Michelle Moran is the acclaimed and bestselling author of NEFERTITI, published by Crown in 2007, and THE HERETIC QUEEN, which just came out last month. She will be stopping by as time allows to answer questions.
Thanks so much to Michelle for putting together these incredible posts!
So you’re a few months away from publishing your debut novel. Your publishing house has suggested that you pitch in to help promote your own work, but you don’t have the first clue as to where you should start. Or perhaps you’ve already published your first book without doing any of your own publicity and marketing and now the hard realization has hit that this time around, without a significant change on your part, your career is going to end as quickly as it began. Now you’re willing to try something – anything. But what works? What doesn’t work? What should you be doing?
Know the Business of Publication
If you think your job as a writer begins and ends with your manuscript, you’re going to be in for some serious disappointments when publication day arrives. Publishing houses purchase books that sell. They’re not charities (alas), they’re businesses, and unless you’re one of the few authors whose novel is chosen to be a lead title, you’re going to need to approach the publication of your novel not as a writer, but as a business person.
But first of all, what is a lead title? Every season publishers determine which books will receive their biggest push, and those are the ones that get the most attention, not to mention the most marketing and publicity dollars. Books that are normally chosen for these spots are ones that were purchased for hefty advances (high six and seven figures), or ones that have enormous in-house support. When a book is made lead title, the author may be set up not just on a book tour, but on a pre-publication tour. That means an author might be flown to several cities to meet and greet buyers. In Bentonville, Arkansas they might meet with Walmart buyers, in Ann Arbor, Michigan they’ll meet the buyers from Borders, in Birmingham, Alabama they might meet with Books-a-Million and in New York, the buyers from Barnes and Noble. That’s not to forget buyers from Costco, Baker & Taylor, Sams Club, Ingram… The list goes on and on, and as you can imagine, this isn’t the sort of treatment that every author will receive. The publicity and marketing departments simply don’t have the time to invest in setting up so many appointments for everyone. But you will know almost immediately if your book is going to be a lead title, because things will start happening quickly. Special luncheons and dinners will be set up so you can meet booksellers. These might take place at conventions like Book Expo America or RWA, or they might take place somewhere in NY or Seattle. Interviews will start coming in early, and you’ll find yourself spending more and more time on planes and less time writing. Again, writing is a business, and part of that business is being savvy, well-spoken, and willing to do what it takes to make your book a success. But if your book isn’t one of the “chosen ones” with a three-page spread in the sales catalog, you needn’t start to panic. It doesn’t mean your book doomed to failure. You simply have to be proactive.
Know the Lingo
Like any business, the publishing industry has its own lingo, and the smart author will learn as much of it as possible, since this can mean the difference between contacting the right person in your house for ad money, and contacting the wrong person and having to pay for the ad yourself. Two of the most important terms you’ll ever need to know are marketing and publicity.
The marketing department deals with anything related to promotions that can be bought: radio time, print ads, online ads, etc. If you have an idea for an advertisement and would like to see if there’s enough money in your publisher’s budget to purchase it, it’s the marketing department you should contact. If you don’t know who that person is, ask your editor. There are probably two different people in marketing who are helping promote your books: someone who deals exclusively with hardcovers, and another person who deals in paperbacks. Both of these are people you should know, and hopefully have even met on your trip to NY (What trip, you ask? Well, the one you took six months or so after signing your first contract.)
The publicity department, by contrast, deals with anything related to promotions that come “free”: online reviews, print reviews, magazine interviews, online interviews, TV interviews, book tours, etc. I put “free” in quotation marks because, let’s face it, none of this really comes free. Your publicist is investing enormous amounts of time sending out press kits (which are costly), getting galleys in the mail (which are costly), printing up press releases, calling magazines to follow up on possible interviews, double-checking schedules, booking hotel rooms, and much, much more. Not only is she doing all of this for you, but she has many other authors she’s doing it for as well.
If you’re not sure what galleys and press kits are, they are also part of this “publishing lingo” you’ll need to become familiar with. A galley is an early copy of your novel with or without the cover image. The words “Not for Sale” will be printed somewhere on the cover, since the galley is only intended for reviewers. At the galley stage, changes are still being made to the manuscript, which is one of the reasons it’s not for sale. Mind you, not all galleys are created equal. Some imprints have a policy of printing theirs with full color covers, while others use a plain, black and white cover without any image whatsoever. If your book has been chosen as a lead title, it will almost certainly have a full color cover even if that’s not the house’s normal policy. It may even have gold foil on the front, or embossing, both of which are enormously expensive, especially at the galley stage. There’s pretty much nothing you can do if your house prints up plain looking galleys and you prefer color (and really, who wouldn’t prefer color?). There’s also very little you can do (aside from printing up galleys yourself) if your publishing house only prints a hundred or two hundred galleys.
