This is a story about the end of the gatekeeper. About the movement
spreading throughout media, from which book publishing is hardly exempt,
as readers of Harry Potter,
Twilight and
Fifty Shades of Grey have made all too clear.
It’s about the reading public – the great unwashed,
hoi polloi – no longer letting tastemakers decide what’s worth reading. It’s about the masses seizing the means of publication.
In short, it’s about choosing for ourselves.
Publishing is an injured beast, but it was mortally wounded before
Amazon attacked. And the injuries themselves are partly self-inflicted.
The proof? The vast majority of top-heavy legacy publishers’ books –
agented, edited, sales-managed, otherwise massaged, and only then
published – tank, sinking with nary a trace. Conversely, some books,
refused by dozens of publishers, go on to achieve rockstardom when some
kindly soul finally deigns to bring them to market.
Which means only one thing: Despite their vast education, experience and
good taste, publishers have only about a quarter of a clue what the
public really wants. For publishers, it’s “the end of the world as they
know it.”
And I feel fine.
How’s this for a story?
Mild-mannered Vancouver recreational-vehicle sales manager hits midlife
and decides it’s time for some changes. Big changes. He sobers up, gets a
divorce, takes up running, remembers he’s always wanted to be a writer,
and enrolls in community writing courses.
Five years later, his mixed-genre coming of age/romantic suspense novel,
My Temporary Life, is making the rounds of agents and publishers.
The book is rejected nearly 130 times.
For three more years, our hero perseveres, because that’s what heroes
do. He has a businessman’s “buy-in” to the process, accepting that his
product could be judged unsalable. (Nothing personal.) Aside from all
those professional reader rejections, he’s receiving an endless stream
of compliments from every real, live, non-professional reader his book
encounters – relatives, writing-class co-conspirators, friends, friends
of friends, friends of friends of friends. He keeps going because he’s
just this really swell, grounded guy, seemingly without a resentful bone
in his body.
You know, like most writers.
Maybe it’s the 12-step program
Ultimately, our hero decides – is forced – to self-publish, which, being
who he is, he welcomes. “It was either quit and not do any more with
it, or self-publish,” he says.
His e-book went live in December, 2011. In January, he sold $100 worth.
Two-and-a-half months later, he embraced the strategy I’ll spell out
later: Readers have since snapped up 86,000 copies. A Canadian
bestseller is 5,000 copies.
At Amazon.com, our hero is the e-book equivalent of an implanted,
spray-tanned, maple-syrup-smeared Playboy centerfold, earning $45,000 in
February alone. E-book sales approached $5,000 in March, with another
16,000 giveaways.
Now writing
My Name Is Hardly, about a character from
My Temporary Life,
please give a warm welcome to – your self-published hero and mine –
Kilmarnock, Scotland-born Martin Crosbie, currently personifying happily
ever after.
Published but no cigar
My own book,
The Meaning of Children, was released in Canada
last spring, also following a midlife crisis. Winner of the David Adams
Richards Prize, it garnered some magnificent feedback from readers and
reviewers. “Captivating,” “pitch-perfect prose,” “a life-altering read,”
“resonates with the sad truth of being a grownup,” and “touching
without being maudlin, a true literary feat,” readers said. Readers who
weren’t my mother.
The book surprisingly made the CBC-Scotiabank Giller Prize Readers’
Choice Contest Top 10. (Okay, I came 10th, but the actual David Adams
Richards was ninth. Besides, what do you call the doctor who graduates
at the bottom of his class?)
Still, the book didn’t do as well as I’d hoped: A small literary
publisher can mean little publicity compounded, in my case, by
distribution woes. Like Martin Crosbie, I remained convinced my book had
great U.S. market potential, but I tried and failed to find American
representation (though I didn’t have it in me to try 130 times).
My Canadian publisher wanted the rights, but I became convinced I
probably wouldn’t do a worse job myself. I prepared to self-publish an
e-version, knowing if I wanted much of a readership, I’d have to
personally market the hell out of
The Meaning of Children (how
am I doing so far?). I stepped up my social-media campaign, and that’s
how I “met” Martin Crosbie, on Facebook, in early March. His post was
eye-popping, if in need of editing: “This is the story of what happened
when I hit #1 on Amazon’s Rankings!”
