Front list to back list to the void?

In publishing terms, "front list" means the book that an author has recently produced, the one that publishers will actively (you hope) promote. "Back list" means all previous books, including the newest one once it's not new any more. Those books rarely find themselves promoted. One of the frustrating things for most authors is how quickly that new front list book becomes regarded as back list.

Thus, the back list often sinks into obscurity, a limbo where it is technically in print, but isn't actually moving. You, the author, might still be busting a gut to promote it, but you will probably not be able to influence sales sufficiently.

This leads to another frustrating aspect: the feeling that your hard work in writing the damn thing gorgeous book earned you diddly squat and there's still untapped potential for your work to earn more and have new life. "Frustrating" is an under-statement. Crikey, "under-statement" is an under-statement.

Sometimes, however, a publisher decides that new life is indeed what your work can have. And this, I'm pleased to say, is what is happening to me with Walker Books.

Until a few months ago, the situation was this:

• My brain books (Blame My Brain and Know Your Brain) were ticking along with modest sales, but were well and truly back list, having been published in 2005 and 2007.
• Despite fab reviews, sales of the two highwayman books (The Highwayman's Footsteps and the Highwayman's Curse) were less than modest, in the sense that there was absolutely no need to feign any modesty at all. I was waiting for them to go out of print.
• Yes, OK: Wasted was doing rather well, but that was not going to have an effect on the above books, which are in different markets.

Now the situation is this:

• Walker are planning an ebook of Blame My Brain, updated with new material by me, and lots of interesting links. (Be patient - there's lots to do first!) 
• Possible TV interest has arisen in Blame My Brain, after a TV company heard me on the Simon Mayo show. (This might lead to nothing, but I'm hopeful.)
• Both highwayman books have had a huge surge of interest from schools (more of that later) and have not only reprinted twice in the last few months, but are also being put into ebook format. I'll be doing school events in primary schools, as the books are pitched at 10+.

So, suddenly, my back list is being given a new life. This is very hoorayish.

Why has this happened? What can we learn from it?

• I hope the fact that the books are good was helpful, so people wanted to buy them even without promotion.
• Blame My Brain continues to be sui generis and I am always being asked to do events, not just in schools but in all sorts of situations: medical, social work, religious.... (Yikes!)  
• I have deliberately built a reputation as someone who works hard and will always step up to the plate to help a publisher promote my work. 
• Walker Books increasingly see my online activity. Other publishers are also noticing. Profile is important when it comes to selling books and the harder you work the easier that becomes. (Confession time: I couldn't give a toss about profile - I just like talking!)
• Crucially, schools have suddenly bought the highwayman books, and bought, and bought them. The first I knew of this was when a school supplier in Scotland contacted me to say they had heard that the highwayman books were going out of print and could I please urge my publisher to reprint. They guaranteed to order 1000 copies if they did. That is extraordinary. Until then, I'd no idea schools had even noticed them. (I'm going to blog about this separately as I'm going to talk about the importance of school visits and links soon.)

What is the lesson for writers?
That back-list books can have a new life; that a lot of this is luck; but that you have to keep doing the right stuff to make luck happen. You have to keep working and working hard. So, writers, keep behaving professionally; keep active online and off; keep smiling and seem positive even when you don't feel it; keep being good to work with and keep writing the best books you can. 

COMPETITION SOON
Soon, to celebrate the sudden success of the highwayman books, I'm organising a major competition, with a category for schools and adults and lots of books to be won. Details later, here and on my website. But I have to warn you: you'll need to read one of the books, otherwise you won't be able to do the simple task I'm going to set. :) So, people, do try the Highwayman's Footsteps and The Highwayman's Curse. Ebook or print, I don't mind! Well, actually, the ebooks aren't live yet...

Mondays are Red in Waterstones

I'm uncomfortable about the dominance of Amazon. As someone who is doing some self-publishing, I have no choice but to use them and, of course, I cannot pretend for one moment to be disappointed by the income I get from them. Mixed feelings, then. They provide enormous opportunities but they are also trying to rule the world, which I don't like. Despite what I might sometimes say, I don't even want to rule it myself.


So (or however) I am delighted to tell you that I have taken steps, purely out of principle and knowing that it's going to be a cost at first and almost certainly not make me any money to speak about, to make the ebook of Mondays are Red available through Waterstones.


Because I have also made it available through Gardner's, it will soon be available to borrow from public libraries. Hooray! And, though this is less interesting to me, and probably you, it is also on Tesco. And Book Depository. 

