The Catch-22 Of Book Marketing

 Last month Michael Offutt's IWSG post ruminated on book marketing and how most of us are on our own when it comes to that.  It reminded me of a post I wrote not quite 2 years ago after reading Donald Westlake's The Hook.  

That book, written in 1999-2000 or so, was about a struggling midlist author who ghostwrites a book for a famous author who's blocked.  And then mayhem ensues.  One point I made in my blog post was that the struggling author was in part struggling because publishers didn't want to waste resources backing a loser so they'd pretty much just back their biggest clients.  "Midlist" authors or smaller fish had to find ways to do the marketing themselves.

In other words, this isn't a new phenomenon.  It's something that's been happening at least 25 years now and probably longer.  Then I wondered why this might be.  This was obviously long before "AI," smartphones, and even blogs.  The answer is pretty simple though:  in the 80s and 90s big conglomerates were buying publishers and larger publishers were merging to make even larger publishing conglomerates.

The thing is when you're part of a big conglomerate or just a big company on your own, you're going to have executives who probably don't really care about the creative stuff.  They care about the bottom line.  And with mergers and stuff you're going to have managers wanting to show how efficient they can make things so they can get promotions and bonuses--or at least not get fired.  (The latter is sort of the topic of another Westlake book from around the same time called The Ax where a guy gets laid off and starts murdering people he thinks are ahead of him for a job.  In case you're wondering why middle managers might want to keep their jobs or get promoted.)

The unfortunate side effect of all this "efficiency" and cost-cutting is that the marketing departments are going to focus on the winners.  They're going to focus on the big-time authors like Stephen King, James Patterson, John Grisham, Dean Koontz, or whoever else was big back at the start of the new millennium.  That means that A) midlist and smaller authors are basically set adrift and B) It leads to this system where the rich get richer and most everyone else gets screwed.

There are still ways around it of course.  One way I actually talked about in Where You Belong back in 2008:  get your book on Oprah!  (Or Today or wherever these days.)  Frost Devereaux edits the book of an African writer and when the book is chosen for Oprah's book club, it becomes a smash hit.  Meanwhile, Frost's books that aren't featured on TV talk shows do OK but not well enough where he's going to be independently wealthy.

Another obvious way is if you can win a major award like the Pulitzer, National Book Award, or Booker Prize in the UK.  Then the publisher might want to put some money behind your book just for the prestige.

Bringing up another path to success:  Hollywood!  A lot of adaptations get stuck in "development hell" or fail but if your book gets made into a big-time movie or streaming miniseries then you'll probably sell a bunch of copies and probably get on the talk shows and such.  And obviously the publisher will want to put out a new edition with a sticker proclaiming it's "Now A Major Motion Picture" or streaming series.

Of course the chances that most authors can do any of that is pretty remote.  You can always try to do what Eric Filler did:  find a niche in somewhat the right time and exploit the hell out of it.  You won't win awards or get on talk shows, but you might make more than most indie books.

The 2002 Lawrence Block book Small Town has another way to succeed without a lot of marketing:  get accused of a crime!  When an author (kind of a Block surrogate, I assume) is accused of murdering a woman, he ends up getting a publishing contract worth over $3M!  You don't want to actually commit a crime, but remember what they say:  There's no such thing as bad publicity.  Maybe people think you're a murderer, but at least they're thinking of you!  And a sharp publisher will take advantage of that to get your books on shelves.

Those are ways to succeed if you're not good at marketing.  You might be good at marketing though.  If you can be an "influencer" and get on "Book Tok" and all that, these days you really don't hardly need a publisher.  You can do just about everything yourself and keep most of the money.  But the obvious problem is the reason a lot of authors are authors is that they're not perky and cute and thus not suited for the Book Tok crowd.  Which is why most authors are screwed.  

Not to sound too perky or cute, but something to remember is perseverance.  A lot of authors didn't succeed on their first book.  It took four books until my hero John Irving found success with The World According to Garp.  John Grisham had a couple of books before The Firm was a success.  Michael Crichton wrote a bunch of books (some under pseudonyms) before Jurassic Park made him a superstar author.  And so on.  Point being, maybe your first book doesn't hit right away, but you plug along and get one success and people might start looking into what else you have available.  So don't get too discouraged right away...wait a few books and then get discouraged. 

Anyway, I think it all goes back to corporatizing the publishing business.  It's unfortunate but really it's not much different from movies, TV, or music.  For most creators then it winds up being a Catch-22 where they need to promote themselves but how can they promote themselves when they don't have any money because they can't sell any books/movies/episodes/songs without decent marketing?  You have to hope the piddly low-cost marketing options available to you (newsletters, social media, websites, review sites, etc) will do something.  Or you luck into one of those scenarios above.  Or maybe you'll win the lottery and can pay for it with that.  The odds are about as good.

Next week is A to Z Challenge Follow-Up Week with 2 "Reflection" entries and how YOU can help decide next year's posts!