Keep pushing!

 If you want to sell your books, you've got to keep pushing them!

Several friends who self-published books (one of poetry; one a novel) made some respectable sales because they took charge and kept pushing for sales of their books, doing their own public relations and publicity. Neither friend was getting rich on what they had written but each was finding an audience.

Recently I was reminded by MailChimp that it had been quite a while since I had sent out a mailing to promote my books on perfume makingtechnology. Somehow the books have continued to sell on Amazon and bring in money monthly. It was a reminder that if I wanted to keep that money coming in I had to keep pushing for sales.

With your book or books you'll find the same situation. If you want them to sell, you've got to push. And keep pushing, no matter how much help you might get from other sources.

What? You write longhand?

 I learned to type in high school. The class was equipped with State-of-the-art, office model, Royal typewriters. The Royal could type wonderfully well. It was not electric.

I've heard that some writers, journalists in particular, swear by their ancient mechanical typewriters. When I started writing for a living I was hungry for an electric. My first electric typewriter was an IBM accounting model with a wide carriage that was twice the width of the body of the machine. Later, when I had saved up some money, I acquired an IBM correcting Selectric. It was second hand. At the time, in the Flatiron Building where I had my office, new Selectrics were being stolen out of offices the first night after they were unpacked.

At the time, making copies involved carbon paper. There was a carbon paper that I used that was single use, with paper attached. As I recall, the paper was pretty thin and, of course, the image on it was in the carbon paper's ink. It didn't allow for corrections, even when I could make corrections on the original using the correcting Selectric's white correction tape.

I learned to type fast and accurately. I was being paid for production. Everything was a "first-draft special."

When I started writing advertising I switched to a ball point pen -- the Paper Mate Malibu. They cost about three dollars and refills were widely available. At some point Paper Mate discontinued the Malibu -- and the refills. A few years ago I found a source of new refills for the Malibu but they weren't from Paper Mate. Meanwhile I had switched to the Bic stick Cristal. It's even lighter than the Malibu.

Writing longhand for advertising worked fine. The ads were never that long. I could edit an make revisions quickly and when editing was done I could type up the text on, at first, my IBM correcting Selectric.

I was introduced to word processing in a backward way. The PC and the Macintosh were both on the market but I couldn't picture wring on a squinty ten inch (was it?) screen. I had seen word processors that had a full page screen. Lawyers were using them.

I acquired a Xerox word processor with it's accompanying Diablo printer. They were both close to obsolete at the time I acquired them but the Xerox did have a full page (letter format) screen. For memory storage it used 8" floppy disks. Even then that was a rare item. Now they've vanished into history.

As for the Diablo, it was a daisy wheel, strike-on printer, somewhat similar to the IBM Selectric but louder, much louder. And, when printing, it vibrated like crazy. I used it for a while. It followed me up to the country but when I called Xerox for service they quoted me something crazy because their technician would have to drive up to the middle of nowhere. They really didn't want to service it and I really didn't want to pay the price. The Xerox went into the local landfill and I went back to the IBM Selectric.

But that's all history. These days I have an ordinary desktop computer with a Brother monochrome and a Canon ink jet attached. The Brother prints out the stories and the Canon prints out photographs. All very up-to-date. Yet I continue to write longhand with the Bic stick. That may be a problem.

Writing ads by hand came naturally. Then typing them up for the art director was simple. But writing stories, especially novels, involves a lot of pages, hundreds of pages. And, ultimately, they have to be typed.

And, once again, like my early days, speed enters into it. I want the pages to keep up with my flow of thought. So I've tried using the computer to write. Damn! My fingers aren't responding as they once did.

Now I'm faced with a dilemma: if I continue to write longhand I may not be writing fast enough. Worse still, after writing out my stories longhand, I still have to type them up. So it becomes a double effort. But if I work directly on the computer I'll have to retrain my fingers and my brain to type fast and accurately.

Maybe I'll just try to ease into it gently.

