From: ehr@ecsvax.uncecs.edu (Ernest H. Robl)
Subject: Re: Post-publication Woes
Summary: experience
Organization: UNC Educational Computing Service
Distribution: usa
Date: Wed, 26 Aug 1992 15:00:34 GMT

In article <1992Aug24.193633.24744@sco.com>, dipakb@sco.COM (Dipak Basu) writes:
> 
> I attended the Bay Area Writers' Workshop last Saturday and found a
> surprising amount of attention focussed on promotion of a 
> book by its author, after it had been selected for publication.
> 
> Publishers and bookstore owners agreed that the selection and promotion
> of a book by them was in direct proportion to the amount of effort its
> author put in.  This included research into applicable regions where the
> book would be popular, preparing lists of relevant bookstores, doing
> literary readings around the country, preparing summaries of the book,
> etc.  There didn't seem to be a difference here whether the author had an
> agent or not.
> 
> And I thought the trials of the writer ended after the tortuous manuscript
> submission process!   Do you successful authors agree?
> What is the ratio of time you spend between writing and promoting?


I don't know whether I qualify as a successful author.  And, freelance
writing is currently not my main source of income.  However, I would
tend to agree with the above statements.

In 1986, Amphoto published my book Organizing Your Photographs, which,
basically, is an introduction to picture librarianship for photographers.
The book stayed in print until last year (5 years), which is reasonably
good for a specialized how-to book, and sold its initial (only) print
run of about 10,000 copies -- about two thirds of which were sold as
paperbacks.

Though the company specializes in photo how-to books, I don't think
they had a clue as to how to promote this particular book, since it
didn't fit into their normal categories.  I put quite a bit of effort
into making sure review copies got to specialized publications.

And, though the reviews that I saw were uniformly positive, a couple
of the major photo magazines simply never reviewed the book -- possibly
because they thought it might not be of interest to their mainly
amateur photographer audiences.

The local photo store did stock (and sell) a few copies -- and not
just because I'm a customer -- but none of the area bookstores with
photography book sections ever stocked it.

Though I don't know for sure about stores in other parts of the U.S.,
I suspect a majority of the sales were from mail order from a few
specialty stores or from operations which sell nothing but photo 
books.

Through my own efforts, I managed to get the book reviewed in a few
trade publications well after a year past initial publication, which
helped keep sales going.  I also sold a substantial number of copies
myself, often responding to inquiries from people who had heard about
the book but could not find it locally.  (I'm listed in both 
library directories and directories of photographers.)


I had somewhat similar experiences with a reference book, Picture
Sources, that I edited, and which was published in 1983.  That one
was published by a library association, which did well in marketing
it to libraries, but initially missed out almost completely on
marketing it to the publishing industry itself -- the single largest
target audience.

Though initial sales were slow, the book has gone through several
additional printings and -- while the information in it is now
partly outdated -- is still in print because there is continuing
demand for it.  (Unfortunately, that particular project was done
on a work-for-hire basis, so I'm not getting any royalties.)


The consclusion:  Even if a publisher agrees to publish your book,
never assume that the publisher actually understands how to market
it. -- Ernest

-- 

"My other computer is a Nikon N8008." -- Ernest H. Robl
Ernest H. Robl (ehr@ecsvax)  Durham, NC, USA   +1  919   286-3845
                                         FAX:  +1  919   286-1696