Indie Thoughts: What drives book sales?

ByJohn Brown

gallup-poll-how-readers-select-booksWhat are the biggest factors influencing which book a person will read next?

Many surveys have been conducted over the years to answer just that question. I’ve pasted one on the right and summarize the results of others here. One factor sits at the top of almost all of those surveys. Did you look at those other surveys? According to these surveys, folks tend to buy books by authors they already like.

This phenomenon is called a lot of things. One of the most common is “brand loyalty.” Some might be wondering how you define a brand and what could be branded in publishing. KKR has a great piece here that answers those questions.

So brand loyalty. How does it develop? Well, any time you please readers, their loyalty grows and inches them toward the loyal fan end of the spectrum. Your brand may not have the power of a Dean Koontz because you don’t have near the number of loyal customers as Koontz, but you still have a brand. And people who like your stuff are going to be loyal to some degree, but not the same degree.

I think that last point is important to remember: readers that know and like your brand won’t all have the same degree of loyalty.

You have hard-core fans who are totally dedicated to you and make an effort to know what’s happening. You’ve pleased them so much, your brand is gold to them.

You have others who will buy your book the minute they hear it’s out, but don’t make an active effort to keep up to date on things.

There are others who will mark it to be read when they hear about it, but don’t make a big effort to get it unless it’s convenient.

You have others who like your stuff but are still in that period where they like but haven’t yet committed to being a fan. That sometimes may take a few books.

That’s how it was with me and Lee Child. I read the first and liked it. Some time later I saw another and was predisposed to like it. I read that one and liked it too. I wasn’t a Child fan yet. But then I read the third. And that’s when I became a true fan. I’m not hard-core. But I now read everything he puts out within a few months of the release.

From what I can see, branding and brand loyalty matter no less in publishing than they do in any business where you’re relying on repeat customers.

JD Robb Celebrity in DeathI see the effect of brand loyalty all over. It was the force behind the dramatic explosion of sales when it was revealed that Robert Galbraith, the author of The Cuckoo’s Calling, was J.K. Rowling. It was the force behind the midnight book store events when Stephanie Meyer would release a Twilight book (and the Twilight balls). And other similar events with many other authors. It’s the reason why publishers make the names of a lot of authors so prominent on the cover. Good grief, sometimes that’s all you need. Look at some of the Nora Roberts or JD Robb covers. On many of those the name, the brand, takes up 75% of the cover. You can see customer loyalty blossoming in reviews on GoodReads and Amazon and elsewhere where readers say in essence, “I loved this author and I will be looking for the next book.”

Building a base of loyal customers is they goal in businesses that rely on repeat sales. Because not only do those folks come back for more, but the also tell other folks about the product.

Go back an look at those surveys. What was usually the number two reason someone selected a book?

Word of mouth.

Word of mouth comes in many forms. Recommendations from folks you know. Recommendations from other influencers–folks like Rush Limbaugh or review sites you frequent. Recommendations from some other type of social influence mechanism like a bestseller list on Amazon.

The key takeaway for me is that top two factors driving book sales all stem from a loyal customer base. Which means building that base should be one of my main goals as a writer.

So how do you do that?

The same way everyone else in a repeat customer business does it. At a general level, you:

  1. Create a product (a book in this case) that’s likely to delight a certain set of consumers (readers).
  2. Let those consumers (readers) know about it.
  3. Make it enticing for them to give it a try.
  4. Make it easy for those who liked it to know when they can get another.
  5. Get more product (another book that’s similar to the last) out the door so your repeat customers can come back for more.

I’ll be sharing more of my ideas about aspects of those five steps in upcoming posts. And I’ll be wanting to hear what you’ve found that works. Because ultimately we’re all testing various strategies. And the more we share with each other, the more we’ll each benefit.

While you’re waiting, you might want to look at an awesome book on customer loyalty called The Loyalty Effect by Frederick F. Reichheld.

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    Amazon vs Macmillan = Big River Fighting to be Big Banana

    ByJohn Brown

    Here’s what this brouhaha is all about

    Amazon wants to try to replicate with digital books what Apple has done with digital music. So what has Apple done?

    According to Cnet’s “iTunes reps 1 in every 4 songs“:

    “iTunes-purchased songs now account for 25 percent of the overall music market–both physical and digital–in the U.S., says an NPD Group report released Tuesday.”

    That may not seem like a market leader position, but in the comments one person pointed out the following.

    “35% of the music sales are digital (there’s some conversion where 1 CD = 11 or 12 individual digital downloads). Apple owns 70% of the digital market. 70% of the 35% ~ 25%. So Apple has a 25% share of all music sales.”

    Whoa, Nellie. That there’s what we call a cash cow. Moo-la, Baby, Moo-LA! And this becomes even more significant when you consider the fact that many think the digital part of music sales is only going to grow and grow.

    According to the same set of data, TheStreet.com’s  “iTunes, Wal-Mart Dominate Music Sales” reports:

    Amazon accounts for only 8% of that market .

    How did Apple get the head lock on such a huge portion of the digital market? It appears it has to do with the fact that Apple was first to market with a good MP3 player solution, linked that to its iTunes store, and then bundled the software in such a way as to drive and then keep people coming back to iTunes. Here are a couple of articles. I’m sure we could google dozens more.