Some truths about publishing your own book

 Self-publishing for Dummies. That's what you might call this short spiel. I've experience on both sides of the fence. I've self-published several books and, at present, I'm reading a self-published book. Here are some of the realities.

Not every book can find a traditional publisher. Not everyone who writes writes material that falls within the commercial needs of a traditional publisher. This is where self-publishing comes in.

There are people out there who have ideas -- messages -- they want to share with others through a book and have taken the trouble to put it all down on paper and just need someone, some company, to turn it into a book for them, and then some company or agency to give it some distribution and publicity. These are services that can be purchased, if you have money and are willing to pay.

The problem is that, for all of what you have done, and that now you have a published book, chances are nobody will buy and read it. This is what the traditional publishers are trying to tell you when agents refused to champion your work. If they can't see a way to get people to buy and read it -- "they" being the book industry with all its skills, resources, and experience -- odds that anyone will read your book are ... poor.

My own foray into self-publishing has been mildly rewarding, but I've gone at it with several advantages.

First, I had a following for the material I was writing (which happened to be about perfume making technology for people who wanted to make and sell their own perfume.)

Second, I had experience in desktop publishing -- taking the bare text and turning it into a formatted book: cover, table of contents, page numbers, illustrations. (After years with Quark XPress I've turned to Affinity Publisher which, while it has as many quirks as Quark, is affordable and, at the end of the day, can put out a good job.)

Third, I turned to Amazon KDP for printing and distribution. It costs nothing and royalties are distributed regularly.

Finally, to get sales I aimed my website visitors, email recipients, and blogviewers toward the specific Amazon pages that featured my books. The money earned wasn't enough to make a living but books were sold and money continues to come in monthly. But, as mentioned, I had these advantages.

For those who do not have my advantages, the self-publishing process will involve finding a company that will put your book together for you. There are quite a few out there that offer this service. Just be aware of the realities.

First, just getting a book between covers and having it "out there" doesn't guarantee anyone will buy it. Sales is a whole different game than production and your sales could amount to ... zero.

Second, not every company that offers to put your book out there will do a good job of producing the book. I don't mean the actual printing. Any decent printer can print and bind a book. The problem I've come across is in the graphic design of the book. I've come across a self-published book where, on certain pages, the font changes for no reason other than carelessness on the part of the designer. On the book I'm currently reading (which will remain unnamed) there are neither page numbers nor page headings which would show the title and author's name. Nor is there a table of contents, nor an inside title page -- sure signs that the author bought publishing services from a sloppy book maker.

There are self-publishing success stories, just as their are stories of people who have won a large lottery payout. The companies selling self-publishing services use these examples as proof that it can happen, just as the diet pill hawkers give examples of users who have experienced gratifying weight loss. But these results are not typical.

The "rule" for the writer who settles on self-publishing is "be prepared to market the book yourself." The only way it will sell and the only way people will buy and read it is if you go out and promote it ... vigorously! There are plenty of resources available online to help you with this but, for all the available resources, the only way it will happen is if you put the time and energy into it. Lots of time. Lots of energy.

Good luck.

Another gem from Frenchys

Among my original seven books from Frenchys this summer was The Problem With The Other Side, by Kwame Ivery. Reading the first dozen pages convinced me that it was a good, very good writer who had written this book and, today, as I finished it, I found myself stunned. Out of breath. I never had that experience from a book before, not even the greatest of the classics.

So again, credit to the book bin at Frenchys. My only regret is that the sales of books in the book bin at Frenchys don't earn royalties for the author, regardless how much the author may deserve them. But read it yourself. It's here on Amazon.

Oh yes, I read other stuff too

 I've written a bit about my summer (2025) reading list and why my reading doesn't provide comps for agent queries. Yesterday I got caught having to admit I was reading something more in line with current popular tastes.

I was sending a query to an agent who, I'll admit, seemed like a pretty hopeless choice for what I'm trying to sell but after a while, after you've sent out dozens of queries, you sense you're beginning to run out of possibilities -- so you grasp at straws.

