What are usually not valid excuses for bad behavior?

—Blaming sudden growth for non-payment of monies because of supposed ma-and-pop corner store accounting practices. Most all publishers, large and small, deal with distributors and wholesalers who keep records of books sold. It would be unlikely that any publisher would not have a fairly good idea of book sales for an individual title, no matter how busy they are. Publishers have to communicate with the entities that help them sell their books in order to keep publishing. This requires them to stay in the loop.

—Suggesting communication issues as a generic catch-all reason that absolves particular individuals of responsibility, especially in cases where it is quite clear that those who have been ill-served have been attempting to communicate and simply have been ignored. In this case, the excuse is simply an effort to stave off negative publicity.

—Putting the onus on the individual writers published by the publisher to come to them with any issues or problems related to non-payment.
This suggests a less than proactive approach on the publisher’s part and may simply be a delaying tactic.

Always remember that by the time individual writers are willing to say bad things about a particular publisher, this is usually just the tip of the iceberg, to use a cliche. Very few writers feel comfortable bad-mouthing their publisher, for fear of being seen as difficult. In cases where several writers have spoken out, you can almost always guarantee that many of those who haven’t spoken out also have issues with the publisher.

When considering a publisher, be sure to check with a sampling of writers published by that publisher, to get a sense of how consistent, honest, and fair the publisher is in dealing with writers. From a writer’s point of view, a publisher is only as good as the average experience that can be expected in dealing with them. Every publisher will have highs and lows depending on personalities and issues beyond anyone’s control.

Also remember that indie presses in particular have their eccentricities, and that each press has its strengths and its weaknesses. This is not the same thing as “bad behavior”–these are simply the quirks writers have to deal with, just as the publisher and acquiring editor are agreeing to put up with your quirks, in a sense, and you will have to decide which quirks you don’t mind and which make a publisher unattractive to you.

Today, a great guest post by author David J. Williams , whose futuristic military thrillers I quite enjoy–tightly written, intelligent, and exciting. This is being posted on Tuesday rather than the regular Wednesday due to a WordPress issue. – JeffV

er, hey, is this thing live? Well, first of all, thanks a ton to Jeff for inviting me to say a word or two about how I’ve been marketing my Autumn Rain trilogy (consisting of the books THE MIRRORED HEAVENS, THE BURNING SKIES, and the forthcoming THE MACHINERY OF LIGHT). I’ll also say a bit about Lessons Learnt and all that…

First, let me reveal the Actual Strategy, and then I’ll break it down a little from there. “Viral marketing” has more definitions than you can shake a stick at; it seems to me that the essence of the best campaigns is that they’re not transparently related to the author, but instead help to generate a buzz by virtue of their being a little mysterious.

The core of my campaign was the following site:

http://www.greateramericanews.com/breakingnews

“TERRORIST STRIKE DESTROYS SPACE ELEVATOR”

“AUTUMN RAIN CLAIMS RESPONSIBILITY”

That dastardly terrorist group Autumn Rain! Who the #$# are they? I.e., we’re dropped straight into the world, with a faux news site with CNN-like look-and-feel, reporting on the aftermath of the catastrophic event that opens the first book. There’s plenty of “apparent” content and even (if you click on the graphic at the top) an actual video, in which a doomed reporter broadcasts his final hapless transmission. Of course, if you try clicking on the other links, you rapidly realize that there’s really not much to this website: it’s just a shell, intended to convey the emotional impact of Something Really Huge Going On, creating the illusion of verisimilitude…an illusion that’s carried still further by the page that virtually every link takes one to:

http://www.greateramericanews.com/restricted.html

The world of 2110 is one where the government has the Internet in “lock-down”, so it ties in thematically…but the point is that this website is like a cat that arches its back and makes all its hair stand on end to appear larger than it actually is. (I apologize for that somewhat-forced analogy, but as I write this, my feline friend Captain Zoom is sitting on my lap and intruding upon my cognitive processes, in addition to making it that much harder to type).

Now, in addition to that first website, I created three more:

http://www.presidentandrewharrison.com

http://www.spacecommandcenter.com

http://www.spaceelevatorclimb.com

….which all point to back to

http://www.greateramericanews.com/breakingnews

I won’t discuss these “feeder” sites in great detail, except to make the following points:

—Each one relates to some aspect of the world of Autumn Rain/the early 22nd century.

—Each one is even more of a shell than the core site, with far less detail.

