Consumer Behaviour

Last night I watched Channel 4′s documentary in which American school teacher Jane Elliot conducted a demonstration of how racism feels by dividing a group of volunteers along lines of eye colour and discriminating against the blue-eyed group.

From the outset the blue-eyed group were treated badly by Ms Elliot, being put down and ridiculed by the fierce moderator herself, segregated into an uncomfortable room for two hours, before being put with the brown-eyed group who she had attempted to prime to treat the blue-eyed group as inferior.

Her original aim had been to demonstrate to her own class of all white children how it felt to be discrminated against for something as arbitrary as eye-colour is unfair and illogical.  She described that in her original exercise… “I watched how what had been marvelous, wonderful, thoughtful, co-operative children turn into nasty, viscous, discriminating little third-graders.” 

Leaving aside how unethical her experiment with the school children placed in her care may have been psychologically, the programme provided a fascinating insight into human behaviour, though to my eyes not the one Jane Elliot intended.

The difficulty is that confirmation bias is part of the human condition.  One of the brown-eyed group who contained a number of non-white people who were very sensitive to the focal issue of the exercise, explained to the blue-eyed group that they could have no idea what it would feel like to be standing at a shop counter, next in line, and be ignored in deference to someone else who was behind you in the queue because of the colour of your skin.

[It's probably fair to say that the exercise was compromised by the fact that the blue-eyed group was all white and the brown-eyed group predominantly non-white.]

Of course, most people have been over-looked in a queue whatever the colour of their skin; the issue is to what one attributes the event and what significance one attaches to it.  I’m not saying it doesn’t happen as a result of racism, or in any way excusing something so abhorrent, but the issue is as much one of racial sensitivity in the part of the ‘victim’ as it is racism on the part of the ‘perpetrator’.

For me the programme was much more interesting as an exercise in group behaviour; all of the problems that make market research focus group were in evidence: polarised opinions, people moderating their position before becoming more extreme when they felt support existed for their stance, and so on.

The most positive aspect of the exercise were the people who refused to be drawn into it.  One of the blue-eyed group stood up to the bullying Ms Elliot and was made to leave so as to enable the exercise to continue.  His willingness to stand up to authority in an environment in which someone else was clearly controlling and authoritative is what gives me hope for society.

Most impressive of all was Wanda Summers, a brown-eyed shop manager who despite staying with the process for the duration of the exercise found it so unpleasant, upsetting and unjust that, after battling with her conscience for several hours elegantly undermined the exercise by revealing to the whole group that the brown-eyed people had been given the answers to a test in advance.

Here was someone who couldn’t and wouldn’t sit silently by when injustice was taking place.

She was, in the edit of the programme shown, the only one of the brown-eyed group to do this, but even so it was enormously heartening to see.

Society hasn’t come anywhere near to resolving the problems of racial divide and, given that we humans have a long and lousy history of fear and abuse towards other races, nations and creeds, it’s inevitably going to take some time. 

But I can’t help believing that what the world needs is more Wanda Summers, not more Jane Elliots.  Is there an exercise someone can design to create more people like her, I wonder?

Philip Graves

Philip Graves Uncategorized Channel 4, group behaviour, How Racist Are You, human behaviour, Jane Elliot, racism, Wanda Summers

OK, I’ve used a little hyperbole in the title of this blog, I’ll admit.  There is no perfect submission letter because each submission you send is going in front of a different pair of eyes.

But I think there are some very important points to consider and at the end I’ll tell you my own idea of what might help tip the balance when you send your dream off to a publisher.

Firstly, and most importantly, check whether the publisher you are writing to has a preference for what a submission contains.  Many of them do.  Of course, you don’t have to follow it slavishly, but you need to work within their parameters and find a way to stand out without appearing to have ignored their wishes.  When you get published you’ll be working with your publisher and demonstrating you can’t pay attention to their needs isn’t a recipe for success.

Next make sure the working title is clearly stated.  I suggest describing it as a ‘working title’; if someone has a better one you should be open to it even if it does feel like the equivalent of renaming your child.

Then say how long the book will be (A4 double spaced pages and word count) and whether or not it is finished yet.

Your synopsis should be short; think in terms of the back cover of a book.  If you can’t wrap it up succinctly perhaps it isn’t clear enough.  You need to get the idea over in a paragraph or two – no more.

It might also be helpful to say why the world needs your book – what will it do.

Make it clear who the book is targeting and be clear in your own mind how attractive a market this is likely to be to your publisher.  Look at the titles they currently publish and who they are targeted at.  Hopefully the fit is good, otherwise expect a rejection letter: publishers like to play to their strengths (a sensible approach if you think about it).