What’s it like to be vindicated, author of the latest e-book sensation?
“We sat in the car and read the newest reviews. Two of them made us cry.
It’s an amazing experience to read about how your work, your
characters, touch another person the same way it touched you. ... The
sales figures are amazing … but the almost overwhelming part is that you
have an opportunity to touch so many people.”
Eu-bloody-reka!
Here was a guy who’d made a silk purse out of a novel nearly 130 members of the snooterati deemed a sow’s ear.
I “liked” his post and submitted my book to Kindle the very next day.
Martin was approachable and encouraging, so I asked him for help. And
man, did he give it – pages and pages of advice.
How did he do that? Or, how to make a Canadian bestseller
First, recognize that being your own publicist requires a major time
investment. On the other hand, the gun registry is a twitching corpse
and there won’t be a federal election for a few more years, so there’s
no point wasting any more time on politics. Besides, who knows or cares
more about your book than you do?
1. Write a good book: Duh … and not something Martin told me; genre
novels may work best. Martin’s book is a cross-genre mash-up, a big
reason, he surmises, it was rejected repeatedly: It was unclassifiable.
2. “Pay it forward” to other indie writers (that’s what they call
themselves): Martin received essential help from a couple of Amazon
authors, Robert Bidinotto and Kenneth Tingle. Without them, he says,
he’d be nowhere. Bidinotto rewrote Martin’s synopsis, told him to get a
new cover, and passed on much of the advice that follows. And that’s why
Martin advises a “How can I help you” vs. “why should I help you?”
attitude. (Who knows, this shift may prove useful in other areas of your
life. Get a lobotomy if necessary. Or restart that lapsed
antidepressant prescription.)
3. My heart belongs to Amazon. Bidinotto’s key message: Use Amazon’s
unique Kindle Direct Publishing Select program (KSP). Amazon gets the
exclusive right to sell your work for three months at a time, and also
pays you to lend your book to their huge bank of subscribers, Amazon
Prime members. For an annual fee, Prime members may borrow a book a
month from the KSP collection (there are other advantages, too). Authors
can generate substantial income just from these loans: $1.65 per
download the first month to $2.18 the third month, in Martin’s
experience (thousands and thousands of downloads).
4. Freebies: an indispensable promotional tool, five free days in each
three-month KSP period. Thousands of free downloads rockets your book up
the sales chart, piques reader interest, and hopefully generates those
all-important reader reviews. “The rule of thumb is: For every three you
give away, you'll sell one. So give lots away!” (Open, generous and
giving. Remember, you’re channelling Oprah.) Best days: Friday,
Saturday, and Sunday. “The early part of the month is the worst.”
5. Publicize upcoming free days, especially on Pixel of Ink and Ereader
News Today (suspend your inner snark). Reflect the freebie in your
book’s tags. Use Twitter and post in as many reader, Kindle and Facebook
writer groups as possible.
6. Contact reviewers, review sites, top Amazon reviewers, and other
indie authors who have sold lots of books. Buy their books and review
them. Ask them for help.
7. Pricing: Martin “tried the 99-cent thing.” Verdict? “It makes us look
self-published and unprofessional. I really believe that now.” The
e-version of
My Temporary Life is $3.99 – though John Locke, the first self-published author to sell a million Kindle books, counsels the contrary.
8. Time (the writer’s greatest sacrifice): Even when Martin works at
the RV centre, he still finds five hours daily for promotion; other
days, it’s 14 hours (bottles of Clear Eyes and Visine are scattered
round the house). He’s virtually anywhere people talk about books
online. But if time is money, money also buys time; i.e. if you earn
well on this book, you’re buying time for your next.
Tech changes: Get over it
One more point that’s probably de rigueur for the Martin-wannabe: An e-reader. “Get” the technology. Embrace it.
Personally, I still prefer books. But the world is changing and no one –
least of all a garden-variety writer – can divert that iceberg bearing
down on publishing’s Titanic. Maybe J.K. Rowling … but I hear she’s
self-publishing now, too.
Beverly Akerman is a Montreal writer whose e-book, The Meaning of
Children, is available on Amazon.com; the paperback, not so much.