Like galley covers, not all galley print-runs are equal. A lead title might have anywhere from a thousand to ten thousand galleys printed up for every type of reviewer imaginable, while most other novels will have between a hundred and two hundred. I have known authors who were unhappy with the number of the galleys their houses printed who went out and printed up their own, then sent them media mail for two or three dollars through the post office to various reviewers they contacted themselves. Now many authors would grumble (perhaps rightly so) about doing this themselves. They don’t want to go through the trouble of asking the publicity department for a list of the places their galleys are being sent to (so they don’t duplicate during their own mailing). They also don’t want to spend the money it would require to print up their own galleys or to send out the ones their publishing house has given to them (a number that can be increased when your agent is drawing up your contract, btw). And they certainly don’t want to waste their writing time by emailing online or print reviewers and asking them if they’d like a copy of their book. But for the authors I’ve known who did this, they felt it was the difference between being a one book wonder and an author signing a contract for her fifth and sixth books.
Now, unless your galley print run is ludicrously small and the galleys are only being sent to a handful of reviewers (a list your publicist may or may not be willing to part with), I wouldn’t personally recommend this approach. But it has been done.
What I would recommend, however, is asking the publicity department whether they’ll be making press kits for your book. Press kits are folders which normally include a press release about your novel, a Q&A, possibly a photograph, and definitely snippets of your best reviews. If the publicity department says yes, then you have nothing to worry about on this front. But be sure to ask them whether their kits include folders. To save money, your publicist might simply be stuffing your press releases etc, into the mailing envelopes your book is going out in. For a more professional look, you may want to offer to purchase of your own folders, and possibly even four-color stickers of your book cover to go on the front. Two hundred should be more than enough, and you can ship them to your publicist with the stickers already applied (assuming you have gotten her okay beforehand). If this sounds like a lot of work, well… there’s no sugarcoating it. It is. But think of how this work might pay off with a review in the LA Times or the Boston Globe. Book reviewers are inundated with novels, and the piles on their desk reach life-threatening heights. What are they more likely to pull from that pile? Loose papers which have long since been crumpled into oblivion, or a folder?
Coop space (pronounced co-op, and often spelled this way as well)
Before a novel is released, several important decisions will be made ahead of time that will significantly affect the chance of having your book picked up by a customer in a bookstore. One of these decisions is whether or not the publisher will be purchasing co-op space. Co-op means cooperative advertising space that publishers pay for. These are places in bookstores that see high traffic such as end caps, new release tables in the front of the shop, and store windows. It’s a widespread misconception that bookstore employees select the titles they want to feature in the store window or on the aisle tables based on the selections they personally prefer. However, co-op placement is very selective and is also based on how the store projects a particular book will sell. All of this is decided up to six months before publication, so that before a book even hits the shelves its visibility to customers is partly predetermined. This doesn’t mean that books without co-op space won’t sell well, or that books with co-op space are launched into sudden bestseller status. It simply means that when a customer walks into a bookstore, just like when a shopper goes into a grocery store, product placement is never a haphazard decision.
Several months before your book is released, be sure to find out if your house will be purchasing coop, and if so, for which weeks. Knowing these dates is incredibly important, because this is when you are going to do the most publicity and (if you are spending any money on your own) marketing. You’ll want to work the hardest to promote your book during the two or three weeks when it’s most visible in the stores. For the really big retailers – B&N and Borders – your co-op time may differ, so be sure to ask your editor for specific dates and places.