Don’t be afraid to point out your books competitors.  In the world of publishing competing titles are often a good thing rather than a bad one.  They show that there is a market for the subject matter and publishers, like the rest of us, are fundamentally risk averse.  Of course it will be helpful to point out why your book is adding something new or different.  But be warned, even if your breaking new ground, saying that there are no other books out there isn’t as an appealing proposition for a publisher as you might think.

Outline your credentials for writing the book.  This is no time for false modesty.  If you’ve written the book you will, by definition, know a fair amount more than the average person about your subject.

Finally, and arguably most importantly, explain what you can and will do to market your book.  Imagine you’re a publisher reading a submission.  You want to be interested in it yourself, you want to feel you know the market (it’s an area you have experience of publishing before) and someone says “I will market the heck out of this”.  There is a very good chance they can feel confident about selling most of the first print run. 

That probably doesn’t mean they break even, but it’s a good step in the right direction.

The internet provides countless opportunities for marketing your book:
- through your blog and /or website
- through twitter
- through other peoples ezines
- through article marketing
- by emailing everyone you’ve ever met (who are currently clogging up your Microsoft Office contacts)
- LinkedIn contacts and groups

But what about going a step beyond these?  After all these are mostly time-based rather than cost-based.

My top tip is to put your money where your mouth is.  Decide how much you are prepared to invest in marketing your own book and include some examples:
- placing a full page ad in a relevant trade journal or two
- sending the book to key individuals at your own expense
- even undertaking your own PR work (via a specialist book PR company)

Clearly you need to be careful that you don’t commit to something without having a clear idea of the costs involved: do that research first!

Then get a good quality envelope, print your book’s first 30 pages (or whatever is required) on good quality paper, and put a couple of drops of lemon oil in the envelope just before you close it (heck, you didn’t expect me not to leverage appealing subliminal associations did you?).

I’ll let you know how I get on…

Philip Graves

Philip Graves Getting a Book Published book, Marketing

Make no mistake, getting a book published is tough.  Some of that is for the right reasons; after all there are a zillion people who would like the idea of having a book published and there isn’t a market for that many books – it’s no bad thing that the publishers and literary agents of this world act as something of a buffer between all the prospective junk and the ones that make it into print.  And, of course, lots of those won’t sell particularly well.

But some of the reasons getting your book published is tough aren’t good ones.

One publisher that I sent my book to took twelve weeks to reply (and only then after I had called to enquire about its progress, which is something they say you shouldn’t do).

In fact, I would agree that you shouldn’t do it.  I happen to know that the rejection I received was simply a way of getting me off the phone.  Because two weeks later I received a letter that also rejected my book, but for an entirely different reason.

This was the same publisher who, when I was speaking to someone to ask how long they were taking to review submissions said, “We’ve got a lot backing up at the moment, but we have someone coming in next week to go through them all.”

Now, they probably meant they were employing an experienced freelance submission reviewer (or whatever they are called) but it had the air of, “We’ve got this kid coming in from the temp agency for a couple of days just to get the rejection letters sent out.”

I remember reading an interview with a publisher who was asked why they never gave writers much by way of feedback when they were rejecting their work.  The answer was extremely honest: he explained that if you give feedback you risk the writer thinking that they can get into a dialogue with you or, worse still, making the changes they think you want and expecting you to read it again and say ‘yes’. 

The implication is that, if a publisher thinks a book has sufficient merit, they will commission it and work on it with the writer.

One of the many advantages of having Francis on my side is that when he has spoken to someone about my book they are responding to their relationship with him, not to some complete stranger.

He spoke to someone he used to work with who is now the sales director of a medium-sized publisher and she said she would pass my book on to the managing editor; that’s particularly handy when you’re dealing with a publisher who doesn’t invite unsolicited submissions.

It was, regrettably, another rejection.

But not only did I receive an explanation of why - my book just wasn’t a strong fit with the titles they publish – I also received a suggestion of a publisher who she thought would be interested in my book.

That means I have a pretty good idea that the publisher fit is strong, so what this publisher thinks really matters.  If they reject it I will need to reconsider things because they should be interested in the subject matter.

I’m going to review my submission carefully, tune it up so that it gives my book the best possible chance and write the most important letter so far.

It just goes to show… having a Francis is immeasurably helpful for all sorts of direct (advice) and indirect (relationships with the industry) reasons.  It also shows how difficult it can be to pinpoint the publishers who will be most interested in your work. 

Next time I’ll tell you more about what I’m putting in this submission.

Philip Graves

Philip Graves Getting a Book Published book, published, publishers