MARKETING YOUR BOOK

My advice is to do the hard yards, and don’t rely on your publisher to do everything. There are areas you can focus on yourself.

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Publishers like an easy hit, so Twitter was a useful tool for them, back in the days when people looked at Twitter, and it wasn’t the pit for hatred that it has become. I wasn’t a huge fan though. Twitter doesn’t generate sales.

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If you are a writer and use Twitter (and I’ll still call it that), you will end up following other writers and bloggers and book sites, and your feed will be clogged up with other people trying to get their books noticed, so the more you engage in the book world, the more you see your book become drowned by a sea of other books.

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Social media is useful because it’s free, so why not, but I’ve never been convinced that it generates sales or readers. I’m more a fan of the hard yards, like local press, radio, and events. Your publisher might try to set up some of these, but there’s no reason why you can’t do it yourself.

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I don’t know if this is still a thing, because newspapers are consumed differently now, but when newspapers were something you expected to buy and hold, local newspapers needed just something to fill the pages. Anything, as long as the pages were filled. I’ve had front covers and double-page spreads in my local newspaper, and any local newspaper I was able to claim some kind of connection to, just because I contacted them and asked them if they wanted to do a story on my latest book. They were more than happy to oblige, and people who bought newspapers, printed in their many thousands, looked at every page and were likely to cast their eyes over my piece.

Compare that to someone scrolling through a social media feed, flicking past a tweet or post, never to be seen again. Okay, I have probably adorned a few cat litter trays, but that’s the price of print fame.

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Local radio is similar. They need something to fill the slot. I’ve done Radio Lancashire a few times, and the local BBC stations connect to other BBC locations, so I’ve been on local radio all over the country by simply going into a booth at the Radio Lancashire studio in Blackburn.

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There was once an incident where I was connected to a station who were expecting me to be a vet, to talk about some animal welfare issue, and I had to explain, live on air, that in fact I was a writer expecting to talk about my book. The presenter gave me a plug, tried to make light of it, but I could tell she was angry. Then, my actual slot followed straight after on a different station. Two plugs in one afternoon, and a story to tell.

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Radio makes me nervous though, if I'm being honest, because if you say something stupid, you can’t stop it going out if it’s live, but you’ll reach more people than you will with a tweet.

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Book signings are interesting, but not something I particularly enjoy.

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In your head, there will be crash barriers, and a queue of excited readers. That isn’t the reality. Instead, you’ll be seated at a table covered in your books, and shoppers will avoid you like a bad smell, worried that you will accost them and badger you into buying a book.

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I saw a writer do that once, when I was doing a signing at Borders, with a very pleasant author called Nick Oldham, a retired Lancashire copper, and another writer whose name I cannot remember or even care about.

As Nick and I sat at our table and passed the time of day, the other writer was by the front door, hassling everyone who came in, which I thought was just bad form. Perhaps he thought he had to give the hard sell, but he just annoyed everyone, as far as I could see. And there was no need, because all you need to do is make sure you sign every book on the table before you leave (check with the shop first), as once you sign it, the shop can’t return it. There is an old adage that a book signed is a book sold, and it’s true, and every possibility that the shop will put a sticker on it and put it in the window as a “signed by author special”.

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There will also be the person who comes to speak to you for a very long time, wanting to know all about you and just ask about publishing generally, which I didn’t mind, but they never buy a book, and always end with, “I’ll look out for you then”. Er, no need, because I’m here, right in front of you, with a pile of books.

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IAfter about three hours, you’ll go to the counter to tell them, “I’ll be off then,” and they’ll say goodbye, slightly embarrassed for you, as they know you haven’t sold many, but at least you can say you’ve done a signing.

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The events I enjoy the most are library events.

I have done many over the years. They are often done for no fee, so whether I did them often depended on how close they were. My main tip in relation to library events is not to overlook the small community libraries. In fact, the best events I have done have been in small libraries, for a very simple reason: people live near them.

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What I thought would be one of my proudest moments early in my writing career was an event at Wakefield Library, the big library in the centre of my hometown city. I don’t live there anymore, only go back to visit relatives and watch rugby league, but I went there like the returning hero.

Three people turned up, and one of them was simply passing.

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There were a few reasons (other than no one having heard of me).

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One, it was a scorching summer evening, so who would want to spend it in a library?

Two, England were playing in a football tournament, so there were much better things to do than listen to me waffle on for a couple of hours (in fact, I should have cancelled and gone to watch it in the pub).

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The third reason, and probably the main reason, the whole point of this section, is that it was in the city centre. Who wants to travel into a city centre to listen to a writer, unless they are very well known? This is particularly so if they work in the city centre. They will have travelled home after a day at work, and will not want to travel back in again. And parking is a hassle. And city centres get a bit dark and dangerous at night.

But if there is something going on at their local library? Every chance they will pop along, whether they have heard of the writer or not (provided it isn’t scorching, or England are playing). Some of the best events I have been to were in small neighbourhood libraries, for that very reason, and I have realised that most, if not all, of the people there had never heard of me. The staff are always very pleasant and helpful, and who doesn’t want to support a local library?

As for fees, sometimes they will get funding for events, so they need to spend it. They will usually ask you if you charge a fee.

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My approach with libraries is that if it is one I can get to reasonably easily, I’ll take a fee if they will pay, but would do it for free anyway. If it is further afield, I won’t, just because of the hassle factor. That is something only you can decide.

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It is different, however, for festivals.

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You may occasionally get contacted by small literary festivals, asking for your attendance in exchange for exposure. My advice is to refuse, and this is a view commonly held by nearly all writers, for one very simple reason: you are being taken for a mug.

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The festival will be a commercial venture, in some form. They may charge an entrance fee for the whole festival, or a fee for an individual event. The caterers will get paid. The venue will get paid. The staff will get paid. How can it make any sense for everyone to get paid for a literary festival except those who produce the literature?

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I am not being mercenary. It is simply a point of principle, because they think they can get you for nothing because they assume you are desperate. The reality is that you won’t sell any books. People will watch your event, and you are likely to be sharing a stage with a few others, then they'll go to the next event, and so on, and you will simply be a person they remember seeing, but with no desire to know anything more about you. The only thing to have got exposure will have been your overdraft.

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Now for the final section, the coffee and mints of this multi-course event: television and awards. You know the drill. Hit the button below.