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‘Will you still love me tomorrow?’Author PR and Publishing - London Book Fair 17 March 2003
‘Authors need to know what book PR is really like’ would have made a good theme for this informative discussion. Edwina Curry warned writers to prepare themselves emotionally to promote their book. She explained why interviewers focus on personality rather than literature - they don’t read your book before they talk to you. Instead, they do what reporters do best - investigate, probing for a story. It is up to the author to focus the inquisition on their book. Writers should be warned that it’s your private life the media want to report on, as the ex-Cabinet Minister and love interest of ex-Prime Minister John Major discovered in publicising her recent book. And, of course, writers should be told there is never a good time to publish a book. Definitely avoid the autumn publication peak and the frenzy in the lead-up to Christmas. Best avoid the summer, as people are on holiday and the spring is also pretty flat. What you really need is an imaginative publicist to match the publication date to an event and try to exploit it. But if someone declares war in the week your book is published, just move on and start work on the next book. Nevertheless, timing is vital. And writers do not often understand publishing lead time. Literary editors will scan the book data systems months ahead to see what is due to be published. This is when you wish that someone had taken more care over the few words that encapsulated the work for your ISBN registration. Feature editors too are looking for themes. A well-timed press release might just lead to an interview. But all this happens months before the book is actually published. ‘The author is not the enemy’ was a second theme. The panel agreed that all too often publishers do not ask the author to check press releases or catalogue entries. This is sad, because the press release is probably all any interviewer will have read and knows about you. So the message was: be proactive and make sure your publisher’s publicity machine identifies you as an asset. When it comes to write-ups, credibility counts. A string of superlatives makes neither a good review nor good copy for the back cover. Passion, of course, is a bonus, but hype is a bore. The border between the two is porous. A good writer should be able to produce the former but they are rarely asked to contribute or even check the material sent out with their book. Don’t ever forget those fundamentals of a good press release – what? when? who? and why? Sometimes it’s not even what you say that counts but who says it. This is especially true in the US market, where a celebrity endorsement is vital. A good cover quote can shift a pile of books. The reviews are a good place to trawl for quotes when the time comes to produce the paperback edition. This shows that publishers do at least read the literary reviews, but the panel couldn’t agree on how influential a good review was. The bestseller lists probably have much more effect on sales. A book can be an aspirational purchase, so the presentation of the package is important. In many international markets there is no barrier between popular and literary fiction. In the US, a good cover can convert a work of popular fiction into a literary classic. The difference exists but it is not institutionalised. But for publication in Britain, you have to decide which camp you want to be in. The consensus was that literary snobbery survives and flourishes in the London publishing business. None of this was news. The discussion was a refreshing re-statement of how to improve your book’s chances in a very tough market by people who know what they are talking about. Most had worked as ‘apparatchiks’ of the media but also experienced the highs and lows of the writer’s life, so were well-placed to offer advice. But the mask slipped a little towards the end when the panel closed ranks to reassure a would-be author who wanted to know why writers are not more welcome at the Fair. After all, publicists are on the inside and authors, most definitely, on the outside. © Charles Jones 2003 |
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