Susan Kiernan-Lewis does a great post trashing the idea of using social networks to sell books and it is well-reasoned and well-written. Worth the read, folks.
She is wrong about me and Konrath and Eisler and Meyer. She thinks our celebrity helps us sell books. As Joe said, we write here for writers, who don’t buy books. My bestselling books are under names none of you would associate with this blog, that’s for sure. (grin) So she is correct, our books sell because of the books, not who the author is behind them.
But besides that slip at the end of her blog, it’s a great read. And something I agree with. Social media to sell books is a waste of time. (I’ll be back this evening with a post about pen names. Stay tuned. But first go read Susan’s blog.)
http://susankiernanlewis.wordpress.com/2012/01/28/the-great-social-media-flim-flam/
Great insight there.
I read the end part a little differently than you did though – while she was a bit unclear, I think she was trying to make the point that you and Joe and Barry are well-known among writers but that is not why you sell lots of books.
***
I respect Konrath and Eisler and Dean Wesley Smith and Mayer and I read their blogs to hear their take on the publishing industry. But I can see straightaway that their books are not for me. They are famous in writerly circles. But I can’t believe that celebrity, in itself, is a great marketing plan for their books or the reason they sell so well.
***
I am trying to decide if she is using you as proof of her point or trying to say you are blogging to sell you books and succeeding regardless of the futility of it…
Anyway, I just hurt my own brain there… back to work for me!
Cheers!
I agree with the article, mostly. It’s about books, of course! And luck, too. But anyone pushing social networking two hours a day isn’t doing it right. Sounds spammy to me. I do about an hour each day of interacting with friends and readers and people I like but I do that for pleasure, not for selling books. Sure, I announce when I’ve gotten a great blog review or a new book but that’s it. If I didn’t enjoy that time, I wouldn’t do it. (Writing is lonely work.)
As for that study… It makes no sense to me. I am certainly dubious of the “Book Store Staff” portion.
What about shelf browsing? There’s the library portion but not for in-store. Advertising? To bookstore buyers or readers? The only advertising I ever see for a non-Patterson book is via social networking.
Social media is nothing more than a type of advertising, or personal recommendations, or spam. So many different ways it’s done.
Also, for all we know, those who find books via social media buy 5 times as many books. Or half as many.
I guess what I’m trying to say is: That data didn’t clear up anything for me.
I’ve seen two studies before that suggested social media accounted for less than 5%. That wouldn’t surprise me. People who are socializing aren’t shopping for books, they’re socializing.
Social networking can be affective in certain ways, and for some people better than others. If you have fans who follow you, updating them to your new release is a big deal. Interacting with fans is a good thing, too, whether it’s by a blog, Facebook, Twitter, or a newsletter. Basic marketing and friendliness. Not spamming. Not hours on it each day. Sheesh. Writers are not direct marketers.
John Locke credits social networking with his success and has a certain method he uses. It’s certainly not the spammy behavior so many indie authors use. But what works for him probably won’t work for everyone and there was still some luck involved.
Sweet and awesome post by both yourself and Susan. Thanks as always, you seem to say just what I need to hear on the ol’ Indie Writer Rocky Trail to Stardom.
Thanks and aloha again,
Toby
http://www.tobyneal.net/
A little quibble about the ‘we write here for writers, who don’t buy books’.
Yes, I’m a writer, and I became a blog reader of yours because I’m also a Star Trek fan and recognized your name upon tripping over your blog.
At different points over the past 32 years, I’ve had between 500-800 books on my shelves (and packed in storage due to space constraints), and until the past 4-5 years, none of them were reference type books. They were all fiction.
I have fewer physical books now (because of space constraints), but my ebook collection is growing.
Writers DO buy books!
Scath, but that’s not why I do this. I don’t do this to get people to buy my books that they can’t find anyway because they are under other names. If I had that thought at all, I’d be much more careful with things I say. (grin)
And yeah, I guess Susan was agreeing with me on the celebrity stuff now that I read it again. Just took that backwards I guess. (grin)
You know, if this blogging and having a ton of writers coming here did help sales, my poor little short stories under this name would be averaging higher than five or six copies sold per month across all sites. (I’m actually happy with that number by the way. See my earlier posts about that.)
Actually, Dean, I took the opposite from what she said. It seems to me she’s saying that you’re popular with other writers, but she doesn’t believe that’s why you’re so successful.
Quoted from her blog:
But I can’t believe that celebrity, in itself, is a great marketing plan for their books or the reason they sell so well.
Seems to me she’s saying that the fact you’re so popular with writers can’t really be why you sell so wll.