    Amazon (and many others) are forecasting digital books to become a very large part of book sales. Amazon wants to be the big banana in that space. Well, it can’t be (drum roll) the big Apple now can it?

    But what does this have to do with publishers?

    Big Banana’s Problem

    Amazon cannot become the big banana if nobody buys its stuff because consumers feel it’s priced too high.

    So why don’t they just price it low?

    Ah, there’s the peel.

    In this new proposed arrangement, Amazon cedes a huge portion of its pricing control to the publisher.

    But Apple’s doing that with its iPad.

    It is. However, Apple already has a model and ability to sell. I think Amazon wants to make sure it keeps the low-price position because this is one of the key reasons people go to Amazon. Amazon pulls online book customers in because (listed in what I estimate is importance):

    1. The new books are usually cheaper and if you really want a low price you can buy them used
    2. Amazon provide long tail stock (what book can’t you get out there?)
    3. It’s easy to type in a title and find out more info about the book (first chapters, user ratings, etc.)
    4. Completing the sales transaction is a snap 

    I’m assuming Amazon is worried that if it allows publishers to price their ebooks higher, then they lose one of their MAIN draws. And therefore their ability to become Big Banana.

    The Existing Supply Chain Model

    Right now you have these distribution or supply chains:

    • Publisher  –> Wholesaler  –> Retailer –> Consumer
    • Publisher  –> Retailer –> Consumer
    • Publisher  –> Consumer

    All of them exist side-by-side. For example, Scholastic will sell books via a Barnes & Noble retailer, but they’ll also sell direct via their school book program. You can get SERVANT at Barnes & Noble or you can get it directly from Macmillan here.

    Why have the middlemen?

    Because middlemen bring the cost of purchasing a book WAY down. Some people don’t think that. All they see is that the retailer buys the book wholesale and then jacks up the price.

    But imagine there were no Wal-Marts, Smith’s grocery, or any other kinds of stores. As a consumer you would have to go to farmer Bill for milk, travel 10 miles to farmer Jane for corn, travel another 10 miles to farmer gill for eggs, and on and on and on for the hundreds and thousands of different products we buy. Furthermore, because middlemen bring the products all together each producer has more incentive to compete on quality, value, and price.

    Middlemen SAVE consumers huge amounts of time and money. That’s why we’ll always have them with us even though producers may still sell direct at the same time.  And that’s why we’re willing to pay the little bit they ask for what they do.

    Price/Volume/Profit Control

    There are two keys to making all of this middlemen business work.

    First, usually only the two parties involved in any transaction control the terms of that transaction. So the publisher and wholesaler agree on a price for their transaction. The wholesaler than makes a separate agreement with the retailer. Finally, the retailer is free to make a separate agreement with the consumer. In each transaction the seller gets to control price, cut deals for high volume purchases, and, therefore control its profit.

    In all cases you negotiate a price/volume mix that’s good for both parties. Sometimes this includes a flat price. Sometimes it includes price deductions for larger volumes.  But in all cases it gives the producer something to count on. If a customer wants a lot of product, great, we’ll sell it to you for X price and make Z profit. If you want less, fine, we’ll sell it for Y and make Q profit.

    Second, wholesalers and retailers want to control costs. They need to be able to turn around and sell your product for some profit. If you sell your stuff to someone else for a humongous discount, then that allows their competitor to charge less and potentially shift volume to them. So buyers will often try to get commitments that you aren’t going to screw them somewhere else. And sellers who value long-term relationships are willing to make such commitments.

    So here’s business as it is today. A retail bookseller (Amazon, B&N, etc.) pays a fixed wholesale price for the book to the publisher. The bookseller might negotiate wholesale price breaks at different quantity levels with the publisher, but that’s a wholesale price/volume agreement that ensures certain profit levels for the publisher. As for the retailer, they maintain a different price/volume/profit control on their end with the consumers, fiddling with volume/price mixes that make sense to them. In this situation BOTH the publisher and the retailer maintain price/volume/profit control.

    What do you want to be–the Marketplace or the Seller?

    But this new percent-of-retail scheme decouples price from volume and forces the publisher or retailer to lose control of profit. Either Amazon or the publisher has to GIVE UP price/volume/profit control with their set of buyers.

    If Amazon gets control, then it can set the retail price however it wants REGARDLESS of volume. In this situation, because wholesale price is pegged to retail price via the %, this means Amazon would dictate the wholesale price to the publisher without any regard to volume. This takes price/volume/profit control away from the publishers, putting them at the mercy of the retailer’s whims.

    Scary, a total shift in the way they’re doing business. Publishers would have to budget for the worst case scenario–the lowest the retailer might charge.

    However, that’s NOT what happened. In this current deal Amazon ceded its control to Macmillan, saying, okay publisher YOU set the price for my customers. This isn’t foreign to Amazon. They do this right now with used book sellers. Those folks set their own price and Amazon acts as the market place. And once Amazon says “we’re the marketplace, not the seller” then they step right out of the “hey, you’re charging too much” equation. So nobody would yell at Amazon for this move. Well, some folks would, but they’d soon figure it out. For example, nobody yells at Amazon now when used book vendors want to charge $99 for a trashy paperback. Everyone gets that Amazon is just the marketplace just as they get that Ebay is the market place.

