Stephen is wondering why you haven’t subscribed to his newsletter.
I’ve launched a newsletter post on my novel and my novella. The good news is that it is good news, so read the post here. And subscribe as the best way to keep getting updates.
Photo S Dodgson. Me at York Art Gallery. The Lamp by Amy B Atkinson is poetic and evocative – she was a female artist who did quite well (exhibited RA at 17), unmarried, and toured Europe with her female ‘room-mates’ for many years.
The late Victorian, mystical, possibly sapphic vibe means I really like this although it doesn’t represent anyone in this book. Maybe the next
Some thoughts on what genres can mix and why. Subscribe (free) to my substack and get regular updates on my work – opportunities, special offers, chat, etc.
I’m working on changing all subscription links on this site. The old newsletter archive is here and gives a solid taste of what I have been saying for the last few years.
Back in my home town and you can specifically find me at BristolCon – I believe you can book in advance or come to a panel on the day. The full programme link will be added when up probably 16th or so. It’s at the Hilton Double Tree Hotel, in central Bristol.
Friday 20th October
Launch of The Green Man’s Quarry by Juliet McKenna. The latest in the brilliant Green Man series which put a fairly ordinary bloke (except, he sees weird stuff others don’t) into a world where folklore is real and bloody.
Saturday
15:00 – SG1 Interview skills for authors and other creatives – a workshop helping you be confident in interviews, dealing with media, identifying stories. Me! And my 30 years in PR!
16:00 – Room 2 “Point of View” – First, second, third person? Stories told in emails, or in stream of consciousness. Endlessly fascinating topic, actually.
(Yes, one panel after the other is going to be fun)
Last couple of months, I’ve been talking to authors and poets about book publicity. (Broadly, the stuff that promotes the book which you don’t pay for.)
I’ve spent 30 years working in publicity – small organisations, individuals, big household names. I’ve done difficult TV interviews, I’ve taught plenty of people how to do them.
The main things that came up from authors of all types were as follows.
How can I be interesting talking about my book?
I’m frightened people will ask me horrible questions and I will look like an idiot.
What does a publicist do? How do I work with them, or could do it myself if I haven’t got one?
What value does publicity add? Should it be a priority?
Many people are worried about talking about their book – whether at events, on video, or talking to a journalist. They don’t think they’re important enough or interesting enough. They are paralysed with fear of looking stupid or not being able to answer questions. Even people who are confident in other contexts can be stressed by promoting their work.
You wrote a book. You can be as interesting as you need to be! I build confidence in dealing with these events. Simple preparation tools will help answer questions.
Book marketing is in some measure, about you as well as the book. People are worried they’ll be dragged into talking about things they don’t want to. How do you keep good boundaries?
I assure you, and I will show you, that you have far more control than you think -Including freedom to decide what events you do!
Many people don’t know how book publicity works – and what it can and cannot do. The basic information is straightforward – although experience and contacts and some tricks of the trade make a big difference.
I explain how it works, how you can work with a publicist if you have one through your publisher, and whether and when it’s worth hiring one…
What works? What’s a good use of your time?
Most people buy books based on more than one mention of the book. A few paid for activities deliver measurable results. I’m optimistic I can help you, particularly with how you feel about doing this. Publicity won’t sell 100,000 copies. On the other hand, it is more people who know about your book.
What are the stories in the book
What are the stories about the book
What are the stories about me and my writing
And how can I use the ones I want to promote it.
My Media Masterclass
I run two different types of workshop.
A one-hour group introduction to book publicity which gives you the basics. It’s on Zoom. There’s some opportunity for questions. I welcome contacts from existing groups. This is currently free although I circulate a tip link!
I also run an in-depth 1-2-1 focusing on your personal needs and questions. Currently this is £50 an hour (by Paypal) and includes some handy factsheets.
Email me about either.
I’m open to doing these face-to-face. Additional cost to be discussed. I like doing this convenient for British time, and also, I know the UK market better than elsewhere. But I’m open to wider engagement.
I woke up this week and thought – you should run media skills workshops for creatives.