Cover art
Readers often assume that an author has a significant amount of say in what their cover art looks like. It would seem only reasonable that after toiling for years on a six hundred page manuscript that an author would get to choose what face it will present to the world. Just as you wouldn’t take your child to be photographed at a professional studio with their hair standing on end and their trousers dirty, it is only logical to assume that a writer would get to “dress up” their child for presentation, choosing the colors and appearance of their cover art with care. The truth of the matter is, however, most writers are only minimally consulted about cover art. At the beginning of the publication process, you might be requested to submit a few words about what you envision the cover art to be. If it’s historical fiction and the subject was an historical personage, you might be requested to provide a photograph and asked what accessories and clothes the person might have worn. But besides this, there is very little control you have over your cover. Once you see the colors, layout and image of your cover three to five months into the publication process, it’s possible you’ll be asked your opinion about it, but ultimately it is the bookstores that have the trump card. If a Barnes and Nobles representative dislikes the art, for example, it may be back to the drawing board. But if you dislike your cover art because the protagonist has the wrong hair color or is wearing an historically inaccurate piece, the chances of a cover being changed might only be determined by your clout.
If you should find yourself in this position, take several deep breaths, discuss it with your agent, then have your agent approach your editor. Whenever something upsetting occurs, always discuss it with your agent first, then have the agent speak on your behalf. Emotional people make bad business decisions, and throwing a wobbly on the phone to your editor (however close the two of you have become) definitely ranks in the bad decision category.
In tomorrow’s post, Michelle will address online publicity, blogs, outside publicists, and much more!
Juliana Stone says
Wow…thanks Michelle…lots of great info….this post is a keeper for sure….looking forward to tomorrow’s post!
Nathan says
Michelle,
In your experience are book tours productive? I’ve heard pros and cons.
Thanks,
Nathan
Michelle Moran says
Hi Nathan,
That’s a tricky one! Short answer: no. I think thriller author JA Konrath’s idea of “drive-by signings” are much more effective, whereby the author goes into a store, meets and greets the booksellers, then signs the stock. I live in LA, and this is (I believe – you never can know for sure) one reason my debut novel landed on the bestseller list there.
For tours to work I think an author’s book needs to be a lead title, which means the author is either already well-known or their house is setting up publicity opportunities at every city they stop in to drive people to the signing. Otherwise, an author might show up to a signing to see only four or five people in attendance.
I’m sure there are cases of authors who have had success with a book tour without being a “brand” name or a lead title, I just haven’t met any.
Robena Grant says
Michelle, thank you so much for your generous insights. It’s such a confusing business.
Looking forward to more info tomorrow. Will send some of my RWA chapter mates over.
Nathan says
Thanks, Michelle.
Follow-up question. If you are doing ‘drive-bys’ and other proactive promotion – which is necessarily time consuming, how did you balance your time between promoting Nefertiti and writing The Heretic Queen – and possibly working a ‘day’ job, having a life, family or whatever else is beyond the scope of ‘author’?
Thanks,
Nathan
Deaf Brown Trash Punk says
hi michelle,
i myself am thinkin gabout doing a little book signing tour, but i wasn’t so sure if it’s really efficient. thanks for your input.
Crimogenic says
Michelle, wow, what a golden nugget of information. Thanks for the insight. I’ll be tuning in tommorrow for the next installment.
AC says
You’re amazing, Michelle! This is one of the best, clearest explanations I’ve seen on book promotion. I’m keeping this post for reference if (when!) I get a book deal. Many, many thanks!
Linnea says
Hi Michelle
What a pleasant surprise to learn you're Nathan's guest today. Great info. Believe it or not I just put down 'The Heretic Queen' to come online. It's an absorbing story and I love all the historical details. (Also, thanks for giving me the opportunity of an author Q&A on your site. )I'm looking forward to Part 2 on your promo topic!
Zoe Winters says
I think what mystifies me is, there are so many different “everybody knows this is true” ideas in publishing that are self contradictory. It’s like you have to pick a religion and go with it.
Because there is one camp that says, “Well everybody knows that author self promotion doesn’t really do very much to impact sales.”
And then the other camp says, “Well, if you don’t self promote your book will tank and you’ll get dropped.”
And one would think that one group is a bunch of noobs who don’t know anything and the other group are industry professionals. But that’s not the case. Because both messages come from industry professionals, just different ones.
And arguments always shift. Any time any noob author says something about how they know they have to promote, you know you’re going to run into the “industry professional” who knows that is pointless to their success really and will pat them on the head and smile.
Any time the noob says, “Well, you know, I think word of mouth is really what makes it happen, because every author I know has promoted and promoted and isn’t really noticing an impact on sales.” Then the professionals who know self promotion is everything smile and nod at the little noob.
So I guess I’m just waiting on people to actually agree on something as being true before I accept it or don’t accept it as valid.
Until then I think the only thing people can do is experiment to see what might work for them, and not invest a single penny they can’t afford to lose.