—Each site has a “breaking news” update that appears over it, giving us the impression that the site has been around for a while, and holy crap, something’s just happened that’s overriding business as usual.

You may be wondering why the core site URL is http://www.greateramericanews.com/breakingnews instead of just http://www.greateramericanews.com. Well, if you go to the latter URL, you’ll find out why: that’s an entirely different web page …

EUROPA PLATFORM UNDER ATTACK

…promoting the second book, in which the O’Neill cylinders of the Euro Magnates get attacked by Autumn Rain, who’re trying to bag the U.S. president during a secret summit conference. (If you’re sensing a theme here as to the content of those books, you’re probably on the right track.). Originally, I built the first four sites to promote the mass-market release of MIRRORED HEAVENS (book one), and then when it came time to promote BURNING SKIES (book two), I made the “main” site the one that related to the sequel, since that was the priority. Then I linked that new site back to “breaking news” since it occurs subsequently.

So what we’ve got is a fully-functioning web ecosystem of viral sites, linked to one another, with multiple entry-points that draw the viewer further into the mystery. At no point is there a link to the actual book, and that gets to the central tension that I take to be at the heart of this kind of viral marketing, to wit:

How do you get exposure without being exposed?

The risk of not putting in links/mentioning the books is that the casual viewer stumbles upon the site (more later on how they get there in the first place), says, hmm, interesting, wonder what that is, no idea, let’s go find out what Megan Fox is up to these days, and then just keeps on surfing. But what I was betting on is that the viewer who DID get intrigued would then go to additional effort to find out what’s going on, and would then be that much more likely to TELL OTHER PEOPLE. It’s clear that the sites can’t possibly be real, but what are they promoting? A quick google search of Phoenix Elevator/Europa Platform/Autumn Rain will rapidly reveal my website and books, which would then trigger this kind of discussion:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389×5237545

…i.e., an exchange on a bulletin board as to what’s going on and what the books are and who I am.

Note the balance I was trying to strike here, which is while it’s not blindingly obvious as to who’s behind the sites, it’s also not *too* hard to figure out what’s up. This is in sharp contrast to the gold standard of viral marketing, which are campaigns that function as full-on activities in themselves (and have the budgets to match). For example, consider the oft-cited www.ilovebees.com , a gateway to an immense alternative-reality labyrinth/full-fledged ARG intended to promote the Halo franchise. But the problem for authors like me is that this is one of those Bell the Cat issues, i.e., it’s a great way to solve a problem that is already largely solved: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell_the_cat

…because if I had a million eyeballs watching my every move, I wouldn’t need to take steps to try to get a million eyeballs watching my every move (Halo promoted Ilovebees.com via trailers relating to the game itself). Since Halo’s architects were confident of driving huge numbers of people to ilovebees.com, they could rest assured that SOME of those people would get to the end of the mystery, no matter how involved it was. I had no such assurance, which meant I couldn’t make the mystery too complex.

Which brings us back to the fundamental challenge with this kind of campaign—and the core issue with gaining exposure without being (immediately) exposed: how do you drive people to the sites in the first place? I can’t claim to have totally solved this, but part of the answer is that these campaigns take time. They can’t be launched overnight, and that’s why for the first several months of this year I ran a batch of google ads that pointed back to the site, resulting in this kind of thing:

http://thedanward.blogspot.com/2009/01/space-command-mystery-jobs.html

Note that this blogger raises the question why the heck I didn’t link to the books themselves. I’ve given my reasoning above, but he may very well be right—the rulebook on all this has yet to be written. Which is part of what makes it so much fun…

I’ll conclude with a thought or two on the economics. First, although this might *look* like it cost a lot, it didn’t, because—like I’ve already said—there really isn’t *that* much content here. These aren’t so much web-sites as stand-alone web pages/shells. Web design was done through these guys , and I obviously also spent some $ on Google ads. The videos came from my friend Paul Ruskay, of Studio X Labs in Vancouver. The major investment was simply writing everything out, which I delegated to Captain Zoom and his friend Ajax in return for some salmon. But that’s another story.

So did I get my money’s worth? Like so much of PR, that’s hard to say. I clearly reached a lot of folks I wouldn’t have, and had the chance to build out further aspects of the world I created. I even received a really cool note from graphics artist legend Steve Lieber, who stumbled upon the site through a gmail ad, and wrote to tell me that how much he liked the content, and that he’d bought the books as a result. That kind of buzz can go a long way. And ultimately, buzz is what this is all about.