I'd love you to buy from Waterstones! They actually contacted me asking if I'd supply to them and I'm delighted that I managed to, thanks to the clever people at ebookpartnership.com

If you've read and enjoyed Mondays are Red, I'm delighted. People have said lovely things and it has fab reviews. It's amazing when anyone takes the trouble to do that. Less amazing was the 2* one I got for WAGSynopsis from someone who said she'd love to order the book as she really needed it but she didn't have a Kindle, so she couldn't, but she was giving it 2 stars! The review has vanished now - I didn't ask for it to be taken down, honest! I thought it was quite funny, actually.


Remember: Next week is going to be PITCH PITCH week - a whole week of daily pitch paragraphs for you to comment on! Thanks to the brave writers who've pitched - I hope and trust they will hugely benefit from the feedback.

Never say never self-publish a novel: Catherine Ryan Howard visits

OK, I'll admit it: I'm a bit of a fan of Catherine Ryan Howard. Catherine is one of self-publishing's success stories and that success has come about through her being clever, nice, strategic and a very engaging writer. I think her attitude to the whole business is utterly professional and she is well worth listening to. I read and enjoyed her first highly successful memoir, Mousetrapped: A Year and A Bit in Orlando, Florida, and agree with her ruthless analysis of why it wasn't accepted by a trade publisher. I bought both the ebook and POD versions of her bible of self-publishing - Self-Printed: the Sane Person's Guide to Self-Publishing - and very much followed her strict (scarily so) instructions when I came to write and publish Tweet Right - The Sensible Person's Guide to Twitter. In fact, was there possibly some subconscious influence on that title??

But Catherine was on record as saying she would not self-publish a novel. And now, she has. So I dragged her here to explain herself.

But first: about Catherine:
Catherine Ryan Howard is a 29-year-old writer, blogger and enthusiastic coffee-drinker. She currently lives in Cork, Ireland, where she divides her time between her desk and the sofa. She blogs at www.catherineryanhoward.com.

And about her novel, Results Not Typical:
The Devil Wears Prada meets Weightwatchers and chick-lit meets corporate satire. Through their Ultimate Weight Loss Diet Solution Zone System, Slimmit International Global Incorporated claim they’re making the world a more attractive place one fatty at a time. Their slogans “Where You’re Fat and We Know It!” and “Where the Fat IS Your Fault!” are recognised around the globe, the counter in the lobby says five million slimmed and their share price is as high as their energy levels. But today the theft of their latest revolutionary product, Lipid Loser, will threaten to expose the real secret behind Slimmit’s success...The race is on to retrieve Lipid Loser and save Slimmit from total disaster. If their secrets get out, their competitors will put them out of business. If the government finds out, they’ll all go to jail. And if their clients find out… Well, as Slimmit’s Slimming Specialists know all too well, there’s only one thing worse than a hungry, sugar-crazed, carb addict – and that’s an angry one. Will the secret behind Slimmit’s success survive the day, or will their long-suffering slimmers finally discover the truth? Available now in paperback and e-book editions.


NM: You self-published Mousetrapped because you recognised that (and why) a publisher wouldn't take it; you knew that although you could find readers who would like it, there would not be enough for a publisher to recover investment. Is the same true of Results Not Typical?

Essentially, yes. Results was on submission for nearly a year, and even bagged me a meeting with the editorial director of one of the biggest publishers in Ireland/UK. (That was quite the exciting afternoon, let me tell you!) But it was Mousetrapped-scented déjà vu – everyone who read it had positive things to say, but ultimately they felt it wasn’t suitable for the Irish/UK chick-lit market. One editor said that UK/Irish readers wouldn’t warm to the satirical nature of it, another said the humour was too slapstick and yet another said they she loved it, she just didn’t love it enough. (Surely the most infuriating rejection!) They all said there was something there – somewhere – and recommended that I go off and write something more mainstream, more meaty. I was getting that banging-head-off-brick-wall feeling again, so I stopped submitting it so I could take a step back and regroup. I started work on the Something More Mainstream & Meaty, but as I did, an evil idea began to form in my head...

NM: You said that you would never self-publish a novel. Why did you say that and why have you changed your mind, you naughty person?

I said it because at the time, I believed non-fiction was the only genre that could really suffer from the “We Like It But There’s No Market For It” rejection. I mean, if your novel was good enough to be published they’d publish it, right? But publishing houses just don’t have as much money as they did before to take a chance on something new (if they ever had it) and if you’ve written something that doesn’t neatly fit into an existing genre, then it’s something new. Publishing is a business at the end of the day, and me and my book were extremely high risk. Too high risk.

