Last year I went to a very interesting session given by fantasy-writer Katherine Roberts at an SAS retreat in Charney Bassett. She'd called it Measuring Success and she gave us various criteria for doing it. For publishers and writers some of the criteria were the same: we'd both be happy about good sales figures, reviews, film deals etc.
But then there were other measures which affected writers alone, like PLR figures, which publishers don't see, fanmail (ditto) and the satisfaction and enjoyment of writing the book.
I thought a lot about such measures over last year because I had taken a policy decision to accept all opportunities for publicity and self-promotion that came along. This was for two reasons:
It was a bit like that book øThe Year of YesÓ in which a young woman accepts all dates except those with the drunk, the drugged and the married. Or Danny Wallace's øYes Man,Ó in which a young man decides to accept every offer, from pizza leaflets through the door to agreement in business meetings for one calendar year.
In more than one way, it was a bit mad. I also had to write most of a teenage novel (the deadline was end of January 2006), produce four issues of Armadillo magazine, chair a committee and a conference and I wanted to make a stab at writing my first adult novel.
In the end I did all that, including ten chapters of the novel and running a publicity campaign about low earnings for children's writers and illustrators.
But did it work? And what measures can I use to decide that? Anne Cassidy said, after I'd announced my intention to do this at Coventry SAS last year, that it might take five years to tell. So maybe ask me in 2010. But I've tried to do a bit of statistical analysis and some intuitive, anecdotal stuff, in order to decide whether it was worth it.
There ¨ I hope that made you feel exhausted! I don't usually keep such a tally but this was my experimental year and I wanted to know exactly how much time that could have been spent writing books went on this sort of thing. It comes to nearly forty occasions (counting sessions at the same place as one). And there were of course the usual phone calls, e-mails and letters that we all have to deal with.
And, in case you are getting annoyed, of course I enjoyed the lunches, dinners and signings and general mini-celebrity status that comes from doing events. It's not all one way, not me doing my publishers a favour by showing up. But I'm trying to be dispassionate about this and see if it made any difference.
PLR figures run from beginning of July to end of June across calendar years so had only six months of the new promotional me to be affected by and only four months borrowing time since the two new books came out. Nevertheless PLR was up. Both in absolute terms ¨ by about £750 (but that could be because of the rise of the payout to 5.57p per borrowing, from 5.26p last year). And in terms of number of borrowings. (up about 20,000 on last year). But I still have a long way to go to rival Jackie Wilson, who is topmost borrowed author for the third year running. And I don't make it up to the £6,000 ceiling though I am getting closer each year.
Frances Lincoln royalties in September were the lowest I had ever had. But these covered the period up to April 5th 2005, so had not felt the effect of my meetings with librarians etc in the US. They were about £1,400 down on the same period in 2004. Current royalties (to 5th October 2005) are down about £700.
Bloomsbury royalties were £10K more than I was told they would be in September. I still think, Eeyore-like, that this was probably a mistake and they will ask for it back soon in March/April when the next statement is due. They were down about £6,500 on the same period (1st Jan to 30th June) last year. I haven't had the ones for July to December 05 yet.
Third books (and seconds are even worse) do not get widely reviewed. And there is not much the writer can do to influence this. But I got the following:
City of Flowers was reviewed in The Times, the Independent, Oxford Times, Italy magazine, Italia and School Librarian. In the US it was reviewed in VOYA, School Library Journal, Children's Literature Review, Booklist and Kirkus Reviews, as well as on Amazon. It did not get reviewed in the Guardian or TES but there was a nice little review of all three by a bookseller in øThe Australian,Ó the country's main national newspaper.
Bravo, Grace! was reviewed in only the TES and on the Write Away! Website plus in the US, School Library Journal and Booklist.
None. So no difference there.
These keep coming from Bloomsbury. Stravaganza is now published or in the process of being translated, into 28 languages. The Danes, the Czechs and the Spanish did not have success with the first one so are not talking 2 and 3. (Is it a coincidence that these were the three with the worst covers?) Bloomsbury are trying to get the rights back on book one and sell the whole trilogy to other publishers in these countries. We have added Israel, Russia and Thailand.
