Then Everyone Would Do It

Why a lot of publishing is ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Hey friends,

I don’t know if you’ve been following the Department of Justice’s case against Penguin Random House and Simon & Schuster in an effort to stop their merger¹ (here’s a good explainer, and don’t miss reporter John Maher’s tweets). This is not a newsletter that will dissect, hypothesize, prognosticate, and/or Monday morning quarterback the trial and what might happen at the end of it. I have no idea what’s going to happen and won’t until the judge rules. We’ll just have to see.

But I do want to talk about something that’s come out of the discourse around of the trial. A lot of CEOs and other publishing professionals have said that they don’t really know how to make a book successful. (I’m grossly paraphrasing here). A lawyer will ask ok but if it has a big marketing budget/advance, doesn’t that mean the book will be a hit? And the CEO/whatever will answer something like sometimes, maybe, occasionally. (SO MUCH PARAPHRASING HERE. THESE ARE NOT DIRECT QUOTES.) And Twitter kinda lost its mind over that. How could they not know how to make a book successful?????? they wailed. They are in charge! This is their job??!! They have all the power!!! Are you telling me publishing is run on ~~~`VIBES~``~~~????? (Continued paraphrasing.)

And like most things Twitter gets its back up about (me included!), they’re (only occasionally/kinda/mostly/sometimes) right. These CEOs and others DO have the power and are in charge and (should?) know how to make a book successful. But also publishing is run on vibes sometimes/in some ways and most of us, me included, are ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ about how to make a book a success. AND/OR none of us can MAKE a book a success, no matter how powerful some of us are, because no one can force you, the consumer, to buy a book. Can we make it so you can’t avoid seeing it everywhere you turn until we browbeat you into saying ok dammit I will see what the hype is all about? Sometimes.

Clearly, sometimes, when there’s enough money involved, a book sells a lot of copies. We can all name big books that we can tell (or we can guess) got big marketing budgets and billboards in Times Square and 50 city tours and 300 influcener boxes, 123 of them sent straight to Reese Witherspoon and Oprah and whoever is big on Instagram that week, and then BOOM, it hits the New York Times best seller list and that author’s life is (seemingly) made. Does that happen? Yes. But there is no guarantee that this hypothetical checklist of publicity/marketing things will result in said success and also, it would be impossible to make this happen for every book, or even MOST of them. For SO many reasons.

The publisher can do some things with money (besides pay authors for their labor) (not to mention it’s workforce). Publishers can buy advertising in places, some more visible/influential than others. They can send out a billion books to people who MIGHT post about it. They can work with influencers who speak to key demographics to post about the book (if said book’s audience is active on that influencer’s platforms). But <what Publisher’s money can do> has to line up with <where the specific people who will want this book are looking.>

They cannot pay the Times to review a book (maybe you think I’m naive but honestly I have never heard of this). They cannot pay the Today show to have the author on. Even B&N has stopped the practice of co-op, i.e. inviting a publisher to pay for the opportunity to have one of their books prominently displayed on a front table. If a publisher could do all these things with money, AND if it was all guaranteed to work for the specific group of people destined to buy said book, don’t you think they would do it as many times as possible? For the books they need to earn the most money back? For the authors they want most to impress and retain?

Is the advance level/marketing dollars associated with a book completely divorced from the publisher’s willingness/ability/motivation to market and publicize that book? Of course not. Of course they are related in various ways. It’s not ALL ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. They are just not related in a way that one can write down and replicate. Publishers do have a standard playbook when it comes to marketing and publicizing books, and yes that can look like the “bare minimum.” Sometimes that’s all they got, and it’s not fair, just, or fun. But also, they are looking at the prospects of all their books, not just one book, and not just your book, and if a certain book has a really, really, really good chance of getting in/on <whatever big thing> then, they, as a company selling many books, will do that thing. They won’t play all their cards for all books. That devalues their cards, not only the books. It’s not fun when it happens to you. There isn’t much anyone can do about that, though. I cannot yell at someone to make them do something they cannot or will not do. I’m sorry.

This is not a newsletter saying give these CEOs a break or stop complaining, writers or publishing works perfectly there is no need to reform it. Of course not. It is also not saying marketing is a magical process of fairy dust and happenstance and we should all just be grateful. It is does not advocate for a completely nihilistic approach to the success of your book(s), whether you are a writer, editor, publisher, agent, or reader.

But it does encourage you, the writer and/or reader and/or publishing enthusiast, to think about the ways book marketing has reached YOU and see if that is applicable to your book. Yes, publishers should do more marketing/publicity for basically all books, but sometimes no one knows what the thing is that will make a difference. Sometimes that thing is something the publisher can’t (or won’t) do because of time, money, logistics, and/or workforce resources. Sometimes the author has the best inroad to do the thing, and that doesn’t mean the publisher is useless or incompetent; it just means the author might be able to do something the publisher can’t. I know I sound like I am making excuses for publishers, and maybe I am, but I am also running defense for the many, many, many overworked and underpaid and short-staffed marketing and publicity and sales people I know who are trying to sell the books on their lists with all their might. They really are! Not out of the goodness of their hearts (only) but because it is their job! The skills/resources/opportunities/powers they have will vary. The stakes are high, yes!, especially when it is your book! You deserve the best! But the best does not always yield the desired results. Even when everything goes right, sometimes it doesn’t work out and no one can do anything about it.

I say all the time, about queries, about books, about publishing—if there was one specific, foolproof way of doing something, everyone would do only that (and it would probably stop working). If there was The Way, we would all know about it. (Publishing is both too big and too small for this to be a secret.) Writers would announce they got The Way marketing plan right along with their deal announcement and cover reveal and everything else. (You know you would. I would!) You can call me naive, again. You can say that publishing SHOULD know how to do these things, either with more data, or any data, or more people or whatever. They should probably do more of those things across the board! But every book is different. They really are. What works for one will not always work for another. Sometimes the answer really is ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ and we got lucky. I don’t like it anymore than you do. There isn’t one Way to fix it, either.

We all buy and read books according to our unique, inconsistent, mercurial tastes. What you wanted to read last year is not what you want to read this year. Sometimes the next book by that author you loved is not good, but the third one is stupendous. Sometimes a cover is great and you hate the book. Sometimes the cover is horrible and you love it. Sometimes you laugh at the book whatever club chose and sometimes you cannot preorder it fast enough. Why do you buy a particular book? Is it sometimes just vibes?

Yeah, us too.

OXOXOXOXO,

Kate

PS: You’re welcome to yell at me about this. I’m sure I know what you’re going to say, and probably I agree with you! There’s room for all kinds of rants and opinions and refutations and contradictions in this discussion because I don’t have all the answers, and there isn’t any one answer anyway, as I said.

1. Yes, I participated in this trial, on behalf of the government. No, I cannot tell you about it. No, I am not testifying.