But I’m a business too – a self-publishing business. In March of this year, Mousetrapped had been on sale for a year and I’d managed to offload 4,000 copies of it. Up until that point I’d looked upon my self-publishing adventures as something to keep me in coffee grounds until some Fairy Editor-mother came along with a six-figure deal (hey, a girl can dream...), but I realised then it was time to start treating it like a serious business, like my actual career. I made two decisions: to write and release the sequel to Mousetrapped, a book called Backpacked, and to self-publish Results Not Typical. The editors who rejected it because they felt it wouldn’t do well in the Irish/UK market were undoubtedly right – they are the experts – but I don’t have to sell to any one territory. I can sell worldwide. Plus, I already have an established readership – I’m not starting from scratch – and there’s only a miniscule financial risk involved for me, relatively speaking, because I sell e-books and print-on-demand paperbacks. So for me, doing this is extremely low risk.

Do I hope Results sells a gazillion copies and that all the editors who rejected it burst into tears of regret while emitting wails of despair? Yes, of course. Obviously. But even if it does sell a gazillion copies, those editors will still be right. A book can be wholly unsuitable for traditional publication, yet do well when the author self-publishes it. That doesn’t mean either side was wrong. What matters is that both sides agree the book has merit, and that there’s people out there, somewhere, who’ll be interested in reading it. I just need less of those people than publishers do to say, “Okay. Let’s go.”

NM: Anyone who self-publishes has to spend huge amounts of time on marketing, no? And trust me, although published authors have to do stacks, too, you DO have to do more as a self-pubber. I know. So, how do you manage it and can you pass on some tips?

I barely manage it, to be honest. [NM adds: thank you, thank you, thank you!] My computer is on almost as much as I’m awake. In the last few months I took a step back from Twitter, etc. so I could write Backpacked, and that is reflected in my sales. If you stop working, the books stop selling. I feel like I have some momentum now but still, I have to keep working at it.

My advice would be to concentrate first on having a great “hub”. For me, that’s my blog. That’s always my number one priority and I put more time into it than anything else. If I have time, I’ll do things like Facebook, Twitter, etc. but I always make sure my blog is up to date and offering new, valuable content, no matter what my writing schedule is. I think if you do that, the whole online platform/book promotion/tweeting incessantly thing becomes infinitely more manageable. Blogging brings people to you, and that’s a whole lot easier than trying to go out there and find them.

Having said that, I have absolutely no time for the whingers and moaners who are all, “I just want to write. I just want to concentrate on my craft. It’s all about the art for me, darhling. I don’t have time for Twitter...” etc. etc. Even if you sign a deal with a major publisher, you are going to have to promote your book – and rightly so. It’s like a certain young Hollywood actress who claims to hate publicity and only wants to make indie movies. How many movies no one goes to see because they don’t know they exist does she think she’s going to get to make, eh?

NM: What have you learnt about writing since writing your first book?

My favourite piece of writing advice has always been “Write the book you want to read” but what I’ve learned is that while doing that’s all well and good, you need to write the book you want to read that someone else might one day want to read too. Otherwise, there’s no point. With Mousetrapped, I definitely strayed into self-indulgence in places. I was enjoying writing about a certain thing or place, and I thought, Well, I like this and this is my book, so... but you have to re-write with the end reader in mind. If you don’t, you won’t have any.

NM: What have you learnt about publishing since publishing your first book?

I’m more convinced than ever that luck plays a huge part in success, whether it be traditional or self-publication. You can certainly “prime” yourself to receive luck by doing things like writing a good book, acting professionally at all times, doing a lot of online promotion, etc. etc., but there’s no sure-fire way to sell books. You can promote a book 24/7/365 and sell 50 copies, and you can sit back and do nothing and yet sell 5,000. All you can do is strive to make luck your only variable. Do everything you can and then wait as long as you can. As I type this I’ve sold around 8,500 self-published books, but I sold less than half of them – about 3,000 – in the first year (March 2010-March 2011) and only 500 of them in the first six months (March-September 2010). The first month I sold 62 copies. But I hung on, and I kept plugging away. Then, luck came. If I’d given up a few months in, I wouldn’t have be around to receive it.

NM: What do you wish I'd asked you? Answer it...

Oh, you’re good. You’re very good. I’m going to use that one myself in future!

Well, I suppose since this is a blog tour to promote my new novel, Results Not Typical, any opportunity to plug Results Not Typical, subtly or otherwise, is fine by me, I’m going to pretend that I wished you’d asked me why I chose to write Results Not Typical, a book about an evil weight loss company.

*cough*Results Not Typical!*cough* Well, Nicola, I’m glad you asked why I wrote Results Not Typical. (!)