The agent I was querying used Query Manager for submissions and I had all my materials ready to pop into the appropriate boxes -- bio, word count, genre, query letter, pages -- but then, this particular agent had added to the Query Manager form, a question of her own: "What book are you reading?"

It wasn't "what books have you read lately?" or "what books are your favorites?" or "what books do you want to read?" but "what book are you reading?" Of course I was reading a book but not one I would have liked to get caught reading. I was reading The Perfect Marriage, by Jeneva Rose and I had a history with this book.

A year or two ago I had set out to get a taste of what was currently popular in fiction. I was browsing through the fiction section of our local Barnes & Noble. The staff had tagged certain books which they had particularly enjoyed. I bought two of them. At home I found both unreadable.

I set them both aside and turned to some other books which I had wanted to read. I didn't quite forget them and I did think that "someday" (like Justin Bieber's perfume) I might get around to them, but I was in no rush. Then, as we were making plans to go to Canada, my wife spotted my copy of The Perfect Marriage and told me her book club had chosen it for their next book. I offered it to her and it came along with us. I still hadn't read it. My wife however dug into it.

Then she began to urge me to read it. If I wanted to be a "contemporary writer" (which I didn't!) I had to read this book. I continued to resist, plowing through the titles I had picked up at Frenchys. But she persisted and, without giving anyway anything, finally got me to promise to read it. Finally I did and, I'll admit, once I got into it -- it did take a while -- I wanted to keep reading ... until I had finished it.

So this was the book I had to name when, in that query, I was asked, "what book are you reading?" It wasn't a title anything close to what the agent was looking for. It was probably as far out of her specified preferences as it was out of mine. But, like it or not, I had to tell the truth regardless of how embarrassing it was.

But the real truth is that books fascinate me and teach me and add something to my vision of the world I live in, even books I never expected to be caught reading.

Factory fiction

When a publisher discovers they've got a hot title, they want more of the same. When their competitors discover that they have a hot title, they want similar titles. What you might have thought of as a creative art becomes a creation factory, a fiction factory.

You've got to remember that publishing is a business, a tough business, so the publishers are looking for opportunities to make money. Yes, the top publishers will, occasionally, put out a book that has intrinsic value, something special. But these few books aren't expected to make much money. They might even lose money. But they give the publisher prestige and prestige attracts books that will make money.

As a writer there are plentiful opportunities to get your work published if you can master the requirements -- the template -- of the fiction factory. If you can do it and do it well, your career can thrive and, if your career thrives, you can dare to write an occasional piece outside the fiction factory template and your publisher will humor you by publishing it.

If you want to be a writer you have to think a bit of what kind of writer you want to be. It's always going to be hard work -- your hard work -- but how you approach the industry will, to a large extent, determine your economic success.

Literature trends like real estate

Yesterday I was looking over an email I got from a real estate broker. I'm on his mailing list and, about every week or so, get a missive suggesting what our house would sell for in the current market and reporting sales and offerings in the neighborhood. He also includes a graph showing his suggested price for our house along a progression of dates. The numbers rise, fall, and rise again. Tomorrow? Who knows.

Now all this while, while our house had been rising and falling in value according to this agent, I've been hard at work peddling stories I've written -- novels -- with, thus far, no success. The rejection emails from agents generally say something like "it's not right for my list."

Thanks to Albert "Ricky" Stever, I'm encouraged by the realization that markets aren't fixed; they aren't set forever. Themes agents and publishers are looking for today won't be the same in a future tomorrow. So what I'm writing now might have to wait for a culture shift in readers' interest until they align with what I write and what I want to write.

But I can wait. That's not an option open to every writer. You have to live; you have to somehow make money. (I'd like some too!) But, from watching that real estate curve, the changing numbers, I'm confident that what I write will, at some point, align with what readers are looking for, publishers who want to give it to them, and agents who serve as the go-betweens.