    However, in this case Amazon did want to retain some control. They said, let’s set a range of prices that are acceptable. You can charge $5.99 to $9.99 but no more or less. This would allow the publisher to sell a book for more money when it’s initially released and gradually drop the price as time goes on until we get the bargain basement price of the remainder tables. The articles I linked to in the original blog discuss this common selling practice.

    Macmillan said, the miminum is great, but we actually want to start higher–$14.99.

    Amazon said, no way, Dude. And the battle was on.

    Magic $9.99?

    But why? Why did Amazon insist on that maximum? Why not just do what they already do with used book sellers and step away completely from controlling price? Wouldn’t they WANT to make more money with higher prices anyway?

    Again, price directly affects volume sold which affects profit. But in this case, it’s not as much about profit but volume and market share.

    The only reason that makes sense to me is what I discussed at the beginning of the article–Amazon wants to dominate the digital book space as Apples does iTunes, and they feel the must keep prices low to continue to get people coming to their Kindle store and growing their customer base.  They’re hoping to spank the competition in this segment by being big first and getting all the volume–it’s the old five yards and a cloud of dust.

    Big Banana. Kind of like Wal-Mart is in its segment. Kind of like Microsoft is in theirs. Kind of like Apple is with digital music.

    And they obviously think $9.99 is the magic number to keep the customers pouring into their Kindle e-book world.

    ebooks cost nothing and my grandma plays in the NBA

    Isn’t $9.99 a good price for the publisher? I mean, heck, ebooks don’t use any paper, so they cost next to nothing to make, right?

    Um, no.

    The answer’s “no” because paper is only a part of the cost. And I’m not talking about the cost of the person who takes the Word document and converts it into PDF or Kindle or whatever the ebook format is. My kid could do that for twenty bucks.

    Every product is a mix of fixed costs that don’t change with the volume you produce and variable costs which do vary. Rent, electricity, buildings, equipment, editorial, art, design, author advances, marketing, etc.–all these things can be fixed costs. It doesn’t matter if you make one book or one million. You still have the same rent, same fixed cost for artwork, same cost for editors.  

    So how big are those fixed costs? Based on the blogs I linked to in the original article (and if I read them correctly), the fixed costs are estimated somewhere between $7,000 and $20,000 per book. But those numbers aren’t hard numbers. For example, books that have bigger author royalities and bigger marketing budgets are going to cost more. Furthermore, because those numbers don’t have any details backing them up, I’m leery of trusting them.

    But we can look at something that is public knowledge to see how this works. For example, Stephenie Meyer got $750,000 for Twilight. Most authors do NOT get that. Most get a $5,000 – $7,000 advance per book. Still it shows the fixed costs can be quite large. Meyer’s advance was a huge fixed cost that needed to be covered by each book her publisher sold.

    If they sold only one book, they’d have to have charged $750,000 for it just to cover that one cost. Do you know anyone willing to pay that for a book? No. So they priced it, hoping to sell thousands. If they were to sell 750,000 copies, then that advance only cost $1 per copy. If they were to sell 1.5 million copies, then it would be .50 cents per book. The more books they sell, the smaller the fixed cost per book. Of course, that’s just one fixed  cost! You need to add all the others in (marketing must have been very large as well). Furthermore, Meyer is THE best seller. The vast majority of authors don’t sell anything that comes close. Yes, they have smaller advances and marketing budgets. But you get the idea–fixed costs matter!

    So all these people saying that since no paper is involved ebooks should cost nothing are ignoring fixed costs. In fact, according to some sources, printing, paper, and shipping only account for 10-20% of the cost of most books. I don’t know if that’s an average at all volume levels. Again, there was nothing to back up those claims. But if it’s accurate, you can see the arguments demanding ebooks be sold for next to nothing become silly at best.

    The fact is that the publisher needs to cover those fixed costs. If you were the publisher, how would you do it? Would you price hardbacks to cover fixed + variable + profit? And then price paperbacks and ebooks at variable + profit? Probably not. Hardbacks are already pushing the price limits for consumers. I think you’d want to spread those fixed costs around. If anything, you might try to cover a higher portion of the fixed costs with the paperback and ebooks.

    My inner accountant is screaming for real data to crunch and display in a spreadsheet, but I don’t have any actual actual price/volume/profit matrices. What I can say is that paper has NEVER been the only cost. For midlist authors I suspect it’s probably the smaller portion of the cost of each indivudal book. Publishers must price the books and move the necessary volume to cover fixed costs + variable costs + some profit. And so it’s only reasonable to expect that ebooks be priced to do that.

    What’s the best for you, dear reader?

    I don’t know which specific potential leader will end up providing better prices, reading devices, services, etc. in the long run. Is that Amazon, Apple, Barnes & Noble? A whole bunch of retailers? Who knows?

    What I do know is that it’s good to have a number of companies competing for the customer’s dollars. My vote is with having lots of retailers. If Amazon can sell a significantly larger number of ebooks with their pricing, then publishers, authors, and readers all win. If they can’t, then it becomes a win-lose.  And the publishers and authors will be on the lookout for a way to improve the situation by seeking out other distribution channels.

    Edit for Macmillan Announcement

    2/4/2010 4:05 PM

    It appears Macmillan and Amazon have come to an agreement.

