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Fiction Debut Author Roundtable
8.
AOTW: Was there promotion/marketing done for your first book? If so, what was it? What might you have done differently? Did you or your publisher use the web to promote your book? Do you have a website? How are you using your website?
Arthur Phillips: I got very lucky. I have been blessed with a lot of promotion and marketing done by the people who seem to me to be quite obviously the best in the business, on the web and off. I also have a Mom who has decided that her job in life is to promote and market anything her children do, so I really have nothing to complain about. I do have a website (www.praguethenovel.com), and if anyone has any suggestions on how to make it more effective, I'd love to hear them.
Jay Nussbaum: I'll have to get back to you on this. Warner's been wonderful so far, and I'm sure they'll continue to be, but the official pub date isn't until July 11, so I don't know yet. One thing I can see already is that they're one of the few publishers that really seems to understand the web. Their website is excellent, and they're very aggressive in networking with other websites. As for my website (www.BlueRoadtoAtlantis.com), I reviewed some of it this morning, and it's really going to be groundbreaking. I've never seen another author's site like it. It's got all the functionality that publishing professionals need, plus an array of technological and interactive features that readers are going to love. We're even sponsoring a contest with monthly prizes and a unique Grand Prize.
Jill Bialosky: My book is coming out in July so the promotional efforts are still underway. My publicist at Harcourt has been great. I'll be doing a tour in July to New York, Philadelphia, and Washington, D. C. and Connecticut and then in September they plan to send me to Boston and Cleveland, and perhaps some other Midwest cities since the book takes place in the Midwest. The book was chosen to be in the Barnes and Noble Discover program this summer which is great. I think that will help give the book some visibility. I don't have my own website, but Harcourt, my publisher will feature my book on their website.
David Rosenfelt: There was some marketing done, mostly on the web. I have come to understand that this is typical of a first book, and if I could do it differently I would have the publisher spend 100 million in network television advertising, kicked off by a first quarter spot in the Super Bowl. I do not have a website, but I will shortly.
Karen V. Siplin: I have a wonderful website (www.karensiplin.com) which I promote whenever I discuss His Insignificant Other. I think websites are the best way to stay in touch with readers. The response is immediate. I was also lucky enough to be listed as one of Cosmopolitan magazine's "Sexy Summer Reads."
Michael Redhill: I was published first in Canada, by Doubleday, and they did an amazing job of promoting the novel. There was a great deal of press coverage, and they were active in soliciting my participation in festivals, and so on. They were also very good about taking out ads in the national newspapers when something happened to the book that warranted it. They did use their own website to promote the book, and it was a fairly detailed website, with a great deal of information. I do not have a website that I run personally, but the University of Toronto has a website dedicated to Canadian poetry, and they have a fairly decent amount of information on me there.
Terrence Cheng: There's been a good deal of promotion and marketing done for my book. My publisher has been incredibly supportive. I built my own website (www.sonsofheaven.com) as a portal to other Tiananmen Square and Asian related sites, as well as a Sons of Heaven content resource. I have content on my site that you can get nowhere else. It's to help readers learn about the book and its related historical and social context. It's also a kind of bonus --- anyone who has spent the time to go to my website should be able to get something original and unique. The publisher is doing some outreach web marketing as well, so I try to support their efforts whenever I can. All in all, the web is a great place for people to find what they are interested in and learn more about those subjects. The hits on my site, though not massive, have grown consistently.
Jill A. Davis: Random House has a great publicity department, so hat's off to them, they seemed to do just about everything right. I do have a website. Mainly, I'm using it as a platform to launch my jumbo kitty, Wayne, into "national treasure" status. There are also some great drink recipes (please refer to question regarding writers' block...).
Stella Pope Duarte: Promotion for my first book was done, but not extensively. It was listed on Amazon.com and promoted at book fairs, and in catalogs from Bilingual Review Press. I would have done so much more! It needed to move into universities, and onto anthologies. The website I have now is with HarperCollins.
Masha Hamilton: Book marketing -- I'm horrible at it. The part of this process that I really love is the writing, the immersion of oneself in the story, the music of the words. No, I don't have a website. There was a little promotion, but not much budget. I don't know what I'd do differently except, if I had the money, hire someone to promote my books. Part of me is still stuck on the idealistic notion that a book will find its readers over time.
Gary Shteyngart: The publicity department at Riverhead has made sure the novel is being featured in a number of highly visible print and other outlets. They do outstanding work. We have not explored the web. The web is still kind of terra incognito for me.
David Benioff: Yes, though a small house published the hardcover so there wasn't much money for marketing. Mainly we relied on reviews to promote the book, and a few selected advertisements in The New York Times. Plume, the paperback publisher, has created a website (davidbenioff.com) which contains information about the book, links to online sellers, and a couple of embarrassing photographs.
Anahita Firouz: Though my novel is not out yet, I can answer part of this question by saying that yes, my publisher is using the web to promote my novel. I've also been and continue to be involved, researching and passing along as many relevant websites as possible to my publisher. Although I don't have a website yet, I do plan on having one by August for my novel.
Ali Smith: My first book, a collection of short stories called Free Love, had almost no promotion at all. It had a charming photo of Louise Brooks on it, though, and was an interesting size, slimmer and longer than your usual book of short stories, and has become, apparently, very rare and highly collectable. That's what comes of a *really* tiny print run. I don't have a website, and I try not to look at publicity, it makes me too self conscious.
Kate Manning: The publisher's in-house marketing department sent the book around and tried to get it reviewed in as many places as possible. This was pretty successful, and reviews appeared in the Washington Post, The Chicago Tribune, and The New York Times, among many others, including papers in Arizona and Idaho. I hired a web-based book promotion firm to get Whitegirl some Internet exposure. But, I don't have a website. Should I? Lots of people advise writers to turn themselves into self-marketing machines. But I just can't. If I did, I'd never have time to write anything. As far as what I'd do differently goes? Well, one of the many things I learned as a first novelist is: there's no use second guessing.
Steve Almond: The main thing Grove did was to set up a two-month reading tour. I urged them to do this, because I felt that the live readings were the best way for the work to get across to people. Grove marketed my book as being about love and lust, which is pretty much true. If it had been up to me, I would have said that it was about "heartbreak" or "the suffering of desire." But that's why they market books --- they know what grabs folks. Grove doesn't have a website. But I created my own website (stevenalmond.com) because I wanted a place that could serve as a kind of clearinghouse. Rather than having to explain what I'm about and what the book is about, I could point folks to the site. It's kind of cheesy. But it's also really convenient. And my twin brother, who's a brilliant designer, created the site, so it looks way cooler than I expected.
Ad Hudler: I was very, very luck for a first-time novelist. Ballantine sprang for ads in The New York Times and in trade publications. Knowing that Househusband was fictional but hugely autobiographical, they pushed and pushed the newsworthiness of the novel, getting me on radio shows and television shows and in plenty of newspapers. I had to do my own website, however, and this was a blessing in disguise; it's the smartest thing I've done for myself. Carol Fitzgerald and her people at AuthorsOnTheWeb.com not only created a beautiful site but also have taken great pains to market the book on the Internet in some very creative ways. I'm convinced now, after hearing from so many people via my website, that you need a website for readers to bond with you. After hearing your name on some radio or TV show, they know to type it into the computer with ".com" after it and --- voila! --- they're connected with you. I use my website to talk about upcoming projects, to share with readers news about myself and important tour dates.
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