Lessons in Poetry and Economics, #102
- At January 20, 2015
- By Jeannine Gailey
- In Blog
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I’ve been pretty sick the last few days (I almost always get sick after going to the dentist – do you guys experience the same thing?) so while I’ve been trying to use my downtime for something productive.
Kelly Davio posted on poetry and money, and on a related note, I was thinking about how much money it makes sense to spend to help launch your poetry book. The equation is probably something like:
(how much money you have in your savings) + (how much you expect to make) – (what you need for actual life things) = money to spend on your book
Which usually doesn’t leave us with very much to spend, especially small press poets. A trip to AWP? Without university sponsorship, an AWP trip costs you at least $1500, including travel and hotel. Is it worth it to promote your book there? If a university offers you $500 for a reading, but it costs more than $500 to get there, is it worth it? If you spend, say, $50 or $200 on an online ad and you get sixty click-throughs but no sales, was it worth it? Your publisher might split the cost of an ad in Poets & Writers with you. Ah, the math of poetry!
One of the things I did was sign up for a Goodreads Giveaway, starting February 1, for The Robot Scientist’s Daughter.
Goodreads Book Giveaway
The Robot Scientist’s Daughter
by Jeannine Hall Gailey
Giveaway ends March 01, 2015.
See the giveaway details
at Goodreads.
I love Goodreads and like supporting it, and it’s a relatively inexpensive way to get your book into someone unexpected’s hands. You never know! Feel free to sign up!
I also sent several precious author copies to my talented cover artist in Japan, one to a writer who was nice enough to read and comment on the manuscript for me, and the folks that gave me blurbs, as well as one or two reviewers who had requested them. Since most publishers only put 10 author copies in the contract, that means I’m pretty much out already. Which means every paper copy I send out now costs me money. I have friends who have sent out hundreds of their own copies to friends, reviewers, libraries. The problem is, those friends have often been disappointed by the return-on-investment (or ROI) of those giveaways.
The most expensive thing I’ve ever done to sell books was, hands-down, traveling for readings. How do you know which readings to arrange, to accept invitations to? I also have friends who spent tens of thousands of dollars of their own money to support them as they traveled around the country to support their books. They did sell books, but enough to support the travel? The lucky ones broke even.
This is just Lesson #102, I’ll put up some more entries in this series, like which things have made the most sense to spend money on, and which have not. Also, you can’t count on magic, but it does sometimes happen! I am hoping and praying for some magic to happen this time around.
What about you? Do you have any economic advice for book launches or for poets in general? Any recommendations for creating magic? Leave in the comments!
Jennifer Bullis
Jeannine, thank you so much for covering these details–these are exactly the kinds of questions I’ve been wondering about lately. Looking forward to your further reflections as you launch.
I hope you feel better soon, dentally and everywhere-ly.
Vikram Madan
If you look at book events purely from an economics perspective, the numbers hardly ever work out. But it’s not just about book sales – it’s also about establishing your reputation so I’ve had to reset my mindset and look at them more from the ‘reputation building’, ‘marketing’ and ‘get the word out about my book (and myself)’ mindset. If you think of yourself as a startup, you have to bear initial costs and expenses to get yourself noticed. And then later, hopefully, if you have the staying power, the cumulative buildup might pay itself back over the years, across multiple books. And often just getting out there and meeting people unlocks opportunities and possibilities that didn’t exist before. That said, you still have to spend wisely. Most startups go bust if they don’t manage their expenses well.
I’ve done a goodreads giveaway in the past and have very mixed feelings about it. Goodreads is very reader-friendly, but readers can sign up for an infinite number of giveaways with zero effort (they have, effectively, ‘no skin in the game’) and so a lot of people will sign up for all giveaways. (If raffle tickets were free, wouldn’t most people take them even if they didn’t care that much for the prize?) Which means there is a reasonable chance your giveaway book will land in the hands of someone who is not really interested in the book (Suggestion: when you send your books out, include a note asking them politely to consider leaving a review – some of the recipients don’t even bother to do that). Some Goodreads users also use the ratings as a personal filtering mechanism – so they might – without even reading the book or even before the book has come out – rate a book 1-star to remind themselves they are not interested in it. Unfortunately these ratings bubble up into search engines and authors have no control on them. If your book is going to have tens of thousands of readers, this doesn’t matter. But when you likely have a smaller audience, these type of random ratings can depress your rating average which will influence how people look at your book. Based on my own experiences, I plan to steer well clear of Goodreads in the future.
Jeannine Gailey
Thanks Jennifer!
Jeannine Gailey
Good thoughts, Vikram. Thanks!