It’s because a) I’m still annoyed about a certain bestselling chick-lit title that had the protagonist banging on and on about “ballooning up to 10 stone”, b) I think the weight loss industry has been asking to be satirised for years and years and c) I, fortunately or unfortunately, have plenty of experience in that area, most recently with a scary cult-like organisation that forbade me from eating 99.9% of all foods and tried to convince me that decaf coffee was a worthwhile thing. I’m still overweight but, hey, I got a novel out of it, didn’t I?

Would you like to buy Catherine's book?  (No, Catherine, not you, silly.)

Results Not Typical on Amazon UK is here.
Results Not Typical on Amazon US is here.

Would you like a chance to win one? If you visit Goodreads here you can enter a giveaway to win one of five paperback copies of Results Not Typical. Open for entries from September 30th-October 31st. Open to all countries.

People, if you plan to self-publish, please do read Self-Printed. And if you just want to curl up with a good piece of fiction, think Results Not Typical.

Thank you, Catherine, and good luck with all your books.

THINKING OUTSIDE THE BOOK

Really interested in this video on David Maybury's blog, which I came across last week. People are criticising trade publishers a lot at the moment - and I have some criticism myself - but I was inspired by the people in this video. I love their real passion for what they do. I love their knowledge and their willingness to share with each other. They are looking ahead; they are being positive, ambitious, creative, lateral, generous, wide-thinking and free-thinking.

Too often nowadays we see people from one part of publishing industry sniping at the other - authors against publishers, publishers against self-publishers, literary against commercial, commercial against literary, paper against digital, unpublished against published, "indie" against "legacy"; we even argue about the names and their relative legitimacy. But these people just love books and words and they don't allow themselves to be restricted or blinkered by notions of what a book is or what it should be, as long as it's full of great creativity.

They are thinking outside the book.

However. Let no one forget that it's an author's mind that creates the words in the book and dreams up stories that sing. And let no one forget that we don't need technogizmery to do that. All we need is time, food and heartsong, a few people round a fire to listen, and we can then create mountains in your mind and spin the blood in your heart and ripple waves of laughter that will make you forget the ink and paper or the silicone gadgetry, however beautiful and clever.

Not a snipe at all. Just asking you not to forget what writing is, and where it comes from.

[Edited to add: yesterday I was at an event where an agent talked about an editor's job as "Publishing the gleam in the author's eye." Thus spake someone else passionate about the art of the author.]

THE CHEAPNESS OF BOOKS

Can books be too cheap? Yes. They can be unsustainably cheap and their cheapness can devalue the difficulty of what we do and damage our earnings. In fact, books often are too cheap, especially in the UK.

So, why did I allow Wasted to be sold for as little as £1.01 on Kindle, in a special promotion from now until early May? (Let me wait a moment or two while you go off and buy it. But not in the US, I'm afraid. Not my fault - ask a US publisher to buy the rights.)

Several reasons. (And yes, Amazon did have to ask permission from my publisher, Walker Books, who asked me, and I gave permission willingly.)

• It's a temporary promotion. This is important because the point (for me) is to swell the number of people out there who might read it and like it, so that they might talk about it. Then, when the promotion ends, word of mouth will help sales through bookshops, too.
• It's a promotion. Think about the word. Promoting is what we have to do, all of us who have anything to sell.
• Even though the income from each sale will be horribly small, I would rather have a small income many times than a larger one from a few sales. (For a short period.)
• I also happen to believe that ebooks should be substantially cheaper than the physical book anyway. 

Why do I think that? (About ebooks needing to be cheaper.)

• Because the public perception (wrongly) is that they cost very little to produce. Actually, they cost more than people think. But perceived value is important in the psychology of buying.
• If ebooks are cheap enough, most people won't download illegally or steal. No decent person will feel the need to.
• If ebooks are cheap enough, many people will take a risk. I don't mind making a mistake with £2 - £3, but I do mind risking much more than that.

However, £1.01 is far too cheap - too cheap to miss! So, if you want to take a little risk on Wasted, go and try. And if you like it, how about buying the physical book for yourself or someone else, a book you can curl up with, a book I could sign, a book you could give as a present.

I look forward to the day when every physical book comes with a code giving you access to the ebook version FREE. That's my dream and that's the way that this can work for all published writers, publishers, agent and bookshops.

