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Publish At Your Own Risk: a Secular Master’s Advice

March 6th, 2007 | blogging, business, editing, marketing, writing

I found this Robert Silverberg quote in the Nebula Awards Showcase 2006. They called him “Master” not me, but it made for a punchy post title. Silverberg explains the need for caution in publishing:

Each new book usually stands alone, unsheltered by the other titles its publisher may have issued, and if it sells badly, its author will very quickly find himself in commercial trouble, because everybody knows everybody else’s figures. One conspicuous failure from a big house can doom a writer…

in the eyes of the book-chain buyers for years to come. And if a publishing house puts out a long string of books that sell badly, not just the writers will be in trouble. Editors and higher-level executives will lose their jobs.

Caution, therefore, is the watchword in the book field. Publish wisely; publish warily; take no chances, because your job may be at stake. Editors rightly abjure risk. Artistic risk means commercial risk; commercial risk means trouble.

So here’s my question. Can the blogosphere reduce the risk of publishing? I don’t mean just online publishing—I mean actual pulp and ink publishing.

Here’s one marketing trend I see from publishers. Every writer gets a blog. But few writer blogs seem to have substantial support (or any!) from publishers.

Can blogs sell books? If so, how? And who is doing this?

But Silverberg’s comments raise another important question for me. Should caution be the watchword in any publishing field—including blogging? What is a cautious blogger? Why would a blogger be cautious?

And back to the million dollar question, does cautious blogging convert to more sales? Or subscribers or comments or returning unique visitors or whatever reader action you prefer?

In my mind, the medium of blogging seems to encourage risk. But I wonder if that isn’t exactly the problem with converting readers into something more—subscribers, clients, buyers, etc.

Everyone needs to understand that I’m not fishing for business here. I can’t handle a lick of more work. I’m just trying to figure out a business model for blogging. If such a thing even exists.

I believe it will soon. I believe it will be incredibly powerful. And I want to be a part of it.

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Viewing 8 Comments

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    Mark, I think blogs can be used to sell most anything if the sales process could benefit from

    - educating potential customers about the product
    - relational selling
    - multiple product exposures over time
    - a more search engine friendly web site
    - building customer trust
    - a raised awareness of other products in the same nice
    - the ability of dialog to reduce prospect's fear of making an uniformed buying decision

    Properly executed blogs can help with all of these and more. They typically aren't the end all, beat all replacement for traditional marketing. But they can be a powerful marketing add-on to turbo charge a marketing program.

    Are there risks? Sure.

    Publishing at the speed of blog means minimal editing. Some percentage of typos will get through, which might be embarrassing for some writers, especially if they are highly successful already.

    If you blog and someone disagrees with your book, they may very well tell folks about that right on your blog.

    Then there is the whole control issue. Companies by nature fear the perception that they might be loosing control of something.

    Really the issues are very much the same for Publishing as they are for most any other business.

    I think there is a higher level resistance to blogging from segments of the publishing industry for the same reason there is resistance to business blogging from the web developer community. And that is because blogging is encroaching on turf that they've traditionally had exclusive rights to.

    But you can't put the toothpaste back in the tube. Blogging is here. Folks will either adapt and adopt or get left behind.

    Sorry for the over long comment, Mark. Sometimes I get a little too passionate about this one.
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    Dude, never NEVER apologize for a long comment! (At least when it's on topic.)

    Wow. Awesome thoughts.

    And it reminds me of the conversation I had with my wife at lunch about this topic. (We had a little Sushi date. It was sweet.)

    I don't understand why publishers are resisting blogs. If/when the ereaders take off, print on demand will turn digital. Sure some people will still buy books. The theater never died. Neither will good old pages of pulp.

    But as people gradually start reading more and more from screens, free content will be in direct competition with paid content.

    I should write a whole post about that.
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    Speaking of typos at the speed of blog...
    a raised awareness of other products in the same nice

    should be in the same niche.

    That's what I get for commenting during my lunch break. We just roll with it. :cool:

    And I'm very interested to hear your views on how paid content can expect to compete favorably with free content. (I think it probably can too. I just haven't thought it though.)

    Many people still prefer to hold paper in their hand when they are reading. I did an informal poll of the office here and everyone present today said that, given a choice, they prefer to read from a piece of dead tree than from a screen.
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    Yes, everyone in your office did. But they didn't grow up reading children's books online--like my daughter does nearly every day.

    She'll still enjoy holding an old-fashioned book, I'm sure. But she won't be threatened by "screen reading" in the same way that a lot of adults are.

    And when screens start becoming widely available at 600 dpi, they won't give us headaches. The only disadvantage to screen reading will be not being able to scribble notes in the margins.

    Oh, and the fact that you never have to reboot a book.
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    You asked: "Should caution be the watchword in any publishing field—including blogging? What is a cautious blogger? Why would a blogger be cautious?"

    I think caution is a good thing. I'm most definitely a cautious blogger (if you couldn't guess by my anonymous handle). I try to tread carefully in the blogosphere as a blogger/writer because even though my name isn't on there, I am building a reputation. And I do hope to sell my book to at least some of my blog readers. I intentionally set up my blog to start disseminating information that will ultimately end up in my book. So hopefully I'm cultivating a following among blog readers that will result in a few sales.

    What is a cautious blogger? Well, this cautious blogger tries not to participate in blog contests or memes (and the one time I did it actually threw off my regular readers). I avoid just blogging about what my kids ate for breakfast or whatever other cutesy stuff they do; that is, I don't keep a blog "journal". There are a lot of blogs like that out there and frankly, I don't take the writing in them as seriously. And I don't think they expect to be taken seriously in terms of their writing. But professional writers should.

    I have more thoughts on it, but I'll stop there for now.
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    AMM, great thoughts. I agree that blogging is a natural way to build a platform for your writing.

    It's a little bit like creating a database of names by making a free offer. You've seen these before. Send this card back for a free copy of BOOK TITLE. No obligations to purchase anything and you get to keep the book.

    These are marketing attempts to build a database of interested names. It seems to be the way blogs work. We find people who are interested.

    But turning interested people into customers willing to pay for something... that's where I'm looking for good models.

    For example, has the CSFF blog tour actually proven to increase sales the featured authors? If so, how much? Is there a correlation between the number of people blogging and linking during a tour and the assumed increase in sales? Is there a correlation between the buzz activity (comments, etc) and the increase in sales?

    Again it sounds like I'm fishing for business for myself--but I'm really not doing that. I'm just curious if blogs are financially viable as a business project.

    One more thought--thanks for the reminder to stay focused! After the last post on pirates and canoes and what not, it's a good reminder.
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    As a reader, I was thrilled to find good Christian books on the CSFF blog tour. The reviews helped me see what types of books where more to my liking and I am determined to get my hand on Batson's books!

    As a writer, the encouragement is priceless.
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    Believe it or not, I just received Batson's books a few days ago. (I foolishly linked them with another book to save on postage, then that other book turned out to be on back order. Argghh!)

    Also, be sure to check out some of the Christian authors with secular presses like Jeffrey Carver.

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