    Notice Macmillan CEO claims this new agreement will result in them making LESS money than they do with ebooks currently. But it provides a reliable and rational market. I think what he’s saying is that this allows publishers more predictability, even if it comes at a price.

    From what I understand Amazon currently pays 50% of suggested retail price for an ebook. The publisher sets the SRP (you see it on the book often), but Amazon has full control to charge whatever it wants to the customer. Here are the numbers for SERVANT.

    • SRP = $25.99
    • Amazon pays the publisher 50% of $25.99 = $13 for each copy of SERVANT they sell
    • If they sell it for $9.99 they lose $9.99 – $13 = $(3.01) per book
    • If they sell for $14 (about what they’ve been listing it for, the make $14 – $13 = $1 per book

    Under the new deal the publiser sets the SRP and the consumer price. On each sale Amazon gets 30%, the publisher 70%. Here are the number for SERVANT under this scenario.

    • SRP = $25.99
    • Publisher sells ebook for $14
    • Amazon pays the publisher nothing until the sale.
    • Amazon earns $14 x 30% = $4.2. This is MORE than they are making under the current system.
    • Publisher earns $14 x 70% = $9.8. This means the publisher earns $(3.20) less, just as claimed, under the system they WANTED versus the existing method

    So why earn less? As Macmillan says in the announcement above, they’re willing to take less to have a more rational and stable market for ebooks

    Over the last few years we have been deeply concerned about the pricing of electronic books. That pricing, combined with the traditional business model we were using, was creating a market that we believe was fundamentally unbalanced. In the last three weeks, from a standing start we have moved to a new business model. We will make less money on the sale of e books, but we will have a stable and rational market. To repeat myself from last Sunday’ s letter, we will now have a business model that will ensure our intellectual property will be available digitally through many channels, at a price that is both fair to the consumer and that allows those who create and publish it to be fairly compensated.

    We have also started discussions with all our other partners in the digital book world. While there is still lots of work to be done, they have all agreed to move to the agency model.

    So this is how all ebooks will work with Macmillan going forward. I’m betting most or all the other publishers will follow suit.

    I think this is good news for readers, publishers, and retailers. Readers get it for less than hardcover. It will be at the higher end of the range settled with Amazon (I think it was $5.99 – $14.99) unless the publisher decides to run discounts as they do with many blockbusters now in hardback. But the price will drop as time goes on. I imagine when they release the paperback for a book, they’ll have to drop it for certain. And when books go to the remainder tables, they’ll drop again. I can see old ebooks or promotions costing $5.99 – $9.99, new ones $14.00.

    BTW, the standard now for many authors is to be paid 15% royalty of the SRP on ebooks up to a maximum of 40-50% of the net amount publishers get from the retailer (btw, contracts stipulate different royalty rates for ebooks, hardback, mass market, etc.). Something the industry is considering, as mentioned in Sargent’s letter, is setting a % rate of the amount received by Macmillan from Amazon. So instead of paying authors 15% royalty on the SRP, new contracts will likely pay authors 20 -25% of the 70% the publisher receives as royalty. You can do the math. It’s very clear this new deal doesn’t earn the author more per book. 

    Hopefully, then, we’ll simply sell a heck of a lot more copies. One glitch in all this is the fact that publishers haven’t really been setting prices with consumers. That’s been the retailer’s job. And so they’ll probably have a learning curve trying to get the prices right in the beginning. Or maybe not. We’ll have to see.

    Edit to answer Jason_Young @ 2

    2/5/2010

    Your point is, hey, if they have three products (hardback, paperback, and ebook) to spread the fixed costs across, then should that allow them to drop the price of all three products? $100 / 2 = $50. $100 / 3 = $33.3. Have I got the question right?

    FIXED COSTS AND VOLUME

    If so, then the answer is it all depends on the relationship between volume and fixed costs. It always depends on that relationship. In fact, that 20% figure may or may not be accurate because . . . it all depends on volume and fixed costs. Both of which can change.

    Let’s take a totally FABRICATED and SIMPLIFIED situation to see how it works.

    Fixed costs: $10,000
    Variable costs hardback (paper, printing, binding, etc.): $3

    Cost per book by volume printed.
    Printed / Cost per Book / Variable as %
    1 / $10,003 / 0.03%
    1,000 / $1,003 / 0.3%
    5,000 / $5 / 60%
    10,000 / $4 / 75%
    20,000 / $3.50 / 86%
    50,000 / $3.20 / 94%

    Now remember: printing has fixed and variable costs as well. But I’m going to say the printing’s all variable to keep this manageable. And that you sell every book you print (something that never happens). The thing to see here is that when you keep fixed costs constant and increase the volume printed, then the fixed cost amount and % per book goes down. Conversely, variable costs become a larger and larger portion of each unit’s cost. Remember, however, that often fixed costs go up when you plan on printing significatly more books (Twilight etc.) But given a set budget for a book, you want to sell as much as you can.

    VARIABLES CHANGE

    So your argument is that when ebooks come along, the fixed costs have already been covered by the hardbacks and papers, cause they’re all still priced the same and the variable and fixed costs haven’t gone up that much since two or three years ago.