Nathan Bransford says
zoe-
Everyone’s right — I don’t think it’s an either/or situation. Some books succeed on their own, some books succeed because of the author’s elbow grease, some are a mixture of the two. There’s no set formula.
If you ARE going to put some elbow grease to it, I think these two posts are completely spot on in how to best utilize your time and resources.
Conduit says
Michelle, this is one of the best posts on the topic I’ve read, and is very timely for me. I’m looking forward to the next instalment.
Anonymous says
We see this kind of phrasing a lot nowadays:
“approach the publication of your novel not as a writer, but as a business person.”
This post outlines really useful information. Still, I wonder: what, really, is the heart of this for the writer? Why does so much of the discourse on this topic seem to harbor disdain for the writer?
Maybe we could start from a place more like this: “Approach the publication of your novel as a writer.” And then think imaginatively and energetically about what that could look like.
Susan
Zoe Winters says
Nathan, that’s a very reasonable position. It’s hard sometimes to see that reasonable position in the muck of “one true wayism.” I think people tend to assume that what works for them or doesn’t work for them applies across the board to every other person breathing oxygen.
Nathan Bransford says
zoe-
Well, it’s also important to know the conventional wisdom, because publishers these days are not just hoping that authors will do all or nearly all of what Michelle is outlining, but expecting it. Publication decisions, even for novels, are increasingly made at least in part on what the author can/will do for the book.
Michelle Moran says
Hi Nathan,
Great question! I now write full time, and what I try to do is leave the afternoons open for publicity and marketing, and the morning open for writing (five pages a day, singled spaced, minimum). For time-intensive things like “drive-bys”, I only do them when the book has coop, so three weeks out of the year (or six, if you count the paperback).
I’m afraid I can’t speak about how I balance family time, since I don’t have children, but I do take the summers off for research and traveling. So although this all sounds incredibly time-consuming and overwhelming, it can be done!
And as Zoe points out, there’s no surefire way of finding success as an author, but there sure are a lot of ways of being proactive and making sure you’re on your publishing house’s radar.
Michelle Moran says
Hi Linnea – great to see you here! For anyone who doesn’t know, Linnea is the author of a wonderful novel called THE FIRST VIAL.
Highly recommended!
And Zoe and Susan, both great points. It’s a shame we can’t just sit back and write as authors, or that our publishing houses don’t sit up and say, “So what can we do to help you“? So often, it’s the other way around. I’m not sure what can be done about it, but the author’s first responsibility is always to write a great book. Publicity and marketing come second.
nomadshan says
That’s an awesome lot of information — thanks, Michelle and Nathan!
Valerie Geary says
Thank you so much! This was very valuable information and I would love to see more of these types of topics on agent blogs. We see so much about writing or how to write a good query, but very rarely do we get a good glimpse at the publication process in its entirity. Very helpful!
Anonymous says
Thank you Michelle! I’ve been wandering around the internet lately, looking for information on self promotion.
I have a book coming out next year with a small publisher. While they do have a marketing department, I have a feeling I’ll be doing most of the leg-work myself. (And to complicate things, this press uses a POD format and no one really talks about how to market a print-on-demand book from a legitimate publisher.)
I’m looking forward to tomorrow’s post…
Anonymous says
Nathan says at 10:43 “Publication decisions, even for novels, are increasingly made at least in part on what the author can/will do for the book.”
And Michelle at 10:52 “our publishing houses don’t sit up and say, “So what can we do to help you”? So often, it’s the other way around.”
I think that both of these things are true, and I think that we need to find creative, sensitive, thoughtful ways to deal with the stress and strain of both of these things being true.
Authors need to know the information in Michelle’s comprehensive post. But I long for a conversation that goes to the next level. What kind of publicity and marketing is most helpful both to the project of selling books AND to the project of nurturing the writer as writer of books?
Susan
Zoe Winters says
Oh, also, Michelle, thanks for the informative post. (I got sidetracked on a tangent and forgot to say that!)
Anonymous says
Awesome, awesome guest post Michelle. Obviously there are authors who go huge because of word of mouth or what have you, but for most authors they will need to help out in whatever way they can to make sure they don’t disappear after selling one book.
Really useful information, and I’m looking forward to tomorrow’s post.
Zach
lotusloq says
Thanks for all the great information! This was a part of the business that I needed to know about. I appreciate all your candor.
