Your First Novel

  With the book designer's specifications, the production head will choose a method of binding, whether sewn or glued, for your book. If a large printer does the job, it will handle every step of the process, from printing the sheets to forming them into signatures (sheets folded together), and cutting them into pages, binding and covering them, and wrapping them with jackets. Other printers send the folded and gathered sheets to a separate bindery for finishing.

  Before your book is printed, however, and after everyone agrees on the look of the book, it's time to ramp up the involvement of the other departments.

  3. MARKETING

  The duty of the publisher's marketing department is to persuade the bookstores that the publisher is putting a lot of energy behind your book. If the booksellers know that, it's easier for them to believe the marketing will bring bodies into their stores. More bodies in their stores mean more sales. If yours is the book they think will bring people into their stores, they'll order more copies of it.

  Lisa Gallagher, senior vice president and publisher of William Morrow & Company and former head of marketing there for several years, planned many campaigns for first novels. She says:

  The marketing campaign is about getting attention for your book—whether from the booksellers, the media, or the consumer. Ultimately it is about driving book sales. Every book should have a marketing plan prior to publication. This is the publisher's rationale for buying the book in the first place, with a particular audience or readership in mind, and the plan is how to reach them.

  The marketing campaign has two stages—the first is aimed at the book trade, and the second at the book's potential readers. Lisa says that while publicity is key for a nonfiction book, the circumstances are slightly different for a first novel.

  It's important to get booksellers reading early in the hope of winning their support. The chain of enthusiasm begins with the editor who acquired the book. Manuscripts are then distributed throughout the house, including the marketing, sales, and publicity departments, and the enthusiasm of all the in-house readers is communicated to the booksellers during the sales call.

  Meanwhile, the editor and agent are busy trying to get well-known writers to endorse the book. Any blurbs they gather will appear on the book jacket, but if they come in early enough, they can be used on advance readers' copies (ARCs), which we'll take a closer look at on page 270, and in mailings, e-cards, and any advertising.

  Standing Out

  Placement in the big chain stores is something the publisher must pay for, in much the same way that General Mills pays for the best shelf placement for Cheerios. There are many levels of in-store placement—front table displays, window displays, positioning at the end of an aisle—so a book doesn't need to be a mega-bestseller for the publisher to put some marketing dollars into placement. Yet since most first novels don't have the marketing budget of a best-selling author, other promotional tools can be even more important.

  Other Promotional Tools

  The marketing department, together with publicity, sales, and, of course, the editorial department, determines whether the house will spend the money to make ARCs, which are like fancy bound galleys. They often look like a trade paperback version of your book, with a description on the back as well as an outline of any advertising, publicity, marketing, or sales plans the publisher may have come up with. (But beware of some of this information: Typically, the announced first printing—the number the publisher claims it will print—is not the real first printing. It's used to flush out as many orders as possible before publication. As noted earlier, the number of prepublication orders the publisher receives is really what determines how many copies will be printed.)

  The marketing department, again in tandem with sales and editorial, might design in-store displays, like decorated cardboard boxes—charmingly called dumps—in which to display multiple copies of your book. They'll offer posters or bookmarks to booksellers, and sales incentives, such as higher discounts for more copies ordered. They might put your book into an in-house promotion, say, making it the lead fiction title for the spring list, which signals confidence in the title to the sales reps and the booksellers.

  They'll also promote it online. HarperCollins, for instance, offers Au-thorTracker, where members sign up to receive e-mail alerts about news of their favorite writers; First Look, where the publisher offers ARCs to review before publication; and Invite the Author, where book groups can win a telephone interview with an author. Although these promotions are aimed at consumers, they prove to booksellers that the publisher is leaving no stone unturned in its effort to find buyers for its books.

  4. PUBLICITY

  After your editor, you will, if things go well, have the most contact with your publicist. Some months before your book is published, you'll be assigned a publicist. Her job will be to get your book reviewed as widely as possible. She'll also, theoretically, book you on radio or television shows, arrange bookstore or library appearances, try to get you invited to regional or national book conventions, make every effort to get non-book-page articles and interviews done on you, and in every way possible talk up your book to people who might be able to promote it.

  If your publisher does plan to do ARCs, you're lucky, because they're expensive and not every book gets them. ARCs are the best tool for getting word-of-mouth going. Laura Whitcomb's publisher decided to put out five hundred ARCs of A Certain Slant of Light and then brought Laura from Oregon to New York for BookExpo America, the annual booksellers' convention, to sign them and give them away. These ARCs are also sent to an editor's or marketing head's or publicist's "big-mouth list," people throughout the industry and beyond who are considered tastemakers or enthusiasts, people who will talk about the book if they get it early enough, because they're the kind of people who like to be in the know. You should make your own big-mouth list. You're not going to be given many copies of the ARC, but you might come up with people of interest to the publisher, or people who might be likely candidates to give your book a blurb.