    Here’s some of the assumptions you’ve made that might be false:

    1. Fixed and variable costs haven’t gone up
    2. Publishers are selling the same number of copies per book as they were in the past
    3. Ebooks aren’t cannibalizing sales of hardcopies

    The truth may be that costs have gone up and that books aren’t selling as many copies in their various formats as they used to. But even if both of things have not happened, why should we suppose that ebooks don’t cannibalize hardcopy sales, dropping the volumes and, therefore, increasing the cost per hardcopy? Or that they won’t cannibalize even more in the future as ebook readers become better and better.

    On the revenue end, you’re also assuming publishers are selling books for the same prices they were in the past. SRP may be high, but have you noticed the prices on new books on Amazon and other outlets? My $25.99 SRP book came out and sold for $17. It sold for $15 and change before release! And I’m not a big name they’re trying to drive volume to. This is newbie no-name they’re having to discount.

    What I expect has happened over the last five years is this. Costs have risen. Hardbacks are already pushing the limits on price. Furthermore, sellers and consumers are asking for more and more discounts. Paperbacks still haven’t crossed the $9.99, but there’s still pressure to keep them low. Ebooks are adding revenue, but a significant portion of that comes at the expense of hardcopies. So it changes the mix of products sold. It doesn’t simply open up a whole new stream of untapped cash. Because of this, ebooks allow the publisher another method to earn profit that’s getting squeezed away.

    PRODUCT MIXES AND CONTRIBUTION MARGINS

    The best way to look at this is to look at the cost in two ways. One way is to allocate fixed costs and get a price per unit. But if you look at it only that way, you can make a number of bad judgments on the value or price of a product. This happens because of that relationship between fixed costs and volume. So you also want to look at the contribution margin of each product. And, in fact, this is a better way of judging the profitability of an item.

    In this method you lump all the fixed costs together and then examine each unit of the different products (hard, soft, ebook) only by its variable cost versus revenue to see if each unit sold is contributing something above its variable cost towards the fixed costs. Then you estimate the volume you expect (hope) to sell at given prices and try to price them all in a way that will move enough volume of each type of product to cover fixed costs and provide some profit.

    So you don’t consider each product type individually. You look at the MIX of product and the MIX of contribution margins. And you work it so that together the MIX of products covers costs and earns you a profit. And gets enough volume to keep your author a going concern, growing his numbers so he becomes more profitable as time goes on.

    Edit for Modesitt’s insight

    2/6/2010

    Please check out this blog by L.E. Modesitt, Jr. “Why Amazon and Some Readers are Wrong”

    Second, what’s been overlooked is the fact that a tremendous number of book titles actually lose money. Depending on the publisher and the year, that can range from as little as 30% of all titles published to more than 60%. That means that successful books not only have to cover their own production costs but the losses from unsuccessful books if the publisher is to remain in business.

    Third, hardcover sales of successful books effectively subsidize paperbacks or less successful books. Ten-dollar Kindle books would have created price pressures that would either reduce the sales of hardcovers or replace them with e-books, and as more adaptable e-book reading devices become available, that would reduce overall revenues even more than would $15 e-books. This, in turn, would reduce the ability of publishers to try “new” authors and approaches, and would likely result in more “mass” entertainment and less diversity in a field that is already having trouble publishing books for limited audiences.

    Just in case you didn’t connect it to the discussion above. A HUGE cost that needs to be covered by the contribution margins of the successful books are the fixed AND variable costs of each book that fails to contribute enough segment margin (the contribution margin of a segment of your business, in this case a book in its various formats) to pay for itself.  Look at Modesitt’s percentages of books that lose the publisher money. Think about that. For the publisher to continue to bring in new authors who might not sell well in the beginning but have great potential in the long run to sell well, they have to cover the “start up” costs of those authors.

    He makes a lot of other important points. It’s a good read.  And it all plugs into the fixed costs, volume, price, contribution margin equations.

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  • Which cons should an aspiring author attend?

    ByJohn Brown

    You want to meet editors and agents. But how? Where?

    Writing Excuses recently held a great podcast listing the types of events aspiring authors might want to attend–conventions, conferences, workshops, expos, etc. But knowing the types still doesn’t tell you which events to go to.

    If you’re looking to meet editors and agents, here’s a way to figure out precisely which events you should attend.

    1. Instead of taking a random scatter-shot approach, get some laser precision. Do this by first identifying the specific editors and agents you’re interested in. Then find out which events they’re going to attend. Forget all the other events–these are the ones you want to go to.

    These folks will often post their schedule on their websites. The workshops, conferences, and conventions will also often post guest lists. You can also query the agency or publisher itself and ask which cons so-and-so will attend (just contact the receptionist, you don’t need or want to contact the editor or agent specifically).

    Now even if you don’t know exactly who you’re interested in, you can still narrow down your focus. Event X might at least have some agents or editors attending (even if they’re not in your genre) while event Y does not. So go and see if you can’t get tips from those agents or editors

    2. Research each of the events. Some provide meetings with editors, some provide pitch sessions, some will require you to track the person down. Select the events that look the most promising to you.

    3. If you feel a bit nervous or shy, develop a short script for what you’ll say and how you’ll approach these folks. Or make a list of potential talking points. Run it by some friends and other writers to  make sure you don’t sound robotic, dweebish, pushy, or pleading.

    You have to remember that agents and editors are looking for new talent constantly. If they don’t find new talent, their income stream soon dies. They want and expect people to find them. They WANT to talk to YOU. They just want to be approached in a friendly and business like way. 

