How to Sell A Book, if you’re a portly gentleman running for a door

Last week, I talked about how print-led publishing is essentially dominated by the battle to secure retail space. 

If your book gets a really good level of retail space, it stands an excellent chance of selling well. If not, your book is mostly likely to sell badly, irrespective of its basic quality. 

I ended that Depressing, Pointless and Nihilistic email by promising you that this week I would offer you some Very Sound Advice. 

And yes: I will. But be warned. That advice is akin to finding running shoes for the portly gentleman at the start of his race. It’s akin to massaging his quads and calling his attention to a trip hazard en route. His odds will improve, for sure… but the race is still a crapshoot. The basic shape of the game remains unaltered. All you can do is boost your odds. 

So that’s coming up, but first: 

I got a LOT of replies from you guys last week, and quite a lot of you seemed to think I was saying that trad publishing is basically broken and that self-publishing is a better option. 

To be clear, I am not saying that. Trad publishing has its challenges. Self-publishing does, too – they’re just different challenges. And, either way, a ton of books get sold all the time. Authors are taken on by agents, their books are bought by publishers, they’re sold to retailers, who sell on to readers. Despite the huge torrent of new media, books remain absolutely central to culture. And of course, you can earn a lot of money even if your book doesn’t sell: that’s what advances are for. 

So, trad publishing is great and full of opportunity. But it’s also difficult and full of challenges. 

Here’s what you need to do. 

Write a good book 

The quality of your book ought to matter, and it does matter. 

Ideally, the major retail buyers would read all the books offered to them by publishers, and pick the ones that were the very, very best. That doesn’t happen. Too many books, too few buyers. 

But quality still matters. Your publishers are sophisticated readers and will know the difference between a book that feels genuinely special and one that feels just fine. They’ll put more work into the first one than the second. That will affect every conversation between your publishers and the wider world. It can generate some startling, immediate, significant wins. 

For example: when my Fiona Griffiths series was launched in the UK, hardback sales weren’t great. They weren’t awful, but certainly mediocre. 

In the normal course of things, hardback sales are the best predictor of paperback ones… except that my publisher (Orion, part of Hachette) had an in-house book group. A reading group, in other words: a bunch of friends getting together to talk about a shared reading experience. That group read my book and loved it. That enthusiasm spilled over to UK’s biggest bookseller who ended up putting the paperback into their biggest monthly promotion, thereby sharply changing the book’s (and series’) sales trajectory. 

So: write a good book. That’s the only part you have real control over, so do it right. 

If you need or want help, then of course we offer a ton of ways to provide that. Two easy options are: 

1. Our Good To Great course, which is specifically there to help competent writers become dazzling writers – the sort that agents have to take on. The course is free to Premium Members, but everyone gets to have a free first lesson. 

2. Manuscript assessment. This is still the gold standard way to improve a novel, and our editors are very, very good. If I’d recommend any one thing, it would be this. 

Make nice 

Back in the day, I was published by HarperCollins and my editorial team also handled a major bestselling author, whom we’ll just call Jack. (The author in question? Rich. Litigious.) HarperCollins knew this author would earn them money, but he was horrible. Just a nasty human. So yes, they put together a pitch for this chap’s next book. Yes, they tried to win it. But – they were also kind of happy when they failed. 

Publishers will work harder for people they like. So make nice – and, really, that’s just a way of saying BE nice. It makes a difference. 

Be professional 

For the same reason, it helps to be professional. Delivering on time, working well with edits, responding fast to emails – all of that. Those things help your editor do his or her job, so being professional is basically just a way of making nice, in a way that is directly helpful. It all makes a difference. 

Be strategic 

If you’re lucky, you’ll get the chance to meet bloggers, and retail buyers, and booksellers, and other industry types. 

Those meetings really matter. 

Yes, there are often other authors floating around at those events and authors are generally more delightful souls than, erm, almost anyone, and so it’s tempting to curl up in a knot of drunken writers and ignore everyone else – but don’t. 

Be strategic. Booksellers and bloggers and other influencers matter, so seek them out, and be interesting and make nice. And retail buyers really, really matter so seek them out and make super-nice. 

And if that sounds too calculated – well, hell, I should probably add that you should be authentic too. Don’t just lie and flatter. Be yourself, just a polished up version of yourself. Make nice with the people who matter, then get hammered with your cronies. 

(Oh yes, and crime writers are WAY the most interesting authors, so you should probably write crime, not something smelly like lit fic or YA. And even when crime writers aren’t the most interesting, they have way the highest capacity for booze.) 

Care about your cover 

Your book cover matters – intensely. 

