madicine/
• The DaVinci Code killer Hunting the King from Peter Clenott:
http://www.kunati.com/hunting-the-king-peter-clenott/
• The gripping and too-real “ripped from the headlines” story of Karen Harrington’s http://www.kunati.com/karen-harrington/
• Check out last season’s blockbusters here:
http://www.kunati.com/kunatis-famous-novel-trailers/?currentPage=2


Social Marketing for Books Taken to the Next Level

Almost every publisher and author these days claims to have a MySpace page, and if done properly, they have a few thousand friends, post a blog daily and update their friends with bulletins. This is Web Marketing 2.0, and it’s important. But to really make a difference, go Web Marketing 3.0.  Next week, I’ll cover how to do this.

Meanwhile, get busy with your author marketing group and your book videos and novel trailers. Post your trailer links here in comments. We’d love to see them!

Posted by: Derek Armstrong