The adventure of publishing books

A couple of years ago, under my old user name, I started a thread called "The adventure of publishing a book", trying to journalise the different stages of getting my first books from manuscript into print. I've just had another book published (what do you mean, you've never heard of it?), and I'd like to do something similar for the still-new process of trying to get one better known with a bit of publisher support. The first time round, I was giving them regular plugs on my Twitter account with a few campaigns of Promoted Tweets, and I'm sure that was the reason why the titles were getting high placings on Google queries. But the sales figures told me later that Google is not enough.

PPP (as I've been calling it for some time now) came out on the day before Good Friday. In the morning, a big box landed on my doorstep with a couple of dozen copies and some promotional material. Then I was rather alarmed in the afternoon to receive an e-mail from the publishers saying they had prepared a book trailer for me. How many books would this trailer be carrying, when would it arrive at my front door, and where would I store it all? It was something of a relief to click on the link provided and discover they meant this;


That was the digital marketing department. I would quite like to hear soon from non-digital marketing. E.g., I need to know what their plans are about review copies. I can send out a few review copies and gift copies of my own, once I've dealt with "friends and family", but I don't want to overlap. And advertising. All I could afford the first time round was classified ads ("The Christian Century" and "The Spectator"), and it doesn't look as though that got me anywhere. Though I've now signed up to be able to campaign on Reddit, where it should be easier to define the target audience. That's in addition to offering book recommendations when I comment on questions.

And what to do with the promotional material? I'm not sure where to send those bookmarks. There are 100 copies of an order form, with a retail price in pounds and euros. I can't send those to bookshops, because they say nothing about discounts. Theology colleges for their students, rural deans (I'm an Anglican) for their clergy, very large churches for their congregations? Anyway, I'm going to advise the publishers to update those forms. They are still couched in terms of ordering books by post and paying by cheque, at a time when cheques in this country are growing obsolete even faster than cash.

And there are ten posters designed to promote "Meet the author" days. I was rather hoping the publishers themselves would be arranging things like that. Or is my agent supposed to do it? I need a literary agent. Where can I get an agent? I was hoping to make contact with one at the London Book Fair last year, but ran into the Catch-22 situation that I should have set up an appointment first. Got to make contact before you can make contact.

Anyway, I've kept the lanyard. Waste not, want not. It won't be the last time I want to walk around a place identifying myself as an author.

a reply to: DISRAELI2

Publishers just publish. Your literary agent or publicist or yourself....books you.

Published International Author

a reply to: DISRAELI2

Is your book at any libraries? I don't know i always swipe bookmarks from the library but thats probably not the market you're trying to reach hehe. You want sales not rentals!

a reply to: Shoshanna
I doubt it, but that's a thought. If I knew of any Christian libraries, it might be worth leaving some bookmarks for people to steal.

a reply to: mysterioustranger
In this particular case, the contract says vaguely that they are "responsible for marketing", and if "digital marketing" was the only marketing department they would not need the adjective in the title. The trouble is, as I learned during production, they they do not advise me what they are going to do before they are ready to do it, so I need to establish communication about any plans they have.

a reply to: DISRAELI2

That does depend. I'm mentioned in 4-5 books w my pics in Rock n Roll history. I've published 70 blogs, a childrens fairytale, a short compilation about spirits, a biography of a rock star, and the history of the psychedelic hippies days, albums, shows etc...

All that being said? Book signing isn't a given...but I'm thinking you think it's part of it, and it can be.

A place for you to sell copies,sign em, keep the proceeds. Unless you're famous or in the current mode of what sells...it's pointless.

You don't, won't have any corporate support. They publish, you promote. Or your agent...but you have pay him.

I'm a relatively known musician early Rock n roll, but my privacy is important, contacts worldwide.

One book, with my picture I did not write is "The Road through Motown" by Ralph Terrana.

I divulge mostly nothing about this online. Privately? Possible.

Contract: Sony Music Group, BMI, Universal...these helped me, a copyright holder w them...still receiving $$$.

PS London/Kent England publisher has had 1 of mine for 3 years. Editing. Still. ( That averages $1-2 per page, do it before submission).

Got an off-site email? PM...who knows?✌️

Well, this week has been what my mother would have called “fun and games”.

I began with my access to internet locations. Started tweeting again. As usual, this had little effect even when I remembered to use hashtags, but I’ve just thought of a way I can tweak the approach by quoting a different sentence each day. Also set up my first paid campaign on Reddit. Focusing on my target audience wasn’t as easy as I hoped it would be. Reddit doesn’t appear to recognise “religion” as an interest group. As a matter of policy, it won’t allow “Christian” or “Bible” as key words. But they let me use “temple” the first time round, and the second campaign is using “prophet”, “priest” and “king”.

