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07/02/2012 • 11:13 PM 11

Ultimate Blog Challenge: The Warm Chocolate Chip Cookie Exposition

After reading the book descriptions, someone sent me a question:

“What are your books like?” 

“Suspense that’s often funny with lots of twists,” I said.

“Yeah, but what are they like?”

Um…what? I wasn’t sure what they were getting at, so I replied via email.

If you like:

the twists of William (The Princess Bride) Goldman’s plots;

the fast pace of a Blake (Run) Crouch;

the worldview of Chuck (Fight Club) Palahniuk;

the punchy, funny dialogue of Elmore (Get Shorty) Leonard;

and the disappointed humanism of Kurt (I shouldn’t have to name any Kurt Vonnegut books! Read them all!) Vonnegut,

then you’ll love my crime novel Bigger Than Jesus. Enjoy!

My potential reader/interrogator then wrote, “I’m not familiar with any of those books so don’t tell me about them. Tell me what your book is like!”

I sighed and then I fired off another helpful email:

Best chocolate chip cookies I've made in decades.

Best chocolate chip cookies I’ve made in decades. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

“Don’t you love chocolate chip cookies when they’re straight out of the oven? The chocolate is melting a bit and you risk burning your tongue because you can hardly wait. These are the best-tasting chocolate chip cookies ever. You force yourself to slow down and put one in your mouth. It’s really soft and you just hold it there as long as you can to savour it while you pour a tall, cold glass of milk? Then the kitchen floor falls out from under you and you’re sucked down into quicksand and you’re trying not to die and you can’t figure out why God hates you and all you want is to get away and make the woman of your dreams love you. You only have seconds before the suffocating sludge is over your head and you’re about to find out if what follows this tortured life is hell or oblivion. Your heart is full of regret and if you can just live, you swear you’ll turn your life around. Kind of like that, but with more jokes.”

No reply yet, but I’m guessing he’s not a reader, anyway.

If they do email again, I’ll suggest they consider breaking down and read a sample chapter.

~This is post #3 of the Ultimate Blog Challenge. To find out more about books by Robert Chazz Chute, check out the author site AllThatChazz.com or check out the free sample chapters on Amazon. Thanks!
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Filed under: publishing, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

02/14/2012 • 12:32 AM 10

Review: The highs and lows of a book promotion campaign. What works?

Suspense, parables, inspiration, surprise.

Last week I wrote about my campaign to drag Self-help for Stoners into the world’s consciousness. If you’re new to the blog, long story short: I wrote a book of suspenseful fiction with a self-help twist dedicated to director Kevin Smith. When I had the honour of handing the book to my DIY hero at a comedy event simulcast to theatres across the US and Canada, I felt I had to take advantage of this unique opportunity. I tried an experiment with a press release distribution service called PR Web. For more on that review of the troubles I had getting the press release accepted for wide distribution, check out the original post here. 

Soon after the press release went into wide distribution, I got a small increase in traffic, but not, it seemed, in the way I’d hoped. 

The Dangerous Kind

Murder might solve your problems. Two brothers go hunting. Only one will see home again.

A fellow on Google+ was complimentary to me (I have balls!) but thought the money ($240) was wasted. He wasn’t being unkind…at least I don’t think he meant to be. He just thought there were better uses of my time and newer, more innovative ways to spread the word about my book’s existence. I’m always interested in learning more and I’m particularly interested when people have ideas about what to do instead of what not to do. (More on that in another post after I conduct more field research.)

Imagine my chagrin when I read a post by Dead Wesley Smith who decreed that spending money on book promotion is a waste of time and money until you have 50 books for sale. That’s right. Fifty! I double-checked to make sure it wasn’t the cloying cloud of depression and stress headaches obscuring my vision misleading me. Kurt Vonnegut only wrote fourteen novels in his lifetime. If Dean Wesley Smith is right, is there any place for book promotion for most of us? Maybe I struck the iron too early, but given the scope of the simulcast, my press release appeared to be a now-or-never opportunity.

My speed of production isn’t near as quick as Dean Wesley Smith, but how many of us can write (good) books that fast? Maybe I should write faster, but even at once every three months, I wouldn’t be gambling a promotional penny to let the world know I exist until 2024. Will I even live long enough to ever have to bother with book promotion at that rate? Hm. That would be a great solution except for  the part about me being dead. I do agree with Dean on one point thoroughly and I’ve said it many times myself: your best book promotion idea is to get to work on the next book and I’m certainly doing that. I’ll be coming out with three books this year (so that’s one every four months, though I confess that two and half are already written and I’m mostly in the revision stage.) I’m not as skilled as Dean Wesley Smith because I’m not up to the pace he’s setting. I honestly wouldn’t have confidence in the end product if I pushed that fast. No worries or apologies on that score. We’re all just doing the best we can. (For more on what indie production actually costs, check out Dean Wesley Smith’s post here.)

