I’ve been thinking about this for a while, and decided to toss it out to all of you today.
Do you think writers are becoming boring?
I belong to a number of writers’ groups and listserves. Once upon a time, these were pretty interesting places to hang out. We’d talk about publishers and their programs (who was buying what, who was doing well with what); we’d talk about craft; we’d talk about what to do for promo and what we thought worked; we’d talk about the oxymoron of career planning; we’d talk about writerly lifestyle issues like carpal tunnel syndrome or time management between writing and promo. We would even complain about editors or publishers or agents. It was informative and entertaining and I made a number of good friends through these loops because we shared perspectives about the weird and wonderful world of publishing.
But in recent months – years? – these loops and discussion forums have become places where writers primarily urge other writer to buy their books – or comment on their newest blog post, “like” their Facebook page, or vote for their book to win some online reader contest.
::yawn::
This is so boring! Why has it happened? I still think that writers are interesting people, but something has changed.
There are two contributing factors in the big wide world of publishing, so let’s talk about them:
1/ An increased focus on author-driven promotion.
This means essentially that authors are expected to do a lot more self-promotion than was once the case. There is more expectation on the part of publishers (and even of agents) that authors will “have a marketing platform”. A marketing platform means that authors have a connection with readers – or potential readers – and can promote on that platform to sell more books. Generally, these are blogs (with traffic counts) or social media (like Facebook) with “follower” counts. It has worked in the past for some authors and some works, so publishers think it’s a great idea.
What’s interesting about these platforms is that the relationship between followers or traffic counts and book sales is not necessarily linear – but that’s a whole ‘nuther discussion.
This focus also means that more people are paying attention to what authors say out in the wide world of the internet. This leads to…
2/An increased concern with self-editing.
Once upon a time, writers said a lot of outrageous things, maybe even provocative things. Writers got drunk or silly at conferences or cocktail parties, shot their mouths off, and were vastly entertaining within a small circle of industry insiders. While the internet makes it possible to say those things to more people at any given time, it also makes it likely to have those things cached and archived forever. Oopsie.
At the same time, the book publishing industry has gone through a number of changes, resulting in fewer publication slots and less money available for advances. Those authors who have a publishing slot would frequently like to keep it, so all that old interesting nitty gritty might be better left unsaid. As a result, authors say boring, safe things like “hey, buy my book” – and say them over and over again.
The exception to this is self-published authors, who often say whatever they want in their blogs, even talk about issues like money and number of copies sold which were always considered “not-done” by the print publishing community. This makes their blogs refreshing and different and worth watching, which in turn gives them a marketing platform. I’m curious to see how the blog content changes for those authors who have chosen to move from digital self-publishing to print publishing.
It’s enough to make someone want to open a bar, a bar geared only to writers and one that allows no recording devices or cameras on the premises. (A “what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas” kind of a place.) There also would be no ability to buy books, vote for online contests or follow pages or blogs. Imagine – a bar without an internet connection.
I think writers are fun, but that we can only be fun when there’s not so much at stake.
So, where should we open this bar? Would you come? Would you dance on the tables? Would you share your nitty gritty, be outrageous and funny? Or would you just sit back and watch?
Deborah Cooke: Author 
10 responses to “Thoughts on Writers”
Deb, I would pay money to see you dancing on tables! LOL! What? Just saying!!
And trust me, I’d be dancing right beside you! 😉
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LOL Stacey –
I knew I could count on you — and probably Mason, too!
d
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Very interesting blog entry Deborah!
As a writer, not yet published, Iwould like to read more about the inspiration, the creative “process” of fellow writers, the frustrations but also amazing moments of bringing a story to life.
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Good idea, Annie. There is a lot on this blog in the older posts about the nitty gritty of writing, but I’m past due for some more posts like that. Let me think about it.
d
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I find myself skimming almost all the digests of loops, wondering why I don’t just unsubscribe or at least go no mail. I’m heartily tired of what basically turns out to be advertisements.
It’s a fine line, I know. As an author, I suck at self promotion. I’m not comfortable to post a read my blog note to anyone but a few folks. I’ve done some posts on creativity–which is so important to me–but since I don’t shout from the rooftops, very few read them.
As for the bar? Oh, honey, I’d be there in a moment. And although I’d probably spend most of my time sitting and listening, there may be a dance or three in me. As long as the table’s sturdy! 🙂
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LOL *lizzie – sounds like we’re building a guest list here!
There is a balance to be struck, between telling people about your books and talking only about your books. And I guess we’re all going to strike the balance in a different place. The loops though have become quite depressing. There may still be good content there – and good news – but I’m afraid I don’t have time to sift for it.
d
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hmmm, fantasy authors go wild, I can see the You Tube video now, oh no, I’m not up there with you dancing. I’m taking the video.
I have no problem with authors who self promote, and many do on my forum at B&N.com and I welcome it and any author the only criteria is that your book is available on B&N and that you don’t pretend to be someone else, someone who read and loved it, because I know who you really are. 🙂
FaceBook I think is a real tool for self promotion, one wall post shared by you can spread to a kazillion people who may never have seen it.
Twitter I’m not so sure about, I mean if you don’t constantly check it, you’ll miss something.
Deb
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Uh huh, Deb, you want to be the proverbial fly on the wall!
I guess the real issue for me is that I’m not convinced that self-promotion even works. I know authors who have huge followings on FB, for example, but don’t particularly have fabulous sales numbers. They are almost universally funny and interesting people, so it appears that people consider following their FB page to be entertainment enough, without buying the author’s books. I would be very intrigued to see what the correlation is – I’ve had people follow my FB pages and chatter with me, then say something like “oh, this is fun, maybe I should read one of your books.” That always makes me laugh.
The blog or FB page or Twitter account can become a form of entertainment in itself, I think, and is not necessarily linked to book sales. And that makes sense to me – I’m interested in books and buy books, but don’t pay much attention to author blogs and interviews etc etc. I buy books based upon the story and the cover art. Am I weird or typical? It would be fun to know.
d
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That’s true Deb that FB or Twitter followers may not necessarily raise the purchase count of a novel, but just the idea that for example one post you send and I share then a friend of mine shares it means that, that many more people “see” you and if that results in a sale or 100 I think that’s worth the original post.
Now for me I don’t follow people on fb or twitter unless I know them, hence the small number of fb friends I have. And as far as my purchasing novels I tend to go more on word of mouth from friends then anything else, I do tend to count on cover art more now that they seem to be better representative of the actual novel, in fact in the past it used to anger me that the cover art was of a buxom blonde and you read the novel and the heroine has black hair etc.
The biggest sell for me if I don’t know the author is the blurb, so I think it’s really important to have an accurate one. And no you’re not weird, I think everyone has one or two particulars that make them choose a read.
deb
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LOL Deb – it was believed for a long time that readers wouldn’t buy a book featuring a hero who was blond, so it was usually the heroes who got their hair color wrong on the cover. I have been asked to change the story – make a blond hero have brown hair – several times. On other occasions, the cover art just didn’t match. It was also believed that the hero and heroine had to have different colored hair (maybe so they didn’t look like siblings? I don’t know) so the dark-haired hero invariably got a blond heroine on the cover, regardless of what was inside the book.
If you read the book and were annoyed, maybe the thinking was that you’d already bought it, so your reaction didn’t matter. The sale had been made.
There are so many odd assumptions about readers and buying habits. It might be interesting to explore some of them in greater depth – but I’m not sure whether they’re still true or not.
d
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