Anonymous says
What kind of publicity and marketing is most helpful both to the project of selling books AND to the project of nurturing the writer as writer of books?
I don’t think anyone in the publishing industry is going to be having that conversation anytime soon. No offense, but it’s a little touchy-feely. And while it would be nice to be considered an artist first, a commodity second, that doesn’t seem to be the reality.
Sheila says
That was very enlightening, Michelle, thank you.
What is the role of the agent in this process? After the book is sold to the publisher, is his/her job done? Or do they help petition the publisher on promotion?
Thanks.
Also, I admire your discipline. I, too, strive to write 5 single-spaced pages a day. But I can only do it if I use a really big font. Like, 36 or 48 point. Sometimes 72.
spinregina says
Wow, this is a great post, and very positive. Reminds me a little of a wonderful book by Carolyn See; https://www.carolynsee.com/Books/literarylife.html
about publishing,writing, and all the stuff that comes with it. Looking so forward to your next post, Michelle, and at the risk of sounding like a nutbar,this blog is great. Love it!
Michelle Moran says
Oops.. let me try that again without the spelling errors.
Sheila: I, too, strive to write 5 single-spaced pages a day. But I can only do it if I use a really big font. Like, 36 or 48 point. Sometimes 72.
HA! I’ve been having several of those 72 point font days recently. Must be too much internet time ;]
As for your question about how much an agent does in terms of marketing and publicity, in my experience, none. It’s really up to the author, although an agent can make some creative negotiations when contract time comes around in terms of how much the house is willing to spend/do for the author. That usually only happens once an author is established, however (at least, from what I’ve seen). Maybe Nathan can shed some light on this.
There are some agents who will give their clients advice of this sort. I was contacted recently by two really proactive agents who wanted ideas about what their historical fiction authors could do to help on the publicity front, and I basically told them what I’ve written here (with a few more details). An old editor sent these agents my way, and I was really impressed that they would take the time to ask on behalf of their clients. In my experience, that’s highly unusual.
Nathan Bransford says
When it comes to the agent’s involvement, traditionally the agent’s role is to keep tabs on things, make sure things are happening as they should, and the agent is usually the one to go to the publisher if there are problems.
Nowadays though, an agent is often the source of a lot of marketing ideas and a resource for the author, and if the agent has a blog, they can do publicity as well.
Michelle Moran says
Nathan: Nowadays though, an agent is often the source of a lot of marketing ideas and a resource for the author, and if the agent has a blog, they can do publicity as well.
You see, this is why everyone should query Nathan (plus he has a fantastic blog)!
Anonymous says
Sigh… I’ve tried. No such luck ;]
Gwen says
Thank you SO MUCH for sharing this with us, Nathan. And thank you to Michelle for such an awesome post. This helps me understand the process so much better.
Kristi Valiant says
Incredibly informative post. Thank you, Michelle!
Anonymous says
Not sure, but should “Coop” be in bold as the start of a different section? Just wondering…
Thank you Nathan for having Michelle here, and thank you Michelle for the great explanations.
J.P. Kurzitza says
Hi Michelle. Thanks for the tidbits.
You stole my thunder about being a guest-poster on a popular agent’s blog.
Nathan, hook me up! 😀
Nathan Bransford says
Thanks, Anon. Fixed.
Liz says
Great information in this post. Michelle is not only a fantastic writer, but she is obviously a pretty savvy business woman as well!
Just finished reading The Heretic Queen and it was just as enjoyable as Nefertiti.
Looking forward to your adventures in Rome with Cleopatra’s daughter.
Marilyn Peake says
Hi, Michelle,
Thank you for supplying so much helpful information about how books from the big publishing houses are marketed, and for describing different marketing strategies depending on how much money is supplied by the publisher. I recognize your novel, Nefertiti, as it came up on Google when I was doing background research about Anubis for a time travel sequence I’m writing. Nefertiti sounds fascinating and the book cover is absolutely gorgeous. Did you have input into the book cover design?
Michelle Moran says
Hi Marilyn,
I had very minimal input on my book cover (and boy am I thankful, at least in the case of Nefertiti). For my first book I was asked to provide several images of the Egyptian Queen. I let it be known that I envisioned a book cover which would feature her bust, perhaps with a black background, and perhaps in profile. Thankfully, everyone proceeded to ignore me, and an artist was hired to paint Nefertiti’s image based on her sculpture. The image turned out beautifully, and I liked the art so much that I purchased the original painting as a reminder of my debut novel.