But what you’re wondering is, what did the PR Web press release actually do and could that work for your book? It’s too early to tell, so once again, my results are

Don't argue over parking spots with strangers. Or else.

preliminary. The cycle of Google analytics is 28 days long, and what follows is just the first week of results. (However, isn’t it already old news now that the event is over a week stale?) I can tell you that PR Web’s marketing guy sounded very pleased. He phoned me yesterday morning to say that I’d worked the SEO right (five links maximum was how it worked out with my word count) and he said the response to the press release was “great.”

“How do I quantify ‘great’?” I asked. I’m sure I whacked him with a heavy note of skepticism but he seemed no less bouncy at my glorious prospects. He told me how to get the analytics for the press release. Apparently, the number of people who read the release, liked the headline and read to the end of the article was impressive, perhaps even unusual. Nice, though I wish I liked the press release more. (For more on that, once again, refer to the original post.)

8,027 media deliveries boiled down to 49 “interactions” (where a link was clicked or a pdf was downloaded) and eight “pickups”. The report contains a sample of Web sites that picked up or syndicated my story. It’s apparently not the full list, but media outlets included: Hollywood Industry, Mac DVD Pro, Digital Journal, San Francisco Chronicle, Corporate Media News, Yahoo! News, and Consumer Electronics Net.

But these aren’t the numbers you really want to know. Has this press release helped sales? Sadly, not much so far that is measurable. I saw a bit of a bounce up on my Amazon sales, but that settled quickly. And the truth is, since I’m doing several other things, I could easily attribute that blip to the success of other marketing tactics. But before I draw conclusions in this review, see if you can follow the roller coaster of author thrust and bureaucratic parry that has brought me to my sad current state.

Here are the highs and lows and forays

of my marketing campaign for Self-help for Stoners:

High: I sent out several press releases about meeting Kevin Smith to CBC shows and to my local paper. These forays cost me nothing.

Low: CBC didn’t call back. The local columnist who showed enthusiasm seems to have lost my number. Or he’s sick and not at work. Gee, I hope he’s sick.

What if God gives you what you want? What if you win an argument against God?

High: Kevin Smith has a cult and for a shining moment I was in front of them. I paid $200 for a one-minute ad to run on Smith’s Smodcast network the day he got back on the mic. I figured since he hadn’t been on the mic for such a long time, the first day he got back on the show would have high ratings and many downloads. And maybe they’d remember said shining moment from the broadcast of the Live from Behind Show in Toronto.

Low: The ad didn’t run on schedule. There was a communication breakdown. Despite my best efforts at keeping in touch with the ad guy at Smod, it didn’t happen. It’s supposed to run today (February 14th on Smodcast Internet Radio. I’m sacrificing a goat to Thor, hoping it happens this time. Don’t worry about the goat. He’s suicidal.)

High: I did two podcasts about my Kevin Smith experience, before and after. They’ve been well-received by those who have heard them. “One and a quarter hours of narrative gold,” said one, Thor bless him. Bliss. (See all the podcasts here.)

Low: Though they may catch on in the long term, not many people have actually heard them! I screwed up the metadata so, on Stitcher, the first words that show up in the tiny window that give the podcast summary are not Chazz Meets Kevin Smith and Jay Mewes. Instead it reads: Show notes and podcast details… That won’t get anybody new to check out my filthy jokes and stream of consciousness trips in order to find me utterly delightful and worthy of their love and bucks.

Twisty and twisted. Click the pic for more.

High: I thought KDP Select might be my salvation to really get things going. Amazon told me all I’d have to do was tell Bookbaby to withdraw from all other platforms to meet the exclusivity caveat. Any other action might risk duplication on Amazon’s site.

Low: BookBaby disagrees. I got a nice email (eventually—BookBaby seems awfully slow to respond to me of late) saying that they would have to withdraw the books from all channels, it would be permanent, and I’d have to enter my books into KDP Select myself. With no confidence in how long that might take, I don’t want to risk not having any books for sale anywhere, especially with all the promotion work I’ve done. I replied to BookBaby that rather than risk a screw up and no availability of my books for an indeterminate amount of time, I’d keep my books where they were through BookBaby and just get the new books straight into KDP Select without them next time. That’s a loss all around, I’d say, but I’m the one who will feel it most.

There are a lot of tragic starts and stops to this tale, aren’t there?

The word “thwarted” is pushing into the centre of my brain like the capricious thumb of an angry god.

High: I tried to organize a Buy X Get Y promotion for my book on Amazon.

