Consumer Behaviour

It’s been a while since I updated my series on getting a book published, partly because I’ve been so busy with book-related activity!

The publishing industry works backwards.  That’s not a slur on their approach, just an observation.  They set a publication date based on a number of factors:

• Is there an event they can associate the book with? If you’ve written a book on space travel it probably makes sense to time the launch to coincide the publication with a large space conference or the intended publication date of the latest Mars pictures, or whatever.  There are two reasons for this: firstly, the human brain works by associations and if the media are developing the neural paths to space-related thoughts your book is going to feel more relevant and is more likely to get noticed.  Secondly, journalists looking to cover the event will appreciate an angle from you that helps them make their piece more interesting.
• What other titles the publisher has scheduled and whether they have an obvious position in the calendar: with limited resources you want to be published when the publisher can give you it’s full support, not be fighting with every other new book author for limited internal resources.
• The lead times for publicity and submission to catalogues: some media have very long lead times (such as monthly magazines), some are much shorter.  It’s no use being on radio today if your book isn’t going to be published for another two months.  Equally, it’s no use being in next February’s magazine if the book is going to feel like old news by then. 

I was expecting more of a break between final editing and initial publicity, but that’s not been the case.  I’ve already done a handful of interviews, articles and contributions to articles.  For me, this process will probably be a little more drawn out because the US launch of Consumer.ology is the month after the UK launch.

Mind you, even when things seem quiet your publisher will probably be working in the background, trying to sell the translation rights to your book.  I believe that the Spanish rights have now been purchased for Consumer.ology, which is fantastic news!

The role of the publisher’s publicist is critical.  I am incredibly fortunate to have Nadia; an enthusiastic, experienced and dedicated publicist working on my book.  I was given some incredibly good advice by my unofficial literary agent Francis: “Get on well with your publicist – if he or she doesn’t support your book enthusiastically you won’t get anywhere.” 

Fortunately, I haven’t ever  had to try hard to get on with Nadia, it’s easy because she is the sort of person who oozes integrity: she’s a credit to her profession.

I’m also lucky that my publisher has recently taken on an internet publicity manager, Dan.  I’ve not been able to support his efforts as much as I would have liked in the last couple of weeks because of other projects, but in the next week or two I hope I’ll be working with him to make sure the world wide web gets to hear a little more about the book.

Philip Graves Getting a Book Published getting published, published

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