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| Malice-Go-Round authors (photo by Greg Puhl) |
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| Malice-Go-Round Attendees |
I recently attended Malice Domestic in Bethesda, MD
and the Festival of Mystery in Oakmont, PA. As is wont to happen when authors
get together at conventions and conferences, there is considerable discussion (and grousing) about the
capricious nature of the publishing industry. It got me thinking about why one
author will shoot up the bestseller lists when another author with an equally
well-written book lingers in obscurity. Over the years, I’ve also seen too many
poorly written books take off, climb the lists, and make gobs of money for the
authors who wrote them (50 Shades of Crap,
anyone?) while fabulous books that should have become bestsellers never caught
on.
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| Mystery fans lined up, waiting to get into the Festival of Mystery |
I used to think an author’s success was tied to how
much promotion her publisher was willing to give her books and how much effort
the author put into social media. But I’ve seen books that had huge publisher
support never take off and books shelved spine out alphabetically (meaning, no
promo dollars were allocated to the author,) become the book everyone was
talking about.
Same for self-promotion. I know a debut author who
became ill shortly before her book was to be released. She was too busy
fighting her disease to think about flacking her book. Her publisher did nothing
for her. Her book wasn’t reviewed anywhere. Yet that book sold and sold well.
Six years later she was still receiving royalty checks twice a year from her
publisher.
Another author I know had a debut book come out at
the same time. Her publisher also spent no promo dollars on her, but this
author hired a publicist. She received some pretty good press coverage for her
book, including fabulous reviews and a huge write-up in a major newspaper. She
barely earned out her paltry advance.
Some authors are phenoms when it comes to social
media. Readers hang on their every Tweet and Facebook update. Other authors who
do basically the same thing have next to no followers, even though the books are
worth reading. Why do readers gravitate to some of these authors and not others
equally worthy of having followings? Why does word-of-mouth favor one author’s
book over another?
And it’s not just in traditional publishing where you
find this. Indie authors experience the same disparity. I know indie authors
who write equally good books in the same genre and sell them for the same
price. One sells hundreds of books a day while the other sells maybe one or two books a week.
I don’t have any answers. I wish I did. The only
conclusion I can draw is that publishing, whether in the traditional arena or
as an independent author, is a crapshoot. And success at publishing is even
more of one. Roll the dice!
~~~
Award-winning
author Lois Winston writes the critically acclaimed Anastasia Pollack Crafting
Mystery series featuring magazine crafts editor and reluctant amateur sleuth
Anastasia Pollack. Lois is also published in women’s fiction, romance, romantic
suspense, and non-fiction under her own name and her Emma Carlyle pen name. In
addition, she’s an award-winning crafts and needlework designer and an agent
with the Ashley Grayson Literary Agency. Visit Lois at http://www.loiswinston.com, visit Emma at http://www.emmacarlyle.com, and visit Anastasia at the Killer Crafts &
Crafty Killers character blog, www.anastasiapollack.blogspot.com.