First, I would agree with the concept that the core and foundation of everything is to write a good book. And then another, etc. As you’ve discussed many times here.
My social networking I don’t spend a ton of time on. When I have something to promote, like a book comes out, I’ll post about it and then go on. Takes all of about five minutes to post about a book on Twitter, FB, and Google. Then another 15 to 20 to put in on my published page, put a post on my blog about it, etc. After that, I’ve spent 30 minutes, maybe an hour at the most if thing don’t go smoothly for some reason, and I’m back to my next task.
It sounds more like she’s talking about someone who lives on Twitter, FB, and/or Google, or other such destination. Or someone who spends a lot of time on their blog with the hopes it will garner sales. And I can vouch that what sales I’ve gotten after directly announcing a book on FB has been minimal if any. And I usually do get a handful.
But, there is something not being taken into account. A fallacy when these charts are shown. The biggest chunk of it, when reduced to actual percentages is recommendations (friends, bookstores, book reviews) totals at 49%. All other venues total to 51%. Social media (social media and blogs) totals 12%, and advertising totals 12%.
Yes, both social networking and advertising is a smaller chunk. But there is a reason for that. Because books are mostly spread by recommendations, you need to 1) get someone to read it so they can recommend it, which means some form of advertisement, on some level. And 2) for everyone one person who gets the good book, they might recommend it to several friends. So everyone one sell via social media feeds into the bigger percentage and represents a much bigger part of the pie than what it directly affects.
Keeping in mind that just having your book on Amazon, B&N, Smashwords, Apple, Kobo, etc. is a form of advertisement. But if my 30 minutes when a book comes out can get that handful of people to give my book a spin, that doesn’t represent just a handful of people, but everyone they might recommend it to as well.
Also, how I read her paragraph at the end was more like you’re believing, that your celebrity status isn’t what sells your books. I think she said she didn’t believe it did.
But maybe she edited it before I saw it.
Who has got time for social networks anyway? If I have time to write a few (or many) good words, and then publish what I write – I’m happy…
I “like this.” haha get it?
No but in all serious, stellar points. Its interesting to see the things you and kris have been saying for a long time being discovered by other budding authors from first hand experience- from writing speed to promotion.
It might all be crazy but maybe there truly is a method to all the madness.
That was good post. Man, have I though the same things and often. her article is essentially in agreement with the whole branding angle I was talking about in your eariler post. Ie, it’s about the book.
Re: social media, you might also find this interesting. Another experiment I did with Select. When I made my book free before Christmas, I tweeted the hell out it and called on all my social media resources, who retweeted, etc. The book was downloaded about 5,000 times. Great. Then, when I did it again 2 weeks ago, I didn’t mention it to anybody. No blogging about it, no twitter. Total blackout of the fact that it was free for 24 hours. And… 6,500 downloads. Whatever makes it known that books are free, even book stat no one ever herd of before, it’s all happening within Amazon. Social media has very little to do with it.
Also, I’m not positive, but I think that Keirnan-Lewis is agreeing with you here – she’s saying that your celebrity has little or nothing to do with what sells your books. At least that’s the way I took it.
“I respect Konrath and Eisler and Dean Wesley Smith and Mayer and I read their blogs to hear their take on the publishing industry. But I can see straightaway that their books are not for me. They are famous in writerly circles. But I can’t believe that celebrity, in itself, is a great marketing plan for their books or the reason they sell so well.”
Dean, thank you for the vote of confidence! It was actually your Jan 17 post “But Why Would You…Not Publish to All Bookstores?” that triggered my writing the post in the first place. (You were so adamant that publishing to only one online bookstore was a mistake that I took a closer look at my Smashwords sales.) And one thing led to another…I have to say it’s such a relief to let all that madness GO and just focus on the next book.
I love social media because it connects me with readers and my peers. I don’t think of it in terms of something to sell my wares. Sure, I let folks when I have sales or new things out. I did a percentage before Christmas. Less than 5% of my Tweets and Facebook statuses were about stuff I have for sale. In fact, I apparently spent more time tweeting about other people’s work than my own.
Social media gives me the opportunity to interact with Dean Wesley Smith (my childhood writing hero – true story), and gives me a chance to chat with people who enjoy my short fiction. I can have people tell me how much they are looking forward to my next novel, and I can reply to a Rachel Caine tweet telling her I loved what she just said.
That isn’t about selling books; that’s about being social. I enjoy that aspect of things. I see social media as something I do when I’m winding down for the day, or on the bus, or bored and can’t write anymore. I like it more that way.
