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October 22, 2007

Extreme marketing

Mike Stucka

On Saturday afternoon, Julie Hahnke played her bagpipes to attract shoppers and tourists bustling along Salem's streets. Then she ducked back into Cornerstone Books, signed copies of her book, returned to her bagpipes | and repeated as needed to sell books.

The Marblehead resident, who five months ago released the young-adult novel "Through the Eyes of a Raptor," organized a Scottish festival in a small New Hampshire town to sell books. A chance meeting at the Marblehead Farmer's Market led to talks at two schools and a college, then the start of a teacher's guide.

Such extreme marketing promotions are only somewhat unusual for self-published and custom-printed authors, who find themselves working largely alone to arrange book signings | even in pet stores.

"If you're serious about self-publishing, the marketing should start even before the manuscript," said Sue Collier, who runs the Colorado-based Self-Publishing Resources.

The marketing is difficult because self-published books have a generally bad reputation, and bookstores typically refuse to stock them for pricing and inventory reasons. In the end, 93 percent of the books published sell fewer than 1,000 copies, according to Nielsen BookScan. While print-on-demand technology has reduced authors' costs and kept their basements from being filled with unsold books, nothing has kept them from running ragged trying to turn their books into hits.

Linda Greenberg of Swampscott, who two months ago used the print-on-demand company PublishAmerica to produce "No Fleas On Us," is still trying to set up a book signing at a pet store. She's gotten local newspaper coverage, campaigned for a national story, and is arranging a television news station's tie-in to November, Senior Cat Month. She got the Spirit of '76 bookstore in Marblehead to stock her book, and was delighted to find her efforts at a Swampscott Borders Express got it set up next to books by television's "Dog Whisperer." She was surprised to find people in Japan can buy her book through Amazon.

"I'm trying, but when you're not a celebrity ..." Greenberg said, adding that she's setting up readings at libraries in Swampscott and Marblehead.

Going the distance

In promoting her book, Hahnke is applying the same energy she used in her sailboat and bicycle races.

"I don't do anything halfway," she said. "If you're going to do it, go."

And so she found herself near an independent bookstore in the summer tourist mecca of Wolfeboro, N.H. To get more people to a book signing, she created a mini-Celtic festival, calling in friends from a Scottish school in Manchester. Other stores sold Scottish flags, the newspaper offered a half-page of coverage, the school got an honorarium | and Hahnke sold 59 books that night.

"It's about understanding how to create win-win opportunities," Hahnke said. "Everyone wants a shortcut."

Karen Baker, owner of Wolfeboro's Country Bookseller, said Hahnke, the bookstore and the town benefited.

"The bagpipe music would carry through the town. Even people who weren't in front of the bookstore would still hear it and follow it to the bookstore | kind of like the Pied Piper," she said.

Not all promotion efforts are nearly as successful.

John Bolduc of Hamilton used PublishAmerica for his novel, "Dogtown Drifter." After working hard, he received three paragraphs of coverage in a newspaper and did one book signing in Ipswich. Since then, one recent check covering six months of royalties brought him $4.50. He said he wishes he had more help in promotions and that he'd tried to go with a traditional publisher.

"I would have rather been rejected now than be accepted by a house that wouldn't promote it," Bolduc said. "The first flush of someone saying, 'Yes, we'll take your book' is intoxicating, and your brain stops right there."

Doug Buchs of Hamilton used a small but traditional publisher, and still wound up driving across the country in a Ford F-150 pickup and staying with plenty of friends to reach some 35 book signings for "The Mescalero Project." He said he would have had a far tougher time if he'd self-published his novel.

"It's just the toughest thing in the whole world to get published these days. It's the hardest thing I've ever done next to quitting smoking after 41 years," Buchs said.

Hahnke said she's sold about 2,000 copies on her own. She thinks her young-adult novel, set in Scotland and incorporating Celtic myths and runes, could appeal to some of the "Harry Potter" fans.

"I don't know when it breaks out. I don't know when I'm going to attract a traditional publisher's attention," she said.

Until then, she'll keep visiting schools and libraries, cutting deals that give her no profit from bookstore sales, and turning back to the bagpipes for attention.



To learn more

Several authors hoping to attract more interest have Web sites, such as DougBuchs.com. Hahnke's blog, at EyesOfARaptor.com/blog, offers 22 posts just on book promotion.

Authors have found companies wielding new technologies | including PublishAmerica, Xlibris, iUniverse and AuthorHouse | can print their books with little financial risk. Most of the marketing and promotion duties, however, fall to authors.

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