It’s something I’ve often not got right in my career. I don’t mean that I’ve chosen a poor cover, because I’ve never exactly got to choose. I’ve got to comment. (And, by the way, a publisher may be contractually obliged to consult with you about your cover, which sounds nice. Just be aware that their legal obligation would be entirely satisfied by the following exchange: Publisher: “What do you think of your new book cover?” You: “I hate it in every possible way.” Publisher: “Thank you for your opinion.”) 

But – even without having a contractual right of veto, it’s a rare editor who doesn’t basically want to make his or her author roughly happy. 

So: 

1. Before you see your draft cover, have a damn good idea of what the other books in this space look like. Yours can’t look worse. You want it to look better. 

2. When you do see your cover, be as honest as possible with yourself about your feelings. That’s harder to do than it sounds! 

3. Discard completely all feelings that have to do with the way the book, or the cover looks in your head. It doesn’t matter if the cover seems to refer to an incident or feature that’s not in the book. The key questions are: Does it convey genre? Does it convey mood? Is it arresting and just generally brilliant? That’s what matters. 

4. Tell your editor what you think. If you want changes, say so. If you want a total rethink, say so – and in those terms. Be direct. Do not be too people-pleasey.  

5. Beware: if you think the cover’s wrong, your publishers is likely to “nice” you into submission. If your editor says, “Oh, I’m sure once you see the cover with the raised lettering and the foil effects, you’ll be absolutely blown away,” what they mean is, “Give us a chance to let a few more weeks pass, and then it’ll be too late to make changes anyway.” 

6. For that reason, make sure you get a reasonably early sight of your cover. If it arrives with you too late, you may be stuck with it. 

A bad cover will kill your book. A great cover could propel it into the stratosphere. Do not accept compromise – and throw your toys out of the pram if you have to. This is almost the only area where toy-throwing makes sense.  

And when you are considering cover – or blurb – or marketing in general, then always remember: 

The pitch, the pitch, the pitch! 

Publishing is a machine. It makes its profits by employing good people, working them too hard, and paying them too little. It can seem like a privilege to work for a good, big publisher, but by heck they’ll take their pound of flesh (or 454g, for our EU readers.) 

The result is that books don’t always get the level of thought and attention they deserve. And in particular, your cover designer hasn’t read your book, didn’t commission your book, and has little more than a page or two of notes from your editor in terms of design brief. 

The result can easily be a lazily “me-too” cover, or one that simply doesn’t evoke the mood and tone of your book. 

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. You are most likely to get stellar sales if: 

1. You have a brilliant concept – an elevator pitch; and 

2. Everything lines up perfectly behind that concept: the text, the title, the blurb, the cover, and every line of marketing yadda. 

Your job, as author, is to be the scent-following, rat-shaking terrier that ensures the fidelity of everything to your pitch. If your title and blurb promise one kind of experience, and the book cover promises another, that book will not persuade readers to walk it over to the till. 

You need a great concept. 

And everything – everything – needs to line up behind it. 

Honestly? Nowadays, I’d be blunt about it. I’d offer my own cover design brief to an editor. I’d suggest my own blurb. I’d say what I thought our pitch was and what tone we needed to strike. 

If you do that right, you won’t even come across as an asshole. Offer your material humbly and accept advice when it’s wise. Most of the time, an editor will actually be grateful: you’re making their life easier. That’s a positive blessing. But if they say you’re wrong about something, you also need to accept that you don’t know everything.  

FEEDBACK FRIDAY:  

Well, I’ve yammered away about the pitch – again – in this email, so let’s have another pitching challenge. 

If you haven’t watched the free first lesson of Good To Great, then do please do just that. And, in any event, please: 

• Give me the pitch for your novel in a maximum of 20 words, and preferably fewer. If you’re stuck, try the “Premise + Conflict” recipe to see if that unsticks you like slippery egg on Teflon. 

• Also, present your pitch as an extremely short list of ingredients “Teen romance + werewolf”, “Orphan + wizard school”. You have 3-8 words for this. 

For extra pepperoni on your pizza, then please also show me how everything is going to line up behind that concept: 

• What’s your title? And how does that line up with your pitch? 

• What kind of cover would work? You need to advertise genre and you need to advertise pitch. Don’t get too specific: just offer a sketch of a possible cover brief. 

What we’re trying to do here is make sure that your pitch flows right through to the places where your book is first going to touch the reader: on a bookstore table or on an Amazon search page. 

When you’re ready, post yours here.

NEXT WEEK 

We turn to the beast that is Amazon and all things digital. 

Til soon 

Harry