I can’t imagine spending 20 hours a week promoting my books. That’s about the extreme max end of my total writing/editing/marketing/proofing/reading/research time a week. I can’t imagine dumping the bulk of that into tweeting.
Tweeting is what I do when I can’t sleep or am avoiding my kids. The way God intended it to be.
Krista…LOL!!
Well, I’ve bought a couple of your stories as a direct result of reading this blog, and I otherwise wouldn’t ever have heard of them, so you might have made a whole dollar or two off the blog from me alone…
(And I bought Ms Rusch’s Freelancer’s Survival Guide after finding her blog through links from yours.)
“Writers don’t buy books” is one of those old saying that is not literally true, but are very true in spirit, nevertheless.
(Actually I have a blogpost written up on this, but I wasn’t going to post it for a couple of week, so I’ll give a couple highlights here:)
1.) Writers are not a homogenous group — we’re not necessarily the right demographic for Dean’s work. We’re attracted here not by his work, but by his wisdom.
2.) Writers don’t have as much time to read as they would like. And we’ve already got a lot of entertaining stories in our heads, so even though we love to read, it’s not at the starving for entertainment level that prime readers have.
I had about seven reasons why courting the writing audience is not an effective way to market, but those are the biggies.
Snippets of conversation overheard recently at a authors cocktail party:
“Oh, Dahhling. You must simply buy her book. She’s ever-so cleverly created a platform. But then again, hasn’t everybody?”
“And I pushed it away. Oh,yes, right then and there. Pushed away his little self-published rag. I don’t care how many millions it’s sold. _I_ only buy brand-amplified Pengy Putnam books. Do have some of the caviar. It’s ever so ever.”
“Yes, yes, yes. She has a platform. But what’s IN the book? What’s it about? … What? I’m being pendantic!? Well, REALLY!”
“So I told my agent, ‘If I wanted to be social and do all this social stuff, I wouln’t have become a writer.’ And do you know what she did? She unliked her own author, right on my Facebook page!”
“Like I’ve always said, if you want to be successful in life, in politics, in the book buisness, or even simply standing around at a train station you simply must have a platform. And Ethel agrees with me, don’t you Ethel. Ethel! Wake up!”
“There I was, tweeting my fingers right to the bone, night and day, morning noon and night, and this uncouth wretch from Wamsutter, Wyoming (of all places!) had the unmitigated gall to ask me why I hadn’t written my next book yet. Really, now! If my agent thought all it took to sell a book was a book, he wouldn’t be telling me to build my platform before I write my second book.”
“You know what they’re like, authors — the beastly little things! Always forever typing. Type type type. Those clever artful little fingers typing away day and night. And then they send me book after book, as if I’m expected to sell more than one book a year for them. Who has time for only 15 percent? Well, I fixed their little red wagons! I sent them and their artful little fingers all off to go blog and tweet and facebook. Now they’re so busy typing up blogs and tweets and building platforms, why, they don’t even send in one book a year anymore. I can finally enjoy my morning coffee at the agency in peace.”
“Ginger, this social whril’s getting us nowhere on our next book, so let’s Facebook the music and dance and get out of here. I’ve got a chapter to finish tonight.”
Honestly…I read you because you make me laugh, smile and feel good about indie publishing.
You’re also a truth-speaker…and truth-speakers should always be listened too…even when you point out our faults!
Blog on!
I’m with Copple above. While man cannot live on tweets alone, word of mouth must start somewhere. And so all those other strategies that make up the other 50% on the chart are just that, strategies to get the word out little by little until the mojo kicks in (or whatever juju juice is needed to become a word of mouth sensation!).
Writers should be too busy writing the next story to have time to blog, tweet, or maintain a Facebook page with the intent to market their stories.
Dean is 100% right that the best marketing tool is writing the next story. That will do a better job of attracting new readers than any other type of advertising or promotion you can imagine. Write a good story. Put it up with a good cover and blurb. Lather, rinse, repeat.
That’s the only documented, repeatable formula for success in this business. Everything else is just making plans to win the lottery.
I’ve got one book out so far, which you recommended I change the price from .99 cents to $4.99 which I have done. After I complete the 3rd book in this trilogy I’m going to blog tour it using social media sites during the week of March the 19th. Before then all 3 of my books will have been published. I’ll be able to compare sales statistics before, during and after the blog tour.
Also, I’ll be writing another series of books in April. I’ll be able to see if there’s any popularity to my pen name “Suz Korb” by then, and we’ll see if I might need to blog tour my next series to boost sales.
I suppose if I do need to blog tour my books all the time, this could mean my writing isn’t yet good enough on it’s own to attract readers.