    So you have your script, talking points, and plans and will probably end up deviating from them. However, just having that in your head when you go to the con and approach the person you want to talk to (even if it’s only two sentences) can go a long way to calming your nerves.

    4. Attend the con and make adjustments to your plan as necessary.

    5. Don’t miss unplanned opportunities. Writing is sometimes a lonely business. When I go to cons I have folks I want to meet and catch up on. But I also make sure I engage other con goers. I smile, I say hello, I ask things like “so are you here as a writer or a fanboy?” or “what did you think about panel?” or “Your Klingon ridge is looking mighty today.” We chat.

    I do it because I learn a lot from others and its just plain interesting. And sometimes you make an acquaintance that can develop into a working relationship. For example, I met Larry Correia (new author with Baen) at a local con I just attended. He had a fascinating  story about his breaking in. We chatted for a while. There was no ulterior business/network motive. Just a great conversation. A month or so later a business opportunity arose and I thought of Larry. He’s now going on tour with me and Dave Farland this fall.

    Be flexible. I’ve been invited and have invited others to go do lunch or dinner. And those have always been great chats. And sometimes business ops have arisen later because of them. But even if they hadn’t, it just makes the experience so much better. Good conversation is its own reward.

    6. If all of this is too scary, bring back up. Get a friend or family member to go with you. 🙂

    And if you stumble a bit, maybe stutter, maybe even feel like you’ve made a fool of yourself, do not stress. It’s to be expected the first few times. No big deal. Most poeple are shy and will either give you a break or be so worried themselves they won’t notice. With a few tries you’ll learn. If yo do make a fool of yourself, the good thing is that editors and agents meet so many people that your face will soon be forgotten, and you’ll be able to reboot and approach them next year with a clean slate (just remember to not wear the same belly dancing costume).

    Of course, this doesn’t tell you what to do and not to do when approaching these folks. But as far as deciding where to go, this is one method that works.

    —

    Added 7/31/09

    SFWA has some great articles on conventions and networking by Diana Rowland.

    How to Network at a Convention

    Networking 201: How to Work a Room

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  • |

    News

    ByJohn Brown

    Interview with The Man Monday night

    Dungeon Crawlers Radio interviews The Man Monday, March 8th at 10:30 PM MTN. You can listen live or to the archive they’ll post to their site. All brought to you by UtahFM. Malak and Revan are great guys. I had a blast with them.

    Cool facts on breaking in, advances, etc. for writers

    New page on writing facts & figures in the On Writing section.

    Novel update

    CURSE OF A DARK GOD is moving along. You should see the progress bar move along quite a bit this week.

    Initial Schedule for American Fork Arts Council Conference for Writers

    This is a cheap day-long writers conference and looks like it’s going to be another great one.  I’ve highlighted what I’ll be doing in red. I’ll be making adjustments to the HOW TO WRITE A STORY THAT ROCKS presentation for things learned at LTUE.

    Here’s their website. That night I’ll probably be attending the Whitney Awards Gala which is also being held down in Happy Valley, Utah.

    DATE: Saturday April 24 2010

    8-9 a.m. Registration
    9-9:10 Welcome (Plenary)

    KEYNOTES
    9:10-9:40 Keynote #1 Ginger Churchill, “What I Wish I had Known as a Beginning Writer”
    9:40-10:10 Keynote #2 Ally Condie, “My Journey to National Publication”
    10:10-10:40 John D. Brown, “Aiming for National Publication”

    INTRODUCTIONS of editors and authors
    10:40-11:05 EDITORS: Derk Koldewyn, Granite NAME
    AUTHORS: Caleb Warnock, Linda Jefferies, Shannon Guymon

    11:05-11:20 15-minute break

    11:20-noon BREAKOUT ONE
    Upstairs room “Crafting the Novel” with Shannon Guymon, John D. Brown
    Downstairs One “Finding and Working With an Agent” with Ginger Churchill, Ally Condie, Caleb Warnock
    Downstairs Two “Taking Your Questions about Publishing” with Deseret Book and Granite Publishing

    noon-1 LUNCH “Mix and Mingle with Authors and Editors”

    1-1:40 BREAKOUT TWO
    Conference One Derk Koldewyn of Deseret Book “What Deseret Book is looking for now”
    Conference Two Ginger Churchill “How to Write and Publish Picture Books”
    Upstairs room John Brown, “How to Write a Story That Rocks Part 1: First Principles & Story Concept”
    Office room Caleb Warnock “10 Things Every Writer Should Know about Copyright”
    Downstairs One Granite Publishing “What Granite is looking for now”
    Downstairs Two Ally Condie “Writing Young Adult Fiction”

    1:40-1:50 Ten-minute break

    1:50-2:30 BREAKOUT THREE
    Upstairs Room John Brown, “How to Write a Story That Rocks Part 2: Character”
    Conference Two Ginger Churchill “Genres of Children’s Books, from Board Books to YA Novels”
    Conference One Derk Koldewyn of Deseret Book “National Publication with Shadow Mountain”
    Office room Caleb Warnock “How to Write the Query Letter”
    Downstairs One Granite Publishing “Publishing Options with Granite”
    Downstairs Two Shannon Guymon “How to Write Romance”

