I thought I was going to get a reprieve from, you know, the craziness of my job but alas, it was not to be. Yesterday I got a note from an author who I have been trying to talk to for months. He’s a new author, new book, yadda, yadda. Anyway, he sends me a Paypal yesterday for $100 bucks. When I asked him what it was for, he said “Before we talk, I wanted to throw you a hundred bucks to see what you could do.”
Wait. Really?
It’s like. Hmm. I don’t know. Maybe I’m a trained dog. “Fetch me some PR!” Good girl! Now, here’s your $100. I was sort of insulted, not to mention the fact that in this day and age when it comes to book publicity, $100 gets you, um, postage.
So I wrote him back and told him that I couldn’t possibly launch a campaign for that amount of money.
He said, “Just try.”
Get the ball, Katie, run, fetch me some PR and be snappy about it.
I think that instead of sending me the hundred bucks, he should have just sent me some kibble. At least that would have made more sense.
If I had a dime for every time I said WTF in 2013, I’d be penning this from my private jet, somewhere over Europe in route to my Villa in the South of France.
Sadly, I don’t get paid for cursing.
Happy New Year!
🙂 You make me smile. Thanks for another smileicious article.
You’re welcome, thanks for reading 🙂
Hi Kate,
My publishers are in the final stages of editing my novel which took quite a few years, sweat and blood and all that to finish. They think it has extraordinary potential and that it just might actually be a big seller. But they are a new company, founded and run by two authors, and while their dedication to this book and faith in me has both kept me going and loyal to them, I don’t know how adept they are in publicizing. In short, do people in your profession do freelance work for a commission?
Also, this small and wonderful company does not have the print rights yet. When we met they were just doing digital and that’s what I signed over. My hope was to sign the print rights to a larger house who could market it yet still have the personal editing done by these experienced authors who knew me and appreciated the vision of my book. But I was warned by them before signing anything that no company would take only print rights these days, and have been told this by another person in the field. Is this entirely true? Since all the grunt work of writing, graphics and editing will have already been done, would no company want at least a share of a finished product?
Any insight would be appreciated.
Warmest Regards,
John
John hi there – so first off, to your question about publicity. No, to my knowledge no one does this on commission. I’ve been asked about this a lot and we don’t do it, no one I know does. But you can find a reasonable, good marketing firm to help you. If you want, email me privately and I’ll send you some names. Also, on the publishers – I do think that to some extent they are right about the print rights. Most publishers want both. But I guess I would wonder why you’d want to – I mean if it’s for distribution reasons, I’m sure the publisher is handling this, yes? Is someone distributing the title? Has someone pitched Barnes & Noble? You can email me at authorchristinageorge@gmail.com if you want, or answer here!