I can't claim this has anything to do with my promotional efforts!
This is in a lot of ways the most satisfying part and nothing to do directly with promotion, except that I do keep my Wordpool-created website updated monthly, write a weekly blog and answer e-mails. I had to ask both Wordp[ool and Bloomsbury to put something on the øcontact meÓ pages, explaining that the volume of mail was now so great that I couldn't answer every single one and to check that their questions weren't already answered on the FAQs.
But still they come, 2 or 3 a day asking if there are going to be more Stravaganza titles. The other favourite question is: øwill there be a film?Ó often cast in the annoying form of øhave you ever considered making a film?Ó as if that were something I could do.
There was one very persistent fan who wrote over and over again about a film and even got several of her friends writing asking for parts. In the end I had to say quite fiercely that unless she knew a film producer there was nothing further I could say to her. Then she wrote and said she did know one! But it turned out he made programmes for TV and that all fizzled out.
People do write and ask quite baldly things like How old are you? Or Have you won any awards? without topping or tailing their e-mails at all. Or they ask How can I get my story published? So I've now set up a page of hints and tips on the website, which also spells out the basics of publishing. My daughter says that fans think you are on a payroll at the publisher so that failure to produce them another series title is just wilful pigheadedness on your part!
The fan forum was started by a reader in Bedfordshire in the summer of 2004 and has had 106,000+ hits. They have written fanfiction (and there is now a Stravaganza thread (with 13 stories!) on fafiction.net. (Harry Potter has 234,532!). The fan forum has just started an RPG (role-playing game) so that should be interesting.
In recent times I've received a pale blue beany hat, a biscuit tin with recipe, a rubber bookmark, postcards of Emily Gravett's work, and various chocolates, lollipops and a wooden spoon. (I still use my Children of the Lamp plastic pyramid paperweight). As a journalist one just doesn't know what to expect next but I can tell you that it has never influenced whether I have decided to review a book or not. Amanda Craig said the same recently in a letter to the Bookseller begging publicity departments to stop wasting their money on stunts like these.
So I've never pushed for anything similar myself but I have been lucky. Bloomsbury have done posters for all three Stravaganza titles, and now they have produced a Stravaganza bookmark and leaflet, with a promise of a reading guide later this year.
Frances Lincoln have made a lovely poster of all my titles with them and got me to write a little article to feature in their schools catalogue, released last year.
I really don't know how much this helps and can't quantify it but it's very gratifying to the author in terms of feeling loved and valued.
Sydenham High School. The PowerPoint worked, the girls were lovely, lots of books sold and signed and they gave me a large box of chocolates and huge bouquet as well as a handsome daily fee.
Many good moments at Bologna Book Fair (my seventh), one at the Bloomsbury champagne reception at the Baglioni hotel when Nigel Newton (CEO) introduced me to an American bookseller as øone of our star authors.Ó Probably just routine flannel but it all helps.
Meeting Alex, a Stravaganza fan from the Internet forum, who had come specially to the ALOUD Festival in Toronto. We went out to Starbucks with her cousin and I answered the many questions she had written down.
Dinner with librarians and journalists in Chicago, hosted by Bloomsbury and an amazing brunch with librarians at the Four Seasons hotel the next day, hosted by Frances Lincoln. As well as every possible food you could imagine for breakfast, lunch or dinner, including puddings, they had a Bloody Mary station which opened at 11am. I trusted this was not a personal comment but didn't partake.
Workshop on creating secondary worlds at the CWIG conference in Oxford. I was doing this straight after the world's dullest Plenary session from representatives of the Arts Council and felt I had to pull out all the stops to raise people from unimaginable depths of boredom and depression. I was ably supported by my daughter, the fantasy writer Rhiannon Lassiter, and thought it really flew.
First book signing for City of Flowers, at Waterstone's Piccadilly. They couldn't find the books, in spite of Bloomsbury's having checked they had arrived before my visit. The children's buyer would not come out to speak to me or the publicist because she was øwith a repÓ at the time agreed for my signing.