    2:30-2:40 Ten-minute break

    2:40-3:20 BREAKOUT FOUR
    Upstairs Room John Brown, “How to Write a Story That Rocks Part 3: Plot”
    Conference Two Ginger Churchill “How to be a Writer and a Mother Too”
    Conference One Linda Jefferies “Writing Poetry”
    Office room Caleb Warnock “Write a Synopsis? I’d Rather Gouge My Eyes Out!”
    Downstairs One Ally Condie “Succeeding as an LDS author”
    Downstairs Two Shannon Guymon “Writing Nonfiction”

    3:20-3:30 Ten-minute break

    3:30-4:10 BREAKOUT FIVE
    Upstairs Room John Brown, “Writing Scenes: The Basic Units of a Novel”
    Conference Two Ginger Churchill “Querying Agents and Publishers”
    Conference One Linda Jefferies “Publishing Poetry”
    Office room Caleb Warnock “Okay, You Were Rejected – Why, and What to Do Now”
    Downstairs One “How to form a critique group that works”
    Downstairs Two Shannon Guymon “Succeeding as an LDS Author”

    4:10-4:20 PRIZE GIVEAWAYS, GOODBYE

    REVISED (MAY CHANGE)

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  • My working process

    ByJohn Brown

    Because I get questions about how I work, whether I outline, etc., and to satisfy the curiosity of those waiting for Curse about what I’m doing right now, I’ve decided to share my working process.

    I use five types of documents in Word to write my books.

    1. Pre-draft documents
    2. Working outline
    3. Chapter development docs
    4. Manuscript drafts
    5. Book

    I then import the book into InDesign to create the ebook and POD versions.

    THE PROCESS

    1. PRE-DRAFT

    I start developing and collecting ideas for character, setting, problem, plot, and sometimes even text. This includes brainstorms, zings, setting sketches, character sketches, scene or dialog snippets, plot sketches, photos, maps, story setup statements or problem statements, etc.  I’ll often have separate pre-draft documents for character, setting, problem, and plot. Or it might be one big document. At some point all of that electricity has built to the point where the story starts to buck and kick in my hands. When I start to see scenes rolling out in front of me, I know it’s time to create the outline.

    2. WORKING OUTLINE

    Looking at my pre-draft material, I create a sequenced list of the events or scenes in the story. Sometimes I’ll describe an event with just one line, sometimes I’ll describe it with more. These events or scenes often match up to individual chapters, but they often change as I go because the outline changes as I work. This outline is usually 4-12 pages long.

    I usually have more detail about the first parts of the book when I start than I do the last parts. But even if some parts are sketchy, I usually have at least a line for each of the big events all the way to the end. When I start drafting (steps 3 and 4) and moving through the book, the details for those later parts begin to fill in. Again, it’s a “working” outline so things change.

    3. CHAPTER DEV DOCS

    When I finish the working outline to my satisfaction and start chomping at the bit to write, it’s time to start drafting. I open a new chapter development doc for the first event on the outline and copy/paste the event’s material from the outline into it.

    I do some sketching if necessary (see my posts on scene primers) in the new document. Then I begin to write with the outline material and scene sketch as a guide.

    If I run out of steam, or the take of the scene doesn’t work, I do another take. I just stop, create a new heading titled “Take 2” or 3 or 4 (whatever the take is), and start again. I may brainstorm as well in this document and do other pre-draft work that has finally presented itself to me to be done. There have been a couple of times that I’ve had to do 20+ takes to get a take that works. Most of the time I need 1-3 takes. Using Word navigation view I can see in the sidebar all the takes etc.

    The nice thing about these chapter development documents is that they’re working documents. I can be messy.

    4. MANUSCRIPT

    When I’ve gotten a good take of the scene, I paste that take into my manuscript document which contains all the final takes from the chapter development documents. This is “draft 1” of the manuscript. Usually each scene/event becomes a chapter, although I might split it if it goes long, or combine it with others if it’s short.

    5. REPEAT UNTIL DONE

    I repeat steps 3 and 4 until I’m done with the book. Using Word navigation I can see all the chapters in the sidebar.

    6. CHAPTER REVIEW

    Before I print the manuscript for the cold read, I will review the chapter breaks one more time based on what I feel is right for the length, the right effect, especially at the ending and beginning of the chapter, and what I think goes together.

    7. DRAFT VERSIONS

    After cold reading and marking up the printed form of draft 1, I copy the manuscript file and replace the suffix “draft 1” with “draft 2”, then make the edits for the cold read in draft 2.

    Then I send draft 2 out to my beta readers. When the manuscripts and comments come back, I copy draft 2 and change the suffix to “draft 3” and make the beta reader edits in draft 3.

    I do this for as many drafts as I go through, including those for the copy edits.

    8. BOOK

    When I’m done with drafting, I copy the final draft and replace the draft suffix with “book”. Then I add front matter and back matter (title page, copyright page, teaser, map, author’s note, table of contents, etc.) in preparation for importing into InDesign to create the ebook and POD (print-on-demand) versions.

    9. POD

    I create an InDesign document, import the Word book, then save it with the suffix “POD”. Next I finalize the interior formatting for printing. There’s quite a bit that goes into this with chapter breaks, widows, and orphans, breaks, etc. When that’s done, I upload it to CreateSpace and then print off the proof they provide.  By now the cover is finished as well.

