Today I’ve got a meeting with the marketing team from Ringwood to discuss ideas for marketing my novel, The Hotel Hokusai.
I’m sure it’s fairly common, unless the publisher is a big fish, for authors to have to share the responsibility for marketing their books. I guess it’s also pretty standard for this to be against their natural inclinations: I don’t suppose there are many writers who start out as social media influencers.
So how do you get people to read certain books? Using a scientifically unsound approach, I thought I would attempt to catalogue what I’ve read so far this year, and think about how I came to read it.
This’ll probably be in reverse order by the way…
The minotaur takes a cigarette break by Stephen Sherill
Squeaky clean by Calum Mcsorley
Stone age by Jen Hadfield
Gutter 27
Butcher’s Dog 17
Panenka by Ronan Hession
Wounded by Percival Everett
Death threats by Georges Simenon
The brief but terrifying reign of phil by George Saunders
Futebol by Alex Bellos
Wet grain issue 3
Infinite ground by Martin McInnes
The gathering by Anne Enright
10 minutes 38 seconds in this strange world by Elif Shafak
Night boat to tangier by Kevin Barry
Emergency by Daisy Hildyard
Considering the above, there seem to be four methods by which I alight on books:
1. Recommended/lent by friends – My main source. One pal in particular is a magisterial source of fiction that I wouldn’t otherwise read, and responsible for several of the titles on this list.
2. On my radar for a while – probably I read a review somewhere, or heard about it in conversation, and thought I should read it, then didn’t for ages, until I found it again in a library or bookshop months or more often years later.
3. Journals that I subscribe to. These drop through my door every few months. They’re great, varied and full of new poetry and short fiction. I’ve written about them somewhere else.
3. Bookshop impulse buys – I do sometimes behave like a marketing person might want, ie. I wander into a bookshop, look at the pretty covers, read the blurbs and first pages, then tap my credit card on the thingy. Especially in indie bookshops near where I live, like Outwith Books (sadly now closed) and Mount Florida Books.
4. Advertising/Promotion works on me – Even rarer than the above, but it does happen. The other week I happened to switch on Radio Scotland”s Afternoon Show, while Calum McSorley was being interviewed by Michelle McManus about his debut Glasgow-set crime novel. He told Michelle the launch event was that night at Mount Florida Books. It’s ten minutes from my flat so I went along to it, enjoyed a reading, Q and A, and a free glass of wine. I also bought a copy of the book. It was very good.
So, I’m not sure what conclusions can be drawn from a marketing perspective. That hopefully most book buyers out there aren’t like me?
Probably.
That my friends who recommend books should come to my launch event and get lots of wine?
Definitely.
T.Y. Garner Writer 