Can’t wait to read your blog post about pen names. And thanks for the link on this post.
I was once given a wise piece of advice which was to look at online businesses and figure out what the bricks-and-mortar equivalent was before investing in it. Amazon is Walmart. Most of the 90′s dot.com’s were catalog companies. PayPal is Western Union. Craig’s List is the want ads of your paper. And so on. The point of the advice was that if the bricks-and-mortar version struggled to make money, the online version would too.
The equivalent of most social media is… standard social settings. Instead of coffee hour after church or hanging out at the barber shop or having a bridge night with the neighbors, social news travels online.
So how successful would you be selling your book if you walked into a real life social gathering and started promoting it? With a few exceptions (say, the local science fiction reader’s group just as they’re picking next month’s novel), the answer is “not much.”
I’m on social sites to be social. Yeah, I mention my stories/books when they’re released, but it’s no different than mentioning them to my real life friends. “Hey, it’s out” and that’s about it. The rest of my social media time is spent engaging with friends and having fun.
(P.S.–the bricks-and-mortar equivalent of indie publishing? Small press publishing, just with lower entry costs)
I made the point in an earlier thread that sample size is what I use to choose a book. Looking at her book on Kindle, paper, and Smashwords, I get this.
Walk, Trot, Die
Susan Kiernan-Lewis
http://www.amazon.com/Walk-Trot-Die-ebook/dp/B005F9VV4U
The Kindle preview ends at:
“Look, man, I’m sorry, I–”
The paper preview starts at page 3 and ends on page 8. I love the cover, BTW, but five pages? What’s the point of the preview. I would not pay $8.99 for paper with only five pages to sample.
Walk, Trot, Die
Susan Kiernan-Lewis
http://www.smashwords.com/extreader/read/75888/1/walk-trot-die
If you look at her sample on Smashwords, page 26(html) is where the last Kindle sample sentence ends.
“Look, man, I’m sorry, I–”
The Smashwords sample is twice as long as the Kindle sample, ending at page 50(html).
I looked at the B&N page, but I don’t have any Nook software loaded to check the sample. If anyone has the Nook, check out her sample and see how long it is.
I bet that the reason her book sells better on Smashwords is because people actually have a real sample to read. HA!
This made me laugh. When I first got on facebook (to market my work) It took roughly a few days for me to just get sleepy on the whole idea. I kept thinking, I’d rather be writing. Then I stumble upon this and Kris’s blog, and I’m relieved I don’t have to spend endless hours pestering everyone to buy my book and wasting time. Every once in a while I will post about a book that’s already available or talk about an upcoming one. I will announce the release of a new book, but that’s about as far as I can make myself go.
And as for twitter. I don’t think I’m wired for that. No matter how hard I try, I can’t make myself tweet (what are we, birds?) without snorting and then laughing at myself. I just can’t do it, and I don’t know why. lol
Great post – really agree with everything she said in terms of how people use social media generally and the complete uselessness of it for selling books.
The only thing I would disagree with (personally) is that you can’t meet people via social media. If you’re actually talking to people on there that resonate with you in some way, and not either 1) thinking in the background about how to get them to buy your books or 2) trying to “keep up” for some bizarre conception of twitter/FB karma and seeming like a “good sport,” you can absolutely meet people. I’ve actually made a number of friends that I originally met via some form of social media or another that I now correspond with on a regular basis. I’ve never met these people in the flesh…heck, one of them lives in Israel.
I think the key is having zero expectations on using any form of social media as a system of control over selling your book (or “making” it a blockbuster), which is what I believe Susan is saying. If you just use SM channels for what they are – information aggregators and a way to meet people here and there, I think all the stress evaporates.
The thing I really dislike is this whole graspy, “I liked your page but you didn’t like mine” whining. Really? I mean, come on. I don’t have time to look at more than a handful of posts a day. Most of the ones that interest me are articles, blogs like Dean’s and Kris’s and a few others I follow, or occasionally posts about things I can geek out about for whatever reason. I’m more than happy to do the occasional “like” or whatever, but the idea that I’m morally obligated or that I’m somehow a “jerk” for not doing it for every author out there shilling a book is a concept I have zero patience for. Like Susan mentions, I think there is something incredibly high school about a lot of people’s approach to this stuff. I’ve come across this kind of bully mentality here and there about wanting everyone “on board” with their frenetic tweeting and whatnot, and life is just too damned short.
I’m really glad more and more people are advocating a sane approach to this stuff.
…And I’m really looking forward to the pen names post, too!
Just wanted to add.