When I wrote about publishing the first books, somebody on ATS advised me to go to “the big religious conventions” to promote them. But of course he was thinking of the American conventions, and I’m on the wrong side of the Atlantic for that. We do have Keswick, and my mind began groping towards a way of doing something at Keswick. Obviously the first priority was booking accommodation at the relevant time. I soon discovered, with a few online checks, that I had left it rather late to be booking a room at Keswick itself in July. No matter. I’ve been to the Lake District before, so I felt comfortable about travelling in from Penrith, and the hotel in Penrith had plenty of space.

Then my bank decided to throw a spanner into the works. I was booking the room over the phone and had got to the point of making an advance payment, when I was informed that payment had been declined because of “suspected fraud”. Fortunately there was enough money in a completely different account to pay a deposit, but there was now an urgent need to sort things out. Fortunately, again, this crisis blew up just in time for me to visit my local bank branch the next day, only a week before it would close down for good.

I was puzzling over the question overnight, helped by the fact that I’ve worked in that industry. Was it just the size of the amount? Banks now are getting very protective about older customers, wanting to make sure they don’t get scammed. Did they think I was engaged in fraud myself? Twenty years ago, the same bank was blocking my account on what was probably suspicion of money-laundering. We had just sold my late father’s house, and I paid in the solicitor’s check for my half of the proceeds, and suddenly I couldn’t use my card any more. Of course there was total silence on the matter, because they are not allowed to tell a suspect that he is under suspicion, but I’d been through the relevant course and soon began to guess. Had to spend my lunch hour in the nearest branch giving my best imitation of rage and complaining that they were obstructing my new house purchase (e.g. I couldn’t get a copy of my surveyor’s report). They succumbed.

Or was it just that the software had taken fright on receiving a payment request from a foreign source, i.e. Reddit? It turned out that I was nearly right, but the problem was McAfee. I’m still not sure why. It was only the annual renewal, and I can see no reason why they might have been using an expired card number. Just in case, I tried to update my information with McAfee, and discovered I couldn’t do it without a mobile phone number, which I don’t possess. So I removed that problem by cancelling the subscription altogether, and even that had to be done over the phone for the same reason.

I’m thinking of using the order forms in an old-fashioned mail shot to the clergy. Not the bishops, they’re too busy to take an interest. I’ve been an Anglican long enough to have some knowledge of the structures of the C. of E. I know that the dioceses are divided into deaneries, headed by a rural dean who calls together regular deanery synods of clergy and lay representatives. I needed a list of rural deans (“Please share this with your synod”). Searching around, I remembered the existence of Crockford’s Clerical Directory, and discovered that it can now be found online. I have subscribed. They asked for a delivery address, so I think that may mean that I get a physical copy as well. That would be easier to work with.

I knew about Crockfords from the time when I was working for a one-man Christian publishing company. That’s when I met the genial, clean-shaven post-graduate student Tom Wright, who gave me a lift home from work. On the strength of that, perhaps I’ll send him one of my complimentary copies.

The memory of being a deanery synod representative led me on to the associated memory of being chairman of Penge Council of Churches (yes, I’ve been an important figure in my time). The national movement has now become “Churches Together”, which is another possible set of contacts. I found a national website, which offers a list of local group websites, which will usually offer me a list of member church websites.

At least I won’t run out of things to do.

Update for the week.

Reddit advertising progressing without further hiccups. I’m not sure why, but somehow I manged to link my Reddit account with an e-mail address I don’t normally check, so that’s where they were sending updates about billing, ad approvals, etc. The week’s total seems to be nearly 100,00 impressions, which is probably OK provided they were the right 100,000.

Also continuing on Twitter, shamelessly combining this with a re-run of my “Four Horsemen not going away” tweet promoting the Revelation book, with “Israel” as one of the hashtags.

A non-digital marketing department of my publishers does exist, because Digital Marketing are passing on my inquiring message. But my experience of digital marketing warns me not to expect too much, despite the original assurance that marketing would be the firm’s responsibility. At least the page assigned to me on their “Authors” pages is a feeble fulfilment of the promise that “you will get your own website”.

I patiently tried different contacts in my attempt to find a literary agent. One said “We get our books from this firm”. That firm pointed out that they were retailers, and pointed me towards a publishing firm. The publishing firm said they normally dealt direct with authors, and in any case what my promotion campaign really needed was a PR agent. Their suggested name is running the Christian Resources Exhibition, so he might well be too busy nowadays. I have found another Christian PR firm online and will try that one.