    10. PROOF READ

    I read the POD proof to catch any last errors and make the appropriate updates to both the Word book and the InDesign POD document.

    11. EBOOK

    I copy the POD InDesign document and replace “POD” with “EBOOK”. I then add the appropriate changes (links etc.) to the front and back matter for the ebook. Next I export the InDesign document as an EPUB. I have to use Calibre Book Editor to edit a number of things in the EPUB. When that’s done I open the EPUB with the Kindle Previewer to create the MOBI version (Kindle file).

    12. PUBLISH

    The next step is the easiest–click a few buttons to upload the final version of the POD and ebooks to the various online retail venues. I go direct with Amazon, CreateSpace, NookPress, and Kobo. I use Draft2Digital for iTunes and Smashwords for all the rest. 

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  • I hate mission statements, but…

    ByJohn Brown
    Stephen R. Covey (or is it Lex Luthor?)
    Stephen R. Covey (or is it Lex Luthor?)

    First of all, if I could look like Stephen R. Covey does in that picture, I would shave my head and never look back. Holy moly, I love that picture. But that’s not why I’m writing.

    James Maxey is a writer who I respect and whose comments on the boards of Codex Writers often make me think or laugh. He recently started a thread about writing mission statements.

    Ack!

    I groaned when I first read the title of his topic. I know first-hand how useful goals are. I know how vital it is to identify what’s vital in any endeavor. Heck, I’m a Covey-lover through and through.

    But every mission statement I’ve seen has either been useless corporate toilet paper (because they’re printed on stuff that’s too stiff and rigid to be of any help in the bathroom) or it’s a personal artifact that has a six week half life, after which it turns into something like that singing fish you bought and can’t for the life of you figure out why or where to put it now that you realize you could have eaten a steak for just as much money and the pleasure would have lasted longer.

    And yet consciously thinking about how you want to live is so powerful. I think the corporate world ruined the term for me. I cannot bring myself to write a “mission statement.” I know what I want to do in my various roles in life. I know how I want to live. But I cannot use that label. Alas.

    So here’s my “what I want to do” as far as writing is concerned. It’s not crisp and clean. And if I had to write it again, it would come out differently. But it has the gist.

    —-

    I want to make people fall in love like I did when I first watched the Sound of Music–that sweet, pure yearning. And when they’re out of love, I want them to see a way back.

    Every once in a while I want the ground to shift under the feet of my readers like it shifted under mine when I first watched Les Miserables with Anthony Perkin.

    I want them to laugh.

    I want to give them the wonder and adventure that was given me when I read the Hobbit.

    I want them, at least once, to shout in triumph.

    I want to share my delight in people who are fascinating, flawed, salt-of-the-earth, odd, funny, strong or a hundred other wonderful things, but who show some courage, a little or a lot.

    I want readers to weep at the hope of redemption. I want them to despair at loss.

    I want the sun to shine. I want the world to crack.

    And when my readers are done, when the book’s closed and they sit back, I want the story and people to linger, I want my readers to want to go back. I want them to feel it was, not only a surge of living, but a good thing to have once been lost in the pages of my book.

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4 Comments

  1. I agree with this totally.

    My “fan-ship” with author Terry Goodkind was actually the inverse of what you mentioned with Lee Child. I read Goodkind’s first “Sword of Truth” book, loved it, rabidly read through the published books in the series, and then bought further books immediately when they came out. As the series petered out though, I became less enthusiastic.

    By the time he officially ended the Sword of Truth series, I followed him to one book in a different (but related) world, but haven’t read any of the things he put out since.

    In his case, I feel like he lost my readership because he failed to stick with the true distinctives of his brand (or at least the ones that I resonated with). I wanted to read a fantasy adventure with a magic system that had a mystery element to it that had to be figured out. And I wanted the story to encapsulate a philosophical theme. However, he started minimizing the fantasy adventure/magical mystery elements in favor of the philosophical ones, and lost me.

    I don’t hate his work. I’d pick up a book of his if I saw one on the shelf or it was cheap. But I’d be looking for the “old Goodkind,” what brought me to him in the first place.

    I wonder if he thought he’d just continue his series because that’s what people had responded to, when really it was the structure and feel of his stories. I would’ve rather he ended “Sword of Truth” earlier and start another series in a completely different world but with the same feel, I think.

  2. I like how you called them the “true distinctives of his brand” that resonated with you. I think this is why series do so much better than stand-alones–folks want more of the same type of story. I loved Bradley Denton’s BUDDY HOLLY IS ALIVE AND WELL ON GANYMEDE and thought I would like the rest of his books, but they were all different, and I failed to become a loyal customer because of it. He’s a great author, but I think it shows that a lot of time when we go back for repeat business we’re wanting a repeat of the same general experience.

  3. J Adams:

    Have you looked at the latest books in the Sword of Truth series? “The Omen Machine” and “The Third Kingdom”? Goodkind left out a lot of the “philosophy”, as you call it. But I did not think they were very compelling stories, although that had little to do with the “philosophy”, or lack thereof. Mostly, the characters and plot were weak.

  4. I haven’t. I only made it halfway through the first of his books. I know a lot of folks who love them, but they just didn’t speak to me.

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