MOIRA MONOLOGUES & ENHANCED DIGITAL THINGUMMIES

Photo by Christopher Bowen, with permissio

Recently, when I was badly, and with impeccably awful timing, losing my voice, I bumped into Alan Bissett on a train journey from Inverness to Edinburgh. Now, since Alan's latest work is called The Moira Monologues, which he has been touring in Scotland to great acclaim and with sell-out shows, I should have been able to rest my voice. Surely, Alan, chatty man that he is, would do all the talking? But oh, no, no: this is me we're talking about. I don't stop talking just because I have a sore throat, events coming up and an acclaimed comedian sitting opposite me. Even with his very lovely girlfriend there.

So, we got talking. Or he did when he could. And I discovered that the Moira Monologues is (are?) now an enhanced ebook thingummy, which I was very interested in, mainly because I didn't actually know what it was, except vaguely. Basically, it's an ebook, enhanced by extra stuff, in this case by the full audio version of the Monologues, which people can then download onto other platforms. Also, you can buy the print version of the book as Print on Demand. So, multi-purpose, multi-platform. Anyway, I thought I'd get Alan to tell you a bit more, including a bit more about Cargo, his innovative young publishers. (Who, by the way, sent me a press pack so digitally sophisticated that I couldn't open it. But they were so enthusiastic that it almost made up for it.)

In which I interview the man behind the Moira Monologues.

NM: What the hell is this project?? Spill the beans, Bissett.

AB: The Moira Monologues is a 'one-woman show' which I wrote, performed and toured throughout Scotland last year, including 3 weeks at the Edinburgh Fringe.  It's a story based on the women in my family, who are brilliant talkers, which, for some reason, I thought it would be a great idea to perform myself...as a woman!  The reviews and audience responses were through the roof, and the BBC have even bought the character for development, so I figured publishing the script plus audio version would be the next logical step.

NM: What's the thinking behind the enhanced ebook + POD platforms?

AB: First of all, I wanted to support Cargo, who are a new Glasgow publisher, run by people in their early twenties, who have tons of ambition and energy, [NM: indeedy]and I thought this project would suit them.  They have very innovative ideas for how to publish and promote work that don't just include the usual book chains/broadsheet reviews route.  The idea of publishing the Moira text PLUS an audio of me performing the show live for downloading to iPods, iPhones and laptops is a very new and exciting one.  It retools fiction for a generation who are far more au fait with technology than I could ever be.  AND for people who like a good old fashioned book, they'll also print you one on demand! [NM: btw, I note it's not available for Kindle. Haha Amazon. EDITED TO ADD: oops, wrong info. It is available on Kindle. Sorry, Amazon.]

NM: What are you doing to promote it?

AB: What I always do: touring myself round the schools, reading groups, libraries.  I probably do about 3 readings per week, sometimes more, and now I almost always get requests for Moira.  She's a popular woman!

NM: Tell us about @moira_bell on Twitter. Do you find that works in a way that your own persona wouldn't? I know a couple of people who have alter egos as Twitter characters but I remained to be convinced.

AB: Yes, I'm having fun with it.  I like being Moira anyway - because she says things that I wouldn't DARE - and given I'll have to write more of her for the BBC it allows me to explore her world a bit more.  For people who saw the show, and now feel like they know her...well now they get to have her as their Twitter pal! [NM: I follow @moira_bell - highly recommended.] 

NM: Tell us a bit of other book news - what does Alan Bissett do when he's not pretending to be a woman?

AB: My first novel, Boyracers, is being re-released in April for its 10th Anniversary, with a new afterword by me, and my new novel, Pack Men, will be out in August.  STV have just bought my most recent novel, Death of a Ladies Man, also.  So it's a very exciting year.  Moira, however, is queen, and you should check her out.  She's kinda unforgettable.

Big thanks to Alan for giving up his time. If you want to download Moira, or order the book, the link is here.


I think this is all really interesting, giving us some ideas as to what ebooks can do.  Enhanced ebooks are, I believe, a really good way forward. I lied when I said I didn't know what they are. I actually have my own dream of the future: a paper book just like a "normal" book, but enhanced by a sheet of electronic paper at the beginning, so that you can access extra e-bits and online stuff by touching something on the e-paper. So, better than an enhanced ebook - an enhanced booky book.

On that subject....
I have actually read (and paid for) an enhanced ebook - and I'm afraid I give it only 5/10. It's called Net Matters, published as an app for iPad only by Canongate Books. It seemed to me just an excuse for producing a disappointingly short book, with pictures, some of which move without reader control and which in one case completely prevented me from being able to read the text. You can't find your way around; it's nigh-on impossible to find a bit you want to read again; and it's more like a long essay divided into chunks, with pretty (but sometimes distracting) pictures and a few links to websites. So, enhanced ebooks are the way forward but this was not a good introduction, in my opinion. Canongate is a very clever and often brilliant publisher: I believe they could have done much better.