Stephen, you worked for twelve years at Great Ormond Street. You supported world class doctors and nurses and fundraisers with the media. You helped parents and patients get through tragedies, and to get their side of the story across. I helped with research and fundraising and public interest campaigns. You enjoy doing this. You were good at it.
Last century, you led a successful consumer campaign, much of which was empowering local branches. You did turnaround PR support for the Nursing and Midwifery Council six months after it was described as ‘failing at every level’. You helped pro bono all sorts of small organisations.
My publisher publicists knew what they were doing. The publicity for Our Child of the Stars was excellent. But they’re overworked. Social media is becoming steadily less helpful at reaching audiences. It’s fragmenting, punishing small creators, and increasingly asking for money.
I thought – why not use these skills for authors and other creatives? You’ve been a writer and talking about that journey for years. Hell, you sent over a friend exhibiting her art a free PR plan last month just cos you could.
Being confident and interesting, and knowing how to answer difficult questions, will help in many ways. Some obvious opportunities on your doorstep will take little time. Speaking in public, doing interviews, getting coverage…. a bit scary but doable.
I’m piloting these workshops free, then I’ll be running them for a modest fee in the autumn. Interested? Drop me a line through contact asap.
A survey of independent (self-published) authors shows several interesting features of the market. Report is from CREATe at the University of Glasgow, commissioned by ALLi, the alliance of independent authors, and the Self Publishing Formula.
The headline figures for indie authors was a median income of $12,755 for 2022, which is higher than a similar survey of traditionally published authors (reported here), and an increase on the indie author 2021 figure.
(The median means half of all authors earn more and half less than the median figure.)
The indie market offers good opportunities with more women than men answering the survey (traditional publishing is roughly equal), women earning more than men, and LGBTQA+ authors earning more than those outside that community. However, both black and disabled authors earned significantly less than others. The argument that self-publishing widens access to the reader clearly has some truth, but not universally. Benefit could work in different ways – the LGBTQA+ authors also appeared to write primarily in community tagged genres.
As with traditional publishing and many creative endeavours, the rewards are unevenly divided – 1% of authors received 31% of income. And those who had been self-publishing the longest, and with the most works available, tended to do better.
These figures refer to authors who spend at least half their working time on writing and allied activities.
The report notes that many of the successful indie authors make money from direct liaison with their readers – crowdfunding, subscriptions, paid content newsletters, patron platforms etc. At a time where reaching your fans directly and cheaply, owning a mailing list becomes ever more important – however you publish.
Analysis: “Turnover is vanity, profit is sanity.”
ALLI, the alliance of independent authors said the survey showed that independent authors earned more.
However, this needs to be interpreted with caution. This is income, not income after costs. CREATe has yet to study the difference in costs between traditionally published and indie published authors.
An independent author must pay for their own editing, cover design, printing, advanced copies, and promotion etc. A traditional author largely doesn’t – the exception being perhaps promotion. If an independent author advertises, they directly raise their own income more than a traditional author would. (Independent authors receive a cut on each sale. Traditional authors receive a lower cut, but are usually paid a lump sum assuming a certain level of sales, even if they never make that. Trad authors advertising their books benefits their publisher more than them.)
A very large number of independent authors lose money on their publishing career. One might ask how many of them filled in the survey?
What is clear is that independent publishing is a world away from thirty years ago – where it was a bit quixotic, although some still made it work. Now a businesslike author who writes fast, to a specific audience, probably in series, and promotes their work well, can get their work into print quicker, stay in print as long as they want, and generate a significant income. Traditional publishing has probably got more vexing for many of its authors. But there’s no guarantee, just as with in traditional publishing.
With the news that new producers of enhanced autocorrect machines (purporting to be Artifical Intelligence) are taking creative content and using it to train their autocorrect machines…
A copyright reminder.
Everything on this site is or anything written by me posted anywhere on the web is copyright. Any of this scraped and used by an AI is breach of my copyright, and possibly other people’s rights too.
A retrospective fee of £100 a word plus expenses will be levied.