Meanwhile I will start sending out review copies etc. as soon as I have gone out and bought a few of the larger size of Jiffy bag (a couple of people are getting more than one book).

Update. A Google search on Christian PR firms offered a number of options. The first non-sponsored entry (on reflection, I've just realised, i ought not to be ignoring the sponsored ones) was in Tennessee, which won't work for me on the other side of the Atlantic. The next had "Faith" in their name, and their site encouraged people to "put your faith in us", but it appears that Google has been wrong-footed and they do not specialise in religious matters. I haven't yet heard from the next one, perhaps because they are religious enough to want to check out my Christian credentials first. They call themselves "Catholic and Christian", in that order, and if they notice that my history of the prophets is written "from a Protestant viewpoint", that could be enough to put them off.

Not wanting to delay initiatives on my own account, my online activity before this one was making enquiries about exhibiting at the Christian Resource Exhibition in October. The rapidly filling plan shows that it would have been a mistake to leave it much longer.

Meanwhile, I have been sending out free copies of the book (carefully rationed, because I didn't get more than a couple of dozen). Review copies to Evangelical Times, Premier Christianity, Christianity Today, and The Christian Century. Used the supplied postcards as a kind of "compliments skip" (which may have been the intended use anyway). Also free copies, with some of the order forms, to the principals of selected Bible Colleges and Theological colleges, the stand-alone colleges rather than theological departments of universities (who will be more academic in their recommendations), and focusing on the more evangelical ones. This will resume when I've re-stocked on the right sizes of jiffy bags.

The headline news this week is that I have booked myself in as one of the exhibitors at the Christian Resources Exhibition at Milton Keynes in October. I think there's a good prospect that even the event pre-publicity will be worth its weight in gold. Since the "name of company" field was mandatory on the booking form, I am now on their official spreadsheets as "Unorganised Individual", which ought to be a gift to anyone with journalistic instincts. I may be likely to appear at one end of "We have everybody from X to Y" statements.

The headline news this week is that I have booked myself in as one of the exhibitors at the Christian Resources Exhibition at Milton Keynes in October. I think there's a good prospect that even the event pre-publicity will be worth its weight in gold. Since the "name of company" field was mandatory on the booking form, I am now on their official spreadsheets as "Unorganised Individual", which ought to be a gift to anyone with journalistic instincts. I may be likely to appear at one end of "We have everybody from X to Y" statements.

I've been sending out remaining copies of PPP to various institutions and persons, including my bishop. Leaving one for myself and a spare, so that I don't find myself without a copy of my own book, like poor J.R. Hartley of "Fly-fishing" fame. Older UK television viewers will get this reference. I think that finishes the mail shots for the moment. I had thought of sending out order forms to rural deans, as I mentioned a couple of weeks ago, then thought college Christian Unions would be a better idea, but now I'm holding them back for the display table at Milton Keynes. The same for the copies of the other two books.

And I'm now starting to build a small following on Twitter, by reviving my old practice of adding a different quote from the book each day, giving curious users a reason to come back and check the latest. At the moment, this is on the level of rising one by one from 40 followers to 50, but it's a start.

And here is the fate I am trying to avoid.

Journal update.
Now that I'm an exhibitor. the first thing to do was get my place in the Visitors' Handbook sorted out. We are listed in categories, and I've sent in a very basic entry. I wasn't going to give away my home address or phone number. A couple of years ago I set up a dedicated email address for just such a purpose, and that's what I'm offering, so that my normal friends-and-family-and-business e-mail doesn't get swamped and spammed.

Also it was definitely worth my while to advertise. The smallest space available is half-page, but I suspect this is a compact page. I admitted to the head of sales that I had no skills to offer artwork, so he put me in touch with the Events Director who happens to do this work freelance. Of course I'm seizing on that opportunity. I've put together a compact message with a couple of images, saying the important things without crowding the space, so he should find it easy to arrange it on the page. What fonts and background colours do I want? I don't know, just something simple.

Thinking ahead. I wasn't expecting to sell any books on the spot, because I'm not set up for it, technically or legally, but Google indicates an established Christian bookshop in the vicinity. Once the handbook is out (to confirm my bona fides) I might contact them to see if it is worth their while to send out a staff member with stock and a card-reader.

Also further down the line I will be expected to fill in a Risk Assessment form for my stand. I have no idea what to write. But if I go for the option of taking out an insurance policy for the event, they will surely do their own assessment and be able to advise me? Anyway, I can't do that until I've sorted out what the extra furnishings will be, so that must be the next task.