So for my second book, I refrained from giving any opinion, which actually turned out to be a bit of a mistake. The cover features a wing – that’s it – and can easily be mistaken for being Native American versus Egyptian. It’s also quite plain, and while sales have been very strong in brick-and-mortar stores where the thick gold foil makes the cover stand out, online sales have been slower (still very good, but if you’re making a comparison – slower). Originally, the book had two bands of African cloth – one at the bottom and one at the top. I did ask to change these bands to hieroglyphics, and the art department kindly made the switch.
I’m not sure I have a moral to this story. Maybe it’s speak up early if something feels awry, but also know when to zip it!
Good luck on your writing!!
Aubrey says
Thank you so much for this info! I never imagined that publishers acutally bought shelf placement! I thought it was based on projected popularity and not a matter of buying out that location in the store. Fascinating!
I am very excited about what you have to say tomorrow, as I co-author my own blog about authors and books and we are doing Q&A's with new authors next month, and hopefully periodically throughout the year. It will be good to know how we can best help promote these new great authors!
Michelle Moran says
Perhaps I should also add that online sales might be comparatively slower for another reason entirely. But when I compare the click-thru rates for my Nefertiti ads versus The Heretic Queen, Nefertiti always comes out higher, and my gut feeling is that it has to do with something visual. The marquee name of “Nefertiti” might also have something to do with it. It’s always so hard to tell.
Stacey says
Michelle,
This is a bit off the main topic (Which is full of incredible info! Thank you!), but is related to your comment on how much you write each day.
Would you suggest that all authors make a goal of how much to write each day? Or is it better for some people to write at their own pace?
As someone trying to write thier first worthwhile novel it is something I have wondered about. How much should I be working on it each day if I am interested in trying to get it published and become an author?
Michelle Moran says
Hi Stacey,
I really think it all depends on the author. Someone with a day job, children, pets, and other commitments would be hard-pressed to get in five pages a day. But it doesn’t make them any less of an author. When I wrote Nefertiti I was working full time and probably only wrote two pages a day (if I was lucky).
I wish there was a magic formula to this, but really, it’s whatever works best for you. I don’t, however, subscribe to the thought that an author has to write every single day. I take months off entirely to travel, recharge, come up with new ideas, and to research.
Stacey says
Thanks so much! I do have a very little one (6 months) and it has been hard if I can even write one paragraph a day sometimes! I guess there is still hope for someone like me to finish that book!
Michelle Moran says
Of course there is, Stacey! And you put enough of those paragraphs together and voila, suddenly you have a book.
Other Lisa says
What a great, informative post. Thank you, Michelle and Nathan.
acpaul says
Michelle,
Thank you for your wonderful and informative post. That information will prove invaluable to many of us.
On October 21, 2008 12:00 PM you wrote: “You see, this is why everyone should query Nathan”
I’m almost proud to say that Nathan sent me my very first rejection letter. Almost. But I certainly don’t hold it against him.
Marilyn Peake says
Hi, Michelle,
I found your story about the artwork for your novels fascinating. I also visited your website, and discovered so much great information there as well. Thanks for chatting with us here, and for being so open about your writing experiences!
Anonymous says
Thanks Michelle, for all your insights. And a big congrats on your two books and their success!
I still think — and I know I'm going to get maligned for this — that unless you ARE a lead title, you aren't going to get the sales. Word of mouth is great, doing drive-by signings is great, but really, those things are a far, far cry from the publisher pushing your book.
I've seen harcover books from major pub houses, with multiple star reviews, not get stocked AT ALL by Barnes & Noble OR Borders. Forget not having a display table, I mean, the book was not stocked at all, people, as in no books on the shelves anywhere! Why? The publisher paid a modest advance, didn't have to recoup that advance, and their treatment of it reflected that.
It was no surprise when the book had dismal sales. How can it sell if no one knows it exists?
Very few books get star/lead title treatment. Publisher publictiy drives sales way more than the quality of the writing. I think that is a damn shame.
Michelle Moran says
Word of mouth is great, doing drive-by signings is great, but really, those things are a far, far cry from the publisher pushing your book.
I agree. So the only thing an author can do is be on the ball until their publishing house does make them a lead title. It is indeed sad when books get “skipped”. There is an interesting post about that here: https://antickmusings.blogspot.com/2008/10/on-being-skipped.html.