  The Authors' Questionnaire

  Very early in the process—often at the time you get your contract—you will receive an authors' questionnaire to fill out. This is not the kind of questionnaire where you rate your feelings on a scale of one to ten and answer a handful of yes-or-no questions. It's a lengthy document that contains everything from your date and place of birth to how you got your idea for your novel to your publication history to a list of every bookstore where you might be known, every writer who might be persuaded to blurb your book, and every newspaper or magazine that might be convinced to run a review. The authors' questionnaire provides you with a unique opportunity—possibly the only one—to promote yourself within the publishing house. It might seem like a chore—it is—but it's extremely important that you hand in a complete authors' questionnaire. You can be creative with it in such a way that it's a reflection of you as a novelist as well as of your fiction. You might find it helpful to print out the blank questionnaire found at this link, http://copylaw.com/forms/authors.html, and use it to practice on until you get one from your publisher.

  The marketing department people will read your authors' questionnaire, which is another reason it's important that you make it terrific. Once they've read it, they'll have an even better idea of the target market for your book and who your readers will be. If you worked hard on determining this well before you ever wrote to a literary agent, much less found a publisher for your book, and if you make it clear in your authors' questionnaire that you know the answer to this question, your publisher's marketing department will have an easier job of coming up with creative ways to promote your book.

  Face-to-Face Meetings

  You must go to your publisher in person five months or so before the book comes out and ask your editor to arrange a meeting with your publicist and someone from the marketing department. Call it a brainstorming meeting and come armed with ideas and things you can do to help the book. Say you can guarantee forty
people at a signing. That you've got a prominent best-selling author who's promised a blurb. That your company or first cousin is buying one hundred copies to give out at Christmas. That your novel's Web site is up and running, that you're running a contest on it where the winner will win a trip to Tahiti, or that you're developing a game based on your book that visitors to the Web site can play and win a prize. That in return, you'll get their e-mail addresses and end up with a mailing list. Think of something positive and encouraging to bring to the table.

  If the house is behind your book, you'll get the meeting. If it's not, your editor may attempt to turn down your request. You should persist, even if it means that you end up meeting with your editor only to find the publicist is just "dropping in to say hi" and the marketing person had a family emergency. But whatever shape the meeting takes, use it to form face-to-face relationships with every person on the team. Exchange business cards and find out how much each wants to hear from you. The person running the meeting might suggest that you keep exclusive contact with your editor but put everyone else in the meeting on the "cc" list. Afterward, ask your editor if you can stop and shake the hand of the production head or the copyeditor or the sales manager or anyone else you can think of so you can express your appreciation in person.

  A meeting like this might not generate anything exciting or new or tangible. But the best intangible a meeting like this can produce is this one:

  Everyone on the team is charged up enough by you and your novel she goes the extra mile and does more than budgeted in terms of money and time. And that's a gift. If you get that from your meeting, you've gotten a lot.

  The Press Release

  The publicist's pitch starts with a pitch letter and perhaps a press release. Unfortunately, not every book gets even these minimal accompaniments. That's why it's important for you and your agent to be in touch with your editor and publicist to find out whether they're preparing these materials. Many agents I know recommend their authors ask to see the official press release and to offer to help write it or rewrite it. I very strongly recommend that you put your imprint on everything describing your book that leaves the publisher's offices—press release, jacket copy, catalog copy—you name it. I guarantee that if you don't see it, you will later find out it was riddled with mistakes.

  The way to do this effectively is, of course, with diplomacy and tact. Either you or your agent should start with your editor. Don't ask, "Are you doing a press release?" Ask, "When will we see the press release?" Your editor will let you know when it should be ready. Then tell her you'd like to see it to see if there's any way you can help. If that doesn't work, tell her you're doing your own mailing and wanted to crib from what the publicist had already done.

  Try to approach this in the spirit of teamwork, pointing out that everything is better—from the novel on—if there's another pair of eyes looking it over. The fact is that I have known great publicists who write fabulous pitches, but I've also known publicists who were functional illiterates. You've got to get involved. If you don't, you'll only be sorry later. Don't let up on getting your hands on the press release. Be a squeaky wheel. Don't accept no for an answer. You can't let your book go out into the world without this. Since most first novels' publicity campaigns consist entirely of a mailing to one hundred book review editors, this is a vital piece of paper, sometimes the only thing that will get anyone to pay any attention to your book at all.

  The reality is that most publicists are overworked, and most tirst novels don't get much publicity. Publishers, as the quote earlier from Lisa Gallagher indicates, don't see as much value in publicity for first novels as they do in publicity for nonfiction, so the author tour for first novels is going the way of the dodo bird. Bookstores want to have authors who will bring people into the stores and buy books. First novelists don't yet have a wide audience, so it's not likely people will come in droves to every bookstore in which they appear. But there are ways around this. We'll discuss more of what you can do to help in the next chapter.

