Gathering interested customers for a book that isn’t out yet - and preparing to contact them when it is
+September Notes + October Meeting Invite
Thank you for attending the September Meeting! Here is the invite for October:
Authors' October Meeting
Friday, October 25 · 5PM PST, 6PM MST, 7PM CST, 8PM EST
Notes September’s Meeting:
Book festival success!
Two members who had attended the Tuscon Festival of Books said it was a lot of fun and they sold tons of books!
I’ll be at the Bookmarked Literary Arts Festival in Lander, WY on October 12, reading from a chapter of Carcass.
Are book reviews being written by AI?
One member got a review that seemed very ChatBPT-esque. It didn’t seem to reflect the “author” had read the book at all. Another told a story in which it was confirmed that a book review was written by AI, and the author/publisher did some work to get it rescinded. WIRED has a (paywalled) article about how AI can’t read books, but it is reviewing them anyway.
That’s very uncool. Not because it’s taking jobs from human book reviewers but because the reviews are nonsense and wrong. AI reviews lie to the readers, can negatively impact the author and publishers, and make the publication they’re published in look like idiots who don’t even care about reality or quality.
Don’t rush to blast anyone on social media
If your book gets an AI review, IMO it’s wise not to take to social media and blast the outlet, because people on the internet won’t judge based on the nuances you know. They’ll think you’re just complaining about a bad review, which authors generally shouldn’t do.
Maybe the controversy could work out in your favor, and I know some people try to build careers on rage and internet drama. I think it’s kinder and smarter to act with politeness, understanding, and patience first—it’s better for your mental health and career to talk privately with the accused (or have your agent or publisher do it.) There could be some detail you didn’t know that exonerates them, even!
Luckily, our group member has a responsible publisher and is a member of the Author’s Guild, so they plan to address the alleged AI review issue tactfully.
Further reading from other newsletters:
Debut Authors and their connections
posted a BIG analysis on debut book deals and what kind of connections debut fiction authors had before their first book deal. The full post is paid only. Again, she demonstrates that “no one gets book deals without a lot of followers” is alarmist nonsense.Friedman’s post has a lot more data and is, therefore, much better than my analysis. However, hers is for fiction, while my survey leans towards nonfiction and some interviews with agents.
Check out my post on social media being unnecessary for nonfiction authors here.
The Future of Book Publicity
at posted a Part 1 and Part 2. I’d check out her other stuff as well. An important quote: “Please recognize the invisible work book publicists do instead of instantly pointing fingers at them when your book doesn’t receive enough attention.” “What Sells a Book” also seems like reasonable stuff for trad books. Three newsletters for science writers:
These have jobs, gigs, opportunities, and recommended readings for science writers/journalists/communicators:
New: Premium Content
This newsletter/group is free but I’m very grateful for any support. I have some premium content in the works, so now is the best time to contribute! The next premium post is about how I funded my book.
If you want to contribute, click “subscribe” above, or if you want to contribute a different amount of money, like $10, I have PayPal.
If you would like to donate to a 501(c)3 charity instead, I suggest a $10 donation to Small Town Community Cats (where I got my beloved Bijou) or the Wyoming Arts Alliance. I’d love it if you could mention me/ANBIP in the note of the donation, just because I’m curious to see if and how much this may result in. LMK if you contribute to any of those and want me to forward you the premium posts!
FEATURE:
Gathering interested customers for a book that isn’t out yet (and preparing to contact them when it is)
As I’m working on the book, I tell pretty much everyone about it.
“What’s your name, and what do you do for a living?”
“I’m Kristin, and I’m writing a book about dead animals.” So, of course, I talk about Carcass before it’s ready to sell. (Plus, I like talking about the topic, and sometimes people show me cool pictures of something that washed up on the beach or tell me where a pile of bones is.)
Then they often say, “Tell me when the book is out.” I wish I could sell them a pre-order of the book right then and there. But since I can’t sell them the book yet, how do I “collect” these people’s contacts so I can ask them to buy the book later? That’s going to be in over a year! Here are some options.
My fave:
Social media!
This is my main form of contact with my audience. I will definitely post about the book every time there is a chance for them to buy (pre-order, hardcover, paperback, sales, whatever.)The good news: social media potentially snowballs itself; it’s not just my private list of potential buyers, my accounts gain more and more followers every time I post.
The bad news: posts to social media accounts often go unseen by followers, whether that’s because of the algorithm or because N% of the people who followed you 10 years ago aren’t even on the platform anymore.
And social media is so transient! Platforms die and shrink as fast as they are born and grow! You could spend a ton of time building an audience on Twitter, Vine, Tumblr, Livejournal, MySpace, Google+, or anywhere else just to watch everyone leave. If your book comes out in several years, that risk can be high!
Crowd favorite:
Substack/similar newsletters
This is nice because it’s both email-focused and there are social and archival elements. Also it seems a lot of the book world is here, mostly writing pretty sensible stuff, IMO. Jane Friedman has an article called “Why Substack is Both Great and Terrible for Authors” that explains the pros and cons. Mostly pros! (Interesting bit: she has a paid newsletter that makes her six figures a year, and a free one that makes even more!)Further reading: Subscriber perks for monetizing newsletters
Other Email lists
Artist/advocate for artists Sharon Louden, who I met through the Wyoming Innovation Partnership program ArtsWork, wrote The Artist as Culture Producer: Living and Sustaining a Creative Life. She is very into these email databases for artists! Here are some resources she provided.