Low: Amazon Advantage said they couldn’t do it because fulfilment for my paperback is through CreateSpace, which is POD and they’d need stock on hand. After a light scolding, they told me to go to CreateSpace for a similar promotion program.

Asia_Unbound

Are we ever free from our secrets? Find out here.

Lower: CreateSpace said they’d call back. Then they sent me an email instead saying they have no idea what Amazon is talking about. (Note that CreateSpace is owned by Amazon, too, but never the twain shall meet, I guess, even if the plan would have made a buttload of money.) Once again, Chazz hurts moms. So much so, he begins to write about himself in the third person. With loathing,

Lowest: As I write this, I’m feeling a bit emotional and teary. The sum of the message so far is: Nobody knows me, I don’t matter and as good as the book is, it still doesn’t matter if I can’t convince anyone to try it out. And a fresh pile of bills arrived yesterday. There isn’t an author on earth who hasn’t felt this way, yet the lash feels equally new for every person every time.

Clawing and climbing out of the mire: So there are a few things I am doing which I’m more positive about. Writing and revising the new stuff is going well. (Three new novels this year! Whoo, and also hoo!) The Writing World will run an interview with me in early March. My friend Eden Baylee will also run a saucy little interview with me soon. I’ve sent out a couple more copies for book reviewers and will continue to seek out reviewers for all my books. The Self-help for Stoners podcast continues weekly and I had a clip broadcast on Succotash, a popular comedy clip show. I think I’ll have an excerpt from Self-help appear on the next The Word Count Podcast, in support of #IndiesUnite4Joshua (fun and a great cause.) I’m also getting quite a few nice mentions on other podcasts, like Logical Weightloss and The School of Podcasting.

But wait, Chazz! How do you account for that blip where sales came up a bit? It could be my promise on my podcast to gain converts individually by tying each new reader up and torturing them with sexual delights to gain converts. It could be that some new people I met lately have checked out my books or some found me through the Kevin Smith event when I was on

Get Vengeance and get surprised.

camera. Maybe the press release had some effect, but I tend to doubt it, at least until more evidence arrives through Google analytics.

So what have we learned about promoting our books? So far? We need more data.

I’d say I’ve learned this much:

1. Triberr has helped me get more new traffic to my blogs than anything else. I can see that clearly in my stats and my Twitter feed.

2. I have to find more innovative ways to get the word out. I’m working on that. (More later.)

3. I have to get more reviews. I have had excellent feedback on much of my work, but even when people are enthused, it doesn’t necessarily translate to reviews. I am soliciting reviews as my writing schedule allows.

4. I have to remember how much I believe in my books, because in the beginning, no matter who you are and no matter your experience, you’re just another schmo until you’re discovered. After you’ve made it, you’re a genius. Until then? Schmo. The writing awards and all the experience don’t matter. Yet.

Most important?

Did I mention I have more books coming out?

That will be what counts more than anything.

I have to provide a larger target for my readership to find me. 

My people are out there. I will find them. They will find me.

UPDATE: In keeping with the theme of getting thwarted, the Smashwords website is down at the moment, so the links from the short story covers are directed back to the author site until Smashwords is back up. The links in the The Dangerous Kind, Self-help for Stoners and Sex, Death & Mind Control (for fun & profit) covers work fine. You can still get everything I write across most digital book platforms, of course, (i.e. search Kobo and there they are) but as long as Smashwords is down, you can’t grab the short stories directly from that site. I will update as soon as the Smashwords server is back up. It’s all very…consistent with today’s theme, isn’t it?

LATEST UPDATE: SMASHWORDS IS NOW BACK ONLINE AND THE SHORT STORY COVERS NOW LINK BACK TO THAT SITE. Find out more about these short stories here.

~ Robert Chazz Chute is the author of Sex, Death & Mind Control (for fun and profit), the novella The Dangerous Kind, Self-help for Stoners and several suspenseful short stories with gut-punch endings, available at Smashwords. He’s in suspense, figuratively and literally and his comedy podcast, Self-help for Stoners, airs each Friday on Stitcher and iTunes. Visit the author site, AllThatChazz.com,  for updates on Chazz’s fiction and to download the podcast.

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Filed under: Publicity & Promotion, publishing, Rejection, reviews, web reviews, What about Chazz?, What about you?, Writers, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

07/27/2011 • 7:16 AM 2

Stats on literacy & the literary: Books aren’t that important

42% of university graduates never read another book after they graduate.

Whoa! Wh-wh-what now?!

Yes, you read that correctly. When it comes down to it, books aren’t all that important to a staggering number of people. 

I’ve found several scary statistics for this post, but that 42% bugs me most. Those are people who can read, but choose not to.

I used to think that once you made someone a reader, you had them for life. Not so!

Like you, I’m a big fan of books, of course. But this post is about perspective and where we stand in the flood of things to do.