  IN THEIR OWN WORDS: JIM FUSILLI

  Jim Fusilli, author of Tribeca Blues and other Terry Orr novels, is the pop music critic for the Wall Street Journal. He also served as the mystery reviewer for the Boston Globe for a year, so he understands the power of a well-written press release.

  Ask the publisher if you can write your own press release. Do two—one for local media, the other for national. In the local release, play up your ties to the community. When I was reviewing for the Boston Globe, you wouldn't believe how many releases I received that didn't lead with the author's New England roots. In the national release, lead with what distinguishes you from other authors: "Medal of Honor winner Joe Blow" is better than "Joe Blow." Also, make sure the publication date is in the lead. If you've got a blurb that sings, get it in the first graf too. Keep the release short and to the point.

  Remember, the purpose of the release isn't to tell the reviewer how fabulous you are. It's to get him to lift your book out of the pile of books that arrive daily to his desk and read it. A tight release that speaks to the reviewer's needs will almost always do that.

  Outside Publicists

  Many writers, not just first-time novelists, wonder whether they should hire an independent publicist to work with the in-house publicist on getting word of the book out to as wide a media audience as possible. Most authors who choose to do this are happy, even though it's expensive, because it gives them the satisfaction of knowing they did everything they could to make the book a success. And a recent study by RainToday.com, a marketing firm, indicates the investment is worth it. As Jim Milliot noted in Publishers Weekly, authors who worked only through their publishers reported average sales of 4,500 copies for a first book and royalties of $25,000, while authors who hired a marketing or public relations firm averaged sales of 10,000 copies and earned royalties of $55,000. While the RainToday study looked specifically at authors of nonfiction books, the findings are significant if only because market research of this kind is almost unheard of in publishing.

  Although some publishers and their publicists might bristle at the idea of an author hiring an outside firm, it is a viable option. If you do choose to go this way, understand that you'll have to line up a good independent publicist several months or more before the book is published to allow him to be most effective. Susan Richman, a veteran publicity executive, advises:

  Before making the decision to hire a freelance publicist, you should sit down with your editor and try to get a frank picture of what the house plans to do for your novel. If the publisher is very excited about the book and says they're planning to put a lot into it, a freelancer would be superfluous. But if it wasn't targeted to be a book they were putting a lot behind, a freelance publicist would be very helpful.

  You would probably want the early stuff—sending galleys out for review—to come from the house, and have the freelancer handle the later things—like trying to arrange an interview in, say, a woman's magazine if your novel appealed to that audience. But marketing plans are set well in advance, so you can have a conversation with your publisher about their plans and have plenty of time to hire a freelancer if that's what you need to do.

  5. ADVERTISING

  Publishers and editors have one pet phrase that drives me crazy: Advertising doesn't work. As any red-blooded American knows, advertising does work. Yet to advertise properly—to saturation point—is an expensive proposi-don, and publishers just can't afford it. I would love to see them make a virtue out of the fact that they don't advertise, however, the way that "No Ad" suntan lotion does. They could promote a book by saying something like this on the cover:

  You will not see any advertising for this uniquely beautiful first novel. If you are holding it in your hands right now, it proves you're a discerning individual who doesn't need an advertising blitz to help you recognize quality when you see it. Don't put it down—bring it to the cash register immediately so you can take it home with you and begin reading it tonig
ht.

  Ads for books run every day in the newspaper, so it's clear that publishers believe in some advertising. One way they like to use advertising is to announce their enthusiasm for a book to the trade. A full-page ad in the New York Times Book Review is as much a signal to booksellers as it is to readers that the publisher believes it has a big book on its hands. But that one ad could blow an entire marketing budget, and whether it actually leads to measurable cash-register sales is questionable. Ben Sevier, an editor at St. Martin's Press, sees it this way:

  With the price of major newspaper and magazine advertising being prohibitive, publishers often find that their marketing budgets can be put to better use elsewhere, like bigger runs of ARCs, co-op [where a bookstore and a publisher share the cost of an ad or an appearance], and marketing programs with organizations like Book Sense [a program for promoting books developed by the American Booksellers Association] or Baker & Taylor, Inc. and Ingram Book Group [book wholesalers]. Publishers sometimes announce advertising in a general way—"National Print Advertising"—and then upon publication tailor that advertising in the way that makes the most financial sense based on factors like the size of the initial distribution of the book, or whether some or all of the money might have better effect elsewhere. There's no hard-and-fast glossary as to which marketing phrase means exactly what kind of advertising we'll do—the best marketing plans are flexible and tailored specifically for the individual book's unique market.

  6. SALES

  The unsung heroes of publishing are the sales representatives. These dedicated men and women must love books, because there are other things they could be selling that would undoubtedly pay them better. Even with the spread of the chains of superstores, where buying has been centralized and put into the hands of a few people at the home office, every publishing house has sales reps who are on the road much of the year, driving from store to store to meet with bookstore owners or managers and tell them of the next season's books.