Here are listings of free databases for people who use mac computers.Here are listings of free databases for people who use PC Computers.
Here’s an article on email lists for artists.
Email Marketing for Artists: the Ultimate Free Guide
Simplest option:
Making a form specifically for people to sign up for a future email about your book coming out
Every time someone says “let me know when the book is out,” you can put their contact info in FormJot, Google Forms, or something like that. Here’s one I made in only a few minutes, saying “put your email here if you want to know when Carcass is out.” That’s it. I can export the results in a few seconds. (I have not shared this with anyone yet, so IDK if it’s a good idea. I might print this on my next round of business card bookmarks.)Your communities
I’ve written a little list in AirTable of the various communities I’m in that might want to promote the book. I have some sort of connection to them, so we might promote each other here and there. Some have lists I can just email, and I’d have to ask the owner for access to some. I might actually have to get more involved with some and do a collaboration, event, or something. Some examples of communities I might pitch or just email:
My undergrad newspaper where I was an editor
My grad school alumni office
Odd Salon, a salon series where I am a fellow and I’ve given many talks
A science writing community from where I used to live
Various fellowships I’ve done in the past (and the one I’m doing now)
Places I have written for
For self-publishers: Kickstarter/Crowdfunding
I swear I thought of this idea as a kid; it’s so obviously a good model, IMO. You get people to buy something in advance (or pledge to buy, in a way that actually puts a pending charge on their card), and then if the project succeeds, you use those funds to produce the product! And the best part is, you set a cutoff, so if you don’t get enough funds, none of the customers are charged, and you are blessedly off the hook! You don’t have to make the product if enough customers are ready to put down their credit card! You are much less likely to lose money, thanks to the cutoff!
Years ago I did a successful Kickstarter campaign for a short book called Strange Biology: On Anomalous Animals, Mutants, and Mad Science. (And, a very small publisher picked it up after.) You can still buy it on Kindle here, but it’s very short and I’m a much better writer now.
I also helped someone (a talented and experienced photojournalist with great photos!) with a book campaign that failed in a bad way. (But it would have succeeded if he listened to more of my advice!) If anyone here is thinking of doing a Kickstarter for their book, I can share what went wrong so you can avoid doing that.
Things to ask yourself when building an audience for your book:
Are these people your topic’s audience?
We must consider whether the aforementioned potential audiences sufficiently overlap with the people who would buy your book (from a topic perspective.)
This Substack is not necessarily going to attract a lot of people interested in buying my book, I assume, because my book is about dead animals, and this Substack is not. Likewise, when I started posting some content about my book-writing experience on other platforms, that content always failed to perform because the audience was biology/animals/bones! Audience, audience, audience!
Some examples of people building audiences that match their book:
The newsletter Elephant Seals, by member
, should hopefully attract a similar audience to the people who are interested in her future book.The TikTok Geodesaurus (1.7 MILLION followers!) has made a lot of amazing videos about “Spooky Lakes” and recently published a book on Spooky Lakes! The author isn’t a member of this group but she’s the only example of someone who made a book based on the popularity of her TikTok series I can think of! (And, importantly, she is a fantastic illustrator and I heard the writing is great too.)
Even if they’re interested in the topic, how many people read books these days?
“Book buyers” is something of a specific demographic. I’m certain some people who don’t usually buy books are going to make an exception for mine because they’re so very interested in animal remains. The same goes for any topic. But then, reading a book is a very overwhelming thing for a lot of people, so they may never read or buy yours even if it’s about their very favorite thing in the world.
That said, the situation of book-buying isn’t as bad as it might seem. Remember the viral but controversial post here on Substack called “No One Buys Books?” Slate published a counter that says that’s really misleading. The piece was certainly interesting, but it was based on quotes from a company that had a financial incentive to argue that it was in dire straits and needed a merger. The sources were not neutral, and there are a million ways to skew data. Books sell a lot better than what was implied in that article, according to critics like the Slate article above.
Are you expecting an audience without giving anything in return?
Did you think it would be easy?
Recently I talked to someone who wanted to get good at social media. When I told her I have 315k followers across platforms, she said, “How do you do that!? Teach me your ways!”
It reminded me of all the times I’ve heard “how do you find so many bones?” or “how did you get that award?” or “how do you get a book deal?”
I used to enthusiastically give detailed tutorial answers. I always got interrupted when I did that. “Yeah yeah yeah, I don’t have time for that!” People don’t have 60 seconds to hear a summary of steps of how to do something, but they think they have time to learn to do it well? It can take years.
I realize people are expecting me to advise some quick tips they can employ over the weekend, and they’ll have the skill/award/grant/contract in a couple of days with no previous relevant experience. Or maybe there’s a website where they can download these skills, like in The Matrix.
I appreciate the positivity and implied compliment when someone asks how I did something! But now I try to find one-sentence answers. For books: “Build a writing career.” For social: “content is king, audience is queen.” For awards: “do something that would win that kind of thing.”
It can certainly be worth it to learn and there are some things you, personally, may be 90% of the way to achieving! I just encourage you to realize the answer to “how do you achieve X” is almost always “a ton of work and practice.” Maybe ask more specific questions once you understand the basics. Like “what’s the title of the award again so I can google it?” or “what science writing communities do you recommend?” That I can answer.
See you on the 25th!
Thank you!