Edinburgh Book Festival 1. There were three schools booked, two of which cancelled, one of them on the day. The third school got there twenty minutes late and, although supposedly a reading group with an interest in Stravaganza, asked no questions and had not brought their books for signing. The PowerPoint presentation didn't work and I felt it was all a complete waste of my time.
Durham Literary Festival. I stayed two nights, did two six hour train journeys and there were FOUR (count them ¨ four!) school students for my workshop. And this was all that turned up from a project supposedly involving two schools in creating an øalternative Durham.Ó One of them had read City of Masks. This time my laptop, heavily lugged North East in my briefcase, failed and I couldn't use the PowerPoint.
The Ultimate Teenage Book Guide, to which I had contributed reviews, left out my books, although they were on the original list. This was a quite unreasonably low point, as I came towards the finishing line of The Falconer's Knot, when I felt as if my writing for teenagers had just been dropped down a black hole.
Of the eleven appearances involving children, only five had no problems. In others, the children didn't show up, or didn't know who I was or the books hadn't arrived or were the wrong books or all of the above. Of the four meetings with librarians or other adults in the UK, there was only one without the right books ¨ the Italian Institute, where the Italian Bookshop had agreed to supply the three Stravaganzas in Italian and didn't. All the conferences and meetings went well.
The jury is still out on whether sales have improved or profile been raised but I have made a new resolution for this year: I shall accept six events per year and then if something exciting turns up, like an invitation to speak abroad, I'll accept, bringing the total to no more than ten. I'll give festivals and conferences where I can speak to adults the priority since these give most satisfaction.
I've done two events already this year. At the librarians' Carnegie/Greenaway discussion day in Hertfordshire, the promotional material arrived from Bloomsbury the day after the event and the paperbacks of City of Flowers didn't arrive at all. (fortunately I had some bookmarks and leaflets to take). The laptop provided for the PowerPoint didn't work with my CD so another resolution is always to take my own ¨ I bought a new one after Durham.
At the co-ed Prep School in Brighton, Speaking of Books ordered 20, 5 and 5 of the three Stravaganza paperbacks and the publisher sent 5, 20 and 5. (You will always sell most of the first book in a trilogy). Fortunately I checked and had spares of the old paperback of City of Masks and was driving, so that I could take a boxful. As an extra twist, the initial box of books was sent back to Speaking of Books with a message from the courier that they hadn't been accepted. However they did arrive back in time for my visit.
When I asked the librarian if they had PowerPoint facilities she said øwe've somewhere you can plug in your computer.Ó I'd like to say it was all right on the night but my laptop did not work with their connecting cables and their PC had the same troubles that the Hertfordshire one had with my CD. øThe only solution is for you to get a PC,Ó said the more technically minded teacher. I must admit I replied, øI think the solution is not to do school visits.Ó
As you can tell, I don't think the school or festival visits succeeded in selling lots of books or raising the profile and they mostly rated low on the Katherine Roberts scale of author-fulfilment. Royalties have definitely not increased but PLR has. Reviews have not been plentiful but they have been largely complimentary.
In an article in the Bookseller, øDeath of the midlist,Ó (10 March 2006) Nicholas Clee says, øAmong the titles that do get published, fewer are enjoying significant promotional and marketing support. Publishers concentrate their efforts on the titles they think will bring the greatest rewards ¨ and on the ones that booksellers will back.Ó He was talking about adult titles but I think it could apply equally well to children's books. In other words it's the promotional work done by publishers with the big chains that really sells the titles.
So do I think that the year of promotional promiscuity was worth it? For me, probably not. In terms of author satisfaction, I got much more out of writing my own novels, both teenage and adult. So that is what I shall concentrate on in future. As for others, I would say øDo it if you think you'll enjoy it; if not, then don't. It won't make a significant enough difference to be worth forcing yourself through it if you don't enjoy it.Ó
But I'll get back to you in 2010 to let you know if I've changed my mind!