My recent newsletter talks about progress on the book and has a long series of short pieces about Artifical Intelligence, including asking how far the Luddites were right.
I suppose progress happens, but how why and to what benefit is a legitimate question. In the last forty years I have become much more awate that when something is invented, how and why it is used and who makes the decisions is the real issue.
An example I don’t give is genetically modified crops – there was a lot of hysteria about human safety which was not justified, leading to blanket bans in many countries – obscuring some much broader issues which had some real weight to them.
I share across various platforms but I really do need regular subscribers to the newsletter as with the changing, deteriorating, state of social media, being able to keep in touch matters to any author (except the super successful ones).
It is free, you can unsibscribe at any time, rarely more than once a month, and gives access to giveaways, tip-offs, competitions, free fiction and who knows what else.
Photo: Me being interviewed by the very smart Bryony Pearce at SciFi Weekender.
SciFiEtc Weekend SFW XIV was well organised, friendly and entertaining – and a bit bonkers. It describes itself as a SFFH weekend or a Geek Camp or a party. They were kind enough to invite me and Sarah and we had a great time. And I got to play Just A Minute with Nina Wadia.
I am struck by the difficulty of describing SFW both to people who go to other SFFH ‘conventions’ and those who lump them all together.
What they have in common is assembling people who are enthusiasts for the fantastic – people who have different tastes in books, shows, films, T-shirts, and art can still recognise a common ‘geekium’.
There are common elements
-lots of people cosplaying – wearing elaborate costumes. This makes me feel ‘I am with my people’ even if I don’t do it myself.
-talks, interviews, panel discussions, Q+As.
-different interests reflected particularly in the bigger events– film, TV, books, comics, games.
-entertainment of various forms – from folk music to rap, from standup to puppet theatre – all with some SFFH references
-guests who are working in the field, or who stay involved despite their professional life having moved on. So sometimes actors from series in the 70s 80s and 90s.
These events can be overwhelming or small and focused, they can be commercial and hardnosed, or run so much for the fans that they put off commercial and professional attendees.
SFW had the wonderful thing common to many enthusiasms that ‘everyone here treats this incredibly seriously’ but also with a firm core of ‘of course we don’t take ourselves too seriously’. In fact, never trust any group of people who aren’t happy to laugh at themselves.
It put a lot of emphasis on the entertainment – we were in a holiday camp. Guests like me in the Writer strand were treated as important but also expected to be accessible to the other attendees. For example, I was delighted to be given an hour where I went round six tables of 6-8 people and talked with them for ten minutes each.
I had an intelligent interview with Bryony Pearce (author in several genres) and Q+A – a panel discussion on fandom such as how far do fans own a topic and is that always good – numerous slots selling my books and talking about what was on people’s minds and…
And I got to Play Just A Minute with Nina Wadia. It was a riot.
So Nina Wadia was there because she was in the Sandman TV series, which is very big, and was a first timer at any SFFH event. She was lovely and hilarious – and I’m not sure she was expecting the friendly warmth and enthusiasm and minor insanity she got.
Just a Minute was played as a full contact sport – like all these things you are singing for your supper and so we tried to give the audience entertainment. Nina, briefed on the rules only as we entered the stage but well able to stage a tantrum where required, me – listened to the game as a child – and author Bryony Pearce and actor Chase Masterton who are convention regulars and utterly ruthless players but charming and delightful with it! I got plenty of laughs, which was a relief – sometimes my being funny mode doesn’t switch on. The result depended more on whose buzzer was working than anything else.
It was all great and people seemed interested. I don’t think I got snappy, although I did have to disagree with the person who thought it was ‘a shame’ no one read Asimov any more.
All the artists had the option to meet up for dinner which meant we got to know each other better.. Extrovert mode takes it out of me and a quiet night was appreciated. Shout out in particular to Anna Stephens (prolific author and fanfic advocate), and Simon Kurt Unsworth (horror writer and calm voice of reason on panels) and Benjamin his son and also a horror writer/collaborator. And Sam and David and Matt from Area 51 and everyone else who worked on making it happen.