I downloaded the Nook for Mac, and pulled the Nook sample down. It ends on Nook page 20, with “Noisy little buggers, aren’t they?”
That is equal to page 11(html) on Smashwords, the Nook sample is half the Kindle sample. HA!
A couple of thoughts on this one.
Regarding marketing to writers vs readers – I believe there’s an enormous overlap between the two, of course. I also think there is a large body of “writers” who do more thinking/dreaming about writing than they actually spend time putting words on the screen. These folks tend to be among the more avid readers; they’re actually a *prime* market, assuming they’re reading in your genre.
I strongly suspect Konrath sells buckets of books due to his website. What percent, I don’t know…but I do know he utilized the blog to get over a hundred reviews on his book’s Kindle page the day Dracula released, and he did a similar run with his most recent book (the one published through Thomas&Mercer). Reviews are not the primary sales tool, but they’re one factor. Remember: searching in a genre by “best ranked” is the second most common sorting type used on Amazon (bestselling is the most common).
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I agree in general on social media, and disagree on the specifics. Example: I am on the mailing list for a certain indie SF&F writer. Twice in the last six months or so, he’s sent out emails about a new book he’s released. In both cases, I bought the book within 48hrs. Why? Because I enjoyed the last eight books of his I read, and figured odds were good I’d enjoy those too.
Now, I didn’t get on his mailing list via social media…exactly. Although I *did* read about him first (and try a book of his because of being) on Konrath’s blog. So technically, I did hear about him via the social media of blogging. In my case, he used the blog appearance to funnel readers to his books – and then used the books to funnel readers to his other books, and his email list.
Another writer I know has similar success with her email list. Her list was largely built up via Twitter, though. She periodically advertises a free ebook for anyone who signs up for her list. She advertises in hashtags frequented by readers of material like hers. And she gets a decent number of replies each time… Many of whom go on to read her OTHER five books. And she’s got their email, so as each new book comes out she can let them all know.
I’m sure there are other ways to use social media smartly.
Tweeting “Buy my book! It B Cool!” ten times a day does not count as “smartly”.
Not even if you spruce it up to look a little nicer than that.
But using social media as a tool to bring readers and potential readers into a better, more stable, more *personal* connection with you in some way? Absolutely has promise, I think.
That’s just my guess, though – I haven’t played with it much because I think it’s a waste of time to do any promotion until I have more work up and available.
You know what I love? When I discovered, last week, that I was selling great on Smashwords on this one title compared to my not-at-all good results on Amazon, I walked around the house for days confused and perplexed. I kept asking outloud: “Why? Why is this? This make no sense.” (I live with a philosophy professor and a teenage boy. They certainly didn’t have any answers.) In one day after my post went public, I have met a robust coterie of fellow writers—many of them with suggestions as to why it might be (the shortened Sample for one.) My point is, social media may be rubbish to sell books—and I still believe that—but it’s great for finding like-minded people. I need to hear and talk to writers who wrestle with the same issues that I do. If social media gives me nothing more beyond input from people who understand me, it’s a worthy pastime. I know, I know, just not 20 hours worth!
Publishers hammer the importance of social media, but not because it’s going to build YOUR brand as a writer. It builds THEIR brand as a publisher.
You tweeting your new release from Upsy Daisy Books is a single pebble in the river. Twenty authors tweeting their books from Upsy Daisy starts building brand awareness of Upsy Daisy…. among the writers following those authors. Eventually the whole mess hits critical mass and Upsy Daisy sinks into the heads of non-writing readers.
The best way to paint an object is to use lots of thin coats. People tweeting and Facebooking and all that jazz is the equivalent of a lot of thin coats of branding… for the publisher.
A single writer’s “coat of paint” is just too thin to make any kind of noticeable difference.
Kathleen Dienne, well said. And exactly right. Thanks!
@allynh — Kindle doesn’t let you set the size of the sample. It’s 10% of the book, period. Why penalize the author for something out of their control?
I finally got word back from the Kindle people, and yes 10% is their automatic limit, for now.
Look at Dean’s thread on:
A Number Of Things I Am Confused About
http://www.deanwesleysmith.com/?p=6260#comment-16551
I posted what I found at about # 125 and # 127 in the thread.
As Susan said in her essay:
“It’s not about the author. It’s about the book.
You are not your book. Selling yourself does not sell your book. As a reader, I don’t want to cheer you up by buying your book. I want to get lost in a great story. As a reader, I don’t care about you. I care about the story.”
If everybody on the Kindle Boards start complaining about not being able to control their sample size on the Kindle, while they have full power on their Amazon paper book pages, change will occur.