1. Market fragmentation: There’s a lot going on. Literally. I don’t watch TV much anymore. I used to schedule my life around television programming. I could read more books in a week, but I don’t because I also make time to listen to a lot of podcasts. So many websites call my name. Plus, I have a lot to do. With so many demands on my time, a lot gets curated. I use the word curation here as a synonym for “flushed.” I filter out a lot of things I don’t have time to read, watch and listen to. (Also, I’m on Team Coco, so Leno’s banished and cursed.) There are only so many waking hours in a day, and, frankly? I’ve got more free time than most people do.

2. Market skew: You only think you love all books. But you really love a small fraction of books, no matter how much you read. How many readers do you meet who say, “I read everything”? (Sarah Palin who was lying and has officially “authored” more books than she’s read.) My point is, niches are narrow. For instance, I love Chuck Palahniuk’s work and have read all of his books. I wouldn’t have to look very far to find someone who has read Fight Club. But I’d have to travel far to find someone else who has read them all. Chuck’s very successful, but he’ll just never have the market penetration of Hemingway because Hemingway is taught in schools. (In other words, a lot of high school and college kids are forced to read Hemingway. Snuff, a book about a porn shoot,  won’t make it into many curricula.)

As an author, you’re going to meet a lot of readers, but sadly, they won’t be your market because you’re into A, B, and C and they’re into X, Y, Z.

Worse? They’ll sneer at you for it because people don’t make any distinction between what’s to their taste and what’s good.

3. We say we’re a society that values reading and education. But we don’t. Here’s a few illiteracy statistics to blow your brain around: About three in five of America’s prison inmates are illiterate. The cost of illiteracy to business and the US taxpayer is $20 billion per year. More than 20 percent of adults read at or below a fifth-grade level – far below the level needed to earn a living wage. 44 million adults in the U.S. can’t read well enough to read a simple story to a child. Nearly half of America’s adults are poor readers, or “functionally illiterate.” They can’t carry out simple tasks like balancing check books, reading drug labels or writing essays for a job. 21 million Americans can’t read at all. 45 million are marginally illiterate and one-fifth of high school graduates can’t read their diplomas.

4. Number 3? That’s about people who can’t read. But many people just don’t: The average reader spends about 1/6th of the time they spend reading actually rereading words.* One-third of high school graduates never read another book for the rest of their lives. 80 percent of U.S. families did not buy or read a book last year. 70 percent of U.S. adults have not been in a bookstore in the last five years. 57 percent of new books are not read to completion. 70 percent of books published do not earn back their advance. 70 percent of the books published do not make a profit. (Source: http://www.JenkinsGroupInc.com)

5. If you’re self-published, a lot of people won’t read your stuff, perhaps because of prejudice fueled by bad experiences with the previous generation of self-publishing. Traditional publishers aren’t generally that much further ahead anymore, either. (See #3 and #4.) Bookstores (remember them?) are reluctant to stock the self-published. They don’t even have space for traditionally published midlist authors anymore, let alone the indie unwashed masses. And newspapers? (They used to be on paper and very profitable. Ask your parents.) Newspapers still don’t review the self-published. We’re also shut out of many literary awards so there’s not much notoriety gained there. That situation will change, but not soon. We may have to wait for a bunch of old school book critics to die.

Great, now your depressed. So what do we do about it? Well, first, think about these stats and honestly evaluate your chances as an author. This post is essentially a test. If you think about your chances (for realsies!) and are still undeterred, congratulations! There is no hope for you. You’re doomed to take your shot at a life in letters. This choice is, for most writers, really no choice at all. Many of us will fail. A few of us would have been great at something else. Some are a great loss to the fields of animal husbandry and the manufacture of novelty chattering teeth toys.

We choose to write books despite the scary stats. Somewhat perversely, we may choose to write books because of those scary stats! If we can write books people want to read, maybe we can save humanity and turn things around. (I think JK Rowling got not a few kids reading who otherwise might not have.)

Kurt Vonnegut wrote in A Man Without a Country:

“If you really want to hurt your parents, and you don’t have the nerve to be gay, the least you can do is go into the arts.

I’m not kidding. The arts are not a way to make a living. They are a very human way to make life more bearable.”

(Kurt was the kind of wise-ass I love.)

 

I’ll leave you with something else positive to think about. I heard Red State director Kevin Smith say this on a podcast recently:

“Surround yourself with Why Not? people.”

Too often you try to do your art and people say why? Forget them and go do your thing. 

I mean…why not? 

*All the stats above the asterisk can be found at readfaster.com.

Filed under: Books, publishing, self-publishing, , , , , , , ,

08/26/2010 • 8:01 AM 0

Kurt Vonnegut from A Man Without a Country

Filed under: Writers, , , ,

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