Publicity Neepery Part Two: Technical Terms


(yesterday’s pragmatic overview neep is right here.)

So I did get a little controversial yesterday because I didn’t quite acknowledge the fact that my experience with publicity/marketing, as the author of a lead title, is not typical, and that this atypical experience has informed my opinions on the subject. True enough! But I do think some of my experiences are relevant. In my end-of-the-week summary post I’ll try to put together some further thoughts about the author’s role in the publicity/marketing efforts, possibly with some guest commentators. Today’s guest expert talks about this a little bit, too.

Okay!

Book publicity is complicated, so today’s neep unpacks some technical terms. Involved in the process on the publisher’s side are Sales, Marketing, and Publicity. Three departments with a general purpose—to sell books—but with specific ways of doing that. To talk about this [with my comments interjected] is today’s guest expert, barbarienne.



“Until last week I was a minion of a Large New York Publishing Company. I'm on my way to a new job next week. Fortunately, knowledge doesn't go sour quite as fast as milk.

Disclaimer: Different publishing companies call different departments by different names, so if your experience has slightly different terminology, that's normal.

Let's start with the easy one: Sales. The sales force are all the people who go around the country trying to convince bookstores to stock the publishing house's books. They go to individual bookstores, or to the buyers for major chains, covering territories that are assigned. They come armed with cover flats ("sales proofs") which have information about the book, lots of "this will sell like hotcakes because..." copy, and information about the promotion plans for the book. They also have the company catalog, listing every book for that season.

[-->SP note: the author may never see any of this stuff, except possibly the seasonal catalogue in which her book is listed (which I wouldn’t have seen if a friend hadn’t sent me a photocopy of my book’s spread). Also, she may hear Sales referred to as “the sales reps.”]

Sales people get a very small amount of time with each bookbuyer, so they focus on the sort of books they think can sell in that particular store. If the store specializes in a particular genre, they'll focus on that genre and maybe some overlap titles, and not bother with books completely unrelated.

Several times a year the company has a sales meeting, where the editors present their upcoming books and say what they're about, and who they think the books will sell to and other points to help the sales force sell the books. This is one place where the "editorial push" can kick in--the editor can convince the sales force that the book can move.

[-->SP note: My editor’s assistant made a PowerPoint about my book for this meeting. I bet it’s a stressful time for the editors...]

Very large companies have different sales people for different imprints, to help make it easier for the sales force to know about the books they're selling. Ideally, a salesperson reads all the books they're selling, but in reality they don't--I mean, who can? But certainly it helps if a salesperson has read and enjoyed a book.

Sales ultimately takes the orders for the books, though that's usually a back-office function, with a computer ordering system or reps in the office who are assigned to take orders from a list of customers.

Sales is a big deal. Getting books into the bookstores is still exceedingly important, despite the increase in ebooks and online book sales. Brick-and-mortar sales still make up about 80% of all book sales, and the gains of online sales are slowing and in theory will presumably reach some sort of equilibrium.

[-->SP note: Yes, Sales is absolutely crucial to a book’s success. The reps work very, very hard and can be a book’s champion. Because they’re out talking to booksellers they know first-hand what’s hot. They can even influence how the book looks! Sales suggested some changes to my book (really excellent ones about including some cool stuff in the book’s appendices {rune alphabet! Biscuit recipes!})]

Publishing companies pay for placement in bookstores (those front-of-store displays, the endcaps on the aisles, large posters and signs on the walls, displays in windows). It's important for the publishers and bookstores to work together for their mutual benefit, but really, the bookstore could ignore one publisher and just sell more books from everyone else. I don't know who at the publishing house handles this part of the equation, but it's probably someone at the top of the Sales department.

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Now we get into funkytown, where the different departments are less clearly defined. Marketing is sort of the overall blanket for several different areas that work in coordination with each other. The Marketing people come up with a plan for each book, what is the best way to get that particular book into the hands of the people who will want to pony up cash to read it. This has lots and lots of parts.

Ad/Promo will be the folks creating ads. Most books don't get individual ads unless they're expected to be big sellers. It's generally understood that ads don't sell books. What they do is remind people who already wanted that book that the book is available and they ought to go get it. So there's no point to buying a full-page ad in People magazine for a little-known author, but there's plenty of reason to buy one for a bestselling women's fiction or self-help author. More commonly you'll see something like the ads in Locus, where a company will promote several of their books in one ad.

[-->SP note: Locus is the trade magazine for fantasy and science fiction]

it's a funny thing, putting ads in the trade magazines--essentially the publishing house is paying to tell everyone in the industry what they're publishing, but not so much the book-reading public. This goes back to the sales force again: the trade mags are read by the bookbuyers, and this is a way to (a) remind them what books the pub house is pushing, and (b) demonstrate the company's commitment to these books.

[-->SP note: In children’s book publishing, the trade magazines include Children’s Bookshelf from Publisher’s Week; a general one is Shelf Awareness. Subscribing to these mags’ email updates isn’t a bad idea, because they can give an author a good idea of what people in the industry are talking about.]

Promo also makes the giveaways. They work with the editor to come up with toys or other items that can be sent to key bookbuyers to promote particular books. Keychains and mugs are the least of it!

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Publicity is the department that deals with the author. A book can sell on its own merits, but it also helps to get people interested in the person who wrote it. If an author is doing a signing, it's the publicity department who makes sure copies of the book are shipped to the store. (Assuming the author tells them about the signing. Work with your publicist, people!) Publicity will arrange author tours, radio and TV appearances, etc.

Now, please note, relatively few authors get the tours and so on. See above note about advertisements not selling books, but merely alerting readers that a book they already want to buy is coming out. Author tours are similar, though of course this is not an absolute. If an author has regional appeal, or the company really thinks the book will do well and the author is charismatic and interesting, then a lucky few authors will get signing tours even if they're relatively new. It mostly depends on if your book is in the "we think we've got a winner!" category, or in the "throw this spagehetti at the wall and see if it sticks" category. It varies widely from company to company and editor to editor. (Editor to editor? Yes. Editors have different degrees of clout. A editor with a track record of bestsellers has a lot more clout within the company.)

Nonfiction authors will often get the publicity push (if they present well) because their book sells by topic. The writer is not the draw: the book is.

Fiction falls into a genre until an author builds a following, and then it's no longer "a legal thriller" but rather "the next John Grisham book." That's a brand-name effect, and the author's name becomes a draw.

I'm sure I'm leaving out fine details and other sales-and-marketing strategies, but this works as a general overview. In short, these departments are interrelated and interdependent, but they are essentially the part of the company that works to connect the book to the cash-paying reader."



Thanks, Barbarienne! I don’t know about you guys, but I find this stuff really interesting.

As the week goes on, I’m going to refer to Sales, Marketing, and Publicity as the publicity team. If there are other technical terms you’d like defined, do mention them in the comments. I might not know the answer, but if our expert is around she might, or somebody with more experience might.

Next up: Prepublication publicity.