25.08.21
The third in our series of articles exploring the questions to ask your publisher before you sign your contract. Read the first two articles in the series: Questions to ask before granting rights, and Questions to consider when negotiating the money.
This article relates only to trade publishing; please be aware that the sales and marketing practices in educational and academic publishing are different.
A caveat before we begin: the financial resources of a publisher determine their marketing budget and therefore marketing strategies are highly variable. This article is intended to describe the role of medium to large publishers in promoting your work.
A significant part of a publisher’s responsibility is to support the publication of your book with appropriate marketing and promotion. Books do not sell themselves, and one of the most difficult aspects of publishing lies in discoverability.
A publisher will not invest in the marketing and promotion of all books equally. Publishers usually reserve a significant amount of their marketing budget for just a handful of books on their list - usually for the books in which they see the biggest commercial potential, and those that have secured the largest advances, so they can be sure of seeing a return on their investment. These books become their lead titles for that publishing month, with other titles falling into either the midlist or tail end groups. Not every book can be a lead title, and the activities that go into a publisher’s sales and marketing plan will vary from book to book depending on their budget.
That’s why it is important for you to understand the promotional activities your publisher is likely to undertake, so that:
Please note that the questions below indicate a range of marketing activities that may be used to support the promotion of a book. They are intended to give you a general overview of the elements that may be included in your publisher’s sales and marketing strategy.
Your publisher’s sales and marketing responsibilities
A traditional publisher has three sales and marketing responsibilities:
Distributing your book to the book trade
Distribution won’t be an issue for the medium to large publishers but, if you are dealing with a smaller publisher, it is worth understanding where a consumer will be able to buy your book.
The large publishers use sales reps to sell their titles into bookstores and achieve broad distribution into bricks-and-mortar retailers as well as online retailers. Unless they are using one of the major distributors, most small publishers can access the indie bookstores and online retailers but will not get your book stocked in the discount department stores (for example, Big W or Kmart). Some very small publishers do not print stock at all but rely on print on demand services. In these circumstances, although your book will be searchable in databases it will not be physically stocked in bookstores, and you will want to understand how your publisher will ensure discoverability of your book.
The first thing to clarify is that your publisher supplies the retailers where your readers shop.
Marketing and publicising your book to the publishing industry
A publisher is responsible for promoting your book to publishing industry insiders such as booksellers, librarians and reviewers, who then market and promote your book directly to readers. To set your expectations, and to understand your publisher’s sales and marketing capabilities you will want to know:
Advance review copies (ARCs), also known as galleys or proofs, are copies of your manuscript released around 3 months prior to your publication date, which are provided to industry insiders and influencers to build buzz about your book ahead of its release. It is important to understand whether your publisher has the right networks and strategies to build this buzz effectively. Please note that producing ARCs may not be feasible for small and medium-sized publishers, and in that case you will want to understand what they plan to do instead.
Select authors are invited by their publishers to attend trade fairs like the Australian Booksellers Association Conference to meet booksellers and discuss their upcoming publication. It may be too early to receive a definitive answer on this question from your publisher, but it is worthwhile finding out as soon as you can.
Book tours are excellent opportunities to interact with and make an impression upon the booksellers whose handselling is integral to your book being discovered by readers.
Perhaps your publisher will feature an ad for your book in Books + Publishing, the Australian Booksellers Association newsletter, on TitlePage, or they may pay to have your work featured in bookstore catalogues, and more.
It is useful to clarify expectations about the likely recognition of your book, and why your publisher may or may not think your book is suitable for this recognition.
Marketing and publicising your book to readers
Before signing your publishing contract, it is also key to evaluate the level to which your publisher will market and promote your book directly to readers. You will want to know:
As soon as you are introduced to your publicist you will want to find out what specific strategy they will be using to promote your book.
An early review campaign will likely involve sending ARCs to key book influencers including bookstagrammers, booktubers, book bloggers and more. This will occur a few months ahead of the release of your publication and will encourage early reviews of your book on channels like GoodReads and other outlets.
Similar to above, preorder campaigns are designed to build buzz ahead of publication and to help your publisher understand if their positioning of your title is accurate. The success of this campaign will help to inform your overall marketing campaign. Depending on your publisher, pre-order campaigns are typically reserved for lead titles only.
A publisher may use several channels to market your book, for example their e-newsletters, or social media channels. You will want to find out what these are, which channels will be used for your work, and how your own social media channels can be used to help promote and market your work
You will want to know if your publisher is likely to develop a specific plan for advertising your book. It would be worthwhile asking them if they will pay for your book to be included in retailer catalogues, and if they intend to support such things as posters, billboards, bookmarks or promotional printed paper bags.
On release of your book, a publisher generally expects authors to be highly available for promotion for up to 1-3 months. You may need to be available for a book launch, interviews, and media, and your publisher will pay the associated costs, for example travel (if any).
Summing Up
While your publisher is unlikely to be able to answer these questions in very specific detail, as full marketing plans are developed after acquisition, the point here is to try to gain a general understanding of the marketing investment in your book, and to clarify expectations.
We encourage you to ask these questions so that you are well-informed before entering a publishing arrangement. It is a business partnership you are establishing with your publisher and it is appropriate for you to ask questions.
You can also conduct independent research to learn more about your publisher’s promotional strategies and reach: Where do you see the books on their list advertised? What kinds of promotional channels do they own: newsletters, social media channels etc.? Do bookstores feature promotional material for their books?
This article was inspired by Jane Friedman’s Questions to ask your publisher before signing your contract, and was tailored to the Australian trade industry.
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