In this first week at Booklifenow, it’s important to provide a breakdown of the lifecycle of a book. While this information might appear basic, very few first-time authors seem to receive it prior to publication. As a result, many writers are unable to take advantage of possible opportunities. Even worse, not knowing what happens when results in the following unfortunate scenarios: writers asking for things at the wrong time, writers not understanding their role during a given part of the process, writers being really irritable about quick turn-arounds on tasks like approving edits, and editors wasting time answering questions that could be forestalled with some simple documentation.

If there’s one way that agents and editors could help their writers it would be by not assuming any prior knowledge of this lifecycle—although it is true that the process can change from publisher to publisher. (The lack of internal documentation of process at most publishers is a bit of a crime.)

The process set out below the cut constitutes a general breakdown of events and timing issues that occur during the lifecycle of a book. A week-by-week breakdown would be too long for a blog post. (I recommend supplementing the information I give you below with Colleen Lindsay’s excellent post on working with publicists.)

However, the traditional lifecycle doesn’t approach the “book” as a mutable object that can take many different forms in the modern era. If you boil the process down, stripping off the detail and making a “book” a more fluid creature, the lifecycle roughly becomes:

• Creation and perfection of content.
• Acquisition of a platform (or format) for the content.
• Creation and perfection of the “skin” (aesthetic) and context for the content.
• Accessibility to the content.
• Visibility for the content.

In creating your plans for your book, always keep this simplified version of the lifecycle in mind. It helps focus your efforts by reminding you of what’s important.

THE LIFECYCLE OF A BOOK

Pre book-deal:

• Writer finishes manuscript.
• Writer seeks publication by finding an agent, or contacting publishers directly.
• An editor accepts the manuscript.
• The writer and publisher sign a contract, usually negotiated by an agent.

Between 18 months and 9 months before publication:

• The writer and editor agree on any changes to the manuscript, and the writer implements said changes.
• The manuscript enters into a series of quality control processes, including copy-editing, and the writer assists in this process by reviewing the manuscript at various points prior to publication.
• The editor sends the writer a questionnaire that captures all of the writer’s thoughts about the public description of the book, unique qualities of the book and author, an author bio and photo, any publicity contacts, etc.
• The publisher begins to work on the book’s cover while the marketing department discusses the book in terms of strategies for selling it to booksellers. Other than the questionnaire, the writer may or may not have input with the marketing prior to publication.
• The publisher prepares the book’s initial cover and description for its catalog. The catalog is a tool for letting distributors and booksellers know about the book well in advance of publication.

Between 8 and 6 months before publication:

• Marketing begins to form preliminary advertising plans. The writer provides any ideas now, before the budget and advertising schedules are set.
• Some advance copies, either still in manuscript format or typeset, are sent out to influencers (usually other writers) to collect blurbs that can be used for the cover of the book and for further publicity.
• The editor either puts the writer in touch with the publicist assigned to the book or acts as the contact with publicity. The writer provides input on publicity.

Between 6 and 5 months before publication:

• The publisher prints Advance Reader Copies and sends them out to early adopters (influencers and gatekeepers) as well as review venues, like the Big Four: library/book buyer publications (Publishers Weekly, Kirkus Reviews, Library Journal, Booklist) that require a copy of the book anywhere from three to five months prior to publication.
• The editor and publicist, along with marketing, implement any strategies or advertising to make sure it coincides with (or occurs after) the date the book will actually reach bookstores.

One month before publication to a year after:

• The book is published and finished copies are sent by the publicist to relevant review venues and gatekeepers. The writer also receives copies.
• The book is published, reaches brick-and-mortar bookstores and the warehouses of virtual booksellers through the publisher’s distributors, and the writer enters into the public publicity-cycle for the book, which can last for three months (more, if the book has legs). The writer and publicist pursue further opportunities as they arise, although on the publicist’s part this will mostly consist of passing on communications from gatekeepers about interview opportunities, etc.
• After the review phase, there will be a period during which the book is considered for awards, and another phase if the book is released in another form. (For example, first publication in hardcover, with a trade paperback published a year later.)
• The writer continues to follow up on opportunities, but most energies will be turned toward the next creative project.

>>>Testing this Section of Booklife: How did this process differ from your understanding of the process? Are there additional details you’d need to be an effective advocate for your book?